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  “No, thanks, Shelly. You do whatever you need to close up for the night, and we’ll be out of here as soon as possible,” Flint replied. He returned to the chair next to Gemma.

  “Have you been having any problems with anyone at work? Has anyone in town threatened you in any way?” Flint asked.

  “No, nothing like that,” Gemma replied. She and Nina still clutched hands, and neither appeared eager to break the contact. “I can’t imagine who did this. Who might want to hurt me? Maybe it was just somebody who has the virus and a high fever that’s driven him crazy.”

  “When you managed to run from him, did he pursue you?”

  Gemma frowned. “I’m not sure. I didn’t look back, but I don’t think so. I didn’t sense anyone behind me when I was running away. I just want to go home now,” she said miserably.

  “Would you rather come home with us for the night?” Nina asked.

  Flint’s heart expanded at Nina’s generous offer and the fact that she obviously considered his home her own. He was also grateful at the obvious support she offered his sister, just as she had Molly when he’d had bad news to deliver to her.

  Gemma shook her head and finally released her hold on Nina’s hand. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine at my own house. Maybe it was just some creep who thought I was an easy target since I was a woman out walking alone in the dark.”

  “Maybe,” Flint replied, although he remained unconvinced. The man hadn’t tried to steal her purse. He hadn’t tried to rob her. He’d pulled her into that alley and tried to strangle her. “Are you sure you want to go home?”

  “Positive. I’ll be fine there.” Gemma lifted her chin as if to prepare to battle her older brother. “I know now to be on guard.”

  Flint sighed, knowing how stubborn Gemma could be. “Okay, we’ll take you home, but I’ll have an officer do regular drive-bys of your house for the rest of the night and the next couple of nights.”

  It took them only minutes to be in Flint’s car, Gemma riding shotgun and Nina in the backseat. “If you think of anything else that might help me find your attacker then you call me day or night,” Flint said to his sister.

  “You know I will,” she replied. “I just can’t imagine it being personal. I will tell you one thing. Starting tomorrow I’ll be driving to and from work. My nightly walks home are finished for now.”

  “That sounds like a smart idea,” Flint replied. He pulled up in the driveway of Gemma’s house off Main Street. “Maybe this guy dropped something in the alley that will give up his identity.”

  “I hope so. With Dr. Goodhue coming in either tomorrow or the next day, I don’t want to think about some attacking creep. I want all my focus to be on helping her find the answers to curing the Dead River virus.”

  “For now keep your self-defenses high. You know the drill, be aware of your surroundings, don’t put yourself in a position of vulnerability and trust your instincts,” Flint said. “Now, I’ll walk you in and check out the house. Nina, you stay in the car with the doors locked, and I’ll be out as quickly as possible.”

  “Take as long as you need. I’ll be fine,” Nina replied.

  Flint walked his sister to her front door, and a knot of anger twisted in his stomach. She was so tiny and petite next to him. Clad in a pair of pale blue scrubs and a royal-blue coat, with her long blond hair loose around her shoulders, she definitely would have looked like a perfect victim as she’d walked home alone in the dark. But who would want to victimize her?

  He quickly cleared the house, finding nothing to give him concerns. He returned to where she stood by the door and kissed her on the forehead. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

  “I’m fine now,” she replied. “I’m just going to chalk this up as one of the longest, worst days of my life and hope that I don’t have another day like this for a very long time.”

  Flint gave her a quick hug and with the reminder for her to call him if she remembered anything else or if she just got scared, he left and hurried back to the car.

  He got back behind the wheel, and Nina moved from the backseat to the passenger seat. “Is she all right?” Nina asked worriedly.

  “She insisted she was fine.” Flint backed out of the driveway. “But I’m not fine. I’m beyond angry. If she hadn’t managed to get away then she wouldn’t have been found until somebody stumbled over her body in the morning.”

  They rode for a few minutes in silence. “Her description, as minimal as it was, makes me think of Hank Bittard,” Nina finally said.

  The knot in Flint’s stomach tightened. “That’s the first thing I thought, too. What I can’t imagine is why he’d go after Gemma? She’s no threat to him. She doesn’t know anything about his crimes and can’t hurt him in any way. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “It’s hard to make sense of anything that’s happening these days,” Nina replied.

  By that time they had arrived back at Flint’s house. He pulled into the garage, and they got out and entered into the kitchen. “It’s late. You can go on to bed if you want. I’m putting on a pot of coffee and staying up until I hear from my men who are checking out that alley.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee before heading to bed,” she replied. “Unless my presence would bother you.”

  “You never bother me, Nina,” he said honestly.

  “Good.” She sat down at the table while he fixed the coffee. As it began to drip through the carafe and fill the kitchen with its fragrant scent, he leaned a hip against the counter and frowned thoughtfully.

  “I keep trying to think of a logical motive if Gemma’s attacker was Hank,” he said.

  “Maybe his motive is nothing but sheer madness,” she replied. “If what you believe is true, then he’s probably been living in the woods like some crazed survivalist. Maybe he only wanted to choke her into unconsciousness and then steal whatever she had in her purse that might be useful to him.”

