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“Unless you plan...on shooting me for no reason...I don’t really care,” he said. “Just tell me the police are gone.”
Why would she admit she was alone? “They’re not. They’re right outside. I can call them in if necessary.”
There was another long silence.
“Did you hear me?”
“Let them go and I...I’ll leave. I just...needed some soap and water. That’s all. Some gauze would’ve been nice. But you don’t have that. What kind of woman doesn’t have a first-aid kit?”
“I have a first-aid kit. But I don’t keep it the medicine cabinet.”
“Too bad. It would sure...make a nice send-off present, if you...could...forgive my intrusion.”
What condition was he in? He was slurring his words. Talking at all seemed a struggle for him. “How’d you get inside my house?”
“Wasn’t hard. You and those...two officers...”
“Yes?”
He made an attempt to rally. “You were so intent on trying to use your dog to follow my trail I just...circled around behind you. I could tell where you were at all times. Until you brought him in.”
“How’d you keep from dripping blood all over?”
“I wrapped my sweatshirt around my arm...hoped that would help.”
It had done the trick. The trail of blood had disappeared completely. “Sneaking in here takes a lot of nerve,” she said.
“Lady, sometimes you...have to do...what you have to do. What else can I tell you.”
Lady? That made her sound old. She thought of her good friend Cheyenne marrying Dylan Amos just four months ago, right before the doctor had given her the bad news about her liver, and winced. She’d wanted a husband, a family. She’d never had a hint of health problems, no reason to believe she wouldn’t eventually have kids. Now chances were that she’d die before summer’s end.
There were more noises. These Callie couldn’t figure out. “What’s going on?” she asked, worried again.
“I’m trying to get...the hell out of...your bathtub.”
She was beginning to believe this whole night really had been about his injury. “What’s wrong? You can’t?”
“It’d be easier...if I wasn’t so...damn dizzy.”
What was she going to do now? She wasn’t sure she had the heart to call the police on him again. It wasn’t as if he’d waited in her bedroom and attacked her. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t let me get you some help,” she said. “I tried.”
“No, you called the police.”
“Same thing.”
“Not quite.”
She inched closer. She still held her gun at the ready but she was feeling more and more confident that she wouldn’t have to use it. “Why are you so afraid of the authorities?”
He didn’t respond for a few seconds. Judging by the noise, he was once again trying to get up. “Why do you think?”
“You’re wanted?”
“Not for anything serious.” He cursed as though he’d done something that hurt.
“Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he reverted to the question she’d asked before. “I have a few...unpaid speeding tickets.”
That sounded far too innocuous to explain his reaction. Surely it couldn’t be the truth. “You’re lying,” she said. “Why would that make you afraid of the police?”
“We don’t get along.”
“Meaning...”
“I’ve had...a few run-ins with them. They don’t like vagrants. Besides, a warrant is a warrant. Whether it’s for a speeding ticket or...or whatever else, they’ll take you in. I can’t let that happen.”
He’d called himself a vagrant, but he didn’t sound like one. Although she could tell he was in considerable pain, he was mostly coherent. Articulate, too. “Where are you from?”
“Does it matter? Look, if you’ll...help me a minute, I’ll be...on my way.”
“Where?”
“Wherever the road takes me.”
She crept right up to the door. “I thought your motorcycle broke down.”
“I’ll fix it. Believe me...I want to leave as badly as you want me gone. I have to get to my...my ride before someone else comes across it.”
Including the police. No doubt they’d impound it.
She listened for movement but didn’t hear anything. “Are you coming out or not?”
“I think...you’re going to have to come in. Just...whatever you do...keep that dog of yours away.”
“He’s in another room. But I can get him in here pretty darn fast if I need to,” she added.
“I won’t hurt you. Give me some bandages. Then I’ll go.”
Lifting the barrel of the gun so she could reach the knob, Callie pushed the door wide.
Sure enough, the man she’d first spotted on the porch was in her tub. He must’ve stumbled and fallen while trying to clean himself up, because he’d broken the shower curtain rod on the way down. The curtain lay on the floor, stained with blood. Blood speckled the vanity, the floor and the bath mat, too. But that wasn’t what concerned Callie. He didn’t look good. He’d managed to get to his feet, but he was huddled, shivering in nothing but a pair of bloodstained jeans in the corner, where he could use the walls to hold himself up.
