Lawman With A Cause. Delores Fossen
The moment he took the turn to his ranch, Sheriff Egan McCall spotted the emergency lights flashing on the vehicle just ahead. He groaned. Then he cursed.
Even in the darkness, he recognized the old white truck. It was parked on the shoulder of the narrow country road, and the driver was definitely someone he didn’t want to see tonight. Or any other night for that matter.
Jordan Gentry.
Egan had only wanted to get home and get some sleep since he’d just pulled a twelve-hour shift and was bone tired. But sleeping anytime soon likely wasn’t going to happen if he had to deal with Jordan first.
What the heck was she doing out here anyway?
The only place on this road was the McCall Ranch, which meant Jordan had probably been going there to see him. That couldn’t be right, though. Jordan hadn’t spoken a word to him in two years, and Egan wanted it to stay that way.
He pulled to a stop behind her truck and dragged in a deep breath that he hoped would steel him up. He hated, too, that steeling up was even required when it came to Jordan. Once, she’d been his high school sweetheart, but that felt like a lifetime ago. Now she was just part of the nightmarish memories that he still hadn’t figured out a way to forget.
Egan got out, walking on the gravel shoulder to the driver’s side. Since the engine wasn’t running, he looked inside, expecting to see Jordan behind the wheel ready to complain about not being able to get her truck started. But both the headlights and emergency lights were on, so this couldn’t be about a dead battery. Maybe she was having engine trouble.
Jordan wasn’t there, though, in the cab of the truck. No one was. But Egan spotted something he definitely hadn’t wanted to see.
Blood.
It was on the seat. So were chunks of safety glass. The passenger-side window was completely shattered.
Egan turned around so he could see if Jordan was nearby. Maybe she’d tried to avoid running into an animal or something and had hit her head. Of course, that didn’t explain the broken window.
“Jordan?” he called out.
No response. There were deep ditches next to her truck and a fence just beyond that. But Egan didn’t see her.
He took out his phone, using it as a flashlight, and spotted more blood on the ground. Not a huge amount, but even a few drops were enough to concern him. He needed to call for an ambulance.
However, the sound stopped him from doing that.
It was a soft rustling noise at the front end of the truck. Egan drew his gun, and he stepped closer.
Jordan.
She was sitting on the ground, her back against the front fender of her truck, and she had her gun gripped in her right hand, her phone in her left. She turned, and thanks to the truck headlights, he had no trouble seeing the source of the blood. It was on the top of her shoulder, just to the side of her blond hair, and it was running down the sleeve of her shirt.
“Are you here to finish me off?” she asked.
Obviously, she was dazed and didn’t know what she was saying. Egan made that call to get an ambulance out there.
“What happened?” He went closer, peeling off his own shirt so he could wipe away some of the blood and see just how badly she was hurt.
“You” was all she said. She laughed. It was hoarse and weak, and it definitely wasn’t from humor. “I knew you hated me, but I never thought in a million years you’d try to kill me.”
Yeah, she was definitely talking crazy. Egan had a look at her wound and saw the gash on her shoulder. He eased her hair aside so he could see if there were other injuries, and she also had a bump on her head. She’d need stitches and might even have a concussion.
“What happened?” Egan repeated.
“You tried to kill me,” she said without hesitation.
Even though Jordan was hurt, it was still hard to keep the scowl off his face. He tapped his sheriff’s badge in case she’d forgotten that he was the law around here and not prone to murder attempts. “And why would I do that?”
There were tears in her pale green eyes when Jordan looked up at him. “Shanna.”
Everything inside Egan went still.
Shanna Sullivan. His late fiancée. Shanna was also the reason Jordan was no longer someone he wanted to see. Even now after nearly two years, he still felt the ache. It ate away at him, and sometimes, like now, the ache felt just as fresh as it had when Shanna had died less than an hour after a man had shot her.
He leaned in, sniffed Jordan’s breath to make sure she hadn’t been drinking. She hadn’t been. “Focus,” he demanded. “I didn’t try to kill you and neither did Shanna. She’s dead. So, what the hell happened here?”
She touched her fingers to her head and looked at the blood that was on the sleeve of her shirt. “I...uh, was driving to your place to talk to you, and someone started to pass me. At least I thought that’s what he was doing, but then he shot me. Someone driving a blue pickup identical to yours.”
Egan pulled back his shoulders. He hoped like the devil that none of that was true. He definitely didn’t want someone firing shots into a vehicle. Especially someone who might be posing as him. But then he reminded himself that Jordan hadn’t made much sense with anything else she’d said.
He had another look at that gash on her shoulder. It was possibly a deep graze from a bullet. Possibly. But it could have also happened if she’d hit her head and shoulder on the steering wheel. Of course, her accusation would mesh with the broken window. Not with anything else, though.
“After he shot me, my truck stalled. I couldn’t get it started,” she continued a moment later. “So, I got out to try to fix it. That’s when I passed out and landed here on the ground.”
Egan didn’t bother to tell her it’d been stupid to try to do engine repairs while injured. “You should have called nine-one-one.”
Despite being dazed, she managed to give him a flat look. “Right. Call the local cops when I thought it was a local cop who shot me. I called someone from San Antonio PD instead.”
He supposed that wasn’t really a surprise about her not wanting to alert the locals. After all, Jordan lived in San Antonio, where she’d once been a cop. She almost certainly still had friends on the force there. But it was a long drive, nearly an hour, from San Antonio to McCall Canyon, and it’d likely be a while before her friend made it out here.
“And your cop friend in San Antonio didn’t convince you to call me?” Egan asked.
“No.” Again, she didn’t hesitate. “Not after everything that’s happened.”
She was talking about Shanna now. Specifically, Shanna’s murder. But Egan had no intention of getting into that with Jordan tonight.
“Come on,” he said, helping her to her feet. In case she was still thinking he would try to kill her, he took her gun and put it in the back waistband of his jeans. “We can wait in my truck until the ambulance gets here.” Which should be in about only twenty minutes or so.
If Jordan was right about