Silver Bracelets: A Loveswept Contemporary Classic Romance (3 page)

“Jeanie must be a terribly insensitive person,” Sarah couldn’t help commenting. “I don’t understand why she didn’t tell you herself if she wanted to marry your friend.”

“Because I wouldn’t have approved of the marriage, and they both knew it. It’s too soon for Jeanie to make that kind of decision. When she left for Spain she was still hurting from an affair gone bad.… Damn! Where’s my Silver Girl? Ah, no, not her, too.”

Sarah thought he was going to yell. Somehow she knew that Asa Canyon was a man who didn’t cry. “Please don’t be so distressed,”
Sarah consoled him. “You may not understand it now, but you’ll have to look on your girl running away as happening for the best.”

“My girl?” He laughed. “She couldn’t leave on her own. She had to have help.” He slapped his thigh, then groaned. “My pants and my keys—they’re both gone.”

“The note said that she and your friend Mike are in love. You can’t fight an emotion strong enough to force him into this kind of action.”

“Mike wouldn’t be caught dead in my truck. He drives a BMW. But you’re right. He took her all right, so I couldn’t follow. You’d think he’d have at least told me where he left her, since he’s so good at letter writing. It’s bad enough that he’s taken Jeanie, but my Silver Girl? That’s a low blow.”

Sarah realized that Silver Girl was not the woman, but his truck. She giggled, half in relief and half in disbelief.

“You have a very strange sense of humor,” Asa growled. “Do you have a car to match?”

Her sense of humor might be strange, he concluded, as he stared at her, but her lips, still curved in a smile, were nice. Wide, full and honest, they matched her open face. Everything about Sarah Wilson said that what you see is what you get. And honesty was a characteristic that was in short supply in his life at the moment.

If he weren’t so concerned about Jeanie, he just might—no. Women were rarely what they seemed and he’d sworn long ago not to try to figure them out. He glanced at Sarah. She
didn’t seem worried. In fact, he had a sneaking suspicion that she was the kind of “girl next door” who could be a coconspirator, the kind who didn’t scream when you put a frog in her lunch box. But that girl-next-door look didn’t fit the kiss they’d just shared, or the open way she’d participated.

“Do I have a car? Not a car,” Sarah was saying. “A van, and you might say it matches my sense of humor. Why?”

“I’m commandeering it. Let’s go!”

“Oh, good. A police chase. I thought that only happened in the movies! If you have in mind tearing through the city streets, I feel it only fair to warn you that the fastest he’ll go is 54 miles per hour. Anything more and he rebels.”

“He? You have a car you refer to as he?”

“I do. His name is Henry. Helpful Henry. You call your truck Girl, why can’t I call my van Henry?”

“Where is it?” Then he saw it. The van had once been a bright fire-truck red. Now it was battered and bruised, the color faded. The sign on its side, a yellow smiley face and letters that proclaimed
HELP IS ON THE WAY
, was new and shiny. He groaned. “Never mind. Get in. I’ll drive.”

“I think you’d better let me,” Sarah protested.

“I know where I’m going and I’ll get us there faster.” He figured Mike and Jeanie had returned to Smyrna together, and were staying
in Jeanie’s old apartment. He’d get over there and play it by ear.

“Suit yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Sarah unlocked the van, slung her tool chest in the back and climbed in the passenger side, handing the keys to the deputy.

He managed to start the engine, but there wasn’t enough room for Asa’s long legs. To add to the problem, the play in the pedals was so bad that he couldn’t keep an even amount of pressure applied to either one. The result was a van that jumped and sputtered past the police car still sitting in the street. By the time Asa finally figured out the secret to keeping Harry running, the police car had fallen in behind the van and was following what had to be, even to Asa, a suspicious vehicle.

Another minute passed and the blue lights began to flash. The police car moved up beside the van and the officer motioned for them to pull over.

“Ah, hell!” Asa said, but complied. “I don’t even have my identification. It’s in my wallet, in my pants, wherever they are.”

The officer got out of the car and walked slowly toward the window. “Will you get out of the vehicle, sir?”

Sarah had already ducked her head to smother a giggle. She watched as Asa caught the dangling cuff in his hand and palmed it as best he could, opened the door, and slid out. She could have identified herself and brought the suspicion to an end, but since Asa Canyon wanted to be in charge, she’d let him.

