Love Inspired Suspense July 2015 #1 (25 page)

Never mind that the pill bottle had turned out to be an old codeine prescription of their father's. But yeah, the fact that Cole had asked her to conceal it a mere day after his brother had held a knife to her throat was testimony to how hard he'd smashed his head.

Any other woman would've been jumping at the chance to get Eddie off the streets. Except—Cole planted his elbow on the table and buried his fingers in his hair—with her hovering over him, those beautiful blue eyes filled with concern, he hadn't had a hope of thinking straight.

Worse than that, he'd asked her to compromise her principles.

“You okay?” the deputy asked.

Cole blinked. Massaged his forehead. “Yeah, sorry, still nursing a headache.” And still nursing a seven-year-old infatuation that had started when Sherri found him pounding his fist into the fence that had separated their yards after he'd learned his father had been cheating on Mom.

Sherri had dabbed antiseptic on his grazed knuckles, and he remembered feeling as if just by allowing her to help him, he'd been sullying her somehow, tainting her innocence by exposing her to his family's mixed-up morality.

Seven years later nothing had changed. Same girl. Same infatuation. Same insurmountable obstacle of his family.

Cole glanced at the clock on the wall behind the deputy and wondered if Dad was keeping a better eye on Eddie today. As much as he would have liked to avoid his dad, he'd had no choice but to allow Dad to visit him in the hospital to warn him about the prescription Eddie had stolen on top of sneaking out of the house to buy more drugs. The fact that Dad had seen the conversation as an invitation to pick up where'd they'd left off the day before his selfishness blew apart their family was proof of how mixed up his morality was.

But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Cole rubbed his forehead harder, wishing he could rub out the scripture verse that had flitted through his mind too many times since. He dropped his hand to the table and returned his focus to the deputy. “What are you doing to keep Sherri safe?”

“Sending a patrol car along on any calls. Not much more we can do.”

That was something anyway. It would give him time to hang with Eddie without having to worry about Sherri every second. Helping Eddie escape the mess he'd made of his life was the whole reason he'd moved back to Stalwart. The attacks against Sherri had sidetracked him, but getting through to Eddie was no less urgent. Kids younger than him died of drug overdoses every day. And Eddie was clearly addicted.

The deputy grilled Cole about what he'd seen around the house before the explosion, which amounted to nothing helpful. The fire marshal had already confirmed it was a drug house, but they had yet to identify, let alone catch, the guy who'd escaped on the motorcycle.

“The house was a rental,” the deputy explained. “And the name on the lease agreement turned out to be fake. Our working theory is that he'd already had the house rigged to blow to give himself a chance to get away if the need ever arose. It doesn't seem likely he could've done it in the short time you were there.”

Cole studied the descriptions of the renter offered by neighbors. “Yeah, I'm not buying that he's the one targeting Sherri, either. Not when he had to know his operation would be outed by luring her to the house. I think we need to look for the guy who gave Eddie the tip.”

“Sure.” Skepticism flickered in the deputy's eyes. Apparently he wasn't buying that Eddie was being framed. “But your brother's description doesn't give us much to go on.” The deputy closed the file. “The guy's heavier than the motorcyclist and balding. That probably describes half the men over thirty in town.”

Yeah, and chances were the suspect wouldn't risk making contact with Eddie again anytime soon. But if Cole could convince Eddie to show him around his usual haunts they might find him that way.

As Cole stepped out of the police station a few minutes later, the urge to drop in on Sherri before seeing Eddie drew his gaze across the street. The fire station blocked his view of the ambulance base, so he meandered toward the street. After all, the least he owed Sherri and Dan were coffee and a donut to thank them for yanking him away from that drug house the night before last. He pressed the butt of his hand to his throbbing temple. Besides, the caffeine might help kill his headache.

A guy in faded jeans and a dark hoodie skulked along the side wall of the ambulance base, his hands bunched in his pockets.

Cole quickened his steps.
The guy who sideswiped Sherri's ambulance had worn a hoodie.
Cole's gaze fixed on the punk's pocketed hands. The uneasy feeling that they concealed a weapon tripped his pulse into overdrive.

