Home to Whiskey Creek. Brenda Novak

mattered at this particular moment.

      “Don’t worry. I’m not that fragile.” Not anymore, anyway. It’d been fifteen years since she was raped by a handful of Whiskey Creek’s most popular athletes. She’d slept with two men since, men she’d cared about and hoped to have a deeper relationship with. The last one she’d married. With three years’ therapy in her early twenties, she’d gotten past the trauma.

      Anyway, having Noah help her out with a medical problem had nothing to do with sex or rape, even if it dealt with the same general region of her body. “Can you please, er, hurry? You’ve already gotten an eyeful, and you’re holding the needle. It doesn’t make sense to stop.”

      “Right.” Despite his reluctance, his hand, when he touched her, was warm and firm. She jerked as he went after one of the deeper slivers, and he cupped her bottom. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to soothe her or hold her still, but he immediately realized what he was doing and let go.

      “You hangin’ in?” he murmured after several minutes.

      For the most part, Adelaide couldn’t feel pain anymore. She seemed to be floating somewhere up near the ceiling, looking down on the scene. “Yeah.”

      She wasn’t sure how much longer it took. She didn’t care. She was too tired to care about anything except drifting off to sleep....

      She woke because something had changed. He was rubbing antibiotic ointment on her, which felt good despite all the reasons it shouldn’t. Somehow she’d lost her anxiety. Pure exhaustion, and painkiller, had carried her beyond that.

      “You ready for bed?” He helped get her shorts up. Then he woke Gran and walked her into her room. When he returned to find Adelaide unable to drag herself off the couch, he offered to help her, too. She said no, that she’d be fine right where she was, but when he lifted her in his arms and brought her to bed, she didn’t argue.

      “Thanks,” she mumbled as he laid her on the soft mattress and covered her. “Your sweatshirt’s on the bedroom floor. I—I’ll repay you for what you’ve done. The burger, too. I won’t forget the burger.”

      She could tell she was slurring her words, but her unwieldy tongue couldn’t do any better. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except that she was home, out of the damn mine and even the slivers were gone.

      “I don’t want your money, Adelaide.” He checked to make sure the door leading to the porch was locked.

      “Then I’ll give you something else.” What? A homemade pie? A meal? She felt she had to compensate him, if only to keep from thinking of him too kindly. She definitely didn’t want to feel she was in his debt.

      “What exactly did you have in mind?” he drawled.

      She heard the teasing note in his voice and covered a yawn. “How about my firstborn child?”

      He hesitated at the foot of her bed. “Your future husband might have a problem with that.”

      “Don’t worry. I won’t ever have another husband.” She frowned as she followed that thought to its obvious conclusion. “Oh! And that means I probably won’t have a baby, either.” Somehow that seemed sad, but she was flying so high she refused to worry about it.

      “So...what would you like?” Her eyelids drooped and she felt herself slipping away. “I’ve got to...have something...you want.” That hadn’t come out right. It sounded suggestive even though she didn’t mean it that way. Surely he’d interpret it correctly.

      “After the past half hour, that’s not a fair question to ask me,” he said, and then he was gone.

      5

      Chief Stacy banged on the door first thing the next morning. Gran, always an early riser, was up, despite having gone to bed in the wee hours. Regardless of the challenges she faced, she clung rigidly to her routine.

      When Adelaide heard her greet the police chief and invite him in, she buried her head beneath the pillow. Her whole body ached, and she was so tired. She wanted to sleep for a week, not drag herself out of bed to answer a million questions. Now that she was safe and had some perspective on the past thirty hours, she could plainly see that whoever had dropped her into that mine shaft meant to give her a warning, nothing more. He’d hit her, but only when she fought him. He’d probably assumed she could climb out and make her way home. It was even possible, had she not returned to town, that he would’ve come to make sure she didn’t die. If he’d really been planning to kill her, he could just as easily have tossed her in the river.

      You tell anyone about graduation and I’ll kill you. I’ll stab the old lady, too. Do you understand me?

      What would be the point of those words if he believed she wouldn’t be around to talk?

      Too bad he didn’t know he’d gone to the effort of abducting her for nothing. She wasn’t going to say a word about what happened when she was sixteen—with or without the possibility of imminent danger. He’d only succeeded in creating a mystery for everyone else to solve. Thanks to him, she had Chief Stacy to contend with.

      Way to cause more problems....

      “I would’ve called you when she got home, but I didn’t want to wake you in the middle of the night,” she heard Gran explain.

      “Like I told you this morning, I’m available whenever you need me,” he responded. “Goes with the job.”

      Adelaide could almost see him puffing out his chest as he spoke and would’ve rolled her eyes if her head wasn’t already under her pillow.

      “You’re so devoted,” Gran gushed. “Whiskey Creek is lucky to have you.”

      Which was, no doubt, the compliment he’d been fishing for.

      Or maybe he was being sincere. Maybe Adelaide was just in a terrible mood.

      “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

      “You bet. Your coffee’s the best in town.”

      “Better than Black Gold down the street?” she asked in surprise.

      “As good,” he hedged.

      Now Adelaide knew he was full of shit. Gran’s coffee wasn’t one of her better offerings; it was basic and cheap because she couldn’t tell the difference.

      “Then I’d like to speak with Adelaide, if possible,” Stacy was saying.

      “Of course. I’ll tell her so she can get dressed.”

      Her grandmother’s walker thumped as she moved down the wooden hallway and stopped at her door. She didn’t bother to knock. She didn’t see the point in giving Adelaide any privacy. Adelaide would always be her little girl; it didn’t matter if she was three or thirty.

      “Addy?” she said, poking her head in. “Chief Stacy’s here. He’d like a word with you.”

      Static electricity made strands of her hair stand up when she set her pillow aside. “I heard. I’m coming.”

      “You have a few minutes while I get him some coffee.”

      A few minutes? She’d barely be able to dress and comb her hair. Knowing she must look like she’d been dragged behind a horse, she swallowed a sigh. “Be right there.”

      Clomp. Shuffle. Clomp. Shuffle. The noise from Gran and her walker receded as Adelaide kicked off the covers and sat up. She expected a headache. She’d had a whopper of one last night. But her head seemed to be the only part of her body that didn’t hurt.

      Thank God for small favors.

      She dressed in a pair of jeans and an orange tee, gingerly avoiding all the bandages Noah had applied, as well as the memory of his sure, gentle hands applying them. Then she went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth and pulled her hair back before making her way into the living room.

      Chief