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“See if you can help him, would you?” Luke raised his hand to wave away Fletch. “Give me a few to get cleaned up. Then we’ll see what we can do about retrieving those lost emails. And close the door, will you?”
* * *
“MOM, MOM!” SIMON and Charlie crashed full speed into the diner, flushed faces and dirty shoes a sure sign they’d had an active afternoon. “You’ll never guess what happened!”
“Did you get caught in a mudslide?” Holly bolted around the counter to heft Simon and then Charlie onto stools, but it was too late. She’d have to remop the floors. “What on earth have you two been up to?”
“Nothing,” Simon said, and Charlie ducked her head, avoiding eye contact. “But did you hear? Someone cracked Sheriff Saxon with a bottle. There was blood everywhere!”
“What—? Slow down, Simon.” Holly ran her hands up and down his arms. “Say that again?”
“He was arresting Mr. Winters down by the community center,” Charlie explained, pushing her fist into Simon’s shoulder. “And someone smashed a bottle on his head. Simon and I went by and there was blood all over the sidewalk.”
“Is the sheriff okay?” Paige asked as she and Ursula came out of the kitchen and stopped dead when she saw her daughter. “Charlotte Rose Cooper, those clothes are brand-new. Have you been slogging through mud piles or something?” She plucked at Charlie’s filthy yellow sweater.
“No, ma’am.” Charlie’s chin went down again. “We were just—”
“Exploring on our bikes,” Simon interrupted. “Mom, you should have seen him! The sheriff could barely walk! His whole face was covered in blood.”
“How did you see him?” Holly asked, suspicion overtaking the disgust of what her son and Charlie had conveyed.
“We were riding past the community center when the sheriff and Fletch were putting Mr. Winters in the car. Maybe this means Sheriff Saxon will go away now and Grandpa can have his job back.”
Holly swallowed hard. That Simon was still holding on to that hope was her doing. She and her son needed to sit down and have a serious talk. Luke wasn’t the enemy. At least not the enemy he had been. “I doubt it,” she said. “Luke’s pretty tough.” She’d bet half a year’s rent Luke wouldn’t be going anywhere near a doctor or emergency room. Even growing up, he’d given the impression he didn’t rely on anyone else and preferred to take care of himself.
Given the gun they’d found in Kyle’s bag at the Flutterby Inn, Holly was certain there was more to the story than her son had imparted. “I have a couple of errands to run. Paige, will you be okay for a while?”
Paige looked around at the once again empty diner. “I’ll manage. Oh, I’ll supervise these two cleaning up the floor they just trashed,” Paige said. “Go. You two, march. Into the kitchen and get those shoes off. Pronto!” Their shoes squelched along the floor as they grumbled their obedience.
Holly grabbed her purse and avoided Ursula’s arched brow as she dashed out of the diner and hightailed it to the sheriff’s station to get the truth. Not, she told herself, because she was worried about Luke.
* * *
LUKE UNPINNED HIS badge before unbuttoning the blood-and-beer-soaked shirt. His shoulders and back tightened like dried-out parchment stretched too thin. Just this morning he’d realized it had been a couple of days since he’d even thought about taking any medication. The interaction with Winters proved he still had a ways to go until he was completely healed.
His face went cold, as if the color had drained all the way to his toes. He braced his hands on the edge of his desk. He took deep breaths, five counts in, five counts out, trying to focus the pain and ease it away along with the throbbing in his head.
Someone knocked on the office door and he stifled a groan. “I’ll be out in a minute!”
“Luke?” Holly pushed inside, her voice wafting over him like an unexpected salve. Concern and uncertainty tinged the solitary utterance of his name. “I heard what happened. Are you—?”
“Close the door.” He didn’t mean to sound sharp. The gossip mill was running faster than usual today. At the click of the latch, he turned, but could see by the shock on Holly’s face he was too late.
