The Sheriff's Surrender (25 page)

She took the phone from Reese, but held it where he could hear. “And what would you suggest?”

“Hell, I don't know. Wild sex?”

She responded to his sarcasm with flippancy. “Been there, done that, enjoyed it tremendously. But you've got to come up for air sometime, you know.”

“With the hours I've been putting in on your case, no, I wouldn't know. Bottom line, Neely—you're not setting yourself up as a target for a cold-blooded killer.”

“Jace, I'm already a target. I just want to bring it to an end.”

“Are you so anxious to die?”

“No.” She looked at Reese and felt a sharp ache in her chest. “I'm anxious to live. Please think about it, Jace.”

He said he would and would call them back. They watched a little television. They lay together on the sofa and talked about interesting cases. Brady called to check on them and to report on the flood damage. Callie came by to check up on Reese—without Isabella, Neely was happy to see. So much as one
cowboy
or semi-sultry look in his direction, and pretty
Isabella would have left minus a handful of that lovely red hair.

Shay called to see if she could persuade Reese to take Neely to their ranch for dinner, but he said they already had plans, then made good on his lie by making love to her again with his hands, his mouth, his body, and leaving her too weak to do more than sigh delightedly when it was over.

She was lying on her back across the bed, and Reese was stretched out beside her, watching her with a smug grin. “I may never move again,” she murmured in a ragged voice. “I've got tingling in places I didn't know existed.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, no. Thank you.” Behind her closed eyes, she could make out the shadows caused by the ceiling fan blades as they whirred, the breeze they created drying the sheen that covered her body from head to toe. Her entire body felt satiated and achy and thoroughly well used, and her heart felt… The way it always had with Reese—swollen to near bursting with love.

“You are too good, Sheriff.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” he said in a lazy drawl. “I'm sworn to protect and service.”

The ring of the telephone startled her eyes open, and she rolled over onto her stomach. She hadn't realized that he'd hooked up the phone in the bedroom, too. Of course, she'd been more than a little preoccupied when they'd come in.

Reese sat up without too much difficulty and hit the speaker button, then offered a curt hello.

“Hey, bubba. Is Neely around? I need to ask her something.”

“I'm right here,” she replied. “What do you want to know?”

“In your office at home, you had a picture frame on your desk—silver, with lots of curlicues and stuff.”

She smiled. “You need a little culture in your life, Jace. It's called filigree. What about it?”

“What was the picture in it?”

“It's a handsome pitcher before the game that ended what would have been one of baseball's most stellar careers. Why?”

“Would he be easily identifiable?”

Looking at the duplicate on the opposite nightstand, Reese said, “I'm standing on the field in Kauffman Stadium, wearing a Royals uniform. Uh, yeah, I'd say every sports bar in the city has at least one trivia buff who would be able to identify me. If not, there are the media guys, or the clip files at the libraries or, hell, just go to the Royals and ask.”

Judging from his grim tone, Neely realized she was missing something. “What does it matter? The picture's in my office…locked…up… They
broke
into my house?”

“I guess they thought they might find something there when your office came up empty.”

“They broke into my
office?
” she shrieked. “
When?
Why didn't you tell me?”

“I told Reese,” Jace said defensively, and she turned her scowl on him.

“We had other things on our minds, babe. You can yell at me later. Let's get back to the subject. When was the house broken into?”

“Don't know for sure. Best guess is sometime between yesterday morning and this afternoon. Neighbor noticed the blinds were closed differently or something and called us. The place was ransacked, but the only thing that's obviously missing is the picture. They left the frame on the desk and the broken glass on the floor. My theory is the man who winged you, bubba, was either involved or gave 'em a real good description of you. Someone recognized you in the picture and was smart enough to realize they could get a name from it.”

And with a name, it wouldn't be difficult at all to get a town, Neely acknowledged. Anyone with a smidge of motivation could easily find a dozen sources that gave Heartbreak as Reese's hometown. It had been common knowledge when he'd retired from baseball that he was going into law enforcement. Every soul in Thomasville knew he'd gone back home
when he'd left there, and not a soul in Heartbreak would think twice about giving a stranger directions to the sheriff's house.

“So chances are better than good that Forbes's people are on their way here, if not already here.” Reese sounded calm, serious, but not overly worried. When he caught her watching him, he winked, then wrapped his fingers around hers.

“That'd be my guess. Can you get her to the county jail?” Jace asked.

