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Chapter One
In the night, sound traveled more easily through walls and windows, penetrating brick, glass, and drawn shades. Lexie Gilroy awoke, not sure whether she’d heard or dreamed the low rumble of an engine. She strained to listen, but all she could hear was the hum of the refrigerator. The fridge clicked off, leaving an absolute silence.
It was nothing. She just wasn’t used to being alone in her parents’ house. She flipped her pillow, tugged the sheet and blanket closer to her chin, and closed her eyes.
The bag of popcorn she’d mindlessly eaten as supper while watching an old movie had satisfied her hunger but now sat like a lump in her stomach. The movie, Peggy Sue Got Married, hadn’t aided her digestion, either. Seeing Nicholas Cage in one of his earlier roles had been the reason she’d chosen the film. Unfortunately, his character had reminded her too much of her ex, and Kathleen Turner’s Peggy Sue foolishly had fallen for his charm. By the end of the movie, Lexie had been crying, sad at reliving her own disastrous teenage romance and brief marriage and angry with herself for choosing the film. So much for believing the advertising that had labeled it as a fantasy comedy-drama. Tragedy would have been a more apt description.
She turned over, resettling herself on her side with her knees drawn up toward her chest. It was hours until dawn, and she needed her sleep. Tomorrow was her interview before the city council for a building contract she hoped to win for Gilroy Construction. It was important that she did well for the family’s business and for her future and her daughter’s. Ah, Sophie … She’d give anything at this moment to snuggle in bed with her five-year-old, stroke her soft curls, and inhale her little-girl scent. Sophie had only been gone for two days. How was she going to survive an entire week without her?
The creak of something metallic and a soft thud brought her up on her forearm. Her heart began to race. The earlier sound might have been a car or truck—definitely a truck—passing on the road, but this noise was closer.
The rumble of an engine made her sit up in bed. It sounded like—
“No!” Throwing off her covers, she rushed to the window. Although the old pecan tree partially blocked her view of the detached garage in the backyard, she could see the black gap where the white closed door should be. A dark pickup truck with a flatbed trailer was parked outside. The man standing next to the ramp at the rear of the trailer motioned to someone inside the garage—someone who had apparently started her new bulldozer.
Lexie raced down the hallway to the back door. Sliding her bare feet into her Crocs, she grabbed the rifle her father kept loaded to scare off deer foraging in her mother’s garden.
“Stop!” she yelled as she rushed into the yard. “Y’all stop—you hear me?”
Her beautiful yellow Caterpillar D6 was already climbing up the trailer ramp. The driver turned his face toward her, his mouth open in a surprised O.
Lexie stopped and lowered the rifle. No, it couldn’t be…
In the seconds she hesitated, the dozer stopped at the top of the trailer. The man she’d seen from the window folded up and secured the ramp as the dozer driver turned off the engine. He hopped out on the side away from her and disappeared from view.
Lexie fired a warning shot above the black pickup. “Put my bulldozer back or the next bullet’s going into the cab!”
The truck began to move.
Lexie aimed for the front tires. There was no way they were taking her Cat. No way! She’d worked too hard to—
Her shot went wide and high as her arm jerked. The man who’d secured the ramp lowered his gun as Lexie realized she’d been hit.
“You son of a—” Too angry to think straight, she cocked and raised her rifle again as the man raised his weapon. Another voice yelled, “No! Leave her.”
The striker on her rifle clicked, but nothing happened. She tried another shot with the same result and then watched helplessly as the truck swung around. With a grin, the shooter stuck his gun in his waistband, grabbed the side of the trailer, and climbed on. Dropping the rifle, Lexie ran. If she could just get a look at the license plate …
But there wasn’t one.
She stopped. The distance between her and the taillights increased as the thieves rumbled down the long driveway to the road.
Her arm throbbed but she ignored it. Picking up the useless rifle, she walked to the garage and closed the door. Not that there was anything to protect inside anymore. The door had a lock, but they never used it. That would have to change if she got her Cat back.
