A chill went through Nat at his tone. She'd never seen this side of Nick, but she could tell by the fury on his face that he meant what he'd said, that he would make good on it. Evidently, Duncan believed him, too, because his face went pale.
An instant later Duncan's hand dove for his service revolver. But Nick was faster and snatched the weapon from its holster. Stepping away from Duncan, Nick drew back and hurled the weapon into the pond.
“Why did you do that?" Duncan jumped away from the car.
Nick shoved him back against the car. "You have two seconds to get those cuffs off her," he snarled. 'Then you're going to get on the radio and get your boss out here. Or I swear to Christ I'll put you in your car and drive you into that pond myself.
# # #
"Any idea who might have been driving the SUV?"
Alcee Martin looked as if he'd been tom from his bed and thrown into yesterday's clothes before he was fully awake. His usually impeccable uniform was wrinkled, and the cowlick at the back of his head was sticking up like a rooster tail. He looked none too happy to be out on a call at midnight. Especially a call where nobody wanted to tell him what the hell was going on.
Duncan hadn't mentioned Nick's so-called assault. Not to protect Nick, but because he didn't want to have to explain to his boss how Nick had disarmed him, tossed his side arm into the pond, then forced him to call his superior. Nick in turn hadn't mentioned Duncan's treatment of Nat, But he would, first chance he got.
Nick knew he was treading on thin ice. One wrong step and he would end up in prison again. All he could do at this point was tell Martin the truth and hope the other man believed him. If the chief of police wanted some incompetent yahoo cop working for him, there wasn't a damn thing Nick could do about it.
Nat shook her head. "No."
"Color? Make?"
''Dark, I think. Blue or black." She lifted her shoulder and let it fall. "It happened fast, and I was just trying to keep my car on the road."
"Hunt Ratcliffe drives a blue Suburban," Nick put in. "Jim Arnaud drives an old black Bronco."
Alcee scraped his hand over his face. "Shit."
"Either one of them might think he had reason to hurt her."
"I'll talk to both of them." Alcee snapped his notepad closed, then shot Nat a pointed look. "I reckon you're not exactly one of Bellerose's most favored citizens these days."
"I have no control over what people think of me," she said.
"Yeah? Well, Matt filled me in on what happened at the LaRues' earlier. You want to tell me what that's all about?"
Nat looked away.
Alcee looked at Nick. "Either of you?"
Since Nick had no idea what Nat had been doing at the LaRues' , he had no problem looking confused. But he wasn't completely innocent: he knew enough about what was going on in her life to realize it probably had to do with her search for a killer.
Alcee divided his attention between them. "I don't know how you expect me to get to the bottom of this if I don't know what the hell is going on. Both of you are skating a thin line."He frowned at Nat. "You show up at the LaRue house again, and I'm going to have to arrest you. Jean filed a restraining order."
"I understand," she said.
"Good." Alcee shook his head in exaggerated disgust, then turned his gaze on Nick. "And you stay the hell away from my deputy."
Nick met his gaze steadily, lowered his voice. "If you hadn't gotten here when you did, Duncan would have been all over her."
Anger flashed in the other man's eyes, but he quickly masked it with a scowl. "Why should I believe you over what my deputy told me?"
"Because I think you're smart enough to know what kind of man he is."
Martin didn't have anything to say about that, but Nick saw the truth in his eyes. Alcee Martin knew exactly what kind of cop Matt Duncan was. "I'll take care of it."
"What about my car?" Nat asked. "There's probably paint on it or something. Dents. Evidence."
"We're going to have to get a diver to go down to get the winch hooked up. I know a guy works for the sheriff's department in Baton Rouge. I'll give him a call and see if I can get him to drive up first thing tomorrow morning."
The lawman's gaze slid from Nat to Nick. "In the interim, I suggest you two stay the hell out of trouble."
Chapter 22
Nick knew it was selfish, but he didn't want to be the one to take her to the hospital. He knew that made him a son of a bitch. But the truth of the matter was he didn't want to spend any more time with her. Damn it. he didn't want to care about her. He was in no position to care for a woman. Especially tonight when he was wound up so tight he could feel the tension all the way to his spine.
