Shadow Protector

“Might want to take your time getting up,” Logan suggested. His eyes were on Sera as he spoke. Holding out a hand, he drew her to her feet. “You hurt? “

“No more than if I’d been working out with Hulk Hogan in his prime.” She waved the tip of his gun between the two prone men. “Do you do this sort of thing often then?”

“Often enough.” Raising his voice, he said, “Lloyd and Jake are cooling off in the barn. They were smart enough to ditch their knives when they spotted me.”

“Didn’t mean no harm, Logan.” Benny’s words were muffled by the dirt beneath his face.

“You threatened the lady with a weapon. It’s called intent. On your feet, both of you, and into my truck.”

“Come on, Lo …” But one look and Benny dropped his face back into the dirt. “Yeah, sure, whatever you say.”

Danny worked himself into a squat. “I’m supposed to be stocking shelves at the grocery store tonight, Logan. Miguel won’t be happy with you.”

Ignoring him, Logan indicated the gun in Sera’s hand. “I hope you pointed that a good long way off target.”

“I did. Here.” She handed it over.

“Her bullet came closer to my crotch than my knife did to any part of her,” Benny called out. “Maybe I wanna press charges myself. Against you for bringing her here and her for almost shooting my balls off.”

“Right.” Sera extended her hand. “Give it back.”

Logan grinned. “He’s just pissed because he’s going to be spending a couple nights in jail.”

She wiggled her fingers. “Give it. I promise, I won’t shoot them.”

Clearly intrigued, he relinquished the weapon.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Benny spluttered.

“Don’t move,” Sera said and, taking aim, sent one of the pebbles on the ground between his spread feet zinging into the bushes behind him.

AN AMUSED LOGAN said little on the drive into town. That was fine with Sera. After changing her shoes, she climbed into his truck and let Etta James drown out the Bulley boys’ gripes.

Apparently, the police chief planned for her to stay in his home. It made sense, but it hardly set her mind at ease. The more time she spent with him, the stronger the feeling that she should know him.

They hadn’t met—she’d have remembered that in a minute. Seen his name then? Possibly. She could see it well enough on the lighted dash.

Michael Richard Logan. And, ding, there went another bell. Had her memory been more compromised than she realized?

Unable to answer that, she returned to the moment.

The Bulleys’ grumbles grew louder the closer they got to Blue Ridge. Inside the station, Logan handed them over to his deputy, Toby, a young man with bright red hair. “Separate cells,” he said and tossed the young man the keys.

The deputy looked like he’d rather drink arsenic. “Uh, Logan, er, Chief, I’m not sure—I mean, they’re my cousins. I can’t just, you know, put them behind bars.”

Logan searched through a drawer. “Don’t sweat it, Toby. You’re only the messenger.”

“But don’t messengers get shot sometimes?”

“Hang around here long enough, you’ll get shot one way or another,” Danny Bulley snarled. “Do what you gotta, Toby. Just know you won’t be getting no freebies for a good long while.” At Logan’s raised brow, he added, “Dinners.”

All in all, Sera spent less than fifteen minutes at the station. Ten more, and they were pulling up outside a very old, very large house that Logan informed her had come with the job.

Sera sensed his stare as he removed her bags from the back of his truck. With her skin prickling, she swung to confront him.

“What?” she demanded and received the kind of slow smile she really didn’t need to see right then. “Is it the gun?”

“Yeah, but it can wait until we’re inside.”

As he spoke, a drop of rain from clouds she’d failed to notice plopped onto her head.

“You’ve got about five seconds to decide … or not,” he amended when the night sky simply opened up.

If this had been San Francisco and she’d been going to work, Sera would have run. But here, in the middle of nowhere, with the lights of town a distant blur and her clothes already streaked with dirt, she simply lifted her face to the warm rain.

“I have to tell you, Logan, this qualifies as one of the strangest days of my life, and I’ve had some really bizarre days.”

He set his hat back on her head and picked up the heavy bags. “Courtesy of your patients?”

“Not even close.”

Hoisting her carryall, laptop and purse, she preceded him up a short walk to a porch that appeared to wrap around the entire farmhouse. She counted three floors, plus an L-shaped jut and an attic.

Lamps burned in three of the first floor windows. A dog barked deep inside.

“Her name’s Ella Fitzgerald. She’s a two-year-old golden retriever who thinks she’s a lap dog. Can you handle that?”

She smiled. “I love dogs.”

“Good, now how are you with …”

The door opened before he could finish and a small, thin woman with a frizzy gray bun whisked them inside.

She looked cranky, made rough tutting noises and, with a single sharp look, held them on the hallway mat.

“Moon Flower.” Logan caught the towels she tossed from the closet. “Also came with the job.”

“Use it.” The woman pointed downward. “I waxed the floors today.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Call me Flo. You’d be Dr. Hudson, then. Sit, Ella. Her room’s ready, like you wanted, Logan—the one across from yours. If you have a moment, Doctor, my sister’s foot’s been troubling her. And before you ask, she drinks plenty of milk.”

Sera had no idea what to say. “I’m uh, glad to hear it.”

Logan hung their towels on the doorknob and removed the dripping hat from her head. “She’s not that kind of doctor, Flo, and she’s not here to work in any case.”

“I see. Fine then. Babe can just hobble around until that knot head who calls himself an MD decides to practice human rather than simian medicine. Room’s this way, Doctor.”