Sherri stepped out the front door, calling “Double? Double?” over her shoulder, oblivious to the threat lurking around the corner.

“Watch out!” Raising his hand stop-sign style, Cole dodged traffic, narrowly escaping being hit by a horn-blaring car. He glanced at it only a moment, but when he turned back to the ambulance base, Sherri was gone.

So was the punk.

FOUR

S
herri braced her hand on the door as Dan careened the ambulance onto Park Street. “Dispatch said he was on the north side of the park.” She glanced in the side mirror as a patrol car turned onto the street behind them, and wondered what Cole had been shouting about when the call blared over the loudspeakers and she'd had to dash back inside. Her mind flashed to the sight of him cupping his forehead as they'd blasted out of the ambulance bay. He should still be on bed rest.

Dan pulled to the curb next to the four-acre park in the center of town. “He's over there.” Dan pointed to a homeless man ranting at a rose bush. He wore several layers of filthy shirts and pants that once might have been tan in color. “It's Harold again.”

“Yay,” Sherri said mockingly. He was one of their frequent flyers and it was always a toss-up as to which personality they'd be dealing with. To make matters worse, he was borderline diabetic and lately he'd been spending more time over the line than not. They unloaded their gurney from the back of the truck.

The deputies met them at the curb. “Maybe we should handle this.”

Harold's gaze snapped their way and his entreaties to the rose bush grew louder. “Watch out. Hide. They're coming. They're coming.”

Sherri felt sorry for the poor man. He wasn't enough of a threat to himself or others to warrant locking him up, but he refused to stay at the shelter, where staff could help him monitor his blood sugar and his meds, if he'd take them. “Let's see what we're dealing with first. He's usually harmless enough when he's only ranting at vegetation.”

Dan wrinkled his nose. “At least the roses might mask his BO. Last time we transported him to the ER it took half a can of air freshener to kill the smell afterward.”

At that reminder the deputies looked a little too happy to step back and let them take the lead.

A couple of blond-haired youngsters raced over to them from the playground and gaped up at the deputies in wide-eyed awe. “Are you going to arrest that man? He's scary.”

Their mother caught up to them a moment later and caught their hands. “I'm sorry. I told them to stay on the playground. I'm the one that made the call. I've seen him here a lot, but never like this.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” Deputy Vail said. “We'll see to him. It'd be best if you take the children home now.”

Sherri circled upwind of Harold so he'd see her approach and lifted her hands palms out to appear unthreatening. “Good morning, Harold. What's bothering you today?”

His nostrils flared. “I'm not going with you.”

She patted the air. “That's okay, Harold. Let's just talk.” His breathing appeared normal. He wasn't clutching his chest. His eyes seemed to focus on her okay, although they immediately darted back to the rosebush.

“Don't let her take you,” he hissed to the bush. It would've been comical if he weren't dead serious.

“He doesn't seem disoriented,” Dan said. “Or aggressive like the last time his blood sugar nosedived. We're likely not looking at a diabetic issue, and something tells me he's not going to willingly let us take a sample anyway.”

“Harold, have you had anything to eat this morning?” She took a step closer. “Can we get you something? You guys have any extra donuts in the cruiser,” she called over her shoulder to a grumbled chorus of “Ha-ha.”
Harold didn't seem to think the quip was funny, either.

In a blur of motion he pulled a knife from his pocket—a dinner knife—but it was startling enough that the deputies closed in.

“Get her, officers,” Harold ordered them. “She's an alien. She's trying to abduct me.”

Deputy Vail motioned her back. “Okay, Harold. Take it easy.” As Vail kept him distracted, the other deputy skirted behind him and easily commandeered the knife, then cuffed him.

Harold went berserk. “Not me. Not me.” He jerked from side to side, trying to break out of the deputy's hold. “She's the one you have to stop.”

“Take it easy, Harold. We'll make sure she doesn't get you.” Deputy Vail winked at Sherri. “I guess
we'd
better deliver him to the ER.”

The other deputy approached with Harold.

“Whoa.” Vail stepped back and pinched his nostrils. “On second thought—”

“Nope.” Dan started pushing the gurney back to the truck. “He's all yours.”

