Snowfall On Haven Point

Marshall looked at the tray, then at her, leaving her feeling as if she were the silly one.

“Thanks. It looks good. I appreciate your kindness,” he said stiffly, as if the words were dragged out of him.

He had to know any kindness on her part was out of obligation toward Wynona. The thought made her feel rather guilty. He was her neighbor and she should be more enthusiastic about helping him, whether he made her nervous or not.

“Where is your cell phone?” she asked. “You need some way to contact the outside world.”

“Why?”

She frowned. “Because people are concerned about you! You just got out of the hospital a few hours ago. You need pain medicine at regular intervals and you’re probably supposed to have ice on that leg or something.”

“I’m fine, as long as I can get to the bathroom and the kitchen and I have the remote close at hand.”

Such a typical man. She huffed out a breath. “At least think of the people who care about you. Wyn is out of her head with worry, especially since your mother and Katrina aren’t in town.”

“Why do you think I didn’t charge my phone?” he muttered.

She crossed her arms across her chest. She didn’t like confrontation or big, dangerous men any more than her daughter did, but Wynona had asked her to watch out for him and she took the charge seriously.

“You’re being obstinate. What if you trip over your crutches and hit your head, only this time somebody isn’t at the door to make sure you can get up again?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“You don’t know that. Where is your phone, Sheriff?”

He glowered at her but seemed to accept the inevitable. “Fine,” he said with a sigh. “It should be in the pocket of my jacket, which is in the bag they sent home with me from the hospital. I think my deputy said he left it in the bedroom. First door on the left.”

The deputy should have made sure his boss had some way to contact the outside world, but she had a feeling it was probably a big enough chore getting Sheriff Bailey home from the hospital without him trying to drive himself and she decided to give the poor guy some slack.

“I’m going to assume the charger is in there, too.”

“Yeah. By the bed.”

She walked down the hall to the room that had once been Wyn’s bedroom. The bedroom still held traces of Wynona in the solid Mission furniture set, but Sheriff Bailey had stamped his own personality on it in the last three months. A Stetson hung on one of the bedposts and instead of mounds of pillows and the beautiful log cabin quilt Wyn’s aunts had made her, a no-frills but soft-looking navy duvet covered the bed, made neatly as he had probably left it the morning before. A pile of books waited on the bedside table and a pair of battered cowboy boots stood toe-out next to the closet.

The room smelled masculine and entirely too sexy for her peace of mind, of sage-covered mountains with an undertone of leather and spice.

Except for that brief moment when she had helped him reposition the pillow, she had never been close enough to Marshall to see if that scent clung to his skin. The idea made her shiver a little before she managed to rein in the wholly inappropriate reaction.

She found the plastic hospital bag on the wide armchair near the windows overlooking the snow-covered pines along the river. Feeling strangely guilty at invading the man’s privacy, she opened it. At the top of the pile that appeared to contain mostly clothing, she found another large clear bag with a pair of ripped jeans inside covered in a dried dark substance she realized was blood.

Marshall Bailey’s blood.

The stark reminder of his close call sent a tremor through her. He could have been killed if that hit-and-run driver had struck him at a slightly higher rate of speed. The Baileys likely wouldn’t have recovered, especially since Wyn’s twin brother, Wyatt, had been struck and killed by an out-of-control vehicle while helping a stranded motorist during a winter storm.

The jeans weren’t ruined beyond repair. Maybe she could spray stain remover on them and try to mend the rips and tears.

Further searching through the bag finally unearthed the phone. She found the charger next to the bed and carried the phone, charger and bag containing the Levi’s back to the sheriff.

While she was gone from the room, he had pulled the tray close and was working on the dinner roll in a desultory way.

She plugged the charger into the same outlet as the lamp next to the sofa and inserted the other end into his phone. “Here you are. I’ll let you turn it on. Now you’ll have no excuse not to talk to your family when they call.”

“Thanks. I guess.”

