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Chapter Four

Wyatt strode back into the blazing midday sun, adjusting his worn-out Stetson and squinting against the light. A trip to the local bar had proven equally as useless as all his other stops today. Wyatt had ordered a sweet tea for the sake of manners, then asked the motley lineup at the bar what they knew about Mrs. Ames. They’d all pointedly ignored him. Though it had been Wyatt’s experience that small-town folks were occasionally tight-lipped when it came to outsiders, he’d usually had great luck with the men drinking their way through daylight. Local bars were the male equivalent of a beauty parlor for gossip and hearsay. Except not here. The handful of men who had bellied up to a beer and a shot glass at this bar had officially broken the mold. And just like the local diner, hardware store, mechanic and barber, no one had any news to share about Mrs. Ames.

Wyatt took his leave of yet another uncooperative group and headed back onto the street. He spun his key ring around one finger and took a long look in both directions. Where to next?

A sheriff’s cruiser slid against the curb before he’d had time to decide. The cruiser’s lights flashed. No siren. The man who climbed out was nearing fifty with narrow shoulders and a shiny star on his chest.

Wyatt tipped his hat and stepped aside, allowing the local sheriff room to pass on the narrow sidewalk. The town was a modern-day Rockwell portrait waiting to happen. So what had brought the sheriff and his flashers out? Wyatt paused, waiting to see where the local lawman would go. Had there been another “accident” like Mrs. Ames’s? Or perhaps the bar patrons had reanimated and grown rowdy in Wyatt’s absence.

The sheriff stopped in front of Wyatt and rested a palm on the butt of his sidearm. “Are you the stranger going door-to-door and making folks nervous?”

Wyatt glanced over his shoulder in search of a shady, bothersome guy.

No one was behind him. The sheriff was definitely talking to Wyatt.

“I don’t think so, sir,” Wyatt said. “I’ve been out enjoying your lovely town. Meeting folks. That’s all.”

The sheriff gave a long, assessing look. “Where did you come from?”

“Lexington,” Wyatt answered, this time returning the scrutiny. Irritated, he crossed his arms and widened his stance. “You been sheriff long?”

“Long enough.”

Wyatt smiled. “Someone reported me for being friendly?” He’d love to know who, but didn’t have to ask to know the sheriff wasn’t telling. Too bad, because whoever had made the complaint might also be the one with something to hide. A recent B and E for example, or maybe an assault on an old lady. “Is that a crime in this town?” Wyatt had spoken to a dozen locals, but he’d been careful not to ask anything too pointed. He’d asked if anyone knew Mrs. Ames, if they’d heard about her fall, and where he might get a good locksmith after the break-in. He’d already changed the locks, of course, but he’d hoped to read folks’ expressions. See who was shocked by the news of a burglary and who already knew. Problem was that no one had paid any attention to him at all.

The sheriff sucked his teeth and grimaced. His stance was rigid, defiant, not at all welcoming or pleasantly confident. Wyatt pegged him for a bully. “What business brings you to River Gorge?”

“I’m visiting.”

“Who?”

Wyatt homed in on the sheriff’s features, the beating pulse in his throat, the dilation of his pupils. “Gladys Ames. Do you know her?”

The sheriff nodded. “I know everyone, but I’ve never seen you. Are you a relative?”

“No. Mrs. Ames is my girlfriend’s grandma,” he improvised. “I came to watch over her while she’s here. Seems there was a break-in last night. You were there, right?” Hadn’t Violet said it was a Sheriff Masterson whose cruiser had forced his truck into the grass on the narrow gravel road? “Got any idea who would’ve done something like that?”

A pinch of guilt tugged in his mind for announcing Violet as his girlfriend, but Wyatt wasn’t about to tell the sheriff who he really was or why he’d come to River Gorge. Not considering the inquisition he was getting just for speaking to locals. For all Wyatt knew, the sheriff could be the reason Mrs. Ames needed his help in the first place. She certainly could have chosen to talk to the sheriff instead. And if he was being honest, the idea of being Violet’s boyfriend wasn’t a bad one. Which was confusing all by itself, because Wyatt didn’t do relationships.

Sheriff Masterson cocked his hip. “Funny. Violet didn’t say anything about a boyfriend when I spoke to her last night. She surely didn’t mention anything about a man coming here to stay with her.”

