Page 285 of Silent Target

“He's lovely.” She scratches his neck and he leans in closer, making her skirt rustle. “What's his name?”

“Six.”

“Six…” She tries it out. “Like the number?”

“Yeah, sort of an in-joke. He watches my six… it means he has my back.” I don’t tell her that my dog is better at protecting my blind spot than most of the guys I ever worked a detail with.

“What happened to his ear?” She strokes the ear with the chunk missing.

“He came that way from the shelter… Six has a tough history.” I flick the wipers up a notch. “So do I, so we get along.”

She laughs, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, and partly around Six, then settles back in the seat. The only noise is the heater and the rain falling heavily against the roof of the truck.

Curiosity gets the better of me. “Where's the groom?”

She sits up in her seat, shoulders tense and I curse myself for asking.

“There isn’t one… I mean, there was meant to be one but I fixed it.”

“Good,” I say, and I mean it. More than I have any business to, considering I've only known this girl for five minutes. I was going to ask her name, but I give her some space and concentrate on the road instead.

A few miles later, Wildwood emerges from the gloom. The lights strung down the main road look for all the world like somebody hung lanterns in a fish tank. It’s late enough that most places are shut; the Sugar Moon Bakery and Latte Da! are both dark, chairs up on the tables.

“There's the inn,” I say, pulling toward the end of the block. Every window upstairs is lit, and there's a U-Haul and a bunch of cars with out-of-state plates jammed into the lot. The O’Connor family reunion party, of course; half of Wildwood's been baking for it all week.

“No vacancy… of course.” The girl reads the sign, her tired voice suggesting that she’s spent all her adrenaline and is now running on fumes. She moves the blanket from around her shoulders. “Is there a bus, or even a gas station? I can wait somewhere until morning; I just need it to have a roof.”

Shaking my head, I wave at the dark streets. “Nothing's open.”

I should call Mary; she’d find her a cot in the back office. But Mary would also have the whole story out to most of the church by eight tomorrow. She wouldn’t be able to resist spreading the gossip, and this girl's got somebody behind her she's running from. Small towns aren’t good at keeping secrets.

She's looking out the window at the dark street, biting her lip and trying to think of a plan.

“Look, I've got a cabin up the ridge. A guest bedroom, if I move some of my mountain gear off the bed.”

She turns and studies me, and I keep both hands on the wheel where she can see them.

“Why?” she asks. Her voice is curious, mixed with a little fear.

“It's forty degrees outside and dropping, everything in town is shut, and my dog seems to think you won’t murder me in the night.” Six thumps his tail, right on cue. “And because whoever put that mark on your wrist might chase you. Even if there was a vacancy, the inn keeps a guest register. I don't.”

She lets out a long, slow breath. “Okay, thank you.”

I turn the truck up the ridge road. She watches the town lights disappear behind us with a blank face. Either her instincts are good or everything behind her is worse. Both, probably.

“It's not going to be comfortable, my place is built for me and the dog.”

“Neither was where I came from,” she says to the window. “Comfortable, I mean. And that place had marble bathrooms with gold taps.”

I pull through the gate to my property and the outline of the cabin rises up against the dark fir trees. I catch myself running a perimeter check: sight lines, up to the single road in and out, the gravel around the house so nobody can enter without me or Six hearing it.

Old habits. That's all it is.

Chapter Three

JULIETTE

The mountain man’s doormat is plain and functional. My dress drips on it as I stand there thinking about the polished console table in our entry hall. The same carefully chosen orchid will get swapped out by the florist every week, straight into the trash, blooms and all, before they have a chance to wilt.