The Sheriff's Surrender (22 page)

 

“Want to go for a ride?”

Neely looked up from the magazine she'd been trying to read for the past two hours to find Brady Marshall standing a half dozen feet in front of her. She'd offered him breakfast this Thursday morning, but he'd taken only a cup of coffee. He'd sat in the living room, watching the news, while she'd
fed Reese his breakfast and had asked one simple question—
How is he?
—when she'd returned with the empty dishes.

Reese had been tired, weak, unable to use his right arm at all and unable to remember that. He'd spoken only when he couldn't avoid it and then in a sullen, cranky voice. She'd tried, in her awkward suddenly-an-outsider way, to assure him that he had nothing to worry about. He would heal just fine, with no residual problems. He wasn't about to lose another career he loved because of a stupid injury.

He'd looked at her as if she'd abruptly started speaking Aunt Rozena's tribal language instead of English, and then, finally, silently, had looked away.

Pushing the incident out of her mind, she directed her attention back to Brady. “I'd rather not.”

“I have to go to my house to pick up some things, and Reese said to take you with me.”

“And what if he needs me—” Her face flushed hot, and a hard, frustrated knot formed in her stomach. He didn't need her. He wouldn't even look at her when she went into his room. “What if he needs something?”

“We won't be gone more than an hour. He'll probably sleep. Come on.”

She had no choice, but it made her feel better to pretend she did. “Sure. Why not? Let me get my shoes. Oh, and if you have a bullet-proof vest, you might want to put it on. People tend to get shot around me.”

She got her shoes and her floppy-brimmed straw hat, then went to his truck with him. When they'd driven halfway to Buffalo Plains without a word from him, she said, “So…Deputy Marshall. Do people tease you about that name? Point out that if you'd joined the marshal's service, you'd be Deputy Marshal Marshall?”

“It's Undersheriff Marshall,” he corrected her, then asked, “Do I look like the sort of person people tease?”

She glanced at him, though it wasn't necessary. He looked like the sort of man women fantasized about, but given the chance to make those fantasies come true, they would be way
too afraid. He looked dark, wicked, threatening. He looked like a man who could keep a woman safe…if he didn't scare her to death in the process. “No,” she admitted. “You don't. So you're the strong, silent type.”

“Hmm. I'd been thinking the same thing about you…until now.”

“I'm not strong, and I'm rarely silent.”

This time
he
gave
her
a measuring look. “Most women who'd been through what you went through yesterday would still be in need of sedation.”

For the first time in hours she smiled. “That's me—Neely Madison, attorney-at-law, bad luck personified, cool in a crisis, leader of a life of chaos. After you get shot at a time or two or fifty, it loses its impact.”

“You're not kidding, are you?”

“Do I look like the type to kid?”

After another mile or two of silence, he asked, “How long have you and Reese been involved?”

She didn't ask whether he was guessing or Reese had told him. Quiet, intense people like him tended to pick up information out of thin air. It made them good cops—and better criminals. “It started ten years ago.” She smiled blandly. “It ended a year later.”

“It's not ended yet.”

Twenty-four hours ago she would have agreed with him. Now she wasn't so sure. Some things were pretty hard to overlook, and she suspected that nearly dying because of someone else was one of them.

“I take it you're not married,” she said, making no effort to disguise her change of subject.

“Nope.”

“Have a steady girl?”

“No.”

That suggested the women of Buffalo Plains understood the difference between the appeal of a dangerous man and the reality of a relationship with him. “You don't sound like you're from around here.”

“No.”

Strong and silent, she reminded herself. She let him remain that way until they reached the apartment complex where he lived. In keeping with what she'd seen of Buffalo Plains, it was nothing fancy—a half-dozen two-story brick buildings, with an office, pool and laundry room in the center. His apartment was on the second floor, with a tiny balcony that overlooked the pool.

“How long have you lived here?” Neely asked, pitching her voice loud enough to be heard in the bedroom.

