LITMIR.BIZ

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kept her arm extended, and flicked her gaze down then back to his face. “How old were you when you broke your right leg? “

      Shock halted him in a way the gun hadn’t. “How’d you know about that? You Jessie-Lynn’s cousin from Casper?”

      “No, I’m …”

      “A witch then.” His already small eyes narrowed. “Gramps says there’s a bunch of them living up Buffalo way.”

      “He means Wiccans.”

      “Don’t matter what he means. How’d you know about my leg? “

      “It wasn’t set right so the bone didn’t heal properly. I’m guessing you were young and still growing. Maybe ten or eleven? “

      “Twelve.” His lip curled. “You a doctor?”

      “Yes.”

      He made a sound of disgust and spit to the side.

      Sera kept her tone and expression calm. “I see.”

      “You’re a jackass like Prichard.”

      “Only on weekends in Haight-Ashbury. Don’t make me shoot,” she said again when he lurched forward.

      The snarl became a sneer. “Doctors don’t go round shooting people, now do they, baby doll? Anyway, I think you’re lying. Saw me limping, took a lucky guess.”

      Still fifteen feet away, Sera could smell the alcohol on his breath. He whipped out a taunting arm, then laughed and feinted forward.

      Double handing the gun, Sera put pressure on the trigger. “You really don’t want me to do this.”

      “Want it more than you do, I figure. Come on, baby, show Benny what you got.”

      When he moved again, she fired. Missed him by several feet, but the shock of it had him hopping backward.

      “You ain’t no doctor, lady.” Then he stopped. “You ain’t no kind of shot either.” His eyes gleamed as he recovered lost ground. “Grab her, Danny.”

      She heard a twig crack. Waiting a beat, she plowed her elbow into the stomach of the man behind her, then spun away to fire a second shot. The bullet thwacked off a tree. From her knees—when had she lost her footing—she squeezed again.

      The Bulley with the bruised stomach bared his teeth.

      Sera knew she couldn’t win this. Both men were advancing, both were drunk and she had a feeling it was the heel of her shoe snapping off that had landed her on the ground.

      “Looks like we got a she-cat on our hands, Benny,” the bigger Bulley growled. “How ‘bout I …”

      The rest of his sentence emerged in a whoosh of air as he hit the tree behind him with enough force to send him slithering down the trunk.

      Swinging around, Logan used the butt end of his rifle on the other man’s jaw. Benny pivoted in a slow half circle before dropping like felled timber.

      “Might want to take your time getting up,” Logan suggested. His eyes were on Sera as he spoke. Holding out a hand, he drew her to her feet. “You hurt? “

      “No more than if I’d been working out with Hulk Hogan in his prime.” She waved the tip of his gun between the two prone men. “Do you do this sort of thing often then?”

      “Often enough.” Raising his voice, he said, “Lloyd and Jake are cooling off in the barn. They were smart enough to ditch their knives when they spotted me.”

      “Didn’t mean no harm, Logan.” Benny’s words were muffled by the dirt beneath his face.

      “You threatened the lady with a weapon. It’s called intent. On your feet, both of you, and into my truck.”

      “Come on, Lo …” But one look and Benny dropped his face back into the dirt. “Yeah, sure, whatever you say.”

      Danny worked himself into a squat. “I’m supposed to be stocking shelves at the grocery store tonight, Logan. Miguel won’t be happy with you.”

      Ignoring him, Logan indicated the gun in Sera’s hand. “I hope you pointed that a good long way off target.”

      “I did. Here.” She handed it over.

      “Her bullet came closer to my crotch than my knife did to any part of her,” Benny called out. “Maybe I wanna press charges myself. Against you for bringing her here and her for almost shooting my balls off.”

      “Right.” Sera extended her hand. “Give it back.”

      Logan grinned. “He’s just pissed because he’s going to be spending a couple nights in jail.”

      She wiggled her fingers. “Give it. I promise, I won’t shoot them.”

      Clearly intrigued, he relinquished the weapon.

      “Hey, wait a minute,” Benny spluttered.

      “Don’t move,” Sera said and, taking aim, sent one of the pebbles on the ground between his spread feet zinging into the bushes behind him.

      AN AMUSED LOGAN said little on the drive into town. That was fine with Sera. After changing her shoes, she climbed into his truck and let Etta James drown out the Bulley boys’ gripes.

      Apparently, the police chief planned for her to stay in his home. It made sense, but it hardly set her mind at ease. The more time she spent with him, the stronger the feeling that she should know him.

      They hadn’t met—she’d have remembered that in a minute. Seen his name then? Possibly. She could see it well enough on the lighted dash.

      Michael Richard Logan. And, ding, there went another bell. Had her memory been more compromised than she realized?

      Unable to answer that, she returned to the moment.

      The Bulleys’ grumbles grew louder the closer they got to Blue Ridge. Inside the station, Logan handed them over to his deputy, Toby, a young man with bright red hair. “Separate cells,” he said and tossed the young man the keys.

      The deputy looked like he’d rather drink arsenic. “Uh, Logan, er, Chief, I’m not sure—I mean, they’re my cousins. I can’t just, you know, put them behind bars.”

      Logan searched through a drawer. “Don’t sweat it, Toby. You’re only the messenger.”

      “But don’t messengers get shot sometimes?”

      “Hang around here long enough, you’ll get shot one way or another,” Danny Bulley snarled. “Do what you gotta, Toby. Just know you won’t be getting no freebies for a good long while.” At Logan’s raised brow, he added, “Dinners.”

      All in all, Sera spent less than fifteen minutes at the station. Ten more, and they were pulling up outside a very old, very large house that Logan informed her had come with the job.

      Sera sensed his stare as he removed her bags from the back of his truck. With her skin prickling, she swung to confront him.

      “What?” she demanded and received the kind of slow smile she really didn’t need to see right then. “Is it the gun?”

      “Yeah, but it can wait until we’re inside.”

      As he spoke, a drop of rain from clouds she’d failed to notice plopped onto her head.

      “You’ve got about five seconds to decide … or not,” he amended when the night sky simply opened up.

      If this had been San Francisco and she’d been going to work, Sera would have run. But here, in the middle of nowhere, with the lights of town a distant blur and her clothes already streaked with dirt, she simply lifted her face to the warm rain.

      “I have to tell you, Logan, this qualifies as one of the strangest days of my life, and I’ve had some really bizarre days.”

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