Lady Killer

Chapter 11

Brooke never knew what she might have answered. She never got the chance.

In the next instant she saw Lonnie’s face change, his eyes snap into focus and harden as they looked past her. “I know what I’m gonna do now,” he said, and she saw his chest expand as he drew breath. The gun came up, held steady in the lawman’s two-handed grip.

She jerked herself around to look where he did, shot through with adrenaline. And there, on the other side of the fence, only a few yards from where they stood, was Lady. She had come silently, stealthy as only a panther on the hunt could be. Her head was low, her shoulders hunched, and her golden eyes burned with a predator’s stare…focused…intent…and aimed straight at Lonnie.

It all happened at once: Daniel jerking away from her, free of her grasp, his cry piercing her soul; his name, her son’s name, ripping through her throat, tearing her throat like a lion’s claws; Hilda’s snarl as she lunged, breaking Brooke’s grip on her collar; the clang of a heavy body hitting the chain-link gate; the deafening sound of a gunshot only a few feet away.

Then, in silent slow motion: Lady streaking off across the compound; Hilda staggering a few broken steps before crumpling in a heap of fawn-and-white fur; Daniel on his hands and knees, sobbing, scrambling through the dirt to reach her side; Lonnie lurching drunkenly, slowly bringing the gun around, searching for a target. And from out of nowhere, a big, powerful body hurtling through the air, hitting Lonnie with a flying tackle that knocked him flat on the ground.

Tony never knew how he managed to cover the distance between the barn and the cougar’s fence so quickly. He’d never been a great one for speed-more the offensive lineman type than running back. But in the end, even what was surely a personal best for him wasn’t enough.

Through a reddish haze, images jerking and shifting as he ran, he saw the drama unfold. Saw the man bring his arms up, and the gun clutched in both of his hands. Saw Brooke turn, and first Daniel, then Hilda throw themselves at the gunman. Then he heard the shot, and all thought stopped.

As he launched himself through the air, he heard a guttural sound, a bellow of rage he’d never imagined could come from his throat. He was a primitive being, governed by instinct and adrenalin. This man was his enemy, threatening everything he loved. He wanted to kill.

His body collided with that of his enemy with a force that knocked the breath from his lungs and carried them both to the ground, but he felt no pain whatsoever, only triumph, and a kind of primal pleasure. He felt his enemy struggling beneath him, and his flesh was in his hands, and he was pounding, squeezing-

“Tony-no-please! Tony!”

It was the only sound that could have reached him through the roaring rage filling his head. Brooke’s voice. He stopped, breathing hard, and his hands went slack. He felt her hands on his shoulders and turned his dazed eyes to her.

“Tony, Hilda’s been shot. Daniel needs us. Please, Tony…”

“Okay. Yeah.” He shifted his weight off Lonnie, who lay quietly now, except for the sobs that were shaking his whole body. Keeping one hand planted between the deputy’s shoulder blades, Tony grabbed first one of Lonnie’s wrists, then the other, and brought them together behind his back.

“Get his cuffs,” he said between gulps of air, and Brooke’s strong hands were there, unhooking the deputy’s handcuffs from his belt. He took them from her and clipped them onto Lonnie’s wrists, and as he stood up, then looked down at the man on the ground, he thought he understood the primitive urges that had motivated his distant ancestors to take the scalps of their vanquished enemies.

“Tony.” Brooke was tugging at his arm. He looked at her and saw that she was crying. “He shot Hilda. I need your cell phone. He threw Daniel’s somewhere. I don’t know where…”

“Help’s already on the way.”

And he was bending over Daniel, who was kneeling beside the dog’s body. The boy had taken off his shirt and had it wadded up and was holding it pressed to her side. His hands, the shirt, and the dog’s fur were wet with shiny red blood.

Daniel turned his face up to him, and it was tear streaked but calm. He spoke rapidly, breathlessly. “The bullet missed her heart. She’s alive, and she’s still bleeding. But it might have punctured a lung, ’cause she’s having trouble breathing-see? We have to get her to the hospital right now.”

Tony dropped to one knee and got his arms under the dog’s body. “Okay, son, keep pressing on the wound, okay? I’m gonna lift her now…” He managed to get to his feet with his burden and threw Brooke a look as she stood hovering, eager to help. “I swear, she weighs more than you do,” he muttered, and she gave a helpless whimper of laughter and clamped a hand over her mouth.

