West (History Interrupted Book 1) (19 page)

My eyes fell to the sheriff’s full lips. He was sexy – and impossible to read the way I did everyone else.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on before you disappear too?” he added.

I looked away.

“I didn’t think so.” Quiet anger radiated off him. He rose and paced in the walk space between the sitting area and the door leading to his bedroom, hands on hips.

“I’m sorry. I can’t,” I said.

“Even if it means you end up dead like the others?”

Ouch. I flinched.

“Look, Josie, I don’t know how else to tell you this, but you being here … it’s not for the purpose you think it is. It has nothing to do with Running Bear or his brother.”

“How do you know that?”

He was quiet, pensive gaze out the window. “Because I do.” The sheriff ran his hands through his hair. “Maybe you need help, Josie, and don’t want to admit it. I reckon if the other girls ended up dead,
someone
in that house is after you. I doubt it’s your cousin Philip.”

“He was my first thought, too.” Alarm fluttered through me. The fact the sheriff was coming to the same conclusion I did, that it wasn’t a coincidence the girls were in the bottom of the well near John’s house, scared me.

His words had a ring of truth to them I didn’t want to hear. How was I supposed to know who the threat was or whether or not I was truly in danger?

The images in my mind of the phones and skeletons made me want to crawl under the bed and never leave. Who had done it, if not Philip or the sheriff?

Carter had given me one warning about a man who didn’t want history changed. Was it possible he was resorting to killing to prevent it? If so, who was he? A townsperson who saw the much-celebrated daughter of John return four times?

“This just gets worse,” I murmured.

The sheriff’s suspicion hadn’t softened with our talk. If anything, I guessed he was thinking even worse of me, considering I had all but admitted to not being John’s real daughter.

“What happened to the real Josephine?” he asked quietly.

Holy shit. Does this guy have empathic memory?
“I
am
the real Josephine.”

The thick silence was tense. I didn’t look at him, instead focused on the dancing flames of the fire in front of me.

“I don’t want to see you hurt, Miss Josie,” he added. “Despite your … peculiarities.”

I smiled. “Thanks. I can handle it.”
Whatever it is.

“I don’t think you can. I don’t think you’ll see the danger coming.”

That terrifies me.
I had come to the same conclusion, and I hated,
hated
thinking such dark thoughts.

“I can help you,” he continued.

Studying him, I had the sense he didn’t mean in the way a sheriff protected the people of his town, that he was talking around something again. I just didn’t know what that entailed, why it was suddenly harder to breathe, why I suspected I was scratching the surface of something I didn’t think I could handle. “I’m ready for bed,” I said instead.

“You can sleep in my room.”

“Thanks.” I rose and went the long way around the seating area to the door of his bedroom. A part of me wanted to ask what he meant about helping me, but I stopped myself.

Carter told me not to reveal anything about who I was. Lying was hard, trusting him harder, but I had faith in both for now.

I went into the room, at once noticing the chill without the fire. The sound of rain was loud on the tin roof, the lightning gone. Wrapped in the blanket, I crawled into the covers of his narrow bed and breathed deeply. His scent was much stronger on the worn sheets and blanket of his bed.

Dimming the lantern, I closed my eyes, comforted by his homey scent. The discussion with him replayed through my thoughts, and I listened for a long moment to see if his possessions would speak to me the way my surroundings sometimes did.

There were no empathic memories here at all, as if he didn’t exist or leave traces of himself the way others did. I relaxed and rested my head on his pillow, wriggling beneath the blanket to grab my cell. I typed a message to Carter then replaced the phone in the pocket of my borrowed trousers. Either the chip was faulty or there was something unusual about Taylor.

I didn’t realize how busy my mind had become with the empathic memories until it was silent for the first time in several days. Instead of comforting me, all I could think about was the skeletons at the bottom of John’s well.

Sleep didn’t come, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw
them
and experienced a flare of new fear. After an hour or so struggling to block the thoughts and fall asleep, I sat up restlessly. It was too dark for me to fumble with the lantern.

