A Creed in Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller [121]
Steven took Melissa’s hand, and pulled her out from behind the counter, held her close while the medics worked to stabilize Martine.
“I’m all right,” Martine said, over and over again.
Steven tightened his arms around Melissa when she began to cry.
Martine was carried out on a stretcher, and loaded into a waiting ambulance.
Tom rounded the end of the counter to look down at Nathan Carter, who was so obviously dead that the paramedics hadn’t bothered with him.
“What happened?” Tom asked, in the thunderous silence.
Outside, the world was still a noisy place, a thrumming void, threaded through with panicked shouts and carnival music and the screech of tires on asphalt as the ambulance sped away. Instead, that store was like the bottom of a lake. Or an ocean.
Melissa buried her face in Steven’s shirt, avoiding the blood for the most part, and trembled against his chest.
Slowly, Steven recounted what had happened.
The State Police arrived, along with their crime scene techs. The store was secured, and Tom told Melissa and Steven to go on home, because there was nothing more to be done here.
“You can’t let Matt see you with blood all over your clothes,” Melissa said, when they were outside in the warm night.
The statement reassured Steven that she was all right. She was coming back to herself. Back to him.
“I know,” he said, weary to the core of his soul.
Bystanders shouted questions to them, questions Melissa fielded with an upraised palm and, “Tom will make an announcement when that’s appropriate. In the meantime, I hope you’ll all cooperate and let the authorities complete their investigation with no interruptions.”
“Is Martine gonna make it?” someone called out.
“Yes,” Melissa said, her arm around Steven, just as his was around her.
He wasn’t sure who was supporting whom.
The roadster was still parked at the pumps, its paint job shining under the outside lights.
Steven steered Melissa in the direction of his truck—whatever happened, he wasn’t ready to let her go—and they were almost to the driver’s-side door when a man in a hat stepped out of the shadows.
“Boston? Does all that blood belong to you or somebody else?”
Brody. Steven felt a rush of emotions, but at the moment, relief was the only one he recognized.
“I’m all right,” he said.
Brody swept off his beat-up old hat, nodded politely to Melissa. “How about you, ma’am?”
She simply nodded, leaning into Steven a little.
“Dad and Kim are over at the fairgrounds, with Matt,” Steven said to his cousin. “Find them and bring them out to the ranch, will you?” He paused, looked down at his clothes. Tom hadn’t said so, but the police would probably want them as evidence, and he’d be questioned, without a doubt. This was likely to be a long night.
Brody nodded. “I’ll do it,” he said. He took Melissa’s arm and escorted her to the other side of the truck, helped her into the passenger seat.
He could be a gentleman, when he chose.
Steven was behind the wheel by the time Brody returned to look in at him through the open window.
“Maybe you’d like a little time to get out of those duds,” Brody observed gravely. “If Kim and the little guy see you looking like you lost a gunfight, they’ll freak for sure.”
Steven nodded. “Give us an hour,” he said.
He shifted into gear, backed the truck out, shifted again.
“Do you want me to drop you off at your place?” he asked Melissa, as an afterthought.
Steven was more than relieved when she shook her head no.
They drove to the ranch in relative silence; both of them were probably in shock. When she saw that there were lights burning in the old house, and Brad’s tour bus was gone, replaced by Davis and Kim’s RV, she sat up a little straighter.
“You’ve moved into your house?”
“It’s more like we’re camping out,” Steven answered, smiling. It felt good—and strange—to smile, as if he’d forgotten how to do it and then suddenly remembered. “But it’s shaping up. Matt’s in his room and I’m in mine. The kitchen works, and so do the shower and the bathtub.”
She looked down at her clothes, when Steven stopped the truck and shoved