The Lawman. Martha Shields

tie lay against a chest that looked hard even through the severely white shirt he wore. So, of course, that was exactly what she noticed. That, and the way his eyes didn’t look quite so densely brown because the sunlight—still bright and hot even at that hour—was shining almost directly in his face.

      His thick, spiky lashes were narrowed around that gleam of coffee-brown that seemed focused directly on her.

      “Are you always so intense?” Her face flamed and she cursed her wayward tongue.

      He closed his hands over the door, seeming oblivious to the hot metal, and leaned down a little so he could look into the car. “When I’m after something I want.”

      His hair truly was black, she thought faintly. There wasn’t the least bit of gold, nor red, nor brown in the thick shock of it that looked in danger of tumbling over his forehead if not for the way it was brushed severely back from his hard face.

      She needed therapy. That’s all there was to it. She absolutely, positively could not be physically attracted to this man. She could not be wondering if he brought that single-minded focus into matters of the personal kind.

      The intimate kind.

      She hadn’t felt a flicker of desire for anyone in so long that she wasn’t even sure that’s what she was feeling now. Only the curling in her stomach as she dragged her gaze from the very masculine hands not ten inches from her shoulder made a mockery of that particular notion.

      “And you want Harriet’s killer,” she finished. It took two tries before she managed to fit her key in the ignition.

      He was silent so long that she turned to look at him. Only to find that intense gaze focused on her face once more.

      Her mouth ran dry and she swallowed. Reminded herself harshly that this man, Deputy Holt Tanner, represented everything that she’d left. No, that she’d been forced to flee.

      “Yeah. I want her killer.” His lips twisted. “I want…a lot of things. But that’ll do for now.” He straightened and thumped the door with his palm before finally removing his hands. “Have fun with your reading group. I’ll be by the library first thing tomorrow.”

      Then he was stepping away from the car, sliding off his jacket and hitching it over his shoulder with his thumb as he walked away.

      She closed her eyes for a moment, willing her heart to stop racing, her stomach to stop jumping. When she opened them again, the deputy was no longer in sight.

      She told herself she was glad.

      Chapter Four

      Holt saw Molly’s car on the side of the highway and immediately slowed, pulling up behind her.

      It was nearly midnight. He’d followed her when she’d left the library. He hadn’t expected to make a second trip into Whitehorn that day, but that’s where she headed, so that’s where he’d followed. As far as he was concerned, the second trip was a lot more worthwhile than the wild-goose chase that Dave Reingard had sent him on for the first one.

      Once Molly reached her destination that evening, for three hours he’d sat in his dust-covered truck far enough away to avoid suspicion outside a large house that he happened to know was a domestic-abuse shelter. He grimly speculated over what Molly was doing inside.

      Reading group?

      He’d doubted it.

      Once he’d seen her leave—she’d stood in the front and chatted for a solid twenty minutes with two other women before driving away—he’d left his truck and walked over to the shelter where he’d had a brief chat with the director of the facility.

      Angel Ramirez had been annoyingly closemouthed. The only useful thing she had imparted was her comment that there were some volunteers—women who’d escaped their lives of abuse—who met with the current residents in group sessions to help reinforce their belief in a life other than what they’d been enduring.

      Afterward he’d pulled into a coffee shop and stared into a cup of coffee, his twisted mind easily conjuring images of the kinds of horrors that those “volunteers” had probably endured.

      That Molly had endured.

      There was a time when Holt would have gone into a bar and tossed back a shot or two of whiskey to dull the images. But not anymore. He’d given up drinking around the same time he’d given up a lot of other things.

      When he finally hit the road, he sure as hell hadn’t expected to come across Molly’s car on the highway, long after she’d already departed Whitehorn.

      She should have been home, safe and sound in bed.

      The relief he felt when his headlights illuminated the shape of her sitting behind the wheel was all out of proportion. Yeah, it was late. And yeah, she was a good fifteen miles outside of Rumor. He would be concerned about the safety of any woman stopped alone like this on the side of a highway.

      The rationalizations were sound, the relief inside him way beyond rationalizing.

      He left the engine and the lights going, and walked up the side of the road, giving her plenty of time to see him.

      Her window was rolled down, and he could see her fingers flexing around the steering wheel. Her face was a wash of ivory, her hair a gleam of moonlight as she turned to look at him when he stopped beside the car.

      “Having problems?”

      At least she wasn’t startled by him. Nor did she look exactly thrilled to see him.

      “The engine quit.”

      “Have you called a tow?”

      The glance she cast him was brief. “Yes, Deputy, I called a tow. I stuck my head out the window and yelled at the very top of my voice. I’m sure someone heard and will be along shortly.”

      “You don’t have a cell phone.”

      “No.”

      “Nearly everyone has a cell phone these days.”

      “I don’t. Nobody needs to call me.”

      “And there is nobody you need to call.”

      “Assistant librarians don’t earn enough money to spend it on unnecessary luxuries.”

      “You’re head librarian now. And what about emergencies like this?”

      “I could have walked.”

      “In the middle of the night? Fifteen miles?”

      “If I had to.”

      She might, at that, he thought, and refrained from giving her the lecture about safety that automatically sprang to mind. “Pop the hood.”

      “Why?”

      He shoved his fingers through his hair. The woman could give lessons in being suspicious. Not that he was one to talk. “To see if we can’t get this bucket of bolts going again.”

      “My car is not a bucket of bolts.” Her voice was defensive. Nevertheless, he heard the distinctive pop of the hood release when she pulled it.

      He bent over a little, looking past her into the car at the dash.

      She stiffened like a shot. “What are you doing?”

      “Making sure your gas gauge isn’t reading empty.”

      “I’m not that foolish.”

      But she might have been that distracted. Along with Angel Ramirez’s other miserly details, she had told him the group session that night had been particularly grueling.

      He headed back to his truck. The opening of her car door was easily audible over the engine he’d left running.

      “You’re not l-leaving?”

      “No.” He pulled open his door and retrieved his flashlight.