It was that realization that made her drag her lips from his, even as she issued a moan of regret.
He kept tight hold of her, his breathing fast and deep. “Come in the house with me,” he urged, his eyes so blue she could hardly look at them.
“We can’t,” she reminded him. “Kendal’s in there.”
“Stay one more night, then.”
She considered the futility of intimacy. “It’s pointless, isn’t it?”
“How’s it pointless to make a memory worth keeping?” he retorted.
Worth keeping, yes, but not worth the heartbreak that would come after. The world needed Chase. She had no right, no way to keep him.
“I can’t,” she repeated.
Her decision rendered him mute.
“Let me go,” she added, with the tiniest concern that he might not.
But he did, instantly. He turned away, bending to snatch up the gun that was lying at their feet, his scowl thunderous.
Sara watched with an apology stuck in her throat.
Suddenly, Chase’s head whipped toward the tree line. The muscles in his back flexed. “Car’s comin’,” he warned.
She couldn’t hear anything, but she didn’t waste a second in hurrying toward the house.
It was bad enough that Linda Mae Goodner couldn’t get enough answers to satisfy her curiosity last night.
Sara couldn’t afford to show her face to everyone.
From the shadow of the porch, she noted the white police cruiser with blue and gold decals creeping around the bend in the driveway. A sense of foreboding rose up in her.
Surely her true identity hadn’t become public knowledge already.
Chapter Ten
Chase angled the buck rifle over his shoulder and waited for the Broken Arrow Police Department cruiser to pull up beside him. He recognized its single occupant as Dean Cannard, a former high school classmate and peer.
The two men took stock of each other before Cannard broke the silence. “Mornin’,” he said. “Good to see you again, Chase. Been almost twenty years, now, hasn’t it?”
“Eighteen,” Chase answered, stepping over to the driver’s door to extend a hand. “You look the same.” Cannard’s dark good looks had made him popular in high school. Chase, on the other hand, had been a rangy loner, respected for his wilderness skills.
“You’ve changed,” countered the man taking in the breadth of Chase’s shoulders. “I heard you came back to claim your land.”
“Yep.” Chase nodded, noting from the corner of his eye that Sara had shut herself inside the house.
His terseness left Cannard no choice but to get to the point of his visit. “The BAPD got a call last night that took us over the Reeves place. Ran into a couple a skinheads totin’ rifles. They said they got ’em from you.”
Chase allowed himself a sneer. “They left them here in Linc’s study,” he admitted. “I disabled most of ’em after they shot my dog. Did you arrest them?”
“I brought them in,” Cannard confirmed. “But all I could charge them with was trespassing. It ain’t illegal to carry rifles in this state. Had to let them go this morning.”
Chase ground his molars in disgust. He should’ve gone back there last night to teach those boys a lesson, regardless of Sara’s persuasions. “How many did you arrest?” he asked, suddenly suspicious that Will, the leader, had gotten away.
“Just two,” Cannard confirmed. “Les Wright and Timothy Olsen. You know either one?”
“No,” Chase said shortly.
“They happened to mention a lady friend of yours, though,” the cop added, notching Chase’s tension tighter. He reached into his shirt pocket and produced a ring. “This belong to her?”
It was Sara’s wedding band. He wondered how it had come to fall off her finger. “Might,” he hedged, holding out a hand to receive it.
“I’d like to talk to her, if you don’t mind,” Cannard requested.
Refusing him would look suspicious. Chase managed a careless-looking shrug. “She’s inside,” he said. “Why don’t you come in? Linc’s friends left some stuff that you might want to look at.”
Getting out of his car, Cannard followed Chase into the house. As he stepped inside, he let out a low whistle. “Place looks a good sight better.” The comment told Chase that he’d visited a time or two while Linc was living.
Sara had withdrawn into his mother’s bedroom. Chase went to get her. “You left this behind last night,” he said, handing her the ring, which she took back with a grimace. “You want to tell me how it fell off?”
