CHAPTER FOUR

 

At four o’clock the next morning, Reed was waiting for her.

He was on-duty and supposed to be in Lander twenty-five miles away, but he had to see Kinley. The woman had run off last night in the midst of their dinner date and he was the cause of it. He had to apologize or, at the very least, make sure she was all right. By the time he’d figured out she had abandoned their conversation, her car was gone when he drove back over to the Coffee Cakery.

So he went home, got up at two-thirty in the morning, and logged in early for his shift before driving the twenty-five miles back to Riverton to wait for Kinley to show up to work. Even now, he and his unit were parked in the shadows of a big Poplar tree, watching the entire parking lot from where he sat. He watched as the employees began arriving for the early morning shift, busboys and cooks alike. He could see the lights going on in the restaurant as the place was readied for the coming day.

Eventually, a tan Toyota pulled into the lot and he recognized it as Kinley’s car. Setting his coffee in the cup holder, he turned on his unit and pulled out from the shadows, shooting across the parking lot and pulling up behind Kinley’s car just as she was climbing out of it. He was effectively blocking her in. He would be smart about it this time if she tried to run.

Kinley put up her hand to shield her eyes from the headlights, having no idea who it was until Reed turned the car off and the headlights dimmed. As he climbed out of the car, a very big man in his khaki uniform, her hand came down and apprehension registered across her face.

Reed walked right up to her. He was concerned, edgy, and tired of playing games. He felt so much attraction to the woman              that he couldn’t verbalize it; all he knew was that he wanted her, and everything about her, and they were going to have it out at that moment. He spent all night building up a righteous rage filled with sorrow and regret and hope. He just couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

“Are you okay?” he demanded.

Kinley nodded, stumbling back somewhat because he had planted himself right in front of her. “I’m fine,” she said, apprehensive. “Look… I’m sorry I left last night. I want you to know that….”

He cut her off. He wasn’t going to listen to her anymore. He was going to get it all out and let the cards fall where they may.

“You’re going to hear what I have to say first,” he said, his deep voice low and threatening. “I’m going to say this here and now so it’s all out in the open. Kinley, I’ve already told you how attracted I am to you. I told you that I have felt that way since the moment I met you. The conversations we’ve had that end up with you running off or ditching me have been some of the most wonderful conversations I’ve ever had. I can see this beautiful personality beneath this mysterious façade you keep up. I see someone I want to get to know very well. Whatever I said last night to make you leave me sitting alone in a restaurant… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But, honey, you’ve been running from me since the first day I met you and I wanted to know why. Clover Fields wouldn’t tell me anything. But Kinley Connors-Berrington did.”

By this time, Kinley was pressed up against her car, appearing as if she were recoiling from him. Tears were welling in her eyes and her breathing quickened. She lowered her head and tried to move away from him.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she claimed.

“Yes, you do.”

She could tell, simply by the expression on his face, what he meant. She began to feel nauseous. All of it, the dark secrets and the horrific past, were about to come front and center. She wasn’t ready for it.

“No,” she breathed. “Please… no. For the love of God, don’t….”

He grasped her by the wrists so she couldn’t slip away. “I want you to listen to me and listen carefully,” he whispered urgently. “I know what happened in Los Angeles. I read all about it. You were a decorated officer for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department until the brother of a criminal, scum bastard you put in jail came after you. I read that he ambushed your husband and two small children one morning on the way to school; I read that after their murders, you disappeared. People think you’re dead, honey. Did you know that? The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has listed you as missing and presumed dead.”

By now, she was weeping softly, her head hung as he gripped her wrists. “Please,” she sobbed, sinking to her buttocks against her car. “Please don’t say anymore. Please.…”

He shifted his grip so he had a better hold on her. Crouched down beside her, he held on to her tightly. “I’m so sorry, Kinley,” he confessed. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I can’t even imagine what you must have gone through. But are you in witness protection? Is that why you’re hiding out here in Wyoming?”

She shook her head, so hard that her neat ponytail slapped around and pieces of hair came free. “It’s none of your business,” she said. “Please let me go. None of this is any of your business.”

