Guarding The Babies. Sandra Robbins
and for years I was closer to you than I was to anybody else. I don’t want us to be reserved with each other. I would like for us to be friends again.”
He stared at her with a skeptical look on his face. “Friends? How can we do that? You broke my heart, Holly. I don’t have any desire to be friends with you again.”
She blinked back tears. “I know I did, but that was ten years ago. Surely you’ve moved on by now. Ruth told me once that you were serious about a woman from Gatlinburg.”
He shook his head. “It didn’t work out. There’s nobody in my life right now. You, on the other hand, are featured on magazine covers all the time on the arm of a handsome singer or movie star at red-carpet events.”
“That’s all arranged by my publicity team,” she responded. “Most of the men I go out with are less interested in getting to know me and more concerned that I’m going to get more attention from the paparazzi than they are.”
Although she’d hoped to lighten the atmosphere with that final comment, he didn’t smile. “Sounds like you have a really tough life. But it’s just what you always wanted. You left Jackson Springs to find it, and now you’ve come back to rid yourself of the last hold that this place has on you. I hope you’re able to find a buyer right away.”
The flat tone of his voice stung her. “The Realtor doesn’t think she’ll have trouble selling the ranch. Its location is a real asset. It’s in a valley surrounded by the Smokies, which makes it a prime example of a vacation home. So once I get everything cleaned out, the twins and I will be on our way back to Nashville.”
He nodded. “Have a safe trip.”
With that, he turned and strode toward the front door. When she heard it close, a sad feeling engulfed her. She hadn’t expected seeing Cole again would be so hard. She was being truthful when she’d said he was the best friend she’d ever had, and lately she’d come to miss that.
With a sigh, she picked up the coffee cups and carried them to the sink. Cole had no interest in being her friend, and she would just have to accept that. After all, she had no one to blame but herself.
At least she knew he would do his best to keep her and the babies safe—for the twins’ sake and in honor of Ruth and Michael’s memory, if nothing else. That was what mattered the most. Cole might not trust her anymore, but the twins were counting on her, dependent on her in every way.
She wouldn’t—couldn’t—let them down.
* * *
Cole didn’t look back as he drove away from Tumbling Creek Ranch. Once, it had been a second home to him, but now he felt like a stranger there. He’d held on to his attachment to it while Ruth and Michael were alive, but now it was Holly’s, and she was going to sell it.
That shouldn’t have surprised him, but somehow it did. How could she get rid of the land that her father had loved so much? But then, she had severed all connections with everything in this place, except for her sister, when she left years ago.
He clenched his jaw as he thought back to that time and how he’d felt when she’d broken off their engagement and moved to Nashville. To her credit, she’d begged him to go with her, to stay in the band that they’d started together. But in his heart, he knew he didn’t have the talent that she had, and he also didn’t have the dream of making it in the music industry. He supposed, in the end, their relationship had turned out the only way it could. She’d left, and he’d stayed.
Now she said she wanted to be friends, but that was never going to happen. He could just hope that the ranch would sell right away and she’d be gone. Back to Nashville and out of his life for good.
Shaking the troubling thoughts from his head, he directed his attention back to the road. With summer just having begun, tourists had flooded into Jackson Springs to spend some time in the Smokies. The sight of so many cars on the road made him smile as he drove into town. Ten minutes later, he walked down the hall of the sheriff’s department and entered his office.
His partner, Dan Welch, had the day off, and Cole settled behind his desk to do some paperwork he’d been putting off. He tried to push his conversation with Holly from his mind and forced himself to concentrate on the papers in front of him. He had no idea how long he’d worked and was shocked to look up a while later and see that it was almost lunchtime. He stood up and stretched his back, which had grown stiff while he was hunched over his desk, and was about to leave his office when the phone rang. The light on the base showing the various lines coming into the office indicated a call on line one from the receptionist. He picked up the receiver and answered. “Hey, Brenda. What’s up?”
“You have a call on line one from a young woman, Cole. I’ll connect you,” she answered.
Almost immediately, he heard the click that told him he’d been connected to the caller. “Detective Jackson speaking.” For a moment, he didn’t think anyone was there, and then he heard a throat clearing. He waited for someone to say something, but there was silence on the line. “Can I help you?”
“Yes,” a voice replied but didn’t say anything else.
He frowned as he tried to determine if he’d ever heard the voice before and decided he hadn’t. It was definitely a woman’s voice. And she sounded afraid.
“What do you need?”
The caller took a deep breath. “I think they’re trying to kill me, because I know too much.”
Her voice trembled, and Cole sat up straight in his chair. “Who’s trying to kill you, and what do you know about?”
“I don’t know all their names, but...” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was laced with panic. “He’s...he’s found me.”
“Where are you?” Cole asked. “I’ll come for you.”
“No! I have to go!”
With those words, the call disconnected. “Ma’am, where are you?” he yelled into the phone, but there was no answer.
He punched the button that connected him to Brenda’s phone, and she answered right away. “Cole, do you need something?”
“Have our tech guys see if they can find out where that last phone call came from, and tell them it’s urgent. Let me know as soon as they have something.”
“I’ll get right on it,” she said before ending the call.
For the next fifteen minutes, Cole paced the floor in his office as conflicting thoughts ran through his head. What if the girl on the phone had been lying? Some people enjoyed giving a false police report, and she could be one of them. On the other hand, though, she had sounded really frightened.
When the phone rang again, he grabbed the receiver. “Brenda? Any word on the call?”
“Yes. The call came from a cell phone and pinged off the tower near the old water plant. They placed her somewhere in the vicinity of that mall on Sturgis Road.”
“I’m on it,” Cole said before he slammed the phone down and headed out the door.
He knew he was probably on a wild-goose chase. How could he possibly identify a girl when he’d only heard her voice? Something in the way she spoke, though, told him that she was serious about being in danger. He’d heard fear in people’s voices before, and hers definitely told him she was afraid.
Whether or not he’d be able to find her, he had to try.
Getting the twins ready for the day was a full-time job, and Holly wondered again how her sister had done it. Holly usually had someone to help her, but the nanny she’d hired had recently quit, and Mandy hadn’t been able to find another one yet. Maybe while Mandy was here she could work on that.
Thankfully,