The Sheriff of Heartbreak County

Chapter 12

His hand might have been the head of a rattlesnake, from the way she shied back from it.

“Mary,” he said in a gravelly voice, “You weren’t responsible for your friend-”

“Yes-yes, I was.” She was on her feet again, pacing the small sunlit room and throwing back quick, furious glances. “Joy came looking for me. She came because I hadn’t called, and then I wasn’t on the plane, and she was worried about me. She came because she loved me. And when she knew I was in trouble, she risked her life for me. Not just then, on the island, but later.” She paused, one hand gripping the back of a chair, the other brushing at her cheeks and nose. “See, the helicopter took us first to one of the DelReys’ manufacturing plants-there was an air strip there, and they were waiting for their plane to come and fly us out of the country. They didn’t know the feds had them under surveillance all the time, that they were just waiting for the plane to land before moving in and arresting everybody. But what the feds didn’t know was that I was there, too. They thought-”

“I got some of this from Cavanaugh,” Roan said in a soothing tone. “The feds had found your purse with the housekeeper’s charred body and assumed you’d been killed in the explosions and fire.”

“But Joy knew I wasn’t dead. She knew it, but nobody would believe her. The feds were ready to take down the DelReys with guns blazing, and Joy was sure I’d be hurt or taken hostage, or worse, so she-God, she’s just this little tiny short person-you should see her-but she came for me. All by herself. And she got me out of there, Roan. She saved my life. And the worst of it is, I never even got to say thank you. I never even got to say goodbye.” She rounded on him one last time, fists clenched, face blotchy, nose red, eyes streaming and at the same time shooting fire.

He thought it the most beautiful and amazing thing he’d ever seen, like witnessing a rare natural phenomenon-the northern lights, or a moonlight rainbow.

She went on in a choked voice. “Do you understand what that was like? They took me away that very night. I had to leave everything-didn’t even have a toothbrush, a change of clothes. Nothing whatsoever that was mine-or that had been Yancy’s. It was like…I’d died. My life-who I’d been, the people I’d loved-was over. I couldn’t contact anyone-I didn’t dare. They’d told me about cases where people had broken security, and then their bodies were found a few days later-God, Roan, they even showed me pictures.” She had her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes focusing on horrors only she could see. But Roan had seen enough crime-scene photos to know the images wouldn’t be pretty.

He sat very still, cradling his empty coffee mug with both hands to keep himself from doing something stupid-stupid and dangerous-like getting up and going to her and pulling her back into his arms. Some inner sense told him she wouldn’t want that, not right then, anyway. And considering what had happened the last time he’d done that, maybe he didn’t either. Shouldn’t, for sure.

He cleared his throat. “Well, now your security’s broken all to hell. If DelRey still wants to kill you, he knows right where to find you, thanks to me and that news broadcast.”

“No.” She turned to face him, the sunlight from behind haloing her hair so that for the first time he saw hints of fire in it that even the dye couldn’t hide. “No-it wasn’t your fault or the news media’s or anybody’s.” She came toward him slowly, her body quiet…something different about the way she looked, the way she held herself.

Then she began to speak again, and once again it came to him what the difference was. The fear was gone.

“I’ve been thinking about it…after I heard the news this morning…before you got here. Just now. And what I think is, this is Fate.” Roan made a sound, an involuntary gesture, and she held up a hand to forestall the protest. “No-these last ten years-they’ve been such hell. You have no idea. Running…hiding, afraid to trust anyone, afraid to get close to anyone, all with one purpose: Running away from my…well, Destiny, I guess you could call it. Only now I think all that time I thought I was avoiding Fate, I’ve actually been on a collision course with it. It’s like…every step I’ve taken in the last ten years has been leading me to this. It’s brought me here.” She caught a hitching breath. “For better or worse, this is where it ends. I’m done with running. One way or another, it’s going to end here.”

Watching her, listening to her, he’d managed to keep his face blank, his body still and his mouth shut, while a whole kaleidoscope of emotions and sensations rolled through him-rage…both icy and hot; rejection and annoyance, tenderness and sorrow. And finally, a fierce and powerful resolve that should have surprised him, but didn’t.

Nobody’s going to take this woman from me. Nobody.

Once upon a time, someone had taken the life of the woman he loved and gotten away with it. It wouldn’t happen again. Not while he had breath in his body.

“Don’t know about Fate,” he drawled as he pushed back his chair and stood up, emotions barricaded, now, inside a fortress of calm resolve, “but I’m gonna be arranging some protection for you, whether you like it or not. And that’s not open for discussion,” he added, when he saw she was about to speak.