“There’s been a misunderstanding,” Asa began, remembering how many times he’d heard just such a lame excuse. If he ever got his hands on his ex-friend again he’d rip him limb from limb. “I know this will be hard for you to believe, Officer …?”

“Officer Martin, sir.”

“Officer Martin, my wallet has been stolen, along with my—” he started to say “clothes” and changed it to “truck.”

“Are you telling me that you don’t have a license?”

“Of course I have a license. I just don’t have it with me. It’s in my wallet. Ah, for crying out loud!”

“Sorry, sir. Please turn around, put your hands against the side, and spread your legs.”

“Now listen here!” Asa folded his arms across his chest and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, feeling like a defensive linebacker psyching himself into a mood to kill. “My name is Asa Canyon and I’m a deputy sheriff.”

“Yes, sir. Are you saying that this is your vehicle?”

“No, it belongs to Sarah Wilson.”

“Oh? And you borrowed it?”

“No. Yes. Ask her,” he roared.

Officer Martin stepped aside and peered into the van. “Are you in there, Sarah?”

“Yep.” Sarah straightened and took a deep breath, hoping she was doing the right thing. “And this man is trying to kidnap Henry. I’d like him arrested, please.”

Two

Asa Canyon growled and made a move toward Sarah.

Officer Martin responded by drawing his gun and stepping between Asa and the van. “I wouldn’t do that, sir.”

Sarah took one look at the set of Asa’s lips and decided that her plan to give the deputy some cooling off time while Jeanie and Mike got away was not a viable idea.

Mike’s life might have been in danger before. Now he was definitely a dead man. And she was about to join him.

“Tell this officer the truth, Sarah. Please?”

Sarah never had much patience with a man who thought he had all the answers, and the deputy did need to learn he wasn’t always right. If Mike and Jeanie were in love, they ought to be allowed to get married without the long arm of the law interfering.

On the other hand, what did she really know? Asa had said that Jeanie wasn’t over an affair. And the note had said that she didn’t want to hurt him. Maybe all of this anger was more than just worry. Maybe the affair had been between Jeanie and the deputy. Sarah slid out of the van and touched Paul Martin on the arm.

“It’s all right, Paul,” she said. Turning to Asa, she added belligerently, “But next time before you start hijacking somebody’s vehicle you might just
ask
for their help. People around here are usually willing to give a hand to a person in need.”

She faced the officer again. “Paul, meet Deputy Asa Canyon, with the Cobb Sheriff’s department. We’re on an emergency call.”

“Are you sure, Sarah?” Paul was not entirely convinced.

“I’m sure. I was just—never mind. He really is Deputy Canyon.”

Paul Martin took another look at Asa and grimaced. “I’m very sorry, sir. I’ve only seen your picture in the paper. I didn’t recognize you. We’ve been having a lot of burglaries around here and there was something really weird going on in an apartment back there. I thought—”

“Never mind what you thought,” Asa began.

Sarah wasn’t certain who would be the ranking officer, a patrolman or a deputy sheriff, but she felt bad about placing her friend Paul in an awkward situation. “Thank you
Paul, for checking on me. We really do need to go now.”

“Sure, Sarah. See you later at the softball game.” He turned back to Asa and held the van door open. “Sorry again, sir. I didn’t know who you were.”

“That’s okay, Officer. You can never be too careful.”

Sarah decided that she’d better not comment on what had just happened. Paul may have accepted her story, but sooner or later he was going to wonder about a deputy sheriff with no identification, who was wearing her father’s coveralls, cowboy boots, and, one handcuff.

Asa climbed inside and coaxed Henry back to life. He took Atlanta Road past the downtown Smyrna revitalization project that would result in a new business section laid out like an old-fashioned village. By the time he got through the Platinum Triangle intersection, which lay between Smyrna and the city of Atlanta, he had figured out the van’s peculiarities.

“I take it you know Officer Martin?”

“Yep. I’m acquainted with most everybody in Smyrna. When you’ve lived here all your life, you get to know folks pretty well. We tend to look after one another.”

“Well I hope that you don’t have any other friends interested in your well-being because I really don’t have time to stop.” Asa pulled onto the expressway that circled the outer perimeter of Atlanta and headed east.