“I don't think that would be our best move. You know the road from here to Buffalo Plains. I've only got one good arm, and while Neely could put the fear of God into just about anyone with her driving, she doesn't have any training in evasive or defensive techniques. I'll call Brady, my undersheriff, and see if he can help us out, and I believe she'll be moving from the guest room to the safe room this evening.”

“So…” She cleared her throat and tried to make her voice steady. “I guess our stupid plan is no longer necessary. Instead of facing Forbes on our own terms, we get to wait for his guys to come after us like sitting ducks.”

“I'm sorry, Neely,” Jace said.

“Please, no more apologies and no more talk about blame or fault. We're not the bad guys here.” Tugging free of Reese, she sat up, located her clothes where he'd scattered them, and quickly got dressed. “Wish us luck, Jace.”

“Listen, I've got a buddy with his own plane that I'm gonna track down. I'll get there as quick as I can. Until then…you guys take care of yourselves. You know I love you both.”

She glanced at Reese, feeling suddenly shy, then replied, “We love you, too.” As he disconnected the call, she took a deep breath. “This sounds serious.”

“You'll be okay.”

“
We'll
be okay.” Though she tried to sound confident, she knew she barely managed hopeful and came too close for comfort to pleading.

“Help me with my jeans—and no fondling,” he warned when a smile curved her lips. After she obediently helped him with the snug-fitting denims without any untoward touches, he
kissed her forehead. “Stay here. Don't leave this room for anything.”

“Where are you going?”

With the pistol gripped firmly in his left hand, he gazed back at her on his way out. “To get ready. We're gonna stop these creeps, babe, once and for all.”

W
hile talking to Brady on the cell phone, Reese made the rounds of the house, checking locks, closing blinds and drapes. He moved his truck out of the garage so Brady could pull in when he arrived, got his department-issue shotgun from the sheriff's vehicle, then returned to the bedroom. Neely was sitting exactly where he'd left her, looking pensive.

“I bet you wish I'd destroyed that picture,” she murmured. “I've managed to lead them right to us.”

“Actually, I'm flattered that you kept it.” He laid the shotgun and the cell phone on the bed, then opened the nightstand drawer where his own photographs stayed. She didn't smile, but she did look a little less troubled.

“Brady's on his way over. He's going to have a look around before he comes to the house. He'll be armed for bear. You're sleeping in the safe room tonight. Except for going to the bathroom, I don't want you farther than ten feet away from it. These guys could already be set down out there in the woods, just waiting for us to go to bed, or they may still be in Kansas City. You hear a sound, get your butt in there and lock the
door. Don't worry about what's going on out here, and don't come out for anyone you don't know.”

“I have a better idea. Why don't you, and Brady when he gets here, go in the safe room with me? After a while, they'll get tired of shooting at what's basically a bulletproof room and they'll go away.”

“But they won't go far. It ends here, darlin'.”

“Forbes probably won't be with them.”

“Probably not. But at best we'll be able to tie him to them. At worst, we'll put the word out that trying to cash in on his contract is a good way to wind up in jail or dead.” While they were talking, he'd been making trips back and forth from the closet to the bed. After the last one, he surveyed his cache. One .45, one .38 revolver, two shotguns, one single-shot rifle, one semiautomatic rifle, and nowhere near enough ammunition. He wasn't a hunter, so the only shooting he did was at the range, and since that was for the job, he picked up ammo at work.

If he survived this, he would add both weapons and ammunition to his arsenal. With Neely's knack for pissing off criminals, he would probably need them.

“What do you need from the guest room?” he asked, then went on before she could reply. “Never mind. I'll get everything. You're not sleeping in there again.”

“You're awfully bossy.”

“I'm just looking out for your welfare, darlin'.” And his future. Their future.

He moved through the quiet house, wondering what, if anything, was going on outside. They were fortunate in that there weren't a lot of places to hide out there—just the barn out back and the woods out front—and there weren't any neighbors close enough to get caught in any cross fire.

Assuming there was cross fire. They'd tried using a bomb the first time and a semi-automatic weapon the second. It was anyone's guess what their next weapon of choice would be.

