Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (3 page)

"I’ll watch," he promised as he carefully stowed the shotgun so it wouldn't bounce around, then slid into the driver's seat and hooked the kill switch to his shirt. As an afterthought, he tossed her the keys to his Jeep. "Drive the Cherokee home. I'll bring your truck and boat back as soon as I can."

She deftly caught the keys, but waved off any concern about the boat. "You just be careful upriver. I hope everything's all right." Worry etched her face.

Jackson turned the ignition switch and the big outboard coughed into deep, rumbling life. He put it in reverse and backed away from the bank, turning the boat so he was headed upriver. Then he pushed the throttle down and the nose of the boat rose out of the water as it gained speed, before dropping down and settling on plane, skimming across the water.

The river was slow-moving and marshy, filled with snags, shoals, and weed beds ready to snare anyone unfamiliar with its obstacles. Mindful of Charlotte Watkins's warning—another woman who seemed to know an awful lot about the way to the Jones place—Jackson kept the boat dead center and prayed as he tried to balance urgency with caution, but urgency kept getting the upper hand. Maybe Miss Jones was having a peaceful summer afternoon, but maybe she wasn't.

The rush of air cooled him, drying the sweat on his body and making the thick heat of summer feel almost comfortable. As he skimmed past the little sloughs and cuts in the river he looked at all of them, hoping to see Thaniel doing nothing more sinister than feeding worms to the fish. No such luck.

Then he rounded a bend in the river and saw a flat-bottom boat pulled up on the bank and tied to a tree. Thaniel was nowhere in sight.

Jackson didn't slow. The Jones place couldn't be much farther up the river, because it looked as if Thaniel had decided to walk the rest of the way, so he could approach unnoticed. That gave Jackson a little more time, maybe enough time to head off any trouble.

Even as he had the thought he heard the shot, a deep retort that boomed out over the water and was easily audible over the sound of the outboard motor. Shotgun, he thought. He eased up on the throttle and reached for the Kevlar vest, slipping it on and fastening the Velcro straps. Then he shoved the throttle down again, the boat leaping forward in response.

Fifteen seconds later the house was in sight, taking form dead ahead of him, just as Jo had said. The river seemed to end right there. The house was built of old, weathered wood that blended into the tall trees surrounding it, but in front of it was a short dock with an old flat-bottom tied to it, and that was what he saw first.

He had to back off the power to bring the boat into the dock. He reached for his shotgun as he did, holding it in his left hand as he steered the boat. "This is Sheriff Brody!" he bellowed. "Thaniel, you stop whatever the hell it is you're doing and get your ass out here." Not the most professional way of speaking, he supposed, but it served the purpose of announcing him and letting Thaniel know his identity wasn't a secret.

But he didn't really expect things to settle down just because he was there, and they didn't. Another shotgun blast boomed, answered by the flatter crack of a rifle.

The shots were coming from the back of the house. Jackson nosed the boat toward the dock and killed the engine. He leaped out while the dock was still a foot away, automatically looping the mooring rope around one of the posts as he did so, ingrained training taking hold so everything was accomplished while he was in motion.

He ran up the short dock, the thudding of his boots on the wood in time with the hard beating of his heart. The old familiar clarity swept over him, the by-product of adrenaline and experience. He'd felt the same thing every time he jumped out of a plane during airborne training. lightning-fast, his brain processed the details he saw.

The front door of the old wooden house was standing open, a neatly-patched screen door keeping out the insects. He could see straight through to the back door, but no one was in sight. The porch looked like a jungle, with huge potted plants and hanging baskets everywhere, but there wasn't any junk sitting around like there was at most houses, his included. He took with one leap the three steps up to the porch, and flattened himself against the wall.

The last thing he wanted was to get shot by the very person he was trying to help, so he repeated his identity. "This is Sheriff Brody! Miss Jones, are you all right?"

There was a moment of silence in which even the insects seemed to stop buzzing. Then a woman's voice came from somewhere out back. "I'm fine. I"ll be even better when you get this jackass off my property."

She sounded remarkably cool for someone who was under attack, as if Thaniel was of no more importance than the mosquitos.

Jackson eased around the corner of the wide, shady porch that wrapped around three sides of the house. He was now on the right side, with thick woods both to the right and ahead or him. He couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, not a patch of color or a rustling of bushes. "Thaniel!" he yelled. "Put your weapon down before you get your stupid ass shot off, you hear me?"

There was another moment of silence. Then came a sullen, "I didn't do nothin', Sheriff. She shot at me first."

He still couldn't see Thaniel, but the voice had come from a stand of big pine trees behind the house, practically dead ahead. "I’ll decide whose fault it is." He edged closer to the back of the house, his shotgun held ready. He was safe from Miss Jones's shots, for the moment, but Thaniel would have a straight bead on him if he chose. "Now do what I told you and pitch out your weapon."

"This crazy bitch will shoot me if I do."

