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“He saved my life.” Julia went limp against the wall, all of the strength drained out of her as the reporter’s camera flashed in her face. Deputy Butler had saved her life.
And now he might be dead because of it.
TWO
Eric woke up in the emergency room, his left shoulder throbbing to beat the band.
Trying to raise his head, he called out, “What—”
A gray-haired nurse pushed him back down. “Easy, cowboy. You’ve been shot and you’re about to go into surgery to debride the wound. We just need to clean it out a little bit, make sure everything’s intact in there. You’re lucky, though. Bullet went straight through without hitting any major arteries or bones.”
“Bullet?” Eric lay back, trying to remember. Then it all came rushing back. Julia Daniels. An armed robbery. The man was going to take Julia as a hostage. They’d exchanged gunfire. Darkness and voices in his head. Adam telling him to hang on. Now he had vague flashes of the EMS team…someone applying pressure to his wound, asking him questions about his medical history, a needle shoved into his arm.
“The waitress?” he managed to croak over the sound of doctors rushing all around, poking him here and there and shouting out orders about X-rays and vital signs.
“That pretty little thing,” the nurse said as she checked the IV drip, her expression all business. “She’s just fine. Outside waiting with your family to hear how you’re doing, though. She said you saved her life.”
Eric managed a weak grin. “My buddy Adam did most of the hard work.”
“Yeah, right. But you shot the bad guy.”
Eric tried to lift up again. His bloody shirt was gone. “The robber, where…is he?”
The nurse shook her head. “From what we’re hearing, he got clean away. But don’t fret, now. Your buddies have put out an APB on him.”
Eric tried to speak, but his fatigue, coupled with whatever medication they were pumping into him, caused drowsiness to overtake him. He went to sleep with the memory of Julia’s face, front and center in his frazzled mind.
Julia paced the tiny E.R. sitting room, her sturdy, black wedge-heeled work shoes clumping with each step. Cat had insisted she go home and rest, but Julia was too keyed up to do that. After rushing to the elementary school to check on Moria—no, make that after making a scene at the school because she was so frantic to make sure her daughter was safe—and then checking Moria out and taking her to the neighbor’s house just to be sure, she’d come straight here. And she planned on being right here when Eric Butler came out of surgery.
Thank goodness Mrs. Ulmer hadn’t minded watching Moria. Julia knew Moria would be safe with the Ulmers. They’d seen how upset she’d been and promised to keep Moria inside and quiet. Even though he didn’t get out much these days, Mr. Ulmer had once been an avid hunter and he’d assured her he’d watch over Moria, using one of his many rifles and shotguns if need be. But there had been enough shooting for one day, Julia thought, her mind reliving how the gunman had tried to take her and how Eric had fired a shot to stop him. Then she remembered seeing Eric lying there, bleeding and unmoving.
Please don’t let him die, she prayed.
She’d seen too much death lately.
And her daughter had seen enough grief and death to last her a lifetime.
That thought caused Julia’s knees to go weak. Sinking down in a fabric-covered blue chair, she put her head in her hands and prayed that Moria didn’t hear about this. She’d warned the Ulmers not to discuss it in front of her already-fragile daughter.
“You okay?”
Julia looked up to find Adam and Cat standing in front of her. Cat settled in the chair beside her while Adam stood with his hands in his pants pockets, looking as worried about his friend as she felt.
Down the way in another chair, Eric’s father, Harlan, sat staring at the tiled floor. Julia had introduced herself to him the minute she’d come in the door, telling him how much she appreciated what Eric had done for her. But Mr. Butler had only grunted and nodded, his eyes so like his son’s, blank and unyielding, in spite of their warmth.
Harlan Butler was a retired sheriff’s deputy himself, who, according to Cat, now lived out on the lake in a cabin his son had apparently built right next to his own house. Eric wanted his widowed father near, which only endeared him to Julia since she’d never been close with her own parents. So now the Butler men lived on connecting lots, two bachelors enjoying their time as father and son. Mr. Butler certainly understood the risks of the job. But right now that didn’t help matters. Right now they were all worried, and somehow Julia couldn’t help but feel responsible for all of this.