“What happened to you? Are those...burns?” She stepped forward, eyes dropping briefly to his bare chest and shoulder, where the melted scars had indelibly marked his upper arms. He avoided her gaze, not wanting her to see the horror and disgust he suspected he’d find reflected in her eyes. Skin that looked like melted wax belonged in horror movies and novels, not on people.
“Yes,” he said, having to walk past her to get his backup uniform shirt out of the small armoire next to the door. “There was an accident. When I was a cop in Chicago.”
“What happened?” she asked again and because he’d promised himself never to lie to her, he didn’t hesitate.
“One of the rookies I handpicked for the bomb squad had a really bad day.” Luke squeezed his eyes shut, but it was too late. The echo of Carter Owen’s “I’ve got this, boss” blasted through his head as sharply as the pipe bomb Carter had been attempting to defuse. Luke’s hands shook as he replaced the hanger in the makeshift closet, feeling the ghost flames licking at his body as his own screams had mingled with those of his team.
Except Carter’s. Because Carter was gone. Another someone who had paid the price for Luke’s mistakes. He’d known in his gut the kid was too young, too inexperienced, but the potential had been so promising. Why did Luke’s life lessons always cost someone else more than they cost him?
“I’m so sorry.” Holly’s whisper scraped as sharply as those bomb fragments had cut into his flesh. “I can’t even imagine—” She broke off when he didn’t respond, as if she understood he didn’t want to take the discussion any further. She cleared her throat. “And today? Out at the community center?”
“Rex Winters and I had a disagreement.” His stomach continued to roll as he shoved Carter Owen—along with his own failings—into the corner of his mind he kept locked tight.
“Well, that I can see.” She set her purse on the floor in front of the sofa and retrieved the damp towel he’d left on the desk. Her nose crinkled as she caught a whiff of the booze on the shirt on the floor. “No, wait. Not yet.” She shook her head as he started to put on the clean shirt. “Let’s get you cleaned up first.”
“I can do it myself.” He held out his hand, squeezed his fist tight when his fingers continued to shake.
“Really? Got a mirror around here I’m not seeing? It’s me or the care facility. Take your pick.”
“Did you and Fletch decide to gang up on me?”
“No, but good to know at least he’s thinking.” She spun one of the chairs by his desk around and pointed. “Sit. I’ll be right back with a clean towel.”
“Right back” was an understatement. He’d barely settled into the chair before she closed the door again. “Do you have wings on your feet or something?”
“Mom feet.” Holly pressed the damp towel against his skin, dabbing and carefully scrubbing at the dried blood on his face and neck. He sucked in a breath, chilling his teeth as she pressed a little too closely to the wound. “Sorry. As much time as Simon spends with his nose in a book, he still manages to rack up cuts and bruises in spades. They stitched you up pretty well. Looks nasty, though.”
Water dripped down his neck and back, trickled down his chest. But the pain didn’t seem as bad. Not with her touching him, gently prodding and testing the broken skin. Wiping away the blood along with the vestiges of the encounter with Rex and Kyle Winters.
When had her fingers been tipped with fire? Everywhere she touched him it was as if he came alive, nerve endings he’d forgotten were reigniting. He slammed his eyes shut until he saw stars not unlike the ones that had hit when he’d been blindsided. “I’ve had worse.” He didn’t need this. Didn’t need her. Touching him. Caring about him. Being nice to him.
He didn’t deserve it. And he didn’t want it.
“So I see.” She tossed aside the cloth and picked up a new, clean one. She swiped the towel over his shoulder, his back, around to his chest.
“Okay.” He jumped to his feet, going the long way around the chair to retrieve the shirt. He needed to put some distance between them. “Thanks, Holly.”
“You’re welcome.” She sniffed and beelined for the trash can. “Boy, that’s some strong beer.”
“Yeah.” And the stench was curling his stomach. “I’d forgotten how pungent the cheap stuff can be.” Not to mention damaging in the wrong hands.
He’d had enough adrenaline coursing through his system to guarantee he was headed for a crash, and with it, his past would rear up and take another shot at him. There would be no stopping the nightmares tonight.
