by Dana Pratola
I shook my head. “No hospital. I’m fine.”
“Mind if I take a look? Might be worse than you think. Adrenaline lies.”
I shrugged out of my jacket and pulled off my shirt. That stung. The officer snapped some pictures with his phone. Though I hoped to get away with a quick statement, this being a shooting investigation, not a car accident, I was told I had to go to the station to be processed. Fantastic. Hope of getting back to Brenna was gone, for the next few hours anyway.
With all the lights flashing, I didn’t notice Ben drive up, but by the time I pulled my shirt back on he stood at my side.
“Kash! Are you trying to kill me? What the hell?” He stooped over, bracing his palms on his knees breathing heavily. Hyperventilating, really.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Me?” He straightened up and raised his hands, then let them drop. “I had my ringer off, then see you called but didn’t leave a message… Everyone’s been trying to reach you, I see all these cops, then pull up…and see your truck. What happened?”
Yeah, it must look bad. More sirens and lights, this time from the ambulance.
“I ran into Brew.”
“What?” He looked at the ambulance, then back to me. “Kash, you all right?”
“Fine. It’s Brew.” I pointed to the spot where he lay curled on his side still writhing in pain, hands cuffed behind him.
“What happened?”
“We had a shootout. He lost.” Ben’s expression was the visual depiction of what I was feeling. Disbelief, confusion, relief, all rolled into one. “You were coming to find me?”
He glanced down, then back at me. “I’m looking for Brenna.”
My heart froze in my chest. Gave a solid thump, then just stayed there. “Brenna? What do you mean looking for her? She’s at the cabin.” He shook his head. “Why are you looking for her? Why isn’t she there?” Had she had some kind of involvement with— Had Brew gone to the cabin— No. I wouldn’t even let myself finish the thought.
“We…. We had words….” Ben said.
“Words? What do you mean?” What kind of words could he have with Brenna?
“Kash, she’s using you, she’s—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He grasped my shoulder, but I tore it away. “You better explain, quick. What kind of words did you have, and where is she? Why did she leave?”
“She’s Brew’s niece.”
“I know!”
“You knew? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I just found out.” My heart must have restarted at some point, because it stopped once again as my brain caught up. “You confronted her? What did you say?”
“Sandy recognized her, so me and her went to the cabin and asked her—”
I grabbed him by the collar briefly then flung him away. “I don’t want to know. Where did she go? How? I have my truck.”
But he was shaking his head again. “She took her bike.”
“And went where?! How long ago?”
“A half hour, forty minutes, tops.”
That long? And Brew was so close to home. What if he’d come across her and taken her? He had no reason to suspect she might be with me, but what if someone told him? He’d had Mac on his side, maybe there was someone else. My heart was too full of fear right now to even finish the thought, but moving with what I had so far, I plodded my way toward Brew’s truck.
“Where are you going?” Ben asked.
“I need to see in his truck. Maybe Brenna came across him.”
Ben muttered something I didn’t make out over the wind through the trees.
“Kash, what’s up?” Kyle asked, coming to me.
I stopped. Because if Brew had found Brenna and done something to her, I didn’t want to see it.
“I need you to look in his truck and see if there’s any trace of a young woman.”
“You think he had—”
“Just, please. Look.”
Kyle called for a couple officers and told them to look in and around the truck. In less than a minute I could breathe again.
“No one here,” an officer said. “And the only tracks are from the cab to there,” he said, pointing at Brew.
“Thank God,” I said. Though it was still a possibility they’d crossed paths, the probability was far less likely in my mind.
I plowed toward my truck, before Kyle stopped me. “Where do you think you’re going, Kash?”
“I have to find someone,” I told him. “I’m not under arrest, so I’m leaving. I’ll come to the station tomorrow if you need me.”
“That’s not the way this works. Your truck is evidence in an investigation!” Kyle said. “And so are you. You have to come with me.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“No—”
“Then I’m going.”
I turned to leave, but Kyle put a hand on my chest. “Come on, Kash, you have to come and I have to do my job. I’ll breeze you in and out fast as I can.”
My teeth ground together, but arguing was pointless. “Then let’s get this done.” I looked into Ben’s eyes, seething. “You better find her. And pray she’s okay when you do.”
CHAPTER 29
“I cancelled my date with Charles.”
“What?” I yawned; my brain still fuzzy from lack of sleep. I’d gone to bed too late, and pedaled to work in borrowed clothes, so I was definitely not at peak, I may have heard wrong. “Did you say…?”
Eliza nodded. Rather than looking broken, she was smiling, practically every tooth in her mouth glinting under the harsh overhead lamps and reflection of light off plastic-draped clothes. Maybe she snapped.
I walked around the counter. “Are you … what’s up? You okay?”
“Better than okay. I told him I had to cancel—”
“Wait.” I touched her arm. “Why did you cancel?”
