Lana's Lawman (5 page)

Lana was fighting it, but not because she wasn't attracted. Something else was going on.

“How long before you can fix it?”

“You mean, when will I have the money?” She
stared in disbelief once again. “Not that it's any of your business, but I was planning to have the repairs done next month.”

“But that roof might be dangerous. I could fix it for free.”

“Sloan,” she said, stretching his name out to three syllables, “I can take care of my own home repairs, thank you very much. And I can make my own arrangements to have my car towed and fixed. I've had my fill of people treating me like a total incompetent. I'm a big girl.”

Not a very big girl, he caught himself thinking. Probably didn't top five foot two. The crown of her head would tuck right under his chin, and her lush curves would fit against—

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged and corralled his wayward thoughts. “Thought I could be helpful. Sorry.”

His apology had been terse and not very sincere, but she softened a fraction anyway. “You've been helpful. I don't mean to sound ungrateful. But I can take it from here, okay?”

He nodded. “Sure thing.” It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her if it would be against her principles if he came over
without
his tools. To visit. To take her and her son to a movie. Or bring over a bucket of fried chicken.

But he stopped himself, feeling suddenly like that troublemaking kid from the wrong side of town he'd once been. Maybe Lana wasn't wealthy anymore. Maybe she'd left her most-popular-girl-cheerleader
days behind. But he couldn't escape the feeling that she lived on a different plane than he did.

That he'd never be good enough.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. He hadn't suffered from low self-esteem in a very long time, not since that summer.

Now Lana, with her haughty little speech, had chipped away at a confidence he'd foolishly assumed was inviolate.

This time when she reached for the door, he let her go. He watched her swish her green-velvet way to the front door, waited until he was sure she was safe inside. Then he backed out of her driveway with a deliberate screech of tires.

“C'mon, Bennett,” he said aloud. “Get real. Things have changed, but they haven't changed that much.”

Lana moped around for the next couple of days, not sure why. Post-best-friend's-wedding blues, maybe, she told herself. Then why did her thoughts return so often to Sloan Bennett? She re-created in her mind every word of the conversations they'd shared the night of Callie's wedding. She dissected them to death, theorized, relived her feelings of that night.

She understood why he'd been so stiff-jawed with her at first. She hadn't exactly “done him right” in high school. But she had to wonder why later he'd gone out of his way to help her.

There hadn't been anything overtly flirtatious in his manner. Maybe he'd simply wanted to prove that
he didn't hold a grudge, that the past didn't really matter because they'd been just a couple of kids.

Oh, but they'd done things kids weren't supposed to do, she reminded herself. Her stomach tightened at the memory of what his touch could do to her.

Some of the attraction remained, she acknowledged as she dropped a handful of spaghetti into boiling water. She couldn't deny that she was still drawn to, fascinated by him. At the same time she was worried, even scared, by the power of that draw. Maybe he'd been thrown off by it too.

But surely not by much. He seemed so darn … in control. And something in her was oh-so-tempted to simply go limp and let him take control of
her.

But, as she'd told him, she'd had enough of surrendering her life to someone else. She was the boss now, and she was determined to keep it that way. Let a man like Sloan into her life—even innocently, like allowing him to repair the garage roof—and before she knew it her every decision would be yanked out of her hands.

In high school that loss of control she'd felt around Sloan had been heady, exciting at first. But then he'd started to frighten her. Not that he was anything but kind and gentle with her. But with the rest of the world … He'd been so angry. And she'd felt on the verge of total surrender, not just her body but her soul. Like maybe her whole identity could be sucked up inside his and she would never be herself again.

That's why she'd bolted. But she hadn't been able to explain it to him. He'd accused her of thinking she
was too good for him. And she'd tearfully agreed, because the truth was so elusive and complicated.

She'd put it behind her, and for years she'd convinced herself she'd done the right thing. They hadn't been right for each other then, and there was no reason to think things were any different now, despite the changes they'd both undergone.

So why couldn't she stop thinking about him?

