He started over to where his deputy was, running bent over, dodging in and out among the art display easels, boots crunching on the broken glass with a sound that made his teeth grate and his skin shiver, like fingernails on slate.

Tom saw him coming and diverted him with a gesture, a sweep of his thumb toward the broken window. “She’s okay, Sheriff-she’s inside.”

His voice was hoarse and out-of-breath, but Roan took note of the fact that it looked like excitement, and not fear, that had the kid’s cheeks and eyes lit up like Christmas morning. His greenest deputy had come through his baptism of fire with flying colors, and Roan made a mental note to make sure he got commended for his bravery when all this was over.

Right now, he had other things on his mind. One thing.

Calling her name softly, he stepped through the broken-out window. The salon seemed dim to him after the bright midday sunshine, so he took off his sunglasses and tucked them in his pocket. He could smell some kind of perfume-hair products, he thought, from the different sizes and colors of plastic bottles that were scattered all over the place, oozing their contents onto the black-and-white vinyl tile floor. He walked over glass from a shattered display case, and shredded flowers from the blue-and-white vase that had sat on top of it. He saw a broken mirror, and a rack of magazines lying on its side. But he still didn’t see Mary.

Well, hell. Vibrating with an urgent need to see for himself that she was all right, he crossed to the doorway and moved the pink ruffled curtain aside with the back of his hand. Called her name again. She didn’t answer, but he could hear water running, and he could see a light on in the combination restroom and janitor’s closet off the storeroom. The door was standing partway open. He went to it and tapped on it with his knuckle. “Mary? You in there?”

The door opened wider. He didn’t know what he’d expected-to find her cowering somewhere in a corner, quivering like a trapped rabbit, maybe? He should have known that wouldn’t be Mary’s style-though to be honest, he didn’t exactly know what her style might be. Most of the time he had known her, she’d been pretending to be somebody else.

She was standing in front of the sink, not cowering at all, calmly drying her hands with a paper towel.

“Are you okay?” Roan asked gently.

She turned her head to look at him. “Yes, I’m fine.” Her voice was calm, but her eyes were too bright and the skin on her face looked stretched and shiny. Her color was uneven in a way that was too pretty to be called blotchy-shades ranging from alabaster to the delicate pink of seashells and rose petals, with some deeper pink edging her nose and around her eyes. She had a tiny cut on one cheek, still oozing blood. Roan’s belly burned when he saw that.

Lord, how he wanted to go to her, put his arms around her. The desire to hold her was so powerful his muscles quivered with it. But there was something…a kind of shell around her-pride, maybe, or shock or self-control-he’d seen it before in victims of violence. He knew how fragile she was, and how much she didn’t want to break.

So he kept to a safe distance and said in the gruff but gentle voice he used for comforting victims, “Everything’s under control now, Mary. You’re gonna be okay.” He paused, dipped his head toward her, made a gesture with his hand toward the cut on her cheek. “You need to have that looked at.”

She shook her head. “Just a scratch.” She folded a fresh paper towel and pressed it against her cheek. Then she darted a look at him with eyes hard and green as glacier ice and softly asked, “Did you get him?”

He shook his head-once, quick and hard. “But we will,” he promised grimly, then added in a gentler tone, “Right now, though, I’m gonna need you to come with me.”

She didn’t question, simply nodded. He moved aside to let her pass, reached to shut off the bathroom light, then closed in beside her again.

He couldn’t have imagined how hard it would be, walking beside her like that, close enough to protect her, trying not to crowd her too much…wanting-needing to touch her, knowing he didn’t dare…and the frustration of that gnawing at him, a sharp fierce ache in his belly.

“Is there anything here you need?” he asked her as they made their way through the ruined salon.

“My purse.”

“Okay, where is it?”

“I’ll get it.”

He waited while she stepped carefully through the spilled bottles and broken glass to retrieve her purse from a bottom drawer in one of her stations, then motioned her toward the door and opened it for her. She looked up at him as she slipped past him. “Where are you taking me?”

“Someplace safe.”

“Are you going to put me in jail?” Her voice sounded stifled, as if her teeth wanted to chatter and she was determined not to let them.

“No,” Roan said, keeping his narrow-eyed gaze focused over her head as he took his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. “Not that.”

He was pretty sure what he’d told her was right, and that whoever had shot at her was long gone, but just to be sure he kept his body between hers and the street as he walked her quickly to his car, hustled her inside and slammed the door. He went around to the driver’s side, then waited for Tom Daggett to make his way over to him from across the street, jogging through the maze of parked police vehicles and crime-scene tape.

“No sign of the shooter, Sheriff,” Tom said, and Roan could have sworn the deputy’s voice had deepened some since the last time he’d heard it. “Found some shell casings upstairs in one of the buildings. And we got a witness a couple streets over says he saw a man run down the alley and jump in a cream-colored SUV, take off like a bat outa hell. Says the guy was carrying a huntin’ rifle, but he didn’t think anything of it, just thought he musta been in the parade.”

Roan nodded. He could understand that reasoning well enough; there was more than one gun club participating in the parade most years. Boyd, his own father-in-law, would most likely have been marching with the Old West Gun Club he belonged to, if he hadn’t had to stay home with Susie Grace because she hated crowds, particularly crowds of out-of-towners, crowds of strangers who weren’t used to her and therefore likely to stare and ask insensitive questions.