Neely had finally unpacked, he found out when he picked up her suitcase from the corner. He refilled it hastily with soft
dresses and silky, satiny lingerie, tossed in her books, glasses and chocolate kisses, then got her shampoo and stuff from the bathroom. Carrying the unzipped suitcase with one arm was awkward, but he made it back to his room and the bed before dropping it. While she watched, he put the bathroom stuff in
his
bathroom, and the clothes in his closet. The lingerie went into a drawer with his briefs, until he had time to clear out a drawer for her, though he stopped with the last matching set. Peach satin that was incredibly soft, little pieces that couldn't possibly cover more than the bare essentials, tiny lacy panties, barely-there bra. Designed for form rather than function.

“I never understood why clothing people make something so pretty just so it can be hidden under T-shirts and jeans.”

“I offered to model those for you on the deck last Saturday, but you said if I took my clothes off, you'd have to arrest me for indecent exposure.” She smiled. “Of course, you pulled a peeping Tom later, anyway.”

He could too easily imagine her long, slender body lying in the sun, all creamy skin and pale peach scraps. He would have been a goner, then and there.

Swallowing hard, he dropped the garments in the drawer and bumped it shut with his hip, then turned to face her. “That pretty much takes care of everything.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We wait.”

It sounded so easy. Do nothing and wait for Brady to arrive, for Jace and for Forbes's men. Wait for them to make another attempt on Neely's life. Wait for some criminal to decide that this was a good time to kill her.

It was going to be one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

Brady showed up first, more than an hour after Reese had called him. He called on the cell phone to let them know it was him pulling into the driveway, and Reese went to meet him in the garage. He'd brought enough ammunition to hold off a small army, along with good news. “I parked down the street and came up through the woods and checked the barn. There's no one around, no strange cars parked anywhere, no
one in town looking like they don't belong. Everything's quiet. I guess now we wait.”

Neely waved one slender hand in the air to get their attention. “I have a suggestion. Why don't we wait…oh, gee, how about in Dallas? I could introduce you to my sister, Kylie. She's the pretty one, Brady. You'd like her.”

“I thought you were the pretty one,” Reese teased as he sat beside her on the bed with a pair of socks and running shoes. “Can you help me with these?”

She slid to her knees on the floor as if she'd helped dress him a hundred times. “Kylie's the pretty one, Hallie's the popular one, Bailey's the smart one, and I'm the…” For a moment, she became still, a distant look creeping across her face, until he touched her hair, pulling her back. “I'm the determined one,” she finished. “The one who doesn't give up.”

But there was a difference, Neely thought as she quickly finished the task, between being determined and being courageous. In spite of her suggestions that they put off this fight for another day, she knew the confrontation was inevitable, but she couldn't find it in her to face it bravely. She couldn't help but dread the knowledge that Reese and Brady—and maybe Jace—were risking their lives for her. She couldn't face the possibility that she might die so soon after resolving the past with Reese, without resolving the future.

She couldn't stop being afraid.

“Do you remember how to use this?”

She blinked, then focused on the gun Reese was holding. It was a revolver, fairly small and rather cute, as well as quite deadly. He'd used it to teach her how to shoot in Thomasville—primarily as an excuse to get his arms around her, she'd teased him. Because, he'd responded, considering the scum she defended, she never knew when it might come in handy.

When she nodded, he asked, “When is the last time you shot one?”

“Three months ago. When we found out Forbes was being paroled. Jace thought I needed a refresher.” She took the gun,
tested its weight in her palm, wrapped her fingers around the grips, then offered it back.

“Keep it with you all the time. Sleep with it under your pillow. Have it on you when you're awake. We'll try to make sure you don't have to use it, but just in case…”

In case she had no one left to rely on but herself. In case he and Brady were wounded…or worse. Feeling sick deep inside, she slid the gun into the roomy pocket of her dress and felt its weight acutely, as if it weighed a ton instead of a few pounds.

“It's ten-fifteen,” Brady said from the doorway. “Why don't we turn the lights off? I'll watch out the back, and you can take the front.”

Neely watched them divide the weapons and ammunition. When Brady started to turn away, she scrambled to her feet and circled the bed. “Last chance, Undersheriff Marshall,” she said, forcing a lightness she didn't feel into her voice. “Take my word for it—Kylie's blond, beautiful and has a fine appreciation for dark, dangerous men. We could be on the road to Texas in three minutes tops, if you'll vote with me.”

Underneath the mustache, his mouth curved into the coolest of smiles. “You can introduce us when she comes for the wedding.”

“What—” She glanced from him to Reese, checking his guns and paying little attention to them. She didn't know whether he'd thought that far ahead, but she had. She intended to marry him and live happily ever after. If it took some convincing…she was up to the challenge.

