there, sweetheart,” he said, dropping to one knee in front of her. “What’s wrong?”
She hiccuped once, then lifted her face, tears dripping off her chin. “I got a sticker in my foot,” she sobbed.
“Well, here, let’s have a look-see,” Harley said gently.
She laid her hand on his sleeve for balance, her touch as light as a butterfly, then lifted her knee. Though he strained, Harley’s size prevented him from being able to stoop over far enough to see the bottom of her foot. Needing a better vantage point, he caught her up under the arms and carried her toward his pickup. “Let’s set you up here, sweetheart, so I can have a better look.” He plopped her down on the tailgate and squatted down in front of her, lifting her foot. And there it was, tucked into the tender arch of her foot, a green-and-yellow sticker as big as a tick.
He frowned, knowing it was going to hurt like hell when he pulled the sticker out. “Can you count to three?” he asked.
She sniffled, dragging a hand beneath her nose. “I can count all the way to ten,” she said proudly through her tears.
“Well, you start counting and by the time you get to three I’ll have this old sticker out of your foot.”
“Okay,” she said, then hiccuped again. “One... two...”
Harley gave a quick yank and the sticker came out, along with a startled cry of pain from the little girl.
At that moment and out of nowhere, about sixty pounds of clawing anger slammed into Harley’s back. Startled, he stumbled to his feet, twisting around as he tried to grab ahold of what had hit him. An arm, no thicker than the branch of a willow tree, wound around his neck from behind and clung while a potato-sized fist pummeled his head. He made a grab behind him and within seconds had his hands on the shoulders and was looking into the eyes of a redfaced, redheaded boy who was fighting mad. That he was outsized didn’t seem to matter to the kid. Fists flying, tennis shoes kicking at Harley’s shins, he fought Harley as he screamed, “You let my sister go!”
“Now wait a minute,” Harley said in frustration as he tried to keep an arm’s-length hold on the kid while he angled him up against the side of his truck. “I’m not hurting your sister. I’m only—”
Before he could explain himself, Harley was hit again from behind, but this time the body that jumped him was a little heavier than the boy he’d just peeled from his back.
“What the hell—?” As he stumbled backward, a pair of legs wrapped themselves around his waist and a pair of arms locked around his neck, cutting off his air supply. A woman screamed at his ear, “Get your sister and run, Jimmy!”
Momentarily blinded by a mane of wild red hair, Harley gasped for breath as he struggled to wedge his fingers between the arms that circled his neck and his collar. When he’d won enough space to give himself some breathing room, he glanced down to see that the boy hadn’t moved an inch but was standing there bugeyed, his mouth hanging open wide enough to catch flies, staring at Harley as if he’d grown horns.
Harley had grown something all right, but it sure as hell wasn’t horns! It was on his back and whoever—or whatever—it was, was going to turn him into a damn eunuch if she didn’t quit kicking.
Having had enough of this craziness, Harley grabbed hold of the arms around his neck and twisted his body around, heaving at the same time, and sent the woman flying over his shoulder to land with a thump on the sidewalk in front of him. He followed her down, pinning her wrists on either side of her head while he straddled her. Startled green eyes stared at him through a tangle of red hair while her mouth moved ineffectively, sucking at air.
He gave her a minute to catch her breath, then regretted the courtesy when she started twisting and thrashing beneath him, still wanting to fight. He stilled her like he would a calf he’d just thrown to brand, squeezing his knees tighter around her chest and strengthening his hold on her wrists. He watched her face redden, her mouth open, felt her chest inflate...and knew she was fixing to let go a scream that would draw half the town.
“Don’t even think it,” he warned as he increased the pressure with his knees.
She clamped her mouth shut but glared at him through narrowed eyes. Her eyes suddenly shifted to something behind him and higher up. “Help me, Sheriff!” she cried desperately. “This man is trying to kill me!”
Harley half turned and muttered a curse when he saw Cody standing behind him. He turned back around, dropping his chin to his chest. He knew he was going to have a hell of a time explaining all this.
Cody hunkered down beside them. “What’s going on here?” he asked in a lazy drawl that was as much a part of him as the star he wore on his chest.
“I wasn’t trying to kill her,” Harley muttered miserably. “I was only trying to protect myself.”
Cody bit back a smile. “Protect yourself, huh?” He shook his head, clearly finding it hard not to laugh as he looked at the slip of a woman Harley held pinned to the sidewalk. “Maybe you’d better let her up, Harley,” Cody suggested reasonably. “I think you’re safe now.”
Harley loosened his grip on the woman’s hands, shifted his weight to his feet and slowly rose, careful not to let go of her until he was clear of danger.
With Harley out of the way, Cody offered the woman a hand and helped her to her feet.
Indignant, she dusted her palms across the seat of a pair of baggy jeans before she pointed a damning finger at Harley. “Sheriff, arrest this man,” she demanded.
“Now wait just a damn minute,” Harley said in growing frustration. “I haven’t committed any crime.”
The woman wheeled on the sheriff, her green eyes blazing. “He tried to abduct my children. He—”
Harley’s temper, slow to rise, suddenly boiled over. “I didn’t try to abduct anybody,” he yelled. “I—”
She spun, bracing her hands at her hips, thrusting her chin at him. “Then why is my daughter in your truck and why did you have my son pinned against its side?”
Harley pressed his lips together, knowing full well how all this must look. And he’d only been trying to do a good deed. He glanced at Cody for help.
But Cody just shrugged. “Maybe you’d better explain, Harley.”
Harley fought back the anger and heaved a deep breath. “I was loading feed on my truck when this little girl here,” he said, gesturing to the child who still sat on his tailgate, “limped by crying. Since there wasn’t anyone around to help her—” he paused long enough to shoot a damning look at the woman who continued to eye him accusingly “—I perched her up there on my tailgate to pull a sticker out of her foot. Before I knew what hit me, this boy here jumped me from the back. I’d no more than pulled him off when this crazy woman jumped me from behind, screaming for the boy to grab his sister and run.”
Cody listened, pursing his lips thoughtfully. The woman, to Harley’s immense pleasure, had paled and was already racing to the back of his pickup. Murmuring softly, she cupped a hand to the little girl’s cheek, thumbed away a lingering tear, then tenderly tipped up her foot.
“It’s okay now, Mama,” the child said cheerfully. “That nice man pulled the sticker