There was something about Nat Jennings that brought out his protective nature with a vengeance. And even though she would argue to her dying breath that she didn't need someone looking out for her, there was no way Nick could walk away.
"You didn't have to do this."
On the passenger seat next to him, Nat huddled in the blanket, shivering so hard he thought she might just vibrate right out of the truck.
"How else are you going to get there?" he asked. "Take a taxi?"
"I don't need some doctor to tell me I have a headache. I already figured that out all by myself."
"I hate to break it to you, Miss I-Figured-It-Out-All-By- Myself. but you need stitches."
"What I need is to find the son of a bitch who fried to kill me."
Nick didn't want to think about how close she'd come to dying tonight. He would never forget the stark terror he'd felt in the seconds he'd thought she was dead. Or the relief that was so powerful his legs had gone weak when he'd realized she was not.
"Any ideas?" he asked.
"Half the population of Bellerose." She shook her head. "I guess the question is, which one of them hates me enough to want me dead."
St. Tammany Memorial was a sixty-seven-bed hospital located off Interstate 12 in nearby Covington. At just before one A.M., Nick and Nat walked into the emergency room where a sour-faced nurse with salt-and-pepper hair took her information, then ushered them into a curtained examination room.
"Let me get you a gown so you can get out of those wet clothes." Digging into a cabinet, the nurse turned to Nat, brandishing a wrinkled gown. “Put it on and have a seat on the exam table. Doc will be with you shortly." She shoved the gown at Nat, then with a swish of white nylon she was out of the room.
Nat frowned at the gown in her hand, then raised her eyes to Nick. "I can't believe I let you drag me here."
"You let me drag you here because your head is laid open."
"I hate hospitals."
“Put on the gown, Nat, and stop complaining."
"How the hell am I supposed to get home with my butt hanging out of this thing?"
"I'm sure you'll manage." Not wanting to think of her in terms of her butt, Nick turned his back and stared at the wall. "Put it on or I'm going to sic Nurse Ratched on you."
He heard the rustle of clothes, then a clipped, "You can turn around."
Nick turned slowly and had to steel himself against a quick slice of lust. He knew this was neither the time nor the place to ogle. But she had absolutely no right to look so damn good sitting on the examination table in a wrinkled gown, a cut on her forehead, and damp hair tangled around her shoulders. She looked good enough to eat, and it took every bit of control he could muster to keep himself from reaching out to touch her just to make sure she wasn't some figment of his imagination.
She'd taken advantage of a disposable paper blanket and draped it over her legs. But it only reached to her ankles and he found himself staring at pretty feet with toenails painted the color of hibiscus. He'd never been unduly interested in female feet, but hers were small and pretty and sexy as hell.
Tearing his gaze away, Nick shifted his weight from one foot to the other to accommodate his swollen member and sighed unhappily. Vaguely, he was aware that she was staring at him, that his heart was poundi
ng, that he was going to do something really stupid if he didn't get the hell out of there pronto.
"I'll see if I can round up the doc."
He'd just turned toward the door when it swung open. Surprise jarred him when Travis Ratcliffe breezed into the exam room with a clipboard in one hand, a stainless steel tray in the other. He looked up and stopped abruptly, his gaze darting from Nat to Nick and then back to Nat. "Oh." His brows snapped together. "Nat? What are you doing here? What happened?"
Nick could see the other man struggling not to show his surprise. But not even a man of Travis Ratcliffe's training and education could hide good, old-fashioned shock.
She paled all the way to her mouth at the sight of Ratcliffe. For an instant, Nick thought she was going to bolt. But she stayed on the exam table, clutching the paper draped over her, staring at Ratcliffe as if he'd just announced he was Dr. Hyde.
"I-I wasn't expecting to see you here."
"I do my time here in the emergency room once a week." Grimacing; he turned his attention to Nick and stuck out his hand, "I didn't properly introduce myself last time. Travis Ratcliffe."
Nick gripped his hand, all the while searching the other man's gaze, gauging his sincerity. "Nick Bastille."