Rising onto her toes, she kissed Brady's cheek. “Thank you.”

His cheeks turned bronze. “Just doing my job.”

“Right. Be careful.”

He took a few steps into the hallway before pausing. “I'll shut off the lights out there. Wait a minute or two, then turn off the ones in here.”

She nodded and, with an apprehensive shudder, watched him go. The TV they'd left on in the living room went silent,
then the lights were turned off. A moment later the faint glow from the light over the kitchen sink went dark, too. She watched Reese, who'd laid out his weapons on the window seat and was arranging the ammunition nearby.

He looked up and smiled. “We'll be all right.”

“Sure.”

“Aw, come on. You've got the damnedest luck of anyone I know. Bullets bounce off you. Bombs can't touch you.”

Not all bullets bounced. She carried the scars to prove it. Soon, as the healing process continued, he would have his own scars.

She turned off the bathroom light, lingered a moment, then shut off the bedside lamp. The bedsprings creaked as she sat, and thin light filtered into the room as Reese opened the blinds just enough to see out. She settled on his side of the bed, hugging his pillow to her chest, and he settled on the window seat, back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him.

“Do you have other deputies out there, keeping an eye on us?”

“No. Brady and I decided to keep it between us. You have to understand, law enforcement in Canyon County is pretty minor stuff—traffic violations, break-ins, burglaries, bar fights. We've had only three homicides in nine years, and only a handful of shootings. Other than maybe the new one, my deputies haven't been shot at, haven't shot at anyone else or even drawn their guns on someone. Armed and scared, they're likely to be as dangerous to us as to the bad guys.”

His voice was quiet, reassuring even if his words weren't. She rested her chin on his pillow and breathed deeply of his scent. “Do you think they'll come tonight?”

“They have to assume that the break-in at your house will be discovered before long and that someone will know who was in the photograph they took. They already know you're with me. They just have to find out who I am. That'll tell them where I am—and the fact that I have the same last name as the detective handling your case won't go unnoticed. They have to consider that the police already know all that and, as
soon as they find out about the break-in, they're going to warn us and, most likely, move you someplace else immediately. Their only chance is to get to us first, before Jace can put together a move to a new location.

“That's the long answer,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “The short answer is yes. I think they'll come tonight.”

The seconds dragged by, each lasting an hour, or so it seemed. Neely watched Reese's shadowy form as he watched the scene outside, and she listened—to the air-conditioning cycling on and off, the distant chirrup of tree frogs, the quiet hoot of an owl—until every sound was magnified in her ears. She wanted to hide her head under the pillows to block out the noises, but then she would hear the uneven thud of her own heart and the shallow breathing that was all she could manage. She wanted to talk but didn't have a clue what she could say—wanted to run away but knew there was no place to run.

“Neely. Why don't you go in the safe room and sleep a bit?”

“I can't.”

He chuckled. “Sorry to break this to you, darlin', but you've been snoring into my pillow for about five minutes—delicately, of course.”

Pushing the pillow aside, she stood, rubbed her eyes, then stretched. “Remember the scene in
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
where all the people are waiting for the alien ships to return?”

“Or the takeoff on it in
Airplane!
where they're lined up waiting for the plane to land?”

She sounded edgy and afraid. He sounded amused. Though it was wasted, she frowned at him. “Everything's so quiet and still and normal, and yet there's this air of anticipation, and then suddenly… I hate waiting,” she said petulantly. “There's a part of me that wants to go out in the front yard and yell, ‘Here I am! If you're going to do something, for God's sake, do it!'”

“You'd have to get past me, darlin'.”

“You only have one good arm.”

“Yeah, but I could still haul you into the safe room like a sack of grain. When this is over, I'll prove it to you, only I'll settle for hauling you into bed for a week or two.”

“Promises, promises.” She knelt beside the window seat, laying her head on his thigh. “I don't mean to whine.”

“This is whining? Darlin', you need some lessons. My aunt Rozena can whine—make you sound like a songbird in comparison. She can teach you the finer points, and anything she misses, Lena can fill in.”

“Are you any happier about her and your dad getting married?”

He was silent for a moment, then he shrugged. “We may never have much of a mother-son relationship, but I can show her the respect my father's wife deserves.” He stroked her cheek. “That's advice from the best damn lawyer I know, so I think I'd better take it.”

“I think you probably—”