Strangers in the Night Read online

  Price dragged Clinton’s arms behind his back and held them with one hand, then took the pistol out of his waistband, jamming the barrel against the base of Clinton’s skull. “Move one inch,” he said in a low, guttural tone, “and I’ll blow your fucking head off. Hope.” He didn’t look at her. “Do you have any thin rope? Scarves will do, if you don’t.”

  “I have some scarves.”

  “Get them.”

  She went upstairs and searched through her dresser until she found three scarves. Her knees were trembling, her heart thudding wildly against her ribs. She felt faintly nauseated.

  She held on to the railing as she shakily made her way back down the stairs. The two men didn’t look as if they had moved, Clinton lying on his belly, Price straddling him. The carnage of wrecked furniture and food surrounded them. Tink was standing at Clinton’s head, his muzzle down very close to the man’s face, growling.

  Price took one of the scarves, twisted it lengthwise, and wound it around Clinton’s wrists. He jerked the fabric tight and tied it in a hard knot. Then he jabbed the pistol into his waistband once more, took Clinton’s pistol from under his knee, and levered himself to his feet. Leaning down, he grabbed the collar of Clinton’s coveralls and hauled him to his feet, then slammed him down into the only chair left standing upright. He crouched and secured Clinton’s feet to the legs of the chair, using a scarf for each ankle.

  Clinton’s head lolled back. He was breathing hard, one eye swollen shut, blood leaking from both corners of his mouth. He looked at Hope, standing there pale and stricken, still holding the rifle as if she had forgotten she had it.

  “Shoot him,” he croaked. “For God’s sake … shoot him. He’s an escaped murderer. I’m a deputy sheriff … He took my uniform … Damn it, shoot the bastard!”

  “Nice try, Clinton,” Price said, straightening.

  “Ma’am, I’m telling the truth,” Clinton said. “Listen to me, please.”

  With one smooth movement Price reached out and tugged the rifle from Hope’s nerveless hands. She let it go without a protest, because now that Clinton was tied up, there was no one she could intimidate with the empty weapon.

  “Shit,” Clinton said, closing his good eye in despair. He sagged against the chair, still breathing hard.

  Hope stared at him, fighting off the dizziness that assailed her. He was almost Price’s height, but not as muscular. If she was any judge of men’s clothing—and after doing all the clothes shopping for first Dylan and now her dad, she had had plenty of experience—Clinton would wear a size fifteen and a half shirt.

  Price wasn’t unscathed. A lump was forming on his right cheekbone, his left eyebrow was clotted with blood, and his lips were cut in three separate places. He wiped the blood out of his eye and looked at Hope. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said, though her shoulder hurt like blue blazes where the cabinet edge had dug in, and she still wasn’t at all certain she wasn’t going to faint. “You don’t look it. Sit down.” He looked around, spotted an unbroken chair, and set it upright. His hand on Hope’s shoulder, he pressed her down onto the chair. “Adrenaline,” he said briefly. “You always feel weak as hell when the scare’s over.”

  “You broke into one of the cabins, didn’t you?” Price asked Clinton. “Built a fire in the fireplace, stayed nice and warm. With the blizzard going on, we wouldn’t be able to see the smoke from the chimney. When the weather cleared, though, you had to let the fire go out. Got damn cold, didn’t it? But you couldn’t head off into the mountains without heavier clothes and some food, so you knew you had to break into the house.”

  “Good scenario, Tanner,” Clinton said. “Is that what you would’ve done if you hadn’t stolen my uniform?” He opened his eye and flicked a look around. “Where’s the old man? Did you kill him too?”

  Hope felt Price looking at her, assessing her reaction to Clinton’s tale, but she merely stared at the captured man without a change in her expression. Maintaining her composure wasn’t difficult; she felt numb, absolutely drained. How did Clinton know about her father? Was he from the area? She was not, she thought, cut out to be an action hero.

  “Hey.” Price squatted in front of her, touching her cheek, folding her hands in his. She blinked, focusing her gaze on him. His brows were drawn together in a small frown, his blue eyes searching as he examined her. “Don’t let him play mind games with you, honey. Everything’s going to be all right; just relax and trust me.”

  “Don’t listen to him, ma’am,” Clinton said.

  “You look pretty shaky,” Price told her, ignoring Clinton. “Maybe you should lie down for a minute. Come on, let me help you to the couch.” He urged her to her feet, his hand under her elbow. As she turned, he uttered a savage curse and hauled her to a halt.

  “What?” she said, shaken by the abrupt change in him.

  “You said you weren’t hurt.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Your back is bleeding.” His face grim, he force-marched her into her dad’s bedroom. He paused to replace the rifle in the rack, then ushered her into the bathroom. After jerking open the curtains so he would have sufficient light, he began unbuttoning her shirt.

  “Oh, that. I scraped it on the cabinet edge when I fell.” She tried to grab his hands, but he brushed her hands aside and pulled off her shirt, whirling her around so he could examine her back. She shivered, her nipples puckering as the cold air washed over her bare breasts.

  He dampened a washcloth and dabbed it on her back, just below her shoulder blade. Hope flinched at the pain.

  “You’ve got a gouge in your back, and from the looks of it, a monster bruise is forming.” Gently he continued washing the wound. “You need an ice pack on it, but first I’m going to disinfect that gouge and put a gauze pad over it. Where are your first aid supplies?”

  “In the cabinet door over the refrigerator.”

  “Lie down on the bed. I’ll be right back.”

  He guided her to the bed, and Hope willingly collapsed facedown. She was cold without her shirt, though, and tugged the cover around her.

  Price returned in just a moment with the first aid box. Blood was dripping in his eye again, and he paused a minute to wash his own face. Blood immediately trickled down again, and with an impatient curse he tore open an adhesive bandage and plastered it over his eyebrow.

  Then, holding the box on his lap, he sat beside Hope and gently dabbed the wound with an antibiotic ointment. As gentle as he was, even the lightest touch was painful. She bore it, refusing to flinch again. He placed a gauze pad over the wound, then covered her with one of her dad’s Tshirts.

  “Just lie still,” he ordered. “I’ll get an ice pack.”

  He improvised an ice pack by filling a Ziploc plastic bag with ice cubes. Hope jumped when he gently laid it on her back. “That’s too cold!”

  “Okay, maybe the T-shirt’s too thin. Let me get a towel.”

  He got a towel from the bathroom, and draped it over her in place of the T-shirt. The ice pack was tolerable then, barely.

  He pulled the cover up over her, because the room was chilly. “Are you too cold?” he asked, smoothing her hair. “Do you want me to carry you upstairs?”

  “No, I’m fine, with the cover over me,” she murmured. “I’m sleepy, though.”

  “Reaction,” he said, leaning over and brushing a kiss on her temple. “Take a nap, then. You’ll feel fine when you wake up.”

  “I feel like a wuss right now,” she admitted.

  “Never been in a fight before?”

  “Nope, that was my first one. I didn’t like it. I acted like a girl, didn’t I?”

  He chuckled, his fingers gentle on her hair. “How does a girl act?”

  “You know, the way they always do in the movies, screaming and getting in the way.”

  “Did you scream?”

  “Yes. When he kicked in the door. It startled me.”

  “Fancy that. Did you get in the way?”