“We’ll take my car,” he gasped as he and Daniel began making their way toward the barn, shuffling awkwardly sideways with their shared burden. He nodded at Brooke. “You drive-keys are in it.”

She nodded and ran.

Behind them now, Tony could hear Lonnie squirming and struggling on the ground, grunting with his efforts to free himself from the handcuffs. Tony discovered he no longer gave a damn.

It seemed to take forever to get to the barn. Then through it. When they reached the far side, they met Brooke, who had turned Tony’s rental car around and was backing it up to the barn doors.

Once again, she was amazed at how calm she felt. As if, she thought, all the terrible things she’d seen and heard in the past half hour or so had been neatly packaged up and placed in cold storage to await processing. Right now she was focused totally on the task at hand: getting Tony, Daniel and Hilda into the backseat of the sedan.

Which was why she didn’t quite grasp what was happening, at first, when a whole fleet of vehicles came roaring and bumping up the lane and into her yard, raising a cloud of dust. They seemed to be everywhere around her, and the setting sun turned the dust into golden fog, from which came slamming doors and shouting voices and the stutter and shuffle of running footsteps.

“He’s back there,” Tony yelled, jerking his head toward the barn. “He might be running, but I don’t think he’ll get far.”

Then men were jogging by her as she sat behind the wheel of the car, men wearing dark clothing and carrying weapons, and as they passed, she saw they all had large letters stenciled on the back of their jackets.

“Feds,” Tony said from the backseat. “They’ll take care of things here. Come on-let’s go. I assume you know the quickest way to the nearest vet.”

Brooke nodded and began to maneuver the car through the maze of parked vehicles. But when they reached the lane, another car was on the way in, blocking their way.

“Wait,” Tony said. “Stop.”

The other car, a sedan very much like the one they were in, cleared the lane, then pulled over and stopped. Both front doors opened and two men got out. The man on the driver’s side was tall and thin and wore jeans and a gray, western-style jacket and sunglasses. His hair was brown, streaked with silver and longer than the current fashion. The second man was tall, too, though not as thin as the driver, and was wearing faded black cargo pants and a khaki-colored long-sleeved Henley shirt. His hair was darker brown, cut shorter, but also showed flecks of silver. He was wearing sunglasses, too, and he took them off as he walked toward her. And although there were tears in his eyes, he smiled.

She heard a small whimpering sound, realized it was coming from herself and clamped a hand over her mouth. She’d begun to shake.

Oh, God-I know those eyes. Those are my eyes…Daniel’s eyes. Oh, God-it’s true, what Tony said…

The man was bending down, looking at her through her open car window. He gave a self-conscious laugh but didn’t acknowledge or apologize for his tears as he said huskily, “Hello, Brooke…You don’t know me, but I’m your brother Cory.”

She nodded and let go a sob…a laugh…both mixed together.

“The other guy is Holt,” said Tony from the backseat. “And I hate like hell to spoil the family reunion, but, uh…we’ve got a wounded hero here…”

And Daniel, kneeling on the floor, with his hands pressing the bloody shirt against the dog’s side, added his breathless, “Yeah, Mom, can we go-please?”

Holt reached around Cory to open Brooke’s door. “I’ll drive. Mr. Pearson, if you’ll ride shotgun…”

Cory nodded, and she felt his hand on her elbow as he helped her out of the car. He opened the back door and she slid onto the seat beside Tony.

“Tell us where to go-we’ll get you there,” he said softly, bending down to look into her eyes.

He has such kind eyes. Daniel’s eyes. She nodded, and he straightened up and slammed the door. A moment later he was climbing into the front seat and Holt put the car in gear and they were off.

“Left at the road,” she called and felt something stir against her thigh. She looked down and saw Hilda trying to lick her hand. Tenderly, she lifted the great shaggy head onto her thigh and burrowed her fingers deep into the dog’s white neck ruff. Her vision blurred.

“She’s so protective of us,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” said Daniel. “She saved Lady’s life. I didn’t even know she liked Lady.”

