The Sheriff Catches a Bride (6 page)

“I don’t mean to rush you,” Cab assured her, “but if you spend any of your new money on jewelry, things like that, consider storing them in the vault at the bank, not at home. Major crimes can happen even in small towns like this one.”

“Good advice,” Bella said. “It’s weird being a billionaire all of a sudden.”

“Yeah, just think—last month you were only a mere millionaire,” Hannah put in.

“Well, a week before that I was broke,” Bella countered. “Funny how your life can change in an instant.”

“I wish my life would change in an instant,” Hannah muttered, then bit her lip as if aware of how catty that sounded. Cab knew she didn’t begrudge Bella any of her current good fortune. Hannah had gotten Bella her place on the reality television show,
Can You Beat a Billionaire
, and when Bella won the show, she got a substantial raise out of the outcome. As far as he could tell Hannah didn’t want more money.

She wanted more excitement.

Cab sighed. He knew from his line of work that excitement was rarely a blessing. He hoped when she got what she wanted it wouldn’t prove a disappointment.

Or fatal.

Had that been what attracted Grady’s victims to him? A desire for something new, something better than the lives they had? He’d managed to charm each of them into getting into his truck and staying there while he drove them to isolated places where he could live out his sick, murderous fantasies.

“Keep me posted if anything happens, okay?” he said to Bella, biting back the words he wanted to say to Hannah:
Be grateful your life is as boring as it is
. “I still think you and Evan should be the ones renting Carl’s house, not me. I’m drowning in all that space.”

She shrugged. “You might be right, but we don’t want to rent. We want to build a place from scratch, but both of us are so busy we’re having a hard time finding the perfect property.”

“I’m sure something will come up. See you, ladies.”

“That’s a lot of wood,”
Mia Start said, carefully punching the numbers from Rose’s invoice into the till. Around them Dundy’s hardware store bustled with customers which gave Rose hope her purchase was going unnoticed. At twenty-one, Mia was several years younger than her, but still older than the ridiculous couple from the shop this morning. At least she had a job. Although it remained to be seen if the girl would keep it. Mia seemed awfully distracted. She’d finished scanning all of Rose’s purchases, but hadn’t bothered to state the total. Instead, she stood gazing off into the distance—at what, Rose had no idea. In fact she wasn’t sure if Mia saw anything at all. Her focus seemed internal. As Rose opened her mouth to prompt her, Mia dropped a hand to her flat, trim belly in a classic gesture she recognized at once.

Oh, no. Not this young, single woman. How on earth would Mia deal with a pregnancy?

“Mia?” Rose said gently.

Mia started. “Sorry. I…” She blushed and turned to the register. “That’s $87.98.”

Mia was practically a child herself. What happened to waiting patiently until you were married and financially stable? Rose caught herself mid-judgment with a twist of her lips. Who was she to judge? Sure, she’d waited patiently to get married and have children, and where had that gotten her?

“What are you building?” Mia said, suddenly brisk. With her waist-length hair pulled into a ponytail on the top of her head, she looked all of fourteen. Rose figured her baby bump would take everyone by surprise when it grew large enough for the rest of the town to notice it.

“Nothing much,” Rose said, unwilling to share her plans with anyone, let alone a girl she barely knew. A girl in trouble.

Mia’s shoulders slumped a little as she turned back to the till, and Rose felt a twinge of shame. She’d gotten so jaded lately. Always assuming the worst of people. Not trusting any of them.

Well, could you blame her? She saw people daily at their best and at their worst. Half her customers came in to buy jewelry to commemorate the most important days of their lives. The other half came in to hock those same pieces of jewelry when their lives fell apart. Everyone made such elaborate plans and as far as she could tell, they hardly ever panned out.

“It’s just a little project I’ve been meaning to do for a long time,” she explained.

“Huh.” Mia perked up a little bit. “I’ve been thinking about some projects.”

Rose just bet she had. She bit her lip to hold back the obvious questions. “Anything in particular?”

Mia smiled a secretive smile. “Still figuring it out.”

Rose nodded, willing to let the girl keep her secret for now. After all, she had secrets of her own. She opened her purse and paid the bill with cash.

“You can pick up the boards around back.” Mia handed her the invoice. “Want me to help you load the rest of this stuff in your truck?”

“Oh, I don’t think you should lift anything,” Rose said quickly and then winced. Whoops.

Mia’s gaze flicked to hers and a blush darkened her cheeks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… uh… nothing. It’s just, I noticed…” She broke off and waved a hand at Mia’s belly.

“Shit. How did you know? Is it obvious? I just found out!” Mia hunched over the cash register as if to hide her stomach.

“It’s not obvious—you just gave yourself away,” Rose said apologetically, lowering her voice to match Mia’s tone. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” Mia’s eyes moistened. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. When people realize, I’m going to be in deep trouble.”

“How far are you along?”

“Barely a month. I took a test the minute I was late.”

Rose thought fast. This wasn’t the place for confessions, not if Mia wanted to keep her secret for any length of time. “Do you want to meet me later? We could grab dinner and talk.” She wasn’t sure why she was offering; she barely knew Mia, after all. Still, she had a feeling the girl needed to talk to someone. Maybe it didn’t matter that she didn’t have much advice to give.

“That would be great,” Mia said. “I get off in half an hour. Meet me at the Burger Shack?”

Rose would have preferred DelMonaco’s, but Mia couldn’t afford that and she really couldn’t afford it, either. “Sure. See you there.”

‡
Chapter Four

F
ila found she couldn’t give up
her group of female escorts once she’d attached herself to them. She followed Carla dutifully at a vigorous clip through the long airport corridors, outside around a building, and up an elevator to the AirTrain platform. She felt nearly stripped bare in these western clothes. Confused by all the twists and turns, she pressed herself closer to Carla.

