Shadow Protector

All in all, Sera spent less than fifteen minutes at the station. Ten more, and they were pulling up outside a very old, very large house that Logan informed her had come with the job.

Sera sensed his stare as he removed her bags from the back of his truck. With her skin prickling, she swung to confront him.

“What?” she demanded and received the kind of slow smile she really didn’t need to see right then. “Is it the gun?”

“Yeah, but it can wait until we’re inside.”

As he spoke, a drop of rain from clouds she’d failed to notice plopped onto her head.

“You’ve got about five seconds to decide … or not,” he amended when the night sky simply opened up.

If this had been San Francisco and she’d been going to work, Sera would have run. But here, in the middle of nowhere, with the lights of town a distant blur and her clothes already streaked with dirt, she simply lifted her face to the warm rain.

“I have to tell you, Logan, this qualifies as one of the strangest days of my life, and I’ve had some really bizarre days.”

He set his hat back on her head and picked up the heavy bags. “Courtesy of your patients?”

“Not even close.”

Hoisting her carryall, laptop and purse, she preceded him up a short walk to a porch that appeared to wrap around the entire farmhouse. She counted three floors, plus an L-shaped jut and an attic.

Lamps burned in three of the first floor windows. A dog barked deep inside.

“Her name’s Ella Fitzgerald. She’s a two-year-old golden retriever who thinks she’s a lap dog. Can you handle that?”

She smiled. “I love dogs.”

“Good, now how are you with …”

The door opened before he could finish and a small, thin woman with a frizzy gray bun whisked them inside.

She looked cranky, made rough tutting noises and, with a single sharp look, held them on the hallway mat.

“Moon Flower.” Logan caught the towels she tossed from the closet. “Also came with the job.”

“Use it.” The woman pointed downward. “I waxed the floors today.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Call me Flo. You’d be Dr. Hudson, then. Sit, Ella. Her room’s ready, like you wanted, Logan—the one across from yours. If you have a moment, Doctor, my sister’s foot’s been troubling her. And before you ask, she drinks plenty of milk.”

Sera had no idea what to say. “I’m uh, glad to hear it.”

Logan hung their towels on the doorknob and removed the dripping hat from her head. “She’s not that kind of doctor, Flo, and she’s not here to work in any case.”

“I see. Fine then. Babe can just hobble around until that knot head who calls himself an MD decides to practice human rather than simian medicine. Room’s this way, Doctor.”

“Sera’s good.”

“You know, Babe can hardly walk some days. Doesn’t matter how much milk she drinks.”

“Phone’s ringing, Flo.” Logan nodded into the living room. “I’ll take Sera upstairs.” When the woman bustled off, he said, “Don’t ask. She was part of the original hippie movement. She lived in a bus for three years. The engine died after one. She met my dispatcher Fred thirty-seven years ago. They got high, got married and started their own business in Sacramento.”

“Would that be a hemp shop?”

He indicated a set of stairs that jogged to the right halfway up. “Fencing mainly, and not the white picket kind.”

“So thirty some years later, it’s only natural they’d be working for the chief of police in a northern Wyoming town.”

“Life meanders, Sera. Why don’t you tell me your shoot-’em-up story?”

Wet and dirty, with a big dog nosing her hip and a too-sexy man on the stairs behind her, Sera opted for the abbreviated version.

“An adopted aunt whose father was a Texas Ranger thought every girl heading to college should know how to fire a handgun. I put her off for two months. Then I got mugged and decided she had a point. Now can I ask you something? Or—no, I’ll rephrase. Will you answer a question for me? “

He walked behind her down a surprisingly homey corridor. “I might.”

She aimed a humorous look over her shoulder. “You said for every Jessie-Lynn there were fifty normal people in Blue Ridge. My question is, when do I meet one of the fifty?”

THE DRIVE THAT had taken Sig Rayburn two days going took him less than thirteen hours on the return trip. Fueled on bad coffee and hoarse from two and a half packs of cigarettes, he called his captain as he crossed the bridge into the city.

Ten minutes and a great deal of cursing later, the clearly out-of-sorts captain told him to report to his office at 9:00 a.m. and disconnected sharply.

Sig felt the sting but didn’t care. Sera would be safe in Blue Ridge. Logan would see to that. He’d done the only thing he could, the right thing, he was sure. All he could do now was wait and hope her memory would return.

