Chapter 19 - Reality Awakes
Chapter 19
Reality Awakes
Monday
Dan silently climbed the steps to the loft. After showing Andi his someday home, his barn somehow seemed shallow. When they’d returned last night, he’d stepped back into his role as her bodyguard. There’d be no more kissing today. He’d shower and be gone before Andi woke. No use going back to the house and waking the whole family. He didn’t think of the barn as his home. It was simply a place to sleep and store his stuff until his own house was settled.
Old books he’d read a dozen times and a hundred others that didn’t hold his interest. Boxes full of clothes that he’d never put on again and hats he’d worn while searching for a place to fit in. Workout gear hung on hooks in one corner by a huge bathroom, and in another corner was a three-sided box he called his open-air closet.
The racks were lined with uniforms and a few wool coats and flannel shirts and work jeans, well-worn. That’s all he needed. The Western shirts and jeans on a shelf still looked new and folded. Clothes to go out to bars or dancing. He did neither.
None of it mattered. If the barn burned, they’d just rebuild and buy the rest.
Nothing he owned was important to him.
Another hour and the sun would peek over the east horizon. Ever since he was a baby, his mom said he woke before the dawn every morning. He’d never used an alarm or a watch. He just knew the time.
He moved across the shadows in the loft and saw Andi curled in the center of his bed. He grinned. In his bed, just where he’d dreamed she might be one day. Not likely. The woman probably had good-bye tattooed on her shoulder.
He moved silently. She’d likely wake up if she heard a pin drop. He was surprised she hadn’t come down in the night and shot him for snoring on the stairs.
She did look beautiful sleeping though. Perfect for him. Tall but powerful. Smart. The kind of woman who’d love full-out, he bet. Unfortunately, she probably hated hard too.
As he watched her sleep now, he saw the beauty of her. Long golden hair she usually kept in a bun covered his pillow. Tan legs and arms he could see without her jeans and sweater. The gown his mother had given her was draped over a chair and she’d chosen one of his T-shirts from his top drawer. It was too big, but it molded against her body.
How could he want a woman who spent half her day hating him? He must be a masochist.
Most of the time she thought he was dumb, clumsy, and lazy. She’d asked him once why he didn’t have any goals in life. No one at the age of thirty just wanted to be a deputy in a town with one stoplight. After sharing his someday house with her, she’d seen both sides of him. She probably wondered which was the dream and which was the real Danny Davis.
He couldn’t tell her he’d hung all his dreams on one life, one woman. Even eight years passing didn’t dull the pain sometimes. It was the memory that hung around like a shadow darkening his world.
But lately something had changed. Since Andi appeared, Danny woke up smiling.
The nights spent watching over her were interesting, but the excitement of last night left him drained. He felt the load of always being on guard. He just wanted to rest for a while.
Dan opened the window wider and lay down beside her wearing only his jeans. He thought he might rest a few minutes. If she wiggled, he’d move to the chair. One hour more of sleep would be enough. Just one hour. She’d never know he was so nearby.
As his eyes closed his hand brushed her hair and he smiled thinking that Andi’s hair was the only part of the woman he dared touch again.
Far away, thunder rumbled and the low clouds kept any sign of daybreak at bay for a few more minutes. As he slipped back to sleep, he thought he felt her press against him. In more instinct than thought, he curled his arm around her and pulled her closer.
She was safe in his arms. He could rest.
Half into a dream he heard her make a little sound almost like a contented cat.
The sun would rise and warm them soon, but for now they slept. His last thought was, She fits perfectly against me.
A northern wind blew in beneath the clouds, promising rain. The open shutters rattled, waking them.
Dan braced for the firestorm that would come when she noticed him in the bed.
“What time is it?” she said as she raised her head an inch off the pillow.
Dan brushed the strands of her hair away from her face. “A little after seven. Breakfast isn’t until eight at the house.”
She dropped her head back on his arm. “Don’t say a word. Don’t move. I’m not ready to wake up.”
He pulled the blanket over them. “Sleep, Andi. I’ll watch over you.”
