“This really isn’t necessary, Sheriff Donohue,” Elsie said from the back seat of the police cruiser.
He gave her a look through the grate that separated the front from the back. It was a look that told her in no uncertain terms that, in his mind, this was absolutely one hundred percent necessary.
“I owe it to you, and to my daughter, to make sure that you are alright,” the sheriff said, in the plodding, kindly way that he always spoke. He had treated her like one of the family, ever since she and Rachael had become friends all those years ago. And now he was looking at her like a recalcitrant daughter. He cast her another glance through the rearview mirror.
“You know, Elsie, I’m surprised at you, getting mixed up with the Roadrunners.”
“Um, it’s the Roadburners, Sheriff Donohue, not the Roadrunners. That’s the cartoon bird that always gets chased by the coyote…”
“That’s not the point, Elsie.” He huffed out a breath of impatience as he pulled into the station. “Why don’t you come in and get settled. You can give us your statement and we’ll get this all sorted out, alright?”
“Sure. Whatever you say,” Elsie sighed as the sheriff pulled unlocked her door and led her inside. He pointed to the small room off to the side and gestured for her to move in that direction.
“You can wait in the break room for now, okay? Just let me know if you need anything.”
Hatchet, she thought to herself. I need Hatchet. But she didn’t say that out loud. She didn’t say anything at all. Instead, she turned and walked the break room in silence.
She had just sat down in one of the squeaky plastic chairs when the door burst open.
“Oh my god! You really are here!”
Elsie looked up just in time to see Rachael flying towards her, auburn hair streaked with magenta and pulled up in a messy bun, her green eyes wide with disbelief.
“I am, but why are you? I thought you were under house arrest?” Elsie asked, relieved to see her friend.
“I was. But dad said he wanted to keep a closer eye on me, so here I am. That doesn’t answer my question, missy. But first…” Elsie felt herself instantly relax as her friend enveloped her in a bear hug. The feeling quickly evaporated as all the bruises and cuts from the fall made themselves known.
“Ow! Not so tight.” Elsie gritted her teeth at the sharp pain.
Rachael instantly pulled back, her sharp gaze examining Elsie. “Damn, you’re hurt. I’m sorry, I’m such a spaz.”
“It’s alright. Not your fault.”
“Okay, I’ve apologized,” Rachael leaned forward. “Now, tell me everything. I overheard Daddy dearest saying something about finding you with a motorcycle gang. What? Spill.”
Coming from Rachael, it was definitely a command, but Elsie didn’t even know where to start. “It’s… complicated.”
“Of course it is. All the best stories are. Just start from the beginning. I just talked to you yesterday, for Christ’s sake, and you definitely did not mention anything about sexy tattooed bikers. And we’re best friends. So you would have, right? I mean, you would have told me if you were part of some secret illegal super hunky motorcycle gang.”
“Yes, Rae, I would have told you,” Elsie said, butting in when her friend paused to take a breath. “It wasn’t like I planned this whole thing.”
“Of course you didn’t. This isn’t exactly a very ‘Elsie’ thing to do.”
“Maybe not the old Elsie,” she muttered, more to herself than to her friend. “But the new Elsie? I’m not so sure.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What is this ‘old Elsie,’ ‘new Elsie’ stuff? Oh my god, is it a cult? You have to tell me, Els, did you join a cult?”
“What?” She pulled back, looking sideways at her friend and shaking her head, trying to fight the laughter that Rachael always had a way of invoking. “No. No cults.”
“Okay. No cults. So, explain then.”
“I was… I was kidnapped,” Elsie finally admitted, to stop Rachael drilling her more than anything else. But she should have known better.
“What?” Rachael gasped. “Who! Where! I’ll kill them. If someone hurt you, I swear, I’ll gut them like a low down dirty fish. I’ll…”
“Rachael. Rachael!” Elsie had to yell to cut through her friend’s violent speech. Rachael was also extremely loyal. It was one of her best traits. “It’s okay. I wasn’t hurt. It was just a misunderstanding.” She took a deep breath, trying to figure out what to tell her friend. “Promise you won’t say anything, alright?”
“I promise,” Rae said instantly, at the same time drawing an invisible cross in the air over her heart, just like they’d done when they were kids.
“After I talked to you, I went out to check on some cattle that hadn’t come in earlier in the day.”
“Of course you did.”
“Anyway,” Elsie gave her friend a pointed look. “It was at the edge of the ranch and, when I got out there, there were no cows. But there was…”
“A sexy as sin biker guy just waiting to sweep you away on his steel steed?” Rae interrupted again, leaning forward in earnest.
