She looked up into those warm green eyes of his. “Nothing,” she said simply. She forced a smile of dark humor. “I guess I should be grateful that at least I didn’t get a speeding ticket.” The smile faltered and fell away as tears once again burned at her eyes.
He raised a dark eyebrow. “You didn’t tell anyone?”
She leaned back and stared at a point just over his shoulder. “Who was I going to tell? I couldn’t exactly report the crime to the sheriff.” There was more than a touch of bitterness in her voice.
She shook her head. “I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want to tell Nana because I thought it might destroy her. It wasn’t until I realized I was pregnant that I finally told Nana and the man I’d been seeing at the time.” A shaft of pain stabbed through her. “He asked me what I’d been wearing that night, implying that it was somehow my fault. Needless to say that was the end of that relationship.”
“And you’re sure Sheriff Sinclair is Sammy’s biological father?” There was a faint note of apology in his voice.
She wanted to be offended by the question, but realized Dalton really didn’t know anything about her. It was a fair question, she supposed.
“I’m positive. The guy I was seeing at the time…we hadn’t…you know, been intimate.” Her cheeks burned and she kept her gaze averted from his.
“So, you realized you were pregnant. What happened then?”
She looked at him once again. It was impossible to read him. She had no idea if he believed her or not, couldn’t get a sense of anything that might be flowing through his head.
“The last thing I wanted was for Brandon Sinclair to know that I was pregnant. I managed to hide my condition from everyone until late in the pregnancy, then I told people who noticed that I’d had a fling with a salesman passing through town.” She gazed down at Sammy. “As far as I was concerned Brandon Sinclair had no right to know about my condition. From the very beginning Sammy was my baby and nobody else’s.”
“So, he didn’t know anything about Sammy.”
“I didn’t think he knew until three days ago when he walked into the café where I worked.” She told him about Sinclair and his deputies coming in and the sheriff asking her about her son.
“There was something in his eyes, something in the things he was saying that let me know I had to take Sammy and run and so that’s what I did. I didn’t steal anything from the café, but the moment the sheriff left, I told Smiley, the owner, that I didn’t feel well. I also told him I wasn’t happy working there and I was quitting, then I went home.”
She paused a moment to draw a deep breath then continued, “Nana agreed that I needed to take Sammy and leave town, get as far away as possible from Sheriff Sinclair. One of Nana’s friends drove me here to catch the bus. Our plan was that I’d get settled someplace far away from Oklahoma, then I’d send for Nana and we’d start building a new life together.” Grief once again rocked through her and new tears burned at her eyes as she thought of her grandmother.
Dalton studied her, a tiny frown furrowing the area in the center of his forehead. “After that night of the rape, did he continue to bother you? To threaten you in any way?”
She shook her head. “No. Of course, I went out of my way to avoid him. I kept my pregnancy pretty well hidden, too. The few times we did run into each other, it was as if nothing had ever happened. He’d look right through me, as if he had no memory of what he’d done.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, fighting a new chill. A bitter laugh escaped her. “Who was I going to report it to?” she said more to herself than to him. “Who was I going to tell about the rape? The sheriff? His deputies? Brandon Sinclair owns Sandstone.”
Leaning forward she stared at the wall just over Dalton’s shoulder. “Everyone is afraid of him. He’ll get Smiley, my boss at the café, to agree that I stole money. He’ll get anyone in town to say anything whether it’s true or not, because nobody wants to get on his bad side. Besides, when he was done with me he reminded me that I was nothing but trailer trash and nobody would ever believe my word over his.”
“I believe you.”
Those three words, so simply spoken, wove a strand of warmth around her heart. She hadn’t realized how badly she’d wanted to hear somebody other than her nana say them. She began to cry again.
* * *
Dalton pulled her against his broad chest as her tears flowed once again. He believed her. Dalton, better than anyone, knew that a gold badge of law enforcement could hide a sick, twisted soul.
There was no way she could fake the grief she felt for her grandmother and there was no way she could have manufactured the trauma she’d exhibited as she’d told him about the rape.
He tightened his arms around her. There was a special place in hell for men who raped women, and a place beyond hell for men in authority who abused women.
Janette’s tears finally ebbed and she raised her head and looked at him, the blue of her eyes dark with tortured sorrow. “I just can’t believe she’s gone,” she said, her voice hoarse with emotion. “I just talked to her yesterday morning.”
“Yesterday morning?” Dalton frowned, the sheriff’s words replaying in his mind. “You spoke to your grandmother yesterday morning?”
She nodded and moved out of his embrace. She wiped at her cheeks and tucked a strand of her shiny hair behind her ear. “I called her from here to let her know that I was stuck here because of the storm.”
“But according to what Sheriff Sinclair told me, he found her dead before the storm moved in.”
Janette blinked in confusion. “But that’s impossible.” Her tears disappeared as a tenuous hope shone from her eyes. “He lied. And if she wasn’t dead when he said she was, maybe she isn’t dead at all. Maybe he just said that to get you to turn me over to him.” She jumped up from the sofa and headed to the cordless phone on the end table.
Dalton leaned forward and watched her. As she punched in numbers she looked small and fragile, and the thought of a man touching her, taking her with force filled him with a simmering rage.
He watched her face as she gripped the phone receiver tightly against her ear. The hope that had momentarily lit her eyes faded.
“Nobody answered,” she said as she hung up. “Even the answering machine didn’t pick up.” Her eyes grew shiny with tears once again.
“Is there anyone else you can call to see what’s going on?”
“Nana’s friend, Nancy.” She quickly punched in the number. “She lives next door to Nana at the trailer park. She’ll know what’s going on. Nancy,” she said into the phone. “It’s me.”
Myriad expressions played across her face as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. “Oh, God, is she…” Tears once again fell from Janette’s eyes but she offered him a tremulous smile.
“Nana, are you all right?”
As she said these words a knot of tension eased in his chest. Either she was a better actress than Meryl Streep or she was now talking to the grandmother she’d thought murdered.
“Does he know where you are now?” Janette asked. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” She paused and listened for several minutes, then continued, “We’re fine and hopefully tomorrow we’ll be on the bus. Don’t worry, Nana, everything is going to be okay. I love you, too. I’ll stay in touch.”
Janette hung up the phone and stared at Dalton, her eyes once again haunted with fear. “She’s alive, thank God.” She returned to