“Where are you going?” she asked, raising her voice to carry over the din. Did she sound like an American? She’d spent her first twelve years in this country, but that seemed very, very long ago.

“Penn Station, then to Washington, D.C. How about you?”

“The same. For a start,” Fila added when Carla raised her eyebrows at the coincidence. “Then I’m going on to the Midwest.”

“Well, follow us. I’ll show you where to get your ticket.”

Surely Carla and her chatty friends were angels in disguise, Fila thought as they helped her navigate each step of the way to secure her ticket and find the AirTrain platform. The five minutes they had to wait for the train was the longest five minutes of her life. She found herself tapping her feet and bouncing on her toes. When Carla cocked her head at her inability to keep still, Fila shrugged. “Sorry, I’m excited to get going.”

“You and me both, although I’d like to stay longer in the city,” Carla said. “We’re all going to D.C. for a weekend bridal shower getaway. Kayla’s getting married in two weeks.”

Kayla, hearing her name, turned around and waggled her fingers at Fila. “Don’t you love my ring?”

“It’s beautiful,” Fila assured her as her heart dipped again. She scanned the area for the three men she knew must be looking for her by now. She would have died if they had managed to deliver her to her husband-to-be. She’d seen a photograph of the young man and he looked like a thug. She’d be nothing more to him than a reward for good behavior, for his patience in moving to an infidel country and waiting there to be of service to his brethren back home. Her flesh crawled to think what life with him would be like. What he might do—to her to and to others.

But the day she learned her destiny—to go to the United States and marry this would-be martyr—she knew her prayers had been answered; fate was giving her one chance to finally break free.

She was taking that chance.

It had almost worked.

“Here it comes,” Kayla cried and with a whoosh the AirTrain pulled into the station. Fila waited impatiently as the doors opened and passengers began to disembark. Another worried glance around the platform told her she was still safe… No.

Ice water poured through her veins.

There they were; three men, dark-haired, soberly dressed. Their faces serious. Angry.

Intent.

They walked toward her down the platform, peering at each woman in turn. Fila clutched her purse to her chest, turned to her new friends and said, “Should we board?”

“In just a minute,” Carla said. They waited for the last passengers to trickle out and Fila forced herself not to look back over her shoulder at the men searching for her. She must not do anything that caught their attention.

I am just an American girl spending time with my American friends,
she thought and tried to laugh at something Kayla said.

Finally, Carla took her arm. “Our turn now.”

With relief Fila allowed her to tug her into the train car and down the aisle. She slid into the seat Carla indicated and the other girls sat down around her. Fila risked a look out the window, but couldn’t see the men anymore. “How long until we leave?”

Another of the girls—Julie, she thought her name was—glanced at her watch. “A couple of minutes, unless there’s a delay.”

A couple of minutes? She’d never last that long.

“Hey, want to hear something cool?” Carla asked. “I just downloaded this new song…”

Fila didn’t hear her next words, for the three men entered the train car and made their way down the center aisle, searching each woman’s face. Fila pressed back in her seat and wished she could crawl beneath it.

“Something wrong?” Carla asked her. She held out a set of earbuds and gestured for Fila to take them. Fila accepted the unfamiliar apparatus and tentatively put each end to her ears. She’d seen many passengers use them during her long trip, so she knew what they were meant for. As soon as she held them up to her ears, the noise from the train car receded, replaced by upbeat contemporary music. Fila, cut off from such things for over a decade, didn’t recognize the song, but the style and beat reminded her of her youth, her years in the United States before they’d journeyed back to her parents’ homeland. Before the shooting that ended her parents’ lives.

Before her nightmare began.

When Cab pulled
his old black Chevy into the parking lot of the Burger Shack, he promised himself that tomorrow he would treat himself to a home-cooked meal. With vegetables. Potatoes, at least. He was fully capable of cooking for himself—his mother had made sure of that—but he found it lonely work to do much more than slap a marinated piece of meat on the grill when he was the only one eating.

A diet of burgers and fries wasn’t going to get him far in life, however, and all too often he found himself in one of the fast food joints these days. He could make the rounds of his friends’ houses; Ethan and Autumn, Jamie and Claire, and Rob and Morgan all ate normal meals at home often and always issued him invitations. Still, after the ring fiasco, he figured he’d steer clear of his so-called friends for a few days.

He’d been able to keep a lid on his attraction to Rose up until this point by telling himself she was in love with Jason and always would be. When Rob had slipped the ring on her finger the other day and she’d met his gaze, he’d seen the truth. She was aware of him, not just as a friend, but as something more. She’d reacted to his ring’s presence and what it told her. She belonged with him. He’d bet on that.

So where did that leave them? She was engaged to Jason.

Jason had better get a move on, was Cab’s opinion, or he couldn’t complain if another man stole his girl. Still, he would hold back out of deference to the man’s prior claim. For now.

What would Rose want with a county sheriff anyhow? He worked long hours, got decent pay but nothing special. He was a small-town man through and through. Jason was the kind of flashy guy who caught a woman’s heart and didn’t let go. From what he heard about the North Dakota oil patch, Jason could very well be a rich man in a few years.

Pulling open the door of the Burger Shack, Cab found himself surrounded by conversations, friendly greetings, the smell of burgers and fries and grease wafting through the air. His stomach rumbled with anticipation of the meal to come. Halfway to the counter, however, he stopped short. There was Rose in a window booth, sitting across a small table from Mia Start. Rose was making a point, waving a French fry around for emphasis. Mia watched her with wide eyes. What were they talking about?