“Six years.”

She gave a shake of her head. It looked as if
no one
lived there. The furniture was standard, cheap apartment furniture—ditto the wall art—and everything was spotlessly clean. There were no books, newspapers or magazines. No shoes kicked under the couch. No dirty dishes in the sink. Not a speck of grease on the stovetop. A small corkboard on a kitchen wall held nothing but a short list of phone numbers—the rental office, a pizza delivery place, Reese's home number and, at the bottom, another number, complete with area code but missing any identifying information. Neely would give a lot to commit it to memory and call it later, but of course she didn't try.

Brady came out of the bedroom, wearing jeans and a red shirt, carrying a small duffel bag, with his gun in a holster above his right hip.

“Either you're the neatest person I've ever met, or you don't actually live here at all,” she remarked.

He glanced around. “Don't you take care of your belongings?”

“I try. But my car still wound up in…oh, about two thousand pieces a few weeks ago.”

“It was just a car. It can be replaced.”

The seemingly contradictory remarks kept her puzzling over them for a good part of the return trip to Heartbreak. When she did finally speak, her voice was serious. “I suppose it
would be pointless to ask you to give me the keys to Reese's truck.”

“I suppose so.”

“If he'd let me go when I asked before, he never would have been shot.”

“No, but you might have been, and that would be a lot harder for him to deal with.”

“Don't be too sure of that,” she said dryly.

“Seems like I'm the only one who can be sure of anything. You and Reese are both too busy feeling guilty and worrying about each other.”

“What does he have to feel guilty about?”

“Gee, I don't know. Taking someone he's supposed to be protecting into a crowded city where someone else can try to kill her?”

“It wasn't— He said— I was making us both crazy.”

Underneath the neat black mustache, Brady's mouth spread in a surprisingly appealing grin. She would have bet he wasn't capable of it. “You can make him crazy without being in the same state with him. That wasn't why he took you to Tulsa. He was trying to score some points with you.”

Neely scowled at him. “You're wrong.”

“I'm many things, Ms. Madison, but ‘wrong' is rarely one of them.”

Was it possible that Reese was blaming himself instead of her for what had happened? Could that be the reason for his hard looks and harder words? But he
wasn't
responsible. It was just sheer luck that the shooter had recognized her. A tremendous coincidence, so unlikely that the odds were probably impossible to calculate. And coincidences happened. No one could predict them.

If anyone was to blame, it was her. And the man with the gun. And Eddie Forbes.

When they got home a few minutes later, Reese was asleep. Neely sat on the window seat, just watching him, until the aromas of cooking drew her to the kitchen. Brady had discov
ered the stash of goodies in the freezer and was heating one in the oven.

“Pot roast,” he said when he saw her. “It'll be ready in a few minutes. You want to see if Reese feels like getting up, or would you rather feed him in bed?”

“I'll let him choose.” She returned quietly to the bedroom, only to discover that Reese was awake, and looking guilty. Had he merely been pretending to sleep while she was there, so he could avoid having to talk to her? Apparently so.

Doing a little pretending of her own—that she wasn't hurt—she said, “Lunch is ready. Do you feel like coming to the table, or do you want me to bring your plate in here?”

“I'll go in there.” As he sat up, she started to pull back the covers, but he shoved them aside first. When she reached for the sling, he took it away from her with a gruff, “I can do that.” She watched him struggle with it, watched him wince and turn a shade paler before he got it in place, and then she reached for his antibiotics. He clumsily grabbed the bottle first.

He was a man, she counseled herself as she followed his slow progress to the kitchen, and men reacted in one of two ways to being incapacitated. They were childish, cranky and wanted to be pampered, or they felt emasculated and wanted to do everything themselves. Fine. Not a problem. She could accept that.

Brady had the table set, drinks beside the plates and was taking a foil pan from the oven. She took her usual seat, and Reese pulled out the chair to her right, hesitated, then moved to the one across from her. Any assistance he needed would have to come from Brady and not her. Great.

