Mia swallowed, not knowing what to say, only knowing that she had to be ready to fight when the time came. Seeing Paul now—with the manic edge to his grin, and the delusional gleam in his eyes—it was hard to believe she’d ever looked into his handsome face and not seen the insanity lurking underneath. But there had been a time when all she’d seen was a man with high cheekbones, intense blue eyes, and a smile that spread across his face like a kid trying a new food for the first time, and discovering it was delicious.
She’d thought she was in love with him, for a little while. For a few months, when the novelty of being one half of one of those “two halves make a whole” kind of couples had been enough to excuse a multitude of sins. But now she knew that what she’d felt was infatuation, not love. What she had with Sawyer was love, a connection so intense they could practically read each other’s thoughts, even after only a few weeks together. She wished she’d been brave enough to trust in what they’d been lucky enough to find, and to trust herself to know the difference between falling in love with love, and the real thing. If there were such a thing as soul mates, then Sawyer was hers.
And she might never get to tell him.
The flash of pain and regret the thought inspired was enough to help her force a smile. “Let’s not talk about heaven or hell yet, okay? Let’s just…enjoy the night. See where things lead.”
Paul returned her smile. “I’m not stupid, Mia.”
“I know.” Mia smiled wider, a grin that felt like a baring of her teeth, a challenge to another predator. “But maybe I’m tired of being afraid of you, Paul. Of dreading you, and waiting for your face to pop up in my nightmares. Maybe I’m ready for the end of it, however that comes.”
Paul’s expression sobered and for a moment the look in his eyes was almost sad. “This isn’t the way I wanted it. You have to believe that, Mia. I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
Mia made her arm move, made her fingers flex and release until they were wrapped around Paul’s hand and she was touching him of her own free will for the first time since the night he’d backhanded her for lying about that stupid concert. He let it happen, with only the slightest tensing of his arm as she clasped his hand in hers.
“Let’s go look around,” she said softly. “It’s beautiful here at night. I have a flashlight in the glove compartment. It should be enough light for us to see where we’re going.”
“All right.” Paul released her hand, motioning her out of the truck with the gun as he reached for the flashlight. “You lead the way.”
Mia slipped out of the driver’s side door, hope catching fire in her chest. He’d let her touch him. He’d let her get close enough that the gun’s barrel had brushed against her forearm. Now she just had to get closer, get him to drop his guard a little more, and she’d have a chance to go for the weapon. And then she would find out if she had it in her to kill someone.
There had been a time when Mia hadn’t believed she’d be able to kill another human being, no matter what the circumstances. Now, she knew better. Now, Sawyer could be lying in an alley bleeding to death because of her. That alone—without everything else Paul had done—would have been enough to inject steel into her veins and ice into her heart.
Please let him be okay. Please let Sawyer be alive.
The silent prayer whispered through her thoughts as she opened the gate—discreetly turning the lock manually from the inside to keep it from closing completely behind her—and led Paul toward the hotel and saloon, already planning a tour that ended at the prison next door.
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Sawyer placedhis second call to the police as he was running for the Blue Saloon parking lot. He finished updating the dispatcher seconds before he reached his bike, and shoved his phone into his back pocket, not even bothering to end the call. He needed to get moving, to see if he could catch up with Mia and Paul. It looked like they had been headed south, toward Old Town, but he could have been wrong.
He hoped he was wrong. The Old Town highway dead-ended at the butte. If Paul was taking Mia there, knowing he’d been spotted by at least one person, then he probably didn’t plan on either of them leaving the ghost town alive.
Heart racing, Sawyer opened up the throttle, sending his bike hurtling along the rain slick streets. The rain itself was petering off, but his tee shirt was already soaked. He fought the urge to shiver as the wind whipped through his wet clothes. Despite the warm, muggy night, he was freezing by the time he reached the turn onto the muddy gravel road leading to the work site.
Freezing, and scared.
Mia’s truck was parked near the fence, but there was no sign of Mia, only the gate swinging back and forth in the wind.
Sawyer vaulted off his bike and raced across the gritty road, straining for the sound of sirens, but so far the night remained quiet except for the rumble of thunder coming from the west. The next wave of the storm would be here any minute. Clouds covered the sky and the lamps that illuminated the working exhibit barely penetrated the darkness in the part of town still under restoration. Sawyer had been working on getting the electrical lines extended, but so far his teams had been using generators for powering lights and charging tools.
Now, as he reached the gate and stepped through, he wished he’d made night lighting a priority. It was going to be dangerous making his way through the construction zone in the dark. He had a flashlight in his saddlebag, but he couldn’t risk using it. He couldn’t take the chance that Paul might notice the light and see him coming.
Hopefully, Paul assumed Sawyer was lying on the pavement in the alley behind Mia’s shop bleeding to death. If so, Sawyer didn’t want to give him a reason to think otherwise. The element of surprise would be Sawyer’s biggest advantage. If he could sneak up on Paul, there was at least a chance he could take the other man out without putting Mia in more danger.
Mia, in danger. Mia, wandering through the darkness with a man who had already tried to kill one person tonight.
Sawyer picked up his pace, using the remains of the pedestrian walkway to feel his way along the street, silently praying for the miracle he hadn’t gotten the first time he’d been in a situation like this. He couldn’t lose Mia. He couldn’t be too late. He had to find out where Paul had taken her and—
A light flickered up ahead as a fluorescent beam swung across the window inside the second floor of the old saloon. Sawyer broke into a jog as the wind whipped faster, sending soggy tumbleweeds rolling along the street. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel the debris bouncing off his jeans like the ghosts of Amelia Sherman’s wolf dogs crowding around his legs. Not for the first time, he had the sense of not being alone in this ghost town, but it wasn’t because Mia and Paul were here.
As he entered the ground floor of the saloon, it wasn’t the footsteps pacing back and forth overhead that made Sawyer’s heart race. It wasn’t the sound of Mia’s voice lilting up and down the way it did when she was telling a story that made his skin go cold. It was the presence that tailed him across the room that made the hairs on his arms stand on end, and the back of his neck prickle.
He definitely felt like he had company on the stairs as he climbed to the second floor, but Sawyer did his best to ignore the eerie feeling. He needed his head clear. He needed to be able to evaluate the situation and react in seconds if he was going to keep Mia from getting hurt.
At the top of the stairs, he stepped onto the landing, keeping his weight forward, not letting the heels of his boots hit the floor as he shifted to stand with his back against the wall. Light glowed from the doorway to his right, and Mia and Paul were inside. Sawyer could hear Mia clearly now, hear the tension in her voice as she told Paul a story Sawyer hadn’t heard before.
“She was in her sixties,” Mia said, “but Amelia still tended bar every night, and woke up to greet her boarders at breakfast every morning. This was her room. In her diary, she said she chose the room at the top of the stairs to make sure someone was always standing between her guests and danger. But on the last night of her life, she didn’t sleep here. She took her pillow and the quilt she’d brought from the old country and went down to the prison next door. The cells were empty that particular evening and none of the deputies on duty, but when the sheriff came in the next morning, he found Amelia curled on the floor in the center of the room. Her pillow was still warm, but her body was as cold as ice. He swore there were tears frozen on her cheeks, even though it was springtime and the temperature hadn’t gotten anywhere close to freezing the night before.”