The Sheriff's Surrender (17 page)

“And pie's made from flour and eggs, and that's almost like bread,” Elly added. “And it's apple, and that's fruit, and you're s'posed to have fruit, you know.”

“Good argument. But I don't believe your mom will buy it for a second.” He stood, set Elly on the stool, then continued to the booth.

Easy made room for him on the bench, then called, “Hey, waitress, we need some service out here!”

“I'll ‘waitress' you upside the head, Ezekiel Rafferty,” Shay said as she came through the swinging door from the kitchen. “Hey, Reese, how's the sheriffin' business?”

The glint in her eyes made it clear her question was more than a casual inquiry. “If you're asking if I've locked up anyone lately, the answer is no. Hell—” he glanced at the two girls a short distance away “—heck, I haven't even yelled at anyone lately but Tommy Lee, and he deserved it.”

She poured coffee all around, then planted one hand on her
hip and subjected him to intense scrutiny. “You know, you look a bit tired. You probably need some time off.”

“No, I don't.”

“I think you do. When's the last time you took a vacation?”

“I don't know. A while back.”

“When?” Guthrie asked. “I don't remember you going anywhere since you came back here.”

“You don't have any room to talk. You didn't even take a honeymoon when you married Olivia.”

“Yeah, but that's because I had a herd of cattle to take care of. All you have is five horses, and any one of your neighbors would be more than happy to look in on them.”

Reese knew that was true. He also knew the sort of vacation Shay was recommending didn't necessarily involve
going
anywhere. But it did involve spending a lot of time with Neely, and that idea was mighty tempting. “We're short-handed at work,” he said with more than a little regret. “I can't go anywhere until we replace Tommy Lee.”

“Sure you can,” Shay disagreed. She bent close and lowered her voice to little more than a tantalizing murmur.

“You're the sheriff. You can do whatever you damn well please.”

Except take time off work right now. Or take Neely someplace where she would be truly safe and anonymous. Or get her off of his mind. Or out of his system.

Hell, for someone who could do anything, he couldn't really do much at all.

 

A crack of thunder jarred Neely awake. She felt better rested than she had in months, but thought if she rolled over and closed her eyes, she could probably sleep another hour or two, just until the sun came up. Intending to do just that, she rolled over, snuggled under the covers and breathed deeply…of Reese.

The instant her eyes opened, her gaze fell on the window seat that looked out onto the front porch, and next she saw the safe room door. She was in his room, she realized. In his
bed.
How on earth… There were only two ways she could have gotten there—under her own power, or in Reese's arms. Since she couldn't imagine the first, it must have been the second. But why would he put her in his bed when her own room was just as close? A not-too-subtle hint that he wanted her there? Or had he realized why she wound up asleep in his chair practically every morning? Because it
was
his. She felt safe there, and the dreams left her alone there.

But safe as his chair was, his bed was that and a lot more comfortable. She stretched, then curled into a ball on her side…and caught sight of the alarm clock. It was nearly two o'clock! She'd slept half the day away—and it had felt so good.

She slid out of bed, straightened the covers, then peeked out the blinds. Last night's nice breeze was a full-blown wind this afternoon, and the sky was dark with pewter-colored clouds. The golden outline at the distant edge of the cloud bank hinted at the brilliant sun that shone somewhere, but the light here was harsh, eerie, with a faint greenish tinge.

But by the time she'd showered and dressed, the sky was clear, the clouds were puffy and white, and the day looked hot enough to broil. Neely made a sandwich from leftover ham, took pop and some chocolate and stretched out on the sofa with one of her books. She was finishing both the chocolates and the book when Reese came home. The memory of waking up in his bed that morning made her suddenly shy. She couldn't quite meet his gaze when she said hi.

He removed his gun belt, then sat and dangled it over one bent knee. “It is hot out there.”

“It looks it.” She thumbed the book's pages, then asked, “Have a good day?”

