Chapter Nine
Walker turned onto the highway, the
back of his truck heavy with the load he’d picked up from the
lumberyard. Seemed like every damn place he went in town was
peppered with land mines and he had to watch his step. Damned if he
knew what to expect from the people he’d grown up with.
The other day he’d walked into Easy
Money looking for a drink, and maybe take stock of what’d changed,
what’d stayed the same. The buildings downtown still looked like
they’d been designed for a movie set for westerns, except these
were the real deal.
It was the people he didn’t know how
to deal with. With few exceptions, the people of Sisters hadn’t
stood up for him. Then again, he’d been wild in his late teens and
hadn’t given much reason for people to stand for him. Most had been
willing to believe the seemingly irrefutable evidence against him,
and given people didn’t like changing their minds much once they’re
made up, he didn’t expect having his record cleared would make much
of a difference.
Prison was a stain, and having all
charges against him dismissed did nothing but bleach it a
little.
Laney had been one of those
exceptions. She’d believed in him, and he’d treated her like shit.
Despite it, and the time that’d passed, she’d been pissed on his
behalf when he’d walked into Easy Money and no one acknowledged
him. Which hadn’t bothered him overmuch. People would eventually
get used to him again, but it hadn’t set well with her.
She’d always been quick with her
emotions and didn’t mind showing what she was feeling. She wasn’t
one to let it pass when folks had looked through him like he’d been
a ghost.
He’d caught sight of her crossing the
room, head high, giving a big fuck you to everyone sitting in the
bar. He’d spent the better part of a decade trying to forget how
she tasted, but one kiss and he was pulled back to the best summer
of his life. A time that’d been sweet and full of promise. He
couldn’t go back there, and wouldn’t pull Laney into plans that
could go to hell with one wrong move. But that kiss had rocked his
world, and following the one he’d laid on her, he was fighting the
urge to take up where they’d left off all those years
ago.
Not that she’d consider
taking up with him again, but holy shit, that kiss.
He steered off the highway onto Mill
Creek Road, keeping to the speed limit. He hadn’t expected to take
so many hits to the heart when he’d come home.
Walking through Sisters Hardware,
which had been in business since forever and sold everything from
pet food to lamp shades, he’d run into people he’d known and found
their reactions to him ran the gamut. Some looked away like they
hadn’t seen him, some gave a nod and walked on. But there were a
few who took the time to stop and talk, mostly to express
condolences over his grandfather’s death.
Mrs. Mercado, his eighth-grade English
teacher, had stunned him. She’d pulled him into a big hug, and as
she always had, got straight to the point. Hands on his shoulders,
she’d given him a fierce look, her dark eyes gleaming. “You done
with your travels?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You home to
stay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She gave a decisive nod. “I’m glad
you’re back. You belong with your people. What happened to you was
wrong, but you’re too strong to let it ruin your life.”
She’d given him another hug and he’d
stared after her as she walked away. Her unqualified faith had made
something shift uncomfortably in his chest. Then Mateo, who’d been
in the lumber area frowning over two by fours of pressure-treated
wood, had sucked him into a discussion of a deck he was
contemplating building behind his house. That’d led to Mateo
inviting Walker to come by his place to look at the plans for the
deck. He’d added the enticement of barbecued chops and beer, and
Walker hadn’t been able to refuse.
He’d hung out with Mateo, drank the
beer, and ended up watching a baseball game that went into extra
innings. He’d waited long enough so he wasn’t under the influence,
and now it was an hour before midnight and he was heading
home.
He rubbed his hand tiredly over the
back of his neck, still surprised at the short hair. He’d cut it
for the funeral out of respect for Pop, seeing how he hadn’t liked
his grandsons with long hair.
Walker was glad the funeral was behind
them. Sawyer had said his words, and they’d been good ones. They’d
stood across the open grave from Laney, her face ravaged by grief.
She’d placed a bunch of wildflowers on top of the simple coffin
before it had been lowered into the ground and the first dirt
thrown over it.
The naked grief on her face had
mirrored his own. He’d blocked the part of him that wanted to reach
out to her, talk to her, get to that place where they’d once been.
But other than those kisses and the conversation after she’d laid
out Vance Norris, she was doing what she’d said she’d do and was
pretty much ignoring him.
He couldn’t blame her. He’d ignore him
too.
