Forever A Hero. Linda Miller Lael

Concussions and busted spleens are serious. But a bag named Michael winding up in a creek? Not so much.”

      “I should call the car rental company,” she said, apparently not one for segues.

      Mace got his cell from his shirt pocket and handed it over. “If that’ll make you feel better, have at it,” he said.

      She took the phone, then simply stared down at the screen, blinking. “I don’t know their number. The contract is in the glove compartment, possibly submerged.”

      “Plenty of time to get in touch with them,” Mace said. They were almost through Mustang Creek; the turn for the hospital would be coming up in a minute or so. “Might be a good idea to call your family, however.” When she didn’t answer right away, he offered suggestions—with an agenda. “Your folks? Husband? Boyfriend?”

      She huffed out a frustrated breath. “My parents are on a cruise through the Greek Islands,” she said. He caught the sidelong look she threw his way, although he was still gazing straight ahead, slowing for the turnoff. “And I don’t have a husband or a boyfriend, for your information.” A few seconds passed. “Do you?”

      He laughed, swinging onto the paved stretch leading to the hospital. “Do I have a husband or a boyfriend?”

      She worked up a good glare, but it fizzled into a wobbly smile before they reached the parking lot near the entrance to the emergency room. “I was joking,” she said.

      “I laughed, didn’t I?” Mace parked the truck, shut off the engine, then came around to her side to open the door and help her down. This time, she let him, and as soon as her feet touched the ground, she swayed and put a hand to her forehead.

      Mace slipped an arm around her waist, supporting her. Once again, he considered carrying her; once again, he dismissed the idea as too risky.

      “I’m just a little dizzy,” she murmured as they entered the well-lit reception area. “No big deal.”

      Ellie Simmons was behind the desk, and she stood immediately. She and Mace had gone to school together.

      “I don’t have my ID or my insurance card,” said the woman whose name Mace suddenly realized he didn’t know.

      “She was in an accident,” he told Ellie, relieved by his friend’s affable competence. “South of town.”

      Ellie rounded the long desk and conjured up a wheelchair, eased the patient into the seat. “What about you, Mace?” she asked. “You hurting anywhere?”

      Mace shoved a hand through his wet hair. Wet as he and his companion were, he figured they might have passed for shipwreck survivors if there’d been an ocean within a thousand miles. “I just happened along,” he said.

      “I do have insurance,” the wheelchair occupant piped up.

      “We’ll get to the paperwork in good time,” Ellie said, already wheeling the new arrival away from Mace toward an examination room. She bent her head, addressing the patient. “What’s your name, honey?”

      The passenger hesitated long enough to prompt an exchange of glances between Ellie and Mace. Ellie raised an eyebrow at him in silent question.

      Mace shrugged. “I have no idea.”

      “Kelly,” the woman in the wheelchair said in the tone of someone experiencing a revelation. “Kelly Wright.”

      “Well, Kelly Wright,” Ellie said as they disappeared into the ER, “you’re in luck. Dr. Draper is on duty tonight, and she’s the best.”

      Mace watched until they were gone, suppressing an urge to follow, ask a lot of questions, make damn sure Sheila Draper ran all the right tests.

      Whatever the right tests happened to be.

      Since Ms. Wright still had his cell, he went to the pay phone, a near relic in this day and age, dug in his jeans pocket for coins and called his friend Spence Hogan, Mustang Creek’s chief of police.

      Spence took a while getting to the phone. When he did, he spoke in his usual brusque manner. “Hey, Mace,” he said. “What’s going on?”

      Mace explained, none too succinctly.

      “Sam Helgeson called it in five minutes ago,” Spence said. “I’ve already got a squad car and a wrecker on the way.” He paused. “You okay, buddy?”

      “I’m fine,” Mace said. Where had he heard that before?

      “You sure? You sound pretty jumpy to me.”

      Mace gave a long sigh. “I’m sure,” he said.

      “Hold on a second,” Spence muttered. “Deputy Brenner’s on the radio. He’s at the scene.”

      Mace waited. He heard some back-and-forth on Spence’s end, although he couldn’t make out what was said. He was too busy wondering what was going on with Kelly Wright back there in the exam room and, at the same time, rifling through his mental files, which—when it came to women, were considerable—in search of a connection.

      He came up dry.

      He’d probably known half a dozen Kellys in his time, gone to school with a few of them, dated one or two on the rodeo circuit, but the name Wright didn’t ring a single bell.

      Spence came back on the line. “You said there was only one woman in the car before it went over the bank, right? No other passengers?”

      “Just her,” Mace replied. “Doc Draper’s checking her out now.”

      Spence released an audible breath.

      “What?” Mace prompted, worried by Spence’s hesitation.

      “According to my deputy,” Spence said, “he and the tow truck driver were taking some personal items out of the car when they smelled gas. They hightailed it uphill with whatever they’d managed to gather, and it’s a good thing, because the rig burst into flames and then blew sky-high. Fire department’s on the way, to make sure it doesn’t spread. Thank God for this rain.”

      Mace squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again. “Christ,” he breathed, the blaze as vivid in his mind as if he’d witnessed it. He thought how close he’d come to stopping by his favorite bar for a beer after his afternoon meeting with the guy who maintained his website, how he’d have lingered there awhile, shooting the shit with friends and neighbors, maybe playing a round or two of pool. If he hadn’t remembered that Harry, the family’s longtime cook and housekeeper, was serving her legendary sloppy joes for supper that night, if he’d thought there’d be leftovers once his two older brothers, Slater and Drake, ate their fill—

      If.

      Most likely, the Wright woman—Kelly—would’ve been trapped, unable to push open the driver’s door, with the rig on a slant like that. She would have gone over the cliff along with her car and, if by some miracle she’d survived the rollovers without losing consciousness, burned to death.

      He swore under his breath.

      “Reckon this makes you a hero,” Spence put in, gravely wry.

      “I was there, that’s all,” Mace said. “Right time, right place. You would have done the same thing if you’d been there, and so would just about everybody else around here.”

      “Just about everybody,” Spence noted with a very slight emphasis on the middle word.

      Mace made no comment. Every town had its lightweights, and Mustang Creek was no exception, but that was beside the point. All that mattered now was that the Wright woman hadn’t gone rolling down that hillside with the car. She’d walked away, still breathing, possibly in need of some patching up, but alive.

      A shudder went through Mace, reminding him that his clothes were soaked through, clinging to his hide, clammy and cold. He was hungry, he was tired to the marrow of his bones and he was damn grateful that fate, so often fickle,