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“Think they only made 500 or so of them.”
Oh. Dear. Hadley’s stomach sank. No wonder her brother was leery of Wood. “Shane wanted me to meet him at his office. Guess I’d better go.”
Riva looked up at her after she just stood there, though. “Might help some if you open the door, child, and actually move your feet in the right direction.”
Hadley smiled weakly and went back out into the late afternoon. Her boots dragged a little as she passed the tow truck. She eyed the lines of the vehicle. Okay, so it was kind of a sexy old car….
If it hadn’t been crumpled down by a third of its size, maybe.
She exhaled and hurried her step, jogging across the street. One of the old-fashioned streetlamps flicked on as she passed it. Another hour or so, and it would be dark outside. She quickened her pace. She still had things to take care of at Tiff’s.
The bell over Shane’s door jingled when she went inside his office. Carla Chapman, Shane’s secretary-dispatcher-everything-else jerked her head toward Shane’s cubicle behind her. “He’s waiting for you,” she said.
Great. She loved her brother dearly, but the man had a distinct ability to make her feel as if she were being called down to the principal’s office.
It was warm inside and she unbuttoned her jacket, sliding it from her shoulders as she entered Shane’s cubicle.
Wood was not sitting in either of the two chairs situated in front of Shane’s massive metal desk. She dropped her jacket and purse on the desk and leaned toward him. “You locked him up, didn’t you.” Her voice was accusing.
He pointedly moved her belongings to one side, off his paperwork. “Sit down. You still need to sign the report.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “He’s in a cell,” he allowed after a moment.
“Shane!” She sat down, dismayed more than was wise. “For not having his driver’s license? That’s ridiculous. I’m sure he has one, he just didn’t have it with him.”
“Try bribery, then.”
“Bri—” Her voice choked. “He did not.”
Her brother shrugged. “Guess he had no room in his pocket for the license what with all that cash he was carrying,” Shane said dryly. “And you’ve always been a trusting little soul.”
“Makes me sound like I’m seven instead of twenty-seven.” She took the pen he extended and signed her name at the bottom of the accident report. “You haven’t locked up everyone who forgot their driver’s license at home.”
“Fortunately today she learned to take her purse or wallet with her when she left the house.” He looked sideways at her purse, assuring her that, yes, he was referring to her.
Darn his memory, anyway.
“You’re being unreasonable.”
He sat back and propped one boot heel over his knee. “Our Mr. Tolliver’s got quite the public defender in you.” The toe of his boot tapped the air twice. “Wonder why?”
“Look. If Stu… and you… weren’t so determined to hitch me to Wendell Pierce’s wagon, none of this would have happened. That poor man would have driven right through Lucius on his way to, to wherever, and that would be that. He was just an—
“Innocent bystander,” Shane put in, amused.
“Yes!”
He dropped his foot back to the floor and sat forward, arms on the desk. His amusement faded. “Doesn’t work that way, turnip. Until I know that car’s not stolen, he’s not going anywhere.”
She eyed him, but knew there was no moving Shane when his mind was set. “Dad says that stubbornness is not a blessing.”
“Dad says a lot of things,” Shane agreed mildly.
Frustrated, she snatched up her belongings and turned on her heel.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to see your poor prisoner!” She strode down the tiled hallway. The Lucius Sheriff Office housed a total of five cells and it was a rare day when even one was called into use. Shane was probably just bored and wanted to test the strength of the iron bars or something.
She turned the corner and stopped. Her breath sucked back up into her chest and a squiggle of something unfamiliar dipped in her stomach. Wood was sitting on the cot, his back against the wall, one foot planted on the thin mattress, the other leg—a long leg—extended.
“If you’ve come to break me out, save the effort,” he advised. “With your help I’d probably find myself in a federal penitentiary.”
She chewed the inside of her lip and took a step closer to the cell. From out in the front office, she could hear Carla talking on the phone, her voice bright and cheerful.
Just another day winding down in Lucius.
“I’m sorry.” She hugged her jacket and purse to her midriff. “This is all my fault.”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” she added after a moment, “it’s not my fault that you didn’t have your license on you.” His lips twisted a little at that. He had very nice lips, even if her brother figured he was a car thief. “Are you?”