“Tim was going to . . . tie me to a chair, but Will called him off.”
His temper flickered that she hadn’t mentioned that last night. Of course, he definitely would have wreaked some havoc then. “Sergeant Cannard wants to talk to you,” he said quietly. “Just tell the truth ’bout what happened, but not much more.”
With a nervous nod, she left the room before him. When she greeted Dean Cannard, she sounded composed. “Sergeant,” she said. “I’m Serenity Jensen.”
Chase turned the corner just in time to catch Cannard’s stunned look. Either the man recognized Sara or he thought she was cuter than hell.
“Detective Sergeant,” he corrected her with a grin that had made the girls in high school fan their faces. “I’m not in the uniformed division right now. I work investigations.”
The man was obviously hoping to impress her. Unluckily for him, being an investigator wasn’t going to win him any points.
She took a seat on the edge of the hearth, across from the sofa where he, too, sat down. “Thank you for bringing my ring,” she said. “It must have fallen off.”
He regarded her with genuine concern. “I take it you were there against your will,” he fished.
Sara glanced at Chase. “The skinheads came here looking for some rifles that belonged to them. When they couldn’t find them, they took me as incentive for Chase to bring the rifles to them. They left my son behind to communicate the message to Chase. That was after they broke in and killed the dog. ”
Cannard’s dark gaze shifted to Chase, who was standing in the entryway just in case Kendal decided to amble out of his room to see what the stir was about. No need for Cannard to get a look at both Sara and her boy. “That’s when you disabled the weapons,” Cannard deduced.
“Five out of eight,” Chase corrected him. “I didn’t want to take too long.”
Cannard nodded thoughtfully. “So you took the rifles over there, and they handed Ms. Jensen back peaceably?”
“Pretty much,” Chase agreed.
“I’m surprised you didn’t beat the crap out of ’em—if you’ll excuse the expression,” he said to Sara. “I heard you’re a Navy SEAL,” he added, proving that Mrs. Goodner’s grapevine had been functioning without a glitch.
“Thought I’d leave that to you,” Chase replied, with just a hint of accusation.
“The law is the law, McCaffrey. I couldn’t hold ’em long for trespassing ’cause the Reeves place is abandoned. On the other hand, if Ms. Jensen’s willing to press charges, I’ll arrest ’em for breakin’ and enterin’, abduction, and even cruelty to animals.”
Chase took note of Sara’s discomfort. In order to press charges, she would have to enter her name into court documents, and she didn’t have her new ID yet. “She’s about to leave the area,” Chase said, offering a plausible excuse.
“I saw the loaded truck,” Cannard answered, proving himself observant. “Where’re you headed?”
“Texas,” Sara said, intentionally vague.
The detective’s gaze went from Chase to her and back again, as he clearly tried to assess their relationship. After all, he’d just handed Sara back a wedding ring.
“There’s another way to do this,” Chase suggested. He stepped back, opening the door to Linc’s study. “Have a look in here.”
Pushing to his feet, Cannard approached the messy room. He stepped inside, assessing the amassed media and para
phernalia with a quick and discerning eye. “Jesus,” he said, plucking up one of the FOR Americans pamphlets and skimming through it.
Sara came to stand at the open door. “The leader’s name is Will,” she divulged. “He volunteered that he’s a former Army Ranger who served in Vietnam. I think he’s very dangerous,” she added.
Cannard considered the information with a frown. “Holding meetings and spreadin’ propaganda ain’t a crime, either. It’s protected by our Constitution. Unless you’re willing to press charges, there’s nothing I can do about any of this,” he added, giving her a compelling look.
Sara squirmed. “I’m sorry. I’m leaving today,” she repeated. “I don’t have time to get involved. Chase could still press charges.”
But obviously Cannard wasn’t as interested in inviting Chase down to the station. He looked at the piles of literature, instead. “Mind if I help myself to some of this stuff?” he asked.
“Hell,” said Chase, “take it all.”
