Lori Armstrong - No Mercy

Jake wrapped his jacket around me and said, “I’ll stick around, see if Dawson needs anything else. Once this is done, I’ll call Sophie and we’ll head to the hospital.”

I nodded.

Jake and Rome kept me sequestered from Dawson as I climbed into the back of the ambulance and endured the hellish back-roads ride into Rapid City.

Rome must’ve done a good job setting my shoulder. The emergency room doc injected a muscle relaxant, slid my arm into a sling, and told me to have the VA follow up.

Hope’s wrist didn’t require surgery. The on-call ortho gave her a local anesthetic, reset it and her finger. The ear, nose, and throat doc was called in, and she reset Hope’s nose. Near as anyone could tell the pregnancy hadn’t been compromised.

Hope hadn’t regained consciousness. The staff assured me she was fine, just under a self-imposed hypnotic sleep. I remembered the catatonic state Hope had lingered in for days after she’d shot Jenny Newsome, and I wasn’t surprised that’s how her body and mind dealt with trauma.

How did I deal with trauma? I paced.

Jake and Sophie showed up. Sophie clucked around me like a grandmother peahen. I let her. She volunteered to stay with Hope while Jake drove me to the sheriff’s office. The sooner I got it over with, the sooner I could get back to the hospital. And tell my sister I’d killed her lover. Yeah. I could hardly wait for that conversation.

On the ride back home I didn’t want to talk. Jake didn’t seem to care. “Did Theo tell you he killed Levi?”

I directed my attention out the window. Not that I could see anything beyond the wall of grayish-blue clouds and ribbons of silver drizzle trickling down the glass.

“Mercy?”

“He said he didn’t kill him.”

“And you believe him?”

“I don’t know. He admitted that he killed Sue Anne and that he’d set the fires, so I think he would’ve bragged if he’d killed Levi.” Theo’s words: I wanted to make it look like the same person killed Sue Anne and Levi taunted me. Theo hadn’t known how Levi had died. Hope had kept her promise.

“If he didn’t do it, then who did?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.” I told him everything Hiram and Theo had told me.

Jake’s jaw was so tight I expected it’d crack. “Do you think Kit might’ve done it?”

“Again, I don’t know.”

“What a piece of shit,” he said.

I didn’t know if he was talking about Theo or Kit since the description fit both of them. “Did you know about Hope and Theo?”

“No.” He sighed, rubbing the side of his mouth with the back of his hand. “Well, that ain’t true. I knew she was seeing somebody, but I wasn’t sure who.”

“Dad didn’t know?”

Jake shook his head. “As far as Wyatt knew…”

“What?”

“It ain’t my place to say.”

“Then whose is it?” I faced him. “Spit it out, Jake.”

He switched lanes to pass a rusted-out VW love wagon with Oregon plates. “First, I wanna know if you’ve hidden a gun in that sling.”

“The sheriff has my gun, remember?”

Jake shot me a sardonic look. “We both know you have more than one gun.”

“I’m unarmed for a change. Come on. Tell me.”

“A few weeks before Theo came into the picture, Hope and I had… gotten together again.”

I braced myself for my burst of anger. None came. Huh. Maybe the pain meds had mellowed me. Then his real meaning hit me. “The baby is yours?”

“Maybe. Hope had been feeling awful poorly, just like before with Levi. But I chalked it up to her being heartsick because of Wyatt dying. Then when unci told me Hope was pregnant…”

I hated that he never seemed to finish a sentence. “And?”

“And before I could talk to her about whether it was mine, Levi was killed. She had plenty of other things on her mind.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “Wyatt knew I stuck around all these years because of Levi. He never understood why Hope wanted to keep it a secret, ’specially after Mario Arpel died, but he accepted her decision. Now I feel like it’s happening all over again.”

Jake had hovered on the outskirts like an obedient dog, abiding by Hope’s wishes, waiting for scraps, when he should’ve stood up to her and demanded his paternal rights. But that wasn’t Jake’s way. Which is why Jake and I were never a good match.

I thought back to the dance. Hope and Theo had been discreet. Theo hadn’t sat in the front pew with her at Levi’s funeral. He hadn’t horned his way into anything, besides his interest in the ranch. “You think anyone in the community knows Hope was with Theo?”

“Not many.” He frowned. “Why?”

“Then there’s no reason for you and Hope not to go public with the fact she’s carrying your child.”

Jake turned toward me so fast he jerked the wheel and the back end of the truck skidded out. “What are you talking about?”

“Hope needs someone to take care of her; we both know that. Since the odds are good that lump in her belly could be your child, she should turn to you.” I was spinning this so hard I made myself dizzy. “Secret lovers bonding over tragedy. People love that romantic claptrap.”

Jake’s wide-eyed gaze remained on me instead of on the road. “You’re plum crazy.”

“You get a second chance to raise a child with her, and you get to look like a hero not only in her eyes, but in the eyes of the community.”

His face might’ve held skepticism, but his body language read interest. “Got it all figured out, doncha?”

“You have a better idea?”

“Nope. But I’d sure like to know what kinda drugs they pumped into you at the hospital.” He cocked his head and nervously slid his hands up and down on the steering wheel. “Weren’t more’n a coupla days ago you threatened to pierce my forehead with lead because of my past with your sister. And you were convinced I’d do anything to get my hands on the ranch. Now it’s like you’re holding an invisible shotgun to my head and telling me I gotta fall in line with your plans. What gives?”

How did I explain? Could I? Without sounding like a sappy Hallmark greeting card?

“Since all this has happened…” Raindrops beaded on the window, zigzagging a random pewter path before the wind wicked it away. “I’m tired of fighting, Jake. War. The ranch. With everyone around me. With myself. At my age, it’s hard to swallow my pride and admit that even when I thought I hated this place, I’ve never really fit anywhere else.”

Jake didn’t comment, which wasn’t a big surprise. The rest of the drive was silent.

When we turned up the rutted driveway I’d traveled a million times, Jake looked over at me and said softly, “Welcome home, Mercy Gunderson.”

For once I was grateful for his stoicism as I blinked back my tears.

Amid the clouds of misty fog I could tell the ranch was deserted. I don’t know if I expected Dawson to be lying in wait for me. I wasn’t disappointed, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I hadn’t seen the worst of this day.

Jake parked the truck behind the big barn while I trudged up the porch steps into the house. I needed a hot shower to wash away the grime and blood. Right after I downed a shot of whiskey or two to blur the grimy, bloody images in my mind.

I debated on how I’d unhook the sling to get my clothes off without help, when I heard a car pull into the yard. Great. Maybe Dawson had come looking for me. I knocked back a mouthful of fortification before I shuffled back outside.

Iris Newsome lingered at the bottom of the steps, her wrinkled face pinched with concern.

After the day I’d had, the last thing I needed was to hear her boring-ass pitch about my responsibilities as a landowner as she waved a petition in my face.