A_Wanted Man - Alana Matthews (21 page)

Then he pulled her close and kissed her forehead. Her nose. Her lips.

And all the evils of the world went far, far away.

Chapter Twenty-Three

It was up to Callie to go for help.

At daybreak she made her way up the trail and found Mercer’s horses where they had left them, then rode for several hours until she was within cell phone range.

The rescue team came in helicopters, picking Callie up in a wide clearing, then following her directions until they found Robbers Canyon.

As Landry had warned, there was no real place to land, so the team was forced to hover above the canyon as rescuers made fast rope descends and hooked Megan, Jonah and Harlan into harnesses to pull them out of there.

Megan looked pale from the loss of blood, but Jonah’s tourniquet had managed to stop the bleeding and the paramedics assured them that her prognosis was good.

“Until she comes to,” Callie said to Harlan. “Then she’ll probably wish she’d joined her boyfriend in the afterlife.”

Harlan nodded. “I look at people like this and realize just how normal my life really is.”

“You and me both,” Callie said. “You and me both.”

T
HE WOUND IN
H
ARLAN’S HEAD
took twenty-three stitches. The doctor warned him of a possible concussion, but his pupils seemed fine, and his only real concern was a throbbing headache that was expected to last for several hours.

Callie herself had a body full of cuts and bruises, but nothing serious enough to warrant more than some healing salve and a bandage or two.

The same couldn’t be said for Sheriff Mercer, however, who had nearly lost his leg to an infection over the past twenty-four hours. Fortunately the doctors had managed to fight it off, and Mercer was expected to make a full recovery.

It turned out that Rusty Wilcox’s ankle had suffered a full-fledged fracture and he wound up in a cast.

“Looks like you’re off the hook for a while,” he told Callie. “Won’t be stuck training me.”

“You’ve pretty much proven yourself, Deputy. But don’t think this gets you out of any work. Cast or no cast, there’ll be plenty of paperwork to deal with.”

“Not as fun as dodging bullets,” he said, “but right now paperwork sounds pretty darn good.”

Gloria Pritchard was missing in action.

Shortly after Rusty and Mercer had been picked up by the medevac team the night before, word of Landry Bickham’s rogue behavior had been delivered to their colleagues, and a couple of homicide deputies had gone to the hospital to question her.

She had answered calmly and politely, claiming to know nothing about what Landry might be up to. But within two hours of their departure, she had checked herself out of the hospital and left in a taxi.

She hadn’t been seen since.

She wouldn’t be getting any help from Jonah. Before Callie left Robbers Canyon to summon the rescue team, Pritchard had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with his daughter, blaming her for everything, including all that was wrong with Megan.

“I don’t understand that woman,” he told them, his stoic pride still intact despite what had happened. “I’ve given her everything she ever wanted or needed. I can’t believe she betrayed me like this.”

There seemed, however, to be very little regret in his voice. Which, to Callie’s mind, said a lot more about him than his words ever would. And blaming anyone but himself for the disaster his family had become was typical Jonah.

So now Gloria was on her own and would soon be struck from his will. She had once again failed to get what she had sought. She’d lost her youth, her looks and the Pritchard family fortune; all because of vanity and greed, and her stubborn refusal to allow time and fate to run their course.

She probably had a significant amount of cash stashed somewhere and had boarded a private plane shortly after she’d been questioned by the deputies. She must have assumed that Landry would be caught and would eventually give her up and was likely headed for Europe or South America.

Whether she had loved Landry or had merely used him as a means to an end was something only she knew. But Callie suspected that Gloria had no more conscience than her daughter did, and Callie was surprised it had taken Gloria so long to finally act on her hatred for her father.

As Callie and Harlan left the hospital, she caught a glimpse of Jonah in the waiting room holding vigil for his beloved granddaughter. He had to know that his money couldn’t buy her out of a murder charge, and that Megan felt no more love for him than Gloria had. Yet there he was, still clinging to the pathetic hope that he might somehow turn it all around.

Were the rumors about him true? Had he done to Megan what Gloria had accused him of? Or had a mother indeed brainwashed her daughter into believing the unspeakable had happened?

There was no way to know, of course, and Callie decided to set aside her own prejudices and give Jonah the benefit of the doubt. Maybe because a very small part of her felt sorry for him.

Somewhere in there, beneath the stony exterior, was a man who was now very much alone.

And Callie wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Nana Jean’s tests showed that she was anemic, which explained her occasional dizzy spells. Judith had been kind enough to take her home from the hospital the previous afternoon, and had spent the night making sure there were no more mishaps and that Nana took her prescribed medication.

Nana was ecstatic when she finally got Callie’s call.

“I was worried sick about you. When are you coming home?”

“Just as soon as we wrap things up here.”

“Are you bringing you-know-who with you?”

Callie knew she shouldn’t be surprised by the question. She sometimes thought Nana knew her better than she knew herself. “I haven’t asked him.”

“Child, don’t you dare blow this opportunity. You lost him once, don’t lose him again. He’s a keeper.”

“You don’t even know him,” Callie said.

“Don’t need to. I see it in your eyes every time you talk about him. Even when you’re angry with him.”

Callie thought about this and had to laugh. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you, Nana?”

“I just know what I know,” she said.

W
HEN
H
ARLAN WAS DONE
getting his head stitched up, Callie offered him another night’s lodging.

She said, “I assume you don’t have any objections.”