Lana looked out the window. Dusk was settling on her overgrown backyard, and she hadn't heard a peep out of Rob since he'd gone outside with his football a couple of hours earlier. She adjusted the heat on the stove and walked to the front door.

A gust of cool autumn air hit her as she opened the door. “Rob?” she called out.

“Over here, Mom,” her son's voice answered from the side yard.

Lana stepped off the porch. She saw Rob and a neighbor boy tossing the football, and took comfort in the normal little-boyness of it. “Dinner in about twenty minutes. Noah? Would you like to have spaghetti and meatballs with us?”

“No, thanks, Mrs. Gaston. My mom wants me home.”

“Okay. Maybe this weekend.” She turned her gaze back on her son. “Not too long, Robbie. It's getting dark.”

Rob snorted and glanced sideways at his buddy. “My mom thinks bogeymen come out of the bushes when the sun goes down. In Destiny.”

“Hey,” Noah said, “we did have a murder.”

“Exactly,” Lana said with a nod. She decided she liked Rob's friend Noah. “Ten more minutes, okay? Then you can come in and set the table.”

“Okay, Mom,” Rob answered distractedly. He and Noah were already tossing the ball again.

Lana sighed as she stepped back inside. Sometimes she felt like she was losing her son. He was growing, getting more independent, testing his boundaries. She knew that was natural. But she missed the little boy who would crawl into her lap for kisses and beg to be tucked in.

Five minutes later, as she was tasting the spaghetti sauce, a horrific noise reverberated all over the house. It started with a shrieking, like a wreck between two wooden ships, then turned into something that sounded like an avalanche pouring onto the roof.

Lana dropped her wooden spoon, splattering red sauce all over the white linoleum floor. She ran out the kitchen door into the backyard and swiveled around. Nothing on the roof. She didn't immediately see—

Oh, no
, she thought as panic rose in her throat. The garage. Her feet felt like lead as she dragged them around the side of the house. The sight that greeted her was every mother's nightmare. The garage roof was now in pieces on the ground. And Rob's sneakers at the end of two denim-clad legs, frighteningly still, were all that was visible beneath the rubble.

Lana, granted a strength and quickness she didn't know she had, leapt to the site of the disaster and began clawing at the hunks of wood, loose shingles, and tar paper that covered her son. Like a crazed burrowing
animal, she sent heavy pieces of debris flying through the air as if they were wads of paper until she'd uncovered her son's too-pale face. His eyes were closed, and he was bleeding from a scrape on his forehead.

“Rob? Rob!” Recalling some long-ago first-aid class, she fell to her knees and reached for the pulse point at his neck. But she was shaking so badly, she wouldn't have known a pulse from an earthquake.

“Lana!” a voice behind her said. “Is he okay?” It was Sandra Sutcliffe, Noah's mother. Noah stood beside her, white-faced. “I heard the crash and looked out the window—”

“I don't know. Dear God, he's not moving.” But he was breathing. She could see the reassuring rise and fall of his chest.

“I'll call 911,” Sandra said.

Other neighbors trickled over. Bill Watts from next door offered Lana a clean handkerchief to blot the blood on Rob's forehead. There was so much blood. She fought the urge to pull Rob into her arms and hold him, knowing it was dangerous to move him.

She'd never in her life been so grateful to hear sirens. Someone pulled her from Rob's side. Men and women in white coats descended on her child in a swarm, and she started to feel woozy. Just when everything started spinning and she thought she was going nosefirst into the turf, a strong pair of hands grasped her shoulders.

“Lana—you okay?”

“Sloan?” She sank onto the grass with his help.

“I came as soon as I heard. The call went out over the radio. I recognized the address.”

She didn't know precisely why, but she was unutterably glad he was there. Because of his position, he could cut through police and hospital baloney and find things out for her. She suddenly felt that someone was on her side.

“What happened?” Sloan asked gently, kneeling on one knee beside her, his hand still on her shoulder.

