Page 22 of River Wild

“How can you even ask me that?” She looked away for a moment, hating the haunted look she’d seen in his eyes. He loved her. She’d never questioned that. Which made it so much harder to tell him, knowing how it would hurt him, because he loved her and always wanted to keep her safe—not knowing it was impossible.

He raked his fingers through his longish blond hair. “How is it you weren’t killed?” he asked.

“I got away from him,” she said, but could see he was still having trouble trying to understand why she hadn’t come to the law for help. “Don’t you think I would have told you if I knew who he was?”

She held his gaze with a defiant one of her own for a moment before she had to look away again. “I never saw his face. He wore a mask. He changed his voice. I don’t know who he is.” She sounded angry and frustrated and scared. That too was hard to admit. She was terrified. “If I knew who he was, he’d already be dead, and Willow...” Her voice cracked. “She’d still be alive.”

STUARTSTAREDATHER. Hadn’t this been his greatest fear?Be what she needs right now.She needs the sheriff, not some lovesick cowboy. “I’ll take you down to the department, and we’ll get it all on the record,” he said.

She groaned. “I don’t even want to tellyou, because it won’t help. Like I said, I don’t know who he is.”

“As much as I will hate hearing what happened, Bailey, I’m the sheriff—”

“But you’re quitting,” she snapped.

He swore, his gaze locking with hers. “There is no way I can quit now. Whoever hurt you... I have to find him.” He shook his head.

Her eyes filled with tears. “I’ll tell you. But not down there at your office. No... I can’t.”

“Okay, tell me here, now, just the two of us.” She looked so skeptical. He hated to think that she’d lost faith in him—the way he’d lost it in himself.

She hesitated. Then the words began to pour out of her, tumbling over each other. “I was terrified at first that he could come for me again, and I wouldn’t see him until it was too late. But he didn’t,” she said as she began to pace his small living room. “I thought since I’d gotten away, he’d never do it again. It was so long ago...” Her voice broke as she turned to look at him. “Then I heard about Willow.”

“No one is blaming you,” he said, still standing in the doorway.

Bailey shook her head. “Iblame me.” He could tell she was fighting breaking down. He’d only seen Bailey truly bawl once, years ago, when she’d fallen from a tree and broken her arm. Even then she’d stopped almost as quickly as she’d started, fighting the pain as if crying was a failing, a weakness she wouldn’t allow herself.

“When Willow came to Powder Crossing, took the job at the hotel, I saw her resemblance to me when I was younger...” She breathed hard. “But she wasblonde. How was I to know that she’d gone back to dark hair? With dark hair, she would have looked so much like me when I was that age that he....” She froze, her gaze slowly rising to his. “I didn’t want to believe he would do it again, because that would mean he might still be coming for me. But when I heard it was Willow, I knew. Willow was his message. Unless you can tell me that he didn’t do it again, that it was someone else... I need to know what he did to her.”

Stuart thought about his resignation letter. He’d been ready to walk away and never look back, but now... He cleared his voice. He’d been afraid that he could no longer do his job, and it was a disservice to the people he’d promised to protect. He’d handed Willow’s case over to the state crime team, telling himself they would find her killer. But they hadn’t yet.

He took a long breath and let it out as he watched her face. “Her wrists and ankles had been bound. She’d been choked with a cord or garrote. She’d been sexually assaulted.” Bailey looked as if she had stopped breathing. He knew what she was waiting for, the one thing that might tie the two cases together. His heart pounded painfully. He could barely choke out the words. “She had a small horseshoe-shaped brand on her left breast.”

Her hand went to her mouth, eyes filling again.

“Bailey?” He knew without her saying a word, and yet he was going to have to hear it all. Just as he knew that he was going to tear up his resignation letter first thing in the morning. He had to stay, knowing what the woman he loved had been through—that the man might be coming for her again.

As devastated as he felt, he fought not to show it. He didn’t want to think about what the man had done to her. He fought to push away all his doubts and fears and just do the job he’d been hired to do. “When did it happen?”

“When I was seventeen, just before I left for college.”

Oh, my God.He couldn’t stand the thought that she’d been carrying this secret around all this time. The weight of it was enough to change her into the angry, secretive woman she’d become. His hands fisted at his sides. He had to remind himself that if he was going to stay on the job, he had to be the lawman he’d been trained to be. He had wanted the bastard found before. He just hadn’t been sure he could make it happen. Now he had to.

But as angry and upset as he was, he ached to comfort this woman he had loved for so long. He desperately wanted to take her in his arms and promise that no one would ever hurt her again. But he couldn’t make that promise. It was going to take a lot more than a hug and empty promises–two things she definitely wouldn’t want right now. She needed him to be the law. She needed him to find this man.

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to need to know what happened to you, all of the details,” he said. “It’s the only way I can find him.”

She gave him a disbelieving look. “What makes you thinkyoucan find him? I’ve been looking for him for years.”

That surprised him. “You have?”

“He still lives around here. I can...feel him as if he’s been watching me, waiting.”

Stuart felt a chill encircle his neck like a garrote. Any other woman and he’d have thought this was only her fear talking. But this was Bailey McKenna.

“I’ve always known it was just a matter of time before he came for me again. I’d hoped to find him first.” Her blue eyes gleamed with a hatred that couldn’t dim the fear. “Willow was his message to me that the waiting is over. He’s coming for me. If I don’t find him before then...”

ITWASGOINGto be a long night. Stuart made a pot of coffee and finally got Bailey to sit down on one end of the couch. He took the other end—just as they’d done on so many other nights when they’d shared a beer or two. Only tonight all he’d offered her was coffee. “I need this on the record,” he told her. “I need to video record it.”

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