"Schedule was made out last month," he answered, his voice short. "I should be off until Monday unless something happens."
"Unless the Slasher comes out again," she guessed.
"Or Caine needs help." He shrugged. "This isn"t exactly a nine-to-five job."
Anna nodded. He didn"t seem much in the mood to talk, so she wasn"t going to push it. It would have been better, though, if the silences between them didn"t feel so comfortable, despite the fact that she was mad enough to scream at him.
"How the h.e.l.l do you walk in those shoes?" he asked as they pa.s.sed a narrow alley entryway and moved along Main Street, crossing in front of the stone courthouse as she glanced down at the light pink four-inch heels that matched the light sleeveless blouse she wore beneath a gray sweater.
"Practice." Glancing up at him again, she nearly stumbled at the look of pure l.u.s.t that flashed on his face. Just as quickly, it was gone. And Anna couldn"t help herself but push. "I started wearing heels when I was twelve."
Surprise glittered in his eyes for a moment. "Isn"t that kind of young?"
She shrugged.
"Not in California," she a.s.sured him, remembering Jaci Fielding and how she had taught Anna to wear the shoes. "All the girls wore heels at Tennenbaum"s Establishment of Higher Education." She almost snickered at the name. "It was very exclusive. Every girl there but me, I believe, had been arrested at least once, done drugs at least once, and everyone I talked to claimed to have had s.e.x. At least once."
"At twelve?" He glanced at her in disbelief.
Anna sobered, frowning at the memory of the girls who were much older than their ages. "They were all very worldly. I had my first drink there, on my first night in the dorm. I had my first hit of pot there."
"At twelve?" he repeated, more than shocked now.
"I didn"t inhale," she promised with false sincerity.
"h.e.l.l, and here I thought I was wild as a kid." He could only shake his head at her. "How did you handle it, Anna?" He breathed out roughly.
For a moment, the distance that had grown between them for the past days had disappeared.
"I cried every night I was there," she sighed, feeling his hand settle lightly at the small of her back as they walked. "I would call my parents for weeks on end and beg them to let me come home. I was always begging to come home and they were always refusing."
"Until you stopped," he guessed, his voice quiet then.
Anna nodded. "Until I stopped. It was my fourteenth birthday. I"d spent every birthday alone since I turned ten. They forgot to call that night...."
"d.a.m.n," he muttered. "I never knew Robert to be so f.u.c.king cruel."
"Oh, he wasn"t cruel, and you know it," she a.s.sured him. "Just forgetful sometimes. And I hadn"t been home on my birthday since I was nine. It was the first time they forgot."
"But it wasn"t the last, was it?"
Crossing Second Street, they pa.s.sed a cafe and took the shortcut through a narrow alleyway to Third and Corbin Streets.
"No, it wasn"t the last time," she agreed. "A few days before, a few days after. A couple of times, it was like three weeks before my birthday."
His fingers rubbed at the small of her back consolingly.
"I"m sorry."
Anna shook her head, a mirthless grin tilting her lips. "I"ve been thinking about it a lot the last few days. I told Amelia I didn"t make friends, but I did. A few. Not the kind of friends you exchange cards and stuff with, but if I called, I think they would talk to me."
"I have no doubt they would, Anna," he sighed. "But you were meant to have friends. You"re too open and generous. I have no doubt you have more friends than you know."
"Well, little Callie Brock next door seems to like me okay," she admitted with a grin. "But I think she just wants an invite to the patio. Everyone is way too curious about that hidden patio, Archer."
She glanced up at him in time to catch his smirk.
"Dad always thought it was funny as h.e.l.l. The woods border the back of the house, the street on the side of the patio. It kills everyone that they can"t see in there."
They paused at the corner across from his home.
It was beautiful. Red brick, two stories, with a four-foot privacy fence around the front yard, an eight-foot fence around the small backyard, and the patio at the back corner on the street side. A heavy rock wall about six feet from the sidewalk was overgrown with ivy and wisteria in bloom. The heavy purple blooms sent a light fragrance through the air of the patio, while trailing clematis, pink and white roses, and lilac bushes and lavender plants sent a sultry scent through the air where they hid the rock wall.
