Return of the Lawman by Lisa Childs

Author:Lisa Childs [Childs, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, General
ISBN: 9781426866593
Google: Qu8uYlejz1AC
Goodreads: 2126491
Publisher: Harlequin Men In Uniform
Published: 2010-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

SHE’D PROMISED HER FATHER she’d return quickly with his car. She didn’t break promises. She’d resisted the temptation of Dylan Matthews and come home.

Although she wrapped her arms around her father’s shoulders when she found him alone at the kitchen table, disappointment swamped her. She’d hoped her mother would have found her way home again, as she had the first time.

“I have to go down to the paper, Lindsey. You need some sleep. Why don’t you curl up on the living room couch? That way you’d hear the door open….”

“It’s okay, Dad. You go ahead.”

“Maybe that’s not a good idea.” He dropped his gaze from hers, and his already pale face drained of what remaining color he’d had. “Why not?”

He patted her head with a shaking hand. “I’ll just stay. You go to bed, get some sleep.”

“You need to be at the paper, Dad.” Then, as concern clouded his eyes, she added, “What? Why don’t you want me to stay here alone?” Her stomach dipped with a sad realization. “You think she’s dangerous? You think she might hurt me?”

He sighed heavily. “I don’t know. And I don’t want to take the chance with you, honey. Come on, now. You’re exhausted. Go lie down.”

“She wouldn’t hurt me, Dad.”

He slipped out of her arms as he jumped to his feet. “She almost did. When she set fire to this house nine years ago, she almost killed you then.”

“I was at school, Dad.” She hated the way her voice broke with the emotion strangling her.

“You came home. You came into a burning house and rescued her. You could have been killed.”

A night mare of wavering flames and overwhelming smoke flashed behind the eyes she squeezed shut. The room spun a bit, and she dropped into the chair he’d vacated.

“I wasn’t. She didn’t want to hurt me.” She twisted her fingers into her tangled curls.

“The other day, the fire at Dylan’s—”

“That wasn’t her. She never left the sanatorium. She was heavily sedated.”

“The shooting last night.”

“How’d you know?” Then she answered her own question. “Dylan told you.”

He jerked his gray-haired head in a sharp nod. “Yes, someone had to. You wouldn’t have told me. You’re in danger, Lindsey.”

“Both incidents could have been accidents.”

“Mr. Smithers burning his leaves, and a jealous husband shooting the wrong motel room,” her father agreed. “He said that.”

It wasn’t what he believed. But it wouldn’t stop her from using those theories to protect her father as Dylan had tried to protect her.

“Those are the reasonable explanations. We’re in the news game, Dad. We know there are a lot of reasonable explanations…”

He shook his head. “And we know there are un reasonable ones, too.”

“Not my mother.”

“How do you defend her, Lindsey? I know you’re mad at her, mad at me, at Marge. Why did you come home?”

She folded her arms on the table and dropped her head onto them. “I don’t know, Dad. I hoped you’d want me. Nobody else has.”

She didn’t hear his reply because sleep finally won the battle she’d fought against it.

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