Gambling On A Dream. Sara Walter Ellwood

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      From the report, he knew Rachel had been attacked by an Afghani national who worked on the base where she’d been deployed.

      She and a doctor had been working together late when the Afghani found them. He’d shot the lieutenant colonel and Rachel while they were talking in his office. She’d taken a high-powered bullet in the pelvis area and her lower left leg, which shattered the bone beyond repair. The doctor had died from his wounds, and Rachel had been flown to Landstuhl, Germany, where her leg had been amputated, her pelvis repaired, and her uterus, where the bullet lodged, removed.

      The terrorist had committed suicide. His body had been found in his room along with the weapon he’d used to kill the doctor and to shoot Rachel.

      Wyatt moved off the bed and kneeled beside her. He took her icy hands and held them. “You weren’t working, were you?”

      She sniffled and shook her head. As she turned to look out the window again, she whispered, “Alex was my fiance. We planned to get married as soon as I could put in for promotion, but we had to keep our relationship secret since he was my commanding officer until then. No one can ever know about it. I’d never risk his name being dishonored.”

      Which meant she would never discuss it with her shrink at the VA hospital. The air went out of him, and he bent his head over their joined hands. “Oh, God, Rach. I’m so sorry.”

      “I wish I’d been killed too,” she whispered in a faraway tone that sent an arctic shiver through him.

      He squeezed her hand and forced her to look at him by turning her head with his thumb under her chin. “Don’t you ever say such a thing. We love you. We need you here with us. You hear me? I need you.” He swallowed hard and sniffed back the hot knot clogging his sinuses. “I understand how you feel. But that isn’t the answer.”

      She shook her head and yanked her hand from his. “How could you know what I’m going through? You have no idea what happened to me. What it was like to watch the man I love die.”

      He glanced out the window at the happy family. The little boy was Mason, the girl Katie. He was five years old, and she was almost three. The same age his son would have been. He’d met the family on several occasions since they moved into the recently built home three months ago. “Dawn Madison and I were all but engaged while we worked vice on the PD.” He met his sister’s gaze. “She took a bullet that was meant for me and almost died.”

      She huffed. “But she’s still alive. Alex is dead.”

      “True.” He averted his gaze to his hands. “But I’ll never forgive her for what she did. She was five months pregnant and lost the baby.”

      “Wy, I’m so sorry.” She took his hand and squeezed it.

      He sniffed again, but he couldn’t look up. “She lost our son simply because she wouldn’t take herself off the case. The captain would’ve never allowed her on the sting if he’d known. Hell, if I had known about the pregnancy, I would’ve had her taken off the case.” He shook his head and wiped his nose with the back of his free hand. “I know that isn’t the same as what happened to you. But there isn’t a day that goes by I don’t wonder what my little boy would’ve grown into.” Or what life with Dawn would’ve been like.

      “Why do bad things always happen to good people?”

      The only answer he had was to take her into his arms and hold her as he closed his eyes against the tears he wouldn’t dare let fall.

      “I don’t know, Ladybug. I don’t know.”

      * * * *

      That evening, Dawn got out of her Ford F-150, her boots hitting the dusty ground with a thump. Her brother’s old Dodge pickup and a horse trailer were parked next to the old-line cabin on his third of the M bar C.

      The old shack wasn’t more than termites holding hands. The roof sagged on one side, and a black tarp covered the rusted tin where a leak had weakened the boards beneath. Half the porch had rotted away. The bold tanginess of deterioration mingled with the scent of creek water, horse, fresh hay, and lumber. Someone, probably Talon, had replaced the steps with a concrete block and laid a sheet of plywood over the decaying wood from the step to the door.

      East of the cabin, the west branch of Oak Springs Creek meandered along slowly. As kids, she and her two brothers would fish from the bank. On the other side of the shack, a lean-to with a small corral barely contained a massive bay stallion--her brother’s horse, Ugedaliya. Or Ugly, as the whites called him, since the Cherokee word was hard for them to pronounce. Talon never told the poor bastards that the word meant tornado. Which fit the monster of a horse perfectly.

      She closed the door of her truck and walked to the correl. Ugedaliya came up to the railing and snorted. When she petted his velvety nose, he nickered. She’d taken care of the contrary stallion while Talon had been in prison last year. “Fierce Ugedaliya,” she cooed in her mother’s native Cherokee. “I’ve missed you.”

      Once Ugedaliya realized she wasn’t offering carrots or apples, he tossed his big head and moved away to nibble on the short grass growing around the corral posts.

      Unable to stall any longer, she took a deep breath and headed across the rutted path, serving as the driveway to the framework of a barn, rising from the ground like a giant skeleton.

      Just like Talon to be living in a shack while he built a mansion for his horse.

      “I wondered how long you were gonna stand there taking in the sights.” Her brother’s deep voice came from behind her. “What do you want?”

      She turned to Talon coming out from around the lean-to, carrying a feed bucket.

      The horse trotted over to him. He stroked the stallion’s face. “I doubt this is a social call.”

      “I need to talk to you.”

      He dumped the contents of the dented bucket into a trough for his horse, then wiped his hands on a rag he pulled from the back pocket of his faded jeans. His plaid shirt hung open, revealing his deep tan. A bandana was tied around his neck, and his long black hair was held back in a ponytail under an old straw hat.

      Hazel eyes, set in a face sharp with the hard angles he’d inherited from his white father, narrowed as he looked over her uniform. “Do I need my lawyer present?”

      She straightened her back and wished she and her brother had remained as close as they’d once been. “That depends. I hoped you’d tell me the truth because I’m family and that used to matter to us.”

      He wiped the back of his hand over his forehead. “That was a long time ago. What the hell do you want? I’m busy.”

      Sighing, she fought the hurt pinching her heart. “You hear about Sam Larson’s son?”

      He glanced toward the cabin. “I read something in the paper. But what’s it got to do with me?”

      She folded her arms in front of her to ward off the sudden chill. Gene Murphy had brought in the surveillance videos from his gas station. The only incriminating thing on them was the perfect view of Talon walking in front of the Longhorn. “Chris Larson was found dead yesterday morning by a garbage man behind the Longhorn.” She waited for his response, but when СКАЧАТЬ