“Something like that,” Elsie muttered. Rachael made it sound a hell of a lot more romantic that it had actually been at the time. “Like I was saying, no cows. But there was a guy. He startled Goat and he threw me… Oh, I didn’t even think about it. Is Goat okay?”
“That horse could outlive a nuclear apocalypse,” Rachael waved her hand. “I’m sure he’s just fine. Go on. With the sexy biker part.”
Elsie worried her lip nervously. She would just have to wait until she got home to check on Goat, but she knew Rae was right. It would take more than a momentary startle to do any lasting damage to that horse.
“Anyway, he was stealing. The cattle, that is. That’s why they weren’t there. And then I stumbled on his operation. He said he couldn’t risk letting me call for help. So, long story short, he kidnapped me. And then rescued me. Now I’m here and mostly fine.”
“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa! You just left out a major part of that story,” Rachael said.
Elsie cringed a little. She usually wouldn’t have hesitated to tell her best friend anything and everything, but some of those secrets weren’t hers to tell. The truth was, she also wasn’t even sure herself what her feelings were on everything that had happened.
“And what is that?” she finally asked, dreading the answer.
“You didn’t tell me about the super-hot, super sexy, super crazy-gorgeous man you came in with,” Rachael said, leaning forward with a surreptitious glance towards the window that looked out to the bull pen area of the station.
“Oh, um, well… I don’t really know what…” Elsie trailed off, unsure what to say, and was taken aback by the flash of jealousy that shot through her. Rachael had always been more of a flirt than her. Rachael flirted and Elsie didn’t—not until Hatchet.
But now she found herself not wanting to share any part of him, not even with her friend. She wanted to keep him all for herself. And it was an odd sensation, keeping things from Rachael. She was the one person that knew Elsie as well as she knew herself. Better even, sometimes. But still Elsie hesitated.
“Those tattoos. Those muscles. Those dark blue eyes that just see all the way inside a person.”
“Wait a minute, blue eyes?” Elsie asked, looking askance at her friend. She’d seen Hatchet’s eyes. She’d been up close and personal with Hatchet’s eyes. They weren’t blue. “Are you talking about Jackrabbit?”
“Mmm, ‘Jackrabbit.’ Is that a nickname or something?” Rachael said, talking to herself as she stared at the window. “I wonder if he fucks like one.”
“Rachael!” Elsie said, aghast.
“What? A girl can wonder.” They both shared a look and then burst out laughing.
“You are terrible,” Elsie finally said, drawing in a deep breath.
“I know. It’s just one of the many things that you love about me.” They shared a smile, a bond forged from years of friendship.
Elsie finally reached out a hand, taking one of Rachael’s in her own. “Listen, friend to friend, I need a favor.”
“Anything,” Rachael said, not even hesitating.
“I need to talk to Hatchet.”
“Hatchet? Is he the other guy they brought in? The guy that was all bruised and cut up like you are?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Wait a minute,” Rachael said, holding up one finger and leaning close. “Say his name again.”
“Why?” Elsie sighed in impatience.
“Just do it, alright? Humor me.”
“Fine. Hatchet,” Elsie said with a roll of her eyes at her friend’s antics. “Hatchet. Hatchet. Hatchet.”
“First of all, weird name. Second of all…” she leaned forward, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Oh my god, you totally slept with him!”
“What? What are you talking about…?”
“I can hear it in your voice, girl! You had sex, with Hatchet!” She paused, then shook her head. “‘Hatchet,’ really?”
Elsie just shrugged, not deigning to give her friend an answer. Instead, she leaned forward. “Are you going to help me or not?”
“Of course I am! It’s just that… no, not important now. You need to talk to Hatchet. No problem. I got you covered. But you won’t have long. Probably just a few minutes.”
“That’s all I need. I just… I just need to make sure he’s okay.”
Rachael paused, tilting her head to one side as she stared. “You really care about him, don’t you?”
“It’s impossible,” Elsie shook her head. “I mean, we literally just met. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Love rarely does, Els. Just give me five minutes and then come out, okay?” Then her friend was gone before Elsie could even form an answer.
Each second that she had to wait felt like an hour. She only made it three and half minutes before she poked her head out of the break room doorway. She did a quick scan of the room and saw Rachael expertly stalling her father, who had been talking to Hatchet next to one of the officer’s scratched metal desks.
That was when Elsie took her chance.
She made a bee line for Hatchet, catching sight of Rachael slipping back out of the sheriff’s office out of the corner of her eye. She nearly ran over to give her friend a hug. But she knew she wouldn’t have long to talk to Hatchet. She could save the hugs for later.