Unlike Wyoming, it was misty and cool in San Francisco. Fog slunk around the piers and the lower half of the city. He had time to grab breakfast, thirty minutes of sleep and a hot shower. By eight-forty he was back in the alley where he’d parked his car. He gave the dented roof a pat and the door a kick to open it.

A man in a black hoodie plodded past, drinking from a bottle in a bag. Sig spared him an uninterested look, then sighed at the interior of his Ford. He’d be swimming in trash soon.

He heard the sound behind him as he started to slide in. The blow to the side of his head stunned him—almost as much as the sight of the man who’d delivered it.

“You,” he managed to croak.

Grinning nastily, the man stuck a gun in his throat. “No bandanna for you, cop.” He shoved the tip in deep. “I’m saving it for the shrink.” His face floated closer. “You’re gonna tell me where she is.”

“Go to hell,” Sig managed to gurgle. “She’s safe, and she will remember.”

“Oh, I’m sure of it. What she won’t do is live to testify.”

“I’m not telling you squat.”

“Not verbally,” the man agreed. His gun made a quiet popping sound as the bullet discharged into Sig’s throat. “But there are other ways, my friend.” He folded his latest victim’s body into the car, located his wallet and eyed the trash on the seat and floor. “Plenty of other ways.”

Chapter Four

Sera could have slept for twenty-four hours. The twelve she got ended with a rough shake from Flo.

“Chief has to go to Casper for a meeting. You need to get up.”

She stuffed Sera’s clothes into a laundry bag, then picked up and examined her broken shoes.

“I can wear heels like this, but not Babe. She can hardly …”

“Walk some days. Got that, Flo.” Sera fought off the effects of her latest nightmare. She was sliding from the surprisingly comfortable bed when the stack of suitcases caught her eye. “You unpacked for me? “

“I don’t like ironing. What kind of doctor are you if you don’t do feet?”

“I can do feet.” In her dove-gray drawstring pants and white tank, Sera bent to look out the partly shaded window. “Will it be hot again today?”

“It’s July, isn’t it?” Flo dangled the strappy shoes. “You want me to see about getting these fixed?”

“Thank you.” Biting back a smile, Sera offered the expected trade. “Would you like me to look at your sister’s foot?”

“She’d appreciate that. But you tell Logan it was your idea. He said I wasn’t to pester you.”

“I will.”

Cinching the canvas bag, Flo started for the door. “Logan’ll be by in forty minutes. I’ve got flapjacks and blueberry syrup in the kitchen. Coffee too.” She paused on the threshold. “When?”

Rocking the tension from her neck, Sera headed for the bathroom. “If you’re talking about Babe, I can examine her when I get back from Casper, where I’m apparently going whether I like it or not.”

Flo gave a satisfied nod. “Do your whatevers fast, and I’ll feed you. Otherwise you’re at Logan’s mercy, and potato chips make a fine meal to him.”

“It’s a miracle cops live to retire.”

“That last word’s not one we use much in these parts, Doctor.”

Why wasn’t she surprised? Sera mused.

Still wondering where the normal people lived, she went into the bathroom to shower away her latest dream image—that of the Blue Ridge police chief’s enigmatic face.

“DON’T LET HER out of your sight, Fred.” Logan handed Sera a white hat with a braided black band, trapped her jaw and stared straight at her. “No guns, no clever tricks, no tricky questions. Agreed?”

She pulled free and smiled. “You have a very low opinion of me, Chief.”

“Must be the city cop coming out. I mean it, Sera.”

“Yes, I know. Go on.” She tried the hat for size and was pleased to discover it fit. “I won’t ditch your dispatcher.”

“Dispatcher slash senior deputy,” the man called Fred corrected. He gave his boss two thumbs up. “Don’t you worry, Logan. Me and the pretty doc’ll get on just fine till your meeting’s done.”

Sera turned to examine the window of a small shoe store. Why couldn’t the chief be more like his deputy? Huge, bald and in his late fifties, with a bull neck, a big belly and a smile as wide as the Platte River.

“You wanna walk, talk or shop, Doc?”

Fred’s question brought a teasing smile. “You’re okay walking the streets of the county seat in the company of a marked woman? “

“No killer with half a brain’s gonna shoot up a busy street at midday, Doctor—sorry, Serafina. That’s a pretty name, by the way. Mean anything special?”

