Scarlet Vows

“Think so?” Zach inquired with a broad smile that revealed two hidden dimples.

“You’d be amazed at what I deal with in my line of work.”

“Maybe so, but you don’t have to deal with it from Zach,” Drew warned.

Zach held up his palms. “Sorry, big brother, for a moment there I forgot about your image.”

Drew’s frown deepened. There was an edge to his brother’s tone and a strange undercurrent of emotion beneath the impish expression. Drew turned away thoughtfully. He sensed, rather than saw, Zach lean toward Nancy. Sotto voce, Zach asked, “Like what, for example?”

Drew never heard her response. The tournament had brought out a large crowd as always, and there was a festive air despite the heat. People milled in scattered clumps, chatting and laughing loudly as they waited for their turn to compete. The scent of grilled hot dogs and fresh popcorn mingled bizarrely with the scent of cordite in the heavy air.

A disturbing sensation pulled Drew’s attention to the thick clump of trees that began halfway up the slope on one side of the pistol range. He stared at the dark line of woods, puzzled. Something had changed a short way into the tree line, but he wasn’t sure what that something was.

Deer?

The woods were filled with the animals, but no deer would be within twenty miles of the noise coming from the firing range. Nancy and Zach added laughter to the din. Drew tuned them out. His attention centered on the shadows up the slope. Without knowing why, he concentrated on a dark patch near a wide maple tree. Beads of sweat collected at his hairline and trickled warmly down his back beneath his light summer shirt.

Nothing moved in the patch of trees, yet Drew sensed a presence there. Someone was watching him.

His fingers tightened on the gun case. He had a strange impulse to pull his weapon and aim it toward that spot on the hill.

As if sensing that thought, the darkness stirred.

The motion was slight, hardly a movement at all, but Drew waited, rigid with expectation. A face suddenly appeared, for all the world looking like a disembodied head floating in midair.

Eyes clashed and held.

Drew swore viciously under his breath. The features were unmistakable.

Zach broke off midsentence, coming alert. “What’s the matter?”

“Andrew?” Nancy asked in concern.

“Bryson,” he growled.

The face melted back into the shadows as if it had never been there at all.

“David Bryson?” Zach demanded. “Where?”

“Who’s David Bryson?” Nancy questioned.

“In the trees up the hill,” Drew told his brother with a small nod.

“I don’t see anything.”

Nancy squeezed his arm in a bid for attention. “Andrew? Who is David Bryson?”

In that brief moment of eye contact with the man, rage had surged inside Drew, welling from the recesses where he kept it mostly caged. Now he worked to contain a whole host of emotions, feeling his jaw clench. His knuckles whitened on the case in his hand. He looked at Nancy without really seeing her.

“David Bryson is the bastard who killed our sister.”

“What?”

“I still don’t see anyone,” Zach said, watching the trees with the same tense wariness Drew had felt only moments earlier.

“He’s gone now,” Drew told him with certainty. “Back to the shadows where he belongs.”

“I thought your sister’s death was an accident,” Nancy said sharply.

“That’s how they classified it,” Zach agreed, equally grim.

Drew didn’t believe those findings. He never had. Their beautiful sister, Tasha, would have been alive today if it hadn’t been for David Bryson. One day, Drew would prove he’d been responsible for what happened. In the meantime, he’d concentrate on winning the mayoral election. Then he’d be in a position to make Dr. David Bryson wish he’d died in that boat explosion as well.

“Oh, hell,” Zach said, abruptly. “Just what we need. More trouble. Ten o’clock high.”

Frederick Thane was working the crowd, moving in their direction. The current mayor stopped abruptly, his double chin quivering when he spotted Drew. For an instant, dark squinty eyes flashed with hate. Then the professional smile slid into place. Only his eyes stayed hard and cold. He strutted forward, hand outstretched, his rounded stomach extending over his fancy belt buckle.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my esteemed opponent.”

There was no way to avoid the pudgy fingers or the wet clasp of his grip. Despite his slight paunch and that double chin, Frederick Thane wasn’t a big man. At least not yet. At fifty-five or thereabouts, he still had deep black hair, probably due to a little chemical assistance, and he was taller than Drew remembered. Lifts, Drew decided. Even so, the other man still had to look up to meet Drew’s eyes, which obviously rankled.

“Mayor,” he greeted.

“Saw your name on the other sign-up sheet.” He shifted his rifle and stared at the handgun case. “We aren’t competing in the same category.” He swiped at the rivulets of sweat running down the sides of his face with a crumpled blue handkerchief.

“Not this time.”

Thane’s lips pursed tightly, as though he was trying to decide if there was another meaning beneath those words. “Hot enough for you?”

“I imagine it will get hotter before there is a winner.”

Thane’s eyes narrowed. “Count on it.”

They were not talking about the weather or the contest. It was no secret that Frederick Thane was furious over Drew’s decision to run against him. Thane had scared off every other opponent who dared consider throwing a hat in the ring for the mayoral election. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have any leverage to use against the Pierce family. Now he stared pointedly at Nancy Bell.

“And this must be the fancy publicist I heard your grandpa hired for you.”

A sneer licked the edges of his words.

“Fancy?” he heard Nancy whisper to his brother. She sounded amused rather than annoyed.

“Nancy Bell, Frederick Thane,” Drew introduced. “And you know my brother, Zach, of course.”

“Of course, of course. Young Zach.”

Zach winced visibly. He didn’t offer to shake hands. Nancy, however, did. “Mayor Thane.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.”