Brooke gave a teary spurt of laughter, and Tony said gruffly, “It was your life she was trying to save, son, and if you ever do such a dumb thing again, your mom ought to skin you alive.”

She turned her head to look at him, and the tears in her eyes spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “Tony, I’m so sorry. This was my fault.” Her voice was a very small squeak.

He shook his head and started to say something, to protest, tell her none of it was in any way, shape or form her fault, that he was the rotter who’d bungled things from the beginning. But she plunged on.

“I was stupid. Childish. I shouldn’t have told you…what I told you. He was-he came from the back road. Right after you left. I think he was just waiting for you to leave. If I hadn’t-” She jerked her attention back to the road ahead. “Oh-right at the stop sign.” She drew a shaking breath. “If I hadn’t made you leave-”

“He would have come for the lion sooner or later,” Holt said as he made the turn on screeching tires. “And chances are it would have ended up worse than it did.”

Tony got his arm around Brooke’s shoulders and drew her against him. “The only thing I can’t figure,” he said as she laid her head down on his shoulder and he kissed the top of her head, “is why.”

Brooke’s head popped up, and she looked at him with eyes wide and dark. “Oh-that’s right! You weren’t there. You didn’t hear him. It was Lonnie. He killed Duncan. But it was an accident. He never meant-”

“It was my fault.” Daniel’s voice was soft and husky. His head was bowed, but Tony caught the silvery flash of a tear as it fell. “The whole reason Dad got killed is because of me. ’Cause he wanted me to live with him, and I told him I didn’t want to, and I was gonna tell the judge that, too. So he tried to make it so I’d have to go and live with him, no matter what. And that’s why he’s dead.”

For a few seconds, there was absolute silence in the car. Brooke had her eyes closed and her hand clamped over her mouth. Tony was thinking how wrong the kid was on so many different levels, and trying to figure out how to say it in a way the child would believe. Then Cory shifted around, reached over the back of the seat and laid his hand on Daniel’s head.

“Son, believe me, I know how you feel. I spent most of my life feeling certain the terrible things that had happened to people I loved were my fault.” He spoke to the boy, but his eyes were on Brooke, and she opened hers and looked back at him. The two pairs of eyes, so much alike, clung to each other with such intensity, it seemed an almost touchable bond connected the two of them. Watching, Tony felt an ache in his throat and a knot in his chest roughly the size of a baseball.

Cory went on, speaking in a voice that was vibrant with emotion, firm yet quiet. The kind of voice that can banish a child’s nightmares. “It’s taken me most of my life to realize that it’s the mistakes and bad choices adults make that cause terrible things to happen to children, and that most of the time there’s not a darn thing the children can do about it. Except survive. Be strong.” He paused to smile at his sister, a smile of such sadness and regret, it was hard to look at, but one filled at the same time with such love and joy, Tony couldn’t look away. “I’m telling you this now because I didn’t have anyone to tell it to me when I was your age and in your shoes. If I had, maybe I’d have been able to come looking for you a lot sooner. I might have found you years ago.”

“But then, if you had,” said Brooke, smiling at her brother, giving him the same heartbreakingly radiant smile, “I wouldn’t have Daniel.” She turned the smile on Tony and whispered, “Or you.”

Tony saw Cory’s eyebrows shoot up, and he gave his best friend a shrug and a shaken laugh. “Yeah,” he growled as he drew his woman’s head back down into its nest just over his heart, and then he closed his eyes.

And into his mind came the image of a cougar’s tawny face, with its black mask and glowing yellow eyes…the image of his own childhood nightmares. He thought then about what his Apache grandmother had told him of spirit messengers, and wondered whether there might be something to that stuff, after all.

“Uh…guys? Brooke?” Holt’s gravelly voice came from the front seat. “Am I supposed to be turning anytime soon?”

It was late, long past midnight, when they got back to Brooke’s place. They’d left Hilda behind in the veterinary hospital, sedated and resting comfortably after the long surgery to repair damage to her lungs-Daniel had been correct in his diagnosis, to his great satisfaction-and also to her ribs and some other stuff, the names of which Tony wasn’t sure about. Holt and Cory had dropped Tony, Brooke and a sleeping Daniel off at the back porch steps and had taken Holt’s rental car back to town, to the Cactus Country Inn.

