RaeAnne Thayne – Riverbend Road (страница 7)

She spied a bike and a tricycle propped against the side of the Craftsman and a soccer ball resting in the grass. Despite the toys in the yard, the curtains were tightly drawn at the house and she couldn’t see any sign of activity, which she found a little weird.

The curtains at her own front window were wide-open, though, and a familiar face peered out, as if he had been perched exactly there in the deep window seat, waiting all day for her return—which was very likely.

When she turned into the driveway, that face—and the furry body it was attached to in the form of her yellow Labrador retriever—lit up with excitement.

When she unlocked the door, Young Pete waited for her just inside, his tail wagging with eagerness. “Hold,” she told him, then took two minutes to unhook her service revolver and her badge and lock them in the fingerprint safe in the hall closet before she rewarded Pete’s patience with a hug.

“There’s my favorite guy,” she said. “How was your day?”

Her dog nudged his head against hers and the quiet, steady affection made her throat burn even as she felt some of the stress of the day seep away.

What would have happened to Pete if she hadn’t made it out of that barn in time? She had to think Marshall or Katrina would have taken him in. He’d been their dad’s dog, after all, a link to the man John had been before his traumatic brain injury two years before he died.

“Need to go out? Do you?”

The dog gave one quick bark and she opened the back door for him and walked out onto the stone patio overlooking the river.

She needed to change out of her smoky uniform and shower but right now she wasn’t sure she could move from this spot.

After a moment, Young Pete finished his business then came back to sit beside her. The dog was ten years old and not young anymore but she still stuck the modifier on his name. Her dad had always called him that, in contrast to Old Pete, John’s previous dog.

Birds flitted through the branches of one of the big elms in her backyard, their song mingling with the breeze rustling the leaves and the river’s endless, soothing song.

She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the late afternoon sun.

She could have died today.

She wanted to think she’d had the situation fully in hand but Cade had it right. She had been foolish and arrogant to think she could take on that fire and win, especially without following protocol and keeping her radio on. It had been sheer dumb luck that she was here enjoying the beauty of a June afternoon.

The realization was sobering yet oddly invigorating, as if the heat and smoke had burned away something hard and confining.

She felt as if she had been encased in ice since her father’s death in January. Longer, really. Maybe some part of her had been suspended, frozen since the terrible succession of events five years ago that culminated in Wyatt’s death, when she had made the decision to go to the academy in his stead.

Each of her brothers loved law enforcement, just as their father and grandfather and great-grandfather before them. A Bailey had been keeping the peace here since the first settlers moved into the area the Native Americans considered a place of mystical strength and healing.

Her father and Wyatt had given their lives for the job. If she loved it as they had, she might have been willing to die in the line of duty. She didn’t. She never had.

Her pocket jangled suddenly and she knew by the ringtone it was her mother. Shoot. She’d meant to call Charlene the moment she got home. As the widow of a fallen police officer and the bereaved mother of another, her mother had every right to her worry and Wyn felt bad for adding to it.

“Mom. Hi. I’m sorry I missed your call. It’s been a...crazy afternoon.”

“Oh honey. I’ve been frantic! I called the ER, I called the station, I called your house. Finally I called Cade and he told me what happened and assured me you were all right.”

“I am. A little smoke inhalation but I was treated and released at the scene.”

“So it’s true. You really ran into a burning building to save a couple of juvenile delinquents.”

She thought of those poor, scared little boys, each trying to shoulder the blame for the accident in order to take the burden from the other.

“Something like that.”

“Oh honey.”

She heard a sniffle and could guess her mother was trying to hold back the tears she had probably been crying all afternoon. Charlene had lots of practice sitting at home and worrying. Guilt pinched at her again. She should have called the moment the EMTs took away the oxygen mask.

“I’m coming over to make sure you’re okay,” her mother insisted.

“It’s not necessary, really. I’m fine.”

“You say that, but I don’t believe you for a minute. I can hear it in your voice. Mother’s intuition is never wrong, honey. You’re upset and you need me there.”

She closed her eyes, loath to hurt her mother’s feelings by telling her the reality was exactly the opposite.

She loved her mother, she did. Charlene was sweet and earnest and she loved nothing more than to fuss over her family. Wynona mostly found it exhausting.

For two years, her mother had turned those energies to caring for her husband after his brain injury. Charlene visited him daily in the nursing home and had been a dedicated and selfless caregiver. Wyn admired her greatly for it. Since John’s death, though, her mother had tried to shift all those caregiving energies to her children—whether they needed it or not.

She couldn’t deal with Charlene today. She couldn’t.

“I’m actually on my way out,” she lied.

Charlene paused. When her mother spoke again, Wyn couldn’t miss the eagerness in her voice. “A date?”

Gah. She suspected her mother thought that the very day she would turn thirty—in four months, one week and two days—she would become a dried-up old maid.

“Afraid not. I’ve, um, got some things to do for McKenzie’s wedding,” she improvised quickly. “A bridesmaid thing.”

Yes. That’s right. She was nearly thirty years old and still lied to her mother.

“What time will you be home? I’ll bring dinner. I’m making lasagna.”

She did love her mother’s lasagna, flavored with fresh herbs and home-canned tomatoes and deliciousness. It was fantastic—but not quite worth everything that would come along with it.

“Thanks a million, Mom. That’s really sweet of you, but I’ll probably just grab something while I’m out.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.”

Wyn could clearly hear her mother’s wounded feelings in the words and she swallowed a heavy sigh.

“Aunt Jenny wants to have us all over for dinner,” she offered as a salve. “I’ll try to coordinate with Marsh and Kat and see when the whole gang can make it. How would that work?”

“Oh, that would be lovely. We live so close together, it’s a shame we can’t find more time for family dinners. Though, of course, it won’t feel the same without Elliot. Don’t forget Marshall’s birthday next Sunday.”

“Maybe Jenny can join us for that.”

“I already asked her. She’ll be there.”

“Great. I can’t wait. I’ve got to go, Mom. I need to jump in the shower and wash some of this smoke out. Love you.”

She hung up before her mother could press her. After a quick shower and shampoo, she felt a million times better. She was throwing on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt when her phone rang again. To her relief, it wasn’t her mother’s customized ringtone but the one for her friend McKenzie.

“Hey, Kenz.”

“Wynona Jane Bailey!” McKenzie Shaw exclaimed. “If you didn’t want to be a bridesmaid for me, you could have just told me! You didn’t have to risk your life and nearly die to get out of it, a month before the wedding!”

She made a face as she combed through her hair. “I didn’t risk anything. Good grief. Does everyone in town know?”

“LG called me five minutes before Cade did.”

Lindy-Grace worked for McKenzie at her gift shop and they were good friends, so it only made sense she would let her know what happened.

“You will be at the top of Lindy-Grace’s Christmas list for the rest of your life,” McKenzie went on. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Lucky me. She gives the best presents.”

“And the top of ours as well. Ben and I have a very soft spot in our hearts for those boys. We would have been devastated if anything had happened to them. The whole town would have been devastated.”

“Everything ended well and now we can all move on.”

She was already tired of all the hullabaloo, especially for a decision that she was beginning to accept might not have been the smartest one she’d ever made.

“Not everything. I understand Chief Emmett suspended you from the department for a week without pay.”

Ugh. Small towns! A dog couldn’t pass gas without people talking about it.

“Does everybody know that too?”

“Cade called to tell me personally before the rumors started flying.”