“No, Paul will pass the word. But I think you should know that Harry’s fuel gauge doesn’t work and we probably ought to get gas if you’re planning to go very far.”

“Now you tell me.” Asa glanced at the service station he was passing on the right. He knew the next exit didn’t have one but that the one after that did. He let out a sigh of relief. Still his sigh came too soon. The van sputtered twice and coasted to a stop at the side of the road.

“Sorry, Deputy, but don’t you get the feeling that maybe somebody is trying to tell you that you ought not to be making this trip? Why don’t you let them go? You’re only going to make things worse.”

“Sarah, Mike knows that I don’t allow anybody to interfere with me doing my duty.”

“Spoken like a true officer of the law, Sergeant Friday. Or is it Sergeant Preston of the Yukon? Maybe you should send for your faithful horse and dog to get through the snowdrifts up ahead.” This time she didn’t need a flashlight to see his brows draw together in a thundering expression. “Take it easy.”

“Take it easy?”

“Somebody will come along who knows us.”

Not if Asa could help it. Before he stayed long enough for somebody to know him, he moved on. He’d learned about moving on by the time he was ten years old and had already been returned to the orphanage by three sets of foster parents that he could remember. He
didn’t know how many homes he’d been through as a baby.

His own mother had taught him the first lesson by leaving him on the steps of a church. The others, well, they had tried, but Asa hadn’t let them get close. And one after another, they’d returned him to the orphanage, as if he were a pair of shoes that didn’t fit.

Eventually, when he was ten years old, he figured it out. Everybody in his life was temporary. After that he made so much trouble that he was sent to a group home where he lived until he graduated from high school. The next day he’d joined the Marines, and he’d been on the move ever since. He’d learned the hard way that love didn’t last and people were temporary.

Then Jeanie became his responsibility. Yet, even then he’d always managed to keep their association in perspective. She was in his charge for a while. He’d understood that one day she’d leave, too—but not this way.

Sarah felt Asa’s frustration and pursed her lips. So he didn’t want help. That didn’t surprise her. “Well,” she finally offered, “if you feel like walking, there’s a gas can in the back.”

Asa took the can, strode briskly down the road, then stopped and turned back, a sheepish expression on his face. “Do you have any money?”

Sarah didn’t answer. One more word and Deputy Canyon would explode. Silently she fished a crumpled ten dollar bill from her pocket and handed it to him. He stalked off,
measuring the distance in such long strides that anybody would have been forced to run to keep up.

A car pulled into the emergency lane and stopped in front of Asa. The driver, an elderly man wearing overalls and smoking a cigar, stuck his head out and asked, “That’s Sarah’s van out of gas back there, isn’t it? Get in, son.”

Any other time Asa would have kept on walking, but tonight he had no seconds to lose. He crawled in the car and thanked the old man.

“Don’t worry about it, son. Not a man or woman in Smyrna who wouldn’t stop to give Sarah Wilson a hand. Fine girl she is. Not a better shortstop in the state when she was in high school. Lost out on an out-of-state college scholarship looking after her dad. Folks ’round here think a lot of Sarah.”

The old man talked faster than he drove, and he wouldn’t win a race at either one, Asa thought wryly. Several minutes lapsed before Asa filled the gas can and managed to get back to Sarah’s van. He emptied the gas into the tank, then thanked the man who had already told him more about Sarah than he ever wanted to know, and drove off.

Asa tried to concentrate on Jeanie and how he was going to convince her that marrying Mike was a bad idea. He’d offer to help her furnish the apartment she’d rented, and if she wanted to open a nice little photography studio, he’d help her do that, too.

He pulled into a gas station and began filling up, all the while planning his argument. But a little voice inside his mind told him that Jeanie wouldn’t be happy in a studio. She wasn’t like Sarah, who had taken over her father’s business and made a life for herself in the place where she’d grown up. Sarah knew everybody in town and everybody looked after her. Sarah Wilson wouldn’t need somebody like him around.

And she had a mind of her own. She’d stood right up to him. He thought of her threat to have him arrested and smiled.

He’d stolen her van and probably compromised her before her friend. He hadn’t even thanked her for helping him. But the thing that kept sticking in his mind the most was the kiss, the way she’d returned it and how her lips had felt beneath his own. He tried to put it out of his mind. But not thinking made the remembering more vivid.