been Ariel’s best friend from kindergarten through their sophomore year of high school. They’d stayed close after Ariel had moved away, and when Regina had taken her dream job working as NICU nurse in Phoenix, Ariel had cheered her on.
Regina had been the reason Ariel had been offered the job in Desert Valley. She’d contacted her mother, pleaded Ariel’s case and gotten her an interview for a job that had opened up when another teacher had gotten married and left town.
It had seemed like a God-thing, the opportunity coming out of left field at a time when Ariel had been desperate to get away from Las Vegas and all the memories it held. She’d wanted a quiet little town to raise her daughter in. She’d wanted a safe environment where everyone knew everyone and where small crimes were considered a big deal. She’d thought that was what Desert Valley offered, all her sweet childhood memories leading her to believe the place would be perfect. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
Several Desert Valley police vehicles had pulled into the parking lot and K-9 teams were spread out across the school grounds. Ariel could see a female officer walking through the gym field, her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, a golden retriever trotting in front of her. Ellen Foxcroft. A nice young woman who everyone in town seemed to like. Her mother was a different story. Marian Foxcroft was notorious for sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. She had money and influence in Desert Valley, and she wasn’t afraid to throw both around to get what she wanted.
Unfortunately she also had enemies. She’d been attacked a few months ago and left in a coma. It was one of the many crimes that had been taking up the front page of the town’s newspaper.
Ariel had tried not to pay much attention to the stories. She had enough stress and worry in her life. She hadn’t wanted to add to it, and she’d been afraid...so afraid that she’d made another mistake—just like the one she’d made when she’d married Mitch.
She touched her stomach, feeling almost guilty for the thought.
“Ma’am?” the EMT said. “Would you like me to call someone for you?”
“No. I’m fine.” She stood on wobbly legs and moved past the EMT just to prove that she could. Her keys were in her classroom. So were her purse and her cell phone. The house she’d bought with money her great-aunt had left her a decade ago was only two miles from the school, but walking there wasn’t an option. Not with the gunman still out there somewhere.
Had Tristan found any sign of the guy in the school? Was he okay? She’d watched him walk toward the building, and she’d wanted to caution him to be careful, because the gunman had meant business. He’d been bent on murder, and if Ariel had walked into her classroom, she’d have probably been shot before she’d even realized she was a target.
She shivered, rubbing her arms against the chill that just wouldn’t seem to leave her.
“You holding up okay?” someone asked.
She turned and found herself looking into Tristan McKeller’s dark brown eyes.
“I was just thinking about you,” she said, the words escaping before she realized how they’d sound. “What I mean—”
“Is that you were wondering if I’d found the gunman?” he offered, and she nodded.
“Yes. And if you were okay. Apparently, you are.”
“I am, but the gunman is still on the loose. We’ve got a couple of K-9 teams trying to track him. Hopefully, we’ll have him in custody soon. You said he was wearing some sort of mask?”
“It seemed like it. I only got a glimpse as he was coming out of my room.”
“Were you heading there when you noticed him?”
“I was on my way back from the Xerox machine. I’d heard a door slamming shut, and I thought it was you.” She spoke quickly, filling him in on the details and doing everything in her power to not allow emotion to seep into her voice. Breaking down in front of people wasn’t something she liked to do. Even when Mitch had screamed at her, telling her that the baby she was carrying would ruin his life, she hadn’t cried.
She finished and Tristan nodded. “Matches with what I saw. There’s a bullet slug in the corner of the wall and one through the door into the room where you were hiding. If you’d been standing in front of the door—”
“I made sure that I wasn’t.” She cut him off. She didn’t want to speculate, she didn’t want to imagine. She’d been spared. Her baby had been spared.
God looking out for them?
She wanted to believe that.
She’d been trying hard to believe that everything that had happened—all the difficulty and trouble—would turn out for the good. There were days, though, when she questioned His goodness, wondered if He’d decided to turn His face away from her.
“Smart thinking, Ariel. It saved your life.” His gaze dropped to her stomach, to the baby bump that pulled her silky summer top taut over her abdomen. “And your baby’s. I guess you decided against the ambulance ride?”
“I’ll get stitches at the clinic.” Maybe. Or maybe she’d use a couple of butterfly bandages and hope for the best. The last thing she wanted was to walk out of the local medical clinic alone after dark, and there was no way she was going to ask Principal Moore to go with her. Not when the gunman was still on the loose. What if he came after Ariel again? What if someone else was in the line of fire?
The thought made her stomach churn.
“You’re new to town,” Tristan said, the comment taking her by surprise.
“I’ve been here for a few months, and I lived here when I was a kid,” she corrected, not quite sure where he was going with the conversation.
“You were in Las Vegas prior to your move?”
“Yes.”
“And your husband—”
“He was my ex, and he died a few weeks before I accepted the job offer here.”
His expression softened, as if he realized there was a lot more to her story than anyone in town knew. “Had you been divorced long?”
“I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.”
“Most violent crimes aren’t committed by strangers. Most involve people who know each other. Is there a new relationship? A boyfriend? Ex-boyfriend? Someone who might be holding grudge?”
“Do I look like I have time for another relationship?” she asked with a laugh that she knew sounded bitter and hard.
She swallowed down the emotion, tried again. “There’s no one else. My ex-husband died three weeks after our divorce was finalized.”
“Can I ask the cause of death?”
“A car accident. He drove off a hillside and crashed into a tree. The car burst into flames on impact.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. He wasn’t a very nice guy, but no one deserves that.”
