Lone Calder Star (Calder Saga 9)

“Hey! Where are you going?” a dumbfounded John Earl called after her. “Damn it, come back here.”

Dallas knew without looking that he was coming after her. She broke into a run the last few feet. But the flat of his hand pushed the door shut a second after Dallas had pulled it open.

“You can’t leave yet.” There was anger and something else in his eyes.

“Watch me,” she replied and simultaneously gave the door a hard jerk before he had a chance to set his weight against it.

The suddenness of her action enabled Dallas to open the door wide enough that she could slip out before John Earl could recover. By the time he came charging out the door after her, she was halfway to the parking lot.

“Come back here, you damned, spooky broad!”

She threw a glance over her shoulder and saw that he had stopped to glare at her, jaw ridged in a tight, angry line. In that same second, he pivoted away and bulled his way back inside the building.

In the next breath, Dallas heard the hasty thud of running footsteps, more than one set, the sound mixed in with the hiss of whispers. She reached the parking lot’s graveled lot in time to see the dark shapes of two hatted figures ducking behind the building.

“Quint?” she called in a low, hesitant voice.

There was a scrape of a foot on gravel somewhere close by, off to her left. She turned toward the sound. There, in the shadowy gap between the two parked vehicles, she saw him half standing and half leaning against the side of a pickup. A light from the street revealed the black gleam of his hair and the glisten of a dark wet streak running from temple to jaw.

“My God, Quint. You’re hurt,” she murmured and rushed to his side.

“I’m all right.” He brushed aside the hand she stretched out to him, and shifted to make his legs take more of his weight, but Dallas could see the effort it took.

“You are far from all right,” she informed him.

Blood continued to seep from a nasty gash along one eyebrow. There was a swollen area along the opposite cheekbone that was already showing the discoloration of a bruise. One side of his mouth was puffy, with more blood trickling from the corner.

“It’s nothing,” he insisted and pressed two fingers to his mouth, winced, and stared at the coagulating blood on them with a kind of groggy recognition.

“Just the same, I think we’d better be safe and get you to a doctor.” Dallas didn’t like the vaguely dazed look he had.

He dragged in a deep, long breath, then slowly released it. “Nothing’s broken, only bruised. I know the difference.”

Unable to argue with that, she swung away. “I’m calling the police then.”

“Don’t bother,” he said in a weary voice. “I didn’t get a good enough look at their faces to recognize any of them again—unless you did?” His gaze sharpened on her when Dallas turned back to him.

“No,” she admitted.

“Then it would be a waste of time and paperwork.” He frowned and lifted a hand to his bare head before making a scan of the ground near his feet. “Where’s my hat?”

Dallas found it lying half under the pickup and retrieved it for him. He took it and eased it carefully onto his head. Then he seemed to focus on her for the first time.

“You’d better get out of here and go home,” he told her.

Dallas hesitated. “What are you going to do?”

“The smart thing—go home and nurse my wounds.” He brushed past her and angled across the lot while fishing a set of keys from his pocket. Dallas watched, half expecting his gait to be a staggering one, but he walked a slow but straight line to the rear of a black pickup, then took aim on the driver’s side. She saw the interior light come on when he opened the door.

There was a slight pause between the time he opened the door and pulled himself into the cab. Then the light went off, and the engine rumbled to life, tail-and headlights coming on.

When the black truck reversed out of the parking slot, Dallas started toward her own vehicle. Despite all his assurances, she wasn’t totally convinced that Quint was okay. Rather than be nagged by her conscience, she followed him at a discreet distance all the way to the entrance of the Cee Bar.

She slowed as she approached the gate, and caught a glimpse of his taillights disappearing around a bend in the drive. Satisfied that he would make it safely the rest of the way, she turned around and headed home.

PART TWO

An evening star,