Sweet Talking Lawman (13 page)

Great, he thought silently,
all he needed was for his only child’s mother to be a suspect in an attempted
murder investigation.  He returned to his car as the sun disappeared and
rain began to fall again.

He called a wrecker to tow
the car and make sure it was secured in the sheriff’s department impound
yard.  He’d need to see if he could get some forensics tests done on the
car before he could release it for repair.  Shirley would have a fit about
that.

When he appeared at the
hospital later, the doctor confirmed that there had been no trace of alcohol in
Mrs. Howell’s blood.  None at all.  She had a concussion, bruised
ribs, a badly sprained ankle and numerous cuts and abrasions.  She would
be sore for some time and might have dizzy spells, but that wouldn’t last long
and she’d be fine.  Rafe continued on to the room and was surprised to see
Raale sitting on the side of Shirley’s bed and Mesa standing facing the door. 
He almost groaned.

“Daddy,” Raale exclaimed,
always excited to see him.  She slipped off the bed and ran to him, her
arms lifted.  He scooped her up into his arms and hugged her close. 
It helped pull his attention from Mesa.  He walked across the small room,
Raale still in his arms.  He nodded at Mesa, acknowledging her presence.

“Mesa.”  He looked down
at Shirley.  She rested in the bed, slightly reclined, her eyes
closed.  “Is she asleep?”

“No,” Shirley spoke
softly.  “The light hurts my eyes.  Dr. Foster said that wasn’t
uncommon.  What did you find out?”

Rafe stood Raale on the floor
and tried to motion for Mesa to take her outside the room, but she remained
beside her mother’s bed, looking across at him stubbornly.  “You might
want to take Raale down to the gift shop for a few minutes.  I need to
talk to your mom,” he finally said, just managing not to growl.

As if by magic, Jory pushed
the door open and walked in.  He carried a large bouquet of pink roses in
a vase.  Rafe’s brows arched in surprise as the older man walked over and
smiled down at Mesa’s mother.  “Can you open your eyes for just a minute?”

Shirley did and smiled up at
the flowers.  “Jory,” she exclaimed.  “How thoughtful!”

“They’re from the three of
us.  Now close your eyes before it makes your head hurt worse.”  He
sensed the tension in the room and looked from Mesa to Rafe and back
again.  Without speaking, he took Raale’s small hand in his.  “Come
on Pocahontas, let’s go down and see what else your G’ma might like.”

“I bets she’d like a teddy
bear to sleep with while she’s in the hospital,” Raale began, then paused and
looked at Rafe.  “Are you staying?”

He shook his head
negatively.  “I just need to talk to…your G’ma about the accident.  Then
I have to go back to the office.  I’ll call you tonight.”  He was
smiling at her as he always did.  She just had that effect on him.

She pulled away from Jory and
gave her dad a quick hug around his hips.  “I lub you.”

His grin tilted more on one
side than on the other, giving his smile a touch of added humor as he patted
her back.  “And I love you, too, baby birl.”  He watched as she left
the room before he turned back to Shirley.  She was looking up at him, her
eyes softened slightly.

“Alright, Miz Howell, there
was no alcohol in your blood, and I was happy to hear that.  Wanna tell me
exactly what happened?”  He’d have preferred talking to her in private,
but Mesa was her daughter and had the right to be there.

“I was coming home from
town.  I’d been in to pick up some stuff for Rance’s party.  I
noticed the truck following me and he was too close, so I waved for him to go
on around, but he bumped the back of my car.”

Rafe couldn’t avoid noticing
how Mesa’s face paled and she grasped her mother’s hand.  Guilt or
fear?  He wasn’t sure.

Shirley continued, “I don’t
mind telling you that scared the hell out of me.  I tried to outrun him,
but he stayed right on my bumper.”

“Could you see the driver at
all?” he asked.

“I could see a figure in the
seat.  That’s all.  Couldn’t tell anything about him.”

“You keep saying him,” Rafe
said.  “You could tell it was a man?”

She shook her head slightly
from side to side, and then groaned.  “No.  I just figured it was.”

He couldn’t help the quick
glance at Mesa.  “Could it have been a woman?”

