Falling Hard and Fast (4 page)

An insect droned near her bare shoulder, and she waved it away languidly. There had been one fact she'd gleaned that had sparked her interest. Actually, it had nearly caused her to reach for the antacids she still carried in her purse. The cozy little house she'd rented had promptly lost some of its charm when she'd heard the news.

Cage Gauthier was her nearest neighbor.

Her lip jutted out in a cross between a sneer and a pout. She really shouldn't have been surprised. She'd long ago
accepted that God couldn't resist the opportunity for irony. It would be a long time before Cage's high-handed actions would cease to rankle. Longer still before she let herself be blinded by a super sampling of half-baked charm wrapped up in an attractive package. Not even to herself would she admit just how attractive a package he made.

She heard the car before she saw it. The uneven sound of its engine was punctuated by an occasional backfire. Peering through the darkness, she watched as the vehicle drew closer to her house, and then slowed.

It wasn't a car, after all, she finally observed, but a pickup truck. An old one, from the sounds of it—one that seemed filled to overflowing with men.

Silently she rose and slipped into the house. She shut and locked the door before moving to the front window and pulling aside the curtain. She couldn't see well enough to determine how many men there were, but judging from the hollering going on, all of them had been imbibing freely. Letting the curtain drop back into place, she headed to her bedroom upstairs.

As she slipped between the crisp cotton sheets, she heard a loud whoop and an engine gunned. Grimacing, she directed the fan standing next to the bed toward her and turned it on. Some good ol' boys were going to have pounding heads in the morning, she imagined. She only hoped the pain they suffered was as obnoxious as their behavior tonight.

Somewhere between dozing and slumber, the first sound rang out, rousing her. Blinking groggily, she rolled over, trying to disentangle dream from reality. The second sound had her sitting straight up in bed, confusion fading. Then the noises came in rapid succession.

Gunshots.

Even as she sprang from the bed and pulled on jeans and a shirt, a more rational part of her mind took over. She'd been living in the city for far too long if she was automat
ically assuming that the sounds were gunfire. They could be fireworks, or, or… Her usually fertile imagination ran dry.

Pounding down the stairs, she ran barefoot to the front door and looked out. The splinter of moon shed little light in the dark sky, but she could see that the street in front of her house was empty. She hadn't expected otherwise. The shots, or whatever the noises would prove to be, hadn't sounded close enough to be coming from her yard.

She went to the telephone and reached for the receiver, then groaned mentally, dropping her hand. Although she'd contacted the phone company the day she'd moved in, her phone had not yet been hooked up. She'd assumed that the service, like so much else in Charity, moved at a slower pace than in the rest of the world. It hadn't been a problem until now.

She scooped up her keys from the hallway table and opened the door. Running down the steps, she headed for her car. There was no way she could return to sleep without alerting the local law enforcement about the sounds she'd heard.

Backing out of her drive, a thought formed in her mind and refused to be banished. Janice Reilly had died brutally, but not from gunshot wounds. Somehow, under the dark cover of the night, that thought failed to comfort her.

 

It had been a waste of a fine cigar, Cage thought aggrievedly, surveying the damage to his home. He'd been on the front porch, feet propped on the railing, an icy beer in one hand and his nightly smoke in the other. He'd recognized the sound of that sickly engine even before he'd seen the truck. Caution had sent him into the house, flipping off the lights as he went by. Caution may have saved his life. Either that, or damn poor aim.

The first bullet had taken him by surprise, but there had been no mistaking the sound it made, tearing through wood and plaster. Instinct had had him dropping to the faded rug
and rolling across the room, in the direction of the holstered gun he'd unstrapped earlier and laid on the table.

The volley of bullets had shattered the front window, raining him with shards of glass. When he'd reached his gun and unleashed some fire of his own, the truck had squealed out of his drive amid more shots and some high-pitched hollering.

He reached an arm behind him awkwardly and pulled out a splinter of glass that protruded partway from his skin. His back felt on fire. No doubt there were countless tiny pieces to be picked out of it. He scowled at the thought. And he hadn't even gotten to enjoy his one cigar of the day.

