Читать книгу Shadow Protector - Jenna Ryan - Страница 10

Sera could have slept for twenty-four hours. The twelve she got ended with a rough shake from Flo.

“Chief has to go to Casper for a meeting. You need to get up.”

She stuffed Sera’s clothes into a laundry bag, then picked up and examined her broken shoes.

“I can wear heels like this, but not Babe. She can hardly …”

“Walk some days. Got that, Flo.” Sera fought off the effects of her latest nightmare. She was sliding from the surprisingly comfortable bed when the stack of suitcases caught her eye. “You unpacked for me? “

“I don’t like ironing. What kind of doctor are you if you don’t do feet?”

“I can do feet.” In her dove-gray drawstring pants and white tank, Sera bent to look out the partly shaded window. “Will it be hot again today?”

“It’s July, isn’t it?” Flo dangled the strappy shoes. “You want me to see about getting these fixed?”

“Thank you.” Biting back a smile, Sera offered the expected trade. “Would you like me to look at your sister’s foot?”

“She’d appreciate that. But you tell Logan it was your idea. He said I wasn’t to pester you.”

“I will.”

Cinching the canvas bag, Flo started for the door. “Logan’ll be by in forty minutes. I’ve got flapjacks and blueberry syrup in the kitchen. Coffee too.” She paused on the threshold. “When?”

Rocking the tension from her neck, Sera headed for the bathroom. “If you’re talking about Babe, I can examine her when I get back from Casper, where I’m apparently going whether I like it or not.”

Flo gave a satisfied nod. “Do your whatevers fast, and I’ll feed you. Otherwise you’re at Logan’s mercy, and potato chips make a fine meal to him.”

“It’s a miracle cops live to retire.”

“That last word’s not one we use much in these parts, Doctor.”

Why wasn’t she surprised? Sera mused.

Still wondering where the normal people lived, she went into the bathroom to shower away her latest dream image—that of the Blue Ridge police chief’s enigmatic face.

“DON’T LET HER out of your sight, Fred.” Logan handed Sera a white hat with a braided black band, trapped her jaw and stared straight at her. “No guns, no clever tricks, no tricky questions. Agreed?”

She pulled free and smiled. “You have a very low opinion of me, Chief.”

“Must be the city cop coming out. I mean it, Sera.”

“Yes, I know. Go on.” She tried the hat for size and was pleased to discover it fit. “I won’t ditch your dispatcher.”

“Dispatcher slash senior deputy,” the man called Fred corrected. He gave his boss two thumbs up. “Don’t you worry, Logan. Me and the pretty doc’ll get on just fine till your meeting’s done.”

Sera turned to examine the window of a small shoe store. Why couldn’t the chief be more like his deputy? Huge, bald and in his late fifties, with a bull neck, a big belly and a smile as wide as the Platte River.

“You wanna walk, talk or shop, Doc?”

Fred’s question brought a teasing smile. “You’re okay walking the streets of the county seat in the company of a marked woman? “

“No killer with half a brain’s gonna shoot up a busy street at midday, Doctor—sorry, Serafina. That’s a pretty name, by the way. Mean anything special?”

The sun glinted off the roof of a white delivery van. Sera popped her sunglasses on. “It means my mother had high hopes for my future. Didn’t happen. I like Sera now.”

He regarded her from under his own hat. “You and your ma at odds then? “

“Fifteen years worth and counting. There’s no middle ground for us,” she added before he could press. “We didn’t see eye to eye on my future, so now we don’t see each other at all.”

“That’s a shame, and I can say that because Flo and me have a girl, maybe six years up on you. We see her, but every time we do, it’s either behind glass or on our doorstep in the middle of the night. She’s an addict. Addiction’s made her a thief. Thieving’s sent her to jail four times. Guess we shouldn’t throw stones considering our past, but we straightened out. I’m starting to think she never will. She owes money now, so I’m hoping against hope she won’t show up at Logan’s place. We live there, you know.”

“With Logan? No, I didn’t know. Or maybe I just didn’t think. It’s a big house.”

“Came with …”

“The job, I heard.” Hooking his arm, she asked, “Where does your daughter live, Fred?”

He snorted out a laugh. “Wherever the wind blows her. Like her ma and me that way. But you got your own problems, Doc. You don’t need ours heaped on top of them. Word is you’ve got someone after you, someone who likes to kill. Any thoughts on why a person would do that over and over again?”