Shirley shrugged.  “It
could have been my Aunt Tilly’s old grey mare! 
I couldn’t see who it
was.
  I already said that!”  She was tired and her head felt like
it was splitting open.

“Alright, go ahead with what
happened.  He was too close on your bumper and bumped you.”

Shirley took a deep
breathe.  “He bumped me several times and I didn’t know what to do so I
just tried to stay ahead of him.  Then he pulled out like he was going to
pass me and cut in way too soon.  He clipped my fender and it pushed me
off the road.  Once my tires caught that soft mud, I had no control. 
It just sucked me off the highway.  I went across the ditch and hit that
tree.”

“He didn’t stop?”  Mesa
asked, her voice weak as she looked down at her mother.

Shirley shook her head
slightly then groaned again.  “I don’t think so.”

“But you don’t know for
sure?” Rafe asked.

“No,” she snapped.  “It
looks like I don’t know anything for sure!  Everything just went black!”

Rafe knew it wasn’t good for
her to get agitated.  “I don’t mean to upset you, Miz Howell, but I only
have a couple more questions, and then I’ll leave and let you rest.”

She nodded.  “Go ahead.”

“Since you weren’t drinking,
why did your car smell like alcohol?”

Shirley shrugged.  “I’d
picked up some beer for Gibby.  Maybe a can broke open from the
crash?  I just don’t know.”

Rafe nodded.  “Do you
know anyone who’d want to hurt you?”

Shirley’s eyes flew
open.  “You think someone was trying to kill me?”

“I don’t know what to think,
Ma’am.  What do you think?”

“Why would anyone try to hurt
me?”  Then she frowned.  “Alright, I know I’m not a candidate for
person of the year in Morgan County, but I don’t know why anyone would want to
hurt me.”

Rafe nodded, but something
niggled at him, making him feel she wasn’t being one hundred percent truthful
with him.  “Alright, Miz Howell.  You just rest and I’ll see if I can
find out who did this.  Don’t you worry, but if you remember anything
else, you call me.  Alright?”

She waved him away and he was
only mildly surprised when Mesa followed him out the door.  He took her
arm and led her to a quiet area away from her mother’s room, being careful to
keep his touch light and impersonal, in spite of the heat surging up through
his arm.

“What is this all about,
Rafe?” she asked when he stopped and she turned so she faced him.  She was
relieved when his hand dropped away from her, her skin steadily tingling with
fire and her heart racing.

He shrugged.  “I don’t
know, Mesa, but someone worked real hard at running your mother off the
road.  Do you know anyone who’d hurt her?”

She shook her head. 
“No, but I can’t believe it was more than an accident.”

His eyes dropped and he tried
to sound casual when he spoke. 
“How’d you get here so fast?”

“I was in town and Mom called
my cell,” she frowned as she spoke.  “Am I a suspect?”

His eyes lifted to meet
hers.  “I have to eliminate everyone that I can.  Where were you,
exactly?”

She took a deep breath, her
heart picking up speed again.  She couldn’t believe Rafe would think she’d
try to hurt her own mother.  “I was at the library, and before that, I was
at Charlie’s garage getting the oil changed in the SUV.  Lots of people
saw me, if I need an alibi.”  She had truly tried to keep the sarcasm out
of her voice but she’d heard it creep in, in spite of her effort.  “Are
you sure this was more than an accident?”

He nodded.  “I thought
that’s what it was, too, when I smelled beer in the car.  When you leave
here, come by the office and I’ll let you see her car.  Then see what you
think.”  He knew he probably shouldn’t have offered her that option, but
she was Shirley’s daughter.  Until he checked her alibi, she had to be one
of his prime suspects, he reminded himself, as he watched her return to her
mother’s room.

And the only woman he’d ever
loved.  That thought just popped into his head as he walked down the
corridor of the small county hospital.  Where the hell had that come
from?  He didn’t want to speculate about it.  He couldn’t still be in
love with Mesa.  She’d kept his child from him for all this time, and now
she was a suspect he would have to investigate in this attempt on her mother’s
life.

