Renegade Protector. Nico Rosso

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СКАЧАТЬ held her hand an extra beat. “I’m really sorry about what happened.”

      “We’ll find them.” Jones stood straight, but Mariana couldn’t draw from his confidence. The crooks had been too slick to leave a solid trail before. What could the police do now?

      Miguel dropped her hand and headed to his fire truck. Mariana patted Sydney’s shoulder. “Seriously. I’m good.”

      Sydney’s concern didn’t diminish. She waved her cell phone. “Call me for anything.”

      “You know I will.” Mariana smiled a goodbye, but wasn’t sure how convincing it was. Sydney kept watch as Mariana moved up the sidewalk with Jones and Pete. Rounding the corner at the end of the building brought relief from the flashing lights of the fire trucks. But a new anxiety arose when Mariana stepped into the dark parking lot.

      The attack still shook her, cold fear knotting between her shoulder blades. “Maybe now we can convince the city to fix the light back here.” Her voice rang tight. If she could just see Ty and know if he was still around, it might unwind the tension. She thought she felt him watching her, standing by to spring into action again, but it might’ve just been a fantasy. Maybe she’d just imagined him in the first place and this whole thing was a delusion created by her assault.

      Pete offered up only “Yeah.”

      Jones opened the door to the police cruiser. “We’ll follow you there.” He turned on the headlights, illuminating her truck and half the parking lot. If Ty had been lurking in the shadows, there would’ve been nowhere to hide now. She tried to search as casually as possible for him. No sign.

      She’d already seen his skills in a fight. There was no question he could stay hidden if he wanted. But she didn’t know how to sort her disappointment at not seeing him. It could’ve been just a matter of safety. He’d been the one to save her this night. There was something more, though. A curious yearning to find out more of who this mysterious man was.

      The automatic motion of taking her keys from her purse brought her back to the moment. This was where her night had changed. She unlocked the truck, then walked to where the rescued items from her store were still scattered on the ground. Everything stacked easily, with the photos on top. Serious and determined, the people in the old picture watched her walk back to the truck and load them in the passenger seat.

      She was back behind the wheel of her truck but couldn’t erase what had happened. The engine turned over, and pop music sprang out of the radio, way too cheerful. She killed the radio and pulled away, leaving her burned-out and soaked store. The police car followed her out of the parking lot, but she didn’t see any other cars join the caravan, even from a distance. Ty talked a good game about being with her every step of the way, but his absence left her starkly cold.

      Seven blocks later, she parked in front of the police station and went inside with Pete and Jones. Her skin had been so chilled from the wet clothes she didn’t even feel it anymore under the heavy blanket. Hot coffee didn’t help, nor did the hard plastic seat next to Jones’s desk in the large room past the front desk of the station. The lights were so bright she couldn’t tell if it was night or day. Jones typed on a computer and Pete sat close. Together they sent questions to her as she recounted the night. Now that she was off her feet, exhaustion dragged her bones heavy.

      “I don’t know who he was. He didn’t say.” Most of the questions swirled when she mentioned the man who’d helped her. “It was too dark to really see him in the parking lot.” She left out the detail that Ty had been in her shop, and that his deep gaze had inspired an unexpected blush on her chest and cheeks.

      “And in the fire?” Pete asked pointedly.

      She shot back, “I was a little preoccupied.”

      Jones looked over his screen. “So we have a black man, over six feet tall, and that’s it.”

      “But I know that the guy who attacked me in the parking lot was white, shaved head, in his twenties, no facial hair.” Pete tilted his head and smoothed the back of his blond hair, a move she recognized as frustration. Before he asked, she answered, “The headlights of the car that tried to run me over lit that guy up pretty good, but not the man who helped me.”

      Pete seemed unconvinced. Jones stepped in. “I think we’ve got everything you remember.” He took a business card from the desk and handed it to her. “Anything else comes back to you, call anyone here. We’re all working on this, Mariana.”

      “Thanks, Jones.” Her legs felt like rusted steel as she stood. She shook his hand and nodded to Pete. He tipped his head in return.

      Jones stepped with her toward the front door. “You want us to escort you home, check out the place?”

      She shook her head. “I’ve got Toro there.”

      “Dog?” Jones asked.

      “Mean dog,” Pete answered. Mariana suppressed a laugh. Toro was a better judge of people than her, and had always growled when Pete’s car had pulled up the long drive to her farmhouse.

      Mariana walked out of the building, Jones still behind her. “Sure you’re okay out there?”

      A car eased down the street in front of the station. Ty was driving, heading in the direction of her home. Relief bloomed in her chest, edged with a hot thrill of seeing him again. He passed, not looking up at her. Whoever Ty was, whatever he was really doing in her town, she would find out tonight.

      She turned to Jones, with Pete within earshot in the lobby. “I’m fine.”

       Chapter Three

      A mile away from the center of town, country dark took over the landscape around Ty’s car. Leaving his headlights on was necessary, but it also made it impossible for him to move stealthily toward the low rolling hills that surrounded Rodrigo. He shifted his weight, reassuring himself that the automatic was still in its holster on his belt. There’d been no time to change into dry clothes while tracking Mariana to the police station, but he’d added the pistol as extra insurance after the assault and firebombing. If anyone was following him, they’d have a clear target on his vehicle.

      Not that it would be a secret where he was headed. The Balducci orchard was at the end of Oak Valley Road, a two-lane deal that ran straight to the hills past neighboring vineyards, farms and horse ranches. Some lit windows stared at him in the distance with yellow predator eyes. Mostly, though, he was surrounded by black and gray. Low clouds blocked the stars. A looming oak sped past, made into a monster by his stark headlights and taking him back to the summer visits to his grandparents’ spread, east and inland from the Bay Area. As a child, he’d been afraid of that dark and the countless animals that could be lurking just out of reach of the kitchen window light.

      Those creatures didn’t scare him anymore. As a cop in San Francisco, he’d seen the worst of people. He’d seen it tonight and still held a tight fist and clenched jaw.

      According to the GPS on his phone, he’d passed the last of the side roads. Ty killed the headlights and brought his car to a crawl. Details in the terrain slowly emerged as his eyes adjusted. The road curved up a small rise ahead. More oaks flanked the asphalt, behind them aging wooden fences. Cresting the rise revealed the first edge of Mariana’s orchards. They spread up another hill and curled around a broad clearing that held her farmhouse and СКАЧАТЬ