Her tears soaked through his cotton shirt. Finn could feel his heartbeat drumming in his chest, his ears. Get away, he thought. Put her down. At the same instant, he pressed one hand against her skull, his fingers in the fine silk of her hair. The pint-size blonde sweetheart, who wore only a light cardigan over a T-shirt with a Disney character on it and a pair of tiny jeans, made his heart ache. Her miniature sneakers were the kind with lights that flashed like those of the ambulance. She shivered in his embrace, and Finn’s pulse caught. Cold. Except for a few scrapes she hadn’t been hurt in the accident, but the mid-October night had chilled. Was she going into shock? So small, so helpless...but she shouldn’t rely on him.
She needed a warmer place and a quick removal from the frightening views all around them. On his way to his cruiser, Finn passed the paramedic who’d been breathing life back into the driver of the car. She turned to him, shaking her head.
“It’s bad, Sheriff,” she whispered.
Another EMT was now loading the stretcher onto the ambulance. Finn turned away enough to shield the child from the sight—shield himself, too. The open doors, the harsh light inside and the sight of the gurney, the woman’s body no more than a still lump under the blanket, unnerved him. To his relief the child he held hadn’t even tried to look, but at least her earlier cries had subsided into whimpers.
The paramedic’s gaze met his. “Anyone we know?”
Was she asking about the woman? Or the little girl he still carried?
When he’d pulled up to the scene, Finn had run the victim’s plates, her driver’s license.
“Wyoming ID.” He didn’t supply the name. “Twenty-nine years old.”
He shook his head, saddened by the obvious severity of her condition. As the ambulance doors closed, she didn’t move a muscle. In contrast, the little girl squirmed in his arms, making Finn fear he might drop her, and the crack in his heart opened wider. “We’ll find your mom,” he promised, not that the task would be hard.
There were only two choices, and he prayed—though he wasn’t much prone to prayer these days—that it wasn’t the woman in the ambulance. Finn glanced toward the victim’s car. “What’s your name, sweetie?”
She was shaking. “Em-mie.”
“Can you tell me your last name, Emmie?”
Silence. Maybe she didn’t know. When he spoke at day care centers or visited the local elementary school in Friendly Cop mode, he tried to impress on teachers and aides how important it was for children to know their contact information or to carry it with them. This was why. Had the girl been riding with the woman in the car or in the truck that now leaned in the ditch on the other side of the road? The other, elderly driver had already been taken to the hospital, but Finn hadn’t arrived at the scene in time to try to talk to him. Was he Emmie’s grandfather? Maybe her mother had stayed behind tonight.
He took Emmie to his car, dug in the glove compartment for one of the toys he kept there—this one a stuffed lamb wearing a pink ribbon—then signaled Sharon Garcia, his deputy, to stay with her. But the child refused to let go of him, and he couldn’t talk in front of her, even when he guessed his deputy had more information to share.
He’d take a peek in both vehicles—then he’d know.
Still carrying Emmie, he crunched through broken glass to the side of the road. In the tilted pickup, he saw no clue that a child had been there. Which proved nothing. Maybe the older driver didn’t believe in child seats, but then Emmie would have been injured in the crash. Finn moved on, sidestepping part of a front quarter panel in the road. With one hand cradling Emmie’s head against his shoulder, he leaned over to peer inside the car.
At the instant she said “Hart-well,” he glimpsed a child’s car seat in the rear.
His stomach dropped into his shoes. Finn had his answer.
And, in silence, he swore. He would have to notify the next of kin.
* * *
FINN DONOVAN.
Seeing his reflection in the window, Annabelle Foster glanced away. She (reluctantly) ran the diner on Main Street that had been named for her—and that she had inherited from her parents. She’d turned to put her back to the for sale sign beside the front door when Finn had suddenly appeared behind her.
The sign’s bright red letters on white plastic announced her intention to leave this place, and Barren. Tomorrow would be good for Annabelle, though she doubted that might happen. In this small town there wouldn’t be many prospective buyers, and her Realtor had yet to show the place, though it hadn’t been for sale long.
Annabelle didn’t have time to appreciate the fact that at least she’d finally made, and implemented, what would be a life-changing decision. Free at last. That was what she’d be, and she could all but taste the first of her new opportunities in the air, except—why was Finn here?
“Annabelle,” he said, and like the shy child she’d once been, she flushed. She always did around Finn, who had walked just now out of the dark, wearing his usual jeans and, tonight, instead of a traditional sheriff’s tan shirt, a Henley pullover that stretched across his broad shoulders. Which, in a way, was his uniform.
“Going somewhere?” he asked with a pointed look at the sign. If she remembered right, Finn hadn’t stopped by since the sign had gone up. And where Finn was concerned, she would remember.
“Anywhere,” she said a bit stronger than she intended. Everywhere. At last she would put the diner and this town behind her. Finn, too, and her hopeless crush on him, which wasn’t as happy a prospect for Annabelle as the rest would be.
His gaze slid away. “Not just yet,” he said. Finn shifted his weight. “Sorry to ruin your plans, but I have something to tell you...”
He hesitated for another instant while Annabelle’s pulse sped up and she thought, foolishly, Maybe he’s here to ask me out. Which would be a miracle. Her silly daydreams of a relationship with Finn would end when she finally left town. Besides, the only time she ever saw him was when he stopped at the diner to order a cup of coffee or a burger, often as takeout because he was on his way to a possible break-in at Earl’s Hardware store—where the old alarm system had most likely gone off again for no reason—or to a traffic stop for someone who’d run the only red light in Barren.
Whenever he did stay long enough to eat a meal, he sat in the last booth on the right side of the room, his back to the wall. What was he expecting? A replay of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre?
In any case, Annabelle always had a fresh pot of coffee waiting, brewed strong and black just the way he liked it, and hurried to fill Finn’s cup, determined to quell the blush that would surely show in her face. If they talked, it was about some neutral topic, an upcoming local event or his preference that day for apple over cherry pie. But now she didn’t have the protection of the glass carafe in her hand like a wall between him and her stubborn awareness of him.
Then she realized from Finn’s sober expression that he’d come by tonight in his official capacity as sheriff, not as an improbable—unlikely—boyfriend. She shouldn’t be surprised. He’d said tell not ask. What could be wrong? She hadn’t run the one red light in town and never drove above the speed limit.
Finn