  “I don’t know. It seems to me if all he wanted was her purse, he could have just grabbed it from her and run. He didn’t have to pull her into the alley and try to choke her.” Flint turned to the counter and pulled two mugs from the cabinet.

  “Is it possible it was some sort of revenge against you?” Nina asked. “I mean, you are trying to hunt him down.”

  “If his intention was to threaten me and get me to back off, then he tormented the wrong man,” Flint said intently. “Gemma told me this was the longest, worst day of her life,” he said as he poured the coffee and carried the mugs to the table.

  “It sounds to me like it hasn’t exactly been a stellar day for you, either,” she replied, her hazel eyes filled with soft empathy.

  “I’ve had better days, and I’ve had worse.”

  She tilted her head and looked at him curiously. “What could be worse?”

  He leaned forward and cupped his hand around his mug, his thoughts taking him back to Cheyenne and Madelaine. He stared for a long moment at Nina, wondering if he wanted to share that day, his utter failure, with her.

  He hadn’t spoken about it with anyone here in Dead River. It had been a tear in his heart, a stain on his soul that he’d kept to himself. But now, with her soft gaze locked with his and knowing his desire for her to share all that she was with him, he felt the need to tell her.

  “What could be worse is being responsible for a woman’s safety, to have the duty to get her into a courthouse where she was set to testify against members of a gang and to have her shot dead while she’s walking right beside you on the courthouse steps.”

  He waited for her to flinch, for a hint of disgust to darken her eyes, but neither happened. Her gaze never left his. “This happened in Cheyenne?”

  He nodded. “It’s part of why I came back here. I couldn’t live with my failure to perform my duty properly.”

 
“And it was all your failure alone?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “Who shot her?” Nina asked, initially not answering his question.

  “There was a punk gangster hiding up in a tree. It was a perfect sniper attack.” He took a drink of coffee, as if it could wash away the taste of failure, of guilt that had lingered inside him since that day.

  “And it was your job to check the trees? To guard the entire perimeter? You were the only officer on protective duty?”

  “Of course not. We had a team in place.”

  “And yet it was your personal failure alone?” She offered him a small smile. “How arrogant you are to take all of the blame. How about you cut yourself a break? It wasn’t your personal failure, it was a system fail that ended in tragedy, but you can’t carry the guilt of that around in your heart.”

  “I have, for over a year now. It haunts me and what haunts me even more is now that you’re under my protection, I’m somehow going to fail you, too.” His voice rang with a hollowness that his heart had owned for so long.

  Nina reached for his hand. He took hers, clinging to it as if it were a pathway through the jungle of his emotions. “It’s time to let go, Flint. You did the best you could, but circumstances weren’t completely in your control. It’s way past time for you to forgive yourself.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I couldn’t forgive myself if I allowed anything to happen to you.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to me,” she replied with a firm commitment he wanted to believe. “Flint, whatever happened in Cheyenne has nothing to do with what’s happening here. You’re a good chief of police working under incredibly stressful circumstances. It’s amazing you and your men have managed to keep the peace as well as you have in a town gone crazy.”

  “I’m not sure what I’m going to do when you aren’t here with me anymore,” he said truthfully.

  Before she could reply, his cell phone rang. He plucked it from his pocket and answered. The news that was delivered was both frustrating and yet somehow not unexpected.

  “My men found nothing in the alley that they believe is related to the attack on Gemma,” he said as he dropped the phone back into his pocket. “I just feel like we can’t catch a break on anything.”

  Nina stood and carried her cup to the sink. “Hopefully, Dr. Goodhue will arrive tomorrow and be able to find a cure for the virus soon.”

  Flint felt the tick of a clock where his heartbeats should be. “I want Hank Bittard behind bars before the quarantine is lifted.”

  “You’ll get him, Flint. I have every confidence in you. And now I’m heading to bed.” She left the sink, and to his utter surprise stopped next to him and dropped a soft kiss on his forehead. “On your worst day you couldn’t be a failure, Flint Colton,” she said and then left the kitchen.

  Flint reached up and touched his forehead where the warmth of her lips lingered. He knew at that moment she was his special woman, the one he wanted by his side through the rest of his life.

  His love for her was undeniable, and his desire to have her as part of his life forever was an aching need inside him.

  Now all he had to do was catch a killer, trap a thief and get whoever assaulted his sister, and in his spare time try to convince a woman that her place in life was not being alone, but rather sharing life with him.

  * * *

  Ten days had passed since the night of Gemma’s attack. Ten days filled with frustrations and disappointments. The imminent arrival of Dr. Colleen Goodhue had been postponed once again, and Flint and his men had run into dead end after dead end in the hunt for Hank and Jimmy and the man who had attacked Gemma.

  All of Gemma’s coworkers had been interviewed, along with any of her friends and like Flint, nobody could believe that anyone would want to harm his sister in any way. She just didn’t make enemies.

