The Midnight Rider Takes A Bride. Christine Rimmer

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      Jed looked up at her. Now he was calm. A terrible calm.

      “Jed?” she asked, hoping for reassurance, hoping he would tell her that Lola wasn’t really dead.

      “Get help,” he said in a whisper that rang in her ears like a shout. “Run like hell.”

      And she did. She turned and ran back the way they’d come. She tore along that trail, shoving branches aside, scrambling upward when the trail climbed, half sliding. half running when the trail cut downhill. Each breath burned in her lungs, and her blood pounded so loud through her body that she could hear nothing else. She stumbled often but somehow managed to keep herself from actually falling.

      The going got easier once she staggered up the bank that led to the bridge. From there, she ran on pavement, which wasn’t nearly as tough as running on the rocky, uneven trail. She tore down the street as fast as her shaking legs would carry her, her heart working so hard it felt as if it might explode in her chest.

      Tilly Simpson, who worked as Doc Mott’s assistant, nurse and EMT combined, was standing behind the little counter on one side of the waiting room when Adora burst in the door of the clinic.

      Tilly’s mouth dropped open.

      Adora pressed a hand to her side, gulping for breath, noticing distantly that there were no patients waiting. The big clock on the fake-wood-paneled wall between the two Norman Rockwell prints said it was 2:39.

      Tilly started sputtering. “Adora, what—?”

      “It’s Lola,” Adora got out between starving gulps for air, “Lola Pierce. Down the Trout Creek Trail. Oh Tilly, I think she’s dead.”

      

      They allowed Adora to ride in the ambulance, a very short ride, down the street and around the corner with the siren blaring. And then they let her carry the lightweight, roll-up stretcher, since both the doctor and Tilly had plenty to carry themselves. They tore down the bank to creekside as fast as they could go. But they weren’t more than a few hundred yards along the trail when Jed came loping toward them with Lola’s lifeless body cradled in his arms—and desolation in his eyes.

      A few minutes later, right there on the trail, Doc Mott pronounced Lola dead. He looked at Jed with weary regret. “It was a stroke, I think. Or possibly a heart attack. There’ll be an autopsy. And then we can be sure.”

      Jed said nothing, only nodded. They’d already laid Lola on the stretcher. Doc Mott took one end, and Jed took the other.

      A small crowd had gathered near the ambulance when Jed and Doc Mott reached the top of the bank. Carefully, the two men hoisted their unmoving burden over the low railing onto the bridge. Adora and Tilly followed close behind, laden with the equipment that, in the end, had been of no use.

      “Stand back, folks,” Doc Mott said, as they put Lola on the cot in the back of the ambulance. “Please, folks. Stand back.”

      Adora could hear them whispering.

      “It’s Lola. Lola Pierce.”

      “Gone?”

      “Yeah, it sure looks like it.”

      Deputy Don Peebles, whom Adora had known since grade school, had just emerged from his big, sheriff’s office four-by-four. “What’s the story here. Doc?”

      “Lola Pierce has died.”

      “Of what?”

      “I can’t say for sure at this point. Looks like a stroke or a heart attack. The autopsy will tell us more.” Doc Mott closed the double doors on Lola’s still form.

      “Who found the body?”

      “Jed here.” Doc Mott nodded in Jed’s direction. “And Adora Beaudine.”

      Don turned to Jed. “I’ll have a few questions for you, Ryder.” He looked for and found Adora. “And you too, Dory.”

      “You can ask your questions later,” Jed said. “I gotta get to my sister.”

      “I’ll ask my questions now.” Don spoke in a tone of unyielding authority.

      Adora stepped up. “Can you make it quick, Don? Please? Tiff’s only eleven. Jed should be with her.”

      Don shook his head. “I’ve got a job to do. Dory. Now both of you just move over there, beside my vehicle.”

      Adora glanced at Jed, whose jaw seemed set in concrete; he looked as if he had no intention of following Deputy Don’s orders. Just what he needs right now, she thought grimly. To get in trouble with the law.

      “Come on, Jed,” she coaxed.

      He didn’t budge. So she grabbed his huge, hard arm and pulled on it until he went with her to where Don had pointed.

      The deputy was already turning, assuming responsibility for crowd control. “All right now, folks. You’ll have to step away from the ambulance. Tilly’s ready to move out.” He gave a quick salute to Tilly as she climbed into the cab on the driver’s side.

      Doc Mott came over to Jed and Adora. He spoke quietly to Jed. “We’ll be taking your mom back to the clinic. From there, she’ll go to Reno, where the Washoe County Coroner will handle the autopsy. The whole procedure could take anywhere from twenty-four hours to a few days. You’ll want to have chosen a funeral home by the time they release the body.”

      “Okay.”

      The doc glanced toward the ambulance where Tilly was waiting for him, and then turned back to Jed. “Folks in town know you treated your mom right, Jed. And it is important that you be with your sister now. I’ll tell Don to make it snappy.”

      “Thanks,” Jed muttered.

      “No problem.” After sharing a few quiet words with the deputy; Doc Mott got in the ambulance, and Tilly carefully steered it out onto the small bridge. Moments later, the big white van disappeared, turning left onto Buckland Avenue, headed back to the clinic.

      Don instructed Adora to wait several yards away while he talked to Jed. And then he wouldn’t let Jed go until he’d heard Adora’s side of the story. He did make it reasonably quick, though. Within ten minutes of asking the first question, he was nodding at Jed, who leaned against the bridge railing, muscular arms crossed over his powerful chest, looking impatient and more dangerous than usual.

      “Okay, you can go,” Don said. “You’ll be hearing from me again, as soon as we get the autopsy results.”

      Jed dropped his crossed arms and straightened from the railing. Without a word he headed for home.

      The crowd was breaking up, but the folks who still hung around watched Jed as he strode past them. Adora could see the sympathy in their eyes. But none of them said anything; none of them reached out. He was wild Jed Ryder, after all. And who could say what he might do?

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