Riley's Retribution

“There’s a cop car pulling in beside us.”

She groaned. “Just what I need. Good ol’ boy, Sheriff Bobby Pennington.”

Riley cut the engine, and she waited a beat before climbing out of the SUV.

Riley hung back, not wanting to step into the middle of anything until he understood the lay of the land.

A big man with a ruddy complexion, mirrored sunglasses and a gray trooper’s uniform strode toward her with a purposeful expression on his face. He looked like he owned the street. As he approached, he tipped back his wide-brimmed hat.

She stood with her arms at her sides, and Riley thought she was probably struggling not to fold them protectively across her middle.

“Something I can do for you?” she asked.

“Your truck was found out on the road. Just on the other side of the overpass.”

“Yes,” she answered, the one syllable coming out clipped, making it clear that she didn’t want to continue the discussion.

“What’s it doing there?”

“I ran off the road in the snowstorm.”

“From what I hear, there’s a hole in the front windshield that could have been made by a bullet.”

Her face contorted. “News gets around fast.”

“Yes it does,” he allowed.

“As it happens, the rumors are true. Somebody shot at me.”

Riley waited for her to turn over the slug she’d shown him. But she kept it in her pocket.

“You need to come to the office and report the incident.”

She hesitated for a moment. “I will. After I stop in at the doctor’s office.”

“For what? Were you hit?”

She raised her chin. “No, but I want to make sure the baby wasn’t hurt in any way, if that’s all right with you.”

The redness of his complexion deepened. “Yes. Of course. But I want you to file a report before you leave town.”

“I will,” she promised, and strode into the clinic. Riley hurried to catch up, wondering what had caused the bristly relationship between Ms. Rogers and the sheriff. Was he hostile to the militia—and hostile to her having them out at the ranch? Was it about her relationship with the town? Or was it something personal?

He tucked the questions into his growing mental file for later investigation.

When he stepped into a room decorated with cute little pictures of babies dressed up like flowers, he wanted to step right back out. But he forced himself to stand there and breathe normally. Ms. Rogers was already at the reception desk, talking to a woman in a white uniform. The rancher glanced back at him. “You might as well sit down.”

He nodded, then surveyed the audience looking him up and down as if he was a prize bull at a cattle auction. There were eight women giving him the once-over, ranging in age from teenagers to grandmas. They all sat on molded chairs. The younger ones were all visibly pregnant.

He felt his stomach muscles clench. Trying to keep his expression neutral, he sat down, holding his Western hat in his lap as he focused on a poster beside the desk advertising the opening of a shelter for battered women.

Ms. Rogers broke into his train of thought. “They’re going to fit me in, so it shouldn’t take too long.”

He suppressed the impulse to say thank God.

She hesitated for a moment, then sat in the only empty chair in the room—the one beside him. The seating was tight, and her shoulder brushed his. He knew everyone in the room was watching them, judging the level of intimacy between them.

Two of the women leaned their heads together and began whispering, and he was sure they were discussing him and Ms. Rogers.

To their right, he heard loud voices talking about the new battered-women’s shelter. The speakers sounded enthusiastic.

Courtney turned toward them, looking as though she wanted to join in, but she kept her mouth shut.

Luckily she was right about the speedy service. After only ten minutes, a nurse came out and called her name, and she disappeared into the back.

Her departure apparently freed the occupants of the room from restraint.

A gray-haired lady leaned toward him and asked, “So what’s your relationship to Mrs. Rogers?”

He blinked, thinking that nine sets of ears—the patients and the receptionist—were tuned in for his answer. And he had five seconds to account for his presence here. “I’m her new ranch manager,” he said, hoping that the fib wouldn’t matter. If Courtney decided to take him on, then it would be true. If she sent him packing, he’d be the talk of the town. But he wouldn’t be around to hear it.

“You know she’s not married,” the woman said.

“Mmm.”

“She was already divorced, but her former husband called her up. They were trying to see if they could get back together. I guess they did that all right. At least for one night.”

A teenager in the room giggled.

“He got himself killed in some foreign country after that, leaving her with the ranch and the baby.”

“How do you know so much about it?” he asked carefully.

“Everybody knows it. He asked her to meet him for some R&R, and she went rushing off to have a good time with him.”

“He was with the CIA or something like that, and he couldn’t adjust to the ranch,” another woman chipped in. “You look like you’re more suited to life out here.”

Were they suggesting that he marry Ms. Rogers—to make an honest woman of her?

“She’s a handful,” someone else murmured, and he wasn’t sure exactly who had made the comment. He’d already discovered the truth of that statement.

He slouched down in his seat, hoping that his body language discouraged further conversation.

Courtney returned a few moments later looking vastly relieved.

He saw the peanut gallery eyeing her, then him, then both of them. He stood. “How’s the baby?”

“The doctor say’s she’s fine.”