Valerie Hansen - Standing Guard

Lindy was practically screeching at him so he reached to place a calming hand on her shoulder. To his amazement, she ducked as if expecting a blow.

Thad raised both hands and backed away. “Whoa. I’m not going to hurt you. Just calm down. You’ve had quite a shock.”

“I told you I didn’t want the authorities involved in my business. Why did you have to call them?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because somebody almost rolled your car into a ball—with you in it.” He knew he’d spoken gruffly but he didn’t know how else he was going to get through to this stubborn, irrational woman.

Lindy covered her face with her hands.

Thad started to reach for her, then stopped himself. She’d already indicated reluctance to accept physical comforting. He could get himself into deep trouble by trying to give it again.

Instead, he waited patiently until she pulled herself together, then nodded toward his pickup. “My ride’s not fancy, but right now that’s our only transportation. Unless you want to wait out here for the cops and freeze to death, I suggest you come with me the way I told them you would.”

She stood so still for a few moments he wondered if she was going to refuse. Finally, she seemed to regain her composure. “I’ll need my purse. And I suppose I should take the groceries in case they tow my car.”

“I’m assuming they will,” Thad said. It was a relief to see her acting more stable. “They probably won’t need your keys so you’d better pull them. The dispatcher said they were really busy today. Since nobody was hurt here, it may take them a while to respond and we don’t want your car stolen before they arrive.”

Lindy almost laughed. At least Thad thought she did. She’d been so upset before, it was hard to tell how she was feeling until he heard the sarcasm in her tone when she said, “The way my life’s been going lately, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. I’d expect it.”

He stood back while she unlocked the trunk, then carried her purchases to his truck and placed the plastic bags in the cab between the driver and passenger seats. The way he saw it, he was already on thin ice with this woman and having a pile of groceries as a buffer between them was to his advantage.

Did he wish he hadn’t volunteered to help her? Not really. If he hadn’t been there when she’d almost wrecked, she’d have been stranded, particularly because she was so against police involvement.

Thad observed her as he held open the passenger door and she climbed in. She seemed pretty normal in most ways, so why was she so scared of the cops? Could there be a connection between her current problems and her late husband’s criminal activities? Had she been personally involved?

No. No way, his instincts insisted. He’d know if Lindy was a crook at heart. Truth to tell, she seemed so totally innocent it was laughable. He could far more easily imagine her as a helpless lamb being circled by a pack of hungry wolves than the other way around.

That picture of helplessness stuck in his mind as he rounded the truck and slid behind the wheel. If he were to consider the accident he had just witnessed as a deliberate attack, how might that change his tactics going forward?

He cast a sidelong glance at the woman riding beside him. She was obviously still tense. Her hands were clasped around the strap of her purse and she was holding on to it as if she were suspended above a bottomless chasm by that one, thin strip of leather.

Strange notions kept surfacing, insisting to Thad that he had been put there to provide an anchor for Lindy’s lifeline. Was that possible? Sure. Why not? If someone had asked him a few years ago what he’d be doing these days, he would never have guessed he’d be managing a kitchen-gadget business in a little Ozark town. And if they’d suggested he’d be playing bodyguard to a pretty but unstable widow, too, he’d have laughed in their faces.

So, what now? Only one thing was certain. No matter what his original motives had been or how circumstances had conspired to draw him into this woman’s problems, he was committed. He knew Lindy Southerland needed help and it was his duty to provide it. Period.

THREE

Pearson Products was located next to the single-runway Serenity airport outside town. Lindy had passed the site often but other than the one time she had tried to apply for a job there, she’d never had reason to stop.

As Thad drove around to the rear of the largest metal building, she was struck by how isolated the manufacturing and shipping complex seemed. The hardwood trees on the surrounding hills were bare but would soon begin to bud, and by summer the open area would feel like a tiny island amid a sea of green leaves.

If there had not been other cars parked there, she might have been more uneasy. “I never realized how far out of town this place is. It’s really secluded.”

“It wasn’t always.” Thad pointed. “Rob and Ellen used to have a house attached to their office on the far end of this long building. You can still see the foundation. I made my office in the warehouse instead of rebuilding after the fire.”

“So, you don’t live out here like they did?”

“No. I have a little place off Old Sturkie Road. It isn’t fancy. I don’t spend a lot of time there.”

She chose to open her own door rather than wait for Thad to do it. Ben had always made a big deal of holding doors for her and otherwise treating her gallantly in public, though he’d abused her in private, so Lindy now insisted on fending for herself. It wasn’t that she objected to a man showing good manners, it simply seemed intrinsically necessary for her to demonstrate self-reliance as often as possible.

If Thad minded her behaving so independently he didn’t give any sign of it. Smiling, he directed her to the rear entrance to the warehouse and caught the heavyweight metal door behind her as she passed through. The area was open and airy like a barn, yet bore the chemical odor of new plastic. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell but it was a noticeable change from the crispness of the February air outdoors.

“This is our shipping department,” Thad said, pointing to rows of bins and shelves filled with brightly colored kitchen tools and several long tables. “You probably know most of these folks better than I do. That’s Margaret over there in the brown sweater doing the packing and Louise Williams pulling orders. Vernon Betts looks after the factory and Angela runs the mail room.”

Lindy raised a hand to wave when Louise looked up and smiled. “I do recognize a few faces. We moved to Serenity a couple years ago but I really haven’t gotten out much.”

“I know what you mean. I’ve been so tied up in trying to salvage this business I don’t have time to socialize, either. If it wasn’t for church, I’d probably be a hermit.”

She followed Thad as he led the way to a rudimentary office located at one end of the cavernous, rectangular building. That area was anything but posh. The floor was concrete, the walls unpainted plasterboard. There were bundles of assorted cardboard boxes stacked in one corner. The massive, oak desk was so messy it looked as if someone had upended a carton of trash in the middle of it, then stirred the pile of paper with the blade of a shovel.

Lindy had to smile. “I love your filing system. How’s that working out for you?”

“Poorly.” One corner of his mouth quirked and his dark eyes sparkled. “I know I need help. I just don’t want to hire and then have to lay off somebody. Orders are sporadic since Rob died and I can never be sure how the cash flow will hold up. Ellen used to process orders while her sister, Natalie, kept the books.” He grimaced. “You probably heard how that turned out.”