Andie held out the bag containing the jeans. “Do you mind if I take these? I’d like to see if I can get the stains out and do a little repair work.”

“It’s not worth the effort. I don’t even know why they sent them home. The paramedics had to cut them away to get to my leg.”

“You never know. I might be able to fix them.”

He shrugged, his eyes wearing that distant look again. He was in pain, she realized, and trying very hard not to show it.

“If you power on your phone and unlock it, I can put my cell number in there so you can reach me in an emergency.”

“I won’t—” he started to say, but the sentence ended with a sigh as he reached for the phone.

As soon as he turned it on, the phone gave a cacophony of beeps, alerting him to missed texts and messages, but he paid them no attention.

“What’s your number?”

She gave it to him and in turn entered his into her own phone.

“Please don’t be stubborn. If you need help, call me. I’m just a few houses away and can be here in under two minutes—and that’s even if I have to take time to put on boots and a winter coat.”

He likely wouldn’t call and both of them knew it.

“Are we almost done?” Will asked from the doorway, clearly tired of having only his sister to talk to in the other room.

“In a moment,” she said, then turned back to Marshall. “Do you know Herm and Louise Jacobs, next door?”

Oddly, he gaped at her for a long, drawn-out moment. “Why do you ask?” His voice was tight with suspicion.

“If I’m not around and you need help for some reason, they or their grandson Christopher can be here even faster. I’ll put their number in your phone, too, just in case.”

“I doubt I’ll need it, but...thanks.”

“Christopher has a skateboard, a big one,” Will offered gleefully. “He rides it without even a helmet!”

Her son had a bad case of hero worship when it came to the Jacobses’ troubled grandson, who had come to live with Herm and Louise shortly after Andie and her children arrived in Haven Point. It worried her a little to see how fascinated Will was with the clearly rebellious teenager, but so far Christopher had been patient and even kind to her son.

“That’s not very safe, is it?” the sheriff said gruffly. “You should always wear a helmet when you’re riding a bike or skateboard to protect your head.”

“I don’t even have a skateboard,” Will said.

“If you get one,” Marshall answered. This time she couldn’t miss the clear strain in his voice. The man was at the end of his endurance and probably wanted nothing more than to be alone with his pain.

“We really do need to leave,” Andie said quickly. “Is there anything else I can do to help you before we leave?”

He shook his head, then winced a little as if the motion hurt. “You’ve done more than enough already.”

“Try to get some rest, if you can. I’ll check in with you tomorrow and also bring something for your lunch.”

He didn’t exactly look overjoyed at the prospect. “I don’t suppose I can say anything to persuade you otherwise, can I?”

“You’re a wise man, Sheriff Bailey.”

Will giggled. “Where’s your gold and Frankenstein?”

Marshall blinked, obviously as baffled as she was, which only made Will giggle more.

“Like in the Baby Jesus story, you know. The wise men brought the gold, Frankenstein and mirth.”

She did her best to hide a smile. This year Will had become fascinated with the small carved Nativity set she bought at a thrift store the first year she moved out of her grandfather’s cheerless house.

“Oh. Frankincense and myrrh. They were perfumes and oils, I think. When I said Sheriff Bailey was a wise man, I just meant he was smart.”

She was a little biased, yes, but she couldn’t believe even the most hardened of hearts wouldn’t find her son adorable. The sheriff only studied them both with that dour expression.

He was in pain, she reminded herself. If she were in his position, she wouldn’t find a four-year-old’s chatter amusing, either.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” she said again. “Call me, even if it’s the middle of the night.”

“I will,” he said, which she knew was a blatant fib. He would never call her.

She had done all she could, short of moving into his house—kids, pets and all.

She gathered the children part of that equation and ushered them out of the house. Darkness came early this close to the winter solstice, but the Jacobs family’s Christmas lights next door gleamed through the snow.

In the short time she’d been inside his house, Andie had forgotten most of her nervousness around Marshall. Perhaps it was his injury that made him feel a little less threatening to her—though she had a feeling that even if he’d suffered two broken legs in that accident, the sheriff of Lake Haven County would never be anything less than dangerous.