“Can you blame me? She was attacked inside her grandma’s home. I couldn’t stay away after that. Turns out I’m the overprotective sort.” He straightened to his full height and locked his jaw, an intentional reminder that Sheriff Masterson might have the star, but Wyatt was there to protect Violet and Maggie. Anyone with different plans would have to go through him, and no one ever had. “Any leads on the break-in? Seems strange, doesn’t it? Someone busts into an old lady’s house, tears it up but takes nothing. She lives on a widow’s pension. What was there to take? And the crime occurred on the same day she allegedly fell from a ladder.” Wyatt furrowed his brow. “As the sheriff, that must send up some red flags.”

“Crime happens everywhere. I’m looking into the break-in, but old ladies fall all the time.” He gave Wyatt a more thorough look then, trailing him head to toe, lingering on his jacket, sides and ankles. Looking for signs of a weapon? If he had anything to say about the gun nestled against his back, or knife in his boot, Wyatt had a permit to carry concealed firearms and more training than the good sheriff could fathom for the knife. “Military?” he asked.

“Ranger.”

The sheriff nodded; a rueful smile budded on his lips. “Violet know about that?” He snorted, clearly laughing at Wyatt. For his service? For his doomed pretend relationship?

Wyatt bristled.

A pair of women in fitted running gear came into view behind the sheriff, having rounded the corner from the direction of the local park. The taller, blonder one locked eyes with Wyatt. A coy smile curled the corner of her mouth. The petite redhead followed suit a moment later.

Wyatt smiled back.

Sheriff Masterson turned on his shiny shoes to follow Wyatt’s gaze. He tapped the brim of his hat and smiled at the women. “Afternoon, Maisey, Jenna.”

The ladies slowed to a stop, still smiling at Wyatt. The blonde outright ogled him. Her hand bobbed up for a shake. “Jenna Jones,” she said. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Nice to meet you,” Wyatt answered, taking her thin hand in his. “I was just asking the sheriff if he’d heard anything new about Mrs. Ames. She fell yesterday, then her house was broken into.”

“No,” the ladies gasped.

The blonde, Jenna, stepped closer, still holding his hand. “Mrs. Ames is the sweetest woman. I’ve known her all my life. Is she okay? I didn’t hear about the fall.”

The redhead looked at the sheriff. “Did he say someone broke into her house? Why would anyone do that? Do you have a suspect?”

Wyatt rocked back on his heels. Apparently his usual stops were all wrong in River Gorge. Normally, men spoke easily to him. Wyatt would break the ice on topics like sports, cars and military, then ask the things he really wanted to know. Around here that hadn’t been the case. Maybe he should’ve simply gone jogging.

Jenna joined her friend then, turning to stare at the sheriff. “Are you going to answer her?” The tone was harsh and familiar. Wyatt doubted Jenna was related to the man; more likely they’d been former lovers or shared another form of history. Either way, she looked like she’d like to punch his face, and he looked like it wouldn’t surprise him if she tried.

The sheriff sniffed. “I’m looking into it.”

“Well, when you’re done with that,” she said, “maybe you could spend some time patrolling our streets. We just watched a demolition derby car run a hatchback right off the road by Devil’s Curve. When are you going to do something about the morons using the county route as some kind of playground for their stupidity?”

Wyatt’s heart seemed to stop. “What kind of hatchback?”

“Small,” the redhead said. “Yellow, I think.”

Wyatt’s feet were in motion, pulling him away from the trio and toward his truck parked down the street. He turned to jog backward, needing to know but also needing to go. “Was anyone hurt?” He freed his phone and dialed Violet while he waited for the answer.

“I don’t think so,” Jenna said. “The car spun into the church parking lot, but it didn’t roll and it wasn’t hit. The beat-up old junker went sailing around the curve. A woman got out. She looked fine. We were on the towpath. It wasn’t easy to see from there, but all the honking and engine roaring had gotten our attention. We caught the tail end of it all.”

Wyatt’s limbs ached to run. “When?”

“Maybe an hour ago.”

“Thank you,” he called, turning and diving into a sprint. The call connected and rang against his ear. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. He willed Violet to answer his call. Prayed she and her infant daughter were okay. Kicked himself internally for letting her go off on her own when everything in him had said it wasn’t safe. That whatever Mrs. Ames had gotten herself into wasn’t over. He should have followed Violet, stuck by her, protected her.