He shrugged. “On the car my deputy wrecked, it'll take about twice as much to fix it as it's worth. On the brighter side, I hired a new deputy. He's got experience, and he didn't whine about the salary.” He gave her a sidelong look. “My deputies are seriously underpaid.”

“They shouldn't be.”

He blinked and looked at her again, making her squirm. “I don't hate cops, Reese. I just hate corrupt ones. And so do you. If you didn't, you would have kept in touch with your fellow officers in Thomasville when you left, at least for a while.”

“How do you know I didn't?”

“Because Dave Dugan was quite proud of the fact that he'd shot me. He would have bragged about it to you. He would have expected your gratitude.”

“He wouldn't have gotten it.”

She believed him—believed that as much as he'd blamed her for Judy's death, he would have been appalled by Dugan's decision to shoot her for it.

“Why didn't you demand that the D.A. bring charges against him?”

She smiled ruefully. “I was fortunate to get out of there alive. I wasn't going to push my luck.”

“What else did they do?”

Laying the book aside, she sat up and tucked her skirt around her legs. Part of her wanted to lie—to brush off the harassment, the vandalism and the threats. She wanted to say it was no big deal, nothing to be curious about. Truthfully, she didn't want to give him anything else to feel guilty about.

But when she opened her mouth, no denial came. “The day I went home from the hospital, all the windows in my house had been smashed. They slashed my tires. They spray-painted obscenities across the front of the house. I got threatening phone calls, changed my number and continued to get them. I was run off the road twice. I lost every single client I had. Some left voluntarily. Others were warned of the consequences of associating with me. And my office was burned to the ground. That's when I left.”

With each sentence, Reese's expression had grown grimmer. His look was harsh, and so was his voice when he asked, “What happened when you reported the incidents to the sheriff?”

“I'd call 9-1-1, and the dispatcher said she would send a
car around. Sometimes a deputy would show up three or four hours later. He would smirk and spout something about kids these days. The other times no one ever showed up.”

“You shouldn't have let them get away with it. Once you'd moved out of their jurisdiction, you should have gone to the FBI or the state attorney general or the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. You should have stopped them.”

“I'd been shot by a cop because
he'd
mishandled a case and gotten it thrown out of court. My practice was destroyed. You had left me without a word. A woman was dead because of me. Every time I left the house, I was afraid I would be killed. Every day I didn't go out, I was afraid they were winning, afraid they were controlling my life.” She remembered the helplessness and the overwhelming fear with a shudder that made her voice quake. “I didn't have the strength, physically or emotionally, to fight them any longer. I stuck it out for a month, and then I got out before they succeeded at killing me.”

As if too restless to sit still any longer, he popped up from the chair and paced to the window to stare out. “Do you really think they would have killed you?” There was no skepticism in his voice, no condescending just-a-little-woman-over-reacting tone. He was dead serious. He wanted to know.

Neely hesitantly approached him, then veered off to one side before reaching him. She took a position next to the window, facing him with his stony expression, his granite-hard jaw, his flint-tough eyes. She folded her arms across her chest to contain the shivers, and to stop herself from reaching for him, and she schooled her voice into a quiet, unemotional tenor. “Late one night I got a call from Doreen Hughes.” Doreen had been a secretary at the local middle school and was married to Reggie Hughes, chief investigator for the Keegan County Sheriff's Department. Neely and Reese had done much of their socializing with Doreen and Reggie, Dave and his girlfriend du jour and other deputies. None of them had accepted her, though. They'd tolerated her for Reese's sake, and she'd put up with them for the same reason.

“She was distraught, crying. She pleaded with me to meet her at the office at eleven o'clock that night. She said Reggie had hit her, threatened her, and she was afraid he was going to kill her. She wanted my help. I agreed—stupidly. By then I was pretty paranoid. I expected something bad to happen every time I left the house. I got to the office early, turned on the lights and waited. A few minutes before eleven, Doreen called. She said she was running late and she begged me to wait. I said I would…but I panicked. I left by the back door, left the lights on and my car in the parking lot, and I went across the street to the library and hid in the shadows. Doreen never showed up, but about 11:15, an orange pickup full of men wearing ski masks arrived.”