“That sofa isn’t the most comfortable thing I’ve ever slept on.”

“Who says you’ll be sleeping on the sofa? Someone has to keep an eye on you. Make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

He smiled. “In that case, how could I possibly refuse?”

It was well after sundown when they walked in the door to find Nana waiting for them in the parlor with a plate of sandwiches and a pitcher of iced tea.

After the hugs and kisses were over, she said to Harlan, “Glad to see you used your time wisely.”

Harlan eyed her as if he’d just discovered that Nana was Wyoming’s oldest and wisest sage. “You knew this would happen, didn’t you?”

“I had a pretty good idea. I figured all you two had to do was stop bumping heads and sooner or later you’d start bumping—”

“Okay, Nana, we get the picture,” Callie told her, her face turning red.

Then they all started laughing and Callie and Harlan pulled up chairs and ate their sandwiches and drank their tea.

When they were done clearing the dishes, Nana disappeared into her room to get some rest, giving Callie a squeeze of the hand and a wink as she left. “You be sure to take care of that plumbing now.”

When she was gone, Callie and Harlan went into the living room and Callie gestured to the sofa. “So that dream you had?”

“What about it?”

“What exactly were we doing that got you so hot and bothered?”

“I think it would be much easier to show you than tell you.”

Then he kissed her, and she slipped her tongue between his lips as she ran her hands along his lower back.

She said, “What about your head?”

“What about it?”

“I wouldn’t want to jangle anything loose up there.”

“Damage is already done,” he said. “I’m crazy about you, Cal.” Then he sighed. “I can’t believe I let you go so easily. Instead of getting angry with you, I should have forced you to listen to me.”

She kissed him again. “Let’s forget about all that, okay?”

But he shook his head. “I don’t want to spoil the mood, but we need to talk about it. The elephant in the room. If you want this to work, you need to hear my side of what happened to Treacher, once and for all.”

Callie stiffened. “Can’t it wait?”

“You know it can’t.”

He was right. But just the mere mention of that time made the walls go up.

She fought against those walls and nodded, then pulled away from him and sat on the sofa.

“All right,” she said. “Tell me your story.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Harlan sat next to her, trying to find a way to ease into this without getting Callie’s back up. But then he decided to just get on with it. No hedging. No sugarcoating.

“Treacher was stir-crazy that night,” he said. “We’d all been studying so hard for finals and he insisted I go with him to the party. Tried to get you to go, too, remember?”

She nodded. “I remember.”

“So we get there and the first thing he does is hit the cooler. Passes me a beer and tells me he’s gonna circulate. I wasn’t really in the mood, so I found a chair and kicked back, drank my beer.” He looked at her. “And that was all I had to drink.”

She nodded.

“So I’m sitting there doing the slow sip when Nicole Bittenger perches herself on the arm of the chair and starts talking to me. She was already three sheets to the wind, and I was worried she’d wind up flat on her face.”

He saw Callie stiffen slightly. She had always believed the story circulated around campus that he and Nicole had hooked up that night, and all he could do was tell her the truth and hope for the best.

He said, “But that’s
all
we did. Talk. Mostly about Treacher. Nicole was interested in him and wanted to know if I knew what Treacher thought of her.”

Callie didn’t look convinced. “And what did you tell her?”

“I told her I didn’t know, but that Treacher was a straightforward guy and if she wanted to find out, all she had to do was ask.” He paused. “You knew Nicole, so you can imagine how that worked out.”

“She threw herself at him.”

“In all her drunken glory. But by that time Treacher was pretty drunk himself and when I finally climbed out of my chair, I found them out on the back patio in the middle of a clinch, and it didn’t look like either of them was ready to come up for air. But just as I was about to leave, Treacher saw me standing there and gave the look.”

“The look?”

“The
get me out of here
look. As drunk as he was, he still seemed to have the presence of mind to know that getting involved with Nicole was a huge mistake. Yet here he was, making out with her.”

“That isn’t the way
I
heard it,” Callie said. “People told me that you and Treacher got in a fight over her. That you were angry because he’d lured her away.”

Harlan shook his head. “Not true at all. I just told him I wanted to go home and I thought he should, too, and I asked him for his keys so I could drive. He agreed and got to his feet, but Nicole didn’t want him to leave and started getting upset. I tried to calm her down, but she was a pretty nasty drunk and things got ugly. We were alone out there, so I have to assume that people heard the yelling and thought it was Treacher and me going at each other with Nicole in the middle.”

He could see that Callie was still on the fence. The old wounds were opening again. “So they were lying when they said they saw you take Nicole upstairs?”

He shook his head. “No. That much is true. She was in the middle of her tirade when all of sudden she said she was gonna be sick, so I told Treacher to stay put and rushed her upstairs to the bathroom.” He paused. “I spent the next twenty minutes holding her hair as she leaned over the toilet bowl.”

And paid dearly for his chivalry.

“You expect me to believe this?”

“I expect you to trust me, Cal. Did I ever give you reason not to?”

She hesitated. “No. I guess you didn’t.”

“When Nicole was done being sick, I cleaned her up, then took her into one of the bedrooms and laid her across the bed. But by the time I got back downstairs, Treacher was nowhere to be found. I checked the patio and every room of that house, then finally went outside and saw his car was gone. He’d left without me.” Harlan looked at her. “And I haven’t lived a day without wishing I’d ignored Nicole and just taken him home.”