“I don't know. The roof …” She gestured absently. Rob's football lay a few feet from where the paramedics were working. “Maybe I should have let you come over and fix it after all.”

“Don't second-guess yourself now,” Sloan said sensibly, rubbing her shoulder. “It won't help.” The warmth of his presence penetrated and surrounded her like a halo.

As the paramedics moved Rob onto a gurney, Lana's heart was in her throat. “My baby,” she murmured. “He's so still.”

“I'll find out what's going on,” Sloan offered.

“Yes, please. I want to ride in the ambulance with him.” She was so glad Sloan was there. She wouldn't know whom to talk to, what to ask. It was okay, just this once, to let someone else make the decisions, and she couldn't imagine anyone better for the job than Officer Sloan Bennett.

Someone shoved a consent form in her face. She signed it blindly. Sloan reappeared. “He's conscious and his vital signs are good. They're taking him to
Methodist. You can ride in the ambulance, but hurry.” He offered her a hand up.

She took it. “Did they say if he'll be okay?” she asked, her voice trembling uncharacteristically as he pulled her onto shaky legs. She kept hold of his hand, gripping it like a lifeline.

“No one said for sure,” Sloan answered. “But in my experience, cuts to the head always look worse than they are because they bleed so much. At the least, he'll have a concussion.”

“And at the worst?”

He led her toward the ambulance. The paramedics were holding the door open for her. “Don't go borrowing trouble. We'll find out soon enough.”

“Oh, wait. My stove is on, my door is unlocked—”

“I asked your neighbor to go in, turn everything off, and lock up. She brought your purse and keys.” He handed them to her.

“Ah. That was very … thorough of you. Thanks.”
I think.
She gave his hand a quick squeeze and climbed up into the ambulance. She knew Sloan was being efficiently helpful and nothing more. Without his intervention she'd still be floundering around. She should be very grateful—and she was. Really. Besides, she had something much more important to worry about than why Sloan Bennett unsettled her so.

She focused on Rob, who was being attended by two bustling paramedics. Lana wanted to touch him, hold him, but she knew she'd just get in the way. She saw his eyes flutter and heard a muffled sob, which reassured her a bit.

Methodist Medical Center was less than ten minutes away, but with the siren blaring, the ambulance made it in five. Sloan's squad car was right behind. He pulled up to the emergency room doors. The moment she emerged from the ambulance he was there, walking beside her, not touching but there to support her if she got too wobbly. She was glad for his continued presence, even if it annoyed her that she needed it.

Inside, the emergency room was like ERs everywhere—feverish babies, people with the flu, cuts and bruises competing for time and space in the treatment rooms. An admitting nurse behind a desk knew Sloan on sight. She dropped the papers she'd been working on and smiled up at him. “Whatcha got, Bennett?”

He smiled back, irritating Lana. How could anyone smile in this place?

“A sagging roof fell on a little boy,” he said, his face serious again. “This is his mother, Lana Walsh.”

“Gaston,” Lana corrected him. “Lana Gaston.”

Sloan touched his brow with one forefinger. “Gaston, right. I knew her in high school,” he explained to the nurse.

The nurse raised her eyebrows but said nothing. “Okay, Mrs. Gaston, I'll need some information from you.…”

Lana answered the questions mechanically, her eyes darting around, hoping to see some sign of a doctor or nurse who would tell
her
something instead of the other way around.

“Do you have your insurance card?” the nurse asked. Her eyes were darting around too, but Lana had
a feeling she was looking for a certain policeman rather than a doctor. She'd noted a definite predatory gleam in those eyes.

Lana handed over the card. The nurse studied it critically. “It's expired. By a couple of months.”

“Oh, shoot. The insurance is current. I'm sure I just forgot to put the new card in my wallet.” Although, come to think of it, she couldn't recall receiving a card recently.

The nurse shrugged and made a photocopy of the card. “We'll have to verify it.”

“Of course,” Lana said through clenched teeth. What were they going to do, throw her baby out in the street if he wasn't insured? But she knew he was insured. Bart kept Rob on his company-paid policy.