Callie felt her jaw drop. “Look at you.”
He seemed to summon what strength he had left. “About that first-aid kit...”
“You need more than a Band-Aid.” About her age, maybe a little younger, he had blood smeared all over him as if he’d swiped here and there to staunch the flow. The hooded sweatshirt he’d been wearing was tied around one arm; his bloody T-shirt lay on the floor not far from the shower curtain. She couldn’t ascertain the injuries on the arm that was covered, but she could see he’d been bitten several times on the arm that was bare.
“You need painkiller, maybe food, a good doctor—and a heck of a lot of sleep.”
He didn’t respond. There was a gray cast beneath his tanned skin. That was probably new. But Callie suspected his gaunt, ravaged look wasn’t. This man was accustomed to living a hard life. His cheekbones were pronounced, testament to the fact that he was too thin, especially since he had such wide shoulders and big hands. And yet...he wasn’t unhandsome. Somehow his rawboned features gave him a rebel air and enhanced the impact of his hazel eyes, which regarded her with the wariness of a wild animal cornered because of injury.
He didn’t trust her any more than she trusted him, she realized.
Lowering the gun, she set it aside. Maybe dropping her guard was the wrong thing to do. Maybe it put her own safety in jeopardy. But she no longer cared in the same, fearful way she had before. Without a functioning liver, she was going to die soon, anyway.
But maybe she could save him.
* * *
The woman was small, even for a woman, and curvy. With platinum-blond hair and big blue eyes, she had a certain...bombshell look about her. Thirty or so, she was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with no bra. The no-bra part was unmistakable.
“Come here.” She stretched an arm toward him. “Let me help you out of the shower.”
Levi shrank against the tile. There wasn’t any reason for her to touch him. She’d only get blood on her clothes, and he’d caused her enough trouble for one night. “I just need—” he fought the dizziness that made it almost impossible to stay on his feet “—your first-aid kit.”
Somehow he had to stop the bleeding so he could see how bad his injuries were. He could tell that both arms were chewed up, especially his right, which he’d swaddled in his sweatshirt. He’d also been bitten on the back of the neck, his shoulder and his leg in two places. He didn’t know much about the dogs that’d attacked him, wasn’t sure of the breed—it’d been too dark and things happened too fast. The only thing he could say for sure was that he hadn’t been able to outrun them, even after he ditched his bike. When sharp teeth sank into his flesh, he’d been forced to fight. After that it had been a blur of snarling, lunging and gnashing teeth—on his part and that of the dogs.
Fortunately, he’d won. Or they’d all lost. One dog had finally taken a hard enough kick that he didn’t want any more and the other had followed him when he limped away, whining. Levi had done his share of limping, too. It hadn’t been a minor encounter for any of them.
The woman with the smooth complexion and soft, round features still had her hand out. “I’m afraid it can’t be that simple, Mr. McCloud. You need a doctor. Come on, I’ll take you to the hospital.”
“No.” He had no permanent address, no insurance and very little money. Everything he owned was stuffed into the backpack he’d left with his bike, except for the clothes on his back and the wadded-up bills in his pocket. Maybe twenty bucks at the most, it was just enough to buy food until he found his next odd job.
Worry tightened her voice. “How many times were you bitten?”
“Several.” Closing his eyes, he rested his head against the wall. “I’ve never seen animals so intent on tearing someone to pieces.” He winced at the memory. He’d been chased by a few dogs since returning from Afghanistan. Being out on the streets left him vulnerable. But he’d never been attacked. He’d made it through six years in the military, fighting in some of the worst hot spots in the Middle East without taking a bullet, only to be mangled by dogs in his own country.
“My arms took the brunt of it,” he explained. “They wanted the front of my...neck, my jugular, but I kept blocking them. I would’ve been...better off with my leather jacket on. But I’d worked up a sweat pushing my bike and...had taken it off. Bad luck.” He chuckled, but the thought of his bike, his jacket and his pack brought back the concern he’d been feeling earlier. He had to retrieve his belongings before someone stole them or the police came by. He’d had to leave his motorcycle right there on the side of the road, couldn’t continue to push it after the attack. It was too damn heavy.