“I’m fine,” Julia said in answer to Cat’s question, shaking her head as she stared at the lone man at the other end of the hall. “I couldn’t go home. I had to come and see—”
“If he’s gonna be all right,” Cat finished, her arm going around Julia’s shoulder. “We’re all right here, honey, praying for him. I think the whole town is praying right now. That was mighty close.” She glanced at Harlan, too. “His daddy is real worried, I can tell you.” Then she lowered her voice. “Of course, a Texas lawman can’t show his true emotions. It’s an unwritten code.” She shot Adam a pointed look. “Got to be tough as nails, every last one of ’em.”
Julia closed her eyes, reliving the vivid scene trapped inside her mind. She wasn’t as tough as nails. She could still feel the cold steel of that gun pressing at her temple. And she wondered for the hundredth time if that bright, stark terror was how her husband Alfonso had felt just before he died.
Was that the kind of terror her daughter experienced each time she suffered another horrible nightmare about her father?
Alfonso. She remembered sitting in another hospital room, waiting to hear the details of her husband’s brutal death.
She didn’t want to hear that again today. She didn’t want that nice, unassuming sheriff’s deputy to die. Not on her account. Not for something as stupid as a robbery that would have yielded very little money.
Trying to make sense of everything, she looked up at Adam. “Did you find the robber?”
Adam shook his head. “No. He took off like lightning. Pretty sure there was a getaway car parked around the corner, and in all the confusion we missed it.” He looked as if he were taking that failure very personally. “He was bleeding, so he’s wounded. I tried to find him, searched behind the restaurant and all the streets, too. Sent a patrol out. He either found a good hiding spot, or someone came back just in time to get him in a car. Found some blood, but that’s about it.” Then he lowered his head, unable to look at Julia. “Of course, we have the bloodstains from your blouse, too.”
Julia looked down at the clean lightweight sweater Cat had offered her after the police had asked her to remove her uniform blouse. Wishing she could go home and take a long shower to wash away all the fear and doubt, she could only nod toward Adam. “When will you know something?”
“Not sure,” Adam said. “It’ll take the state crime lab a while to get to it, but we’ve put a rush on it.”
Then he rolled his head, trying to release some of the obvious tension coiling through his muscles. “We’ve put out an all-points bulletin, and we’re checking all the area hospitals for any incoming bullet wounds. We’ve got roadblocks set up all around the area, too. I’m hoping they’ll haul him in any minute now, and I want to be the first person to get at him, trust me.” He shook his head, then pounded his fist against the wall. “I let him slip right through my fingers.”
Cat gave him a soft smile. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You and Eric did the best you could today. It was crazy, there, after he ran out. Nobody blames you. You and Eric saved Julia from becoming a hostage.”
Adam looked at the floor. “There’s a lot about this that just doesn’t make sense. But we’ll get the details figured out. We’re running a search right now, based on the descriptions we got from other witnesses. The boys will call when they have something conclusive on both him and the weapon. We found the bullet lodged in the front door.”
Cat asked, “And Eric?”
“He kept going in and out of consciousness, telling me he was okay, that it didn’t hurt too much. Of course that was right before he passed out cold.” Hearing Julia’s low groan, he said, “Don’t worry. He’s been through worse playing football back in high school.”
Then he glanced over at Cat, causing Julia to wonder if they were keeping something from her. Eric and Cat were close. Just how close Julia couldn’t be sure, but she knew they shared a lot with each other.
Feeling left out and afraid, Julia looked at her older cousin. “Cat, is everything okay back at the restaurant?”
“I had to shut her down, of course, so the investigators could look for evidence,” Cat said with a shrug, her dark curls shimmering around her face. “Who wants to eat there today, or ever again, for that matter?”
“Ah, now, you can’t quit,” Adam said, his grin tight with tension. “Who’d keep me fed and watered?”
“You sound like an old mule,” Cat retorted, her own smile weak. “I’m not gonna shut down forever. Just…needed to get away from there. The employees are still a tad jumpy.”
“We’re all jumpy,” Adam replied. “And right now your place is a crime scene, so we had to close the doors, anyway. Technically, I’m on administrative duty only until the Rangers get through investigating.” Then he looked down the hall at Harlan. “Hey, why don’t I go find us some coffee? I’ll ask Harlan if he wants some, too. Won’t be as good as yours, of course, Cat, but it might help.”
“Yeah, coffee,” Cat said. “Just what we need to calm the jitters.”
“I’m just offering,” he said with a shrug.
“Go on,” Cat said, her smile full of understanding. “I’ll take mine black. Julia?”
