A Sheriff in Tennessee (7 page)

Cass stomped away, muttering. He barely noticed she had left. Instead, he focused on a rapidly diminishing figure to the west, which he hadn't seen at first because he'd been looking for a car. He hadn't considered that Isabelle might jog back to Pleasant Ridge. What lunatic would?

By the time he cleared the area, then called Virgil
to drive him back to town—he was not up to walking back just now—Isabelle must have reached home, because there was no sign of her on the road. Though he had a pile of paperwork to do and a hundred phone calls to make, nevertheless Klein ordered Virgil to drop him off in front of the five-and-dime.

He glanced up at Isabelle's apartment, but he couldn't tell if anyone was in.

He bent and leaned through the open squad car window. “You go ahead and keep the wheels rolling, Virgil,” Klein ordered. “I'm just going to make sure Ms. Ash got back okay.”

“10-4, Chief.”

For the first time since he'd come to town, Klein didn't have the urge to roll his eyes. The way Virgil talked was beginning to seem as commonplace as rain on a rooftop. In fact, if the old man didn't sound like Barney Fife, life just wouldn't be the same.

He took the back steps as quickly as he could. They creaked beneath his weight, and he wondered briefly if they were up to code, then shook his head. He had a feeling that if he mentioned building codes around here, folks would think he was touched. Buildings were built; then they stood until they fell down. That was the code in Pleasant Ridge.

Since there wasn't a doorbell, Klein knocked. Seconds ticked to a minute and beyond. He shuffled his feet, knocked again, waited some more.
Had
she come home?

The longer he waited, the more concerned he be
came. There was nowhere else for her to go, was there? She knew no one but him and Chai, and he doubted she'd visit the mayor. Which was one of the things he liked about her.

Liked? When had he started to like her? Before she'd surprised him today? Or after she'd aroused him yesterday?

“Moron,” he muttered. “A woman like her is not for you.”

He heard again the echo of his earlier thoughts—
a woman like her
—and he was embarrassed, a little ashamed. Isabelle was Isabelle, and she wanted to be his friend; he'd agreed to be her teacher. Right now, he just needed to find her.

Klein whipped out his walkie-talkie. “Virgil?”

“Here, Chief.”

Over the static, Virgil sounded more like Maxwell Smart than Barney Fife. Klein shook his head. He was definitely losing his mind—or watching too much classic television.

“Is Ms. Ash at the station?”

“Negative.”

“Does that mean no?”

“Affirmative.”

Now Klein did roll his eyes. “Thanks.”

“Over and out.” The walkie-talkie went silent.

She wasn't at the station; she couldn't be at city hall. Maybe she was at Lucinda's, but Klein didn't think so. A bead of sweat rolled down his back; a shiver traced the same path. They might be in tiny-town Tennessee, but shit still happened here. This morning merely proved that.

He never should have let her jog home alone. He
should have run after her, or at least sent Virgil to pick her up. A woman who looked like Isabelle, whose face and body had been plastered all over the media, was a prime target for every nut on the face of the earth.

Standing on her porch as fear and worry mingled, Klein again wanted to protect her from everyone and everything. He wanted to slay all her dragons, banish all her demons. He wanted to be her knight; hell, she was already a princess.

Before he tore the town apart searching for her, he had to make sure she wasn't inside. One last knock and he reached for the doorknob. As he'd told Isabelle yesterday, no one in Pleasant Ridge locked any doors, still, he
had
expected her to. Therefore he nearly fell on his face when her door swung open at his touch.

The interior was shadowed, all the curtains drawn, though the window near the bed was open. A weak breeze fluttered the ancient ruffled material.

She sat on the mattress, legs curled to her chest, her back to him. With every wave, the end of one curtain brushed her cheek. She never moved.

Her white shirt, damp with sweat, stuck to her skin. She must have run all the way back to town. He was surprised she wasn't lying in a ditch somewhere with heat exhaustion. But maybe she'd only made it back to suffer in secret.

“Didn't you hear me knock?”