The sun glinted off the roof of a white delivery van. Sera popped her sunglasses on. “It means my mother had high hopes for my future. Didn’t happen. I like Sera now.”

He regarded her from under his own hat. “You and your ma at odds then? “

“Fifteen years worth and counting. There’s no middle ground for us,” she added before he could press. “We didn’t see eye to eye on my future, so now we don’t see each other at all.”

“That’s a shame, and I can say that because Flo and me have a girl, maybe six years up on you. We see her, but every time we do, it’s either behind glass or on our doorstep in the middle of the night. She’s an addict. Addiction’s made her a thief. Thieving’s sent her to jail four times. Guess we shouldn’t throw stones considering our past, but we straightened out. I’m starting to think she never will. She owes money now, so I’m hoping against hope she won’t show up at Logan’s place. We live there, you know.”

“With Logan? No, I didn’t know. Or maybe I just didn’t think. It’s a big house.”

“Came with …”

“The job, I heard.” Hooking his arm, she asked, “Where does your daughter live, Fred?”

He snorted out a laugh. “Wherever the wind blows her. Like her ma and me that way. But you got your own problems, Doc. You don’t need ours heaped on top of them. Word is you’ve got someone after you, someone who likes to kill. Any thoughts on why a person would do that over and over again?”

“A few, but nothing that really works. Whoa …” Raising her sunglasses, she ogled a purse dangling near a shop entrance. “That is one über cool bag. Bet it costs a fortune.” She slipped around him and inside to flip the price tag. “Oh, yeah, fortune. Fourteen-ninety-five.”

“That doesn’t sound …”

“Fourteen hundred, Fred.”

When he gaped, she caught his shirt and drew him back out. “Breathe deeply. The feeling will subside.”

“Fourteen—fifteen hundred dollars? For a purse?”

“Well, it’s leather.” She glanced past him. “Dolce and Gabbana.”

“But that’s …”

“I know.” Aware of the sun’s increasingly strong rays, she steered him toward an outdoor café. “Do you like iced latte?”

“What?”

She grinned, then tugged on his shirt. “Coffee, cold, yummy. We can sit. You can tell me how you wound up in Blue Ridge and what it’s like to work for Logan.”

Fred ran a hand over his face. “Logan, right. Well, it’s good. Best straight job I’ve ever had. You probably know that Flo and me have done some shady things.”

“We all have a past, Fred. The present matters more, don’t you … think?” The last word emerged on a frown as a picture suddenly streaked through her head. Swinging away from the street, she pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to recapture it. “No, don’t hide. Let me see you.”

Fred came up behind her. “Are you okay? You want me to get Logan? “

Ignoring him for the moment, Sera struggled with the hazy image.

“Music,” she said at last and, pivoting, searched for the source. “There was music playing in the background the night Andi died.” She closed her eyes. “There’s something behind it.”

Fred sidestepped. “I’ll get Logan.”

“I need to hear it again.” When he started off, she trapped his arm. “I’m good, Fred, really. I just need the music back. I saw something for a second. A hand, I think. And some kind of motion.” She zeroed in on a muddy four by four truck. “That might be where it came from.”

“You sure it was music, Doc, and not what you were saying?”

She started for the truck. “What were we talking about, do you remember?”

“Coffee, wasn’t it? Or purses.”

She cut across the street, skirted a group of people waiting to board a Greyhound bus and wound up back at the sheriff’s office, where the truck was parked.

The cab of the vehicle was empty, but she made a slow circle around the hood.

Fred caught up and mopped his face with a red bandanna. “It’s awfully hot, Doc. We could go inside, sit for a minute, see if we can find … Logan!” Relief colored his tone. “Am I happy to see you.”

“I forgot a file. What are you doing?”

“Recreating,” Sera said over her shoulder. She wanted to look at him, but that would destroy any chance she had of resurrecting the memory.

“Maybe we should …” Logan must have silenced Fred because he trailed off.

Sera continued to circle. “I saw a man’s hand and part of an arm. He was wearing a watch with a chrome band. It was scratched and corroded in spots.”

“Not a Rolex then,” Logan said from the front of the truck.

“Tell him about the music,” Fred suggested.

“I heard a song, or part of one, as this—I think this—truck drove past us.” She bit her inner lip, drummed the box. “Might’ve been Bob Marley.”

“‘One Love’?”