“Okay, well, at least sit down. You’ll only hurt yourself more if you don’t.”
“I’ve gotta go.” He tried to step out of the tub, nearly toppled over and had to let her help him down onto his ass. Muttering something he couldn’t quite make out, she rolled up a towel she got from a cupboard and put it behind his head. Then she brought in a heavy blanket and covered him, right there in the tub. “Stay put,” she ordered as she tucked it tightly around him. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
The decisiveness in her voice made him lift his head. “Where are you going?”
“To get the first-aid kit, since that’s all you’ll accept.”
Relieved, he let his head fall back. If she was going to call the police again, she wouldn’t have braved coming in. Surely that meant he’d soon be bandaged up and on his way. He’d walk his bike to the small gold-rush town a few miles back where he’d had dinner and find the necessary parts and tools to make the repairs. Maybe he could offer his services to an auto shop for a few days in trade for what he’d need. He’d done that before. He could fix any kind of engine, had been in charge of the heavy equipment for his platoon in Afghanistan.
Trying to keep his mind off the pain, Levi concentrated on the gas station with the repair bays he’d noticed in town before settling on a café. But he must’ve drifted off despite his efforts to remain lucid, because when he opened his eyes there was another man in the room. He was easily in his seventies, his hair completely gray, and he had a hook nose, full beard and paunch that hung over his belt. He’d removed the blanket that had kept Levi warm, which was what had disturbed him.
The woman who’d covered him was now wearing a bra under her shirt. She wrung her hands as she peered over the old man’s shoulder. “Is he going to be okay?”
Levi didn’t give him a chance to respond. “Where’s the first-aid kit?” he asked, calling her on the deception.
She had the grace to look abashed. “I’m sorry. I was afraid you were going into shock. You need a doctor.”
The other man glanced up at her. “I’m not a doctor.”
She sent Levi an apologetic grin. “But he is a veterinarian.”
“Who’s mostly retired,” the guy said with a note of exasperation.
“Still good at his craft.” She patted his shoulder with obvious affection. “This was my grandfather’s friend and next-door neighbor. Now he’s my friend and neighbor. Godfrey Blume, meet Levi McCloud.”
* * *
“So what do you think?” Callie shooed Rifle out of her way so she could pour the coffee she’d put on a few minutes earlier. Levi McCloud was asleep in her bed, but Godfrey was sitting at her kitchen table.
Every time her neighbor yawned she felt bad about waking him in the middle of the night. He was nearing eighty. But she hadn’t expected providing Mr. McCloud with medical attention to take several hours. She’d been so caught up in helping to wash and bandage his wounds, she hadn’t noticed the passage of time until she saw the break of dawn. Now her rooster was out in the yard, crowing for all he was worth.
She couldn’t help smiling when she caught sight of the old bird strutting past her kitchen window. She loved early mornings. They reminded her of summers with her grandparents and awaking to the smell of frying bacon.
“I did what I could,” Godfrey said. “But I wish he would’ve let us take him to the hospital. Or even to a real doctor. I’ve never seen an attack like that.”
And her neighbor had worked with animals his whole life! She frowned as she set the sugar and cream on the table. “We did what we could.”
“Mr. McCloud is a surprisingly stubborn man, given the extent of his injuries.”
Once Godfrey had ascertained the large number of stitches their patient required, they’d both tried, once again, to get him in her car. Godfrey could only offer him a topical analgesic to ease the pain—and Tylenol. But there was nothing they could do to overcome Mr. McCloud’s resistance. He tried to leave on his own power when they insisted, and would’ve done so if they’d pushed it any further. At that point, Godfrey had relented and agreed that some care was better than none.
“We should report the dogs to animal control,” she said. “They need to be restrained before they hurt someone else—a child, for instance.”
“I plan on looking into it.” Her neighbor had been the only veterinarian in town for most of his life. He’d officially retired three years ago, when the newly licensed Harrison Scarborough opened his practice. But some people still brought their animals to Godfrey.
“Do you have any idea whose pets they might be?” she asked while pouring herself some cranberry juice. She was on a strict diet that precluded alcohol, salt and coffee, among other things.
