Читать книгу Scarlet Vows - Dani Sinclair - Страница 13

Andrew “Drew” Pierce gazed around at the large crowd gathered outside the firing range in frustration. “Where’s Carey?”

“He had to see a man about a horse,” Zach announced.

At the same time, Nancy Bell replied, “He went to use the men’s room.”

Drew gave the attractive brunette an apologetic look before scolding his much younger brother with a frown of reprimand. Zach shrugged, but his grin was unrepentant.

“That was his expression, not mine,” Zach said. “How much do you two have riding on this bet? They’re always competing with each other,” he said in an aside to Nancy. “I think you scared the—”

“There is no bet,” Drew said sharply. “And watch your language, Zach.”

“It’s all right, Andrew,” Nancy told him, her soft, graceful hand a stark contrast against his tanned arm. “I could probably even teach Zach a few phrases.”

Drew rolled his eyes. “Please don’t.”

“Think so?” Zach inquired with a broad smile that revealed two hidden dimples.

“You’d be amazed at what I deal with in my line of work.”

“Maybe so, but you don’t have to deal with it from Zach,” Drew warned.

Zach held up his palms. “Sorry, big brother, for a moment there I forgot about your image.”

Drew’s frown deepened. There was an edge to his brother’s tone and a strange undercurrent of emotion beneath the impish expression. Drew turned away thoughtfully. He sensed, rather than saw, Zach lean toward Nancy. Sotto voce, Zach asked, “Like what, for example?”

Drew never heard her response. The tournament had brought out a large crowd as always, and there was a festive air despite the heat. People milled in scattered clumps, chatting and laughing loudly as they waited for their turn to compete. The scent of grilled hot dogs and fresh popcorn mingled bizarrely with the scent of cordite in the heavy air.

A disturbing sensation pulled Drew’s attention to the thick clump of trees that began halfway up the slope on one side of the pistol range. He stared at the dark line of woods, puzzled. Something had changed a short way into the tree line, but he wasn’t sure what that something was.

Deer?

The woods were filled with the animals, but no deer would be within twenty miles of the noise coming from the firing range. Nancy and Zach added laughter to the din. Drew tuned them out. His attention centered on the shadows up the slope. Without knowing why, he concentrated on a dark patch near a wide maple tree. Beads of sweat collected at his hairline and trickled warmly down his back beneath his light summer shirt.

Nothing moved in the patch of trees, yet Drew sensed a presence there. Someone was watching him.

His fingers tightened on the gun case. He had a strange impulse to pull his weapon and aim it toward that spot on the hill.

As if sensing that thought, the darkness stirred.

The motion was slight, hardly a movement at all, but Drew waited, rigid with expectation. A face suddenly appeared, for all the world looking like a disembodied head floating in midair.

Eyes clashed and held.

Drew swore viciously under his breath. The features were unmistakable.

Zach broke off midsentence, coming alert. “What’s the matter?”

“Andrew?” Nancy asked in concern.

“Bryson,” he growled.

The face melted back into the shadows as if it had never been there at all.

“David Bryson?” Zach demanded. “Where?”

“Who’s David Bryson?” Nancy questioned.

“In the trees up the hill,” Drew told his brother with a small nod.

“I don’t see anything.”

Nancy squeezed his arm in a bid for attention. “Andrew? Who is David Bryson?”

In that brief moment of eye contact with the man, rage had surged inside Drew, welling from the recesses where he kept it mostly caged. Now he worked to contain a whole host of emotions, feeling his jaw clench. His knuckles whitened on the case in his hand. He looked at Nancy without really seeing her.

“David Bryson is the bastard who killed our sister.”

“What?”

“I still don’t see anyone,” Zach said, watching the trees with the same tense wariness Drew had felt only moments earlier.

“He’s gone now,” Drew told him with certainty. “Back to the shadows where he belongs.”

“I thought your sister’s death was an accident,” Nancy said sharply.

“That’s how they classified it,” Zach agreed, equally grim.

Drew didn’t believe those findings. He never had. Their beautiful sister, Tasha, would have been alive today if it hadn’t been for David Bryson. One day, Drew would prove he’d been responsible for what happened. In the meantime, he’d concentrate on winning the mayoral election. Then he’d be in a position to make Dr. David Bryson wish he’d died in that boat explosion as well.

“Oh, hell,” Zach said, abruptly. “Just what we need. More trouble. Ten o’clock high.”

