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She still wasn’t clear on why he’d been walking in the road. This remote location wasn’t one you’d arrive at on foot. “So...why are you without transportation? Were you traveling together?”
“No. He wrecked my motorcycle when he came up from behind and ran me off the road. Now it’s undrivable. And somehow in the scuffle I lost my phone. I looked for his, but he doesn’t seem to have one on him.”
“It’s a miracle you’re alive!” she said as she reached for her cell. “What would make someone do what he did?”
Obviously irritated, Rod gestured as if too much had happened to explain. “It started before, at the bar. I should’ve kicked his ass then.”
“Oh, God.” Her hand shook as she dialed 911. She didn’t do well with violence; she’d seen too much of it. That was part of the reason she’d come to Whiskey Creek—to start over in a place that still felt innocent. Her past was littered with dangerous yet attractive rebels, men a lot like this neighbor of hers. The rough, outlaw type used to fill her with excitement, with desire. They made her feel...alive.
She’d learned a few lessons since then about what really mattered. It wasn’t a reckless disregard for the rules, or a handsome face and rock-hard abs. These days she understood that in more than a cognitive sense; it’d sunk deep into her emotional memory. But whether she’d learned her lesson or not, she was still paying a terrible price for having associated with the wrong people.
As she waited for the dispatcher to pick up, she eyed the tattoo—a snake slithering up a tree—that covered the sinewy contours of Rod’s right arm until it disappeared into the sleeve of his white T-shirt. Yep, this was exactly the kind of guy she would’ve liked once upon a time. She wouldn’t have cared that he could be volatile. She wouldn’t have cared that he probably didn’t have a college education or even a decent job. Physically, he was everything a woman dreamed about.
And he’d probably be good in bed—although she had no idea where that thought came from. Just the casual way he held himself, his lack of self-consciousness and natural confidence, she supposed. He stood out from other men. But the intimacy she’d shared with Charlie, who was nothing like this guy, had been sweet and fulfilling. What Charlie had brought to the rest of her life was even better. She needed to find another man like him—when she was ready.
“911. What is your emergency?”
At the sound of the operator’s voice, she snapped to attention. “Hello... I’m out on...” She looked up at Rod for help. She’d forgotten the name of the street. She wasn’t familiar with anything other than the few blocks that constituted the center of town and Gulliver Lane, which led from town to her place.
“Old Church Road,” he said.
She’d begun to repeat that when he took her phone and spoke into it himself. “There’s been an incident about a mile before you get to Sexy Sadie’s outside Whiskey Creek. A man’s down, so send an ambulance.”
The operator must’ve asked for more details, because he said, “I’m not a doctor. All I can tell you is that he’s not moving.”
“Sir? What caused his injuries? Are you still there? Can I get your name?”
India could hear those questions, since Rod was handing her the cell. “Um, just get someone here quick,” she told the dispatcher and disconnected.
“Would you mind giving me a ride back to my bike?” he asked.
India wasn’t sure she wanted him in her car. But he had to know she was going in that direction; they lived next door to each other.
“Okay,” she said, because she didn’t see how she could refuse.
When he walked around the front of her car, she noticed that he favored his left leg and figured he had a few injuries of his own, in addition to the scraped knuckles and busted lip.
“You could use some medical attention yourself,” she said when he opened the passenger door.
“I’m all right,” he responded as he climbed in.
“But your leg—”
He stretched it out through the open door to have a look. “When he hit my bike, I came down on it pretty hard.” He lifted his torn jeans away from the scrapes. “Skinned it up is all,” he said, as if that wasn’t anything to worry about.
“Are you sure you didn’t break it?”
Shifting gingerly, he managed to bend his hurt leg far enough to get it in the car. “I wouldn’t be able to walk if I had.”
She gave him a skeptical glance. “That’s not necessarily true. It would depend on the kind of break. You should have it x-rayed.” She felt confident that was what her husband would’ve said, and he had been a doctor—on his way to becoming a world-class heart surgeon.
Rod closed the door. “There’s no need.”
Having him in the same confined space made her slightly claustrophobic. Or maybe he made her uncomfortable for other reasons. Like the fact that he reminded her of Sam, the boy she’d married straight out of high school only weeks after her mother’s death. Unlike Charlie, Sam had been a terrible husband. He’d possessed no more life skills than she had at that age, so the marriage didn’t last a year. But being with him had had its high points, including a certain giddy I-can’t-keep-my-hands-off-this-man attraction.
