Roan (18 page)

“You were busy.”

That was unanswerable. “Did it occur to you that you could have run right into whoever is out here?”

Jake's only answer was to lift the shotgun that he'd rested against his shoulder.

“Great,” Roan said in taut sarcasm. “And while you were blasting away, what about Donna?”

“She wanted to come with me,” his son protested.

“I'll just bet she did.”

Donna stepped closer, almost nose to nose with him in the darkness, as she said, “I didn't come out here to meet whoever was sneaking around, if that's what you think.”

“You just felt like a midnight stroll.”

“No, I felt…” She stopped and looked away.

“Come on, you can do better than that.”

Her face was unreadable in the dark, still he could feel her resentment. “If you must know, I didn't want to be alone. In case they doubled back and I was trapped inside.”

Sympathy was the last thing he needed to feel. Roan shook it off, asking after a moment, “Why isn't Beau on a leash if you two had him on a scent?”

“He got away from us,” Jake answered quickly, almost as if he wanted to divert the heat away from Donna. “We circled down to the lake, hoping he'd come out of the trees where we could see him. Then we heard you whistle and headed back this way.”

“And you heard nothing, saw nothing?”

“We'd have told you,” his son protested in injured tones.

Roan accepted that with a short nod. “Head on back to the house, both of you. If anything looks or sounds unusual, don't go in. Sit in the patrol unit and wait until I get back. If I'm not there in fifteen minutes, radio for help.”

Jake didn't move. “What if it's Zits and Big Ears out there? What if…?”

“I'll take it from here,” he answered, letting the hard finality of his tone speak for him.

It was enough for Jake; he swung in the direction of the house. Donna looked as if she'd like to argue, but finally followed the boy.

Roan came upon Beau in an elm thicket with his leash caught among the limbs of a deadfall. The big bloodhound was frantically glad to see him. Almost before Roan could get him untangled, he was off again, baying as he ran. He headed straight for the lake.

Roan kept up with the dog as best he could. He leaped briars, ducked under tree limbs, was almost jerked off his feet by Beau's hard tug on the leash. Short minutes later,
a Native American mound loomed ahead of them. The long earthwork pile was covered by a thick stand of oaks that had been untouched by an ax for over a hundred years, with an understory of dogwood, wax myrtle, palmetto and endless kinds of briars. Beyond that natural rampart lay the open lake.

Roan gave a quiet order, and he and Beau scrambled up through the undergrowth along the mound's southern edge. He paused and reined in the dog at that vantage point, using the Spanish-moss-draped branches of a big oak for cover. As he stood there, the night sounds returned: the squeaky songs of crickets, the calls of frogs, the distant hoot of a barn owl. A limb of the tree overhead creaked with the lift of a breeze that died away almost before it began.

He heard them then, heard a low curse followed by a dull, metallic thump. As he spun toward the sound, he saw two figures silhouetted against the light-gathering surface of the lake. One was tall and thin, the other shorter and more muscular. They were bent over what appeared to be a lightweight aluminum boat beached on the lakeshore.

The pair might be campers. They could be treasure hunters using their summer vacation to sneak in and sink a few holes in search of Mike Fink's hidden gold. They could be after Indian artifacts and wary of being caught on what they knew was private land.

Roan was certain they were none of those things. He'd worried in the last few days about why there had been so little sign of Donna's cohorts and what they might try next. He didn't have to worry any longer.

Approaching the house by water had been logical. A boat was quiet, left no trail, and was hard to identify because of the similarities between models. In addition, visitors to Dog Trot from the water were common; Clay came and went that way all the time. But the two men had been spooked
by Beau and all the commotion he'd caused. They were in full retreat, already launching the cheap boat and splashing out to climb on board. A few seconds more and they'd be gone.

Roan unsnapped Beau's leash. “Go,” he ordered. “Hunt!”

The big bloodhound took off in a flying leap. Roan plunged after him.