Her smile was faint and wry. “I was going to ask if that would include giving me my gun back.”

He gave a snort of laughter. “Can’t do that-sorry.” He strolled toward her, but kept his arms folded on his chest to stop himself from reaching for her, touching her. He halted an arm’s length from her, frowning, knowing on the outside he looked the very picture of the strong arm of the law-steadfast, courageous, protector of the innocent-while his insides churned with fear and the knowledge that his starched sheriff’s uniform and shiny silver badge and white hero’s hat hadn’t done a thing to save Erin’s life. In spite of all that, someone had come into his home, killed his wife, maimed his child and he’d been powerless even to catch the one responsible. Protector of the innocent… The thought was a bitter pain in his heart.

“What I can do, though, is put someone watching this house, and your shop whenever you’re there-goes without saying either I or one of my deputies will be taking you to work and anywhere else you need to go-and bringing you home. And you don’t go inside either place until it’s been thoroughly checked out-that clear? When you’re here alone, I want you to keep all the doors and windows locked, shades down, curtains drawn. And stay the hell away from the windows. Don’t-”

“Roan.” She was smiling at him still, a patient little smile that made him want to shake her. “This is a small town. Don’t you think someone’s going to notice if a stranger-say, um…a hitman-”

“Don’t. Dammit.”

She closed her eyes and contritely whispered, “Sorry. I’m trying not to be scared.”

“Hell, you should be scared.” His throat felt raw. “Look, it’s fine to try and be brave, but don’t make light of this. From what Scott Cavanaugh told me, those were some seriously bad people you pissed off. Señor may not be around anymore, but his son sure as hell is. He’s the one you hit where it hurts most.”

The fine skin around her eyes flinched, and it struck him that without her glasses her face seemed open and defenseless as a child’s. His willpower caved like a house of cards. He put his hands on her arms, felt the tremors she was trying to hide, and his insides melted like chocolate in the sun.

“Mary, Diego DelRey was released from prison two years ago. He’s off the radar. He could be anywhere. He probably wouldn’t come after you himself, but let’s say he sends a-” his lips twitched wryly “-hitman. I wish I could tell you you’re right about it being hard for a stranger to sneak into town without being noticed. Normally that’d be true. Thing is, for the next couple weeks, things aren’t going to be exactly ‘normal’ around here. We’ve got Boomtown Days coming up. That’s Hartsville’s spring blow-out-maybe you noticed the stores downtown getting all spruced up for the big event? Happens every year around this time, same time as the college rodeo over in Silver Springs. We’re gonna have all sorts of out-of-towners coming in.” And there was no way in hell his department was going to be able to keep track and run checks on all of them.

He closed his eyes…let out a breath. And Lord, it was hard not to gather her in, wrap her up in his arms the way he wanted to…wrap her up in a nice little package and put her somewhere to keep her safe until all this was over…

Over? Just when and how was this mess she was in going to be over? When Diego DelRey was dead? And there was still a first-degree murder charge hanging over her head-the one he’d put there.

“Look,” he said with gravel in his voice, “just…be careful, okay? Do those things I told you. Pull those shades. Lock your doors. Don’t take chances.” Hard as it was, he made himself let go of her, looked around for his hat, remembered where he’d left it and ran a distracted hand through his hair. “I’m gonna figure out something…if I have to, I’ll put you back in jail.”

“I won’t go,” she said unsteadily, lifting her chin and hugging herself, her own hands rubbing the places where his had been. “You have no right-not until a jury finds me guilty.”

“Yeah, and that’s not gonna happen either,” he growled. “Not if I can help it.”

His joints felt loose and his muscles jerky as he strode through the house, grabbed up his hat and let himself out the front door. On the porch he stood for a moment, hauling in great big lungfuls of the warm spring air…looking up and down the street of the town he’d lived in all his life, looking up at the trees leafing out and dropping flower fluff and pollen everywhere, looking past them at the sky…blue Montana sky. Thinking it all ought to look different to him, somehow.

Because he was definitely a different man coming out of that house than when he’d gone in.

Mary had no way of knowing how long she stood there propping up the kitchen counter. She knew there were things she should be doing-lock the doors, pull the shades, take a shower, make the bed-but she felt too battered, too emotionally drained to think or move. Cat, having completed his after-breakfast toilette, came to twine around her legs by way of saying thank you, and she couldn’t even summon the energy to bend down and pet him. So, when the telephone on the kitchen wall rang, for a moment or two she simply stared at it, unable to think why on earth it should be making such a sound.