Wrapping the blanket around me, I left the bedroom, relaxing once I entered the warmth and light of the main room. The sheriff was stretched out next to the fire on his stomach, still wearing his shirt, as if he feared me walking in on me.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked, hearing the creak of the floorboards beneath my feet.

“No.” I crossed to the fire and lay down beside him.

He sat, his dark hair tousled. “I’ll go to the barn.”

I laughed. “Are you afraid I’ll bite you?”

“No, Josie. An un-chaperoned, unmarried woman –”

“Lay down and shut up, Sheriff,” I ordered lightly. “I found three bodies today. You can protect me from anyone who wants to make it a fourth.”

He hesitated, studying me briefly before he returned to his belly. I rolled onto my side, back to him, and gazed at the dancing shadows thrown off by the hearth.

“You don’t scare easily,” he observed.

“Not usually, no. I don’t feel like being alone tonight,” I replied. “Sometimes I think your brother is lucky in his cave. He knows there are shadows and darkness around him, inside him. I stumble upon them and see secrets no one should ever know. I want to believe good trumps evil but have started to doubt something I viewed as irrefutable before.”

“Good and evil are relative.”

“Like hanging men every Saturday?”

“To keep a peace that doesn’t want to be kept. There are times when it takes evil to keep evil in check.”

“I don’t want that,” I whispered. “It’s not who I am, not something I understand.”

“You have a good heart, Josie. You charm everyone you come across, even Fighting Badger.”

“Because I
want
to attract crazy murderers!”

“I reckon it’s because you want to find the good in people.”

I sighed. “You think that’s stupid?”

“I think it’s admirable and a tad foolish.”

The foolish part I understood. I didn’t know how to take
admirable
. It reinforced the idea he liked me and was in denial of the fact. I’d had one-night stands and boyfriends nowhere near as sexy as he was; it was a shame he was so … honorable towards women. “I don’t know if or how you’re supposed to help me, but I’m glad I’m here tonight,” I told him.

“Maybe to keep you out of the well.”

“Now
that
is inappropriate, Sheriff Hansen. How can you joke about what happened?”

“My apologies, ma’am,” he replied solemnly. “But if you are in trouble, I want to be the first you come to.”

Who else would I go to? “Will it cost me a favor?”

“We’ll see, ma’am.”

I smiled to myself. “Goodnight, Sheriff.”

“You can call me Taylor,” he replied. “Goodnight, Miss Josie.”

With the steady tap of rain on the tin roof, and the sexy sheriff inches from me, I fell asleep faster than I expected and slept well. For the first time since arriving in this time period, no dark dreams disturbed my sleep.

“Josephine!”

I was burning up and having trouble breathing. Assuming I was stuck under the covers, I pried myself loose from the cocoon of my blanket. The air outside my blankets was just as hot, and I sucked in a deep breath – then began coughing.

I opened my eyes and batted away at the smoke hanging over me. Fire lit up one wall of the cabin, and I stared, slowly registering that the cabin was on fire.

“Josephine!”

Covering my mouth with one hand, I squinted in the direction of Taylor’s shout. It came from the bedroom. Fire was between me and the front door.

Dashing to my feet, I shoved his door open and scrambled over the bed to the narrow space between bed and window. Fumbling with the window, I managed to shove it open and leaned out, sucking in deep breaths of rainy night air.

“Taylor!” I called, disoriented.

He appeared around the side of the cabin, bucket of water in hand. Dropping it, he hurried towards me and took my arms, hauling me out of the window.

I coughed, the cold night shocking my overheated body. Taylor locked an arm around me, whisking me away from the burning cabin. I felt his heartbeat through his soaked shirt; it raced, and his wiry frame was tense, edgy.

When we stood a safe distance from the cabin, he stopped and watched. I tugged at his grip until I was able to twist and see the fire. The entire cabin was in flames despite the steady downpour of rain. My feet sank into the cold mud and I grimaced, pulling them free. I found footing by standing on the sheriff’s boots and leaned against his warm frame.

“What happened?” I breathed.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“I’d say you’re bad luck,” he said.

I shivered, silently agreeing.

“Might help knowing who’s after you,” he added.