Crossing to the telephone, he picked up the receiver and punched in some numbers. “Yeah, it's Gauthier,” he said when Harriet, the night dispatcher, answered. “I had some trouble out here. Send a couple men.” He could feel the faintly sticky traces of blood crawling down his skin. “No, they're gone. And if it's who I think it is, they won't be back.”

Hanging up, he skirted the broken glass and headed to the kitchen to get himself a towel—and froze as he noticed the twin spear of headlights coming up his drive at a snail's pace.

Reversing direction, he scooped up the gun he'd laid next to the phone and padded silently into the dark dining room. He unlocked the door and slipped out onto the side porch, jumping nimbly over the railing and landing in the flower bed. He crept around the side of the house and paused. The car had shut off its lights, but no one had gotten out. Training he'd thought long dormant kicked in, and he dropped to his belly, approaching the vehicle at a crawl. If someone had come back to finish the job, he was in for a shock.

He was a yard from the car when the driver's side opened. He lunged to his feet and closed the distance in one smooth motion, clamping his arm around the driver's neck and pressing his gun hard against the temple.

“I never was much for surprises,” he murmured matter-of-factly.

The hard body behind her, the pressure of what was surely a gun barrel to her head, had terror sprinting down Zoey's back and pooling nastily at the base of her spine. It took a second for recognition to filter through the panic, another for the dam of relief to break.

“I'll remember to call before dropping in next time,” she managed shakily. Even before she'd completed the sentence she heard his muttered curse, then he was releasing her and stepping away.

“What in
hell
are you doing here?”

Temper, she noted, sharpened his words, made the drawl all but disappear. She faced him in the darkness, raised her chin. “I heard something that sounded like shots.”

He snorted and half turned away in disbelief, before swinging back to her. “There was a good reason for that, sugar. They
were
shots. Which doesn't explain why you decided to plant yourself right in the middle of the fray.”

From the distance he heard a siren approaching and mentally groaned. He should have warned Harriet. That damned DuPrey was like a kid. He'd run a siren for a jaywalker, given the chance.

“I knew they were gone. I saw the truck come out of your drive.”

She had his interest now. “You saw the truck?”

As two sheriff's-department cars pulled into the drive, she gave him a rundown of what she'd observed outside her home. “I'm pretty sure it was the same truck that passed me on the road,” she concluded. “It's hard to mistake the sound of that engine.”

“You're right about that. But next time leave the investigating to the professionals.”

“My phone isn't hooked up,” she said tartly. “It was either drive into town to report the shots or go back to sleep and ignore the fact that someone could be in danger. If I'd
known that the someone was you, my decision might have been different.”

The snooty tone was back. His mouth quirked unwillingly. He'd been the rock his mother and sister had leaned on for long enough to have acquired an appreciation for strong women. Something told him that the woman standing before him was finely forged steel. He didn't know why the thought made him want to see just how deep that steel went.

DuPrey and Fisher climbed out of their units, and Cage turned to face them. He heard her gasp and suddenly remembered what his back must look like. Not that he could forget for long. It felt as though an army of fire ants were marching across each spare inch of flesh.

The headlights of the cars spotlighted the two of them, and the sight of that raw, angry skin sent a tremor through her. “You've been hurt.” Her hand lifted, almost reached him, before she snatched it back and tucked it in her jeans pocket.

“Yeah, it was flying glass. Get me a wet towel, would you, honey?”

She watched him saunter away, and just that easily, that casually, she was relegated to nursemaid. She didn't know whether to laugh or snarl.

Minutes later, she was doing neither. He sat on the porch steps giving his deputies instructions while she knelt behind him, wiping away blood. Most of the cuts were shallow, she was relieved to note, but there were a few that still had glass embedded in them. She didn't dare try to remove them. Her nursing experience had been limited to soaking up blood and bandaging Patrick after his various mishaps.

