Guardian of Justice (14 page)

When Dallas finished his phone call, they headed toward the Woods house again. “I think we’re closer to the car, Dallas,” Kira told him. “Even if we have to go all the way around the field.”

“We’re not going back to the car. Even if it’s there, it’s most likely not operational anymore. That first shot was probably meant to disable it.”

Kira stared at Dallas. She had never felt so overwhelmed. Thoughts she had never considered ran through her mind as she crossed the dirt road and entered the next field. They’d crossed one plowed field and one that still had corn stubble in it before they reached the outbuildings of the Woods farm.

Dallas hadn’t said a word. Kira turned to be sure he was still behind her, even though she’d heard the crunch of cornstalks under his feet. His mouth twisted and he raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she declared.

Dallas shrugged. “Like what?”

“Like you want to say ‘I told you so.’ I was doing my job, not trying to do yours. Cody was missing and Deb phoned me. She didn’t call the police.”

Dallas took hold of her wrist and pulled her into his strong arms. “I wasn’t going to say I told you so. I wasn’t even thinking it. I was thinking that I hope we live to have a second date.”

“A first date,” she corrected, tears threatening to blind her. “I want a first date. Pizza and a movie on my living room floor is not a date!” Kira stomped past the barn, through the corrals and to the back door of the house, while Dallas repeated his apologies about going back to find the silver car.

“Kira,” he said again.

She jiggled the doorknob to see if it happened to be unlocked. It didn’t surprise her too much that it wasn’t. She turned around to go back down the steps, but Dallas blocked her way and once more pulled her to him.

He looked her in the eye, then kissed her forehead. “I think if we make it to that first date, we may as well get married and skip the rest—” Dallas heard the familiar clank and clatter of the loose muffler on the truck. “Hide!” He pulled Kira behind the hedge of lilac bushes with him. The maroon truck rattled toward them, slowing down as it approached the house. It sped off again as soon as it was past.

Kira felt as if her heart was speeding along with it.

Dallas pulled out his cell phone and started pressing buttons as he pushed his way through the hedge.

“Who are you calling now?”

“I’m taking a picture. Let’s hope someone at the Fossil Creek PD owes your brother a favor.”

SEVENTEEN

Dallas and Kira sat on the front porch, waiting for her brother, Nick, to arrive to give them a ride into town. Kira called the Woodses and told them to find a place to stay in town for the night. Somewhere safe, she reiterated more than once.

“What were we talking about, before the truck came back?” Dallas asked. That was his first mistake.

“You had the nerve to ask me to marry you. Was that supposed to be a proposal?”

That was his second mistake. Answering would be his third. Dallas held up his hands in surrender. “I take it that’s a no?”

Her jaw dropped and she stood up and walked away. She went ten yards, then back five. “What is wrong with this picture?” She huffed. “I don’t even know where to start!”

Dallas knew it wasn’t funny, but he wanted to laugh. He hadn’t meant for her to take it seriously. Not really. It probably wasn’t a wise decision to admit that right now. “I make jokes when I’m stressed. Bad jokes, maybe,” he said with a shrug. He went closer and touched her arm, but she jerked away. Was she that angry, or was she hurt?

Before they could finished their discussion, a sheriff’s officer stopped by to make sure they were okay. He’d been sent out to look for the truck, and offered them a ride back to Kira’s car. “Thanks anyway, Jarred. Her brother’s already on the way. He should be here soon.”

“I’ll be close by. Call if you need anything,” the deputy told them as he drove off.

Kira’s brother Nick drove up in his unmarked car minutes after the sheriff left. He greeted them with a critical eye and a simple nod. Dallas could tell Kira was still fuming. The muscles in her jaw were strained and her usually plump lips were pulled into a thin line. Her normally light brown skin had a pale ashen look to it. She was covered in dirt, as Dallas was.

“What happened to you two?” Nick asked as he opened the back door.

Dallas waited, but Kira didn’t say a word. “We had a lead on the cell phone, so we came looking for it,” he explained. “Someone else apparently had the same tracking going on, because we had company.”

Kira limped to the car and dropped into the back seat. Dallas knelt next to her, while her brother hovered nearby. “Kira, are you okay?” Dallas asked.