“I’m not leaving you alone for five or six hours while we go have a good time when there’s a guy out there who may or may not be after you looking for reven—”
I squelched the last part with a huge hug. “El, you didn’t have to do that. Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m your friend.” She gave me a little squeeze. “Anyway, it worked out. When I told him it was because a friend needs me,” she said, tipping a hand in my direction, “he was so impressed with my loyalty he wouldn’t cancel the date. Said we should change it to something we can include you in.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not … it’s your date, I’m not intruding.”
She waved the idea away in the air like so much foolishness. “It works out better this way. He suggested he come to my place so we can watch a movie and order in.”
She let out a squeal that made me laugh. I loved seeing her happy, and over Charles! “I’m not coming.”
“You have to!” She took me by the wrists. “Please?”
“I can’t. It wouldn’t be a real date for you and I know how you were looking forward to it.”
“It’ll be no date if you don’t come,” she insisted. “And it’s not like we were going to be huddled away alone, we were going to a concert with a hundred people.”
She looked at me hopefully, raising her eyebrows, pouting just a little. What could I do? “Oh, all right.”
“Yay!” She gave my wrists a squeeze and twirled in a circle. “I have to go home to get ready, get the house ready, get rid of Mom.”
I chuckled. “And do what with her?”
“She’s supposed to be going to this Scrabblethon thing at her friend’s house tonight.”
“Isn’t your mom a little young for Scrabblethons?”
“There’s wine. Apparently the longer the games, the sillier the words. I’ll pick you up after work.”
“Okay. But I’m not staying over,” I said, just to clear things up. I wasn’t going to put her in a position of lying to the building manager again. “I’ll come for date night, then I’m going back to the house after.”
She gave me a yeah whatever smirk and a wave. “See ya later.”
Once she left, I immediately returned to my rumination of Josiah and what was happening between us. I’d confessed I loved him. A fact I couldn’t change. Wouldn’t want to change. I’d never been in love before and while I couldn’t call this a great experience thus far, I had learned a few things. For example, it amazed me how far a heart was able to expand, like a balloon, so full and buoyant, then deflate to the point it felt like a carcass drying in the sun.
I’d also learned I was far more dramatic than I’d given myself credit for. Apparently, all I’d needed to bring it out were the right circumstances. With the death of my mother there had been grief, naturally, but grief was expected. It would have been weird not to have screamed to the heavens, crying until my throat was raw.
But this … experiencing the vacuous hole in my chest while knowing Josiah was still alive and well, only miles from here, yet I would probably never see him again, certainly never touch or kiss him…. Somehow that filled me with the same hopelessness and longing. I’d accepted my mother’s death, so I had to do the same with cutting ties with Josiah.
Though it would be easier to do if whenever a pickup truck drove by—roughly every other second in a town like this—I didn’t automatically think it was him. Another one slowly cruised by. A classic, brown with one of those spotlights on the hood like police cars sometimes had. I’d seen it at the ranch.
“Really?”
Before I could stop myself, I went to the window and pressed the whole side of my face to the glass as I followed the truck’s progress to the corner before it turned out of view. It might not have been him. He’d told me the vehicle was kind of a serve-all; whoever had need of it at the time used it.
I knew it was him. I just knew it. Who else would slow down in front of the store with no other cars in front of them? Yeah, it was him. What did he want? To torment me by letting me see him? Or hoping to catch a glimpse of me pining for him? He had, though he might not have recognized it.
No. I already knew in my heart, unless I’d seriously misread him, he wouldn’t try to hurt me as retaliation against Brew, and there was no other reason. So, why come around? Eliza said he’d called her this morning but she’d ignored it. Did he want to tell me his side? To beg me to trust him again? Or maybe to manipulate me into it.
“Ha!” I said aloud. I’d be watching for that now.
I turned the other way and looked up the street, in case he had gone around the block and would come back. There were parking spaces if he wanted to stop. I hoped he didn’t. I wouldn’t know what to say or how to act. But I vowed to stop looking out the window.
*****
I was pretty sure she saw me. I couldn’t talk to her at work, but at least now I knew for a fact she was safe. In fact, I’d been sure since watching her arrive this morning from my stakeout spot up the block. I’d sat another half hour until finally deciding not to contact her here, instead, to stalk her, like a nut, driving around the block hoping she wouldn’t see me, while hoping she would. Even in high school I didn’t do things like this. What was wrong with me?
I hadn’t spoken to Ben since I left him standing by the side of the road. I had no intention of doing so until my temper calmed enough not to get the better of me. Taking it upon himself to call Brenna out on being related to Brew was…. Exactly what I’d have done in the same situation. I’d forgive that. Soon enough.
But when Tory told me how Ben and Sandy had cut into Brenna, and that was why she took off into the darkness with nothing but the clothes on her back and her bike under her, I fired Sandy. Straight to her face, kicked her off my land. She cried. I would have to forgive her, too. I might consider rehiring her, if I got Brenna back. If not….
I guess I was partly at fault for not telling Ben straight up what I felt for her. Though in my defense I hadn’t been completely sure until I spent the night obsessing about where she could be. Was she safe? Was she warm? Was she frightened? I didn’t wonder if she was sad or angry, I knew the answer.