His eyebrows rose. “Am I what?”
Her cheeks warmed. That was the trouble for thinking half one’s thoughts out loud. Confusion inevitably ensued. “A car thief.”
A glint lit his eyes. His hand, draped over his raised knee, curled a little. Then he shifted and rose off the cot, his movements so smooth and relaxed he might just as well have been rising out of his own bed in his own home.
As if she’d ever seen what a strange man looked like rising out of his own bed? She ran the family’s boardinghouse. Any beds she was involved with were those needing a change of sheets between her rare guests.
She swallowed and stood her ground when he walked up to the bars of the cell and wrapped his hands lightly around them, looking at her through the space between. “Do I look like a car thief to you?”
She lifted her shoulder. “Can’t say I know what a car thief really looks like,” she admitted, speculation aside. “I don’t imagine they are all unattractive with shifty eyes.”
The corner of his lip twisted upward. “High praise,” he murmured.
He almost had a dimple in his cheek. Or more of a slash, she thought, which definitely went with a jaw that was razor sharp. And his nose was a little too long for his face, but the whole package was put together in a decidedly blessed way.
“You’re staring.”
She blinked. Moistened her lips. “Sorry.”
He reached one long arm between the bars and grazed his fingers against her coat. “So am I.”
He had a tiny scar at the corner of his eye. And another one, nearly invisible, bisecting his slashing eyebrow. “For what?” she asked faintly.
He hooked his finger in a fold of pink wool and tugged lightly.
She looked down. Right. The bloodstains on her jacket. More on the edge of her sweater sleeve. “Cleaning these stains will be a lot easier than fixing your car, I’m afraid.”
“So, at least you’ve decided that the Shelby is my car.”
How had he gotten those tiny little scars? Would he have a scar when the cut on his forehead healed? “Is there some reason to doubt it?”
He cocked his head a little, considering her. “You’re pretty trusting.”
For some reason she found herself smiling when the observation came from him. “Surprising, I know, but you are not the first to accuse me of that.”
“I’ll bet.” Lines crinkled at the corner of his eyes, and the tiny scar disappeared.
He wasn’t quite smiling but she still felt the impact, and for a moment the metal bars of the cell, the chirping of Carla’s voice from out front, everything else disappeared.
“It’s getting late. Don’t you have to get supper on or something?”
Hadley nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of her brother’s voice.
The cell bars were back.
Wood’s hand slowly fell away from her jacket and she looked over her shoulder at Shane. His eyes were hard.
She very nearly argued with him that she had nothing more pressing to do than stand there staring at the man in the cell. Well, the brave little part of her that occasionally snuck past her larger sissy part nearly argued with him. But the truth was, she did have to get supper started. And after that, she needed to mix up bread dough for the rolls she’d bake first thing in the morning, and she had to get the tower room prepared for a guest coming the next day.
Staying wasn’t an option, even if she could have summoned the nerve to flout Shane.
Wood moved away from the cell bars and sat down on the cot, back propped against the wall again. He ran the tip of his index finger over the edge of the adhesive on his forehead.
She wondered what he was thinking and she wondered over the fact that had her brother not been standing there acting all Cro-Magnon, she would have actually asked Wood. And wasn’t that a surprise? Maybe if she pretended she were a fearless heroine, set on freeing the misunderstood hero, she’d manage to pull it off.
Or not.
“You better feed him,” she hissed as she passed Shane. “And give him some aspirin or something for his head. Better yet, call in a doctor. For all you know, he could have a concussion.”
“Mr. Tolliver’s gonna get everything he deserves,” Shane assured.
Ordinarily that would have been a comforting statement. In this situation, however? She grimaced and left, casting one last look at Shane’s prisoner.
He wasn’t looking at her, this time. He was staring down her brother across the distance of the cell, and even though he was behind bars, Hadley couldn’t help but wonder which of the two men would come out on top.
She pulled on her stained jacket and went back outside, waving to Carla, who was still jabbering on the phone. The sun had begun to set. Lights were glowing from the window fronts of the businesses along Main. The snow had stopped for the moment, and everything was covered with a thin veil of perfect white powder.
Including the wreck she could easily see from where she stood, still sitting atop the Finns’ tow truck.