“Maybe.” But the title didn’t trigger anything more. She made a flitting motion. “Sorry, it’s gone. There was a watch, though, and it wasn’t high end.” She rubbed her wrist. “I saw a glove, too, but that’s a given.”

This time when Logan spoke, he did so from directly behind her. “What color was the glove?”

Her heart gave several hard thumps, which she controlled before turning. “Black. His fist was clenched, and it was striking something. A hard surface, possibly my desk.”

“So this striking happened in your office.”

Sera’s head began to throb, but she pushed through it. “My office door was open. Andrea was in Reception when the security guard found her. I hit my head on my own desk, so I must have run in there.” Leaning back against the side of the truck, she waved her hat in front of her face. “Sorry again, Logan, but that’s all there is.”

“It’s more than you had before.”

“Must be the mountain air.”

She was doing it, she realized suddenly. Looking at him. Getting sidetracked. A baby step away from fantasizing about what it would be like to have that incredibly sexy mouth of his on hers.

Pushing off, she said, “Okay, that’s it. Sun’s frying my mind and my skin.”

“Do you want to come inside?” he asked. “Meeting shouldn’t take more than an hour.” Then he pulled a ringing cell phone from his waistband. “Logan,” he answered with a trace of impatience.

Easing away, Sera searched her shoulder bag for the sunscreen she’d bought during one of Sig’s filling station stops.

Logan’s quiet, “When?” brought her head up and Fred away from his inspection of the four by four’s front tires.

“Where?”

“Oh, hell.” Her fingers stilled as a feeling of dread crept in.

“I’ll get back to you, Captain.” Logan broke the connection.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” She said it simply and without inflection. But it hurt. It cut deep and it bled.

Fred looked from one to the other. “Who’s dead? Someone in Blue Ridge? “

“His name was Sig Rayburn,” Sera revealed. “He brought me here. He was a good cop with good instincts, but instead of being shot in the leg, this time he’s dead.”

Logan’s eyes were steady on hers. “It’s not your fault, Sera.”

“Not directly,” she agreed. “But indirectly—well, you decide.” Removing her hand from her shoulder bag, she opened it. “I have his lucky rock.”

HE’D DIED IN an alley. Like his partner, there’d been no bandanna, but every cop worthy of his badge knew who’d pulled the trigger.

That made it personal, Logan thought. Now, not only was he going to keep Sera safe, but he was also going to get the bastard who’d killed Sig and make damn sure he never saw the light of day again.

With his mallet, he drove a fence post deep into the ground, then gave the baling wire he’d been stringing a yank and secured it to the top.

He’d come to Blue Ridge to get away from this kind of crap—the gang leaders cops could never manage to touch, the targeted shootings, the senseless murders, all the garbage and destruction city life had to offer.

He’d been born and raised in a small town. He was where he wanted to be, doing what he wanted to do. And he still couldn’t escape the urban nightmare.

He took a swing at another post and felt the impact race along his arms to his shoulders. He wouldn’t let Sig or Sera down. But damn the woman, she was getting to a part of him he’d half forgotten existed.

Yes, she was beautiful. So were plenty of other females in the world. Surface meant nothing—he’d learned that lesson early on. And hormones tended to get in the way of good judgment.

Another slam, another shoulder-numbing jolt. It was after 7:00 p.m. According to the medical examiner, Sig had died around 8:30 a.m. He’d taken a single bullet to the throat, preceded by a sharp blow to the left side of his skull.

Fixing the last length of wire, Logan swiped an arm across his forehead. He knew she was behind him before he turned. She smelled like jasmine and late summer roses. She was every man’s gypsy fantasy.

Except for the sea-green eyes. Those were pure, storybook siren.

Without looking, he took a final pull from his Bud. “I’m not feeling chatty right now, Sera.”

“I didn’t think you would be.” Coming around him, she dangled a half-done bottle of bourbon with an overturned shot glass on the top. “My uncle does trauma clinics on Sunday nights. He says sometimes we need a little poison to kick-start a difficult emotional process.”

Logan drew his work gloves off with his teeth. “Sounds more like something you’d say.”

“I just did.” She glanced away. “Logan, I’m really sorry about Sig. I teased him a little—actually, a lot—for being superstitious. Now he’s gone, and I have his rock, and who knows, it’s a big universe, maybe there was something to his belief.”

“Uh-huh.”