He couldn’t tell her the truth, though
there was a part of him that wanted to lay it out there and see how
she reacted. She’d lose her freaking mind if he told her being with
her made him feel complete. Like without her some integral part of
him was missing.
Like he felt he had a chance in this
world if she stuck with him.
No matter how often he told himself to
stop looking her way, their interactions had sparked a small, weak
flame of hope, like maybe she didn’t despise him as much as she
should have.
Any time he spent with Laney posed
some risk because it entrenched her further in his life, and others
could see her with him and figure she was in on whatever he was
doing. But he couldn’t seem to help himself. He was coming to
realize his plan to stay away from her was flawed. It was dead
impossible to stay away from the woman he craved with every breath
he took.
On top of that, he needed her
help.
He drove on. No streetlights on this
stretch of road meant beyond the wash of his headlights, the night
was ink black under a starry sky.
The darkness shrouded what he knew to
be a sheer drop-off to the creek bed on the right, the far side of
which was Lone Pine Ranch belonging to Shane Keller: grassy land
dotted with pines sloping north and east into folds of the Sierra
Nevada.
In daylight, you could see Mill Creek
rushing down the mountain, a shining silver ribbon on its way to
joining the Sacramento River. At night, the ravine with the creek
at the bottom formed a dark chasm that might as well have been the
mouth of hell it was so dark.
Twin pinpricks of light in his
rearview mirror snagged his attention. A vehicle was gaining on him
fast on the straightaway, with another set of headlights farther
back. He let up off the accelerator, pulling to the right of the
two lanes going his direction.
He tagged the first vehicle as a truck
or SUV given the height and spacing of the headlights. It drew
steadily closer, and closer still until it was tailgating him. He
flipped the review mirror to dim and slowed even more to encourage
the asshole to pass. The vehicle roared past, an Escalade as big as
a tank, and when it cleared Walker’s front end it swerved to the
right, taillights flaring as the driver hit the brakes.
“Son of a bitch.” Walker
laid on the horn and veered to the left lane. The Escalade did the
same, again braking hard. A split-second glance at his rearview
mirror showed the other set of headlights had closed the
gap.
Hoping that driver had good reflexes,
Walker stomped on his brakes and controlled the skid so he didn’t
end up over the side of the road at the bottom of the ravine. The
Escalade continued to slow, and now the lights behind him were
right on his tail.
Instinct was flashing a big warning
light with blaring sirens in his brain. He yanked the steering
wheel to the right, slowing to a near stop. He tapped on the screen
of his phone where it sat in a holder on the dash. The Escalade
angled in front of him and stopped with a screech of tires on
pavement, the rig at his rear doing the same.
His brother’s voice filled the cab.
“What’s up?”
“Two vehicles, one a black
Escalade, the other a dark-colored pickup, forced me to a stop on
the Mill Creek Road, coming from town. I’m probably a mile and a
half from the turnoff to the farm. Fuckers are getting out of their
vehicles. I’m thinking they don’t want to exchange
recipes.”
“I’ll send a unit out and
I’m on my way. Stay in the truck.”
The glare of his headlights
silhouetted a big barrel of a man with a balaclava over his head
and a crowbar in his grip.
“Fuck me.” His knife in
the glove box wouldn’t be much help. He wished he had the Ruger 89
he’d left in the cabin.
“Out of the truck,
asshole,” the guy with the crowbar yelled.
Like hell. Walker knew a setup when he
saw one. He threw the transmission into reverse, gunned the engine,
and felt the jolt when he hit the truck behind him. His pickup
weighed a couple tons and had heavy-duty bumpers and a ball hitch
with plenty of heft. He kept his foot on the accelerator and shoved
the other truck back at least ten feet. He rammed the transmission
into drive and steered directly toward the big guy with the
crowbar.
Two sharp cracks split the
air and the rear and passenger side windows had holes punched
through. One of the bullets burned as it grazed his temple before
exiting through the front windshield. Fuck. The guy with the crowbar
lunged to the side, Walker spun the wheel. More shots rang out, he
heard a thunk as a bullet hit metal, and then he was accelerating
past the Escalade, the truck’s tires kicking up gravel as it sought
purchase on the shoulder. There was a moment when Walker thought
he’d end up in the ravine, but the big tires grabbed hold and he
was hurtling down the road.
He kept an eye on his mirrors as he
sped down the highway, wind whistling through the holes in the