Without opening her eyes, she moved her hand atop his heart and without a word the sorrow that had lived in him for years drained out.
When someone opened the barn door below the loft, Dan slipped from his warm bed. He moved to the closet and put on his uniform. When Karly’s tiny picture came into his view, he ripped it off without hesitation. He stared at the stain where the tape had been. It would probably always be there, just like the memory of her. He glanced at Andi’s sleeping form, and realized the pain was no longer there.
“I wish you a wonderful life, Karly. I know you’re no longer in my future,” he whispered.
As he dropped the picture and watched the past float down to the bottom of his closet, he felt like an anvil had been lifted from his heart. Danny stared at Andi and smiled. He finally had the possibility of a new path for the future.
He was putting on his boots when Digger’s head appeared from the opening to the steps.
Dan decided he should put a door on the loft. Then, everyone might stop coming into his almost bedroom. And he and Andi could sleep in peace.
Of course, the chances that she’d stay for another sleep-over were zero.
Digger spider-crawled into the loft using both his hands and legs.
“Morning, Danny, my boy. I figured you’d be up here watching over our lady. It’s about time for breakfast at the big house. The bunkhouse food wasn’t great. I only went back for seconds twice. I was saving room for your mother’s cooking.”
Andi stepped out of the bedroom area wearing jeans, his T-shirt, and a ponytail. She stared at them and frowned. “What are you two doing here?”
Digger stood at attention. “We are on guard. No one is going to kidnap you while we’re your bodyguards.”
Dan closed his eyes, expecting Andi to say something like One of you is getting a little too close. But she didn’t.
He opened one eye. She wasn’t even looking at him. Maybe he just dreamed that she was cuddling. No way, his dreams had never been that good.
Reaching into his closet, he grabbed one of his Western shirts, long sleeved. Flannel. “This will be warm until we go back for your clothes.”
“This looks new. I can’t . . .”
“You can. My mother and every one of my sisters give me Western clothes for Christmas. They seem to think if I dress like a cowboy, I’ll find a girl.”
“How is it working?” Digger asked. “I may never have married, but I’ve gone out with my share of women in my time. I could give you some pointers, son. For one, start winking. Girls may giggle at it but they take a good look at you. Next when you dance with them, move your hand a little, you know low on the waist, almost to a hip. And then there is a lot to learn about the lighting—”
Dan raised his hand like a stop cop. “Don’t give me pointers until I get a pen and paper so I can write them down.”
Digger nodded as Dan fought down a laugh.
When Andi showed up wearing his shirt, she walked past them without a word.
As Digger followed, he told Dan, “You should have paid her a compliment. Women love that.”
As they walked to the house Digger kept doling out advice, Andi didn’t say a word for once, and Dan wondered if she was the same woman who’d patted his heart this morning and kissed him as if she’d been as starved as he was.
The sky was cloudy, and for a change he didn’t care. It would be a long day with Digger talking to mostly himself and Andi not talking at all.
He leaned close to her and whispered, “You look great in my shirt.”
She stayed close and whispered back, “Your snore sounds just like the AC in my apartment.”
Dan decided he didn’t need that pen and paper after all. But his body remembered the feel of her beside him and he figured it would be a long while before he forgot her, even if she wasn’t his kind of woman. He was sunshine and laughter; Andi was storm and thunder.
Well, he guessed if sunshine and laughter didn’t work out, maybe he should stand in the rain for a while.
When he held the kitchen door for her, she frowned.
He just shrugged. Good manners were good manners, even if they annoyed her.
Inside he nodded at his mother and sat down next to Andi. His knee bumped hers and she bumped him back. Then both smiled.
“Aren’t you a little old for the coyote game?” she asked.
He bumped her knee again. “Aren’t you?”
Dan got two bites of breakfast before the sheriff called.
He stepped out in the hall and said, “What’s going on?”
The sheriff started talking double time. “It’s going nuts around here. I got two waterlogged outlaws in jail. One claims he was taking a walk and got caught up in trouble. The other two we found said they were hunting for deer. Apparently, no one ever told them that no one hunts deer with a handgun.
