One True Heart (18 page)

An ambulance sounded nearby but couldn't compete with the ladies.

“Don't try to move him, it might—” Millanie started to say but Kare was already gone.

Millanie gulped and whispered to herself more than Kare, “Good job. They'll be here in a minute. In fact, thanks to you they probably heard the screaming above the siren.”

Kare and the two old ladies huddled while the captain moved a few feet so that whoever pulled in the drive could see her waving a flashlight beam back and forth.

About the time Kare got her heart out of her throat, she heard movement in the tree branches and turned just as the body pulled himself up.

All three women screamed again and he took a step backward, almost toppling into the creek bed.

Martha Q recovered first and yelled, “Beau Yates, you frightened ten years off my life! What do you think you are doing skulking around like one of the walking dead?”

“Sorry, ma'am, you want me to fall into the creek again? I could probably manage that. I think I was mugged down there.” He touched his head and brought red fingers back. “My head hurts something terrible.”

Kare fought to keep from fainting. All she could do was stare at the bright red blood on the man, formerly known as
the body
. She faded into the shadows as people flooded Martha Q's yard. The sheriff, firemen, the EMTs, and several people who'd heard the screaming ran from Main Street to help.

In her whole sheltered life she'd never seen a person bleed so much. Everyone was talking at once, trying to help and asking questions. Apparently they all knew the man who'd been attacked.

No, he didn't know how many or who hit him in the head.

Yes, he could walk.

He had no idea what time it happened. He came to when something kicked him in the side.

Now the sheriff turned to Kare and started shooting questions.

No, she hadn't seen anyone else in the creek bed.

What did she do? She ran screaming.

She was crossing to visit with her friend, Captain Millanie McAllen.

She didn't know why she took the shortcut. It seemed like a good idea at the time. On second thought, it probably wasn't.

Kare was starting to feel confused. A deputy asked her the same questions as the EMTs loaded the bleeding man up and rushed him to the ambulance. Both old ladies raced to the house to get their purses, claiming they were family and would be riding along with him to the hospital. Firemen fanned out around the place where he'd been found. They all shined their lights in the circle while the sheriff looked for clues.

When no one was looking, Kare went to the porch. In the dark corner, she curled up in a ball and buried her head on her knees. She hadn't done the right thing. She should have helped him, not run. Her dad was right; she was worthless in a crisis. She was worthless period. Lowering her head, she cried silently, as she always had when her father yelled at her or someone at college made fun or her, or people didn't understand her. Her whole body shook, but she held tight to her knees. She'd weather this time like she'd survived all the others. In a few days it wouldn't seem so bad. In a month she'd laugh about how dumb she'd acted.

Millanie found Kare in her dark corner. She spoke softly, her voice calming, reassuring. “Can you help me inside, Kare? I can't hold the door and manage my crutches.”

Kare shoved her tears off her cheeks with her palms and stood. “Of course.” She could help. That she could do.

“If you'll come inside with me, I could use an assistant for making coffee. When Mrs. Biggs and Martha Q get back they'll probably need some.”

Logic told Kare what the captain was doing. Calming her down. Keeping her busy. But still, it worked. Kare stopped thinking about how upset she was and started worrying about others. All the while she made coffee and sliced banana bread and dug through the refrigerator for jelly, Kare listened to Millanie's calm voice going over what needed to be done.

One thought was born amid the panic in Kare's mind. If Millanie could help calm her, a coward afraid of the sight of blood, what could the captain do for Drew, a real hero who'd lost his way?

Magic maybe?

With the librarian, Mrs. Parker, holding the door for Drew, he slipped past her with his stack of books and watched her lock up. “Sorry to be so late. Thanks for finding these for me. If it weren't for interlibrary loan, I'd be driving all over the state.”

“No problem, Dr. Cunningham. You should know librarians live for challenges like the ones you always present.”

She looked down; her shy manner made her beautiful in her own way.

“Dr. Cunningham, I know few mention this, but those of us who know about your work think it's wonderful. Generations will learn from your books about the history of this area. They'll know the strong kind of people it took to settle here.”

“Thank you,” he said, surprised at the compliment.

She said good night as a man stepped from a powerful black pickup. Her husband, Drew guessed from the way she stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. He took her bag and helped her into the truck, then gave a short wave to Drew as if thanking him for walking her out.

As Drew stashed the books in the back of the Jeep, he thought of Millanie and doubted they'd ever have that comfortable easy way with one another. Each was attracted to the other, that was obvious, but he couldn't see himself settling down, moving into a real house, living a normal life. Most days he thought this very simple life he'd managed to cobble together here in Texas was all he'd ever be able to handle.

An ambulance passed by him with full lights and sirens flashing. In Chicago he'd seen them daily, but not here.

An uneasiness settled over Drew. The flashing lights were headed directly toward the historical part of town.