Angry enough to spit nails, Lexie swore as she marched back to the house.
“What the hell were you thinking? There were three of them and one of you.”
Maybe she should have called 911 instead of Tim Birch. She could understand him being grumpy after being awakened in the middle of the night, but the police chief looked like he wanted to throttle her.
“I was thinking of stopping them, of course.”
“By shooting at them?” His blue eyes were as dark as the night. “Where’s Sophie? Is she inside?”
“No, she’s with Dev, or, more accurately, with his folks this week.” Her ex-husband usually parked their daughter with his parents on the days he had custody. But thank goodness her daughter hadn’t been here tonight.
“You’re shivering. Let’s go inside.” He touched her arm, and she flinched from the sudden pain.
Releasing her, he examined his fingers. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s only a scratch. I think the bullet just grazed me.”
“You were shot?”
It was a good thing that Sophie wasn’t sleeping inside. His shout would have awakened and scared her.
“Just please … I don’t need you telling me how I messed things up.” She turned away from him to hide the angry tears suddenly burning her eyes, but he followed her to the door and jerked it open before she could reach for it. Inside, Lexie flipped on the light and twisted to look at her injury. The long-sleeved navy T-shirt she slept in was dark and wet with blood around the tear made by the bullet.
“That’s more than a scratch. We need to get that looked at.”
Before she could protest, he had his phone out calling for paramedics. She didn’t need this. She didn’t need this at all. She wandered into the den, where she plopped onto the sofa. How was she going to tell her father that the bulldozer was gone? They’d bought it to make Gilroy Construction eligible for bigger jobs. Her parents’ savings had gone into the purchase after she’d convinced them it was an investment in their family business’s future. At least she didn’t have to tell Daddy yet. No sense in waking him up; the bad news could wait until daylight.
Cradling her injured arm, she closed her eyes. The image of her Cat on the flatbed and the flash of the gun firing at her as she stood helpless replayed in the darkness behind her eyelids. Tim was right to yell at her: she had been stupid to confront the thieves, or at least reckless.
“They’ll be here soon,” Tim said, returning.
She sat up. “You don’t have to stay. If you’re not going to go catch them, I will! I need my bulldozer, Tim. We need it.”
“Just hold your horses. I put out an APB on the truck.” Tim was still looking at her with more concern than her injury warranted. Grabbing the afghan from the back of her mother’s chair, he tossed it to her. “At least put it over your knees,” he said, his eyes softening. “I don’t want you going into shock. Do you need some water?”
She shook her head. She needed to quit being ugly to him. He was just trying to help. “No, thank you.”
He sat next to her on the sofa. “So tell me again—there were three of them, right?” She nodded. “Did you get a good look at them?”
Her heart sank. How could Gage have been involved? Had her eyes been playing tricks on her?
“Lexie?”
“I saw the one who operated the ramp. He’s the one who shot at me.”
“Was he white? Black?”
“I think he was white. I-I didn’t see the truck driver clearly, but the one who drove the bulldozer was white.”
“Did you recognize any of them?”
Lexie wet her lips. She must have been mistaken in thinking she recognized Gage Pope. For Pete’s sake, he was a deacon at his church, a family man. He’d never been in trouble with the law. If she accused him without being certain—
Before she could answer, Tim’s phone rang. He left the room to take the call, but she heard him saying something about the garage and possible tire tracks. She leaned back again, suddenly too tired to care about any investigation. How many burglaries were ever solved? The police had more important crimes to worry about. She was going to have to accept that her Cat was gone and so was the money they’d spent on it.
Tim stopped talking. She opened her eyes.
“How badly are you hurting?” He again sat beside her and reached for her hand. “Do you want me to call your folks?”
She sat upright. “No! Don’t you dare.” They’d just arrived in North Carolina after a two-day drive. The last thing she needed was for them to turn around and come home. “I’ll call them when it’s daylight. I’m all right, really—just tired.”