“Two of the gang are in the hospital. One of them panicked and shot himself in the leg. The other almost drowned. It seems he’d never learned to swim.”
Dan broke into Pecos’s rant. “That leaves two or three, if one stayed with their cars.”
“Yeah, the smart ones. My guess is they are calling in backup. They’re hiding somewhere in the county and they’re planning to come after Andi. If they found her at Digger’s place yesterday, they’ll keep looking. I’m guessing we’ve got five hours to make her disappear before reinforcements. They know what she looks like and she has a bounty on her head, so we need to keep her out of sight. They’ve probably seen you hanging around her. But they shouldn’t know she’s Jamie Morrell’s daughter or has two brothers. I might have told Noah at the bookshop, but he’s a listener, not a talker.”
Dan was making plans as he walked the hallway. “I could drive over three hundred miles in five hours,” he offered. “Or I could talk to my farmhands. We have a dozen men who could stand cover at every gate. She’ll be safe at my place.”
Dan guessed Pecos was shaking his head. “That would put your whole family in danger.”
Neither argued.
The sheriff’s voice came low. “Bring her in.”
“We’re on our way to the office, Sheriff. I’ll be there in twenty.” He placed his hand on her back to hurry Andi on and one second later he was running to keep up.
Digger followed with a breakfast burrito in each hand. “Don’t forget me!” he yelled.
Andi opened the passenger door of the pickup and slid across the seat until her leg hit Dan’s.
“Sorry,” he said low, but neither moved apart.
Digger ate as Dan drove as fast as his old pickup could go. Once, he rested his hand on Andi’s leg. She didn’t move away.
“You all right?” he asked while Digger kept talking between bites.
“Yes,” she responded.
Dan grinned. The woman who resisted or questioned everything he did or said didn’t move when he touched her. He figured that could only mean one thing. The world was about to fall off its axis.
He might as well live a bit during the last minutes before bullets started zinging again. He slid his hand down almost to her knee and then moved halfway back up.
“You sure you’re all right heading to town?”
She didn’t look at him. “Your family doesn’t need my kind of trouble.”
Dan patted her jeans-covered leg and waited for the world to end.
Pecos was waiting when Dan and Andi stepped into the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff swore, something he never did. “This week is starting off bad. The way it’s going I’ll age ten years by Friday.”
They all marched toward the back. “There are only three roads out of the valley and I guess the shooters have all of them covered. Or they’ve already got your pickup bugged, along with all four of our county cruisers.” The sheriff didn’t offer anyone a chair.
Digger hurried in behind Dan and Andi. As soon as all four were in the back, Digger was busy eating as many donuts as he could while the others planned.
Finally, the old man said between mumbling bites, “The Jeep you rented seems permanently parked at my office. I could fill it and load up Andi’s things left back at the cabin, and she’d be ready to go. They’ll think I’m taking her stuff to her. Then, I’ll vanish down those dirt roads around Someday Valley. It will be hours for them to find their way out. That will be one less bad guy you’ll have to worry about. Then I’ll double back and take up being Andi’s bodyguard again.”
“Good idea.” Pecos looked surprised at Digger’s plan.
Digger’s temper flared. “Listen, boy, I didn’t waste my time going to college. I went to war. I learned a few things. Pick them off one by one. Right now is a great time. They are scattered.”
“I think we should get Andi away somewhere safe, first,” Dan said.
No one added anything, so Digger took over.
“And another thing, I’ve got listening ears. I heard Bear tell me once years ago that there was a secret way out of the valley somewhere along the rim. Apaches used it to run to safety during the Indian Wars. Most folks think it’s just a legend, but it might be true. The lady who lives on Holly Rim Farm keeps a shotgun ready just in case anyone steps on her place. I think if there is a secret passage, my guess is it’s on her land.”
Pecos began walking down the hall between his office and the back door. “If the gunmen who shot at Andi last night stayed in town, I’d bet they’ve got at least one man watching Main, and he saw you come in here. They’ll think Andi is in my office for safety. That’s the obvious assumption. If she left town, she’d be a sitting duck.”