She didn't answer. The fear that had left him at the sight of her came back when she continued to sit on her bed, too still, too quiet, staring out a window that was curtained.

Klein crossed the room. “Isabelle?”

She turned her face toward him. He didn't care for the zoned-out look in her eyes. Shock? Heat exhaustion? Dehydration? Or all of the above?

At least she recognized him, because she smiled and murmured, “Klein.”

If he hadn't been so worried, he might have become aroused by the husky, sleepy way she said his name.

“What's the matter?” he asked.

“Matter?” She blinked, then unraveled her long, long legs and put her feet on the floor.

Klein began to blink, but the sight didn't go away. He thought perhaps
he
was in shock. She'd removed the scrubs she'd donned at the accident scene, and he could see that she'd put them on a little too late. Because her white blouse was spattered with blood. There was a slash of it on her neck. Her forearm and wrist were also still stained. He'd known she'd been helping the doctor, but he hadn't realized how much.

“Don't you think you should take a shower?” he asked.

“Sure.”

She didn't move.

“Isabelle.” He gentled his voice. “Do you know you've got blood on you?”

He touched her hand to see if her skin was clammy or cold. It wasn't. Perhaps she wasn't in shock after all. But she didn't answer him, and that he didn't like.

“You shouldn't have stayed if the blood was going to upset you so.”

“It wasn't the blood. I'm not a ninny.”

Her annoyance reassured Klein a bit. She wasn't too far gone if she could get angry.

“If not the blood, what?”

Her hand twisted beneath his, and she clutched his fingers. Her expression was desperate, urgent; so was her voice. “I didn't help them.”

“Sure you did. From what I heard, you helped a lot.”

“But someone died. I felt so damn helpless. There was nothing to be done.”

“Sometimes there isn't.”

Her head dipped toward her chest. Her hair, which had been in a neat ponytail all day, now lay across her cheek in damp, sweaty hanks, obscuring her face.

“I can't take it when things get out of control,” she murmured.

Klein thought that an odd thing to say under the circumstances. But now was not the time to explore the issue, even though his underused detective skills had gone on alert. Now was the time to get her cleaned up, rehydrated and relaxed.

She still held on tightly to his hand, so Klein pulled her to her feet. “Hop in the shower,” he ordered. “I'll get you something to drink.”

She released him and headed for what he assumed was the bathroom. Klein crossed to her fridge and peered in. Bottled water, fruit, lettuce, yogurt.

“Party on,” he muttered, and grabbed the water.

He'd seen films of marathon runners weaving over the road, stumbling toward the finish line, so
dehydrated they appeared drunk. The dazed expression on Isabelle's face made him cross the room, planning to cover his eyes and hand her the water. She could drink it in the shower.

But as he neared the bathroom, he realized he didn't hear the water running. The door was wide open and he could see her reflected in the mirror above the sink. She fumbled almost frantically with the buttons on her shirt; the rasp of her breathing bounced off the tiled walls of the room.

As if she sensed him behind her, she lifted her head. Her eyes were dark in the paleness of her face; her blond hair only made her appear wanner.

She gave a tiny laugh that was nearly a sob and shrugged. “My hands won't work.”

Uncertain what to say or do, Klein hovered half in, half out of the bathroom. She took a deep breath, which shook as if she'd been crying. But he could see no trace of tears along her ivory cheeks.

She continued to fumble with the buttons. She managed one, and her shirt gaped, revealing a plain, white cotton bra. Such serviceable underwear should shock him, but it didn't. The more he knew about her the less she matched her leather and lace, satin and spandex image.

Isabelle's hands clenched, then dropped back to her sides. “I can't,” she whispered. “Help me.”

His gaze met hers once more in the mirror. “Help?” he repeated dumbly.

“Please.” She motioned vaguely at her shirt. “The buttons.”

The movement made her stumble, and before he knew what he was doing, Klein dropped the water
and grabbed her shoulders. The
thud
of the bottle against the floor foreshadowed the leap of his heart against his chest.