“You’ve been robbed and shot. I’d say you’re feeling a little more than tired and needing your beauty sleep.”
Beauty sleep? She jerked her hand out of his. “If you’re going to act like my big brother, you can go make some coffee, Tim Birch.”
Their stare-off didn’t last long. “Please?” She couldn’t help the tears that suddenly filled her eyes.
Tim rose. “Where the hell are they?” he muttered as he left her.
Lexie wiped her eyes and tried to get a grip on her emotions. The coffee was more of a distraction, an excuse to keep Tim busy elsewhere. She also didn’t want him to see her cry. Bless his heart—he was being so sweet, but she didn’t want to be fussed over. Maybe coffee was a good idea; she couldn’t imagine sleeping a wink thinking about the call to her parents she’d be making in a few hours that would ruin their vacation. And to think she’d been worried earlier about her interview with the city council. Now it seemed like the least of her worries.
The EMTs arrived as Tim brought her a cup of coffee. She watched as the male paramedic cut off the sleeve of her T-shirt and cleaned the wound. He confirmed it was just a graze and apologized for making it sting. The burning pain fueled her anger at the men who’d robbed her. She had to find them and recover what they’d stolen from her family.
She caught Tim watching her as the paramedic finished bandaging her arm and giving her instructions. He frowned at her as if she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. He’d known her most of her life, so what did he expect she’d do? She was a fighter. She always had been.
“We’ll get them,” he told her after the paramedics had packed up and left. “Don’t even think of going after them yourself.”
“I’m wounded, remember?”
“Uh-huh. That so-called scratch didn’t stop you tonight, and what about when you went after Ralph Drake for sideswiping your truck last year? You’re lucky he didn’t shoot you.”
“He paid to fix the dent after we had a little conversation.”
“After you hounded him to death and threatened to take him to small claims court and report him for a code violation.”
“I wouldn’t have mentioned that if he’d just agreed to pay for the repairs when we first talked. That sunporch he added on wasn’t permitted. He ignored Daddy’s free advice about doing that.” She pulled the afghan up over her chest. Being chilled made her aware that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Tim was a long-time friend of the family, but he was also a man. A very attractive man at that—when he wasn’t angry.
“My point is you have the Crossroads police force on your side. You don’t have to take on the world by yourself, Alexandra.”
She scowled at him, but he’d already glanced down at his phone.
“It’s nearly four. Maybe we can get some sleep. CSI will be out here in the morning to look at the garage and check for tire tracks. If you’d called 911, we might have been able to set up a roadblock to catch them.”
“Or one more bullet in Daddy’s rifle would have done the trick.” She wasn’t going to admit to him that maybe she’d screwed up by not calling 911 for help before she’d confronted the thieves. Not when he was talking to her as if she were a child.
He groaned. “You’re as stubborn as they come.”
She wasn’t going to argue with him anymore. Picking up her coffee cup, she rose to take it to the kitchen. She’d only had a few sips but felt as wired as if she’d drunk a gallon of his strong brew. “You’re right—it is late. Good night, Tim, and, uh, thanks for coming.”
After she rinsed out her cup in the kitchen, she found him still standing in the den. He held Sophie’s kindergarten picture. Her sweet girl’s red curls were a wild cloud around her face. Lexie had forgotten that photos were scheduled for that day and had rushed her to school without taking time to tame it or fasten a bow or barrettes. Even so, her baby looked so sweet with her happy smile and big blue eyes behind her round glasses.
God, she missed her. Even at five, Sophie seemed to know when her mama needed someone to hug her neck.
“I hadn’t realized Sophie was old enough to be in school.” He set the photo down. “I’m staying for the rest of the night. I’ll sleep here on the sofa.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
He glanced at the photo. “No, but I might as well. We’re only talking two hours ’til daylight.”
She hesitated, but only for a moment. His jaw was set; it wasn’t just an offer. Talk about stubborn! But maybe she could sleep knowing she wasn’t alone in the house.
End of Excerpt