“I’m sorry about your house, but I really don’t know,” I responded.

“Someone didn’t want you here tonight.”

We were quiet, watching the cabin collapse in on itself. I felt even worse knowing he was losing everything he owned because of me. From the patchwork on his clothing and the sparse belongings I’d seen, I doubted he had a stash of money anywhere and knew there was no such thing as house insurance in this day and age.

I glanced up at him, my gaze lingering on his chiseled face. He was grim but not openly angry, and my confusion deepened. Nothing seemed to surprise him, not me falling out of the sky or even his house burning down.

“You’re giving me that look again,” he said without taking his eyes off his home.

One of my feet slipped off his boot, and he tightened his grip around me. I remained where I was, in no way uncomfortable being pressed against his warm, solid body. There was no denying he was sexy in a rugged, roughened way of an outlaw. It was as much his lean frame and bright eyes as his quiet confidence and strength, the direct gaze that stopped me in my tracks and saw through my flimsy attempts to lie or deceive him.

Is he trembling in his boots being so close to a woman?
The thought, and the sudden urge to laugh, were ill timed.

“I’m sorry you lost your stuff,” I murmured.

“We’re safe. The rest don’t matter.” His grip tightened around me.

I relaxed against him. He didn’t seem to be in the mood for talking or letting me go. I could almost see why the other girls sought him out. Protective and strong, he was sharp, focused – and determined to figure out what was going on. A familiar flutter of attraction warmed my blood. In a way, it was a relief to be around someone whose history and memories I wasn’t able to access. He was too distracted to be aware of how he held me, as if we were already intimately acquainted and not strangers.

“Let’s get you home,” he said with reluctance. “Nothing we can do for it now.” He released me and moved away. “Wait there. I’ll get a horse.”

I inched closer to the fire to keep warm. Who had set it and why? I clenched my phone, wanting to ask Carter more about Taylor and why my chip didn’t work around him. I expected my flaky handler didn’t know much more than I did about the man.

“Are you well, Talks to Spirits?”

I whirled. Fighting Badger was outlined against the fire. He remained a safe distance away and was armed with a bow and knives at his hips. It was far too muddy for me to get far running and besides, where would I go? My mouth went dry at the sight of him.

“I tracked him here,” Fighting Badger said quietly. “I will find him and make him pay.”

“Who?” I squeaked.

“The man who did this.” He motioned towards the fire. “He came from town.”

It registered that Fighting Badger, the psychopath who killed for friendship, was telling me he hadn’t set the fire.

“My brother will take care of you.” He turned away.

“Wait. Did you see his face?” I asked.

“No. He moved with stealth. Trained hunter.” He tilted his head and regarded me curiously before he moved closer. “Can
you
see him?” He tapped his head.

Needing to know who it was, I approached until his memories reached me. I hugged myself, terrified by the images in my head.  Fighting Badger’s churning shadows morphed to show me the distant shape of a man he had tracked. Fighting Badger had been scouting the area around the sheriff’s cabin, spotted the man heading from the direction of town, and pursued cautiously.

By the time he crested the hill beside which the sheriff’s home sat, the cabin was already ablaze. Shadows interlaced with the memories, but I was able to make out something else. The sheriff had hinted Fighting Badger was able to relate to me, but he didn’t mention the madman was
tracking
me. I saw peeks of my day at the house and my escape last night in his mind.

“You told your brother I was on your land,” I said, looking up at him. “Why are you following me?”

The shadows from the fire rendered his features sinister, his eyes holes in his face. “The spirits warned me when you came. They said there was danger.”

How is this possible?
I didn’t know what to say or how to process the idea a serial killer wanted to
protect
me. Our shared gift was a light in his otherwise dark mind. I could see in his thoughts how deeply it touched him after a lifetime of exile.

I didn’t think I’d ever been so scared in my life as I was, standing in the rain beside him.

“Did you see him?” he asked with some impatience.

 “Not clearly,” I murmured. “He went that way.” I pointed past the barn into the rainy darkness. “One man on foot and …” Was there a second man? I focused on the image. It was even blurrier than the rest of his memories but I thought I saw two.