It clearly was an attempted
murder, as far as he was concerned.  Looking at the skid marks along that
stretch of the highway and those left on Shirley’s car, it was easy to see that
the driver of the other vehicle had tried to scare Shirley into a panicked
accident and failing that had forced her off the road, maybe hoping that her
speed and impact with anything would cause her death.

His steps slowed and then he
stopped.  Rance’s accident had seemed so unlikely he’d had a hard time
accepting it, too.  Now he began wondering again.  Had that been a
bungled attempt on his life?  Was someone targeting the owners of the
Rocking H?

He went to the nurses’
station and was glad to see Levi’s greatest heartthrob and coincidentally, one
of his distant cousins, working there.  “Hey, Trish.  Could you tell
me what doctor would have been working the night Rance Howell was brought in
here?  Probably knowing what nurse was on duty would help, too.”

She smiled at him, her face
reflecting her heritage as clearly as his did.  “That’s an easy one,
Rafe.  I was the nurse at the ER that night and the doctor was…..” she
thought back for a minute, frowning.  “Yeah, it was Dr. Hodges.  I’m
sure of it.  What do you need?”

He flashed a winning smile at
her.  “What are the chances that I could look at Rance’s file from that
night?”

She rolled her deep brown
eyes up and appeared in deep thought, and then she seemed to make up her
mind.  “Oh, about the same chance as a cow has of hatching a clutch of
quail eggs, unless you got a warrant or something to show me.  You know a
patient’s medical records are private.”

A deep chuckle came from his
throat as he tapped the end of her nose with one finger.  “You’re so damn
cute.  I can’t imagine why you’re still single.”

“’Cause Levi hasn’t asked me
to marry him, yet,” she shot back at him without even a moment of hesitation.

“I could put in a good word
for you,” he suggested, a teasing grin melting across his generous lips.
 “If you’d let me take a look at that file.”

She smacked away the hand
that threatened to tap her nose again.  “I don’t need your help.  I
just need you to stop trying to find him some expensive heeling horse to
buy.  The county doesn’t pay him enough to have a wife and buy a heeling
horse.”

Rafe smiled.  “I see
your point.  Maybe the boy is due for a raise.  I’ll have to find
some time to check.”  He started down the corridor again a smile on his
handsome face, before he looked back over his shoulder at her.  “You tell
Aunt Letty to come see Uci.  Uci misses her since your mama married that
wasicu and moved down to Bluff Road.”

Trish nodded and waved him on
his way.

When he called Raale later
that evening, he was surprised when Mesa answered the phone.  Raale was up
at the big house with Jory and Shirley.  The doctor had released her
mother earlier and they’d brought her home.

Rafe’s heartbeat
quickened.  “Do you think that’s a good idea, considering someone
apparently tried to kill your mom?”  His child was the most important
thing in his life.  How could Mesa be so irresponsible?  He didn’t
even realize how harsh his voice had sounded.

“Do you really think my
mother might be in danger?” she asked.

“Yes, and Raale, too, if
she’s around at the wrong time.  I thought you were going to come by the
office and look at your mom’s car today.  Maybe if you had, you’d
recognize the danger.”  Again his voice sounded cold and harsh, just like
his heart.  Then a thought blossomed in his mind.  If Mesa had
something to do with the attack on her mother, she would know that Raale wasn’t
in danger at the moment.  He hated to think that she might be involved in
something so heinous, but he was a law enforcement officer and he couldn’t rule
out anyone as a suspect.  He couldn’t allow sentiments or personal
relationships to get in the way of him doing his job, but he couldn’t make
himself believe that Mesa had anything to do with the attempt on her mother’s
life.  He’d check with the library first thing in the morning.

“Rafe, if my mother is in
danger, why isn’t there someone from your office out here making sure nothing
happens to her?”

He frowned.  Since she
was a suspect he couldn’t divulge his assignments to her.  But even with
that thought, he heard the accusation in her voice and concern for her
mother.  The mother she’d only recently began to develop a relationship
with.  “I’ve got measures in place, Mesa.  I’m not going to let
anything happen to Shirley, but by the same token, I think it would be better
if Raale doesn’t spend time with her, unless there are others around.  Just
to be on the safe side.”