She saw Reese flinch. The only orange pickup in all of Thomasville, probably in all of Keegan County, had belonged to a young man by the name of Dub—another of the sheriff's badge-wearing finest.

“Some of them had gas cans. Some had two-by-fours and hammers. They nailed both doors shut while the others spread the gasoline around. When they were done, they lit the gasoline, stood back, broke out the beer and had a party while they watched the building burn.” Believing that
she
was trapped inside. Men who had sworn to uphold the law, to serve and protect the citizens where they lived, had celebrated in the mistaken belief that they were roasting one of those citizens alive.

“I crawled around to the back side of the library, and then I ran all the way home and called Jace. He drove out from the city, and we got the hell out.”

Finished, she waited for Reese to say something, but he continued to stare out the window. His face was pale, his eyes dark, his skin stretched taut across his cheekbones. His breathing was shallow and rigidly controlled, but he couldn't control the twitch of a muscle working in his jaw.

“That was the long answer,” she said softly. “The short answer is yes. I believe they would have killed me.”

Abruptly he spun around and strode away—into the kitchen,
out the French door and across the deck. Feeling…bereft, Neely remained where she was for a long time, then just as suddenly, she went after him.

By the time she reached the steps, he was approaching the barn. She ignored the blazing heat that brought an instant sheen of perspiration to her skin, and the rocks, twigs and acorns that pricked her bare feet, and the smell of horses, made more pungent by the sun. Catching up with him at the door, she grabbed his arm with enough suppressed emotion to swing him around. “Stop walking away from me!” she shouted, so angry she wanted to scream, stamp her feet, throw things.

“How am I supposed to look at you?” he shouted back.

Hurt sliced through her. She released his wrist and took a step back. “I—I'm sorry. I didn't realize you found me so…”

“I should have been there! I should have put a stop to it, protected you, taken you away! I should have…” Making a frustrated, anguished sound, he turned away and paced to the end of the barn. When he finally spoke again, his voice was low with defeat, but Neely didn't move closer. She could hear.

“That last time, Judy had had enough. She was going to leave town—go someplace where Leon couldn't find her and start a new life. I persuaded her to stay. I convinced her to go through with the trial by promising that we would protect her. That
I
would protect her. That this time Leon would go to prison and he wouldn't be able to hurt her again. I promised her, and she believed me.”

And instead Leon had walked out a free man and killed her. And for Reese, as everyone else, it had been easier to blame Neely than himself.

“I let her down, and it cost her life. I let you down, and it damn near cost your life.”

She smiled tearfully, even though he couldn't see it. “But you never promised to protect me.”

“I should have been there. Jace hardly even knew you, but he was there when you needed him. I should have been…”

If Reese hadn't stuck Jace's business card, with his home number scrawled across the back, on her refrigerator, Neely
figured she would have been dead long before she'd found anyone close enough to help. She'd rousted Jace out of bed, explained to him who she was—after all, they'd met only twice before—and begged for his help, and, because of Reese, he'd given it. He'd saved her life.

She made her way carefully across the dirt floor, stopping behind Reese. She hesitated, her hand inches from touching him, then took a breath and slid her arms around his middle. He remained stiff and unyielding, but she held him, anyway. “It's not your fault. None of this would have happened if I hadn't objected to Leon's confession or his treatment at the hands of the deputies…”

“The confession was inadmissible,” he said harshly, “and the beating was a violation of his civil rights.”

“But his rights to a fair trial weren't more important than his wife's right to live.”

Turning, he gave her an intensely serious look. “Don't start blaming yourself, Neely. Don't change your beliefs to make me feel better. If Dugan and the others hadn't beaten the confession out of him, chances are very good that Leon would have gone to jail and Judy would be alive today.”