She tended to him silently. But when the two deputies got into their cars, the questions that had been bubbling just below the surface came tumbling out. “Who are the Rutherfords? Why are you so sure they're behind this tonight? Did you see them?”

He flexed his shoulders gingerly, flinched when he felt a sharp jab. She hadn't gotten all the glass out yet. “Well,
the fact is, sweetheart, I kind of fibbed to you a few days ago.”

Her hands stilled, more from the term of endearment than from the confession. It occurred to her that she'd come a long way from “Miss Prescott” in the space of a few days. “Sugar,” “honey,” “sweetheart”—some men preferred endearments to going to the bother of remembering a woman's given name. She scrubbed at a trace of blood more vigorously, causing him to release a hiss of breath.

“Take it easy, there, will you? I'd just as soon keep that layer of skin. And it wasn't a flat-out lie, or anything.” It took her a moment to pick up the thread of conversation. “When you mentioned there not being any crime to speak of in the parish, I didn't correct you, that's all. Fact is, although this area is quiet by city standards, we have enough going on to keep my department busy. And I'm sure it was the Rutherford boys, because it's just the sort of dumb move they'd make. See, they're plain pissed off at me.” He turned to look at her over his shoulder, and winked. “I know you find that hard to believe.”

“Not totally.”

“Yeah, well, I busted up the meth lab they were running in the woods near their place, and hauled their youngest brother, Carver, off to jail. I know dang well the whole clan was in on it, but I only have evidence to charge the one.” A note of determination entered his voice. “So far.”

Her hands stilled on his back. “Meth lab. In Charity?”

“In the parish, at any rate. Running them in rural places is getting more common. I doubt these guys were the brains behind the outfit, since Rutherfords don't run long in that area. Stagnant gene pool,” he offered by way of explanation. He'd like to turn completely and face her, watch the reactions flit across that expressive face, but was reluctant to pull away from her light touch. He imagined there was a straight route from the tips of her fingers to his veins. He indulged himself for another moment and let himself envi
sion those hands running over his chest…his stomach…lower.

“Get the Rutherfords liquored up and they're just stupid enough to drive their wreck of a truck over and shoot up my place.” His voice sounded slightly strangled, so he cleared it. “DuPrey and Fisher will most likely find gunpowder on their hands and shotguns that will match the ballistics from the bullets I'll be digging out of my walls.”

“You make it sound so reasonable. Those idiots could have killed you.”

He hid a satisfied smile at the concern in her voice. Slowly, stiffly, he turned to face her. “Careful there, honey. You almost sound like you'd miss me.”

He was too close, his face only inches from her own. She swallowed hard when she saw that his eyes had gone to smoke. “Don't call me honey.”

His mouth crooked a little. “Sorry.” He reached a hand toward her, hesitated for an instant when she flinched, then pushed a strand of hair away from her face. “Zoey.” Surely it was that slow, heated drawl of his that made his voice sound caressing; that made her name on his lips sound every bit as intimate as the endearment.

They stared at each other for a moment. She was near enough to notice the small white scar at the corner of his eye, to feel the warmth of his breath when he spoke.

“I guess I owe you a thank-you.”

Since she couldn't seem to formulate the word, she just shook her head.

“Yes, ma'am, I believe I do. I usually wait until the third or fourth date before I ask women to patch me up.” A ghost of a smile played across his mouth. “Hate to scare them off. But something tells me that you don't scare easily, do you, Zoey?”

Strange, that the return of his easy charm would have her lungs easing. His lighthearted banter was infinitely preferable to that moment of tenderness. “Since I hardly qualify as a date, I don't think you need to worry. And you're not
patched up. At least, not completely. Your next stop is going to be the hospital.”

He took her hand in his and distracted her from the action by arguing. “Charity doesn't have what I'd call a real hospital. It's more a clinic. Old Doc Barnes gets real ornery when he's woken up, too. He's got the temperament and light touch of a grizzly and uses needles a full foot long.” He gave a shudder that wasn't totally feigned. “You could help me more than he could.”