He was handcuffed, his hands held awkwardly on his lap as he tried to hold a pad of paper and a pen in his hand. It must be his statement.
“Hatchet!” Elsie hissed as she drew near. “Hatchet!” she whispered a little louder and his head jerked up, his eyes going wide on hers as she stopped beside the metal folding chair he was sitting in.
“Elsie! What are you…? Are you…?”
“We don’t have a lot of time,” she said quickly. All the while her eyes scanned him, taking in every bruise, every scrape, every cut. “Are you okay? When we crashed and then you wouldn’t wake up, I was so afraid. And then Mad Dog was there, and it was just all so…”
The sudden pressure of his lips on hers stopped her cold, and all she could do was hold on. All too soon he was pulling back again.
“I’m fine. Really, I’m okay. Are you? Were you hurt?”
“Nothing serious. I made it out just fine. But, Hatchet, what about Mad Dog? Is he going to come after you?”
“I don’t know,” Hatchet said softly, his eyes never leaving hers. “But you need to keep yourself safe, alright? Until I get out of here. Fuck! I wish I could protect you, Elsie, I wish…” He trailed off as an officer walked over, giving Elsie a disapproving look, and she hastily backed away, pretending that she’d been doing something else all along. Definitely not talking to a dangerous criminal. Elsie McLaurel wouldn’t do something like that.
Elsie didn’t know what else to do as she stood there, wishing she could have had more time to talk to Hatchet. There was so much more she wanted to tell him, so much more she needed to ask.
As her eyes scanned the station they fell on the row of chairs lined up against the far wall. Jackrabbit was sitting there, in handcuffs just like Hatchet, waiting to give his statement. Rachael was there as well, talking to him. Well, more like flirting, from her body language. Elsie had no doubt that, given enough time, Rachael would have the tough biker eating out of her hands.
Rachael leaned forward, precariously close, and said something to Jackrabbit that had his eyes going wide. A moment later he threw his head back and let out a full-belly laugh. By the disgruntled look on Rachael’s face, that hadn’t been the reaction she’d been aiming for. The loud noise had drawn the attention of not only the other officers but the sheriff as well.
Elsie felt a moment of sympathy for her friend at the thunder clouds that formed on Sheriff Donohue’s features as he stalked over to Rachael, who was trying to give him her best ‘Oh, I wasn’t doing anything at all, I’m so innocent.’ look.
By the way Sheriff Donohue shook his head and lowered his brows, green eyes flashing fire just like his daughter’s, Elsie could tell he wasn’t buying it.
“Get these guys out of here!” the sheriff yelled, at no one in particular, and several of the officers turned towards him uncertainly. He pointed a rigid finger at one of them. “You! Take them to a cell. Now!”
The officer rushed to do what the sheriff ordered, gathering both Hatchet and Jackrabbit together and leading them towards the door at the back of the station, where the single cell was located. They were nearly there when the front door burst open. Elsie didn’t even need to turn around and see who it was. The reaction on everyone’s faces confirmed her suspicion.
Mark McLaurel had just arrived.
“Elsie!”
At the sound of her name spoken in the all too familiar, imperious way, she finally turned around, tilting her chin up as she did.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“What the hell is going on here? Sheriff! You better explain yourself right this minute. If anything’s happened to my daughter…”
“Daddy, please. It wasn’t the sheriff. He was just helping me,” Elsie said, then took a deep breath to steel herself as he stormed forward, not stopping until he was directly in front of her. He looked her up and down and Elsie realized for the first time that she was still wearing Hatchet’s oversized shirt and shorts. They were stained and ripped from the accident, not that they’d been in great shape before that either.
“Well, honestly, I don’t care what happened,” he finally said after a long moment of tense silence. “You can fill me in at home. But for now, we’re leaving.”
He reached out a hand to grab her arm, but she pulled away. “No, Daddy, I can’t just leave. They have men in custody who…”
“Who I intend to make sure are prosecuted to the full extent of the law!” her father growled.
“No, listen to me! This is just a misunderstanding. They were trying to help me, I swear!”
“No, you listen to me, Elsie.” He leaned close and talked in a low hushed tone, but each word was sharp enough to draw blood. “I don’t know what happened last night, and I don’t care to know, even though I can guess. But enough is enough, and someone has to pay for what happened. And I intend for those men to pay. Now, we are going home, and we will forget all about this unfortunate episode.”
Elsie stared at her father, her thoughts warring violently inside her. She glanced to the side and saw Rachael give her a sympathetic look. But in the end she had no choice but to follow Mark McLaurel from the police station. Before she left, she cast one last, long look at Hatchet, making him a silent promise to make things right. No matter what she had to do, she would make it right.