Deadly Texas Rose

“He saved my life.” Julia went limp against the wall, all of the strength drained out of her as the reporter’s camera flashed in her face. Deputy Butler had saved her life.

And now he might be dead because of it.

TWO

Eric woke up in the emergency room, his left shoulder throbbing to beat the band.

Trying to raise his head, he called out, “What—”

A gray-haired nurse pushed him back down. “Easy, cowboy. You’ve been shot and you’re about to go into surgery to debride the wound. We just need to clean it out a little bit, make sure everything’s intact in there. You’re lucky, though. Bullet went straight through without hitting any major arteries or bones.”

“Bullet?” Eric lay back, trying to remember. Then it all came rushing back. Julia Daniels. An armed robbery. The man was going to take Julia as a hostage. They’d exchanged gunfire. Darkness and voices in his head. Adam telling him to hang on. Now he had vague flashes of the EMS team…someone applying pressure to his wound, asking him questions about his medical history, a needle shoved into his arm.

“The waitress?” he managed to croak over the sound of doctors rushing all around, poking him here and there and shouting out orders about X-rays and vital signs.

“That pretty little thing,” the nurse said as she checked the IV drip, her expression all business. “She’s just fine. Outside waiting with your family to hear how you’re doing, though. She said you saved her life.”

Eric managed a weak grin. “My buddy Adam did most of the hard work.”

“Yeah, right. But you shot the bad guy.”

Eric tried to lift up again. His bloody shirt was gone. “The robber, where…is he?”

The nurse shook her head. “From what we’re hearing, he got clean away. But don’t fret, now. Your buddies have put out an APB on him.”

Eric tried to speak, but his fatigue, coupled with whatever medication they were pumping into him, caused drowsiness to overtake him. He went to sleep with the memory of Julia’s face, front and center in his frazzled mind.

Julia paced the tiny E.R. sitting room, her sturdy, black wedge-heeled work shoes clumping with each step. Cat had insisted she go home and rest, but Julia was too keyed up to do that. After rushing to the elementary school to check on Moria—no, make that after making a scene at the school because she was so frantic to make sure her daughter was safe—and then checking Moria out and taking her to the neighbor’s house just to be sure, she’d come straight here. And she planned on being right here when Eric Butler came out of surgery.

Thank goodness Mrs. Ulmer hadn’t minded watching Moria. Julia knew Moria would be safe with the Ulmers. They’d seen how upset she’d been and promised to keep Moria inside and quiet. Even though he didn’t get out much these days, Mr. Ulmer had once been an avid hunter and he’d assured her he’d watch over Moria, using one of his many rifles and shotguns if need be. But there had been enough shooting for one day, Julia thought, her mind reliving how the gunman had tried to take her and how Eric had fired a shot to stop him. Then she remembered seeing Eric lying there, bleeding and unmoving.

Please don’t let him die, she prayed.

She’d seen too much death lately.

And her daughter had seen enough grief and death to last her a lifetime.

That thought caused Julia’s knees to go weak. Sinking down in a fabric-covered blue chair, she put her head in her hands and prayed that Moria didn’t hear about this. She’d warned the Ulmers not to discuss it in front of her already-fragile daughter.

“You okay?”

Julia looked up to find Adam and Cat standing in front of her. Cat settled in the chair beside her while Adam stood with his hands in his pants pockets, looking as worried about his friend as she felt.

Down the way in another chair, Eric’s father, Harlan, sat staring at the tiled floor. Julia had introduced herself to him the minute she’d come in the door, telling him how much she appreciated what Eric had done for her. But Mr. Butler had only grunted and nodded, his eyes so like his son’s, blank and unyielding, in spite of their warmth.

Harlan Butler was a retired sheriff’s deputy himself, who, according to Cat, now lived out on the lake in a cabin his son had apparently built right next to his own house. Eric wanted his widowed father near, which only endeared him to Julia since she’d never been close with her own parents. So now the Butler men lived on connecting lots, two bachelors enjoying their time as father and son. Mr. Butler certainly understood the risks of the job. But right now that didn’t help matters. Right now they were all worried, and somehow Julia couldn’t help but feel responsible for all of this.

“I’m fine,” Julia said in answer to Cat’s question, shaking her head as she stared at the lone man at the other end of the hall. “I couldn’t go home. I had to come and see—”

“If he’s gonna be all right,” Cat finished, her arm going around Julia’s shoulder. “We’re all right here, honey, praying for him. I think the whole town is praying right now. That was mighty close.” She glanced at Harlan, too. “His daddy is real worried, I can tell you.” Then she lowered her voice. “Of course, a Texas lawman can’t show his true emotions. It’s an unwritten code.” She shot Adam a pointed look. “Got to be tough as nails, every last one of ’em.”