She nodded silently.

Nick tapped him on the head. When Dallas looked up, he saw concern and silent questions on her brother’s face.

Dallas knew one way to determine if she was thinking clearly. “Would you like to go out to dinner and a movie tomorrow night? If I have to hire bodyguards to assure we can enjoy ourselves, I will.” He rocked back on his heels, expecting her reaction.

“I think I’m busy. I’m going to a PTSD group at church. I think I’m going to need it.”

She took his breath away. Even after all she’d been through, she remembered a scheduled meeting. “Let’s get going, honey.” He lifted her legs into the car and closed the door. “I’m going to sit back here with her,” he told Nick. “Let’s stop by the E.R. first, get her checked out.”

“I think that’s wise. What happened?”

As Dallas walked around the car, he filled Nick in on the highlights—the gunfire, the irrigation canal and Kira’s tumble down the embankment. “Maybe she hit her head,” Dallas said as he opened the door.

Kira seemed lethargic when he sat down next to her and tried talking to her. She smiled slightly and slumped against him.

“Make sure she stays conscious,” Nick said. He spun the car out of the farmyard and turned on his siren.

Dallas struggled to get her seat belt fastened around her before he fastened his own. “She seemed okay twenty minutes ago. She did kind of lose her temper with me, but I just figured I had it coming. Maybe that was a reaction to the fall. Let’s stop at the new hospital. I think that will be quicker to get to than going all the way into Fossil Creek.”

Nick agreed. “So what is it you have on this shooter? Did you recognize him?”

Dallas brushed Kira’s hair from her face so he could see her eyes. “We were never close enough to get a good look at him.” He interrupted his discussion with Nick. “Kira? Kira, wake up.” He roused her from her sleep. “Kira, who am I?”

She looked up at him and mumbled his name, then snuggled close again.

“That’s comforting. She remembers who you are,” Nick said.

“You’re telling me!” Dallas hugged her close. “So anyway, we never made direct contact with the shooter, and I only have a lousy picture of the pickup. Hopefully you have better equipment than ours in Antelope Springs. This photo is going to take a lot of cleaning up to read the license plate.”

“I’ll see what my computer geek can do,” Nick said as he pulled up the emergency entrance. They helped Kira into the hospital, and waited for a doctor to examine her.

While the medical staff ran tests, Dallas showed Nick the photo on his phone. “I didn’t want to draw any more attention to Kira and myself, so the picture is pretty blurry. Do you think it can be cleared up enough to run the plates?”

“We’ll see what the lab thinks. They have some new technology that might do it.” Nick called the technician, who suggested they send it to him, and he’d see what he could do while they waited with Kira.

The doctor called Nick into the room, leaving Dallas out in the waiting area. It felt odd for Dallas to realize just how much he loved Kira. And yet because he wasn’t a relative, he wouldn’t be allowed to stay with her. He paced, blaming himself for her being hurt. A few minutes later, he took to the halls, where there was more room to pace, and burn off some of the adrenaline.

God, I beg you to take care of Kira. I was a fool to think I had any say in my future. I think she’s right. I think you knew my heart was broken. I think you knew I was in no shape then to deal with returning to the uniform, let alone a relationship.

Dallas glanced out the window and saw the Rocky Mountains, topped with snow. He placed a fist on the steel frame of the window and leaned his forehead against the glass.

I didn’t expect to find a woman who could empathize with what happened in my past, let alone someone who needs my help just as much as I need hers. Kira knows more than I do what it takes to maintain a relationship in law enforcement. Help her forgive me for how insensitive I was to propose to her in the middle of this case. If you are really preparing us for one another, Father, hit me over the head when it’s the right time to ask her to share my life. Give me the strength not to rush her, Lord.

He took a deep breath, wishing that this case was over so they could enjoy getting to know one another.

Dallas felt a tap on his shoulder. “Kira wants to see you.”

Kira wanted to get back to her normal routine. No, actually, she wanted to move on. She’d been stuck in this rut for months.

She wanted to feel again, to fall in love. Problem was, the man she wanted seemed terrified of letting anyone into his life. He was so afraid of it he made jokes about getting married.