Frederick Thane was working the crowd, moving in their direction. The current mayor stopped abruptly, his double chin quivering when he spotted Drew. For an instant, dark squinty eyes flashed with hate. Then the professional smile slid into place. Only his eyes stayed hard and cold. He strutted forward, hand outstretched, his rounded stomach extending over his fancy belt buckle.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my esteemed opponent.”

There was no way to avoid the pudgy fingers or the wet clasp of his grip. Despite his slight paunch and that double chin, Frederick Thane wasn’t a big man. At least not yet. At fifty-five or thereabouts, he still had deep black hair, probably due to a little chemical assistance, and he was taller than Drew remembered. Lifts, Drew decided. Even so, the other man still had to look up to meet Drew’s eyes, which obviously rankled.

“Mayor,” he greeted.

“Saw your name on the other sign-up sheet.” He shifted his rifle and stared at the handgun case. “We aren’t competing in the same category.” He swiped at the rivulets of sweat running down the sides of his face with a crumpled blue handkerchief.

“Not this time.”

Thane’s lips pursed tightly, as though he was trying to decide if there was another meaning beneath those words. “Hot enough for you?”

“I imagine it will get hotter before there is a winner.”

Thane’s eyes narrowed. “Count on it.”

They were not talking about the weather or the contest. It was no secret that Frederick Thane was furious over Drew’s decision to run against him. Thane had scared off every other opponent who dared consider throwing a hat in the ring for the mayoral election. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have any leverage to use against the Pierce family. Now he stared pointedly at Nancy Bell.

“And this must be the fancy publicist I heard your grandpa hired for you.”

A sneer licked the edges of his words.

“Fancy?” he heard Nancy whisper to his brother. She sounded amused rather than annoyed.

“Nancy Bell, Frederick Thane,” Drew introduced. “And you know my brother, Zach, of course.”

“Of course, of course. Young Zach.”

Zach winced visibly. He didn’t offer to shake hands. Nancy, however, did. “Mayor Thane.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.”

Drew gave her points for neither shuddering at the contact of his damp hand nor wiping her own hand against her tailored light blue pants afterward.

“We fancy types are big on charm,” she offered with a professional smile.

“You’ll need it. You have your work cut out for you, my dear,” Thane said.

“Hey, Drew, they’re calling our party now,” Zach interjected.

“Don’t let me keep you,” Thane said with false joviality. “I hear you’re giving the family speech at the picnic in a few days. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Are you? Then I guess I’ll see you on the dais.”

“Indeed you will. Ms. Bell. Young Zach.” Thane pivoted away.

“If he called me ‘young Zach’ one more time I was going to try a little target shooting right out here,” Zach muttered.

“Wouldn’t be worth the cost of the bullets,” Drew told him.

“So that was Frederick Thane,” Nancy mused.

“In the flesh.”

“Of which he has plenty,” Zach added unkindly.

“Interesting.” Nancy watched the mayor stop to chat with some people nearby. “He did make one valid point, you know. You don’t really need me if he’s your competition.”

Zach barked a laugh.

“Don’t let his bumpkin imitation fool you,” Drew warned. “He’s smart enough in his way. He’s been running this town for a number of years now.”

“And he’ll do just about anything to keep that position and win this campaign,” Zach added.

“I’ve studied his dossier,” Nancy agreed. “But the man has a definite problem with his public image.”

“What public image?” Zach demanded. “The man’s a leech and everyone knows it. He’s been sucking the town dry for years.”

“But he keeps getting elected,” she pointed out.

“Hard to lose when you’re the only candidate,” Zach said. “Everyone else has a habit of dropping out before the election.”

“I believe lack of funds is usually cited,” Nancy agreed. “But that won’t be the case this time, will it, Andrew?”

Drew made a noncommittal sound and moved forward to check them in. No, funding definitely wouldn’t be a problem, but he had no intention of dropping out of this race for any reason.

After helping Nancy select a gun to use, he looked around in irritation. “Where the heck is Carey?”

Carey Eldrich had coerced, begged, pleaded and even insisted they participate in the tournament. Once he explained to Nancy that practically the entire town turned out for the event, and that the tournament had started drawing people from as far away as Salem, she readily agreed Drew’s participation was necessary.

“Sounds like a good place for some unofficial campaigning,” she told him. “Before the Fourth of July kickoff I want you seen all over town participating in local events. I’ll make sure you get plenty of media coverage. That’s my job.”

“And I’ll bet you’re very good at your job,” Carey had said flirtatiously. “Just don’t expect his picture on the front page as the winner of the tournament. I’ve been out-shooting him for years.”

