Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good Man\Promises Under the Peach Tree\Husband by Choice (19 page)

Reid cut him off. “I'll do that if you wait for Renner out here.” He followed her, leaving the poor deputy flat-footed. He was lucky the nurse accepted his presence without realizing he had no jurisdiction.

The nurse led him to Diego, and Reid realized they must have given the boy some pain meds, because his gaze was bleary. A young woman doctor turned to Reid when he stopped at the foot of the bed.

“He has a mild concussion and a number of broken bones and abrasions.” She gave details. “He's already had X-rays. Next step is casting his leg and arm, but I thought under the circumstances this might be a good moment for you to get some information. Right now we're operating without parental permission, which we're not crazy about.”

“The other boy? Do you know how he is?”

“I'll go find out,” she promised and left the two of them alone.

When Reid moved to Diego's side, the boy's hand shot out to grab him. “They'll call my dad, won't they?”

“We'll have to, but I'll make damn sure he's not allowed to take you.”

“But you don't know anything.”

“I do. I've been looking into all your backgrounds.”

“Because of the fires.”

He nodded.

“You swear?” Diego begged.

Reid took his hand and held it, praying he could keep his word. “Yes.”

“Okay,” he whispered, his eyes drifting closed.

“Wait!” Reid got his attention again, but learned next to nothing. Diego thought the vehicle that hit them was a pickup with a canopy rather than an SUV, but he wasn't positive. It all happened so fast, he said, sounding ashamed. Black. Yes, he was positive about that much. Maybe TJ saw more.

Reid shook his head. “TJ was rolling in the ditch when the two of you got hit. Roger says he's scraped up pretty bad. TJ also said the vehicle was black, but that everything happened so fast. He saw Caleb in the air, and the way he landed—” Reid couldn't finish. Couldn't say the dreaded words.
He thought Caleb was dead.

Diego did. “He's dead, isn't he?”

“No!”

Reid didn't realize he'd yelled until he saw the kid shrink away from him. He passed a shaking hand over his face. “I'm sorry.”

The glass door slid open and the doctor reappeared. “The other boy is hanging in there. Do you have a name for him?”

“Caleb. I think he might be my brother. Caleb Sawyer.” Christ. He wasn't having to fake anything—not the tremors, not the ragged voice, not the expression that had the doctor staring. “They're runaways. Diego—this boy—says Caleb was looking for his brother. That's why they came to Angel Butte. I need to see him.”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head, not in refusal, but in shock. “Yes. All right, come this way.”

He barely recognized the figure surrounded by medical personnel. Caleb's face was raw and grotesquely swollen. He'd been intubated and was being given oxygen. There was no life at all in him beyond the faint rise and fall of his chest.

Life support.

Despite having known what he would see, Reid staggered, barely righting himself. “It's him,” he managed to get out. “Caleb.”

* * *

I
F
IT
HADN
'
T
been his number on her screen, Anna wasn't sure she'd have recognized Reid's voice.

“Your brother?” she said, stunned. “He's here? In town? And injured?”

“They're working on him right now. He's unconscious. He doesn't look good, Anna.”

“I'm on my way. I'll find you, Reid.”

She'd been at the health club when her phone rang, getting dressed after a workout. It had been cleansing after the funeral and the strain of trying to comfort the Lunds when she felt such grief herself. Although she was dressed, she hadn't yet dried her hair, but she didn't care. She hastily stuffed workout gear into her duffel, slammed the locker and all but ran out. The drive to the hospital couldn't have taken five minutes, but it seemed like forever. Every red light, every flicker of a brake light in front of her, made her want to scream.

She parked at the hospital and raced into the emergency room. “Captain Reid Sawyer,” she snapped to the receptionist. “He's in back with his brother. Caleb Sawyer.”

The woman frowned and perused her computer. “I'm afraid I don't have a Caleb—”

“It was a hit-and-run.”

“Oh. Yes. Why don't you take a seat? It'll be a minute.”