Lunch was awful. Brady, she'd already learned, wasn't very talkative. Reese was lousy at using his left hand and lousier at accepting help. Even the little things she did naturally, such as offering to refill his glass when she got up to refill her own, were met with hostility.

She ate quickly, rinsed her dishes and loaded them in the
dishwasher, then headed for the back door, when finally he voluntarily spoke to her.

“Where do you think you're going?”

“Outside.” Her smile was saccharine-sweet and phony as all get-out. “I'm allowed, remember?”

“You
were
allowed. Not anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Someone tried to kill you yesterday!”

“So what? They've tried before, and they'll try again. I'm not going to cower in the corner and wait for it to happen.”

He clumsily got to his feet and carried his dishes to the sink, where they landed with a clatter. “I don't care whether you cower, but you're for damn sure staying inside. You're not dying on my watch.”

“The depth of your concern for my safety overwhelms me. Go back to bed where you belong and leave me alone.” She turned toward the door again, but didn't get even the third number of the four-digit code entered before Brady firmly pulled her away.

When she glared at him, he shrugged. “He pays my salary. And he happens to be right. You guys took a chance yesterday, and he's paying for it. No more chances, Neely, because sooner or later, your luck's going to run out.”

“And I'm supposed to care about that?”

“You don't have to. But other people do.”

She wasn't sure why her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She only knew she needed privacy before they spilled over. With as much dignity as she could muster, she squared her shoulders, freed her arm from Brady's grip and held her head high. “I'm going to my room to read. I don't want to be disturbed.”

She made a perfect exit, only to hear Reese's murmur as she reached the bedroom door. “Her books and her glasses are on the coffee table.”

Reversing direction, she detoured through the living room, then returned to the bedroom, where she closed and locked the door. Sure, she'd had better days, she thought as she threw
herself across the bed, but she'd also had worse. She was sure of it.

She just couldn't remember when.

 

The clock on the nightstand showed a few minutes after midnight when Reese slowly sat up. For a moment or two he sat on the side of the bed, rubbing his neck, watching the occasional flashes of lightning that filtered through the closed window blinds. He hadn't spent so much time in bed in longer than he could remember, and it seemed his entire body ached from it.

Or maybe he ached because of Neely. She was hurt and upset, and he didn't know how to make her feel better. Hell, he didn't have a clue how to make himself feel better, either. The guilt and the regret were eating him alive, and he couldn't stop them.

He eased from the bed and made his way through familiar darkness into the living room. The computer was unplugged, all the lights turned off, the house silent. Neely, he assumed, was asleep in the guest room, and Brady was bunked out in the front bedroom that doubled as a storeroom. But he wasn't asleep. Reese heard the creak of the door only seconds before he spoke.

“Having trouble sleeping?”

Reese glanced over his shoulder at the tall, lean shadow that was approaching. “Too much on my mind.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

He started to shake his head, then stopped. If there was one person in the entire county he could count on to keep secrets, it was Brady. He was more closemouthed than any priest or psychiatrist ever thought of being.

Reese carefully lowered himself into one of the chairs in front of the window, and after a moment Brady sat in the other. “Neely and I used to be…together.”

Brady didn't appear surprised. In the dim illumination provided by the lightning, he didn't show any reaction at all.

“Back then I was a deputy with the Keegan County Sher
iff's Department. Neely and I had been together about a year when…” He watched the wind whip through the trees and heard the crack of a falling limb. “It's a long, ugly story that I'd rather not tell. The bottom line is, she got shot by another deputy, and I—I walked away from her. I left her lying on the sidewalk, bleeding, not knowing how badly she was hurt. A couple days later I came back home to Oklahoma, and I never saw her again until Jace asked for my help in protecting her. All those years I'd convinced myself I was right in leaving her, in blaming her for everything that went wrong. All those years I'd lied to myself.”