“Really?”

“Only if you count his mouth,” Drew had told her.

So here they were, guns in hand. Everyone except Carey.

“You know Carey,” Zach said. “He’s probably talking to someone.”

“You mean some woman,” Drew said in annoyance.

“Of course. Want me to go and find him?”

“No need, Zach.” Nancy pointed a peach-tipped fingernail. “Here he comes now.”

Carey Eldrich rushed up, his blond good looks strangely flushed. His shirt was sweaty and plastered to his body. A worried expression deepened the furrow between his eyebrows.

“Out jogging?” Drew asked critically.

“Sorry,” he offered sheepishly. “Something I ate this morning didn’t agree with me.”

Annoyance changed to concern. Drew stared at the man who had been his best friend and chief rival since grade school. As owners of the local newspaper, Carey’s family was almost as prominent as the Pierce family. Drew figured he knew Carey about as well as anyone. Carey had been a ladies’ man since conception, so Drew had to concede it was unusual for him to disappear when there was a beauty like Nancy on the scene. Especially when Carey had been competing with Drew for her attention ever since they’d met.

“Do you want to go home?” he asked his friend.

“No, no. I’m fine now. Besides, I promised to teach this lovely lady how to shoot. I want her to see for herself that I wasn’t bragging last night. Out-shooting Drew is really as easy as I claimed,” he told her archly.

But his tone was falsely hearty. Drew frowned. Before he could pull his friend aside to find out what was wrong, his attention centered on a woman with a mass of red-gold hair spilling over delicate shoulders. The woman stood with her back to him, talking intently to a man he didn’t recognize. The graceful curve of her back and the tantalizing flare of slim hips encased in well-worn jeans anchored his attention.

He willed her to turn around. His stomach knotted as he waited for a glimpse of her face. Instead, she laid a hand on the man’s bare arm. He in turn smiled intimately down at her. Drew took an unconscious step toward her.

The man’s baseball cap masked his features, but Drew glimpsed silver-streaked hair poking from beneath his cap. The man looked to be in his fifties. What was Brianna doing with a man old enough to be her father? Hadn’t she learned anything from what had happened to his sister?

Carey nudged him in the ribs. “What do you think, Drew?”

“What?” Momentarily diverted, his gaze whipped back to his companions.

“Fat chance,” Zach responded to some comment Drew hadn’t heard.

Carey’s features lit in familiar challenge. “You want to take me on as well, Zach?”

“No way. I just want to watch the fun.”

Irritated at the interruption, Drew turned back toward the woman, certain it was Brie. But the couple was strolling away, deep in conversation. The man’s arm lay possessively across her shoulders as he bent his head close to hers in an intimate way. Drew clenched his jaw.

“Come on, we’re up,” Zach said.

As the couple faded into the crowd he reluctantly joined the others. Target shooting was the last thing Drew wanted to do—especially now. His reaction to seeing Brie was surprising. He’d known the possibility existed when he returned home to run for mayor, but he hadn’t been prepared for the wild surge of emotions that bubbled inside him at the sight of a stranger’s arm on her shoulders.

Maybe it hadn’t been her.

Who was he trying to kid? Four years or forty, he suspected she would always incite emotions so elemental they gripped him like a vise. Brianna Dudley was the only female who had ever had the power to scramble his brains. How had he managed to forget that about her?

Edgy and out of sorts, he followed the others onto the range absently, lost in memories he’d put aside a long time ago. He jerked back to the present when he saw they’d been assigned to the last four stands on the end closest to the woods.

The firing range itself was built into a bowl-shaped depression surrounded by dense woods on three sides. He stared at the trees. The disquiet he’d been feeling all morning intensified. While a credible shot, Drew hadn’t been able to summon up any enthusiasm for this tournament. Instead, his desire to leave was strong enough to surprise him.

“Something wrong, Drew?” Nancy asked as Carey took the stand beside him.

“No.”

Carey eyed him strangely. Zach frowned. “Come on, Nancy, you’re between me and Carey,” he told her. “I’ll help you get set.”

“Oh, no, I’ll help her,” Carey said smoothly. “After all, I promised to show her how it was done.”

Drew tuned them out. He gazed at the target down-range. It had been almost four years since he’d seen Brie, yet she could still set his pulses racing from a distance. How crazy was that?

He sought another focus for his wandering attention. The brooding string of trees on the hill offered nothing helpful. He was here to compete. Inattention on a firing range was dangerous and stupid.