He didn’t loosen his grip. “You’re right,” he said softly, steadily. “It’s none of my business. If this was any other situation or anyone else, I wouldn’t have bothered. But you… you saved my life. I have an emotional investment in you. I also think you’re the most alluring and beautiful woman I’ve ever met and I just want to help.”

That seemed to ease her somewhat, although she was still hanging her head, crying. “You can’t help,” she whispered. “This is my deal and nobody can help.”

He sighed. “Will you at least tell me why the L.A. Sheriff’s Department has you listed as missing?” he persisted quietly. “If you’re in witness protection, please tell me so I can help you if the need arises. Will you please just tell me why you’re here?”

Her head shot up and the green eyes flashed. “I’m here because I can’t face it,” she half-shouted. Now, it was all starting to come out. “Tom was driving my car that day; those gangbangers thought it was me and shot it full of holes. When they came to tell me what had happened to Tom and the kids, I got into Tom’s car and just started driving. I drove and drove and drove until I came to the most desolate place I could find. I didn’t have any clothes or money or anything. I left my cell phone back in Los Angeles. I drove until the road ended in Green River, Wyoming and then I just couldn’t go on anymore. I ended up at the Hi-Way Café and sat there for seven hours until the owner figured out something was wrong. He ended up hiring me as a waitress because he felt sorry for me and paid me five hundred bucks for a seventy hour work week. I lived in a tiny trailer with no air conditioning and a broken bathtub, but it was a blank slate without anything that reminded me of my husband and children. It was a place where I could pretend I had no past. Don’t you get it? I can’t face any of it. My family died because of me.”

She hung her head again, tears returning with a vengeance. Sighing with great sadness, Reed put a big hand on her lowered head, stroking the soft, blond hair. He felt as bad as he possibly could.

“So you’re trying to start a new life up here,” he said softly. A great many things were coming clear to him now. “Why did you run off after you shot those suspects at the Hi-Way Café? You weren’t in any trouble.”

She wiped at her face. “I ran off because I couldn’t handle talking to the police or going through the report process,” she said. “I knew my real identity would come out eventually. I wanted to be incognito, a nobody, and the thought of involving myself in something like that… I just couldn’t handle it. Emotionally, I just couldn’t do it. I had to keep running.”

He continued to stroke her head, comfortingly. He still held one of her wrists and he lifted her hand, bringing it to his lips for a gentle kiss.

“You had to keep avoiding it,” he whispered.

She nodded as the tears continued to pour. “I lost my whole family,” she whispered. “That part of me is dead.”

He kissed her hand again. “You just ran off and left your parents, your friends, your family… everything… behind?”

She covered her face with her hands. “I couldn’t bury my kids,” she wept. “God, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t deal with other people’s grief. They would want to talk to me and hug me and… and remind me every second of the day of what I had lost. I just couldn’t do it.”
She was sobbing heavily by now and he sat down next to her on the asphalt, pulling her into his enormous embrace. He didn’t know what else to do. He sat there, his face against the side of her head, feeling her heave with sobs. It was such a tender embrace, one of deep sympathy and comfort. He’d never known anything like it. In his own way, he understood her position completely.

“I think you and I have more in common than you realize,” he commented. “When I was a senior in high school, I had a girlfriend I intended to marry. We had been together for three years and she was everything to me. After our senior prom, we went to a few parties and I made sure not to drink. I wanted to get her home safe, and me home safe, because we had our whole lives ahead of us. I was a responsible kid… I didn’t drink or smoke. I was always trying to do the right thing. Anyway, it was about two in the morning and we were heading back from a party at my buddy’s house. We were two blocks from her home when a drunk driver blew the stop sign and plowed into the passenger side of my car. The impact broke her neck and killed her immediately. When I went to Annapolis, in a sense, I was running like you are. I just couldn’t handle it. I blamed myself. I never even came back here until three years ago, and that just brought the guilt back. I guess I never really dealt with it, so in a small way, I get where you are coming from. I really do.”

