Cowboy Comes Home. Rachel Lee
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a lot of effort for her to find her voice. “Thanks, Mary Jo. This is what I needed.”
“Good. If I think of anything else, I’ll call you. But you know, Miss Anna, I haven’t been over there since. When my dad heard that Mr. Lacey had tried to tickle me, he flat put his foot down about me ever going there again.”
“Your dad is right, Mary Jo. Absolutely right. Don’t go over there again.”
When she hung up the phone, her hands were shaking. She looked down at the little puppy curled contentedly on her lap and tried to drag herself back to the present. But it was so difficult. Memories long buried were beating on the doors of her mind, demanding recognition.
Sleet rattled sharply against the window, and the wind moaned sorrowfully. A draft snaked across the floor and wrapped around her ankles, causing her to shiver. She needed to change. She needed to get into something warm and comfortable, and make herself some dinner. She needed to get busy so she could take control again and push the memories away. And she needed to figure out what she was going to do about Lorna.
It was going to be a long night.
In the morning, the world was covered with a clear, sparkling glaze of ice. Anna looked out her window and wondered how she was going to get to work or to the sheriff’s office. Not only did she not have a car, but it looked too treacherous even to walk.
She’d spent a disturbed night, sleeping fitfully, almost as if she were a child again, afraid that the bedroom door might open at any moment. Afraid that another night of fear and humiliation was about to begin.
She wondered if Lorna had slept any better at the sheriff’s house. She hoped so.
Jazz was startled by the ice out back, slipping and sliding and looking at Anna with confused dismay. She finally managed to find purchase on some blades of grass that were poking up, and made a little puddle and a little pile. Anna praised her extravagantly, causing the puppy’s tail to wag like a racing metronome.
While Jazz ate breakfast, Anna made herself some coffee and poached an egg. She was just getting ready to sit down when the phone rang.
“Anna? It’s Dan. Listen, the roads are really bad this morning, so don’t even try to come to work, okay? If it melts off later, we’ll talk about whether it’s worth going in, but for now, just stay put.”
“You won’t get any argument from me.”
“Enjoy the break,” he added. “I intend to. I’ve got this new computer game I’ve been dying to try. Talk to you later.”
Anna ate her egg and a piece of whole wheat toast and wondered how she would fill her day, since she couldn’t go anywhere. Plus there was the problem of Lorna, and she was really reluctant to let matters ride another day. What the child needed more than anything in the world right now was to know that someone was on her side and would protect her. She didn’t need to spend even one more day alone in hell.
Making up her mind at last how she was going to handle the matter, she called the sheriff’s office and was put straight through to Nate Tate.
“Lovely day, isn’t it, sweet pea?” he asked in his deep, gravelly voice. “We’ve had a three-car pileup on the state highway, reports of cars in ditches all over the county, and half my men can’t get to work. Velma managed to make it in, though, and she’s teaching Lorna how to work the dispatch desk.”
The image of wizened, chain-smoking, blunt-talking Velma Jansen working with a soft-spoken thirteen-year-old made Anna feel like smiling for the first time that day.
“What’s Lorna think of that?”
“Unless I miss my guess, she’s thrilled. So what’s up? Are you stuck in a ditch, too?”
“No, but probably only because my car died at the church last night.”
“How’d you get home? Did you call a deputy?”
“Hugh Gallagher took me.”
“Well, that’s the next best thing. He’s one fine man.”
Anna knew she should come to the point, but she seized on Hugh as an excuse to avoid it just a little longer. “Is he?”
“You bet. He’s a bona fide war hero, you know. Everybody knows he had some head problems after the Gulf War and hid up in the mountains with those vets for a few years, but that isn’t the whole story. Anyway, for all that, he’s got his head screwed on straight. But I don’t gossip, so you’ll just have to find out the rest for yourself.”
Anna had to chuckle at that.
“Now, what’s up, sweet pea? Not that I want to rush you or anything, but you never know when there might be another pileup on the state highway. Some of those damn truckers are pushing through like that pavement is dry.”
“Well, it’s about Lorna.” She drew a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut, reminding herself to keep her own feelings out of this. She had to speak to save the girl. “I’m convinced her father is sexually molesting her.”
“So are all of us who were at that hearing yesterday. But there’s not a whole lot I can do without proof. If she won’t talk, my hands are tied.”
“I talked to one of her friends last night, Nate. And she said some things…well, I think if I tell her what I know, I might be able to persuade her to confide in me.”
He was silent for a moment. She could almost hear him ruminating. “All right. It’s worth a stab. At least if she talks to you, I’ll have something to start with. Okay, sweet pea, get into your outdoor gear.
I’ll have a deputy at your door in ten minutes.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“Damn county’s going to hell in a handbasket,” he muttered. “See you in a few minutes, Anna.”
Anna put Jazz in her cage, then dressed with trembling hands. She was about to do something she hadn’t done in fifteen years: expose her past to another person. She didn’t kid herself that she was going to get anywhere with Lorna if she didn’t. God, she hoped she had the strength to go through with it.
The deputy took longer than ten minutes to get there. More like twenty, actually. Anna was just grateful that Nate had sent a woman. Sara Ironheart apologized profusely for the delay, but said she’d had to stop at an intersection to help get a car out of the way.
“Don’t you live all the way out at the west end of the county?” Anna asked her. “How did you manage to get in this morning?”
Sara flashed her a smile. “I never got home last night. I’ve been on duty since three o’clock yesterday afternoon.”
“You must be exhausted!”
Sara shrugged. “I caught a couple of catnaps at the office.”
“Well, I hope the roads clear soon, so you can go home.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen. It looks like snow is moving in, and unless some of the other guys manage to find their way in, Nate’s going to need every one of us still here to stick it out.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an ice storm like this.”
“I don’t recall us ever having one here. Usually it’s just snow. Funny weather yesterday. Really funny.”
The chains on the tires of the Blazer clanked loudly as they drove down the ice-coated streets. The trees looked like something out of a fairy tale, encased in ice and icicles. If the sun had been out, the world would have glittered and sparkled, but overhead, leaden clouds dulled the day.
“How’s Joey doing?” Anna asked, referring to Sara’s eighteen-year-old brother. When she had