Nick patted her arm. “How’re you doing, sis?”

Kira shrugged, still drowsy. “I feel like I’m caught in a tornado. It just keeps going round and round, and every time I land, something else goes wrong.” Like love.“Who are these crazy people and when are they going to leave me alone? Would you hand me my water?”

Nick helped her get a drink, then sat on the flimsy hospital chair and propped his fingertips together. “Now that Mickey’s gone, there’s got to be something else they’re after. I don’t know. Maybe Mickey had his phone set up to move money from account to account, and the kingpin thinks he can move it electronically.”

“This guy shot at us, more than once. Why is he trying to kill me?”

“I doubt he was trying to kill you,” Nick said quietly. “Just scare you.”

“Well, it worked,” she said. “The guy in the truck wasn’t just watching Dallas and me, he was checking out the Woodses house, too.” Kira looked around. “Where is Dallas?”

“They wouldn’t let him in the room with you. Only relatives. I know you’ve been through a lot together this last few weeks, but—”

“I want him here with me.” She couldn’t explain now.

“Kira,” her brother admonished. “The hospital has rules.”

“I know that, but he’s going to be related,” Kira said as the doctor walked in. “He asked me to marry him. I’m going to say yes. I need to tell him yes.”

Nick’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”

“Would you go get him for me? And don’t say anything yet, Nick. We want to break the news ourselves, in our own time. But that explains why I want him here. Please.”

He stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

The doctor glanced at Kira. “When did this proposal take place?”

“A couple of hours ago, maybe.” She noticed him writing something down. “You don’t think I’m making things up, do you?”

“Well, I was thinking you may have a mild concussion, but if you’re recalling details like that, a concussion is unlikely. That’s the good news.”

“And the bad?” She asked hesitantly.

“A broken scapula, which is pretty rare. You must have hit something directly.”

“A chunk of cement, in an irrigation canal,” she said, recalling the tumble she’d taken. “It hurt, especially when I climbed out of the ditch.”

“You used your arm to climb, after the fall? No wonder you’re in such pain.” He wrote more notes, then looked at her again. “Your brother mentioned you were out of it when they brought you here. I previously thought that must have been a concussion, but it sounds like that was your defense mechanism kicking in. When you didn’t listen to your brain telling you not to use your arm, it kicked into high gear, making you sleep.”

“I thought you were going to wait to go through all of this until we got here,” Nick said, interrupting the doctor. “What did you find?”

Dallas made a beeline for Kira’s bedside. He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “You’re not feeling any better, are you.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Not so good.”

The doctor nodded. “We’re just discussing how this may have happened. I was asking her questions as a point of reference.”

Dallas looked into her drowsy eyes and brushed dirt from her jaw. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s on some pain medicine that will keep her resting for a while so we can monitor the bruise on her back and shoulder. She cracked her scapula in a fall, apparently.” The doctor looked at Kira. “I’ll need to ask—” he turned to Dallas “—you a few questions to verify she doesn’t have any memory loss or confusion.”

“I’m Dallas Brooks,” he said, extending his hand, “and I’m happy to answer any questions if it will help.”

Nick watched critically as Kira waited.

“How long ago would you say Kira fell?”

Dallas looked at his watch. “Two or three hours ago, I’d guess. We were climbing on some chunks of concrete. I asked if she was okay, and she said she thought so.”

“A broken scapula is very rare. She thinks she hit a sharp corner of the concrete?”

“She might have. I couldn’t see her very well. I was lying across a rickety old foot bridge to help pull her up an embankment. I heard her fall, and it didn’t sound good, but then she popped right back up and climbed out.”

The doctor wrote down a few more things, then looked up again. “You mentioned that she got upset with you at one point, which didn’t seem normal to you.”

Dallas nodded. “The yelling didn’t seem like her, but it wasn’t totally out of line. I was a little insensitive, and mentioned getting married.”

“You think?” Nick mumbled.

“Yeah, I know. I figured she had a right to be upset, since came a little out of the blue. You think her outburst was due to something else?”

He shrugged. “Actually, I thought maybe she had a concussion, but she insisted we let you in, claiming that you’re engaged.”