The skin beneath her shirt was hot. When he shifted his hands, the material clung to his palms. He glanced into the mirror again. Sweat beaded her lip. She did not look well.

Running through every curse word he'd ever learned in the marines—and there were quite a few—Klein spun her about and made short work of the buttons. She stood there like a child and let him undress her.

Beneath the ruined shirt, the plain white bra—no lace, no ribbons, nothing but elastic and fiberfill—hid more than it revealed. Lucky for him, because undressing her like this, even though there was nothing sexual about it, was making him remember why he'd been unable to sleep last night.

He had to get her to drink some water, then wash off the blood and sweat. But right now he couldn't think past the feel of her beneath his fingers, the echo of her voice asking for help—her need and his both so similar yet so far apart.

She shivered and swayed. Klein snapped out of it. “Dammit, Izzy.”

He propped her against the sink, yanked a washcloth from the towel rack and ran it under the cold faucet. Then he plopped the thing on the back of her neck and retrieved the water bottle from the floor.

“Drink this.” He shoved it into her hand.

At least she didn't argue. He didn't think she had it in her. Not now at any rate. She lifted the water
to her mouth and drank. Her throat moved as she swallowed, once, twice, three times. Suddenly Klein was thirsty, too, and awfully damn hot.

The long line of blood on her neck distracted him. He wanted to wash it away, but he was afraid to touch her, afraid of what she might think. Of what he might do.

Feelings warred within him—one moment lust, the next protectiveness; another instant he yearned; then he had to defend. Beneath it all pulsed the wariness, the uncertainty, feelings left over from his youth, feelings he'd hoped were long dead.

Klein gave up. The blood on her neck was driving him nuts, so he took the washcloth and smoothed it away. Her soft sigh had him groping for something to say.

“You were fine when Meyers was stitching the old man's head. Then Cass showed up.” Her eyes flicked to his, and a bell clanged in Klein's brain.
Give the man a silver dollar!

He tossed the washcloth into the sink. “Was that it? Cass?” She nodded. “But…you get your picture taken all the time. Why would that upset you?”

“Not the pictures, though I'm glad you ruined them. What happened out there today is not something I want splashed across the country. I helped because I could. I don't need or want any publicity for it.”

“If not the pictures, then what?”

“She called me Ms. Ash.”

“I don't understand.”

Isabelle ducked her head as if embarrassed. For a moment he wondered if she'd just realized she
stood in front of him with her shirt completely unbuttoned and her granny bra plainly visible. Her next words proved she wasn't thinking about the state of her clothes or even the lack of them.

“I was pretending,” she whispered.

“You've still lost me.”

Thankfully his libido seemed to have taken a powder. He was no longer aroused by the sight of her skin, the slope of her neck, the slant of her cheekbone. His curiosity was too alive and humming for that.

“All my life I've pretended to be someone other than who I am. Today I was Florence Nightingale, healer of the sick, heroine of the Crimea.” Her lips twisted self-derisively. “Until Cass called me Ms. Ash.”

His mind seemed to be running several seconds behind his ears today. He took a moment to align his thoughts. “Let me get this straight. You were
acting
like a nurse?”

She tilted her head and peered at him. “Pretty stupid, huh?”

“
Stupid
isn't the word I'd use. More like clever. You had me fooled.” He shrugged. “Whatever works.”

“Huh?”

“If pretending got you through that mess today and enabled you to help people, pretend away.”

She shook her head as though she couldn't believe what she'd heard, then finished the rest of her water in one long swig. He studied her, concerned. Her color was better. Her hands no longer shook.
But she still looked like hell. He should let her get in the shower, yet he had to ask.

“You said you've always pretended to be someone other than who you are. But who wouldn't want to be you?”

Her smile was sad. “Walk a mile in my shoes, Klein, or maybe run a mile.”

True enough. He shouldn't assume her life was as fabulous as it appeared.

“What did you pretend to be as a child?”

“A pretty girl.”

He frowned. Something wasn't adding up here. “And now?”

“The same.”

“But you're beautiful.”