He smoothed his shirt over his belly. “My bet? There’s a couple of pit bulls down the road, around the bend.”
“Really?” Callie had never seen any, but she’d been pretty preoccupied of late. Adjusting to the shock of her diagnosis, especially since she’d never consumed much booze, hadn’t been easy. She’d thought only alcoholics had to worry about cirrhosis. “You think it’s them?”
“I can’t imagine what other dogs it could be. I know all the rest of the animals in the area, and they wouldn’t do something like what we saw.”
“Whose pit bulls are they?”
“Belong to a couple of young men, maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine, who are renting the old Gruper place. They’re here for the summer, doing some prospecting.”
Gold panning and dredging had become popular pastimes. A lot of tourists visited “the heart of gold country” to relive the history of the ’49er. Coloma, where gold was first discovered in California, was an hour away, but the entire area had been rich in ore. At 5,912 feet, the nearby Kennedy mine was one of the deepest gold mines in the world.
“So you’ve met these men?” she asked.
“Just last week. I was selling my gold dredge. They saw my flyer on the bulletin board at the diner and came over to buy it. I guess they weren’t finding anything using the panning method.”
“Did you like them?”
“Not a bit.” Godfrey spoke with his usual candor, but she’d already guessed his feelings from his sour expression.
“Why not?”
“They’re unruly braggarts with big mouths and no respect. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve thought they were related to the Amoses.”
The Amoses weren’t as bad as they’d been immediately after their father went to prison. As a matter of fact, she really liked Cheyenne’s husband. But she didn’t mention that she now knew Dylan and cared about him. She didn’t want to veer off topic. “I’m surprised they didn’t hear their dogs growling and barking. You’d think they would’ve gone out to see what was going on.”
He shrugged. “They were probably passed out, drunk.”
“They’re big partiers?”
“That’s the impression they gave me.”
“Great.” She rolled of her eyes. “Just who you want living so close—and with a couple of unsafe pit bulls, too.”
He acknowledged her sarcasm with a tip of his cup. “Fortunately, it’s only for three months.”
Rifle brushed up against her, wanting some attention, so she bent to scratch behind his ears. “Short-timers or no, they still have to keep their dogs from biting people,” she said. “Mr. McCloud could’ve been killed.”
Godfrey sipped his coffee before responding. “I plan on heading over there later.”
Knowing he’d do whatever needed to be done, she changed the subject. “Will Mr. McCloud be okay?”
Her neighbor’s hands were oversize, like her injured guest’s, except that Godfrey’s were also thick. When he was stitching up Levi’s bite wounds, Callie had been impressed by how dexterous his sausagelike fingers could be.
“As long as those bites don’t get infected, he should be. He’ll have a few scars, but I made the stitches very small. That’ll help. In my opinion, he should get a tetanus booster, but he claims he was in the military, that his shots are current.”
“They make sure soldiers stay up on that sort of thing, don’t they?”
“They do. If he was really a soldier.”
Apparently, Godfrey was taking nothing for granted. The people of Whiskey Creek could be suspicious of outsiders. But Callie believed at least that much of McCloud’s story. He had a tattoo on one shoulder depicting an eagle with the word Freedom. A tattoo on the other arm said R.I.P. Sanchez, Williams, Phelps, Smith. The names were in different fonts, as if they’d been added as he’d lost friends.
She preferred not to consider how hard that would be to cope with.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help, G.,” she said, using the nickname her grandfather had given him. Poppy had coined a nickname for everyone. It was usually a shortened version of that person’s first name but Godfrey became a little tricky. Only his wife sometimes teased him by calling him God.
“Happy to help. You know how much Mina and I care about you.” Although his words were kind, he shot her a warning look from beneath his hairy eyebrows that indicated she might not like what was coming next.
“But...” she said, giving him the opportunity to speak his mind.
“But I’m going to stick my nose into your business and tell you that I think you should send this man on his way.”
“I will, of course. As soon as he’s better.”
“I mean as soon as he wakes up.”
Rifle wandered off as she sat down at the table. “G., he just got over a hundred stitches!”
“That’s okay. In a few hours he’ll be able to walk well enough to vacate the premises.”