Underbrush hid his view, but he could hear Beau's excited baying, catch panicked yells. Water splashed and one of the intruders shouted a curse followed by a hollow thud, as if he'd dived headfirst into the boat. An outboard motor cranked with a rumble, then sputtered and died. It roared again, and was slammed into gear so fast it backfired.

Roan broke into the open in time to see the boat swerve away from the shallow shoreline. Beau was in the lake, splashing after it with his ruff standing like a lion's mane. The man crouched on the forward seat pulled something from the waistband at his back, something that caught a dull gleam from the starlight. He brought it around, leveled it at Beau.

In a single movement, Roan slid to a halt, pulled his handgun, steadied it and fired. The shot cracked out, and a furrow skimmed across the water directly in front of the boat. The two men yelled and ducked. The speeding craft fishtailed, then straightened with a churning wake and zoomed away toward the safety of the lake's deep-water channel.

Roan narrowed his eyes, following the boat as long as he was able. The men in the boat were blurred with darkness and movement, but appeared to be the same two caught by the convenience store camera. The boat was probably a rental from the bait stand at the public landing. He'd have that checked out first thing in the morning.

Roan lowered his weapon. It would have been easy to pick off those two instead of shooting ahead of them. It wasn't an option. For one thing, he might be wrong, and the last thing he needed was the death of some teen delinquent on his conscience. Most of all, it wasn't his way.

He whistled to Beau, but still stared after the boat with brooding anger. He wanted his hands on Donna's pals so bad he ached with it. They held the answers to all his questions about his houseguest. Coming so close to collaring them was so frustrating he wanted to stomp up and down and curse and kick stumps like the most backward redneck who ever lived.

He should be used to coming up empty; Lord knows it happened often enough in his line of work. This time was different; it was personal. Why it should be that way, beyond the fact that the men had been on his land, he wasn't prepared to explore. It was just the way he felt.

Beau emerged from his plunge in the lake and gave himself a mighty shake that sprayed water like a cold shower. Roan launched into a half bitter, half humorous complaint while giving the hound the rough caresses and praise that made him happy. Then the two of them turned back toward Dog Trot.

The dog scouted ahead in a weaving pattern, his nose to the ground. Just before they broke from the cover of the trees into the yard at the back of the house, Beau growled low in his throat and stood at point.

“Aw, jeez, Beau,” Jake drawled from out of the night. “Don't you know Donna yet?”

Roan thought the dog was being more dutiful than anything else, since he was wagging his tail. As the bloodhound moved on again, he followed to where Donna and Jake stood at the edge of the brick patio with light from the kitchen window spilling over them.

“Did I lock you out or something?” His voice was hard, even in his own ears, but this second failure to follow instructions was even less acceptable than the first.

Jake ducked his head an instant, but didn't retreat. “We were in the house until we heard the shot and were afraid something happened to you. What was going on?”

“I fired as a warning because they drew down on Beau.” He should have known they'd be worried. And it took a second for Roan to realize he'd included Donna in that, maybe because she was so pale and silent. He'd give a lot to know what was really going through her mind. And he was going to find out, as soon as he could make an opportunity.

“They were hightailing it, huh? You see who it was or what they were after?” Jake asked.

“Not exactly.”

“You can bet it wasn't any treasure hunters. They came too close to the house.” Roan's son frowned as he glanced at Donna. “You think they'll be back?”

Roan tightened his hold on the weapon he still carried, but replied only, “Hard to say.”

“I mean, they could try sneaking in again tonight if they thought we weren't on guard because we'd already run them off. They have to be mighty brassy to risk coming in here. Or mighty desperate.”

Sometimes Jake was too bright for his own good, Roan thought. With a nod in the direction of the dog pen, he said, “If they do come back, it won't be any time soon. Why don't you take Beau and go let the other hounds out for the night?”

“Now?” Jake asked in an incredulous tone.

“Now, as an advance warning system.” Roan didn't raise his voice, but his tone said plainly that he was in no mood for argument.