“A few, but nothing that really works. Whoa …” Raising her sunglasses, she ogled a purse dangling near a shop entrance. “That is one über cool bag. Bet it costs a fortune.” She slipped around him and inside to flip the price tag. “Oh, yeah, fortune. Fourteen-ninety-five.”

“That doesn’t sound …”

“Fourteen hundred, Fred.”

When he gaped, she caught his shirt and drew him back out. “Breathe deeply. The feeling will subside.”

“Fourteen—fifteen hundred dollars? For a purse?”

“Well, it’s leather.” She glanced past him. “Dolce and Gabbana.”

“But that’s …”

“I know.” Aware of the sun’s increasingly strong rays, she steered him toward an outdoor café. “Do you like iced latte?”

“What?”

She grinned, then tugged on his shirt. “Coffee, cold, yummy. We can sit. You can tell me how you wound up in Blue Ridge and what it’s like to work for Logan.”

Fred ran a hand over his face. “Logan, right. Well, it’s good. Best straight job I’ve ever had. You probably know that Flo and me have done some shady things.”

“We all have a past, Fred. The present matters more, don’t you … think?” The last word emerged on a frown as a picture suddenly streaked through her head. Swinging away from the street, she pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to recapture it. “No, don’t hide. Let me see you.”

Fred came up behind her. “Are you okay? You want me to get Logan? “

Ignoring him for the moment, Sera struggled with the hazy image.

“Music,” she said at last and, pivoting, searched for the source. “There was music playing in the background the night Andi died.” She closed her eyes. “There’s something behind it.”

Fred sidestepped. “I’ll get Logan.”

“I need to hear it again.” When he started off, she trapped his arm. “I’m good, Fred, really. I just need the music back. I saw something for a second. A hand, I think. And some kind of motion.” She zeroed in on a muddy four by four truck. “That might be where it came from.”

“You sure it was music, Doc, and not what you were saying?”

She started for the truck. “What were we talking about, do you remember?”

“Coffee, wasn’t it? Or purses.”

She cut across the street, skirted a group of people waiting to board a Greyhound bus and wound up back at the sheriff’s office, where the truck was parked.

The cab of the vehicle was empty, but she made a slow circle around the hood.

Fred caught up and mopped his face with a red bandanna. “It’s awfully hot, Doc. We could go inside, sit for a minute, see if we can find … Logan!” Relief colored his tone. “Am I happy to see you.”

“I forgot a file. What are you doing?”

“Recreating,” Sera said over her shoulder. She wanted to look at him, but that would destroy any chance she had of resurrecting the memory.

“Maybe we should …” Logan must have silenced Fred because he trailed off.

Sera continued to circle. “I saw a man’s hand and part of an arm. He was wearing a watch with a chrome band. It was scratched and corroded in spots.”

“Not a Rolex then,” Logan said from the front of the truck.

“Tell him about the music,” Fred suggested.

“I heard a song, or part of one, as this—I think this—truck drove past us.” She bit her inner lip, drummed the box. “Might’ve been Bob Marley.”

“‘One Love’?”

“Maybe.” But the title didn’t trigger anything more. She made a flitting motion. “Sorry, it’s gone. There was a watch, though, and it wasn’t high end.” She rubbed her wrist. “I saw a glove, too, but that’s a given.”

This time when Logan spoke, he did so from directly behind her. “What color was the glove?”

Her heart gave several hard thumps, which she controlled before turning. “Black. His fist was clenched, and it was striking something. A hard surface, possibly my desk.”

“So this striking happened in your office.”

Sera’s head began to throb, but she pushed through it. “My office door was open. Andrea was in Reception when the security guard found her. I hit my head on my own desk, so I must have run in there.” Leaning back against the side of the truck, she waved her hat in front of her face. “Sorry again, Logan, but that’s all there is.”

“It’s more than you had before.”

“Must be the mountain air.”

She was doing it, she realized suddenly. Looking at him. Getting sidetracked. A baby step away from fantasizing about what it would be like to have that incredibly sexy mouth of his on hers.

Pushing off, she said, “Okay, that’s it. Sun’s frying my mind and my skin.”

“Do you want to come inside?” he asked. “Meeting shouldn’t take more than an hour.” Then he pulled a ringing cell phone from his waistband. “Logan,” he answered with a trace of impatience.

