“You couldn’t be more wrong—and Kyle and I are out of here.”
She reached for the badge. Before she could unhook it, though, her father managed to shuffle around his desk again and gripped her shoulder, stopping her.
“Don’t desert me. Hell, all of the old-timers know and respect you. They’re glad you’re back.”
“How can they? They knew about Hugh and L”
“Yeah, and they remember your integrity even more. That will count for bunches, and they’ll convince the others no matter what earful Marsden feeds them.”
She doubted it. In any case, he didn’t get it. “I can’t be here,” Taylor said, enunciating slowly. Her voice sounded desperate even to her own ears. “I can’t face him again. What’s more, I don’t want to have to go through that—and considering what I did to him, I doubt he wants to get within a thousand miles of me!”
Her father gripped her shoulder harder. “Listen to me. You did what you had to do. Anyone with half a brain knows it’s only because of you that he’s still alive.”
“Right. I’m sure he thanked me every day that he spent in prison.” Taylor backed out of his reach and raked her hands through hair she wore almost shorter than some boys did. “This is a nightmare. What were you thinking? Didn’t you realize what you were doing?”
“Absolutely. You needed to get out of Detroit. I needed to keep this town from rioting.”
And for that he was willing to sacrifice her sanity. Maybe she could have managed somehow if there was only herself to consider, but... She pointed at the shut door. “What about that boy out there?”
“Aw, Kyle’s gonna be fine.”
Exasperating man. “Now you’re a psychic? Have you heard anything I’ve said? You made decisions that weren’t yours to make. I don’t want my son exposed to gossip and heaven knows what else!” She didn’t want to think about all of the rumors and truths that Kyle would hear. To think she’d believed their relationship on tenuous ground before. What a joke!
“I thought of a heap of things, Taylor Grace, and I made a judgment call.” Her father stood before her proud and unapologetic. “You understand the necessity of those well enough.”
Unfortunately she did. And, as a result of one she’d made long ago, Hugh had gone to prison. Because of another she had moved to Detroit. Yet another had brought her back here.
Her father must have seen the crack in her defenses. With a sad smile, he inched closer, this time easing his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t tell me there isn’t a small part of you that wants to see him again?”
“I’ve often wondered what it would be like to stand on the moon and look back at the earth, too, but you don’t see me climbing into a metal canister and letting someone light a few million gallons of fuel under me.”
“You’re worrying about the bottom line, aren’t you? You’re thinking that you were never certain yourself whether he was guilty or not, and how that didn’t change what you felt for him. Maybe now you’ll get your answer.”
“Curiosity is not an adequate motivator for something like this.”
“Bull. So why’d you try to contact him after he was sent to the penitentiary. Sheriff Trammell told me that Hugh’s attorney said you even wrote from Detroit.”
“Well, if he told you that, then he also must have told you that my letters were returned unopened. I think that was a fairly clear message to assume the worst.”
Her father sighed. “Okay, then. Let him take one look at you and maybe it’ll convince him and his mother to sell the business and move on, the way Murdock and his friends in the chamber of commerce have been trying to coax her to do all along. Shoot, Jane’s barely getting by. Except for Mel Denver and a handful of referrals from him, most of her business is from the reservation folks. Maybe that’s been enough for her, but I can’t see how the two of them will manage.”
Taylor suspected he was right, but that only made her feel worse. She had to ask the question she’d only asked him once before. “Do you think he killed Piers Marsden, Dad?”
He took his time answering. “Hon, he was angry enough to. And if someone had done to you what Piers did to Noel, I could see myself that angry. What’s more, a number of people considered Piers’s death a personal favor. Remember all those rumors about what a creep he was?”
“That’s not what I asked.” Taylor was no more happy to hear these evasions than she wanted to feel the familiar, dull pain in her chest. She’d believed, hoped, that she’d gotten over Hugh. “Do you think he killed Murdock’s son?”
Her father bowed his head, a strand of graying hair slipping low over his forehead. “Yeah, Gracie, I’m afraid I do.”
So did she, and that was the tragedy of it. It didn’t matter that, like her father, she’d understood the anger that would have compelled him to do it. There had been a moment when she’d first learned what Piers had done to Hugh’s sister, after she’d witnessed the poor girl’s trauma in the hospital, that she had wanted to hurt the bastard herself. The difference was, she had too much respect for the law.
“See, another reason I have to get this resolved,” her father continued, “is because people are saying that once word gets around that he’s out, the whole place will become a ghost town...especially after sundown.”
“That’s ridiculous. Hugh loved this town and most of the people who lived here. He’s not at risk of being a repeat offender.” Unless he saw her again.
“I’m merely repeating the consensus of opinion.” Her father gave her a sidelong look. “Well? Can you handle this for me?”
The sympathy in his voice decided her. She snatched his straw cowboy hat off his in-box and slammed it on her head. “I took the oath, didn’t I? What choice do I have?”
“Atta girl. Now make sure you tell him that I’m not asking for him to get lost overnight. All we need is some assurance that he will leave. Soon.”
Taylor handed over her keys and picked up his from his desk blotter. “When I get to the house, I’d better find you stretched out on the couch with that leg up, and holding a cold beer.”
“Can’t have any. Doc’s got me on damned pain pills,” her father replied as she reached for the doorknob.
“Not for you. For me.”
By the time Taylor made a right onto Main Street, her stomach was churning and cramping. If it wasn’t for Kyle, she knew she could easily have made a U-turn and directed the old Chevy for the interstate, she felt that much the coward.
Hugh. Heaven help her. Until minutes ago, she’d believed she would never see him again; she had buried the dreams she’d once cherished for their future. The news that he had gained his freedom should have sent her shouting with joy and relief...only, thanks to her father’s explanation, there was nothing to celebrate, and everything to dread.
Somehow she had to keep her wits about her, do what she’d been hired to do. The past couldn’t be allowed to matter. Nothing else could matter.
It was barely a mile drive to Blackstone Feed and Supplies. A left turn at Crooked Pine Road and she saw the metal building. The plywood doors of the warehouse were wide open, and as she pulled into the dirt-and-gravel parking lot she saw a silhouette of someone moving around in there. She drew in a deep breath to ease the growing discomfort in her stomach, killed the truck’s engine and climbed out.