“He asked me to come.” That was a lie, she realized with sudden shock. She hadn't even given him a chance to ask. What if he'd been about to say,
I don't need you, but I wanted to let you know what was happening?
Oh, dear God. What was his brother doing in town?

Looking for Reid, of course. What else could it be?

What if he died?

Pacing in an agitated circle right in front of the double doors leading to the back, Anna tried to blank her mind to the possibility. She'd seen the pain he bore already. A loss like this— What would it do to him?

But she knew. Oh, God, she knew.

The door burst open and he was there. His expression was terrible. She'd wanted to see naked emotion on his face, but nothing like this.

“Reid.” Anna flew to him. His arms closed hard around her even as she held on to him with everything she had. “I'm so sorry. Oh, Reid. How is he?”

“They...don't know yet. He's unconscious. There's swelling in his brain. Some broken bones, too, maybe some internal bleeding. They aren't sure yet. He looks really bad, Anna.”

She pulled back enough to look up at him. “He must have told them his name.”

Reid shook his head. “No. He's with another boy. Diego Ramirez. They were traveling together. I haven't figured out yet where they were staying or where they got the bikes they were riding, but he says Caleb wanted to see me.” A shudder ripped through him. “I let him down. He wasn't safe.”

“No.” She tightened her arms again, laying her cheek against his shoulder. “It's not your fault, Reid. You'd have done anything for him. I know you would. He wouldn't have been looking for you if he hadn't decided to trust you.”

This shudder was worse than the last. Or was it a sob? Shocked anew, she saw tears running down his hard cheeks. She held him while he cried, trying to protect him from curious stares as he'd done for her that day on the sidewalk in front of the café. Anna heard herself talking but didn't even know what she was saying. Just a mishmash.

I'm so sorry. He may be fine. Just because he was knocked on the head doesn't mean he won't come out of it. It's okay, Reid. Let it out. It'll help. It will.

She didn't know if any of it was true.
Please don't let this boy die.
It would destroy Reid. She knew that much.

He pulled himself together fast, retreating from her physically and emotionally. He used the wool sleeve of the fine suit coat he'd worn to the funeral to wipe his face. She stared at the now-closed double doors, giving him the space he obviously wanted to resume his usual facade.

“Thank you for coming,” he said after a minute, his voice only a little gravelly.

“Of course I did.” She shot him a fierce look.

He gave a broken laugh. “Of course you did.” Then his gaze went past her and she turned to see that he was looking at an older man who looked upset, too. There was blood on his flannel shirt, she saw, and the knees of his canvas carpenter's pants were dirty, with bits of grit clinging to the fabric. His gray-streaked dark hair looked as if he'd been wrenching at it, and maybe he'd been pulling at his beard, too.

Reid kept an arm around Anna and led her over to the other man. “Anna, I've told you about my friends here in Angel Butte. This is Roger Hale. The boys were hit on the road not far from his place. He was one of the first on scene.”

“You must have recognized Caleb,” she said.

“I—” His eyes met Reid's. “No,” he said after a minute. “He was bloody, and...it didn't occur to me. I called Reid because the driver who hit the boys didn't even stop.”

“Unfortunately, the accident scene is out of my jurisdiction,” Reid put in.

She gaped at him. “But it's your own brother. You wouldn't have wanted to investigate anyway, would you?”

The ferocity of the look he turned on her made her quail. “Want to? Yeah, I want to.” The vulnerable man he had let her see earlier was gone. “In fact,” he continued in a hard voice, “I'm going to call my father right this minute.”

She pressed her fingers to her mouth. He couldn't think— Could he? But obviously he did. He had his phone out and was scrolling for a number. He found it and pushed Send. She and Reid's friend—Roger—both waited. Anna could hear the rings, but with the phone pressed to Reid's ear, she couldn't make out the voice that answered.

Like a knife, Reid's voice sliced. “All right, you son of a bitch,” he said. “Where are you?”

* * *

“H
ERE
'
S
THE
OTHER
kid's story,” Reid told Anna. He called up Diego's court records on his smartphone. After explaining what Diego had told him—
you mean, lied to her, don't you?
—he handed her the phone and said, “Take a look.”