The sheriff continued pacing and for no reason Digger followed.
Pecos issued his orders to Andi in a low voice. “In a few minutes you slip out the back and break into the back door of the bookshop if you have to. I’ll find Bear and meet you there. Third floor. It’s a big junk room but we can see the whole town from there. If they come for us, we’ll be ready.”
As Andi moved toward the back, Pecos said to the deputy, “If they can’t get to her, Dan, they’ll go after her family. I’ve heard cartels will kill a whole generation as a warning to others.”
“Lucky her family is in Europe.” Danny relaxed a little. “She told me her father was on his last deployment before he retires to a desk job in Washington.”
The sheriff was silent for one long minute. He looked at Andi.
Pecos said, “Her brothers are back in Honey Creek. They know little about her, but they want to meet her. And this may be the only chance they ever get. If I heard they returned, the drug gang could find them too.”
Andi pushed between the two men. “I’m standing right here, guys, and I don’t need either of you to help me disappear. The only reason I’ll play along with your plan is I want to meet my brothers and make sure they are safe. Then, I’ll vanish and never come back.”
“No,” Dan said.
Playfully, she pretended to punch the deputy in the stomach as a silent hint to stop ordering her around.
She tried to glare him into silence.
The sheriff ignored their exchange and continued. “Dan, meet us at the bookshop as soon as you know she’s not being followed. I’ll make sure the bookshop is safe. We can plan from there.”
Pecos started to say something, but stopped. She wasn’t under his command.
She added, “If you are late with the guy named Bear, I’m vanishing and I’m taking this deputy with me.” She straightened. “Have someone like that dispatcher drive off in Danny’s old pickup in a few minutes. Tell her to park it over at the Exxon with the other rusted trucks where no one will notice.” She turned to Digger. “And you, soldier, ride with the dispatcher as a guard.”
“Will do.” Digger saluted Andi and then turned to the dispatcher and yelled across the office. “I’ll get you somewhere safe, Doris. You’re too valuable to leave here.”
The woman wiggled out of her chair and put her headset on the desk. “I got the calls that might come in here routed to my cell. Wherever I am, I’m still on the clock,” she said as she shoved snacks and a Diet Coke in a huge purse. “I’m ready. A mobile 911.”
Andi didn’t bother to look at Danny when she told the sheriff, “I’ll meet you at the bookstore but I go separately. We will be safer if we each go alone, both to the bookshop and to wherever my brothers live.”
Both the sheriff and the deputy said no at the same time.
“Yes! It is better for all of us. But first, I want my brothers safe, then when the time comes I’ll vanish.” She turned to Danny, but her words were for the sheriff. “Danny will watch after them until this danger is over. I can take care of myself. If I leave, the men looking for me will leave.”
The sheriff said no again, but he and Dan both saw she was making sense. The echo of her words “I can take care of myself” seemed to bounce off the walls. She was trained, she was an expert, she was right.
Danny followed her to the back door. He grabbed a raincoat with a hood off a hook by the back door and handed it to Andi. “Pecos says you might need this. Don’t know why; it looks like it’s slowing to a sprinkle.”
Dan moved close. “Straight to the bookstore. I’ll call to tell Noah to unlock the back door. Be careful.”
“I will. I always am. I’ll be no more than a shadow passing over the land.”
He brushed the back of one finger against her cheek. “I’ll be fifteen minutes behind.”
Then before he let reason take over, he kissed her. Not a peck. Not a goodbye kiss. A later, babe kiss.
He straightened and didn’t say a word. Probably, for the first time in her life, Andi seemed unable to say a thing. Like a soldier, she turned and vanished.
The sheriff was on the phone.
Danny didn’t move as he listened for a shot. No sound. He counted slowly, one . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . . seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . ten. He let out the breath he’d been holding. She was in the bookstore by now and he’d be with her in fifteen minutes. All he had to do was to find Bear.
He heard the rattle of his old pickup. Doris and Digger had left out the front. The plan was in motion.
Danny left in the sheriff’s car while Pecos called in backup.