Troublemaker (12 page)

The man bucked and threw himself sideways, trying to dislodge her. The impact with the floor jarred her, hard, made her vision blur and sound fade. She'd never been in a physical fight before and wasn't pre
pared for the shock of impact—it was, well,
shocking
—but she tightened her arm and held on, reaching over his shoulder to clamp her free hand around her other wrist to keep him from breaking her grip. Another scream split the air, Jesse was swearing like a sailor, and then she felt the guy's muscles tightening as he gathered himself and lurched to his feet with her clinging to his back for all she was worth. He punched blindly over his shoulder, catching her on the right cheekbone. A series of things happened almost simultaneously:

She saw stars. Literally.

Fury swamped her, a red, all-encompassing fury that blotted out reason and felt as if her entire body had expanded from the force of it. She heard someone roaring, “I'll tear your fucking head off!” and to her horror realized it was
her
because she was suiting action to words and had her knees braced against his back while she hauled back with all her body weight behind it.

Jesse came off the floor like a tiger, reaching for them.

And Brandwyn stepped in, a five-foot-two, red-haired avenging angel with purpose in her eyes as she swung the chair with the precision of a professional baseball player, missing Bo's head by inches but clobbering the hell out of her target.

The guy went down like a fallen tree. Not being an experienced rider of either horses or humans, Bo couldn't launch herself free fast enough to evade yet another impact with the floor. The back of her head slammed against wood, her right shoulder slammed against something else, and there was a brief moment of silence.

“Holy shit.”

Again, the voice was hers, faint and astonished now. She blinked up at the ceiling and tried to make her surroundings snap into place because they seemed to be doing crazy stuff such as whirling and dancing. She heard Jesse on the radio, his tone sharp and urgent, then Miss Doris's round face swam into view as she knelt beside Bo. She was saying, “Oh lordy, oh lordy,” over and over.

Bo took a deep breath, and her surroundings did indeed snap back into place, with an audible
pop
! She turned her head and saw Jesse efficiently
handcuffing the guy and rolling him over as he cast a swiftly assessing look at her.

“Get some ice, Miss Doris. For both Emily and the chief.”

Miss Doris scrambled to her feet and hurried away, and her place was taken by both Emily and Brandwyn. Emily's left eye was swollen and rapidly bruising, but she seemed otherwise unhurt. She grabbed some napkins from the holder on one of the tables and gently pressed it to Bo's cheekbone. Brandwyn squatted beside her, her attention darting from Bo to the unconscious man as if prepared for him to recover and cause more trouble. If so, from the fierce expression on her face, she intended to be prepared.

“What the hell?”

Bo wondered who was controlling her tongue, because the last three sentences out of her own mouth had been swear words. Not that she didn't cuss a bit now and then, but she'd always been careful not to say the F word now that she was chief. That ban had now been broken, and she had no doubt the entire town would know her utterances, verbatim, before the day was over. Mayor Buddy might feel he needed to have a word with her over her public use of foul language.

“Shit,” she said, in response to her own thought.

“Damn it!” She'd just done it again. “Will someone please put a gag on me?”

Jesse joined the squat club. He looked a little worse for wear himself, with his shirt torn and his nose dripping blood. Emily handed him a napkin and he made an effort to clean it away, then simply clamped the napkin over his nose. “The medics will be here soon,” he said, his tone nasal but comforting. “And half the county, I expect.”

Bo began cautiously moving her arms and legs, checking herself out. She didn't think there was anything broken, but she was kind of addled and couldn't be certain. “Why?”

The three squatters looked at each other in alarm.

“I'm not concussed,” she said a bit irritably. “I don't think so, anyway.”

“You did hit your head kind of hard on the floor.”

Yeah, she remembered that. “Okay, okay. I see your point.” Nevertheless, she got her left elbow under her and levered herself to a sitting position. If the medics and half the county were on their way, she at least wanted to be sitting up, preferably in a chair.

“Take it easy,” Emily said, her soft voice worried. She was a pretty, gentle young woman, very much like her grandmother both in sweetness and in her master's touch with baking.