Then, when her brain did start to function, her body turned ice-cold. The phone here at home never rang. Who could possibly be calling her now? She thought about running after Roan-maybe he was still sitting out in front in his SUV, calling in to his office, as he often did. Then she scolded herself for cowardice. So much for putting up a brave front.

She walked to the phone and lifted the receiver from its hook with hands so wet and clammy she nearly dropped it before she got it tucked into its proper place next to her ear. “Hello?” she said in a hushed and husky voice.

Shaking, heart pounding, she listened to silence…some rapid breathing. And then… “Oh God-Yancy?” the caller squeaked. And burst into sobs.

Mary spent more than an hour on the phone with Joy. Afterward, she felt calmer, stronger, a thousand pounds lighter and ten years younger. And how strange it was, she thought, that she should feel this way when there was a murder charge hanging over her and someone-Diego or his gunman-possibly at that very moment on his way to kill her.

The truth was, the murder charge, the fact that her life was in danger-none of that seemed real. What was real to her was the profound sense of relief she felt to have finally stopped running. The tremendous feeling of freedom that came from laying down the burden of her secrets was like breathing fresh air and feeling the sun on her face after being locked in a dungeon.

With her spirits so high, it was hard, in the week that followed, for Mary to stick to the orders Roan had given her. Or, it would have been, if he’d allowed her any wiggle-room at all. She got used to seeing the sheriff’s department patrol vehicles cruising the street in front of her shop, or parked in front of her house at all hours of the day or night.

The days fell into a routine. Every morning, a deputy would show up on her doorstep, escort her to his patrol car and drive her to work. She would remain in the vehicle while the deputy unlocked her shop and searched it thoroughly, then wait to be escorted inside. Deputies kept an eye on the front of the shop; the back door was always locked. At closing time, the process would be reversed, until she was once more safely barricaded inside her house with the doors and windows locked and the shades drawn.

It was always a deputy who drove her to work and brought her home again, never Roan. When Mary asked, she was told the sheriff was busy with preparations for the onslaught of visitors expected for Boomtown Days.

It was just as well, she told herself. But there was a Roan-shaped emptiness in her heart, bigger than she’d imagined it could be. And the longing that came along with his image in her mind-and it came much too often, with blue eyes glinting, a wry smile deepening the thumbprints in his cheeks and his hair bearing the imprint of his Stetson-was the only cloud darkening her skies during those days.

Cat, she discovered, made a very good watchdog, since he growled whenever the deputies came to her door. He was a comfort in other ways, too, and she took to sleeping with him curled up on the foot of her bed.

Her shop was surprisingly busy. More people than usual seemed to be stopping in to make appointments in person rather than phoning. Regular clients popped in to say hello, or to drop off bouquets of flowers they’d picked from their yards, and people who’d never been in the shop before came to browse through the boutique.

Curiosity, Mary cynically told herself, because of the news story. After the first day or two, the constant jangling of the bell attached to the door got on her nerves.

Then she mentioned the steady stream of visitors to Miss Ada when she came for her regular appointment on Friday at five o’clock, and the elderly clerk of court patted her hand and said, “The town’s behind you, dear.”

Mary felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. She put down her comb and scissors and fled to the back room, where to her own astonishment, she had a good cry. The town’s behind you… Whether it was true or merely Miss Ada being kind, the notion that a community might open its heart to her, its people make a place for her among them after she’d wandered alone in the world for so long, seemed…almost unbearable. To belong…

But that was a hope too lovely even to whisper in the most secret part of her mind.

Saturday, which was to be the big kick-off for Boomtown Days, dawned warm and clear, with not a cloud in the sky and for once neither rain nor wind in the forecast. Chamber of Commerce weather, Tom Daggett, the deputy who drove Mary to her shop that morning, called it. Tom was one of Mary’s favorite deputies, a very sweet boy, though it was hard to think of him as an officer of the law. To her, he looked barely old enough to drive.

Since pretty much everybody in town would be attending the parade and accompanying concerts, carnivals and food and artisan fairs, Mary had decided not to open the hair salon that day. Like many of the other shop owners up and down Main and the streets that crossed it, she planned to put some of her boutique items out on racks on the sidewalk, hoping to catch the eyes of browsing out-of-towners with extra money to spend.

