The knock on the door, as always, caused Corinne Farland’s heart to skip a beat. Some lessons, once learned, could never be unlearned.
But after a year in Conard County, she found it a little easier to go to the front of the house. As always, she twitched the curtain aside at the front window by the door and looked out. She recognized Gage Dalton instantly, with his scarred face and his sheriff’s uniform. Gage was her main protector these days.
She hurried to disengage the alarm system, then opened the door and smiled, an expression that sometimes still felt awkward on her face. “Hi, Gage.”
He smiled back, a crooked expression as the burn scar on one side of his face caused one side of his mouth to hitch oddly. “Hi, Cory. Got a minute?”
“For you, always.” She let him in and asked if he’d like some coffee.
“I’m coffeed out,” he said, still smiling. “Too many cups of Velma’s brew and my stomach starts reminding me I’m mortal.” Velma was the dispatcher at the sheriff’s office, a woman of indeterminate age who made coffee so strong few people could finish a single cup. The deputies, however, sucked it down by the pot.
She invited him into her small living room, and he perched on the edge of her battered recliner, his tan Stetson in his hands.
“How are things?” he asked.
“Okay.” Not entirely true, maybe never true again, but the bleak desert of her heart and soul were not things she trotted out. Not for anyone.
“Emma mentioned something to me.” Emma was his wife, the county librarian, a woman Cory admired and liked. “She said you were a bit tight financially.”
Cory felt her cheeks heat. “That wasn’t for distribution.”
Gage smiled. “Husband-and-wife privilege. It doesn’t go any further, okay?”
She tried to smile back and hoped she succeeded. Things were indeed tight. Her salary as a grocery-store clerk had been tight from the beginning, but now because times were hard, they’d asked everyone to take a cut in hours. Her cut had pushed her to the brink, where canned soup often became her only meal of the day.
Gage shook his head. “I’ll never in a million years understand how they work this witness protection program.”
Cory bit her lip. She didn’t like to discuss that part, the part where her husband, a federal prosecutor, had become the target of a drug gang he was going after. The part where a man had burst into her house one night and killed him. The part where the feds had said that for her own protection she had to change her identity and move far away from everything and everyone she knew and loved.
“They do the best they can,” she said finally.
“Not enough. It’s not enough to buy you a house, give you a few bucks, get you a job and then leave you to manage. Not after what you’ve been through.”
“There was some insurance.” Almost gone now, though, and she was clinging to the remains in case of an emergency. She’d already had a few of those with this house they’d given her, and it had eaten into what little she had. “And they did do more for me than most.” Like a minor plastic surgery to change her nose, which caused an amazing transformation to her face, and the high-tech alarm system that protected her day and night.
“Well,” he said, “I’d like to make a suggestion.”
“Yes?”
“A friend of a friend just arrived in town. He’s looking for a place to stay awhile that’s not a motel, but he’s not ready to rent an apartment. Do you think you could consider taking a roomer? You don’t have to feed him, just give him your extra bedroom.”
She thought about that. There was a bedroom upstairs, untouched and unused. It had a single bed, a dresser and a chair, here when she had moved in. Her own bedroom was downstairs, so she wouldn’t have this guy next door to her at all times.
But there were other things, darker fears. “Gage...”
“I know. It’s hard to trust after where you’ve been. But I checked him out. Twenty years in the navy, all documented. Enough medals to paper a wall. You’ve met Nate Tate, haven’t you?”
“Of course.” She’d met the former sheriff. He might have retired, but apparently he still made it his job to know everyone in the county. She’d even had dinner with him and his wife a few times at their house. “Of course.”
“Well, this guy is a friend of his son’s. I don’t know if you’ve met Seth Hardin.”
She shook her head.
“Well, that’s a story for another day. But Seth is a good sort, and he suggested this guy come here for a while to decompress.”
“Decompress?” She didn’t know if she liked the sound of that. “I don’t know...”
“I’m not asking you to babysit.” Gage smiled again. “This guy is quite capable of looking after himself. He just needs some time away. A change of scene. And he’s not a talker. I doubt you’ll know he’s in the house most of the time.”
“I’ll think about it.” But she had to admit, she trusted Gage, and she needed the money.
“How about I bring him inside and introduce you?”
Fear jammed into her throat. Every new person represented risk. Every single one. Hiding had become her raison d’être, and each time she had to meet someone new, the experience resurrected old fears.
“Let me get him,” Gage said before she could argue. “He’s in my car.”
She wanted to scream for him not to do this, but she sat frozen, her fingers instinctively going to her side where the scar from the bullet still sometimes hurt. Where was her will? Her ability to say no? She seemed to have lost that on one dark night a year ago. Ever since, she had moved through her days like an automaton. Doing what was expected, pretending she cared. The truth was that the only thing she ever really felt anymore was fear. And grief. Sometimes fury.
She heard Gage limp back onto the porch, and with him came a considerably heavier tread. She rose, an instinct these days, not out of courtesy, but out of a need to be able to flee if necessary.
First she saw Gage, but forgot him instantly as she looked at one of the biggest men she had ever seen. He must have been at least five inches over six feet, and even wrapped in a chambray shirt and jeans, he looked to be built out of concrete. Powerful. Strong. Overwhelming.
Scariest of all was the absolute lack of expression on his face. It was a hard face and appeared as if it would yield to nothing at all. His eyes were as black as chips of obsidian, and so was his short hair. She couldn’t begin to guess a thing about him, not even his age.
Inside she quailed, helplessly, feeling like a mouse staring down a hawk.
But then he spoke, in a voice as deep as the rumble of thunder. “Ms. Farland. I’m Wade Kendrick.” He didn’t offer his hand.
The words sounded reluctant. As if he were no happier about putting her out than she was about taking this risk.
And his reluctance somehow eased her fear. “Hi,” she said. “Have a seat.”
He looked around as if deciding which chair might hold him. He finally took one end of the sofa. Cory sat on the Boston rocker, and Gage eased into the recliner again. The sheriff clearly suffered constant pain, but he never spoke of it.
“Okay,” Gage said, since no one else seemed to be willing to talk. “Wade here needs a room indefinitely. Don’t know how long, which is why he can’t rent an apartment just yet. He’s willing to pay monthly for a room. No food.”
“I’ll eat out,” Wade said. “I don’t want to get underfoot.”
She appreciated that at the same time