The call went out that the line was live. As people began firing their practice shots, the scent of cordite filled his nostrils. Blue clouds of smoke already hung in the heavy air. Shots thundered in his ears despite the requisite protective headgear. Sweat gathered at his hairline, beginning a lazy trickle down his face. He checked and loaded his weapon.

Drew lined up his sights and fired, wishing he were elsewhere—preferably an air-conditioned elsewhere, but Nancy had mapped out an entire program of places he needed to go over the next few days even though the real campaigning wouldn’t begin until after the July Fourth festivities. With his father’s blessing, Nancy had met with the float committee to discuss Drew’s role on the family float. She’d scheduled him to give the short speech before the picnic, a job his grandfather and father generally handled, and she’d lined up a press interview immediately afterward.

His family had been right. She was good at her job. She’d done her homework on Moriah’s Landing and she’d planned a solid strategy for getting his name in front of the community.

She was extremely attractive, and more than once he’d caught a hint of sensual awareness slumbering in her serious gaze. He gave her points for the subtle way she made her interest in deepening their relationship clear without coming on to him. They had a lot in common. Drew genuinely liked Nancy. She’d make a good political partner, but as tempting as she was, Drew hesitated to change their status. Resisting his family’s attempts at matchmaking had become a habit. He knew his father and grandfather had decided Nancy was an ideal choice for more than his campaign manager.

Drew watched as she took careful aim at her target. Her first two shots went wide. The next shot hit the black outline on the outermost fringe. Carey had talked her into competing in the novice category even though she’s said she’d never done any shooting before.

Because he was concentrating on Nancy, he never saw the figure pelting down the steep dirt incline until he turned back to take aim at his own target. He released the trigger instantly.

She ran like a puppet on a string—or someone at the tail end of their stamina. Her long, dark hair tangled around her face, hiding her features.

Drew yelled for everyone to hold their fire. But at the opposite end of the range, someone was shooting what sounded like a cannon. His voice had no hope of carrying over that sound.

Drew didn’t stop to think. He sprinted toward the woman.

She stumbled and fell, taking his heart down with her. In seconds she was up again, but staggering.

A barrage of bullets passed so close Drew could practically feel the displaced air. The woman jerked to an abrupt stop. She twisted to look behind her, her features contorted by a mask of sheer panic. She took a faltering step and went down again. This time she made no move to rise.

He reached her, crouching over her still form. Red blossomed on her dirt-stained, cotton-print blouse. The deep, dark color spread rapidly across her chest. He sought for the pulse in her neck. Weak. Thready. He could hear each ragged breath she took. The shallow bursts sounded as if each one might be her last.

Her head lolled to the side, giving him a clear glimpse of the red furrow that had plowed its way along the side of her skull, disappearing beneath her tangled hair. Without moving her, he couldn’t tell if the bullet had entered her head or not, but she was still alive.

The sudden silence was almost as deafening as the noise had been. Drew raised his face to yell for an ambulance.

Pressed against the fence at the top of the hill, Dr. Leland Manning drilled him with a stare of absolute hatred.

Shocked, Drew took a second to realize how the scene must look to the man. He was crouched over the woman’s body, gun in hand.

Footfalls pounded up to him, snapping the spell. Voices shouted. People surrounded him, with more rushing forward. Carey Eldrich elbowed him aside, squatting beside the woman.

“Ursula?”

Of course. Ursula Manning, Leland Manning’s beautiful new young wife.

“Don’t move her,” Drew cautioned, feeling ill.

The words came too late. Carey cradled her against his chest and stood. Blood streaked his arm, smearing his shirt.

“Where’s the ambulance?” Carey roared. He ran with her, trailing a path of bright red droplets in his wake. Drew glanced over his shoulder up the hill. Leland Manning was gone.

Bits of excited, disjointed conversation bounced around and through him as Drew rose unsteadily. He pushed his way through the crowd, following Carey.

“…call an ambulance?”

“…still alive?”

“Who is it?”

“…anyone called the…?”

“What was she doing out there?”

And that last question stuck in his head. An excellent question. What had Ursula Manning been thinking to run onto a live firing range like that? And where had she come from? Had she been running from her husband?

Someone gripped his forearm. He realized it was being shaken hard in an attempt to get his attention. Nancy Bell swam into focus. Her wide, pale eyes looked enormous. She looked from him to the gun still clutched in his hand.

“Oh, my God, Drew. Do you think you killed her?”