had just stepped out of the shower when there was a knock at the cabin’s front door. Her heart leapt to her throat.
“Gaylynn, it’s me,” Hunter loudly announced from the other side of the door.
Forgetting that she was still wearing her rose-colored terry-cloth robe, she rushed to the door and opened it. Hunter looked haggard and weary. “Sorry I wasn’t able to take you up on that dinner invitation last night.”
“No big deal,” she lied. “It wasn’t really an invitation, at all. In fact, you invited yourself and then I uninvited you.”
“Yeah, well, there was some trouble in town.”
“What happened—were you hurt?” She ran the two questions together.
“Some idiot in a pickup truck decided to take a joyride down the main highway. On the wrong side of the street. Playing chicken with a semi-truck filled with fertilizer. Both vehicles swerved—luckily in opposite directions—to avoid an accident. As it was, the pickup ended in a ditch and the semi-trailer tipped over. After making sure the driver of the semi was okay, my deputy approached the pickup—only to end up with a bullet through his foot.”
“He was shot!”
Hunter nodded.
“Will he be okay?”
“He’ll live,” Hunter replied as he lowered himself to the lumpy couch. “Considering where he could have been shot, he’s mighty lucky.”
“You don’t sound very sympathetic.”
“I’m not. I spent the night doing the rest of his shift and then my own.”
“It’s not his fault he was shot!”
“It sure was.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said it’s his own fault he got shot. Who else’s would it be?”
“The man who shot him.”
“Exactly.”
“So did you arrest the man who shot him?”
“Don’t think I wasn’t damn tempted to.”
“You mean you let him go?”
“He’s at the clinic over in Summerville.”
“And then he’ll be arrested?”
“Unfortunately, stupidity isn’t against the law.”
“You let the driver of that pickup go?”
“Of course not. He’s locked up awaiting transferal to the county facility.”
“But you just said—”
“Deputy Carberry shot himself,” Hunter explained. “He was approaching the pickup truck and getting ready to withdraw his weapon from his holster when he tripped over something in the grass. His finger squeezed the trigger and, presto, he shot himself in his big toe. Damn fool wasn’t wearing his regulation shoes. By the time I got to him he was bleeding a lot, but it looked worse than it was.”
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