He climbed into his Jeep and decided to follow. Winter's Inn and Kare's apartment were both in the area. Millanie and his sister were all right, he told himself. Of course, they were. Only, Kare had been hanging out with a guy who just got released from jail and Millanie looked like a walking target with her crutches. If there was one bad guy in town, he might have crossed their paths.

By the time Drew turned off Main, worry had trumped concern. The sheriff's car was parked out in front of Martha Q's inn and the ambulance had pulled into the drive.

He stopped the Jeep a few houses down and waited. Drew wasn't sure he could walk in on a crime scene. He'd lived without any violence in his life for five years.

One man walked to the ambulance flanked by what looked like the EMTs. Drew climbed out of his Jeep and moved toward them as the emergency medical team put the man on a stretcher. One wrapped his head while the other belted him in.

Drew recognized Beau Yates. A local kid whose talent had made him famous. Now he looked nothing like his picture in the local paper. The singer's shirt seemed covered in blood. Dark shiny blood made even more striking in the blinking lights of the ambulance.

Drew's heart stopped pounding. Not Kare. Not Millanie. Maybe it was just an accident. One of the EMTs was talking to Beau, so it couldn't have been too bad.

Drew joined a small group of people watching as others circled around. One man said the guy named Beau had left Buffalo's drunk. Another said he probably fell. Everyone, except Drew, nodded as if they'd solved the puzzle in the dark without a single clue.

Martha Q waddled at top speed out the front door, yelling for them to hurry up and get Beau to the hospital. “The boy's going to bleed to death and you men are doing nothing but talking.”

The two EMTs lifted the stretcher into the back, with Beau telling Martha Q that it wasn't as bad as it looked.

She climbed into the passenger seat still talking loud enough for everyone on the block to hear her. “Great use of my tax dollars. Pay two healthy men to stand around and talk to the victim. At this rate, if you men had two calls on the same night you'd be in big trouble, or rather the bleeding would. I think if I have a heart attack I'll cross the county line before I call 911.”

The men didn't seem to be listening to Martha Q as they helped Mrs. Biggs into the back. Drew had the feeling this wasn't the first time the chubby Martha Q had dealt with trouble.

The ambulance and the sheriff's car left. The crowd dispersed.

Drew stood in the darkness, unsure what to do. If he went inside there might be a crime scene. No one said where Beau had fallen. Maybe someone had broken into the house? If he didn't go in, he'd never know if Millanie was all right.

Of course, she was all right, he told himself. But he'd thought he was all right five years ago, and he hadn't been. The wounds he'd suffered had healed, but Drew still wasn't all right. Even the sight of the ambulance made memories pile up in his mind.

He'd thought the first shots were firecrackers in the hallway of the high school where he'd taught the year he turned twenty-nine. It was almost the end of the spring semester. Pranks were common. His class was packing up, getting ready to leave.

He hadn't locked his door.

Another shot in the hallway.

Before he could stop them, the students moved toward the exit, wanting to see where the noise came from.

They were all between Drew and the door when one boy, not old enough to be called a man, blocked the exit.

When the first shot thundered into his room Drew had turned toward a student hit in the arm, not the shooter.

Another shot. Screams. They all ran to the back. To where Drew stood.

Drew pushed his way through a sea of students as he rushed to the door and the boy who held a gun.

Another shot. Then another.

Drew kept moving even when he heard someone behind him hit the floor with the sickening thud of a dead body.

He was ten, eight, seven feet from the shooter when the boy saw him and turned the weapon toward the only teacher in the room. Drew didn't even know him. He'd seen the kid in the hall a few times, but now he didn't miss the hatred in the shooter's eyes.

One bullet hit Drew's shoulder like a slug from a boxer's fist. Another ran like fire along his side, but Drew kept charging.

Five feet. Four.

A shot went wild over his head. Another missed him but he heard someone scream behind him. His students were crying and screaming as alarms went off all over the building.

Drew was three feet away from the shooter when footsteps thundered down the hallway, drawing louder and closer. Drew knew who they were. Every teacher asks himself the same question.
If I hear gunfire, do I run away or toward it?
Like Drew, many had said they'd run toward it.

The shooter heard the storm coming behind him and was distracted for a moment.

That was all Drew needed. He hurled himself full force toward a kid who weighed fifty pounds less than he did. The gun fired as it left the boy's hand and hit the floor. Drew's bloody body slammed the shooter to the hard tiles.

For a moment, all was silent. Drew held the boy down flat. He looked into the kid's eyes, fearing that he might have hurt him, but all he saw was surprise, almost as if Drew had interrupted a game the boy had been playing.

The principal and two other teachers reached the room at the same time the police stormed the hallway. They surrounded the shooter and took him out, handling him carefully as if he were a broken boy and not a heartless killer.

Drew turned back to his class. He didn't realize how bloody he was until he saw his students' faces. “I'm all right.” He tried to keep calm. “Who needs help?”