She spent the morning deciding which items to put out, setting prices and hand-lettering signs, and by eleven or so had what she considered to be a rather nice display set up in front of the salon. There was a rack of clearance items from last winter marked down to fifty percent off, and another with some of her newer, flashier stuff, particularly some things with a Western motif she thought might go well with the theme of the day’s celebration. She enjoyed a brisk business-mostly lookers, but a few nice sales as well-before the strolling crowds drifted off toward Main Street to watch the parade.

Mary was taking advantage of the respite to restore some order to the racks when Betty, from the art gallery next door, came wandering over to compare notes on the morning’s business-like Mary, she’d enjoyed a whole lot of looky-lous and a handful of sales, but was satisfied by the day’s take, overall. Betty was a grandmotherly but elegant woman who favored tunics and broom-stick skirts in bright peacock colors, and wore her thick salt-and-pepper hair in a Navajo twist which she had a habit of sticking writing utensils into.

She stayed to chat, making cozy small talk about her garden and her grandkids, and when they heard the thump of a marching band start up in the distance, happened to mention, with a sigh, that she hated having to miss the parade, since her grandson Cody would be riding on the Future Farmers of America float, and her granddaughters, Jennifer and Ashley, were both in the high school band. One played saxophone, the other, clarinet.

“Why don’t you go?” Mary said. “I can keep an eye on your stuff for you.”

Betty’s face brightened. “Oh-that’s nice of you. Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” Mary assured her. “Everyone’s watching the parade anyway. Go on-hurry. You don’t want to miss it.”

“Thank you so much-I won’t be long…” Betty was already hurrying down the sidewalk. She turned once to smile and wave.

Mary smiled and waved back, a lovely warmth spreading through her. This is what it’s like…belonging.

She turned back to the racks, and as she did, bumped it just slightly. When she did that, a rather gaudy beaded suede jacket-one of the clearance items-slithered off its hanger and fell to the sidewalk. She muttered, “Oops,” and bent over to pick it up.

At precisely the same moment, the window behind her, bearing in gilt letters the words, Queenie’s Salon & Boutique-We Pamper You Like Royalty, disintegrated.

As the crystalline cubes of safety glass rained down around her, Mary’s natural impulse was to rise and stare in utter bewilderment at the hole where her shop window had been. She never knew what it was that made her, after that first instant, drop like a stone and flatten herself on the concrete sidewalk underneath the rack of clothes.

Out on Main Street the parade was going by. She could hear the thump of a marching band, people clapping…cheering. Directly above her head, she could hear something hitting the clothes on the rack with sharp little thumps. Each thump made the rack jerk and twitch and rattle on its castors. She heard other sounds, like angry mosquitos, and felt the sting of something hitting her cheek. Her body was shaking violently; her chest and throat felt raw, as if she’d been screaming and screaming, the way people do in nightmares.

It seemed like a nightmare. Half a block away there were crowds of people, laughing, happy people…people waving flags, throwing confetti, calling out to their friends, children and neighbors riding on the floats, or on horses or marching in the band. There was no one to notice a woman huddled under a rack of clothes, no one to hear her terrified cries for help. All alone and caught in a killer’s gunsights, Mary covered her head with her arms and waited to die.

It might have been seconds later, or minutes or an eternity…She heard the roar of an engine, the screech of brakes, the slam of a door. Pounding footsteps. But her shocked mind heard only more danger. Her body curled itself into a tight, trembling ball, and Deputy Daggett had to almost lift her bodily up off the sidewalk, repeatedly shouting her name, before she was able to comprehend that salvation truly was at hand.

“Go, go, go!” The deputy gave her a powerful shove in the general direction of the salon.

She lurched toward the door-there was no glass left in it, either-and managed to push it open…stumble through it on rubbery legs. From the relative safety inside the shop she looked back to see the impossibly young, downy-cheeked deputy in a half crouch behind the dubious shelter of the clothes rack, weapon in one hand, keying on his shoulder radio with the other and calmly shouting, “Shots fired, officer requesting backup at Queenie’s Hair Salon. Repeat-shots fired…”

Slowly, as if in a dream, Mary lifted a hand to touch her cheek. She pulled her fingers away…saw blood and wetness. And only then realized she was crying.