I hadn’t told him I ached just to be near her, that my heart was never fuller than when I sat with her, listening to her voice. I hadn’t told him because I hadn’t known. Now I did. I had to tell her I trusted her, that I knew she had nothing to do with Brew’s plan, or hurting me.
I’d finally remembered I still had Eliza’s number in my phone and called her about twelve times. She hit the decline button every time, telling me she knew what had happened and was rightfully pissed about it, which meant Brenna had to have told her, which in turn made me believe Brenna was there. If she was missing, Eliza would have answered, desperate as I was for answers. Maybe Brenna was doing the hanging up herself. Either way, I was relieved.
Now that I could relax. I planned to come back when Brenna got off work to ask her to forgive me, to explain how sorry I was for not telling her I could see. She was a rational girl, she would.
Would I? No, not without some damn good reasons, and I had none. I would assume what she must, that I had ulterior motives, like trying to get her into bed. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Ben and Sandy had stormed in and made it worse.
Words. What kinds of words would have Brenna leaving on her bike at night? I hadn’t given Ben a chance to tell me anything beyond she’s using you. He didn’t trust Tracy—understandable—and Brenna was related to Brew, which I admit looked suspicious, especially in light of her not wanting to discuss family. But no, Brenna was no lying manipulator. I’d bet my life on it.
And when I brought her back home, Ben better be ready to apologize and fix this. He was my best friend, but Brenna…. I couldn’t explain it after so short an acquaintance, but I was in love with her.
The whole mess could have been straightened out last night, when I probably would have found her easily enough. Unfortunately, Kyle’s “breeze you in and out fast as I can” turned out to be three hours of questioning with detectives. At that hour of the morning, they moved like sloths on tranquilizers. Any hour, really. Crime wasn’t a priority in these parts, where most unsavory types would rather get drunk in their front yard and crush beer cans with their heads than exert the kind of effort it took to kill or seriously harm someone. At least I’d had my arm patched by an officer with medical training.
Relief finally came with the news that Brew had survived surgery and was expected to recover, which meant I wouldn’t be responsible for his death—self-defense or otherwise—and he was looking at a nice long prison sentence. That interruption seemed to be the alarm bell that reminded everyone they’d rather be eating a good breakfast than swilling stale coffee and tapping their pens on notepads with no new information.
I managed to find some information while I was there, however—the names of every lawyer in Dalton. I thought it likely her mother had used one of the locals to handle her will, and since the town was the same general size as Myron, the three names weren’t hard to come by.
One more lap around the block, past the dry cleaner, and I headed back up to the ranch. After some much-needed sleep, I had to handle some insurance paperwork regarding Jim, and to start digging around for the pieces of just what had happened with Dean’s ranch. I also planned to take Scout for a nice long ride before the forecasted thunderstorms rolled through later on. Storms didn’t bother him as much as some of the other horses, but a good ride would keep him calm. And me.
That reminded me, I also had to make sure the windows in the stables were covered and the battery backup in the radio we left on to drown some of the noise was working properly. We’d learned a hard lesson about relying on electricity once when the power had gone out and one of the mares injured herself busting a door. It still amazed me that with all the technology available, we had to rely on primitive means of keeping horses calm during a storm. Then there was medication in some extreme cases.
My phone rang. I gave it a glance. I typically didn’t answer while driving, but saw it was Ben and pulled over.
&nb
sp; “Hello.”
“Kash, we need to talk.”
“I know we do.”
“I made a mistake and—”
“I can’t talk now though, I’m driving,” I said. Ben was silent, maybe thinking I meant to blow him off. “I’m on my way back to the ranch. Gonna take Scout out after I grab a few hours of sleep. You want to come along? I know you have work.”
“Sure. I’ll be there. Call me when you’re ready.”
“Yeah.”
When I got to the ranch, Andy jogged up to the truck. “Hey, how’d it go?” he asked.
“I’m not in prison, so, good.”
He laughed, close to his usual lighthearted tone, though his face showed the strain of a long night and of finding a friend near death and another man passed over. “Got a call from Tammy—you remember her, we used to go out.”
No, not really.
“She works at the hospital. Says Jim’s doing great. Looks like his hip wasn’t that bad after all.”
“That’s great. They’ll fix him up,” I said, walking toward the office. I really was happy, but too tired to show it.
“Says he’s gonna fight with all he’s got to walk again and come back to work.” He let the comment hang out there in the air until it turned into an unasked question.
“I’m taking him back,” I said. The relief was immediate on Andy’s face. “The bills are taken care of, too.”
Andy nodded. “You’re a good guy, Kash.”
“No, I’m not.”
He followed me into the office. “Yeah. You may not want anyone to know, but you are.”
Sandy immediately perked up and smiled, the irrepressible kind, where guilt or nerves forces lips to bend whether you want them to or not. I assumed she came to pick some stuff up. If I hired her back at all, it would be a week or more, just letting her stew on her behavior. If she came back, she’d have to work things out with Brenna first.
I knew everyone was waiting for me to tell them what happened, not just with Jim, but with Brenna and especially Ben. I was in no humor. The only ones I planned to discuss any of this with were Ben and Scout.
