“What about you?” Brynne asked, thinking what an outrage it was that Sara, the sister of the county sheriff, had to go to such lengths to protect her family, while Freddie, that punk, was free to come and go. “Who’s going to keep you safe, Sara?”
Sara blinked away her tears, took another sip of wine, savored it for a moment and swallowed. “Well, I am,” she said, sounding surprised.
Brynne laid a hand on her friend’s forearm. “Sara, Freddie Lansing isn’t a schoolyard bully, he’s a grown man. He might try to hurt you!”
Sara’s jawline tightened, and her gaze strayed to a small painting hanging on the far wall. It was Brynne’s own work, a simple watercolor still life featuring a plain crockery bowl filled with fruit.
“I almost wish he would,” Sara said.
Brynne knew there was a safe secreted behind the painting and, now, she had a pretty good guess what was inside, besides the usual jewelry, passports and other important documents.
“Sara,” she breathed, alarmed. “Do not tell me you have a gun, right here in this kitchen.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you,” Sara said, straightening her shoulders and looking quietly determined.
“Could you really shoot someone?” The idea made Brynne slightly ill. She hated guns, had always hated them, although Clay’s experience in that Boston convenience store, where he’d nearly been shot, right along with his partner, had caused her to hate them even more.
“If they broke into my home, intending to harm my children or anyone else who might be around? You’re damn right I could, Brynne. In a freaking heartbeat.”
Imagining herself in such a situation, Brynne realized that she herself could kill someone. It was a chilling insight into her own nature.
“Are you judging me?” Sara asked, without rancor.
“No,” Brynne answered promptly. Honestly. “I’m just scared of guns, that’s all. Really scared of guns.”
“That just shows you’re a sane human being,” Sara replied, resting a hand on Brynne’s, probably to communicate that she wasn’t offended by her horrified reaction to Sara’s apparent willingness to pick up a firearm with intent to kill. “I’m no expert—not like Eli or Dan, anyway—but I’ve had the best available training. And as long as there are people like Freddie Lansing in the world, I’m going to keep my skills polished to a high shine.”
Brynne swallowed. “Here’s hoping you never have to use those skills, Sara.”
Sara tapped the rim of her wineglass against the rim of Brynne’s. “Here’s hoping,” she agreed. She paused thoughtfully, and the noises from the den and the living room seemed to recede into the distance. “Maybe you should learn to shoot, Brynne. My instructor at the range is marvelous. Or Eli could teach you.”
Brynne shivered. “Why would I do that?”
“Maybe so you wouldn’t be so afraid of guns,” Sara suggested lightly. “Or if, God forbid, you needed to protect yourself.”
Brynne was about to change the subject, out of pure desperation, when the back door opened and Eli entered, nearly tripping when Festus shot past him and headed straight for the next room, barking with delight.
“He’s a party animal,” Eli said dryly, setting the bulky bags he carried on the end of the counter and closing it behind him with a motion of one foot.
“Hysterical,” Sara remarked, though she got up, went to Eli and kissed him smartly on the cheek.
Brynne was staring at him, and he was staring back.
Brynne swallowed. “Hello, Eli,” she said.
His voice was husky. “Hello,” he replied.
“Now that,” Sara interjected with a laugh, “was some snappy repartee. Remind me not to use it in any of my books.”
Eli shrugged out of his uniform jacket, found a place for it on the crowded row of pegs where other coats hung. To Brynne, he looked exhausted, and that pressed a bruise into the center of her heart, the size of a thumbprint.
“I was just trying to convince Brynne that she ought to learn to handle a gun,” Sara announced lightly, reaching for her wineglass.
“You’re already drunk?” Eli teased good-naturedly. “At this hour?”
“I’m serious,” Sara said.
“So am I,” Eli replied. “It’s a lousy idea.”
“You could teach her,” Sara pressed, opening the oven for another peek at the roast. “Or Zeke could give her lessons. He’s my instructor, and he is one handsome hunk of Montana man.”
Eli sighed, though there was a glimmer of amusement in his tired eyes. “Zeke is a good-looking guy. He’s also gay.”
“No!” Sara cried. “Really?”
“Disappointed, Luke?” Eli chided.
For once, Sara had nothing to say.
For Brynne’s part, she was enjoying the brother-and-sister exchange, wishing, not for the first time in her life by any means, that she had a sibling, someone to joke with, bicker with, love unconditionally and be loved the same way in return.
Of course, Sara and Eli’s relationship was probably unusual.
Even rare.
Why? Because everything about Eli was rare. He was no ordinary man.
And Sara was no ordinary woman.
Brynne felt rather shallow by comparison to either one of them.
Eli moved to stand briefly beside Brynne’s chair, and his hand brushed across the back of her left shoulder, light as a spring breeze. “Don’t listen to my sister,” he said. “She thinks she’s that cowboy detective she writes about.”
With that, he left the room.
Brynne heard Hayley greeting him in the living room with a gleeful, “Hey!”
“Hey, yourself,” he replied audibly.
Brynne sat very still in her chair, still recovering from the jolt that had raced through her at his touch. Her feet seemed bolted to the floor.
“Guess you’re finally over Clay Nicholls, that scumbag,” Sara said gently, with a smile in her voice.
To her own surprise, if not Sara’s, Brynne suddenly began to cry, though silently. Her shoulders shook and her nose ran and when Sara produced a box of tissues, she snatched up a handful and buried her face in them.
“Oh, Brynne,” Sara said, her tone tender now. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth.”
Brynne recovered quickly, mainly because she didn’t want anybody else to see her shedding ridiculous tears, like a schoolgirl ditched on prom night.