“Nothing for me,” Julia said, an uneasy feeling setting her stomach on yet another spasm of jangled, tingling nerves. “I just wish I knew who that man was.”
“I’ll call and harass the investigators,” Adam said. “We all want to know that.”
After he’d left, Cat turned to Julia, her big brown eyes full of concern. “So how’s Moria?”
Julia looked at her watch. “She’s fine. Mrs. Ulmer probably doesn’t like me calling every five minutes, though.” She was torn between staying here or just rushing to the Ulmers’ to get her daughter.
“Adam put a man on her, you know.”
Julia’s head came up, her heart racing. “Why? Is there something else—?”
“No, honey,” Cat said, her hand covering Julia’s. “Eric asked him to do it, in one of his more lucid moments just before they put him in the ambulance. Told Adam to send someone to check on your little girl.”
“How’d he know?” Julia said, amazed. “How’d he know to do that?” Or that the gesture would set her mind at ease. “You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”
Cat chuckled, soft and low. “No, against my better judgment, and because I promised you I wouldn’t, I haven’t told anyone about your troubles.” Then she looked down the hall toward the operating rooms. “But Eric can see things—that’s why he’s such a good lawman. The man has a sensitive side he hides from the world. He probably figured a mother would be concerned about the safety of her child—I mean after being held at gunpoint. And with the robber still on the loose.”
Julia nodded, rubbed her suddenly cold hands together. “I was worried. The school’s principal couldn’t understand why I wanted to pull her out of class, since they have a sheriff’s deputy as their resource officer, but I’m glad I did. I’ll call Mrs. Ulmer again in a few minutes, but I’m sure Mr. Ulmer will entertain her all afternoon.”
“You can count on that,” Cat replied. “The Ulmers love Moria like their own grandchildren. She sure is a sweetheart.” Then she let out a sigh. “Boy, I’m beat. What a day.”
Julia looked at her cousin, grateful for Cat’s calming presence. They’d always been close growing up, so when Cat offered Julia a job and a place to live to get her away from San Antonio and all the bad memories, Julia had jumped at the chance to start over in Wildflower. Although Cat was a few years older than Julia’s thirty-two, with her stylish curly bob and her big dark eyes, she looked younger than her actual age. Petite and becomingly plump, Cat was one of the nicest people Julia had ever met, a true Texan through and through. Cat loved God, people and her job. She loved to cook, especially for all the deputies and police officers who frequented her establishment. Maybe because her own husband had been a lawman and had died doing his job about five years ago.
Working at the café was like having one big, law-abiding family, Julia thought. Cat kept telling her she’d be safe in Wildflower. And living in this quiet town near Caddo Lake did make her feel safe.
That was something she’d never had before.
Thinking this whole thing had probably brought Cat some awful flashbacks, too, Julia leaned close. “Are you okay?”
Cat brushed at her hair with one hand. “Me? Yeah, sure. I guess I’m used to all the commotion. I tell you, though, when that man was holding that gun to your head, I ’bout had a heart attack. We just don’t get that kind of crime here.”
“Eric and Adam saved my life. They saved all of us,” Julia said, not sure how to comfort Cat. They’d both lost their husbands, but Cat’s man had been a true-blue Texas Ranger. Alfonso Endicott, on the other hand, had been a “yes” man. A hardworking man, but a man always willing to do the bidding of his powerful bosses, nonetheless. She shouldn’t hold that against him, but there it was, bitter and heavy, inside her.
Alfonso had sacrificed being with his wife and child to stay at the beck and call of the Gardonez family. And all for the love of money. Alfonso always wanted more, needed more, to prove himself. He’d gone beyond the call of duty in order to keep his high-paying job. The Gardonez family had depended on him to take care of their millions, to make sure everything they did was above board and by the books.
Then why had someone killed him?
Julia had a funny feeling that the motive had to do with money, too, since her husband had been the head accountant for the De La Noche Shipping Company. That brought her thoughts back to today’s events.
“Why did that man try to rob us right in the middle of lunch hour, Cat?” she asked, hoping her cousin could put a reasonable spin on things, because Julia didn’t want to put her own spin on it. She wasn’t ready to delve into all the implications right now.