Many of the homes were bordered by stone or tall wood privacy fences in Sweetrock. The people in the small town seemed to love their privacy, even as they loved living within the city limits.
"Ready?" There was a hint of amus.e.m.e.nt in his tone as he urged her across the street.
Anna stepped from the curb, following his lead as they moved across the all-but-deserted street.
It was still early in the day. Most of the small homes were empty, with only a few older couples sitting on their porches to enjoy the cool, late summer day.
Peace seemed to fill the air until it was suddenly shattered by the scream of tires and the sound of a vehicle gathering speed.
"f.u.c.k!"
Archer"s curse split the air before Anna found herself picked from her feet as he raced the last few feet across the street, only inches from a wicked black pickup that had shot from its parked position. And that wasn"t bad enough. As it shot past them, the sound of gunfire splitting the once peaceful setting a.s.sured Anna the driver wasn"t playing around.
Archer dove for the ground, covering her body with his as more shots rang out, the pelting bullets. .h.i.tting the vehicle he dragged her behind, tearing through her senses as she felt the fiery wash of pain at her thigh.
She"d been hit.
It was a distant realization as she heard Archer shouting something into the radio he kept clipped at his shoulder or at his belt whenever he left the house.
He was shouting orders, giving a plate number, and screaming at someone to get the f.u.c.k to the house. Even as he was screaming, the second the truck rounded a curve that would have put them in sight of the shooter again, he was moving.
More gunfire rang out, everything happening so fast, yet in such slow motion that Anna found herself unable to process everything going on.
Lifted against him again, as the pain that tore through her thigh nearly stole her consciousness, she found herself rushed along the side of the house and through the gate of the fence. A second later she was all but tossed into the house as Archer slammed the door behind them.
"Stay put!" he ordered as she collapsed on the kitchen floor. "I have to check the house."
A gun was shoved into her hand and Archer"s face suddenly filled her vision. "If anyone comes through that door, you shoot first and I"ll ask the questions later. And by G.o.d, you shoot to kill."
In the next heartbeat he was racing through the house.
The sound of doors slamming was only a distant awareness of his progress through the house. As she sat on the cool tile of the floor, Oscar slinked from where he hid, moved to her side, and b.u.t.ted his head against her arm for attention.
Glancing down at him, she followed his gaze to the sight of the red stain slowly spreading along the creamy stone floor.
It was her blood.
Her skirt was torn at the side. Shock was obviously keeping her from screaming in agony, she thought.
"All clear!" Archer was yelling as he moved for the kitchen once again.
Anna watched the cat.
Delicately, as though not entirely certain of the slowly, slowly spreading stain, he reached out one huge paw and batted at the thick dampness as Archer suddenly came to a stop, no more than a few feet from her.
He felt poleaxed. Almost unable to function.
"Ambulance," he snapped into the radio at his shoulder. "Now, Caine. Now, G.o.ddamm it, get an ambulance here now-Anna-"
She lifted her gaze as he suddenly knelt at her side, pushing the cat away. There was a handful of towels or clothes in his hands.
Where had they come from? she wondered.
Archer could feel the breath suspending in his lungs, the effort to breathe hard as he stared at the blood-soaked material of her skirt.
Ah G.o.d, her thigh was so delicate and small, and there was so much blood.
The sound of sirens blaring barely registered in his head.
"I think maybe it just grazed me," she said, slowly feeling the pain as it began to radiate through her leg. "It"s going to hurt like a b.i.t.c.h, huh?"
"You"re in shock, baby." He was suddenly ripping her skirt up the side and pressing the towels to the outside of her thigh. "You"re right, it"s just grazed it."
The ragged tear in her flesh had him seeing red. The knowledge of the scar it would leave was like a red flag in an enraged bull"s face.
Whatever ammo the b.a.s.t.a.r.d had used, had it actually penetrated her flesh, would have shattered bone.