Looking more than a little uncomfortable, Ratcliffe dropped Nick's hand and squinted down at the clipboard. "If I had been able to make out Margaret's writing, I would have known it was you in here and not Nate Jenkins. Giving a self-deprecating shake of the head, he forced a smile. “I’m afraid her writing is worse than mine."
"Travis, if I had known you were here, I wouldn't have-"
"Nat, come on." He cut her off by raising his hand. "I'm a professional. I'm not going to let anything personal between us interfere with my work here at the hospital. Okay?" He studied her a moment, his eyes narrowing. "Besides, from the look of that cut on your forehead, I'd say you need about four stitches."
"That's what I thought, too," Nick put in.
Regaining his composure, Travis looked down at the clipboard. "You were in a car accident this evening?"
Nat nodded. "Out on Pelican Island Road.”
"Narrow road. Parish needs to get it asphalted and put up a guardrail." Travis addressed Nick. "Were you in the car with her?"
"She was alone."
He looked at Nat. "How did you get wet?"
"The car went into the water," she said.
Ratcliffe made a doctorly sound of distress. "Damn. You're lucky it wasn't worse."
Pulling a small penlight from the pocket of his lab coat, he set his hand against her forehead and shone the light into first her right eye, then her left. "Were you unconscious at any time? Any headache? Confusion?"
Nat shook her head adamantly. "No. None of those things."
"Good."
She flinched when he probed the cut.
"Hurt?" he asked.
"Only when you stick your finger in it."
He chuckled. "Four stitches ought to do the trick." He gave her a reassuring smile. "Let me numb you, and we'll have you out of here in no time. Okay?"
Nat felt incredibly vulnerable sitting on the examination table in nothing but a flimsy hospital gown and wet panties. Her heart pounded in her chest as Travis donned a pair of examination gloves and prepared the needle and syringe for anesthetizing the gash.
The tension in the room was palpable. She was keenly aware of Nick standing by the door, watching them like a hawk. Travis made small talk and did his best to pretend that she was just another emergency room patient. He told Nick he could leave if he wanted to, but Nick opted to stay. As much as Nat didn't want to admit it, she was thankful.
"Lie down please." He moved the small pillow to the head of the examination table and patted it. "There you go."
The last thing she wanted to do was lie down, but she knew there was no way around it if she was going to get herself stitched up, so she complied.
"Cold?"
"No."
"You're shaking." He smiled down at her. "You're not afraid of needles, are you?"
"I don't like doctors."
He laughed, a practiced sound that might have put her at ease if she wasn't hopelessly tied up in knots. "Relax. Just a little pinprick, then you won't feel a thing. I promise."
Nick came up beside the table and surprised her by taking her hand. Nat looked over at him and tried to smile, but failed. Being treated by Travis Ratcliffe when there had been so much hostility between them was just too weird. She closed her eyes while he injected the numbing medicine into the wound.
"There. Should be completely numb in just a sec. Better?"
"All things considered."
"Good. Here we go."
While there was no pain, it was disconcerting to feel the tug of the needle as he sutured her skin.
"Nat, I know this may not be the most opportune moment, but I feel the need to apologize for the things my father said to you."
"Travis, you know I didn't hurt Ward or Kyle."
"I believe you. I've believed you from the start. It's just that Dad ... Well, he hasn't been the same since losing them. He's bitter and angry and--"
"All of us are bitter and angry," she said. "The last three years have been hell. Elliott's blaming me is only making things worse."
Nick spoke up. "Elliott Ratcliffe is probably part of the reason some son of a bitch tried to run her off the road tonight."
Travis's hand paused an instant before tying off the final stitch. "Someone deliberately tried to run her off the road?" He made eye contact with Nat. "Is that true?"
She nodded.
"Any idea who did it?"
"Maybe it was your old man," Nick said.
Travis made a sound of annoyance as he set his tools on the tray and lifted a sterile gauze to the newly sutured wound. "You can't possibly believe my father would do something like that."
"I don't know what to believe," she said. "An hour ago I couldn't believe someone was trying to kill me."