The waning moon was high and bright in a cloudless Texas sky, and it lighted their way up the steps of the dark house-they’d left it in a hurry and before sundown. Brooke held the door while Tony carried Daniel into the kitchen, then slipped past him and down the hall to pull back the covers so Tony could lay him gently down on the bed. Together, they slipped off his shoes and jeans and the jacket Cory had given him to wear when the evening grew cool, since Daniel’s shirt was now somewhere in a biohazard trash can at the vet’s. Brooke folded the covers over the sleeping child and leaned down to kiss him while Tony let his fingers linger in the boy’s soft, silky hair. Then they both tiptoed silently out of the room.

Brooke pulled the door closed. And they stood in the hallway and faced each other in the darkness, close but not touching. They both drew breath and spoke.

“Brooke…”

“Tony…”

He felt her fingers on his lips, and she whispered, “I’m sorry. For what I said to you.”

He caught her hand and held it. “No apology necessary.” His whisper was much deeper and gruffer than hers.

“Can you stay?”

“As long as you want me.”

He heard her breath catch. “Do you mean that?”

“I do,” he said, fully aware that it was a vow.

He could feel her shaking, so he drew her close to him and held her, wrapped in his arms. Her arms came around him, and her head came to rest in its special place. He laid his cheek against her hair and drew a deep breath, breathing in the smell of her that had already become familiar to him. “I was thinking…about that dream of yours. About the big cats? Since it looks like you’re going to be able to do that now, after all…it seems to me like you might need a partner.”

“I will,” she said, fully aware that it was a vow. She could hear his heart thumping against her ear, like a drum deep inside his big chest. “Absolutely.”

They stood there like that for a long time, as close as two people could be, neither of them wanting to separate from the other, neither of them wanting the moment to end.

After a while, Tony cleared his throat and said, “I want you to know, you’ve made my mother and a whole bunch of sisters very, very happy.”

She gave a soft laugh. “Yeah, well…Daniel, too.” She tipped her head to look at him, and a tiny hint of uncertainty crept into her voice. “And you?”

“Happy doesn’t begin to describe it.” He managed to get that much out before words failed him completely.

After that, it seemed easier just to show her.

The next morning, Brooke was making blueberry pancakes when the knock came-on the front door, not the back porch door, which everyone always used. She left Daniel and Tony laughing over something or other and went to answer it, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

Sheriff Clayton Carter stood on her front porch, wearing the same Western-style jacket he’d had on the day he’d come to arrest her for murder. His brown Stetson hat was in his hands.

“Why, Sheriff,” Brooke said, holding the screen door open and smiling at him, “what a nice surprise. Would you care to come in for coffee and blueberry pancakes?”

The sheriff gestured with his hat and didn’t smile back. He cleared his throat and tried to look her in the eyes, but his frowning gaze kept sliding past her. “No, ma’am-thank you for askin’, but I can’t stay. Just wanted to tell you personally, the charges against you are bein’ dropped. And, uh…wanted to extend the department’s sincere apologies to you and your boy there.” He tried again to make eye contact, and this time managed to hold on long enough to add, “I’m sorry as I can be about your husband, ma’am, and I hope you can find it in your heart to…uh-” He waved the hat once more, then put it back on his head. “Well, that’s all. Just wanted to let you know,” he said as he turned to go down the steps.

“That’s nice of you, Sheriff. I do appreciate you stoppin’ by,” Brooke said, and there was nothing in the world that could take away her smile-not today, maybe not ever again. “Are you sure you won’t come in for coffee?”

With a wave of his hand, the sheriff went on down the steps. “Thanks. I ’preciate the offer, I really do, but I’ve got to get back to the barn. Got feds swarming all over the place…”

Brooke closed the door gently and went back to the kitchen. And was greeted there by two smiles, both so different, both so unbelievably sweet…and two pairs of eyes, one deep and dark like hers, like his uncle’s, the other warm and golden, like sunshine…both of them lighting up at the sight of her.

Two faces glowing with love…for her. Two men-her men. The two people she loved more than anyone on earth, more than she’d thought it was possible to love.

As she joined them, she was laughing, laughing with a happiness that went all the way deep down inside of her, all the way into her heart and soul.