She felt some of that attraction now, just as she had the other day, when Rod had carried her potter’s wheel from the back of her Prius. She also felt wary—more wary than anything else. But she couldn’t complain about the way he smelled, like warm male and fecund earth. She saw some leaves sticking to his shirt and hair and assumed he’d taken a tumble when he fell from his bike. Maybe the fight had even turned into a wrestling match. Most fights went that way, at least the ones she’d witnessed.
Pushing her silver bangles up her arm, she pressed the gas pedal.
They rolled carefully around the next bend, but she didn’t see any sign of a bike, a car or another person.
“It’s farther down,” Rod said before she could ask.
Apparently, he’d walked a greater distance on that leg than she’d expected.
The road took several more twists and she still saw no sign of where the incident might’ve occurred. “Where were you going?” she asked in confusion.
He looked over at her. “When he hit me? I was on my way home.”
“No. When I saw you. You were walking away from town. You do realize that?”
“Of course. I’ve lived in Whiskey Creek all my life. It’s not likely I’d get turned around. I was heading back to the bar so I could use a phone or get help.”
She’d driven past a saloon-style tavern, one with a big neon sign out front. That had to be the place he was talking about. “Are your brothers there?” She’d gotten the impression the three men were close, that they did a lot together.
“They were until they got tired and left.”
“They must be wondering where you are.”
He was too focused on the road to look at her again. “Doubt it. I’m sure they’re asleep.” He pointed ahead. “There it is.”
She hunched over the steering wheel until she saw a flash of shiny chrome reflecting the moonlight. “So this guy knocked you off your bike, and then he came back to...what? Fight?”
“I think he was planning to taunt me, to celebrate what he’d done. Or kick me while I was down. The way I fell...he had to believe I’d be more hurt than I was.”
“He must’ve been surprised when that wasn’t the case.”
“Yeah, he would’ve been smarter to keep going, although I would’ve caught up with him eventually.”
That last bit sounded ominous, but at least the other guy seemed to have been the aggressor.
“Do you have any idea why he’d run you down?” she asked.
“I guess he didn’t like what I had to say to him at Sexy Sadie’s.”
They’d reached his Harley, which was black and lying on its side. She parked on the shoulder between it and a white compact car that was still running. The car had its back end in the road, as if the driver had slammed on his brakes and hopped out. The door was open, and the cabin light cast an eerie triangle on the blacktop.
India wanted to ask Rod what he’d said at Sexy Sadie’s that might’ve incited the driver of that car to violence, but she didn’t get the chance. He got out right away and, despite his injured leg, strode confidently over to a dark shape lying off in the bushes.
She hurried behind him, even though she wasn’t sure she could stomach what she was about to see. It used to be that the sight of blood didn’t bother her. But, like the rest of her life, that’d changed eleven months ago. Now she had nightmares in which she was drowning in blood.
And it wasn’t just anyone’s blood...
Shoving that memory from her mind, she focused on the gravel crunching beneath her high heels until they reached the inert form of the guy Rod had fought. There were no streetlights, but the moon was full. The man seemed to be about thirty-five and was dressed in a polo shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. A dark streak suggested the brawl had taken place in the middle of the road and someone—Rod, no doubt—had pulled him to the side when it was over so he wouldn’t be struck by a car.
It was a point in her neighbor’s favor that he’d had the presence of mind to take that precaution. But, as he’d mentioned, his opponent wasn’t conscious. India guessed the blood on the road had come from the man’s head, since that was where he was bleeding the most.
Was he even alive?
Holding up her dress, she crouched to find his carotid artery. Then she backed slowly away. He had a pulse, thank goodness. She didn’t want to touch him beyond ascertaining that. She was already having flashbacks, could hear her own voice screaming Charlie’s name...
Instinctively, she covered her ears—then lowered her hands when Rod gave her a funny look. “Do you know him?” he asked.
She shook her head and was relieved when he didn’t press her.
After throwing the man a disgruntled glance, he began to pace back and forth across the road.
“Shouldn’t we search for your phone?” she asked. “I could call it, if you give me your number.”
“I put it on silent. I hate it when you go out with someone whose phone is always ringing.”
“It’d light up, at least,” she said.
They gave it a try. They even used her flashlight app to comb both sides of the road—all to no avail.