It wouldn’t happen again.

He yanked the driver’s-side door open and swung himself behind the wheel. Pick up. He nearly screamed the words as he shifted into Drive and eased away from the curb.

His call went to voicemail.

VIOLET FORCED HER still-rubbery legs forward as she eased off the hospital elevator and down the long white corridor toward the nurse’s station on her grandma’s floor. Maggie was asleep in her arms, exhausted from crying after their run-in with a lunatic and his demolition derby car. The nurses were all busy when she finally arrived at the desk. Talking to visitors. Speaking on the telephone. Making rounds. None of the ladies in pastel scrubs made eye contact. When Violet had arrived yesterday, her cousin Tanya was one of the nurses. She was a distant cousin, ambiguously related, but neither she nor Tanya had ever questioned the connection. They’d been friends all their lives. Violet waited a long moment, scanning the area for an available nurse, before moving on, too eager to continue waiting. She wanted to see her grandma’s face and take a seat someplace where she couldn’t be run off the road. She’d try the desk again in a few minutes when the rush died down.

Violet hurried down the hallway to her grandmother’s room. The sound of movement inside set Violet’s heart alight. “Grandma?” She rushed through the open door and slid the curtain back with bated breath.

“Hello,” her grandma’s friend Ruth answered, “come on in.” Ruth tidied her stack of playing cards, then cut and folded them together with a scissoring zip. She’d pulled a chair over to face Grandma’s bed and appeared to be playing solitaire on her blankets. “No change,” Ruth reported. Her tanned cheeks were spotted from too many decades in the sun, and her lips turned down at the corners, unhappy with her report. She doled out three cards and placed them near the foot of her bed. “I came after my morning chores.” Her hair was pulled back in a severe bun, accentuating her sharp features and small green eyes.

Violet took the chair nearest Grandma’s shoulder and slid one hand over hers where it rested on the bed. Machines glowed and beeped on stands and poles nearby, monitoring her grandma’s heart rate, pulse and oxygen levels. An IV dripped something into her veins. A wave of grief rolled through Violet and she forced the emotion down. Grandma wasn’t gone. Grandma was a fighter. “Has the doctor been in?”

“Just Tanya,” Ruth said. “She comes every hour or so to say nothing’s changed.” Ruth gave the cards a break and hooked one ankle over her opposite knee. A lifetime of hard outdoor work in River Gorge had left Ruth roughly the color of leather and likely a little tougher. “No news is good news.”

Violet didn’t agree. No news was maddening. She shifted Maggie in her arms and squeezed her grandma’s hand. “Tanya was here yesterday when we got in from Winchester.”

Ruth pursed her lips. “She’s a good kid.”

A twist of guilt wound through Violet. She and Tanya were the same age, twenty-six. Hardly kids. But Violet hadn’t been here for Grandma. She’d left for college, and unlike Tanya, Violet hadn’t come back. In fact, she’d visited less and less these last two or three years. She should have at least stayed the night at the hospital, shouldn’t she? She rested her cheek against Maggie’s head. No. She couldn’t have stayed. She’d spent last night half fearing a second break-in and half curious about what the cowboy-for-hire on Grandma’s couch might’ve done to anyone who’d try.

Her throat tightened at the memory of the fleeing intruder. He’d run straight for her. Broad palms plowing into her shoulders. He’d thrown her onto her backside in the space of a heartbeat. She’d found bruises on her back and elbows when she showered. Marks from where she’d crashed against the hard floors and rolled. Twelve hours later, a car had run her off the road. There was no way that was a coincidence. Even Violet’s luck wasn’t that bad. Her gaze ran back to her grandma’s bandaged head. A near-fatal fall, a break-in, a psychotic road-rager, the hiring of a private security guy. That list definitely added up to something, and it wasn’t coincidence. In fact, Violet needed to contact the local sheriff’s department and make a report about the demolition derby car. Even if the driver wasn’t found, it seemed like a good idea to document the strange and dangerous things happening around her. She’d considered calling the police from the church parking lot, but she and Maggie were too shaken, and the offending car was long gone. All she’d really wanted was to find respite somewhere with witnesses in case the car returned. Could the car’s driver be the same man who’d been inside her grandma’s home?