"Archer, we"re coming in," Crowe yelled from outside the kitchen. "Don"t shoot, man. EMTs are with me."
The kitchen door was pushed opened hurriedly.
Dr. Krista Mayan was suddenly at his side, shooing at him, trying to push him out of the way as Anna"s fingers tightened on his wrist to hold him to her.
"I"m right here, baby," he promised, moving behind her instead, holding her to him.
His arms tightened around her as she suddenly whimpered when the doctor began to check the wound.
"I get a doctor instead of an EMT," Anna suddenly quipped, her voice thick with tears and pain as the doctor"s competent hands quickly checked the torn flesh. Krista Mayan. She"d forgotten the doctor"s mother once worked at the Corbin ranch.
"You got it, girlfriend." Krista flashed her a quick smile. "And a nice comfy ride to the clinic so we can st.i.tch up this bad boy. I"ll put a call in to Aspen and have a good friend of mine flown right in. He"s a plastic surgeon and treats trauma wounds for a living. We might get lucky and not even have a scar."
"Oh yeah." Her voice was thready and weak. "How did I rate that?"
"Because he really likes me, and I really like you," Krista a.s.sured her with a quick smile. "Now I"m going to give you something for the pain here, and it"s going to make you a little sleepy."
Archer watched as a needle pierced Anna"s arm, and the doctor injected the liquid she"d quickly pulled into the needle.
"It doesn"t hurt real bad yet, Krista," Anna a.s.sured her.
"It"s shock, hon. The shot will help us there, too." The doctor"s concerned gray eyes shot to Archer. "Let her go to sleep if she can." She turned to the door. "Get that gurney in here. Let"s move it."
Archer moved aside only long enough to allow the EMTs with the doctor to lift Anna to the gurney and strap her in.
"Bullet"s in there," Krista said hurriedly. "It"s an explosive round, Archer, and it"s not gone off. I can see the head of it, but I don"t dare touch it. Keep her calm and still. I"m radioing Aspen now."
Behind him, Crowe muttered a curse so vile that even Archer flinched.
"Motherf.u.c.ker"s dead, Archer." Crowe eased to him, danger and death surrounding him like a cloak. "Let me find him, because I"ll kill him with my bare hands."
"You"ll have to beat me to him, Crowe. Only if you beat me to him."
Waiting took years off his life.
Anna was rushed into surgery the second the ambulance pulled into the emergency entrance, and within thirty minutes the helicopter landing on the roof delivered three surgeons and two trauma-room nurses from Aspen.
Archer paced the hall outside the operating room, terrified he"d hear the explosive retort of that f.u.c.king bullet going off at any second.
If it did, she would lose her leg, and only G.o.d knew what other damage it would do. It was lodged in her upper thigh, to the side, in a perfect position to take out her spleen or her abdomen if the second projectile inside it went the wrong way.
Pacing the hall with him were Crowe; Logan and his fiancee, Skye; Rafer and his fiancee, Cami; and surprisingly, Anna"s parents and grandparents.
They"d arrived by helicopter themselves, before the doctors had even arrived.
Crowe ignored them. He was good at that.
As he paced away from the doors of the operating room again, the elevator doors slid open at the opposite end of the hall, revealing Wayne Sorenson and his daughter, Amelia.
"Archer." Amelia rushed from the elevator and moved quickly to him. "Have you heard anything?"
Archer shook his head, clasping Wayne"s hand as the other man approached him.
"Rumor"s running crazy around town," Wayne muttered. "Is it true she has an explosive-burst bullet in her thigh?"
Archer nodded tightly. "She"s with three trauma surgeons now who are experienced in removing the ammo. Evidently it"s been used several times in Aspen in the past few months. A theft from Peterson Air Force Base last spring."
"h.e.l.l." Wayne rubbed at the back of his neck as Amelia covered her trembling lips with one hand.
"I begged her to leave," she said, shaking her head slowly as her father wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his side. "She was so angry at me, Archer."
Tears welled in her eyes before she blinked them back quickly.
Archer was d.a.m.ned if he knew what to say.