By this time, Kinley’s sobs had lessened. She gazed up at him, wiping at her face, feeling a kindred spirit in him with his confession. More than that, she felt a huge amount of comfort in his warm embrace.

She hadn’t been held by anybody in over three years. It was enough to melt her, console and soothe her, and she ended up laying her head against his chest. Although she could feel the Kevlar vest underneath, it was still a wholly marvelous sensation.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said, her voice hoarse and faint. “It really sucks to lose someone you love. It’s really a messed-up, screwed-up world sometimes.”

“It sure is.”

“Do you feel like you’ve been able to deal with her death since you’ve returned?”

He was careful in his reply. He didn’t want to discourage her from finding her own healing path even if he was rather muddled about his.

“A little,” he said, although it was a lie. “It becomes easier with time, I guess. I think all those years I had distanced myself from it, turned it into some big, impossible nightmare, more a creation of my mind than anything else. That made it really hard to face when I came back to Riverton.”

She fell silent, locked in his arms, lying heavily against his chest. But at least she had stopped sobbing. He was grateful for small mercies.

“I still don’t think I’m strong enough to face it,” she finally said. “I don’t want to.”

“You will when you’re ready.”

“Maybe.”

He was quiet a moment. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Yes.”

“What were your kids’ names?”

She sniffled before answering. “Violet and Liam,” she said softly. “Vi was seven and Liam was six. Why do you ask?”

He hugged her gently. “Because I’ll say a prayer for them,” he said softly. “I’m a praying kind of guy.”

She lifted her head and looked at him. “Thank you,” she whispered sincerely.

He just smiled. Kinley was touched by his statement. In fact, she’d derived more comfort from the man than she’d ever known, from anyone, over the past three years. In some strange way, sitting with him on the asphalt as dawn broke over the Wyoming countryside had been therapeutic. At least she had been able to speak of her murdered family. That was a big step.

But it also left her emotionally drained and perhaps confused on a whole new level. As they sat against her car, a few more employees drove up and parked their cars. Not wanting to be seen in a passionate huddle with the deputy, Kinley gently pulled herself from his embrace and wearily stood up. Reed stood up beside her, helping her brush off her dark pants. Pale, her makeup smeared, she looked up into his handsome face.

“I think I’m going to go home for a while,” she said. “I don’t feel much like working this morning.”

He met her gaze steadily. It was evident that he was mulling something over. “I have a better idea,” he said softly. “Why don’t you take the day off and ride along with me? I’d love the company and we can talk some more if you want to. If you don’t, that’s okay, too.”

Kinley shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said, averting her gaze and brushing off her left knee. “I’m going to go home and… think about things. Or try not to think about them, as the case may be.”

He was disappointed that she wouldn’t come with him. He had truly hoped that somehow over the past couple of days, he had succeeded in breaking down her walls just a little. He very much wanted her to let him in. But he could see from the way she was looking at him that his knowledge of her situation, and the questions, might have done more harm than good. He’d shaken her up and that was never a good thing. There was a wariness in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“Okay,” he said softly. “Can I take you home?”

She wouldn’t look at him. “No, thanks,” she said. “I’ll drive.”

“Can I follow you to make sure you, at least, get home all right?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said, starting to move back for her car and holding up a hand to him to prevent him from following. “Reed, please… you’ve made yourself very clear about everything. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t attracted to you as well, but you have to understand… I’m so broken right now. You’re sweet and compassionate and attentive, but I just need to be left alone. I’ve spent all of this time being completely dependent on myself because it’s just safer that way. There’s no way to be hurt if you’re only depending on yourself. I hope you understand that.”

He hadn’t felt so much disappointment in a very long time. “I’m sorry,” he confessed. “I screwed up, didn’t I? I didn’t mean to invade your privacy. I just meant… well, I could tell there was something wrong. That’s obvious. I just thought I could help if I knew what it was.”