“That was wild,” Brandwyn said, awe in her tone. “You jumped on his back like a monkey on an elephant.”

That was kind of how she'd felt, too, and not in a good way. The elephant had definitely been in control. Groaning a little, she hauled her butt into a chair just as Miss Doris hurried back with not two but three bags of ice. One went on Emily's eye, the second one on Bo's cheekbone, and the third on Jesse's nose.

She felt strange, kind of disconnected from everything, even the throbbing of her cheekbone and shoulder. This was the first violence she'd ever encountered, and she hoped it was the last. The altercation felt as if it had lasted for half an hour at least, but it had to have been—what?—a minute, tops? She patted her coat pocket for her cell phone but came up empty.

“I've lost my cell.”

Brandwyn looked around and said, “Here it is,” as she stooped to pick up the phone from where it had skidded under another table. Bo took it and pressed the home button to bring up the time. Yes, less than five minutes had passed since she'd spoken to Evan in front of the bank. And what the hell difference did it make anyway?

It didn't. Checking the time was just more of that sense of disconnection, trying to find something solid, something normal.

Maybe the best way was in conversation. As soon as she had the thought, she realized the rest of them
were
talking, Jesse asking questions, Brandwyn and Miss Doris talking over each other, Emily starting to cry.

Bo said, “Who
is
that?” and pointed at the handcuffed man on the floor, because she didn't recognize him.

The four of them stared at her. “That's Kyle,” Emily said, sniffling. “My husband.”

“What? Kyle? What happened to his hair?” She'd met Kyle once or twice; she'd always thought Emily had married the pick of the Gooding family, but maybe not. When she'd seen him before, he'd worn his hair buzzed, been clean shaven; now his light brown hair was long, almost touching his shoulders, and he had the scruffy three-day beard a lot of guys were wearing to show how cool they were.

“He's been growing it out,” Emily replied unnecessarily.

Kyle began shifting and making sounds that were a combination of grunts and groans. Following hard on that were some slurred curses, including “Stupid bitch, you'll pay for this.”

“Are you threatening your wife?” Jesse asked in his cop voice, setting the ice bag aside and gripping the front of Kyle's jacket with both hands to haul him to a sitting position. As he did so, the first of the sirens became audible, coming in stereo from both ends of town.

Kyle wasn't stupid; his father had always paid to make trouble go away whenever any of his kids misbehaved, but Miss Doris and Emily were both well liked, and some trouble trumped money. Not only that, he was beginning to realize he'd been in a fight with two law officers, and that wasn't good. “No,” he said sullenly. “I'm talking about a divorce.”

“Praise the lord,” said Miss Doris, glaring at him. “You're so low-down, you'd have to grow ten feet taller before you could lick the soles of Emily's shoes.”

“Miss Doris, how about you and Emily, and Brandwyn, move to the other side of the room, please.” Jesse cast an encompassing look at both Kyle and Bo, decided one wasn't going anywhere and the other was doing okay, and he began herding the ladies along.

Kyle slanted Bo one of those sullen looks.

“I didn't know it was you,” she said, though it wouldn't have made any difference if she had. “I haven't seen you since you grew your hair out.”

He didn't look apologetic, but again, he wasn't stupid. “I didn't know it was you either,” he mumbled, and that was likely true given that she'd jumped him from behind. “Sorry.” After a pause, “You okay?”

She didn't answer because the medic truck screeched to a stop outside the shop, followed by a county car coming from the opposite direction. They parked nose to nose, and two medics and a deputy bailed out. Other sirens were wailing as more patrol cars descended on them.

The medics came first to her, for reasons unknown. The attention was overwhelming, swamping her with the sense of being out of control as well as disconnected. She wasn't hurt all that much, a little bruised and sore, while Jesse was actually bleeding, but then she realized all the others were on their feet while she was sitting down—well, except for Kyle, but considering he was handcuffed, evidently sympathy for him was running low. One of the medics finally peeled off to check out Jesse and Emily, while the other checked her pupils, which appeared to be normal.