The deputies escorted Harold to their cruiser, but when he spotted her helping Dan load the gurney on the truck, he went berserk.

“You won't get away with it. I know what you are. They told me. They told me.”

Terrific. He was hearing the voices again. She should've figured. Across the street passersby stopped to stare at her. Cole pulled up in his pickup. What was he doing here?

“I'm going to get you,” Harold vowed. “As soon as I get out, I'm going to kill you!”

The deputy shoved him into the back of the cruiser. “You don't want to do that.”

Cole stalked across the street, fists clenched, expression fierce, looking ready to tear the poor man limb from limb.

My hero.

Deputy Vail intercepted him with a palm to his chest. “This isn't your man. He's a regular. Made the same threat to me four weeks ago, and today I'm his best friend. Why don't you follow the ambulance back to the base?”

Cole held his ground for another thirty seconds, his glare burning a hole through the cruiser's rear window, before he finally took a step back and let the deputy climb in his car.

“What are you doing here?” Sherri allowed herself a moment to relish the sight of him back on his feet. He wasn't in uniform, but that didn't diminish his commanding presence one iota. And only intensified her wholly inappropriate pleasure at seeing him here looking so protective of her. “You're supposed to be resting.”

His surreptitious visual sweep of the surrounding park and streets before he joined her on the sidewalk chilled her a hundred times more than Harold's empty threats. “Who was that guy? Has he threatened you like that before?”

“He's harmless,” Dan assured, slamming the ambulance's rear doors shut. “He has a psychotic episode every once in a while, but he doesn't have the power to back up his threats. And he doesn't remember them by the time he comes back to his senses.”

Cole searched her eyes, clearly not ready to take Dan or the deputy's word for it.

Sherri shrugged. “What did you expect? This is an ordinary day in the life of a paramedic. Last week, I got a marriage proposal from a prisoner we transported.”

Dan guffawed. “Oh, yeah. A real winner. Missing half his front teeth but sporting a six-pack.”

Cole tensed. “Is he still in jail? How did he take your refusal?”

Sherri reached for the passenger door handle with a teasing grin. “What makes you think I refused?”

Cole pressed his fingertips to his forehead and temple. “Sherri, you're not taking this serious enough.”

She squeezed his arm, secretly pleased by his concern even though it was his brother he should have been focusing on. “I'm fine. But you look like you should be in bed. Head injuries are nothing to mess with. Just because the MRI was clear doesn't mean you won't have any problems if you try to do too much too soon. What are you doing here anyway?”

“Making sure that guy didn't come after you.”

“The homeless guy?”

“No, the guy in the hoodie I spotted skulking outside the ambulance base as you came out to get coffees.”

Her heart hopscotched over a few beats, but she managed to keep her expression neutral. “That's why you shouted and pulled the kamikaze routine through traffic?”

His hands fisted again and he looked ready to blow a gasket. “He was seconds away from ambushing you. If that call hadn't come in when it did—” he glanced around again, scraping his hand across his forehead “—who knows what he might have tried. He must've run off when he heard me shout. I searched the area, but couldn't track him, so I followed you here to make sure he didn't show up.”

“Cole, you shouldn't be out racing around after me.” Oh, boy, not something she'd ever thought she'd hear herself say to Cole. But she couldn't him let him get any closer for both their sakes. His brother needed him. And she needed
not
to need him. His mile-wide, protective streak was entirely too attractive, and if she wasn't careful, she'd start admitting things he didn't need to know. She opened the side door of the ambulance and pressed him to sit on the step. Then flicked her penlight over his eyes, trying not to notice the intriguing shades of blue radiating from his shrinking pupils.

“I'm fine. I need to be out there finding that punk before he shows up on your doorstep.”

She checked his blood pressure, her own spiking at the notion that some creep might show up at her apartment. “The deputies are following all our calls, and Dan is with me. I will be perfectly safe. You need to rest.”

“I've rested enough,” he said in a growl.

She lost her patience. “Then spend time with your brother. Considering where he turned up Friday night, he clearly needs help sooner rather than later.”