She shook her head, but kept the distance between them. “You didn’t screw up,” she said. “But this is something I have to face alone. Maybe… maybe you’ve helped me do that in some way. At least I’m thinking about my family now. I haven’t let myself do that in a really long time. You’ve opened that door.”

He didn’t know what else to say. He felt like she was walking away from him forever and the distress was knifing him in the gut. “I’m never going to see you again, am I?”

Kinley looked at him. She could see the sorrow on his face and it struck a chord deep inside her. But the truth was that she couldn’t answer his question; he wanted something more than she was able to give. Still, the thought of having the man in her life was a strong lure promising contentment and, perhaps, joy that she thought she’d lost. She really wasn’t sure. Confusion was the only thing she could be certain of at the moment.

Impulsively, she went to him, throwing her arms around his neck and lifting her mouth to his. She caught Reed off guard with the power of her kiss, but he quickly recovered, his muscular arms going around her slender body as he held her against him. It was the most satisfying embrace of his entire life. Kinley kissed him sweetly, tenderly, and lustily. It was all things heaven rolled into one.

But as quickly as it started, she tried to end it. He felt her start to pull away but he wouldn’t let her; he suckled her lower lip, snaking his tongue into her mouth and tasting her sweetness. He could feel her respond to him, her arms so tightly around his neck that she was binding the back of his skull, but then suddenly, she let him go. This time, he had no choice but to release her as she put her hands on his throat to push him away. Reed nearly fell over with the abrupt and rough action.

He called her name as she bolted into her car and slammed the door, locking it. Then she turned on the engine and turned on the radio so loud that he could hear it from the outside of the car. She couldn’t go anywhere because his unit was pulled up behind her, so she sat there and buried her face in her hands, weeping painfully as he knocked on the window and tried to get her to look at him. She wouldn’t do it.

Reluctantly, and still feeling that kiss zinging through every vein in his body, he got into his unit and prepared to back up, putting the truck into reverse and backing away so she could get out. But she didn’t move, so he pulled out onto the boulevard. Then he parked down the street from the restaurant and turned off the lights, waiting for her to leave the parking lot. She did, eventually, and he fought off the urge to follow. He didn’t think she’d take it very well. Besides, he knew where to find her every morning of the week and he intended to do just that.

The next morning he was there when she pulled into the parking lot at four-thirty in the morning. He knew that she was aware of his presence; it was impossible not to be aware because of where he had parked his unit. But she wouldn’t acknowledge him. Reed sat there and watched her go into the restaurant as if to make sure she made it to work okay before heading off to his day shift.

The same pattern went on for thirteen days like some sad and strange ritual, and on the days he wasn’t working he would still show up and sit in his truck. Sadly, he would watch her enter her restaurant and that was the last he would see of her until the next day. But on the fourteenth morning, he woke up and realized he couldn’t do it anymore. Emotionally, he had to forget about her because it was eating him up inside. She didn’t want anything to do with him and he had to accept that. He had to move on.

Two weeks and two days after the mad and passionate kiss that still made him hot to think on it, Reed started his day shift at six in the morning in Lander by heading in to the small sheriff’s station. When he entered the one-storied building built from brick around the middle of the last century, he could already hear the chatter on the police band from dispatch and he could already smell the coffee. The morning was busy at this early hour. Just as he passed by the break room, one of the clerks stuck her head out.

“Reed,” she said. “There’s someone here to see you.”

He looked over his shoulder at her as he pulled his mail out of his mail box. “Okay,” he said. “What’s it about?”

“I don’t know,” the clerk said. “She wouldn’t say.”

“Name?”

“Wouldn’t tell me that, either.”

He was still rifling through his mail. “Did you check her for weapons?”

It was a sarcastic question. The dispatcher smirked. “Nope,” she said. “That’s your job.”

He just lifted an eyebrow. “Where is she?”

“Briefing room.”

His eyes were glued to his mail as he made his way down the hallway towards the briefing room, which was little more than a large office. Entering through the door, he caught a glimpse of a body seated in a chair to his right and he lifted his gaze to focus on the woman. When he did, the mail tumbled right out of his hand.

He knew the face very well.