CHAPTER TWO

MARSH WAITED UNTIL he heard the door close behind Andrea Montgomery and her children before he allowed himself to grimace and release the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

His entire body hurt like a mother trucker, as if somebody had been pummeling him for the last, oh, twenty-two hours. He couldn’t pinpoint a single portion of his anatomy that wasn’t throbbing right about now.

Though the surgery to set and pin the multiple fractures in his foot and ankle had taken place in the early hours of the morning, his head still felt foggy from the anesthesia and the pain meds they had thrust upon him afterward.

Oddly, the leg wasn’t as painful as the abrasions on his face and hands where he had scraped pavement on the way down. Some of his pain was probably the inevitable adrenaline crash that always hit after a critical incident.

He drew in a deep breath of air that still smelled like his neighbor, sweet as spring wildflowers on a rain-washed meadow.

He hated that he was now her pity project, thanks to her sense of obligation to his sister. He knew that was the only reason she had come by. Wyn must have blackmailed her into helping him. What other reason could she have for doing it?

Andrea Montgomery didn’t like him. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to her, but in their few previous interactions she had always seemed cold and unfriendly to him. He would have figured her for the last person to come to his rescue. Few people were strong enough to withstand pressure from Wyn when she was at her most persuasive, though.

He didn’t want his neighbor and her kids to come back the next day. Short of locking the door, how could he prevent it?

Less than a day ago, he had been under the wholly misguided impression that he had most facets of his life under control.

He had a family he loved, a widowed mother who had just found happiness again and remarried, a brother he admired and respected, a sister who was now engaged to his best friend, another one who was suddenly passionate about saving the world. He lived in the most beautiful place on earth and he had a position of great responsibility that he had worked very hard to earn.

Yeah, he had some in-house personnel problems in the sheriff’s department—the most urgent concern one that involved a significant amount of missing cash in a drug case—but he was dealing with them.

He certainly had a few enemies among the criminal element in his county. Who in law enforcement didn’t? Suspects he had investigated and arrested would probably top that list, followed by the people who loved them.

A few powerful people were on that list as well, including Bill Newbold, a wealthy rancher and county commissioner Marsh had had a run-in with a few weeks earlier over a neighbor’s claim he was overreaching his water rights.

Marsh could have handled that matter a little more delicately, but he’d never much liked Newbold and figured the man used his political position to line his own pockets. Attempted vehicular homicide, though? He couldn’t countenance it.

Maybe he was being too naive.

Marshall would never claim his life was perfect. He had made his share of mistakes—one huge one that was never far from his mind, especially lately. But he never expected to become a target of deadly force, until somebody in a snowy parking lot set out to show him how very wrong he was.

When he closed his eyes, he could still hear the sound of that engine gunning, the tires spinning on slush and gravel.

It wasn’t an accident caused by weather and nerves, despite what the investigator with the state police wanted to believe. How could it be? Someone had lured him to an abandoned gas station on the outskirts of Shelter Springs, baiting the trap with the promise of a lead in a long-cold missing persons case he worked when he first started at the Lake Haven Sheriff’s Department as a deputy fresh out of the military.

When he arrived, of course no one had been there. Marsh had walked around the dilapidated building to see if he was missing something and that was when he heard the engine gun from behind him. He turned just as the SUV headed straight for him and had barely been able to leap away at the last minute to avoid a direct hit.

He hadn’t been quite fast enough and the vehicle had struck his right leg. The combination of the impact and his own attempt to twist away had done a number on his leg. The X-ray looked like somebody had smashed his leg with a hammer, and the grim tally included a compound fracture of his ankle and multiple smaller fractures all the way up to below his knee.

He had been too busy trying not to pass out from the pain and hadn’t caught much that would identify the vehicle, except the color—white—and the general make—American-made late-model small SUV.