  It was the day before the big feast at the diner and while Nina knew her thoughts should be consumed with the preparations, instead she found herself sitting at the counter and thinking about Flint.

  It had been just over three weeks ago that she had witnessed Jolene Tate’s murder and her house had burned down. It had been three weeks ago that she had found herself a reluctant houseguest in Flint’s home, but if felt like a lifetime ago.

  More than that, being in his house with him felt like a normal life she’d never thought possible for herself. She liked starting her mornings sitting across from him at the table and talking about their plans for the day or the cold front that had moved in a couple of days ago.

  She loved cooking for him. She’d quickly discovered that there seemed to be nothing she made that he didn’t like, and he was always appreciative and complimentary.

  More than anything she loved their evenings together when they kicked back with a glass of wine and unwound. The only difference between them and any married couple was the fact that after their wine and conversation they didn’t go to bed together, but instead went their separate ways.

  The sexual tension between them had once again risen to levels that were impossible not to feel. She wanted him again, and she knew he wanted her, too.

  There were moments when she was in bed alone and he was on the sofa that she wondered why she was denying him, why she was denying herself what she wanted. What harm could come from making love with him again?

  At any single moment of any day or night, Hank Bittard could be captured and her time with Flint would be over. Why not take advantage of every minute she had with him before that happened?

  Still, they’d managed to fight their attraction and keep everything aboveboard, but it grew more difficult with each passing night.

  “I figured you’d be buzzing around today like a fly at a picnic,” Grace said, pulling Nina from her thoughts as she sat on a stool next to where Nina had been perched since the lunch rush had left.

  Nina smiled at her friend. “I think I overmanaged things so much in the past week or two that today I’m finally all managed out.”

  “This is the calm before the storm,” Grace observed.

  “Exactly,” Nina replied. “You know I’ll be back to being the usual maniac tomorrow.”

  “It’s your big day. You’re allowed to be a maniac,” Grace replied with an easy smile.

  “Since I’m not opening until eleven tomorrow, I wasn’t sure how Flint intended to get me to work a little later than usual, but he insists that he’s taking the holiday off and will be here with me all day.”

  “That’s nice. He deserves a day off. He’s been working seven days a week since Bittard escaped custody. And Wilma and Molly are going to clean up and set out the centerpieces tonight after we close so that everything is holiday ready in the morning,” Grace said.

  “And Charley and Gary will both be here way before dawn cooking up all kinds of goodness.” Nina took a sip of the tepid tea she’d been nursing while she’d been seated at the counter.

  “By the time we walk in here tomorrow morning, the place is going to smell like heaven on earth,” Grace said.

  “Speaking of heaven on earth, how’s my pretend nephew doing?”

  Grace’s face beamed with a smile. “He’s doing great.” She checked her wristwatch. “You’ll see him for yourself as usual in about an hour.”

  “Of all the kids who come in here, he’s my very favorite,” Nina confessed. “There’s such a sweet innocence about him.”

  Grace laughed in obvious amusement. “You might rethink that if you spent some extra time with him. Trust me, he’s a great kid, but he’s definitely no angel.”

  “That’s okay. An angel might be too boring,” Nina replied.

  Grace gestured toward her cup. “You want me to make you a fresh cup of tea?”

  “Thanks, that would be nice,” Nina agreed.


  Grace got up and as she fixed a new drink, Nina tried to dig for energy to get up and do something, do anything, but all her frantic energy had been expended over the past couple of days.

  She’d overmanaged, overprepared and now found herself with nothing to do but wait for her big day to arrive. It was a day she hoped would make up for every bad holiday she’d ever spent as a child. She wanted it to be a day of community and counting blessings despite everything that had happened to the town.

  Grace returned to her stool next to Nina and set the cup of hot tea before her. “How’s Flint doing? He’s got to be so frustrated that he still doesn’t have Bittard under arrest.”

  Nina’s heart fluttered as she once again thought of her housemate. “Frustrated is an understatement.”

  She remembered what he had told her about what he considered his personal failure in Cheyenne, and far too often lately she believed she saw a hint of new failure in his eyes. It was only as they talked during the evenings that she saw that haunting emotion eventually disappear.

  “If he could just catch one break, either arrest Jimmy or Hank or find out who attacked Gemma, it would help,” she finally said. She wrapped her hands around the warmth of her cup.

  “Does he still think it was Hank who attacked Gemma?” Grace asked.

  “That’s what his gut instinct is telling him, but there’s no hard evidence to positively prove it, and he’s having trouble coming up with a reasonable motive for Hank to go after her.”

  “The whole thing is so scary. I can’t remember a time when anyone was ever attacked just walking down Main Street, day or night,” Grace said. “Those kinds of things never happened in Dead River before.”

  “Flint’s biggest fear is that he won’t get Bittard and Jimmy behind bars before the quarantine is finally lifted.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be any reason to believe that’s going to happen anytime soon,” Grace replied drily. “We can’t even get the expert from the CDC here.”

  “According to Flint, the latest news is that she’s due to arrive in the next week. Let’s hope there isn’t another postponement of her getting here,” Nina said.