Some were too upset to help, but others moved. Drew didn't feel any pain. He lifted a girl who'd been shot in the stomach and carried her out to the waiting ambulance. She clung to him and cried. Just past the school doors she stopped crying. She died.

In the darkness of Winter's Inn's front yard Drew relived it all. For five years he'd fought the memory, but it came back as if it had only been a day ago. Somewhere between the school that day and the hospital, he'd shattered. His dreams of teaching, of making students love history, of showing them they could climb out of where they were if they used the ladder of education, all stopped.

Even as his wounds healed, he'd known he couldn't go back. Not to his career, or the school, or his life. For five years he'd found a place to hide, only now he knew his wounds were still open and bleeding on the inside.

Two deputies walked within ten feet of him without noticing Drew in the shadows.

One said, “Don't you think it was strange the fortune-teller found Beau Yates? Maybe she knew he was going to be there. Maybe she's got a real gift. If she hadn't, Beau might have bled to death in that creek.”

“Lots of folks cross the creek. She just happened to trip over him. If she'd known he'd be there, don't you think she'd have been more careful?”

They climbed in the cruiser and Drew heard no more.

He looked around. If Kare had found the singer, where was she now?

Only one answer came to him as he stared at the old house. She was inside.

Pushing his fears away, Drew walked slowly to the porch and up the steps. He didn't bother to knock, he just walked in.

The rooms were mostly dark with only a foyer light on and one lamp burning low in the parlor. He stood, listening, every sense fully alive, ready to run. Ready to fight.

Millanie's voice drifted to him from the kitchen. Silently he followed, letting his breathing slow, forcing muscles in his entire body to relax. They were all right. He was all right.

As Drew turned the corner and saw the two of them, he froze, too filled with relief to move. Millanie was sitting at the table and Kare stood by the sink. They were talking.

“Evening, ladies,” he said as casually as he could. “What happened here?”

Kare dropped her tea towel and ran toward him. “Oh, Drew, it was terrible. I found Beau hurt behind the house. Someone knocked him in the head.”

He hugged her tightly as he thought a big brother should do, then pushed her mass of hair away from her face. “You're all right, Kare. It's over. I saw Beau leaving and he was talking as they got him ready to transport to the hospital.”

She sniffled as if trying to decide whether to cry again. “I know, but I could have hurt him when I stumbled over him. I was so scared, all I thought to do was run. I should have seen if he was breathing. I should have helped him, but all I did was run.”

“You went back down there,” Millanie added. “You did the right thing. You did help. If you hadn't run to me, the ambulance wouldn't have gotten here so fast.”

Drew looked over his sister's head to Millanie and silently thanked her as he whispered to Kare, “We all do the best we can. You helped.”

Kare stayed in his arms a few more minutes, then pulled
away. “What did I ever do growing up without you? Sometimes nothing works better than a hug.”

In her whimsical way, Kare pulled away smiling with tears still on her face. “Want some hot chocolate?” She glanced at Millanie and giggled before moving to the smorgasbord of sweets on the counter. “We know it's a hot night, but we decided in a crisis nothing works better than chocolate, so we're having hot chocolate with brownies topped with chocolate ice cream and Martha Q's secret stash of M&Ms we found. She told us to make ourselves at home, but home was never this loaded with sweets.”

“Whatever you mix up will be great,” he lied as he took the chair next to Millanie. “Evening, Millie, thanks for watching over my little sister.” His hand brushed the back of her shoulders.

To his surprise, she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

“What's that for?” he whispered.

“For being a great big brother,” she answered.

The urge to kiss her back was a hunger that had nothing to do with chocolate, but his sister was too close. Drew moved his hand under the table and slid his fingers along her warm skin, exposed thanks to her shorts.

He saw her eyes darken, but she didn't move away as his hand slowly moved up from her knee. When he reached the hem of her shorts, he knew he'd better calm down or he'd shock his sister.

Turning his attention to Kare, he asked, “What were you doing in the creek?”

She didn't face him as she answered, “Millanie invited me over to visit. She may be your girlfriend, but she's my friend.”

Millanie nodded. “That's right. I'm afraid you'll have to share me, Drew.”

His fingers tightened around the upper part of her leg, hopefully letting her know that he didn't plan to share her with anyone.

Kare set a mess of different kinds of chocolate before him and turned back to the counter. “Unless you want more,
I'd better put up this stuff before Martha Q comes back and thinks we've robbed her.”

They all talked. The girls told him every detail of the night and Drew told them how proud he was of them.

A half hour later Mrs. Biggs called from the hospital and said that Beau had a dozen stitches and was spending the night, but it looked like he'd be all right. The sheriff had been by to see him and said she thought the attack was a simple robbery. Beau had flashed a few hundreds in the bar and someone must have seen him as easy prey.