Cat gave her an eloquent shrug. “I guess he needed some cash. Maybe for drugs, or maybe he just took a wrong turn somewhere. Or maybe he was being stupid. We’ve never been robbed before, ever, and I’ve been running the café for over a decade, and my mama before me for even longer than that herself. You’ve spent enough summers here with me growing up to know that. It’s just plain weird.”
Julia had to agree. She’d often traveled here with her parents to visit Cat’s family. They’d leave her in Wildflower for weeks on end while they traveled around in their RV camper. Julia had loved staying with her aunt and uncle and Cat and helping out at the café. And even though she just had Cat now, she liked working at the café and living right around the corner from her cousin. Or she had up until today.
“I hope we find out something soon about Eric. And that other man, too.”
Cat nodded. “Well, just think…you and Eric will both be famous from now on. Adam, too, probably. Even the restaurant, for that matter.”
Julia pushed a hand through her hair. “How’s that?”
“The Gazette, honey. Mickey Jameson is doing a front-page spread about the robbery. He wanted to interview you, but I held him back. Told him to give you a call later today before the paper goes to press.” Seeing the look on Julia’s face, she put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my. I wasn’t even thinking straight—”
Julia jumped out of her chair. “Front page? I don’t want to be on the front page.”
But it was too late. The double doors leading from the E.R. driveway swished open and in walked debonair Mickey Jameson himself. “Ah, there’s my star witness,” he said, smiling broadly. “Got a great shot of you, Mrs. Daniels. Now I just need to finish the story. Cat, I know you said to wait, but I have a deadline. And you know what they say—‘If it bleeds, it leads.’”
Julia shook her head, backing away. “I’m not going to talk to you, Mr. Jameson. Not now, not ever.”
Eric woke up in the recovery room, his wounded shoulder bandaged but still throbbing. At least now his head wasn’t nearly as fuzzy. Finally he could take his time and remember everything that had happened during the robbery.
Lying back, he tried to think things through, but something just wasn’t right about the situation. Before he could figure it all out, his father walked in.
“You awake?”
Eric looked toward the end of the bed where his broad-shouldered father stood with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I’m fine, Dad. How’d you get in here, anyway?”
“I still have some connections. Managed to sweet-talk a nurse.”
Eric grinned at that. “Some things never change.”
Harlan didn’t dwell on hospital procedure. “Bullet skipped right through you, did it?”
“Yep. I don’t know why they even brought me to the hospital. I could have gone home and poured some alcohol on it and been good as new.” In spite of the jovial tone, Eric could see the worry in his father’s eyes. “Bullet went straight in and out, Pop. Probably still stuck somewhere in the café wall.”
Harlan kicked one boot against the other, as if he had mud on his shoes. “Good. That’s evidence now.”
“Yep. I’m sure they’ll find the bullet. I just wish I knew why that guy chose lunchtime to go and rob the place.”
“Yep, that is kinda odd. Most wait until closing time.” He stood silent for a couple of beats, then added, “Mighty strange how he got clear out of town so fast, too.”
“I’m gonna figure it out,” Eric said. “I shot the man, but I need answers.”
“Just be careful,” Harlan replied, rocking back on his worn cowboy boots. “You’ll need to rest up for a few days at least.”
“I’ll be on leave until the department finishes its investigation. Did they call in the Rangers?”
Harlan nodded. “Standard procedure. But you could use a rest, anyway. You’ve been burning the candle at both ends for a while, now.”
“I guess I have at that,” Eric replied, tiredness sweeping over him. And today, of all days, he’d planned on having a nice, leisurely lunch with his friend just so he could enjoy watching Julia Daniels go about her work. No rest for the weary. “You okay?”
“I’m good,” Harlan said, clearing his throat. “Just waiting for them to put you in a room. Then I’ll go on home and check on the animals.”
“You don’t have to come back tonight. I’ll probably sleep the night through, then be home tomorrow.”
Harlan nodded, his white-haired head down. “That waitress came and sat with me for a while during your surgery. She’s mighty grateful.”
“Julia? She’s a nice woman.”
“Do you know much about her?” Harlan put both hands on the steel footboard of the bed. “I mean, it struck me how she didn’t want Mickey to put her picture in the paper, didn’t even want to talk to him about the robbery and all. Either she’s real shy, or she really doesn’t want any publicity. Mighty odd to me.”
Eric moved his head, his eyes locking with his daddy’s. They were both probably wondering the same things. Instincts and natural curiosity made both of them good lawmen.