Julia closed her eyes, reliving the vivid scene trapped inside her mind. She wasn’t as tough as nails. She could still feel the cold steel of that gun pressing at her temple. And she wondered for the hundredth time if that bright, stark terror was how her husband Alfonso had felt just before he died.

Was that the kind of terror her daughter experienced each time she suffered another horrible nightmare about her father?

Alfonso. She remembered sitting in another hospital room, waiting to hear the details of her husband’s brutal death.

She didn’t want to hear that again today. She didn’t want that nice, unassuming sheriff’s deputy to die. Not on her account. Not for something as stupid as a robbery that would have yielded very little money.

Trying to make sense of everything, she looked up at Adam. “Did you find the robber?”

Adam shook his head. “No. He took off like lightning. Pretty sure there was a getaway car parked around the corner, and in all the confusion we missed it.” He looked as if he were taking that failure very personally. “He was bleeding, so he’s wounded. I tried to find him, searched behind the restaurant and all the streets, too. Sent a patrol out. He either found a good hiding spot, or someone came back just in time to get him in a car. Found some blood, but that’s about it.” Then he lowered his head, unable to look at Julia. “Of course, we have the bloodstains from your blouse, too.”

Julia looked down at the clean lightweight sweater Cat had offered her after the police had asked her to remove her uniform blouse. Wishing she could go home and take a long shower to wash away all the fear and doubt, she could only nod toward Adam. “When will you know something?”

“Not sure,” Adam said. “It’ll take the state crime lab a while to get to it, but we’ve put a rush on it.”

Then he rolled his head, trying to release some of the obvious tension coiling through his muscles. “We’ve put out an all-points bulletin, and we’re checking all the area hospitals for any incoming bullet wounds. We’ve got roadblocks set up all around the area, too. I’m hoping they’ll haul him in any minute now, and I want to be the first person to get at him, trust me.” He shook his head, then pounded his fist against the wall. “I let him slip right through my fingers.”

Cat gave him a soft smile. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You and Eric did the best you could today. It was crazy, there, after he ran out. Nobody blames you. You and Eric saved Julia from becoming a hostage.”

Adam looked at the floor. “There’s a lot about this that just doesn’t make sense. But we’ll get the details figured out. We’re running a search right now, based on the descriptions we got from other witnesses. The boys will call when they have something conclusive on both him and the weapon. We found the bullet lodged in the front door.”

Cat asked, “And Eric?”

“He kept going in and out of consciousness, telling me he was okay, that it didn’t hurt too much. Of course that was right before he passed out cold.” Hearing Julia’s low groan, he said, “Don’t worry. He’s been through worse playing football back in high school.”

Then he glanced over at Cat, causing Julia to wonder if they were keeping something from her. Eric and Cat were close. Just how close Julia couldn’t be sure, but she knew they shared a lot with each other.

Feeling left out and afraid, Julia looked at her older cousin. “Cat, is everything okay back at the restaurant?”

“I had to shut her down, of course, so the investigators could look for evidence,” Cat said with a shrug, her dark curls shimmering around her face. “Who wants to eat there today, or ever again, for that matter?”

“Ah, now, you can’t quit,” Adam said, his grin tight with tension. “Who’d keep me fed and watered?”

“You sound like an old mule,” Cat retorted, her own smile weak. “I’m not gonna shut down forever. Just…needed to get away from there. The employees are still a tad jumpy.”

“We’re all jumpy,” Adam replied. “And right now your place is a crime scene, so we had to close the doors, anyway. Technically, I’m on administrative duty only until the Rangers get through investigating.” Then he looked down the hall at Harlan. “Hey, why don’t I go find us some coffee? I’ll ask Harlan if he wants some, too. Won’t be as good as yours, of course, Cat, but it might help.”

“Yeah, coffee,” Cat said. “Just what we need to calm the jitters.”

“I’m just offering,” he said with a shrug.

“Go on,” Cat said, her smile full of understanding. “I’ll take mine black. Julia?”

“Nothing for me,” Julia said, an uneasy feeling setting her stomach on yet another spasm of jangled, tingling nerves. “I just wish I knew who that man was.”

“I’ll call and harass the investigators,” Adam said. “We all want to know that.”