LITMIR.BIZ

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get there. She half jumped, half fell from the running board down to the ground, a distance of about three feet since the truck was angled high on the left.

      She had lost the hat and her golden hair caught the light from the sun. Her legs were long and slender in jeans and boots. Clinging to the door for only a second to get her balance, she looked to see them approaching, pushed her loose hair out of her face, and started climbing up the side of the ditch to meet them on the road.

      Micah slowed, Blue opened the door, and she got in before they even came to a stop. Her eyes met his for one direct instant, as if to see who he was. Or whether he could help her.

      They were gray, storm-cloud eyes with a sure purpose. That was clear even through the fear and relief.

      “Girl, you are mighty lucky,” Micah said. “I thought you was a goner for sure. Scared me half to death.”

      “Baby,” she said, gasping for air. “Couldn’t bear to hit it.”

      She pointed down the road while she dragged in enough breath to talk more. “Go, Micah,” she said. “Shane’s in trouble again.”

      Her voice was a little bit low, with a catch in it.

      Micah blurted, “Damn,” and stepped on the gas.

      Blue reached behind her, with the truck already moving again, and slammed the door closed. The woman’s slender body fell into the curve of his arm. That was such an unfamiliar sensation it roused his instinct to really hold her. That and the fact that she was shaking. Her back pressed against his taut bicep, but she didn’t seem aware of him.

      “He got drugs again?” Micah asked.

      Sympathy twinged in Blue. She cared about somebody like Dannie.

      “He’s got a gun and he’s holding his girlfriend hostage. We’ve reached a whole new low.”

      Now her voice sounded cold as a rock on the bottom of the river. Anger. It was anger that had her trembling.

      “That stupid-ass Jason is no di-rector at all,” Micah said.

      The woman bent over and slammed her thighs with her fists. Her hair fell forward and pooled in Blue’s lap, then she raised her head and it whipped past his face.

      It smelled like flowers. That and the woman-scent of her skin went all through him. Fragrance from another universe.

      She arched her back, twisted up to fish something out of her pocket, dropped back down and scraped her hair away from her face with both hands. She pulled it all together and fastened it flat against her neck with a heavy silver clip.

      “I have such a rage in me I could wreck the world,” she said, slamming her fists on her thighs again.

      Micah shot her a sideways glance.

      “You done wrecked your truck,” he said. “Ain’t that enough?”

      She shook her head and stared straight ahead with her lips pressed together. Too near tears now to talk, probably.

      Or not. With her hair out of the way Blue could see the pure line of her jaw. Hard and determined.

      Blue moved his arm and braced his hand against the door frame to hold himself away from her, trying to give her some room and still keep his legs out of the stick shift but they were all three jammed together in the narrow old cab and there was no space to put between them. Her thigh trembled against his.

      “What the hell else am I supposed to do?” she cried. “What can I do?”

      “Honey, you’re doin’ all you can,” Micah said. “It’s like a man who’s a slave to whiskey.”

      She whipped her head around to look at him and leaned across Blue to get even closer as if Micah had to see her lips to hear her.

      “I can’t come this far and fail,” she said. “I can’t. I won’t. I’ve given everything I’ve got to this fight for two years and I’m not quitting now. What else can I do?”

      Her face was so close to Blue’s her breath was warm on his chin. He could see that she was not wearing one speck of makeup and she was beautiful.

      He also could see that her eyes were full of tears but she wouldn’t let them spill out. He admired that.

      Like her jawline, her cheekbones showed strong underneath her light tan. Her eyelashes were long and thick, much darker than her hair, and the wing of her brow made a perfect arch that he wanted to trace with his fingertip.

      “Who called you?” Micah asked.

      “Tracie. She said it all started about two hours ago. Gordon told her not to call me but she couldn’t bear it—she thought I had a right to know.”

      Andie Lee’s breath came more easily now.

      “I just went to the post office,” she said. “I can’t even go to town for two hours without getting a call that he’s in trouble again. Micah, I want to throttle him. I have worked twenty-four/seven for years for his sake and he has no more gratitude or appreciation or consideration for me than my hateful cat does.”

      Micah drove faster. The trailer lurched along behind them with the roan standing quiet for once. Blue wished he would act up just to draw her attention away from all this pain.

      “Shane and the girl may only want a little time together,” Micah said, trying to soothe her.

      “Not if Lisa’s begging for help and Jason’s calling the highway patrol in here.”

      The words snapped off her tongue.

      “Then let the highway patrol handle it,” Micah said.

      She flashed him a look that would melt metal.

      “They—and wise Gordon—have been trying to handle it for over an hour.”

      Blue took a quick glance at her face. Evidently she didn’t think much of Gordon.

      “I’m his mother,” she said, with that same natural dignity that held back her tears. “They should let me talk to him.”

      That shocked Blue. His mother? How old was she, anyway? This Shane must be a teenager or nearly so if he was taking girls hostage at gunpoint.

      If he’d thought about it, he would’ve guessed she was in her twenties. He sneaked another look while she leaned across him toward Micah again.

      “They should let me talk to him. Gordon’s been trying to do it himself, since they don’t have a professional negotiator in here yet. Tracie said he’s so furious with Jason for calling in the law that he’s about to strangle him.”

      She could be thirty, maybe. There were tiny crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes.

      Micah drove faster. They careened around a turn that led off to the west long before they got near the main headquarters.

      “What kind of gun is it?” Micah asked. “Where in hell did he get it?”

      “A handgun, a twenty-two,” she said. “Where and how he got it, I don’t have a clue. I know the counselors can’t watch them every second, but they could do better than this.”

      Now the whole length of her leg lay smooth and warm against Blue’s.

      “He’s a big boy and nobody can control him, honey,” Micah said.

      Andie Lee jerked away from him and leaned forward in a sudden movement as if to make the truck go faster. She stared through the windshield into the distance.

      Blue felt a chill. The line of her body reminded him of Rose’s long ago, yearning into the dark from their tiny front porch in Tahlequah, willing her darling Dannah to appear out of the night.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      “I TOLD GORDON instead of building that goddamn rehab center

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