Although her lips turned up, her eyes remained on the trees. “Figured you’d say that. But whether I believe in Sedona rocks or not, Sig did, and that’s the point. What I don’t understand is why he left town without it.”

Logan downed the bourbon in a single swallow. When his throat reopened, he poured another. “Did he give it to you?”

“Only to hold.”

“If he didn’t ask for it back, he wanted you to have it.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

The ghost of a grin appeared as the liquor worked its magic. “Seems we’re a step ahead of each other tonight.” He handed her the glass. “To Sig,” he toasted and raised the bottle to his lips.

Her eyes glinted before she tossed the liquor back. It amazed him that she only gasped once. “Med school,” she explained at his prolonged look. “Real ass of an anatomy professor. His students, Andi and I among them, plotted his dissection at a dozen off-campus bars.” Moving closer, she used her index finger to tip his hat back. “I’ll be honest with you, Logan. You scare the hell out of me, and that’s a big admission for me to make because I of all people know how to deflect this kind of fear.”

“Yeah?” Capping the bottle, he set it and the glass on the post beside him. “So what say we do this now, and get it out of our systems.”

It might have been surprise that flitted through her eyes. Whatever it was, the gleam behind it chased it out. She almost jerked when he caught her jaw in a light V. But then she relaxed and went with it—as he drew her closer and crushed his mouth to hers.

Chapter Five

Sera’s mind blanked out. Her blood fired as need spiked. He tasted like bourbon-flavored sex.

Logan took his time, exploring her mouth with lazy thoroughness. It wasn’t what she expected. Heat seared the edges of her control, but he didn’t rush her, didn’t take her on a wild ride to nowhere. Instead, he let the anticipation rise, made the hunger build. She might even have taken a hungry bite back.

Somewhat dizzy but decidedly intrigued, Sera gave his lower lip a tug, then reluctantly made herself end it.

His left hand dropped and his lashes lowered, but he didn’t step away. “Not the best idea I’ve ever had,” he murmured.

“Not the worst either.” A smile sparked her eyes. “But maybe not the smartest, all things considered.”

“It’s one of my bigger failings.” With his fingers still wrapped around her neck, he stared down at her. “Sometimes I forget to consider the consequences of my actions.”

Was any part of her body not tingling? Sera touched her thumb to each fingertip. “On the upside, Logan, that was some action you undertook. On the down, you’re dredging up feelings I’m not sure I want to deal with. You’re also undermining my resolve.”

“Which is?”

“Present nightmare excluded, to control my own destiny.”

“So there’ll be no using the Force on you.” The faint smile lingered as he unhooked his ringing cell phone. “Yeah, Logan.”

Sera experienced a moment of regret when he moved away, then reminded herself that distance was good. Another shot of bourbon wouldn’t hurt either, but giving in would be weak, and she had no intention of becoming—well, a weak person.

“You sure your grandsons didn’t take them?” Safely out of range, Logan threw his mallet in a Dodge truck that had seen better days and tossed Sera a set of keys. “Okay, I’ll come by tomorrow. Meantime, check the barn and whatever other outbuildings are still standing.”

When he bent to retrieve his work gloves, Sera tried not to notice how good he looked in his jeans and red T. “Is Grandpa Bulley missing some knives?” she asked.

A roll of baling wire joined the mallet. “Old Edgar locked up his sharpest knives years ago. He can’t find his father’s Winchester rifle. He’s also minus a box of bullets and some food from his pantry—cooking spray, candy bars, chips, Twinkies.”

“All the basics.”

“To the non-medical types among us.” He glanced down, arched a brow. “Did you walk all the way out here in those?”

“Oh, I can hike up any San Francisco hill in heels, but I’ll be honest and admit that Fred drove me most of the way. I only had to make it in from the road.” Her humor faded. “He’s going to show up, isn’t he, sooner or later?”

“Probably.” Logan added his work gloves to the pile of tools and supplies. “Sig wouldn’t have talked, but that never stops a serial killer. They find a way.”

“Well, I feel better.”

“You’re a shrink, Sera. You don’t need lies.”

“No, but I wouldn’t mind.” She stopped as a thought suddenly struck. “Dixon Dane! You—I—whoa.” She spread her fingers. “I knew I’d seen you before. Did you know when Sig called—no, scratch that, you’d have known, because, although I don’t believe in lucky rocks, a cop’s memory, especially a pissed-off cop’s, is pretty much infallible.”