“Can’t fit but so much in my car,” Cannard answered, with a wry glance. “You want to give me a hand with this?”
By the time he departed half an hour later, the collections in Linc’s study had dwindled to more reasonable proportions.
“Do you think he suspects?” Sara asked, as she and Chase stood on the front porch watching the cruiser disappear.
“No,” he said with confidence, “though he does wonder why you’re holdin’ out on him.” He glanced at her, his gaze lingering with a stab of regret on the soft pink curve of her lips. The kiss they’d shared had been the sweetest thing he’d ever lived through. “Guess you should head out soon,” he said, hating the words as they came out of his mouth. “Not that I want you to.”
With the sunlight reflecting off the porch step, her eyes looked more than ever like those Malaysian waterfalls.
“I’ll miss you,” she admitted, glancing away shyly.
The confession put pressure on his chest. “I’ll miss you, too,” he said, gruffly. He’d said that once or twice to women he’d been lovers with, but never to one that he’d known only as a friend.
“I’d better talk to Kendal,” she said, turning regretfully toward the door.
He halted her. “I said I would,” he reminded her.
Her grateful nod made the daunting task seem a little easier.
For the second time in a week, Sara pointed the truck toward Highway 51 and then the Muskogee Turnpike, grateful that this time Kendal didn’t mention any stomach cramps. Chase must have explained that his terms of enlistment were unequivocal. He had no choice but to go back; just as they had no choice but to go forward. That reality didn’t keep Sara’s heart from hurting though.
Something brimming with potential had been cut short with her departure.
Potential? she scoffed at her own naïveté. Potential for what, loneliness? Disillusionment? Did she honestly think that deepening her intimacy with a sniper would result in anything else?
No, it was better to leave Oklahoma now, before she became any more invested. Still, it was all she could do to keep her eyes from straying to the rearview mirror until the mailbox at the head of the ranch fell from view.
The old truck seemed to run better in the cooler weather. Sara edged her speed up to sixty miles an hour. A cool breeze blew through the truck’s half-opened windows, bearing in a scent she’d grown to love. There wasn’t a drop of humidity in the air, so that the sky above them was a huge blue canvas, stretched from one flat horizon to the other. It was an excellent day to put her plans back on track. Texas had always been her final destination.
Where, then, was her enthusiasm?
The farther Broken Arrow fell behind, the more uneasy she became. The skinheads, Les, Timmy, and most especially Will, were still at large, spreading their message of hate and amassing weapons—for what? To target innocent people. If she’d agreed to press charges, it would at least have thrown a wrench into their plans, if not put an end to them completely.
But how could she press charges when she herself was a woman on the run, as yet without identification? And would her new name and social security number, when she finally held them, hold up to any sort of scrutiny?
With a sigh, Sara found a cheerful tune on the radio and glanced at Kendal, who sat unmoving with the lump of cedar in his lap.
He’d been carrying it around all morning. Listening to it, he’d earlier explained. There was enough to look at, like dried up cow ponds and despondent-looking bulls jostling for shade under rare trees, but Kendal stared unseeing down the highway. His fingers moved over the wood’s surface like a blind man reading Braille.
“Are you okay, Kenny?” she asked him, using the name Chase had suggested he be called by.
“Sure,” he said, though it sounded as though he were miles away.
Minutes later, he startled her by exclaiming, “I hear it!”
“Hear what?”
“I know what to carve,” he clarified, with a hint of enthusiasm, the sound of which was a balm to her ears.
“Well, aren’t you going to tell me?” she prompted.
“Nope, I can’t,” he retorted, turning it over to examine its underside. “Besides, it’s for Chase.”
“Honey,” she said, her heart constricting with regret, “we’re not going to see Chase again,” she said gently.
He flashed her a rebellious frown. “You don’t know that,” he retorted. “No one knows what’s gonna happen.”
For some reason, his words made her shiver. “That’s true,” she conceded, mollifying him.