Jake looked from him to Donna, then back again, as if he suspected there was more than one purpose behind the order. Still, he went without further argument.

Roan followed the boy with his gaze, partly as a safety precaution, but also to be sure he was out of earshot. But before he could turn back to Donna, she said, “It was Big Ears and Zits again, wasn't it?”

“Looked like it to me.”

“It also looks as if they waited until you were gone to make their move.”

Her tone was taut but composed. Where was the panic at this second attempt to retake or even kill her? He said, “And that shows they've been watching the house.”

She gave a short nod. “I'd say it also means that Dog Trot isn't safe.”

She was right, but that didn't mean he had to like it. At least she hadn't blamed him directly. Nor did she need to, since he could take care of that just fine all by himself. In his own defense, he said, “I might have a better idea of how to guard against them if I knew what was going on. And if I didn't have to worry about my son acting as your knight protector.”

“I'm sorry if you think I should have kept him inside. He said he'd had weapon safety training and that you arranged for him to practice on the rifle range set up for your deputies and the town police. He seemed to know what he was doing.”

“Feeling guilty are you?” he asked, his tone silky. It was interesting that she might. He hadn't expected anything of her, which made it interesting that she expected something from herself.

“By no means, Sheriff. Moving in with you wasn't my idea.”

Was that how she thought of her sojourn at Dog Trot,
moving in with him? “So whatever happens is on my own head? Even if I'm left fighting shadows in the dark?”

“I could tell you that I'm as much in the dark as you are, but I doubt you'd believe me.”

Her tone was moody and not particularly hopeful. It was just as well, since she was right.

In the faint light of the moon, he could just make out that she was wearing shorts and a red T-shirt. She had on no underwear; that much was plain from the way the soft cotton knit draped over her breasts, outlining the tight buds of her nipples. The knowledge of her nakedness under her scant clothing acted like an aphrodisiac. Combined with the adrenaline still pumping in his system, it gave him impulses that he had no business entertaining.

He needed to get away from her, to let his temper cool before he said, or did, something that he would regret. But something was driving him, some deep-seated fury that was directed at her, yes, but also at himself and the whole impossible prisoner-jailer situation. He hated what he was having to do, but he had no choice. He hated what she was, but it couldn't be changed. Somewhere beneath all that was virulent attraction that was getting harder and harder to control.

It had begun the minute he knelt beside her and saw the face of the woman he'd shot, and had grown every day since. He'd stood at her bedside for countless hours as she slept, memorizing every inch of her face, inhaling her scent, fantasizing about the contours of her body under the sheet. He felt responsible for her in some primitive way that he didn't even try to understand. Still, it was more than that. He wanted her with a useless ache of the heart that he hadn't felt since he was a boy longing to believe in the magic of Christmas morning while knowing that Santa Claus was a lie.

The clothes she had on were the same ones he'd thrown in the dryer just before supper. She must have retrieved them after he left. It was a sign that she was getting around a lot better than he'd thought, better than he might have expected. He latched on to that idea like a lifeline.

“You were too tired to sit up this afternoon, but now I find you out chasing after Beau. A miraculous recovery, wasn't it?”

“Amazing what a little rest can do.”

The words were flippant enough, but the edges of her voice were taut with strain. He tipped his head toward the black stand of woods around them. “You sure there was no midnight rendezvous?”

“With Jake along for kicks? What an opinion you have of me, Sheriff—bondage play and seducing a teenager, all based on a piece of film that doesn't mean a thing because I was coerced.”

“Were you, though? Or were you along for the excitement? If that's what you need, you don't have to settle for the kind supplied by lowlifes like your Zits and Big Ears.”

The light from the kitchen windows slanted across half her face. In it, she looked suddenly wary. “Meaning?”

“It can be supplied a lot closer to home,” he answered in tight challenge.

“If you think for one minute…”

“I'm not thinking at all,” he answered, his voice dropping to a lower note. “Which is the problem.”