"My father might have said some terrible things to you in the past, but he would never harm another human being."
"He harms her every time he shoots off his mouth," Nick said. "It would go a long way in this town if he kept his trap shut."
Travis's mouth formed a thin line. "Look, Nat, there are any number of people in this town who don't like it that you're back. My father might be one of them, but he would never resort to violence."
Nick laughed. "Oh, that's rich. If we hadn't intervened yesterday, your old man would have tom into her like tornado through a mobile home park."
"He's never harmed anyone in his life." Snapping off his gloves, Travis tossed them into the biohazard receptacle with a little too much force. "He's sure as hell never killed anyone."
"You sure about that?"
Travis looked at him sharply. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Nat's heart began to hammer when Nick crossed the room. "Nick, don't."
Ignoring her, he got in Travis's face. "That means keep your family away from her. You. Your old man. And Hunt. You got that, Doc?"
Travis took a swift step back, his eyes darting to the door as if he thought he might need a quick route of escape. "I think you had better leave." He looked at Nat. "Both of you."
Nat could see Nick reining in his temper, and for the first time she realized just how angry he was about what had happened to her. While it was good to know he cared, she didn't think he was being fair to Travis. ''Wait a moment--" she began.
Travis cut her off by raising his hand. "It's okay. Just go."
Sliding from the table, Nat scooped up her wet clothes and left without looking back.
# # #
It had been almost a year since Hunt Ratcliffe had been frogging. He loved getting out in his sixteen-foot mud boat at night with a six-pack of Budweiser and some Acapulco gold. He'd grown up eating frog legs and considered them a delicacy. Bernard, the butler at Ratcliffe Plantation, had always fried up the best frog legs in the whole fre
aking world. But Bernard was too damn old to frog these days, and so the Ratcliffe men went without. Hunt figured he'd remedy that tonight.
Mort Cooper was supposed to go with him but begged off at the last minute. Mort had said it was because he wasn't feeling well, but Hunt knew better. That wife of his probably had him doing laundry or something. Nina Cooper had her husband pussy whipped so badly he would cower at the sound of her voice. Jesus H. Christ it was getting to where a man couldn't even be a man anymore without some bossy bitch telling him what to do. That wasn't going to happen to Hunt Ratcliffe. He'd spend his days jerking off before he let some mouthy female tell him how to live his life.
The moon illuminated black water that was as smooth as glass and teeming with duckweed. Mosquitoes and water gnats flew frenziedly around the light. Along the shore he saw the glowing eyes of the gators, heard the occasional slap of a reptilian tail. Maybe he'd nab a gator with his .22 while he was out here, too. Even if Bernard didn't cook it up fresh, Hunt could dress and freeze it for later.
Hunt motored down the shallow channel until he reached his destination, Edward Bayou, and shut down the engine. He scooted onto the rowing thwart and reached for his bag of weed, tapping a small amount onto a paper. He rolled the joint by the light of the moon, taking care not to drop any into the boat. The weatherman was calling for thunderstorms later, but Hunt didn't see any lightning. Hopefully, he'd be long gone before the skies opened up. Freaking mosquitoes were eating him alive, anyway.
He sat on the thwart and smoked the joint, watching the glowing eyes of a gator move slowly along the muddy bank. He thought about picking him off; he had a nice little Kimber semi-auto in his tackle box. But Hunt was pleasantly buzzed and feeling lazy.
"Lucky bastard," he muttered.
When the joint was spent, he tossed the roach into the water. Standing, he bent to retrieve a Budweiser from the cooler, popped the tab, and drank deeply, enjoying the cold rush down his throat. He set the can on the rowing thwart, then bent to pick up the gig.
When he'd been a kid, his daddy had brought him and Ward and Travis out here frogging. He and Ward had had a blast catching frogs with their hands and tossing them into the bag. Travis had been afraid of them. Hunt and Ward had teased him mercilessly, but Travis had never so much as touched a frog. He'd always been a pantywaist faggot about things like that. Hell, he was probably still afraid of frogs. The thought made Hunt laugh aloud.