If only they could see Chase again. It would make the future seem less daunting, less uncertain.
After all, he’d given her a whole new lease on life. And despite what he did for a living, he’d always be her hero.
With buzzards circling the cloudless sky, it seemed like an appropriate time to tackle Linc’s study. Sara and Kendal were gone. There were no distractions to prevent Chase from getting the unpleasant business done and over with.
First he removed the window with the broken pane, intending to take it to the glass shop, later. Then he dragged the garbage bin around the house, setting it right outside the window hole.
Back in the office, he sifted through old magazines, some of which dated back to the years that he’d lived here. He lobbed them through the window, straight into the bin, to take to the recycling plant when he was done.
As with Sara’s initial departure, the silence in the house was deafening. The walls seemed to whisper to him, snatches of conversations from his past; the sound of his mother grieving over the baby’s death. God, she’d wept for weeks!
More than once, he caught himself walking toward the door to leave. But if he did that, the work would never get done.
The more propaganda he discarded, the angrier he became. The skinheads had killed his dog. The fuckers had put their hands on Sara, making her struggle enough to lose her ring, though she hadn’t told him that—oh, no.
Because that would have tipped the scales. He’d have gone back to the Reeves place at nightfall, caught all three men by surprise, and beat the living shit out of them.
Why hadn’t he done that in the first place? He’d let Sara talk him out of violence, just like she’d talked him into helping her escape the clutches of her maniac husband. It wasn’t so much what she said, though, as how she’d looked at him.
Jesus.
And now he felt strangely lost without her, like everything was swinging out of his control, when it wasn’t. He was doing exactly what he’d set out to do—cleaning up the homestead so he could rent it out.
That part of the plan hadn’t changed; nor had his intentions that Sara would head for Dallas in a truck that she could keep. She’d had one false start, but she was gone for good this time, with the promise to call him from a rest stop halfway there.
Only, he hadn’t gotten a call yet. Maybe that was the reason he was feeling so edgy this afternoon. He’d invested a lot in Sara. He
didn’t want something happening to her now, or to Kendal, when she was so close to freedom.
But—fuck—he wasn’t lying when he said he’d miss her. He missed Ken, too.
He missed his dog.
With a shouted curse, he slung a wad of pamphlets out the window. Half of them scattered onto the grass. Swear to God, if he ever came across the men who’d shot Jesse, he was going to wring their necks. His hero status be damned.
A vibrating at his hip jarred him from his fury. He snatched up his cell, eager to hear Sara’s voice. “Sara,” he rapped.
Hesitation on the other end. “No, sorry, this is Dean,” said Detective Cannard. Too late, Chase realized that the call was from the local area code. He grimaced at the oversight and perspired briefly for having used Sara’s real name. “Go ahead,” he said, wondering what the man wanted.
“I’ve been looking through the stuff you gave me,” Dean volunteered. “Turns out that I won’t need Ms. Jensen to press charges. There’s plenty here that constitutes a crime: conspiracy to murder, for one thing.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Chase, thinking maybe the skinheads would get their comeuppance, after all. “Well, you know what I mean.” Of course, he wasn’t glad to hear of any type of conspiracy.
“There’s even a mention of ANFO,” Dean added. “You know what that is?”
“Ammonium nitrate with fuel oil,” Chase confirmed, with a spurt of consternation, “explosive as hell.” And all it took to come up with the lethal combination was fertilizer and car oil, both readily available, especially in an agricultural area.
“It’s the same stuff Timothy McVeigh used in the Oklahoma City bombing,” Cannard confirmed. “According to the minutes recorded at a meeting of the FOR Americans three weeks ago, the group has five hundred pounds of fertilizer mixed with fifteen liters of fuel oil, ripening in a truck somewhere. They plan to use it on Columbus Day.”
Columbus Day. Chase turned toward the calendar that was still hanging on the wall. He flipped the page. That was a week from today. “What’s the target?” he asked.
Time to Run Page 12
