Page 11 of Love on the Run

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” He smiled oddly, and vanished.

3

After seeing Callie safely tucked in her bed in the loft, Jake prepared for work. As he’d told Callie, he worked some odd shifts. Being a cop in a place like Hazelton meant that the usual nine to five lifestyle wouldn’t work. Sometimes he got called at dawn to deal with roving cattle. Sometimes he had to bring charges against local kids for vandalism. And now he could add finding unconscious, bleeding girls on the side of the highway to his list of possible incidents.

He drove toward the station headquarters, his mind preoccupied with his surprise houseguest. Callie was an intriguing person, he decided, not least because she’d managed to drive about a thousand miles with a bullet in her leg. What could compel anyone to do such a thing? And that wasn’t the only thing bothering him. No, he couldn’t get Callie’s kiss out of his head.

It was crazy. He knew that it didn’t mean anything, and that she didn’t even remember doing it. But, hell, he remembered it. In technicolor. She’d been practically falling asleep when he realized that her clothes were trashed. He had grabbed one of his own t-shirts and managed to get Callie, limp as a rag doll, out of the dirty, blood-stained tank top, revealing that damn lingerie he wasn’t supposed to have noticed. Dr. Murphy assured him that the sedative would send her right off to dreamland, which was the only thing that let him rationalize something like taking her clothes off without her permission. He’d never have done that if he thought she’d be aware of it, or if she might think he was taking advantage of her. But Callie had opened her eyes before he’d gotten the new shirt over her head. And she had smiled like she knew him, like she liked him, and without any reason, she’d kissed him.

A lightning bolt couldn’t have shocked him more. Her soft mouth, the way she’d curled her arms around him. It wasn’t just that Callie was beautiful, or that it had been a long damn time since he’d kissed any woman seriously. No, that kiss was something else altogether. He stopped it, true. But probably not fast enough. It had felt too good. And it was something he should forget ever happened.

Preoccupied with his wayward thoughts, he nearly missed the turn into the sheriff’s station. He pulled into the tiny lot where the station was built. The sheriff station was not actually in town, but at the outskirts near the state road, where they could get anywhere in the county quickly. He got out of the truck and inhaled the sweet, dry air of a summer evening in the mountains. It calmed him down, grounded him. Then he turned to go into the station.

“Hey, Sheriff.” His deputy, Kyle Mueller, looked up from his desk when he walked in to the tiny building. Kyle was actually older than Jake, but he showed no ambition past that of regular county cop, a job that he seemed destined for. His stocky frame and open, almost boyish face inspired instant trust, something Jake occasionally envied. “How’s it going?”

“Hmm,” was what Jake managed, still thinking of Callie.

“It was a pretty quiet day,” Kyle went on, not showing any surprise at Jake’s lack of response. “Stevens called in on account of a shoplifter at his store—it was Katie’s son, the younger one. He told me his friend dared him to do it. I straightened him out, and no harm done. That’s it. Well, not quite. I found an abandoned car on the highway thirty miles west of town.”

Jake was suddenly recalled to the present. “Sorry, I should have told you about that earlier. It’s not really abandoned. It belongs to a Calista Reed.”

“Uh, maybe we’re talking about two different cars,” Kyle said, his blue eyes blinking in confusion.

Jake frowned. “On the state highway? From last night?”

“Yeah, a Datsun. Old one. It’s registered to an Edward Bellamy.”

“Are you sure?”

“That’s what the paperwork in the glove compartment said. Why do you think it belongs to a Calista Reed?”

“Never mind that for a second. Where’s the car now?”

“I called for a tow. Thing wouldn’t start. I assumed it was left and the owner got a ride from someone, or called AAA. The plates are California,” Kyle paused. “Although...there’s some blood in the front seat.”

“Yeah, the blood belongs to Calista Reed. At least I’m pretty sure of that.”

“So what happened last night?” Kyle put down his pen, his attention now completely focused on Jake.

“I found this woman—Calista—in that car, sleeping, at about twelve-thirty last night. She was bleeding from a wound in her leg, so I took her to Murphy to get patched up.”

“Where is she now?”

“My place, still sleeping. She was in pretty bad shape.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Kyle said, before returning to the puzzle of the car itself. “Maybe she was driving a friend’s car.”

“Maybe,” Jake said absently. He was thinking of Callie’s story. It mostly made sense. But it occurred to him that he only had her word for what happened. The emotions she’d showed were real—he’d bet on that. But maybe her story wasn’t.

“Kyle, did you write up a report on the car yet?”

“Just started one. Didn’t know if the blood would make it into a crime scene or something.”

“Tell you what, leave the car to me. I have a hunch that I’ll have to talk to this girl again.”

“Oh, dear.” Kyle recognized the set expression on Jake’s face, and grinned. “Heaven help her.”

---