Roan was in the emergency services command post that had been set up in the back parking lot of the courthouse when he got the call. He and Paul Gunther, owner of Gunther’s Groceries, who also happened to be the deputy mayor and a member of the Boomtown Days planning committee for as long as Roan could remember, had just been congratulating one another on how smoothly everything was going this year. So far, the only arrests had been a handful of D and Ds last night, then the usual rowdiness this morning-including a couple of high-school kids who’d thought it might be fun to set off some firecrackers along the parade route just to see what the mounted units would do. Out-of-towners, Paul Gunther declared-city kids without a clue about the kind of havoc a spooked horse was capable of wreaking on a crowd of people, and what was the world coming to, anyway?

Roan’s radio beeped at him, and both men fell expectantly silent, listening.

And he heard the words he’d half expected and hoped never to hear. “Shots fired…Queenie’s Hair Salon…shots fired!” He was in his patrol car, tires spitting gravel, before the static died.

As the SUV bucked and jounced out of the parking lot and down the dirt alley he thumbed on the siren-something he rarely had cause to do-and spoke into his radio with a calm he couldn’t account for-some kind of protective numbness, maybe.

“SD Mobile One responding to shots fired…requesting all available units…”

When he was done with that and had shut off the radio mike, he began to swear fervently and out loud, repeating every bad word he knew, over and over, almost like a prayer.

As the SUV fishtailed around the corner and onto Second Street, Roan could see Tom Daggett’s patrol car parked cross-ways down in front of Queenie’s, lights on and flashing. At the far end of the street where the crowd had gathered to watch the parade go by, he could see a few people beginning to turn and look to see what all the excitement was about. He didn’t see Tom, and he didn’t see Mary.

He brought the SUV to a screeching halt alongside the curb next to some sidewalk displays of paintings and photographs in front of Betty’s frame shop. Now he saw Tom crouched down behind a rack of clothes in front of Mary’s place, his sidearm braced on the top crossbar, aimed in the general direction of the rooftops across the street. He saw the gaping hole where the store’s front window had been, and the glass all over the sidewalk. He still didn’t see Mary.

Tom looked over at him and straightened up a little, slowly and cautiously, darting glances back and forth between Roan and those buildings across the street. A couple of other units came screaming onto the street right then and skidded to a halt a half block back, effectively barricading it. Roan barked orders for the new arrivals into his radio, telling them to check out the buildings across the street, then grabbed his hat and exited his vehicle. He was pretty sure the shooter was long gone, but he kept his head down just in case.

He started over to where his deputy was, running bent over, dodging in and out among the art display easels, boots crunching on the broken glass with a sound that made his teeth grate and his skin shiver, like fingernails on slate.

Tom saw him coming and diverted him with a gesture, a sweep of his thumb toward the broken window. “She’s okay, Sheriff-she’s inside.”

His voice was hoarse and out-of-breath, but Roan took note of the fact that it looked like excitement, and not fear, that had the kid’s cheeks and eyes lit up like Christmas morning. His greenest deputy had come through his baptism of fire with flying colors, and Roan made a mental note to make sure he got commended for his bravery when all this was over.

Right now, he had other things on his mind. One thing.

Calling her name softly, he stepped through the broken-out window. The salon seemed dim to him after the bright midday sunshine, so he took off his sunglasses and tucked them in his pocket. He could smell some kind of perfume-hair products, he thought, from the different sizes and colors of plastic bottles that were scattered all over the place, oozing their contents onto the black-and-white vinyl tile floor. He walked over glass from a shattered display case, and shredded flowers from the blue-and-white vase that had sat on top of it. He saw a broken mirror, and a rack of magazines lying on its side. But he still didn’t see Mary.

Well, hell. Vibrating with an urgent need to see for himself that she was all right, he crossed to the doorway and moved the pink ruffled curtain aside with the back of his hand. Called her name again. She didn’t answer, but he could hear water running, and he could see a light on in the combination restroom and janitor’s closet off the storeroom. The door was standing partway open. He went to it and tapped on it with his knuckle. “Mary? You in there?”

The door opened wider. He didn’t know what he’d expected-to find her cowering somewhere in a corner, quivering like a trapped rabbit, maybe? He should have known that wouldn’t be Mary’s style-though to be honest, he didn’t exactly know what her style might be. Most of the time he had known her, she’d been pretending to be somebody else.

She was standing in front of the sink, not cowering at all, calmly drying her hands with a paper towel.

“Are you okay?” Roan asked gently.

She turned her head to look at him. “Yes, I’m fine.” Her voice was calm, but her eyes were too bright and the skin on her face looked stretched and shiny. Her color was uneven in a way that was too pretty to be called blotchy-shades ranging from alabaster to the delicate pink of seashells and rose petals, with some deeper pink edging her nose and around her eyes. She had a tiny cut on one cheek, still oozing blood. Roan’s belly burned when he saw that.