As for the driver, in the dark and the snow and from Marshall’s angle on the ground, he had seen nothing except a dark shape wearing a ski mask. He did have one small piece of evidence he hoped would lead in the right direction, but it was too early to tell.

The state police investigator seemed to think the anonymous tipster had chickened out at the last minute and tried to drive away but slid into Marshall because of the snowy conditions and had subsequently panicked and raced off into the night.

Marsh wasn’t buying it. Why insist on meeting there, in a relatively isolated spot without security cameras or witnesses?

No. Somebody had tried to take him out.

He sat back on the sofa, head pounding and his eyes gritty with exhaustion.

Why?

That was the question he couldn’t get out of his head. What the hell was all this about? Who hated him enough to want him gone?

He took a sip of water and shifted on the sofa, fruitlessly searching for a more comfortable spot.

He hated this, sitting here helpless instead of going after the son of a bitch who had done this to him. Worse, he was on mandatory leave for at least three weeks, since Newbold had pushed the other commissioners to insist he take sick leave until the New Year.

They couldn’t stop him from investigating on his own. He would make a list and start eliminating suspects, one by one. Cade would help him and so would Ruben Morales, his second in command.

Not right now. He was too damn tired and sore to do much more than sit here and try to find the energy to make it to his bedroom.

His cell phone rang before he could force himself to grab the crutches and get up.

He should have made Andie Montgomery leave it somewhere out of his reach. He thought about ignoring it, but she was right, there were about a hundred missed calls and texts on there. It seemed cowardly to continue ignoring all of them.

He glanced at the readout and saw it was Wynona. With a sigh, he picked it up.

“Hey, Wyn,” he said.

“About time you answered your phone! I was just about to pack Pete into the car and drive down there.”

“Glad you didn’t. We’ve got a storm moving in fast.”

“So do we, but what else am I supposed to do when you won’t call me back? For all I knew, you were lying on the floor unconscious somewhere.”

How humiliating, that Andrea Montgomery with the lovely eyes had found him after that little spill. Had she called Wyn the moment she left the house to tell her?

“My phone didn’t have a charge. Sorry to worry you. I’m not on the floor. I’m currently getting ready to eat what looks like some delicious stew made by your friend.”

“Andie stopped by to check on you? Oh, I’m so glad. I didn’t like the idea of you in that house alone, just hours after surgery.”

“It was totally unnecessary for you to hire a babysitter for me. I can take care of myself.”

“Extenuating circumstances. So tell me what happened. All I know is what I’ve heard from Cade, bits and pieces I’ve had to pry out of him.”

He would rather she didn’t know anything at all, but Wyn always seemed to have her ear to the ground. Until a few months earlier, she had been a police officer herself and had many connections in the local law enforcement community—not to mention that she was engaged to his best friend, who just happened to be the chief of police of Haven Point.

And, yeah, the two of them being together still freaked him out, though they seemed happy enough.

“What have you heard?”

“Something about you heading out to meet a CI and ending up on the wrong side of the CI’s grille.”

“Yeah. That’s about the size of it.”

“And the guy behind the wheel just sped off? You didn’t get any kind of a look at him that might help identify him?”

“Not really.”

He didn’t tell her he was able to get a partial plate, which was how Ruben, working under the radar, was able to ascertain the vehicle was reported stolen from a Boise box store parking lot two days earlier.

Wyn didn’t need to know all the details of the investigation—at least not until he had something concrete to go on.

“We’ve got a few leads we’re following, but it’s early days yet in the investigation.”

“You shouldn’t have any leads. You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

He glanced around his family room, where he had a feeling he would be spending entirely too much time for the immediate future.

“I couldn’t be taking it any more easy than I am right now, unless I were comatose.”

“Good. I’m sure that’s just what the doctor ordered.”

It was, but he also didn’t want to admit that to his bossy younger sister.

“What do you need? Gelato from Carmela’s? Barbara Serrano’s zuppa tuscano? I can have the Helping Hands hook you up with anything that would help you get through the next few days.”