She read in silence for a minute, scrolling down. When she finally looked up, he would have been reassured by the fiery light in her eyes if his fear and his guilt hadn't been so bottomless.

“First thing I'll do is call in a Child Protective Services worker,” she announced. “I need to talk to Diego myself.”

After being told the boy was moving upstairs to a regular hospital room, Anna decided to accompany him. “I think I can block any immediate attempt to return him to his father. That'll give us time to work.”

They both knew that by now Hector Ramirez, yet another winner in the parental stakes, had been called and might be on his way from the Portland area to Angel Butte. They were in a race.

Reid nodded. Being able to talk at all was getting harder for him.

Eyes soft again, Anna hugged him, rose on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his cheek. “I'll be back,” she murmured. “Hang in there.”

He couldn't even nod this time. He'd never been so scared in his life. He expected to be summoned any minute and told the worst.

Instead, the outside doors glided open and a man entered. Reid knew a cop when he saw one, even if he wore a suit and tie. The guy walking toward him was powerfully built with an angular, rough-cast face. It was the walk that gave him away—had to be cop or ex-military. The way he scanned everyone in the waiting area and then zeroed in on Reid was familiar, too.

When he got close, Reid saw the badge on his belt. He held out his hand. “Sergeant Renner?”

“You're Captain Sawyer. Jane has described you.”

“I won't ask what she said.”

The grin was quick and then gone. “You want to tell me what this is about?”

Reid hadn't been sure until now how much he wanted to say. Before agreeing to go home, Roger had said the decision would be Reid's. “We're at a crossroads,” he said bleakly. “Too many people know we're here now. Maybe it's time to give it up.”

Reid felt the same, yet couldn't forget his own desperation when he came to the Hales. He thought of all the kids since, the ones who'd stayed safe, earned their GEDs, gone on to good lives thanks to Roger and Paula.

But his conscience wouldn't let him forget the others, too. The ones he never let himself think about. The girls murdered by a serial killer given access to them by the Hales. The ones who'd run away even from this sanctuary, any safety net lost to them.

He drew a deep breath and said, “Yeah. I asked for you because the Hales tell me you're aware of their operation.”

Comprehension was immediate. “The hit-and-run was on 253rd, wasn't it? Well, shit.” Renner looked around. “Let's find someplace private. The cafeteria?”

“I need to stay here.”

Clay Renner nodded. They ended up choosing a couple of chairs in a corner. Reid braced his elbows on his knees and let his head hang for a minute. “It's a mess,” he warned.

“It almost has to be.”

He straightened, unwilling to evade those sharp blue eyes, and started talking. Talked until he was hoarse. “I owe them my life,” he said finally. “We can still leave them out of this, if you're willing. Right now, I don't know what's right or wrong. I will tell you, I think this was deliberate. A murder attempt.”

“Aimed at your brother.”

“Maybe, maybe not. The boy who was riding behind Caleb is a possibility. It sounds like he'd have been hit first if he hadn't dived for the ditch. It's also possible whoever this is didn't care which boys he killed. He hates the Hales and this was just part of his campaign of terror.”

Furrows had long since formed on Sergeant Renner's forehead. “I wish you'd come to me sooner.”

“I did talk to your boss.”

“My boss?”

“The sheriff. Until today, nobody had gotten hurt. The incidents were no more than taunts. Nasty, but there was no attempt to harm anyone.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Renner sighed. “Forward me everything you've got on these kids and their parents or guardians. The first thing we need to do is pin down where everyone is.”

“I'm pretty damn sure my father—Caleb's father—is here in Angel Butte.” Reid's voice had thickened.

“Ah. Have you tried to get in touch?”

“I called. He claimed he'd just crossed the Oregon border, that he didn't leave Spokane until midmorning. I don't believe him. No matter what, he's on his way here. Like I told you, he was here last week when the tires were slashed. He has weekends off and could have been here when the fires were set, too.”