Easing away, Sera searched her shoulder bag for the sunscreen she’d bought during one of Sig’s filling station stops.

Logan’s quiet, “When?” brought her head up and Fred away from his inspection of the four by four’s front tires.

“Where?”

“Oh, hell.” Her fingers stilled as a feeling of dread crept in.

“I’ll get back to you, Captain.” Logan broke the connection.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” She said it simply and without inflection. But it hurt. It cut deep and it bled.

Fred looked from one to the other. “Who’s dead? Someone in Blue Ridge? “

“His name was Sig Rayburn,” Sera revealed. “He brought me here. He was a good cop with good instincts, but instead of being shot in the leg, this time he’s dead.”

Logan’s eyes were steady on hers. “It’s not your fault, Sera.”

“Not directly,” she agreed. “But indirectly—well, you decide.” Removing her hand from her shoulder bag, she opened it. “I have his lucky rock.”

HE’D DIED IN an alley. Like his partner, there’d been no bandanna, but every cop worthy of his badge knew who’d pulled the trigger.

That made it personal, Logan thought. Now, not only was he going to keep Sera safe, but he was also going to get the bastard who’d killed Sig and make damn sure he never saw the light of day again.

With his mallet, he drove a fence post deep into the ground, then gave the baling wire he’d been stringing a yank and secured it to the top.

He’d come to Blue Ridge to get away from this kind of crap—the gang leaders cops could never manage to touch, the targeted shootings, the senseless murders, all the garbage and destruction city life had to offer.

He’d been born and raised in a small town. He was where he wanted to be, doing what he wanted to do. And he still couldn’t escape the urban nightmare.

He took a swing at another post and felt the impact race along his arms to his shoulders. He wouldn’t let Sig or Sera down. But damn the woman, she was getting to a part of him he’d half forgotten existed.

Yes, she was beautiful. So were plenty of other females in the world. Surface meant nothing—he’d learned that lesson early on. And hormones tended to get in the way of good judgment.

Another slam, another shoulder-numbing jolt. It was after 7:00 p.m. According to the medical examiner, Sig had died around 8:30 a.m. He’d taken a single bullet to the throat, preceded by a sharp blow to the left side of his skull.

Fixing the last length of wire, Logan swiped an arm across his forehead. He knew she was behind him before he turned. She smelled like jasmine and late summer roses. She was every man’s gypsy fantasy.

Except for the sea-green eyes. Those were pure, storybook siren.

Without looking, he took a final pull from his Bud. “I’m not feeling chatty right now, Sera.”

“I didn’t think you would be.” Coming around him, she dangled a half-done bottle of bourbon with an overturned shot glass on the top. “My uncle does trauma clinics on Sunday nights. He says sometimes we need a little poison to kick-start a difficult emotional process.”

Logan drew his work gloves off with his teeth. “Sounds more like something you’d say.”

“I just did.” She glanced away. “Logan, I’m really sorry about Sig. I teased him a little—actually, a lot—for being superstitious. Now he’s gone, and I have his rock, and who knows, it’s a big universe, maybe there was something to his belief.”

“Uh-huh.”

Although her lips turned up, her eyes remained on the trees. “Figured you’d say that. But whether I believe in Sedona rocks or not, Sig did, and that’s the point. What I don’t understand is why he left town without it.”

Logan downed the bourbon in a single swallow. When his throat reopened, he poured another. “Did he give it to you?”

“Only to hold.”

“If he didn’t ask for it back, he wanted you to have it.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

The ghost of a grin appeared as the liquor worked its magic. “Seems we’re a step ahead of each other tonight.” He handed her the glass. “To Sig,” he toasted and raised the bottle to his lips.

Her eyes glinted before she tossed the liquor back. It amazed him that she only gasped once. “Med school,” she explained at his prolonged look. “Real ass of an anatomy professor. His students, Andi and I among them, plotted his dissection at a dozen off-campus bars.” Moving closer, she used her index finger to tip his hat back. “I’ll be honest with you, Logan. You scare the hell out of me, and that’s a big admission for me to make because I of all people know how to deflect this kind of fear.”

“Yeah?” Capping the bottle, he set it and the glass on the post beside him. “So what say we do this now, and get it out of our systems.”

It might have been surprise that flitted through her eyes. Whatever it was, the gleam behind it chased it out. She almost jerked when he caught her jaw in a light V. But then she relaxed and went with it—as he drew her closer and crushed his mouth to hers.