The Road to Reunion

Kyle offered the knife hilt-first to the closest officer, his expression unruffled, his voice even when he said, “We took this away from him.”

Officer Rick Bulger—who’d spent a few months on the ranch while his parents had recuperated from a near-fatal car accident ten years earlier—looked questioningly at Shane. “This the same guy you’ve had trouble with before, Shane?” he asked, nodding toward Hayes.

“Yes, he is. This is Gene Hayes. He tried to kidnap his son, even though there’s a court order forbidding him to come near the boy. And, as you can see, he came armed.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Hayes yelled, even more furious now that it was obvious that Shane knew the officer. “That other guy threatened to kill me. Everyone here heard him.”

“All I heard was my friend Kyle politely asking you to stop frightening the kids,” Shane replied, his mouth twisting into the first sign of a smile since Hayes had appeared. “How about you, sis?”

“That’s exactly what I heard,” Molly seconded, still keeping a precau

tionary grasp on Kyle’s arm.

Rick looked from her hand to Kyle’s eyes, then nodded. “Okay, then. Doug, escort Mr. Hayes to the cruiser while I take a statement from these folks. I won’t be long.”

“I’d be happy to,” Rick’s partner drawled, reaching for Hayes’s arm. “Come along, Mr. Hayes. We’re going to take a ride.”

Hayes was still bellowing when he was led away, though he was no longer resisting the arrest. Maybe because Officer Doug was roughly the size of a minivan, Molly thought, finally beginning to relax a little.

Rick opened his notebook. “Now,” he said to Shane, “you said your friend here asked Hayes to hand over the knife?”

“I took it from him,” Kyle replied. “And I had to knock him down to do it, which will explain the bruise on his jaw.”

Rick looked at Kyle again, then nodded. “Shane?”

Shane began to summarize what had happened. Finally feeling secure enough to release Kyle, Molly did so reluctantly, turning to check on Jacob, who was now surrounded by Kelly, Graciela and the other three boys, all of whom had been watching from the dormitory windows.

Molly noticed that the boys were now looking at Kyle with something akin to awe, and she knew he had only unwittingly reinforced their image of him as a hero.

She couldn’t blame them, since she felt much the same way about him.

Chapter Fourteen

Kyle sat on the side of his bed, weariness draped heavily over his slumped shoulders. He couldn’t remember being this tired in a very long time. The adrenaline rush of bringing down Gene Hayes had drained away, taking every ounce of his energy with it.

Everyone had treated him like a friggin’ hero after Hayes was hauled away. He’d hated that. He’d done what was necessary, nothing more. Given the chance, he’d have returned Hayes’s knife to him, point-first. Judging by the way Molly had clung to his arm, she had been well aware of that ugly fact. Which might have explained why she’d spent the rest of the day carefully avoiding looking at him.

Someone tapped on his bedroom door. Since he and Molly were the only ones in the house, it wasn’t hard to guess who it was. “What is it?”

Her voice was slightly muffled by the door between them. “May I come in?”

He sighed. If he’d thought it would do any good, he’d have told her no. But since he figured she’d just keep knocking until he changed his mind, he merely said, “Yeah. Come in.”

She entered wearing a soft green bathrobe over a white nightgown, and carrying a bottle of over-the-counter pain relievers and a glass of water. She wasn’t using the cane, and she was walking very carefully on her braced right foot. “I thought you might need these. I noticed you were moving stiffly after dinner.”

His leg was hurting from his toes to roughly the vicinity of his left ear, but he’d done his best to hide it. Guess he hadn’t been very successful at it. Pushing pride aside, he nodded and held out his hand. “Thanks.”

She sat on the bed beside him, her hands flattened on either side of her, her braced ankle stuck out in front of her. “Eventful day, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow’s going to be another one.”

She refused to be distracted. “Are you hurting badly?”

“I’m okay,” he said after washing down a couple of the pills. “Just a little stiff.”

“You moved so quickly. If you hadn’t gotten that knife away from Hayes…”

“The police were on their way, thanks to Kelly’s quick thinking. Hayes was too drunk to have gotten far—but not drunk enough to actually be stupid enough to use that knife on anyone. It was mostly bluff. I just called him on it.”