"No, she won't."

"I might," came Delilah Jones's calm voice, not helping the situation at all.

"See, what'd I tell you!" Thaniel's voice was high with anxiety. Whatever he had planned, it had gone sadly awry.

Jackson swore under his breath, and tried to make his tone both calming and authoritative. "Miss Jones, where exactly are you?"

"I'm on the back porch, behind the washing machine."

"Put down your weapon and go back inside, so I can have a little talk with Thaniel."

Again that little pause, as if she were considering whether or not to pay any attention to him. Accustomed to instant response, be it positive or negative, that telling little hesitation set Jackson's teeth on edge. "I'll go in the house," she finally said. "But I'm not putting this shotgun down until that fool's off my property."

He'd had enough. "Do as you're told," he said sharply. "Or I'll arrest both of you."

There was another of those maddening moments of silence, then the back door slammed. Jackson took a deep breath. Thaniel's whiny voice floated from the pine trees. "She didn't put down the shotgun like you told her to, Sheriff."

"Neither did you," Jackson reminded him in a grim tone. He eased to the corner of the house. "I have a shotgun too, and I'm going to use it in three seconds if you don't throw down that rifle and come out." The mood he was in, it wasn't a bluff. "One… two… th—"

A rifle sailed out from behind a huge pine tree, landing with a thud on the pine-needle cushioned ground. After a few seconds, Thaniel slowly followed it, easing away from the tree with his hands up and his face sullen. A thin rivulet of blood ran down his right cheek. The wound didn't look like anything from a shotgun, so Jackson figured a splinter must have caught him. The tree trunk sported a great raw gouge level with his chin. Miss Jones hadn't been shooting over Tnaniel's head; she had been aiming for him. And, from the look of that tree, she wasn't shooting bird shot.

Immediately the back screen door popped open and Delilah Jones stepped out, shotgun held ready. Thaniel hit the ground, braying in panic. He covered his head with his hands, as if that would do any good.

God, give me strength, Jackson prayed. The prayer didn't do any good. His temper shattered and he moved fast, so fast she didn't have time to do more than glance at him, certainly not time to react. In two long steps he reached her, his right hand locking around the barrel of her shotgun and wrenching it out of her hands. "Get back inside," he barked. "
Now
!"

She stood as rigid as a post, staring at Thaniel, paying Jackson no more mind than if he hadn't been there at all. "You're dead," she said to Thaniel, her voice flat and calm.

Thaniel jerked as if he'd been shot. "You heard her!" he howled. "She threatened me, Sheriff! Arrest her!"

"I'm of a mind to do just that," Jackson said between clenched teeth.

"I didn't threaten him," she said, still in that flat, monotonous tone. "I don't have to. He'll die without me lifting a finger to help." She looked up at Jackson then, and he found himself caught in eyes the dark green of a woodland forest, watchful, wary, knowing eyes.

He felt suddenly dizzy, and gave a short, sharp jerk of his head. The heat must be getting to him. Everything kind of faded, except her face at the center of his vision.

She was younger than he'd expected, he thought dimly, probably in her late twenties when he had expected a middle-aged, reclusive country woman, by-passed by modern inventions. Her skin was smooth, tanned, and unblemished. Her hair was a mass of brown curls, and her shorts stopped north of mid-thigh, revealing slim, shapely legs. He inhaled deeply, fighting off the dizziness, and as his head cleared he noticed that she had gone utterly white. She was staring at him as if he had two heads.

Abruptly she turned and went inside, the screen door slamming shut behind her.

Jackson took a deep breath, gathering himself before turning back to the problem at hand. He propped her shotgun against the wall and cradled his on one arm as he finally turned his attention back to Thaniel.

"Son of a bitch!"

Thaniel had taken advantage of his splintered attention. The ground where he had lain was bare, and a quick glance told Jackson the rifle was gone, too.

He jumped off the porch, landing half-crouched, the shotgun now held ready in both hands. His head swiveled, but except for a slight waving of some bushes there was no sign of Thaniel. Silently Jackson slipped into the woods close to where the bushes swayed, then stood still and listened.

Thaniel, for all his other faults, was good in the woods. It was about thirty seconds before Jackson heard the distant snap of a twig under a careless foot. He started to follow, then stopped. There was no point in chasing him through the woods; he knew where Thaniel lived, if Miss Jones wanted to file charges against him for trespass and any other charges Jackson thought were applicable.

He turned and looked back at the house, nestled among the trees and blending in so well it looked part of the woodland. He felt oddly reluctant to go in and talk to Miss Jones, a sense of things being subtly altered, out of control. He didn't want to know anything more about her, he only wanted to get in Jerry Watkins's boat and go back downriver, safely away from that strange woman with her spooky eyes.

But his job demanded he talk to her, and Jackson was a good sheriff. That was why he was here, and that was why he couldn't leave without seeing her.

The uneasy feeling followed him, though, all the way to the porch.