Wrapping her jacket more tightly around her, she hurried in the opposite direction toward the boardinghouse. She could have gone by the church to get a ride from her dad. He’d have undoubtedly still been there. But since it was nearly as far a walk to Beau Golightly’s home-away-from home as it was to Tiff’s, there seemed little point.
Besides. She wasn’t quite ready to find out whether or not her dad had been in on her brothers’ ganging up on her over Wendell.
Her face felt stiff with cold and her hands were completely numb by the time she climbed the wide porch steps leading to the front door of the aging Victorian. But inside, the air was warm and welcom ing. From the parlor, she could hear someone tinkering on the piano. Probably Mrs. Ardelle. She regularly insisted that she was musical, but—so far—hadn’t proved it by the way she attacked the keys.
Still, Mrs. Ardelle was a darling soul, and if she wanted to pretend she could play, who was Hadley to stop her?
She hung up her jacket on the coat tree in the wide hall and walked through to the kitchen, located at the rear of the house. The ever-present coffee was hot so she poured herself a mug before getting down to preparing dinner. Her residents didn’t join her in the dining room for dinner every night. They were all welcome—for a fee, of course, which Hadley charged only because her sister tended to get on her case when she didn’t—but usually one or two showed up.
Fortunately, cooking for a handful of people was mindlessly familiar to Hadley, and by the time they sat down around the oval walnut table in the dining room, the resulting meal was perfectly edible and showed no sign that Hadley had fretted her way right through preparing it.
In the morning, after she’d baked up a batch of sticky cinnamon rolls and cranberry walnut muffins, she prepared a small picnic basket and walked back downtown to Shane’s office.
The door was unlocked. Carla wasn’t at her desk yet, but she could plainly hear her brother’s voice coming from his cubicle in the back, so she walked right through.
His eyes perked up at the sight of the cloth-covered basket in her mittened hands, and he waved her over to the chairs. A good sign. Shane had always had a soft spot for her rolls.
She set the basket on his desk and sat down, busying herself with tugging off her mittens and unwinding her red scarf from the collar of her serviceable blue parka while he finished his phone call.
“So, you are still speaking to me.” He reached for the basket.
She nimbly slid the basket out of his reach. “Have you come to your senses and let that poor man go?”
“If I haven’t, you think I’m going to change my mind through your bribery attempts?”
“I’m sure he didn’t really try to bribe you.”
He folded his arms across the top of his desk. “Are you, now?”
She had a moment’s pause. She had no idea what might have transpired between Shane and Wood when she wasn’t around.
Then she thought of those intensely blue eyes that had occupied her dreams the entire night. “Yes. I am sure.”
He eyed her, shook his head and sat back. “Fine. As it happens, I’ve let—”
“Good morning.”
Hadley jumped a little and turned her head. Wood stood behind them. His hair was darkly damp and falling over his forehead as if he’d just showered, and it partially obscured the fresh bandage there. He’d also replaced his bloodstained shirt with a royal blue one she distinctly remembered giving Shane two Christmases earlier. “Good… morning.” Speech was hard when her breath was caught in her throat.
Shane grabbed a large manila envelope and held it toward Wood. “Check the contents and sign the report. Bus leaves for Billings in about thirty minutes. I’ll drive you over.”
“You’re leaving? But what about your car?” She looked from Wood to her brother. She was glad Shane was being more reasonable about holding Wood, but she couldn’t say the same thing at all about the prospect of the man leaving so quickly.
And wasn’t that ridiculous? He was a stranger, just passing through. A victim of her preoccupied driving, for pity’s sake. Of course he wants to get the heck out of Lucius. The silent thought mocked her.
Shane gave the phone a glare when it started ringing. “His car’ll be fixed whether he’s in town or not.”
Wood had upended the envelope over the side of Shane’s desk. A narrow leather wallet. The wad of bills, held by a silver clip engraved with a race car disappeared in the front pocket of his black jeans. Then he flipped open his wallet, looked inside, flipped it closed and pocketed it, as well, before scratching his name across the form Shane had indicated and shrugging into his leather bomber jacket.
And still Shane’s phone rang. “I’ll give him a lift to the bus station,” she offered suddenly. “Better answer that. Carla’s not out front.”
“She called in sick.”