* * *

The next afternoon Cole shifted in his truck seat, trying to get comfortable. He was still on sick leave, so he'd been parked in the coffee shop's back lot with a bird's eye view of the ambulance base since Sherri arrived for her shift this morning. She'd been right about him needing to spend time with his brother, and as much as her scolding had stung, Cole appreciated her concern. He'd kind of enjoyed her playing paramedic on him again, too— looking so intently at his eyes that he'd started to feel as if she could see into his very soul. He hadn't been able to get her deep blue eyes off his mind since. He just wished she exhibited half as much concern for herself.

Thankfully, the punk hadn't come back, and so far not even an ambulance call had come in to break up the monotony. He couldn't help but admire how easily she'd sloughed off the homeless guy's threat yesterday and joked about a prisoner's marriage proposal.

Yeah, it was how most frontline workers dealt with the junk, but she'd seemed genuinely unaffected.

Cole glanced at his watch. Eddie would be getting out of school in another forty-five minutes, and he didn't want to miss him again. Unfortunately, if the kid he'd spotted skulking around the ambulance base yesterday was also in school, he might show up just when Cole needed to leave.

Cole unscrewed his thermos cap and eyeballed the last few ounces of day-old coffee.
Forget it.
Time to grab a fresh cup. As he pushed open the door, movement along the fence behind the ambulance base caught his eye.

He soundlessly pushed his truck door closed and hunched down behind the hood.

A kid clambered over the chain-link fence. Same black hoodie hiding his face.

The instant he moved toward the ambulance base's side door, Cole dashed forward and face-planted him into the dirt. Wrestling the guy's arm behind his back, he hissed, “What are you doing here?”

The punk stopped fighting. “Cole?”

Cole's stomach tanked. “Eddie?” He grabbed a fistful of his brother's hoodie and hauled him to his feet, scarcely restraining the urge to connect his fist with Eddie's nose. He clearly didn't know him anymore. “How could you?”

Eddie's eyes ballooned. “How could I what? I came to apologize to Sherri.”

“Right.” Cole felt sick. “That's why you're skulking over the fence, instead of walking up from the street.”

“I didn't want the other guys to see me. I wanted to catch her alone.”

Cole swallowed a rush of bile at how that sounded. He shoved his brother through the hedge flanking the parking lot toward the coffee shop next door. “We need to talk.”

“I'm telling the truth!”

Cole opened the coffee shop door and motioned Eddie to a window seat.

“I always liked Sherri. She was nice to us.”

A waitress sashayed over, clunked two empty mugs on the table, and flashed Cole a welcoming whatcha-doing-later smile. “You must be new here. I never forget a face.” She had pouty lips and an over-the-top makeup job that he supposed some guys would find attractive.

“That's right.” He pushed his cup toward the pot in her hand.

“What can I get you boys?” she asked as she filled both mugs.

“A couple of the specials,” Cole ordered to expedite her exit.

“Two specials coming up.” She winked and flounced away, leaving a trail of fragrance lingering behind her.

Eddie snagged the sugar dispenser and dosed his coffee with a steady stream. “Still a chick magnet, I see.”

Cole popped a couple of ibuprofen to take the edge off the headache that had returned with a vengeance thanks to their scuffle, and tried to decide if he heard derision or jealousy in Eddie's tone. Probably a little of both. If Eddie spent half his time tripping out, Cole couldn't imagine too many girls being interested in hanging with him. At least no one who wasn't stoned herself.

Eddie stirred his coffee so hard it swirled over the brim. “C'mon, why don't you just get the lecture over so we can both go home?”

“You expect me to believe you came here to apologize to Sherri?”

“Yes.”

“The guy who lured you to the drug house didn't send you here?”

“What? No!”

Cole exhaled, unfortunately believing him, which meant he was back to square one. “Okay, I'm sorry I doubted you. I'm afraid we didn't get off to a good start, but believe it or not, I came back to Stalwart because I want to spend time with you, not lecture you.”

“Don't do me any favors. I got over my case of big brother worship a long time ago.”

Yeah, Eddie hadn't appreciated Cole's opinion on his choice of who to live with after the divorce. Almost a year had passed before they'd even talked to each other again. “I'm sorry. I was wrong to stay away so long. I'm hoping we can make up for lost time.”