twice her age. Was that her angle with his godfather? Marry him for his money, then pull the plug? Then why didn’t she hover by Bart’s bedside with a marriage license and a preacher?
He’d known women like her; he’d come from one. But his mother hadn’t been as lucky or as smart as Sarah. Mother had found nothing sweet about her sugar daddy. So she’d cut her losses and left. She’d looked like an angel, too. Or was that only a little boy’s memory of her?
His fingers still tingled from the contact with Sarah’s silk blouse and the heat of her skin beneath, and he cursed himself for touching her. Raised in a cold, unemotional household, he’d never been given to physical demonstrations. But he hadn’t wanted her to fall on her face either when she’d been shaking so hard.
Dylan coughed. Despite being tired, Royce’s reflexes kept him from jumping.
“Royce, have you calmed her fears?” the sheriff asked.
Sarah’s smoky gray eyes narrowed as she glared at him. “No, he seems convinced this is real, and your presence prevented the kidnapping from taking place.”
She gestured toward the note Dylan had slipped into a plastic evidence bag. “Then what about the note? Explain why they would leave the note in my car when they had not abducted my—”
Her voice broke. Her throat moved as she swallowed hard. “—son.”
“Because they put the note in the car first, convinced they’d be able to grab your son and not have time to leave the note after the kidnapping. The note would keep you close to the phone for their instructions.”
She swayed on her feet again, shaken. Royce fisted his hands and shoved them into his pockets. He wouldn’t touch her again…unless she asked. And a woman like her would never ask a man like him. He hadn’t missed her initial assessment and subsequent dismissal of him. She’d judged him based on his clothes and his looks. And he’d been deemed unworthy of her.
Probably too young, too. He only had a few years on her, not a few decades. He bit the inside of his cheek, ticked at himself for letting her get to him.
“Jeez, Royce, go easy.” Dylan’s voice deepened with warning. He handed over the plastic bag and turned toward his team, calling out a few commands.
Royce whipped off his glasses and tucked one ear-piece in the open collar of his shirt. He waited until he had Dylan’s attention again. “Plain paper, impossible to trace. Stenciled block letters. Tough one. Unless you lift some prints or DNA, you’re not going to learn much from this, man.”
Dylan nodded. “I called in one of my deputies. We’re going to check the car for prints.” He reached for the evidence bag. “And we’ll run this through the lab. Sarah, it’s going to take a while.”
“I don’t want Jeremy to know.” Fear haunted her eyes again.
Royce called himself a fool for doubting her. He’d briefly considered the idea that she may have crafted the note herself in order to get some attention. She wouldn’t have been the first to do so. But a person couldn’t feign the kind of fear haunting her gray eyes. Then he called himself a bigger fool. He’d been duped before and fooled by a woman’s false tears.
“Royce!” From the volume of Dylan’s voice, it wasn’t the first time he’d called his name.
He lifted a brow.
“Can you give them a ride home? I hate to impose. I know you’re pressed for time and looking for someone—”
Dylan stopped and narrowed his eyes. “Who are you looking for? You never said.”
Royce’s pulse jumped. From the protective way the sheriff treated Sarah Mars-Hutchins, Royce figured it wouldn’t matter that they were old friends. If Dylan didn’t think Sarah should leave the state now, he’d get in Royce’s way. And with Bart’s life draining away, he didn’t have much time. He swallowed hard. “We’ll talk about that later.”
When he’d had time to think of the best approach to convince them that Bart’s last wish deserved to be fulfilled. His godfather had to see Sarah Mars. “Right now I’ll drive Sarah and her kid home, no problem.”
The lie burned in his throat because there was someplace farther he’d rather drive her…to a dying man’s bedside. The doctors and his old man were wrong. Bart would come out of the coma…for Sarah Mars.
“You’re sure?”
He fought to not squirm under Dylan’s penetrating stare. He hated putting off revealing the reason for his trip to Winter Falls even for a minute. But a public park was not the place to discuss a dying man’s wish. He nodded.
Sarah gasped. “I can’t believe you’re talking about me as if I’m not here. I don’t know this man—”
Dylan’s hand settled on her shoulder. “But I do, Sarah. I trust him.”
Royce winced, thinking of the conversation to come. Then he turned toward Sarah. “You don’t want the kid to know what’s going on, right?”
When she answered, she spoke slowly as if she suspected Royce was dimwitted. “Of course not. I don’t want to scare him.”
“You mean any more than you already have by running onto the field earlier?”
Her pointed chin tipped up, and her eyes flashed at him. Smarting pride painted her elegant cheekbones a bright pink.
He sighed and mentally kicked himself for being insensitive. But God, he was tired, and her prickliness irritated him. “I’m sorry. I know you’re rattled. But if you don’t want to scare the kid, we need to get him away from here before the car is dusted for prints.”
Dylan nodded. “He’s right, Sarah. You don’t want Jeremy to know there was a threat, especially if it is just some sick joke.”
If. But what if it wasn’t? What did that mean for a man who lay dying in a hospital bed in Milwaukee? Short of kidnapping her, Royce figured he wouldn’t get her out of Winter Falls while her son was in danger. And he didn’t blame her.
But then what did he know about mothers? He’d met some in the course of his job that he’d thought cared about their kids. Then they had proven him pathetically wrong.
Dylan stepped close to him. “You okay, Royce?”
He nodded. “Yeah, yeah, just tired. Is this game or practice almost over?”
Pulling a whistle from his pocket, Dylan called a stop to the action on the soccer field. As the kids scrambled over, another car entered the lot. Lights flashing, sirens blaring, the patrol cruiser stopped near Sarah’s Mercedes.
“Subtle.” Royce shook his head.
The sheriff sighed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about that deputy.”
First the kids fell silent, then resumed excited chatter. Dylan raised one hand and blew the whistle again. “It’s nothing. Just Deputy Jones.”
Parents who had watched their children or were just arriving to pick them up swarmed the field and the sheriff.
Despite
