Seth stepped into his pants, while she did the same.
He supposed it was way too much to hope that she’d make love with him ever again. This had been a misstep, a momentary anomaly. Mind-blowing sex notwithstanding, they couldn’t afford to trust each other.
They were about to step back into their corners and come out swinging. If he was lucky, if Lyndon City was really lucky, they’d find a way to pull their punches.
* * *
Darby lay in bed alone that night debating the merits of Seth’s proposition. On the one hand, she could have a lot more great sex with him. On the other hand, it was inappropriate to mix a physical relationship up in their dispute.
She knew what was right. But she also knew what she wanted. And she dozed off to the memory of Seth’s sure hands caressing every inch of her body.
A booming sound awoke her. Her feet hit the floor before she’d even identified the sound.
It boomed again.
“What the hell?” Darby asked to the empty room.
It sounded like a twelve-gauge shotgun. And it was close, maybe fifty yards away.
An air horn pierced the darkness, long and shrill.
Darby gave her head a little shake, allowing for the possibility that she was dreaming. If she was, she really did prefer those dreams that centered around an illicit relationship with Seth.
Two more booms sounded, followed by another air horn blast.
It was obvious they weren’t hitting the inn. If somebody wanted to shoot up Sierra Hotel, a shotgun was a colossally stupid choice of weapon.
Voices stirred up in the other bedrooms.
Darby moved to the door and pulled it open.
“Everybody stay down,” she called down the hallway. “Stay in your rooms.”
“You need help?” came a voice she recognized as Shelley, an L.A. police officer.
“Call 911.”
“Those were gunshots,” someone called back.
“I don’t think they’re aiming at us,” Darby returned. “But stay down, okay?”
A number of voices called back in agreement.
Darby pulled on a pair of runners, making her way carefully to the front foyer in a pair of soft blue shorts and a yellow tank top. The horn continued to sound, and the shotgun blasts stayed intermittent. But they seemed to be getting closer.
The sounds were coming from the north, where there was a strip of woods beyond the lawn. Whoever it was could be hiding there.
She eased the front door open a few inches.
“Police are on their way,” called a voice over the rail.
“Thanks,” Darby called back. “Stay away from the windows.”
“We are.”
Darby heard a voice, then another. Whoops and hollers combined with swearwords.
Darby mentally cataloged her guests, wondering if any of them might possibly be an assassination target. She didn’t think so, but any one of them could be involved in espionage or counterintelligence without her knowing it.
Then again, what self-respecting assassin brought a shotgun and an air horn to a hit? Nothing about the situation made sense.
It was too dark for hunting, and way too noisy for vandalism. Then a lightbulb clicked on in Darby’s head.
It was sound vandalism. The air horn was supposed to mimic a train.
The shotgun went silent, and the air horn seemed to peter out. Darby strained to hear. She could barely make out voices.
She moved onto the porch, sidling along the wall, staying in the shadows.
“Is it jammed?” one male voice asked, and she realized they were hidden behind her shed.
“Probably out of air,” came another.
Darby realized they sounded young, maybe midteens.
She heard the faint sound of sirens in the distance.
One of the boys swore.
“Run for it!” called the other.
Darby took a chance. “Hold it right there,” she called in a no-nonsense, captain voice.
Silence.
“I’ve got you covered,” she lied. “Put down the gun and come out.”
There were mutters of uncertainty from behind the shed.
“Do it now!” she demanded.
“Don’t shoot,” came the response.
“We’re coming out.”
Two teenage boys rounded the sidewall of the shed, arms dramatically in the air, eyes as big as saucers.
“What the hell are you doing?” Darby demanded, staying back far enough that they couldn’t tell if she was holding a firearm.
“It was just a joke,” one of them responded in a shaky, somewhat slurred voice, making it obvious they’d been drinking.
“You could have killed someone,” said Darby.
“We weren’t even pointin’ at you,” the kid protested, tone turning surly.
“You don’t know what you were pointing at,” she told them. “It’s dark. You can’t even see who’s out here.”
“You should have stayed in the house.”
“You should have stayed home in bed,” she returned.
The sirens grew louder, and flashing lights appeared on the horizon.
“Why’d you call the cops?” one of the boys demanded.
“Let me see…. Because you were shooting at us.”
“Not at you.”
“We were just making a little noise. Making a point.”
“That point have something to do with the railroad?” Darby asked with disgust.
Their mulish expressions answered her question.
The headlights of two squad cars and a third vehicle bounced their way up the driveway, pulling up to the inn. The boys stayed frozen in place.
“We’re so screwed,” one of them muttered.
“Told ya we should have run for it.”
The officers exited their cars and swiftly cuffed the boys. To Darby’s surprise, the third car contained Seth. He strode past the teenagers, staring hard at them as he made his way straight to her.
“You all right?” Seth asked.
“Fine. They were just making noise.”
“I recognized them. They’re in very deep trouble.”
He was dressed in a worn, gray T-shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans over scuffed cowboy boots. His hair was slightly messy, and he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed.
“Tell me what happened.”
“What are you doing here?”
“When they heard it was your place, they called.”
Darby went on alert. “Why?”
“Because of the railway vandalism. Why would you think?”
“No reason.”
“So tell me what happened.”
“We woke up to air horn and shotgun blasts.”
Seth glanced to where the two handcuffed teenagers were being led away by the uniformed police. Their shoulders and heads were bent. It was obvious they were having second thoughts about the stunt they’d pulled.
“At first I thought they were shooting at Sierra Hotel, though I was pretty sure none of the shots were hitting the building. So I went outside to investigate.”
“You went outside?” Seth interrupted.
“Yes.”
“To investigate gunfire?” he asked incredulously.
“And an air horn. We figured anyone trying to sneak up and kill us would have skipped the air horn and come a little closer to the building before deploying the twelve gauge.”
“You got them to surrender?”
“They were hiding behind the shed. I ordered them to come out, and they did.”
“What if they’d shot you?”
“They didn’t. They told me it was a joke, that they weren’t shooting at the inn. They were just trying to make a little noise.” She gave Seth a pointed stare. “Train-type noise.”
“Are you kidding me?” he asked.
“Do I look like I’m kidding you?”
“This is off the charts.”
“You’re telling me.”
With the teenagers in the backseat, one of the officers approached. “Can you come down to the station tomorrow morning?” he asked Darby.
“Sure,” she agreed, wanting nothing more than to crawl back into bed at the moment.
“Thank you, ma’am.” He tipped his hat. “Mayor.”
“Thanks, Peterson,” Seth returned.
The officer made a hand signal, and they started the squad cars, pulling back down the driveway.
“I’m staying,” Seth said.
Darby turned to gape at him. “What?”
“There’s no way I’m leaving you up here all by yourself.”
“I have ten guests.”
“So what?”
“So I’m not alone.”
“Are your guests going to help you when the next guy shows up with a rifle?”
“Nobody’s showing up with a rifle.” Though Darby wished she could tell Seth one of her guests was a SWAT-team member. Maybe that would put his mind at ease.
The front door opened, and the guests spilled out. “Darby?”
“Be right there,” she called to them. “Everything’s fine.”
“I’m going to stay,” Seth repeated.