“Keep on with the canvas,” he said to Tom. “And get the description of that SUV to the State Police right away. Then get this place secured. You’re gonna have your hands full with crowd control once the parade’s over. Folks are gonna be coming to see what all the fuss was about. I’ll leave that in your hands.” He jerked his head toward the woman sitting like a statue in the front seat of his SUV. “I’m taking off for a while-taking Mary to a safe house. Nobody’s gonna know where but me, so don’t ask. If you need me, you know how to reach me, but unless it’s a break in this case or a dire emergency, it can wait.”

“Okay, Sheriff.” Deputy Daggett all but saluted, trying hard not to look tickled to death Roan had put him in charge.

Roan got in the car and slammed the door on more of his deputy’s earnest assurances all would be taken care of in his absence. Without looking at his silent passenger, he started up the SUV, put it in gear and backed out of the street along the curb, the way he’d come in. Once he had the vehicle pointed forward again, he glanced over at Mary and growled, “Fasten your seatbelt.”

She obeyed, then fired back breathlessly, “What are you mad at me for?”

“I’m not-” He made a breath-sound like a tire going flat, then hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “Dammit, Mary, I’m not mad at you. I’m just mad.”

Scared, he silently corrected himself. Scared spitless. Because it had almost happened again. Someone had almost taken the life of a woman he cared about and was responsible for protecting. Still could. Because it looked like he wasn’t any better at keeping this woman safe than he had been Erin.

Chapter 13

“Dammit, Mary,” Roan said, “you were supposed to stay inside. What the hell were you doing out there? A sidewalk sale, for God’s sake. What were you thinking?”

Belonging. I wanted to be a part of it…the town, the celebration. I just wanted to…belong.

But she thought that sounded pathetic, so she didn’t say it. Instead, she cleared her throat and contritely muttered, “I’m sorry.”

Roan glanced at her, then shook his head and gave a snort of laughter. “That has to be the worst hitman I’ve ever heard of-or you’re about the luckiest victim. The guy had a hunting rifle with a scope on it. I don’t know how the hell he missed.”

“Luck,” Mary mumbled; her tongue felt clumsy. She frowned and touched the sore place on her cheek. “Something-a jacket, I think-fell off the hanger. I bent over to pick it up. That’s when the window…” She paused, a replay of that moment coming sharp and vivid to her mind. She fought to shut it out…had to shut it out, because right behind those images she could feel it creeping closer, the emotional meltdown she’d managed so far to hold off with a combination of willpower and denial. It was about to pounce…she could feel its cold grip on her throat when she swallowed and tried to laugh. “I guess I should be dead right now.”

It seemed an eternity before Roan responded, in a voice between a growl and a murmur. “Yeah. You should.” He paused, then added grimly, “He won’t miss again.”

She stared at him, swallowing repeatedly and fighting back tears. Wishing she could see his eyes, wishing she knew how to read him. But between his hat brim, the sunglasses and the hand covering most of the lower part of his face, his emotions were well-guarded.

He flicked her another brief glance and his mouth twitched upward at one corner-a hard little smile. “That’s why we’re not going to give him a second chance. I’m getting you out of this town, right now. I’m going to put you someplace where you’ll be safe until we get this guy.”

Something shivered through her…a chilling blast of déjà vu. The small, barren room…a strange man saying, “We’re going to take you to a safe house…”

“I’m not doing this, Roan,” she said in a low, uneven voice. “I won’t do it again. Not ever.”

“Mary-”

“I don’t care!” Her voice rose, both in pitch and volume; the monster was coming and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it. “I told you. I’m tired of running…tired of hiding. I’m not going to do it. I won’t…be…alone…any…more.”

“You’re not going to be alone.” His jaw looked the way his voice sounded-rock hard. “I’m taking you to my ranch. You’ll be with me. And Boyd and Susie Grace. Think you can handle that?”

She stared at him, her mind gone blank. It was so far from what she’d expected him to say.

He let out a breath, uneven and impatient. “Look-I know it’s a little…unorthodox. But it’s the safest place I can think of right now. My place is out in the middle of nowhere, so unless this jackass comes for you by helicopter or horseback, we’re gonna see him coming a long way off. Then he’ll have to get by me or Boyd first.”

“What-” She cleared her throat carefully. She felt as if everything inside her had shaken loose. Her emotions were vulnerable…uncertain and unformed, like something newly born. “What about Susie Grace?”

There was a pause. She counted heartbeats and watched a muscle work in the side of his jaw. “Like I said,” he growled, “it’s the best I could come up with on short notice.”

Mary went on gazing at him, while those unformed thoughts and fragile feelings filled her head like a cloud of gnats…or soap bubbles. Any attempt to grasp them she knew would be futile, so she didn’t even try. Finally she said in a soft, shaking voice, “I want to go home first.” How strange to hear the word home coming out of her mouth.

“Too dangerous,” Roan said. His jaw and mouth looked implacable again. “The shooter could be waiting for you there.”

“What about my things? I have to pack.”

He shook his head. “I can pick up whatever you need later.”

Anger-with the Fates, with him, with herself for her own impotence-blew through her like pollen in the wind. She sucked in air like someone about to sneeze and gasped out, “What about Cat? I can’t just leave him-”

“Dammit, Mary!”

“Dammit, Roan!” She shot it back at him between clenched teeth, her breathing quick and shallow. “I said I’m not doing this again. I mean it. I’m not running, I’m not hiding, I’m not leaving pieces of myself behind. I’ll stay at your place, temporarily, if that’s what I need to do, but I’m not going without my stuff, and I am not going without my cat.”