Maybe they were reacting to the novelty of the “lady chief” being in an altercation, but the small bakery was soon filled to bursting with county deputies and other official types, as well as the town's other four police officers, two of whom were off-duty. For God's sake, even the coroner showed up; it must have been a slow day for bodies. Several of the town council members arrived, as well as Mayor Buddy. Kyle Gooding was hauled to his feet, his head examined where Brandwyn had clobbered him with the chair, and taken away to the hospital in the next town over for checking out. He wanted to have whoever hit him arrested, but that didn't fly considering he'd been in the process of attacking two law officers when Brandwyn brained him. After he was checked out, assuming he wasn't admitted, he'd be taken to the county jail because the town didn't have a jail and all their arrestees were put in the county facility. Even after Kyle was gone, people
still
stood around, laughing and retelling the fracas.

Bo instinctively retreated behind her mental walls, where she always went when she was in protective mode. She'd learned to do that at an early age as a means of coping with her mother's parade of boyfriends and husbands, constant relocating, and a father who appeared to forget about her for years at a time. What had worked for the kid still worked for the adult. She didn't like being the center of attention, and if the attention wouldn't go away, then she would, at least inside her head.

Mayor Buddy came and patted her hand. “Quite a bit of excitement,” he said kindly as he pulled a chair around and sat down beside her, his pleasantly homely face caught in an expression halfway between concern and laughter.

Bo roused herself to reconnect. “I want to apologize for my language,” she said because she'd heard the phrase “
tear your fucking head off”
several times during the past half hour or so. The deputies had gotten a kick out of it, but she didn't know how the town elders would feel. No one would care if she cussed like a sailor in private, but public perception was a different animal.

He chuckled. “Don't worry about it. It makes such a good story most everyone in town will likely tell it themselves. The few that get puckered up about it will be outnumbered. I swear to you, I never thought this kind of thing would be in your job description.”

“I didn't either.” She'd thought it was administrative, all the way. And it would have been; jumping in had been her choice, no one had told her to do it.

“Kyle's daddy will likely kick up a fuss.”

“I know.” Warren Gooding owned a couple of prosperous sawmills in the area, which meant he employed some of the townspeople, and he liked to throw his weight around because of it. He'd always stepped in whenever his kids did anything wrong, blaming everything on someone else, so she expected him to follow pattern. Still, he didn't live within the town limits, so he couldn't even vote in elections, and considering the circumstances, she thought he'd concentrate his efforts on finding Kyle a good lawyer and maybe trying to get the prosecutor not to press charges.

If it were left up to her, she'd let bygones be bygones; she wasn't really hurt and neither was Jesse. Hitting Emily, to her, was the big deal, but whether or not Emily pressed charges was up to her. But there would be charges because no one wanted people to get the idea they could get away with resisting arrest and assaulting officers of the law. This whole thing was going to get very messy before it was over; Miss Doris was beloved in the town and the Goodings weren't, but the Goodings were influential, strident, and persistent.

She caught a glimpse of the big school clock on the wall behind the counter, and saw that almost an hour had elapsed. Aghast at her own negligence she said, “Tricks!” and surged to her feet. As cold as the day was, she knew overheating wasn't a problem, but it was definitely time to get her out of the Jeep.

“Where is she?” That was one of the county deputies; she thought his name was Mayhew, or Mayfield, something like that. It didn't surprise her that he knew who Tricks was.

“In the Jeep,” she said as she started to the door.

“You stay here, maybe drink some tea and get settled. I'll get her.”

“Tea!” said Miss Doris, her eyes lighting. “That's a good idea. All three of you need something to drink.” She dashed behind the counter and went to work.

Bo watched as the deputy crossed the street and opened the passenger door of the Jeep, then released Tricks from her harness. He wasn't fast enough to catch her leash, though. Tricks jumped down and immediately trotted to the curb, her expression a little anxious as she searched for Bo. As always, she stopped at the curb and looked both right and left, a trick that delighted all the kids in town whenever they saw her do it, then she dashed across the street, leash trailing, and came straight to the door of the bakery, with the deputy in hot pursuit as he made repeated grabs for her leash.