“I’ll come back in the morning, when it’s light,” he said and returned to pacing.
India held three fingers to her forehead as she watched from the shoulder. “Can you please get out of the street?” she asked when he didn’t move to a safer place.
His gaze swept over her as if he was wondering why she was so dressed up. But he didn’t ask. Neither did he comply with her request. He continued to prowl while she stared in the direction of Whiskey Creek, wishing the police and the ambulance would arrive.
“Can you stop?” she finally muttered. “You’re making me nervous.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he grumbled.
Obviously, they were both agitated. She could feel the anxiety flowing through him. “I can’t help worrying,” she said. “Not everyone is as cautious as I am. I get that. But a car could come tearing around that bend any second and—”
“Fine!” He cut her off and came over to the shoulder, as if arguing with her was more of a hassle than it was worth.
She reined in her temper. “Thank you.”
He didn’t acknowledge her thanks. “You don’t happen to have a smoke, do you?”
She almost walked back to the Prius for her purse before it occurred to her that of course she wouldn’t have a smoke. She hadn’t bought a pack of cigarettes since she’d gotten pregnant with Cassia nearly six years ago. “No.”
He touched his mouth and looked at his fingers, checking to see if his lip was bleeding again. “I never smoke unless I’m drinking,” he explained. “It’s been a year since I’ve done even that. But I’ll be damned if I couldn’t use a cigarette right now.”
“I quit when I was twenty-four.” She hadn’t been the same person in those days...
He raked his fingers through his light brown hair. It was a little too long, but she admired the way it fell loose and went curly at the ends. “Can I use your phone?” he asked.
The moment she handed it to him, he turned away and kicked a pebble from foot to foot while waiting for the person he’d called to pick up.
She knew someone had answered when he straightened and forgot about messing with that rock. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “It’s me...Our new neighbor’s...Yes, that neighbor...Stop. Listen, I need some help. Remember that guy who was bothering Natasha? The one we warned to stay away?...Yeah, him. He wrecked into the back of my bike.”
Rod didn’t explain that he’d been driving it at the time, which seemed like a salient point to India. He could’ve been killed. But she wasn’t about to get involved in his conversation.
“No, I’m not kidding,” he said. “Uh-huh...Don’t worry, I doubt he’ll ever mess with her again.” He slowly gravitated over to the man he’d knocked out and nudged him with one foot.
No response.
“I can’t leave yet,” he said, stalking off in the other direction. “I’m waiting for the ambulance...Yes, ambulance. The asshole’s out cold...What would you have done? He had no business hitting my bike. I’m lucky I can still walk...Of course I was riding it at the time! I was driving home.”
There, the information had finally come out. India took a deep breath and told herself to relax.
Usually, it cooled off at night when the Delta breeze swept in. That was what she loved about Northern California. But they’d been going through a terrible heat wave since she’d moved to Whiskey Creek. Part of her discomfort had to be due to the stress of the situation, but it felt like a hundred degrees outside, as it had been earlier in the day.
“Right. So can you bring the trailer and get my bike?” she heard Rod say. “How would I know? Chief Bennett’s going to give me hell. He might even take me down to the station to get a statement or try to lock me up for the night...True...No, don’t call Dylan or Aaron. I can handle my own problems.”
He disconnected and was about to return her phone when he saw he’d gotten blood on it. After wiping it on his jeans, he gave it back. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” She held on to the phone, since she didn’t have a pocket and her purse was in the car. “That was...one of your brothers?”
“Yeah.”
Still no headlights coming from Whiskey Creek. What was taking emergency services so long? She and Rod—and the man who needed the ambulance—weren’t that far from town. “Which one?”
“Grady. He’s driving over to get my bike.”
“Is he older, or...”
“Dylan and Aaron are older. Grady and Mack are younger.”
“Would you mind if I asked how old you are?” They were both young enough that she couldn’t imagine it would be an offensive question.
“Thirty-one. You?”
She considered taking off her heels but was afraid she might cut her foot on a rock, nail or piece of glass. “Thirty.”
“I guessed we were about the same age.”
“When?”
“The other day.”
She ignored that, didn’t want to think about the implications. She’d noticed more details about him than she cared to admit; knowing he’d done the same with her didn’t help keep her mind where it needed to be. “So there’re five kids in your family, not three?”
“Right. Dylan and Aaron are married. They live in town with their wives. You met Grady and Mack, who live with me.”