Lord, how he wanted to go to her, put his arms around her. The desire to hold her was so powerful his muscles quivered with it. But there was something…a kind of shell around her-pride, maybe, or shock or self-control-he’d seen it before in victims of violence. He knew how fragile she was, and how much she didn’t want to break.

So he kept to a safe distance and said in the gruff but gentle voice he used for comforting victims, “Everything’s under control now, Mary. You’re gonna be okay.” He paused, dipped his head toward her, made a gesture with his hand toward the cut on her cheek. “You need to have that looked at.”

She shook her head. “Just a scratch.” She folded a fresh paper towel and pressed it against her cheek. Then she darted a look at him with eyes hard and green as glacier ice and softly asked, “Did you get him?”

He shook his head-once, quick and hard. “But we will,” he promised grimly, then added in a gentler tone, “Right now, though, I’m gonna need you to come with me.”

She didn’t question, simply nodded. He moved aside to let her pass, reached to shut off the bathroom light, then closed in beside her again.

He couldn’t have imagined how hard it would be, walking beside her like that, close enough to protect her, trying not to crowd her too much…wanting-needing to touch her, knowing he didn’t dare…and the frustration of that gnawing at him, a sharp fierce ache in his belly.

“Is there anything here you need?” he asked her as they made their way through the ruined salon.

“My purse.”

“Okay, where is it?”

“I’ll get it.”

He waited while she stepped carefully through the spilled bottles and broken glass to retrieve her purse from a bottom drawer in one of her stations, then motioned her toward the door and opened it for her. She looked up at him as she slipped past him. “Where are you taking me?”

“Someplace safe.”

“Are you going to put me in jail?” Her voice sounded stifled, as if her teeth wanted to chatter and she was determined not to let them.

“No,” Roan said, keeping his narrow-eyed gaze focused over her head as he took his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. “Not that.”

He was pretty sure what he’d told her was right, and that whoever had shot at her was long gone, but just to be sure he kept his body between hers and the street as he walked her quickly to his car, hustled her inside and slammed the door. He went around to the driver’s side, then waited for Tom Daggett to make his way over to him from across the street, jogging through the maze of parked police vehicles and crime-scene tape.

“No sign of the shooter, Sheriff,” Tom said, and Roan could have sworn the deputy’s voice had deepened some since the last time he’d heard it. “Found some shell casings upstairs in one of the buildings. And we got a witness a couple streets over says he saw a man run down the alley and jump in a cream-colored SUV, take off like a bat outa hell. Says the guy was carrying a huntin’ rifle, but he didn’t think anything of it, just thought he musta been in the parade.”

Roan nodded. He could understand that reasoning well enough; there was more than one gun club participating in the parade most years. Boyd, his own father-in-law, would most likely have been marching with the Old West Gun Club he belonged to, if he hadn’t had to stay home with Susie Grace because she hated crowds, particularly crowds of out-of-towners, crowds of strangers who weren’t used to her and therefore likely to stare and ask insensitive questions.

“Keep on with the canvas,” he said to Tom. “And get the description of that SUV to the State Police right away. Then get this place secured. You’re gonna have your hands full with crowd control once the parade’s over. Folks are gonna be coming to see what all the fuss was about. I’ll leave that in your hands.” He jerked his head toward the woman sitting like a statue in the front seat of his SUV. “I’m taking off for a while-taking Mary to a safe house. Nobody’s gonna know where but me, so don’t ask. If you need me, you know how to reach me, but unless it’s a break in this case or a dire emergency, it can wait.”

“Okay, Sheriff.” Deputy Daggett all but saluted, trying hard not to look tickled to death Roan had put him in charge.

Roan got in the car and slammed the door on more of his deputy’s earnest assurances all would be taken care of in his absence. Without looking at his silent passenger, he started up the SUV, put it in gear and backed out of the street along the curb, the way he’d come in. Once he had the vehicle pointed forward again, he glanced over at Mary and growled, “Fasten your seatbelt.”

She obeyed, then fired back breathlessly, “What are you mad at me for?”

“I’m not-” He made a breath-sound like a tire going flat, then hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “Dammit, Mary, I’m not mad at you. I’m just mad.”

Scared, he silently corrected himself. Scared spitless. Because it had almost happened again. Someone had almost taken the life of a woman he cared about and was responsible for protecting. Still could. Because it looked like he wasn’t any better at keeping this woman safe than he had been Erin.