More than anything, he wanted to be left alone. Knowing his sister, that was a wish that was doomed from the start.

“I don’t need anything. Thanks for worrying about me, but I’m fine, really. I’m managing okay on the crutches. At least I’ve only fallen once.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” Wyn said. He could almost hear the frown in her voice. “I would still feel better if you would let Andrea check in on you, at least these first few days home from the hospital. I know you’re a tough guy, but sometimes even tough guys need a little TLC.”

“I appreciate your concern, but it’s not necessary, really. I’ll be just fine.”

“You’d say that even if you had two broken legs, wouldn’t you?”

“Can’t say. How about we don’t break the other one to test your theory, though?”

Wynona snorted. “Sometimes you’re so much like Dad, it’s freaky.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he answered. He could only try to be half the man John Bailey was. His father had been the best person Marshall knew. He had taught all his sons—and his daughters, come to that—everything they needed to know about being good cops and, more important, how to be decent people.

For a raw, unguarded moment, his heart ached for his father, for lost possibilities, for all the questions he could never ask John now about how to go forward with the rest of his life.

“It is a compliment, mostly. As bad as things were those last few years, the happiest I saw him was that day you won the election last year.”

He wasn’t sure if his father had even understood that Marshall had decided to run for sheriff after John’s good friend announced his retirement. He liked to think so, but his father hadn’t spoken a word since surviving a gunshot wound to the brain on the job.

“I’ll say this for you, though—you’re every bit as stubborn as our darling father. Seriously, what’s the harm in having Andie stop in a few times a day?”

He pictured Andrea with her auburn hair, her big green eyes, that air of fragile loveliness about her that called to a man’s deepest protective impulses. The same impulses that had never brought him anything but trouble.

“It was kind of her to bring dinner tonight, but I barely know the woman, Wynnie. She has enough on her plate with those kids of hers to have to worry about checking up on me.”

“She assured me she doesn’t mind.”

“What else is she going to say to you?” he pointed out. “You took a bullet for her.”

“Not really. It only grazed me.”

“Still. The woman obviously feels a great sense of obligation to you. It doesn’t seem fair to emotionally blackmail her into helping out your brother.”

“Oh, stop it. You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do, turning this around to make it seem like I did something wrong by asking her to help me out, since I can’t be there?”

“Not wrong. Just not necessary.”

“I get that you want to go into hermit mode and keep everyone away while you hunker down and lick your wounds. Cade would do the same thing.”

“What’s wrong with that?” he muttered.

She sighed. “Face it, my brother, you need help. You’ve got a badly broken leg that requires serious pain medication. You live alone and you can’t get around well or go to the store or shovel your own driveway. Since you were inconsiderate enough to get hurt when none of the members of your family can step up to help, having Andie stop by a few times a day is the next best thing, short of hiring a CNA to be with you around the clock.”

He didn’t answer, simply because he couldn’t come up with any words to counter her argument. He wanted to think it was the pain medication making his head feel like somebody had stuffed it full of steel wool, but he had a feeling it might have been more than that.

Maybe, just maybe, there was a slim chance his sister was right on this one.

“If the situation had been reversed,” she pressed, “you would have insisted on finding one of your friends to check on me.”

“Right. And who knows?” he said drily. “You might have ended up engaged to one of them.”

Laughter rippled through the phone. “Life is crazy, isn’t it?”

The last twenty-four hours had been the craziest he had endured in a long time.

“I know you don’t want Andie there, but it’s only for a few days and it would make me feel better, until I can finish things up here and come back to keep an eye on you. I’ll try to speak to my thesis adviser tomorrow and see if I can sneak away early.”

“Don’t do that.” He knew how important Wynona considered this dream of taking her life in a new direction. He wouldn’t be able to stomach the guilt if she had trouble with her graduate studies because of him.

“So will you let Andie come back?”

He sighed. Apparently he was no more immune to emotional blackmail than his lovely neighbor. “Fine. She can come back.”