But how far would he have to go? Godfrey had mentioned infection as if it was a serious concern. Certainly heading off into the wild blue yonder wouldn’t minimize that risk. And what if Levi couldn’t find his motorcycle? For all she knew, the cops had impounded it. Even if the bike was exactly where he’d left it, it wasn’t running. That was the whole reason he’d been in a position to be attacked in the first place. “He needs time to recover.”
“We don’t know anything about him, Callie. We don’t even know if his version of what happened is true. Having him here might not be safe.”
Callie sipped her juice. “But he has no home.” And he had no mode of transportation. “Where will he go?”
“Wherever he was going before he met you.”
His protectiveness wouldn’t allow him to consider any mitigating factors, so she didn’t argue further. “I’ll send him off as soon as I can,” she promised.
Godfrey finished his coffee and got up to bring his cup to the sink. “I’d better go. I’m sure Mina’s wondering where on earth I am.”
“Of course. Thanks again.” When she ushered him out, she put Rifle into the fenced part of the yard so he could get some exercise. Then she returned to the house and stiffened in surprise. Levi McCloud was no longer asleep. He was coming out of her bedroom.
3
“Those clothes were in the tub for a reason,” she said.
Careful not to tear out the stitches in his leg, Levi hobbled toward the door, eyeing the petite blonde who’d given him the help he needed. What was her name? She’d told him last night. Callie something... Anyway, he appreciated what she’d done for him. He also appreciated that she’d kept her word and hadn’t called the police a second time. He doubted there were many women who would’ve taken such a risk and he admired her courage. But he didn’t want her to get in his way now that he was ready to go. “I rinsed out the blood the best I could. I have to get my bike and my backpack,” he explained.
“And if you manage to do that, then what?”
“I’m out of here.” He never stayed in one place long. But how fast he could leave Whiskey Creek would depend on his bike. If the repairs cost more than elbow grease, he could be in trouble. He’d never find work in his current condition. With all the stitches in his arms, he looked pieced together, like Frankenstein’s monster.
“Where’s your backpack?” she asked.
He could smell coffee, wanted a cup but figured he could buy one along the way—provided he found his bike and was able to fix it. “I hope it’s where I left it.”
“What’s in it?”
“Everything,” he said simply. Everything he owned, anyway. That didn’t consist of a lot, but he didn’t need a lot.
She sidled over as if moving slowly would make it less apparent that she was cutting off his path to the door. “If you’ll go back to bed and get some rest, I’ll retrieve your bike.”
She had dark circles under her eyes, looked as tired as he felt. But then, he’d kept her up all night, so that was to be expected. She was still damn pretty. She reminded him of Charlize Theron. Maybe even Marilyn Monroe.
“You don’t know where it is,” he said.
“You could solve that by telling me.”
Her size relative to that of his bike didn’t make her suggestion very plausible. “I had to drop it when the dogs attacked. Even if it’s not in the ditch I was trying to avoid while I was pushing it—which it might be—you wouldn’t be strong enough.”
“But if you exert yourself, you could ruin everything we just accomplished with your stitches!”
She had a point. Medical help wasn’t easy to come by, especially for someone like him. But, as he’d said, she couldn’t lift his bike. “I don’t have any choice.”
She started to argue, to say nothing was worth risking further injury, but he cut her off. “What about the dogs that attacked me? They could still be around, licking their wounds. If they feel anything like I do this morning, they won’t be in a good mood.”
Her confidence seemed to falter. “I don’t have to go alone. I have a friend who could help.”
“A male friend?”
“Yes.”
He hadn’t gotten the impression she was in any kind of serious relationship. He was pretty sure it was just her and her dog living here. She had extra bedrooms but, as she’d mentioned to the vet who’d stitched him up, they were full of storage. The only bed was in her room, and there were no men’s clothes or belongings in there.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t have a boyfriend, however... “Is he a mechanic?” he asked hopefully.
“No. But he has a truck and a trailer. We could load your bike up, bring it here. And I could wash your clothes. You can’t be comfortable in those.”
She obviously thought she’d overcome all objections, but Levi had reason to be worried about one more thing. “What is this male friend going to say when he finds me here—in your bed?”