A Difficult Woman

“I guess you’re here to make sure I’m not a basket case, ready to go off the deep end around Tara.”

“Something like that.”

Matt appreciated the fact that the guy didn’t try to hedge. Matt wanted to assure Sanchez that he was only a little burned out, not some crazy on the brink of exploding, but his training had taught him the less said the better.

“What do you think? Am I safe?”

“You’d better be.” Sanchez studied him intensely before adding, “I just thought you should know that.”

The message was crystal clear. Where Rafe Sanchez and Tara were involved? It was a definite possibility, one that he didn’t particularly like. He didn’t need someone checking up on him, making certain he was treating the girlfriend all right.

“Don’t worry. I’m probably in more danger from her than she is from me,” Matt muttered darkly. To his surprise, the deputy actually cracked a smile.

“Maybe so.” He gave Matt another long look, but it wasn’t so intense now. “You know, if you have any problems—”

“Yeah.” Matt didn’t let him finish. He didn’t need anyone else in his business. “I’ll let you know.”

Another faint smile. “Thanks for your time.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Matt replied with quiet irony.

The deputy let himself out of the house. Matt waited until he heard the front gate bang shut, then headed back to the shower.

“YOU’RE LATE,” Luke said as Matt sat across the table from him fifteen minutes later.

“You look well entertained,” Matt responded, nodding at Becky, who sauntered away. He reached for the beer Luke had ordered for him. He’d told Luke the night before that he didn’t like having a beer with dinner when Luke couldn’t, but the older man had insisted, saying he wanted to live vicariously. “Deputy Sanchez stopped by to check me out.”

“He probably heard that you and Tara had trouble last night.”

Matt’s eyebrows went up. “Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“We—” Matt’s mouth twitched “—had a misunderstanding.”

“Involving Eddie Johnson.”

Matt tipped the top of his beer toward Luke in silent agreement. The old man probably knew as much or more about the encounter than Matt did. “We made up. I spent the afternoon at her place working on the porch. It’s practically done.”

“Good. I’m hoping to be able to come out tomorrow and take a look, see if there’s anything I can do.”

Matt gently set his bottle down as he tried to come up with a way to say this without getting Luke’s dander up. Finally he just said it. “Maybe you should take it easy a while longer. You know…let the medication take effect?” He didn’t want his friend to hurt himself, but he didn’t want to insult him, either. Thin line there.

“Maybe,” Luke replied after a lengthy silence. He pulled the tea bag out of his cup and squeezed the last bit of moisture out of it. “How’re you sleeping?”

Matt raised his eyes to meet Luke’s. He hadn’t told Luke about his insomnia, but he supposed that his exhaustion had to show.

“I know stress,” Luke said as he put the tea bag aside. “I saw action similar to yours while I was in the service. I was only twenty.” Luke shook his head. “You gotta experience it to understand it.”

That was an understatement.

“How’d you get past it?” Matt shifted back in his chair, not certain he wanted to explore this.

“Time. Change of scenery. More time.”

Luke let the comment sit for a bit as he stirred sugar into his tea. “When I heard from my brother how things had been going for you—your dad…the standoff—I had a feeling. Thought maybe you should get away for a while, and since I needed help…” His mouth quirked up at the corner. “But you’ve figured that out. Time and a new place. It helps. Some.”

After an uncomfortable silence, Matt said, “I appreciate it.” He didn’t necessarily think the change of scenery would provide a wonder cure, but it couldn’t hurt. And the time away would recharge him, help him get ready for the next stage of battle. He gave Luke a half smile and a gentle warning. “I don’t know I’ll be as talkative as the last time you helped me out.”

Luke nodded his understanding.

The last time, Matt had been an unhappy kid, working for his stepdad, Luke’s brother, building apartments while on vacation from college. Torn. His mom had been pushing him to study engineering, education, law—anything but criminal justice. She hadn’t wanted him to become a cop like his biological father.

Matt, however, had been fascinated by law enforcement. And hungry for approval from the man he’d only seen a week or so every summer after his parents’ divorce.

Luke had been his crew’s boss, and he’d also been the only person who simply listened to Matt without offering an opinion, the only guy who just let him talk.

“Mom thinks it’s ‘lovely’ that I’m spending my vacation with you.” A corner of Matt’s mouth lifted. “I’d kind of appreciate it if she kept thinking that.”

He hadn’t given her any facts, except what was printed in the newspaper, and in the paper he’d come off looking pretty good. She didn’t know about the insomnia, the dreams, the lieutenant’s vendetta. Matt was thankful she lived almost seven hundred miles away.

“I wouldn’t dream of telling her otherwise,” Luke replied. “My brother would kill me if I upset your mom.”

“Thanks.” Matt didn’t want his mother upset. Again. She’d suffered enough trying to keep him out of law enforcement and, ironically, after all of the turmoil Matt never did develop the relationship he’d hoped for with his father, even after landing a job in the same PD. Their relationship had never felt like that of a father and son. It was more like that of two guys who worked together, two guys who didn’t have a lot in common. Later, after his dad had been killed, Matt and the rest of the department discovered his father had a good reason for not letting anyone into his life.

He wiped condensation off the bottle with one finger. “What’s Sanchez’s relationship with Tara?”

“I don’t know the particulars,” Luke replied, apparently amused by the abrupt change of topic. “But I think if you upset Tara, you’ll be dealing with Rafe.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Matt said dryly.

“It’d be easier if you just didn’t upset Tara.”

Matt shrugged. “Too late for that.”

Luke’s eyebrows drew together for a split second and then he burst out laughing. He was still smiling when he gestured Becky over and ordered up another round of Budweiser beer and Lipton tea—hold the sugar.

MATT CONNORS was MIA.

The table was set and his breakfast—or what was left of it—was shriveling up in the warming oven. They’d made a deal the day before and she’d agreed to give him meals in lieu of some pay. He’d seemed to like the idea, so she didn’t understand why he’d skip out on the first day.

She finally gave up waiting and started painting another bedroom, but every now and then she paced to the window, scanned the county road. Where was he?

It had been over two hours since she had fed Nicky and sent him to Reno with a shopping list almost as long as he was tall and instructions not to come back for at least two days. Nicky had spent six years of junior high and high school in Reno while Tara went to college, earning first her bachelor’s degree, then her master’s in English, and she knew he had friends to see and stuff to do before he headed south again. He’d already spent most of his short vacation scraping, sanding and painting. Enough was enough. Nicky was still a kid.

A sudden ominous thought struck her and she tucked a loose wisp of hair behind her ear as she laid down her brush and headed for the phone. Tara dialed the number to the Anderson house and tapped her foot as the phone rang. And rang.

Tara’s nerves started to hum. If Eddie and his numbskull buddies had hurt her carpenter in some kind of misguided attempt at revenge, she was going to—