LITMIR.BIZ

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Graves told him. “We all make mistakes. Come along, Mr. Tarleton. We’ve got a nice new jail cell for you to live in while we get ready to put you on trial.”

      “She’s lying!” Tarleton raged, red-faced.

      Sassy came out with John just behind her. The ordeal she’d endured was so evident that the men in the room grimaced at just the sight of her. Tarleton stopped shouting. He looked sick.

      “Do you mind if I say something to him, Chief Graves?” Sassy asked in a hoarse tone.

      “Not at all,” the lawman replied.

      She walked right up to Tarleton, with her green eyes glittering with fury, drew back her hand, and slapped him across the mouth as hard as she could. Then she turned on her heel and walked right back to the counter, picked up a sack of seed corn that she’d left there when the assault began, and went back to work.

      The three men glanced from her to Tarleton. Their faces wore identical expressions.

      “I’ll get a good lawyer!” Tarleton said belligerently.

      “You’ll need one,” John promised him, in a tone so full of menace that the man backed up a step.

      “I’ll sue you for assault!” he said from a safe distance.

      “The corporation’s attorneys will enjoy the exercise,” John told him coolly. “One of them graduated from Harvard and spent ten years as a prosecutor specializing in sexual assault cases.”

      Tarleton looked sick.

      Graves took him outside. John turned to McGuire.

      The man in the suit rammed his hands into his pockets and grimaced. “I’ll never be able to make that up to her,” he said heavily.

      “You might tell her that you recommended raising her salary,” John replied.

      “It’s the least I can do,” he agreed. “That new employee of yours—Buck Mannheim. He’s sharp. I learned things I didn’t know just from spending a half hour talking to him. He’ll be an asset.”

      John nodded. “He retired too soon. Sixty-five is no great age these days.” He glanced toward the back, where Sassy was moving things around. “She needs to see a doctor.”

      “Did Tarleton…?” McGuire asked with real concern.

      John shook his head. “But he would have. If I’d walked in just ten minutes later…” His face paled as he considered what would have happened. “Damn that man! And damn me! I should have realized he’d do something stupid to get even with her!”

      “I should have realized, too,” McGuire added. “Don’t beat yourself to death. There’s enough guilt to share. Dr. Bates is next to the post office. He has a clinic. He’ll see her. He’s been her family physician since she was a child.”

      “I’ll take her right over there.”

      Sassy looked up when John approached her. She looked terrible, but she wasn’t crying anymore. “Is he going to fire me?” she asked John.

      “What in hell for? Almost getting raped?” he exclaimed. “Of course not. In fact, he’s mentioned getting you a raise. But right now, he wants you to go to the doctor and get checked out.”

      “I’m okay,” she protested. “And I have a lot of work to do.”

      “It can wait.”

      “I don’t want to see Dr. Bates,” she said.

      He shrugged. “We’re both pretty determined about this. I don’t really think you’d like the way I deal with mutiny.”

      She stuck her hands on her slender hips. “Oh, yeah? Let’s see how you deal with it.”

      He smiled gently. Before she could say another word, he picked her up very carefully in his arms and walked out the front door with her.

      CHAPTER THREE

      “YOU can’t do this!” Sassy raged as he walked across the street with her, to the amusement of an early morning shopper in front of the small grocery store there.

      “You won’t go voluntarily,” he said philosophically. He looked down at her and smiled gently. “You’re very pretty.”

      She stopped arguing. “W…what?”

      “Pretty,” he repeated. “You’ve got grit, too.” He chuckled. “I wish you’d half-closed that hand you hit Tarleton with, though.” The smile faded. “That piece of work should be thrown into the county detention center wearing a sign telling what he tried to do. They’d pick him up in a shoebox.”

      Her small hands clung to his neck. “I didn’t see it coming,” she said, still in shock. “He pushed me into the tack room and locked the door. Before I could save myself, he pushed me back into the feed sacks and started kissing me and trying to get inside my blouse. I never thought I’d get away. I was fighting for all I was worth…” She swallowed hard. “Men are so strong. Even pudgy men like him.”

      “I should have seen it coming,” he said, staring ahead with a set face. “A man like that doesn’t go quietly. This could have been a worse tragedy than it already is.”

      “You saved me.”

      He looked down into her wide, green eyes. “Yes. I saved you.”

      She managed a wan smile. “Funny. I was just talking to Selene—my mother’s little ward—about how Prince Charming would come and rescue me one day.” She studied his handsome face. “You do look a little like a prince.”

      His eyebrow jerked. “I’m too tall. Princes are short and stubby, mostly.”

      “Not in movies.”

      “Ah, but that’s not real life.”

      “I’ll bet you don’t know a single prince.”

      She’d have been amazed. He and his brother had rubbed elbows with crowned heads of Europe any number of times. But he couldn’t admit that, of course.

      “You could be right,” he agreed easily.

      He paused to open the door with one hand with Sassy propped on his knee. He walked into the doctor’s waiting room with Sassy still in his arms and went up to the receptionist behind her glass panel. “We have something of an emergency,” he said in a low tone. “She’s been the victim of an assault.”

      “Sassy?” the receptionist, a girl Sassy had gone to school with, exclaimed. She took one look at the other girl’s face and went running to open the door for John. “Bring her right in here. I’ll get Dr. Bates!”

      The doctor was a crusty old fellow, but he had a kind heart and it showed. He asked John to wait outside while he examined his patient. John stood in the hall, staring at anatomy charts that lined the painted concrete block wall. In no time the sliding door opened and he motioned John back into the cubicle.

      “Except for some understandable emotional upset, and a few light bruises, she’s not too hurt.” The doctor glowered. “I would like to see her assailant spend a few months or, better yet, a few years, in jail, however.”

      “So would I,” John told him, looking glittery and full of outrage. “In fact, I’m going to work on that.”

      The doctor nodded. “Good man.” He turned to Sassy, who was quiet and pale now that her ordeal was over and reaction was starting to set in. “I’m going to inject you with a tranquilizer. I want you to go home and lie down for the rest of the day.” He held up a hand when she protested. “Selene’s in school and your mother will cope. It’s not a choice, Sassy,” he added as he leaned out of the cubicle and motioned to a nurse.

      While he was giving the nurse orders, John stuck his hands in his jeans pockets and looked down at Sassy. She had grit and style, for a woman raised

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