“Ruth,” Violet began, turning back to Grandma’s friend. “When you found Grandma yesterday, was the front door open to her home? Ajar maybe?”

“No.” Ruth shook her head as if to underline the word. “I knocked. Rang the bell. Door was shut tight. Why?”

“Did you go inside?”

“Sure,” she said. “Wasn’t locked. Rarely is. I let myself in and took a look around. I called for her, but she wasn’t there. I figured she’d run out to the garden to cut some roses, so I went around back. That was when I saw the barn was open.”

“That’s when you found her,” Violet said.

“Yes.” Ruth blinked emotion-filled eyes. “That’s right.”

“Do you have any idea why she was in the barn? Was she keeping something out there?”

“Not that I know of.” Ruth raised a wide gray eyebrow. “Why?” She twisted in her seat to face Violet, a strangely parental look in her eyes. “Why all these questions? Did something else happen?”

Violet slumped in her chair, unsure how much she could say. It was impossible to know her limits without knowing what her grandma had been up to, but she was certain Ruth was a friend. Ruth had been part of Grandma’s life long before Violet was born. Before Violet’s mother, too. “Her home was broken into last night.”

“What?” Ruth gasped. “Are you okay? Is the home? What did they take?”

Violet shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing seemed to be missing, but I haven’t been here in a while.” Honestly, she’d barely been anywhere since Maggie was born. These last eight months had boiled down to meeting her baby’s needs and trying to calculate how many hours of sleep she might get each night. The answer to the second part was “never enough.”

“A break-in,” Ruth whispered, still clearly baffled.

“How has Grandma seemed to you lately?” Violet asked. “Was she okay, or was something going on with her?” Violet tipped slightly forward, begging Ruth to share something that might help her understand.

Ruth puckered her brow and stared at Grandma’s slack face. “She’s been a little on edge and distracted. I’d assumed that had to do with Mary Alice.”

“What’s wrong with Mary Alice?” Violet asked. She knew Mary Alice as well as she knew Ruth. Both women had been lifelong friends of Grandma’s. They’d held Grandma together when her daughter, Violet’s mom, had left, when her husband passed, and when she’d had to raise a grieving, rebellious granddaughter despite it all. “Is she…” Violet began, then halted. “Is Mary Alice…” She came up short again. Was there a nice way to ask if an old woman had died?

Ruth scrutinized Violet’s struggle for words. “Mary Alice isn’t dead, if that’s what you were going to ask,” she said after a few seconds. “She’s got dementia, though. The symptoms have gotten a lot worse these last few weeks. She’s slipping away fast, and the whole Masterson family has been a little grouchier than usual these days. The illness has taken a toll on everyone close to her, your grandma included.”

Violet didn’t know Mary Alice’s family well, aside from the general knowledge small town living provided. Her husband had been the sheriff when Violet was young, and their son was sheriff now. Neither man was in the running for Mr. Congeniality, or the sort who’d show up at local gatherings, unless duty demanded it. “And you?” Violet asked.

Ruth gave a sad smile. “Someone’s got to hold it together.”

Tanya peeked her head through Grandma’s open door and rapped her knuckles on the wall. “Knock knock.” Her bright smile set Violet on her feet.

“Tanya.” She met her cousin at the room’s center and gave her a gentle hug, careful not to wake Maggie. “Any news?”

“Not yet,” she said, rubbing Violet’s arm when she stepped out of the embrace. “Dr. Shay says everything looks good, and we should be patient. Grandma will wake when she’s ready. Until then, we just have to wait. She’s been through a lot and it can take time to overcome an accident like this one. How are you and this little princess holding up?”

Violet stroked Maggie’s back and her sleeping baby released a contented sigh. “We’re okay.”

“Good.” Tanya smiled. “I’ll be here as often as I can, and I’ll keep you posted if her condition changes. Grandma’s tough, Violet,” she assured. “She’ll be fine.”

Violet nodded. Grandma would find the strength to recover, and Violet would be there to help every step of the way. Until then, Violet needed to stick a little closer to the former ranger at Grandma’s house. Violet had no intention of testing her luck with another burglar or demolition derby car, and she was certain he would have no problems handling either.

Of course, spending too much time with an attentive and sexy man like Wyatt Stone was going to pose a few problems of its own. Beginning with how to keep her undeniable attraction to him from blurring the lines of their reality.