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  “Can you lock your door?” he asked Maggie without turning around. He heard the soft snick of the lock as his answer.

  He reached over and slid the van door closed and locked it.

  He used his boot toe to move the knife closer, but he didn’t dare bend down to pick it up. He kicked it back under the van and, locking and slamming the van door he’d used as a shield, moved fast toward the garage door.

  In the blind darkness, he raked a hand down one side of the wall. No switch. Rushing to the other side, he did the same.

  He heard the noise behind him. Shoe soles on concrete, then cloth on concrete. The killer was under the van, going for the knife.

  Jesse found the light switch. Jerked it down, knowing as he did that he would provide the killer with the perfect target. As the overhead light flooded the garage with a dingy gold glow, he leaped to the side, crouching at the end of a tool bench.

  Where was the killer?

  MAGGIE COULD FEEL life coming back into her body, but she was still so weak.

  She watched, feeling helpless, a horrible feeling for a woman who’d never needed help before. She thought of her mother. In a wheelchair all of those years and yet not helpless. Strong. Courageous.

  Tears wet her eyes. She watched Jesse disappear into the darkness at the edge of the lit garage.

  Where was the man with the knife? The man who had killed Blackmore?

  She glanced over and saw the keys dangling from the ignition. Moving awkwardly, she slid over behind the wheel. She started the van.

  Suddenly a face appeared at her side window, startling her. She let out a shriek. Angus tried the door, swore when he found it locked.

  She threw the van into Reverse, swinging it around. Angus leaped out of the way. She saw Jesse come out of the dark, the gun in his hand. But Angus was facing her. She caught his expression.

  She shifted the van into First and gunned the engine as she let her foot up off the clutch.

  Angus had the knife in his hand and was turning when she hit him. He went down, disappearing under the hood of the van. But the knife was already in the air. It whizzed past Jesse’s head missing him only by a breath.

  Then Jesse was at her door. She opened it and he took her in his arms and he rocked her, his breath damp against her neck.

  “EAT YOUR COOKIE,” Lydia said calmly. “Angus put a special ingredient in it, just for you.”

  Charity stared down at the cookie in her hand, then at the gun Lydia had pointed at her.

  “I wouldn’t eat that cookie, if I were you,” said a voice behind Charity.

  Relief washed over her at the sound of Lee Tanner’s voice. He moved into her view. He held a gun in his hand and it was pointed at Lydia.

  “I’ll shoot Charity,” Lydia said not seeming all that surprised to see him.

  “It’s over, Lydia. Angus is dead.”

  Her gaze shifted to him, tears suddenly welling in her eyes. “Angus?”

  In that instant, he stepped to her and jerked the gun from her hand. She didn’t fight him.

  Charity dropped the cookie in her hand, swearing off sugar cookies for the rest of her life.

  “Not Angus. I can’t lose another man I love,” Lydia said. “He’s such a good man. Just like my Henry. You know Henry was a cop.”

  “Yes, Lydia, I know,” Lee said.

  “It’s all Wade’s fault,” Lydia said. “Angus never forgave him for putting me in this chair and killing our Henry. Then when Wade married that tramp and we thought she’d had another man’s baby….”

  “Daisy isn’t a tramp,” he said.

  She looked up at him. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  Charity looked at her soon to be father-in-law.

  “You were the one Daisy was in love with,” Lydia said and let out a soft laugh. “Why didn’t I see it before?”

  Epilogue

  Jesse stood in the art gallery, the bright sun shining in through the windows.

  Spring had finally come to Timber Falls. Mitch had mended and taken over as sheriff again. Jesse had turned in his uniform and his gun and had gone back to painting.

  But he didn’t kid himself. Everything had changed. Maggie had come into his life. He’d almost lost her. And then, she’d left again.

  He hadn’t seen her in several months now. She’d had to return to Seattle. Her father’s businesses needed tending, she had a house to see to and was needed to testify in the murders of her father, Clark Iverson and Norman Drake.

  “Don’t worry,” Charity had told him. “She’ll be back for my wedding. Maggie wouldn’t miss my wedding.”

  Jesse wasn’t so sure about that. He hadn’t been able to reach her for the past few weeks. Her assistant at company headquarters said she was out of the country and wasn’t sure when she’d be back.

  The last time they’d talked he felt frustrated. He needed to hold her, to talk to her in person, so he hadn’t had much to say. Now he regretted it, wished he’d told her how he felt. Even long distance.

  “Son,” Lee Tanner said coming up to rest a hand on his shoulder. “Your art show is a tremendous success. You should be proud.”

  His first big show. He couldn’t believe that most of the paintings were already marked Sold. “Thanks.”

  Lee studied his son. “Have you heard from Maggie?”

  He shook his head. “She has a lot on her plate right now.” The truth was, there really wasn’t any reason for her to return to Timber Falls and Jesse knew it.

  Timber Falls had quieted down. There hadn’t been a bigfoot sighting in months. Nor a murder. Angus Smythe was dead. Lydia Abernathy behind bars awaiting trial for kidnapping, blackmail and multiple murders.

  Before his death, Detective Rupert Blackmore had left a detailed account in his motel room at the Ho Hum of what had happened thirty years ago in a dark alley and the blackmail that had resulted in it.

  It seemed Maggie owed her life to him. Not once, but twice.

  Blackmore had saved her that night in the garage. His wife Teresa and her mother were found unharmed. They’d been detained by a policeman back in Iowa where Blackmore’s mother-in-law lived, and held overnight in a jail cell. It wasn’t until the next morning that the policeman realized he’d been sent a false arrest warrant for the two.

  Charity had been so sure that Bud Farnsworth was trying to tell Wade who’d hired him to kidnap Angela just before Bud died. If that was the case, then Bud had been trying to tell Wade that it had been Lydia, Wade’s own sister.

  Over the weeks since, the story had been hashed out at Betty’s Café for hours on end. Rumors had been running rampant, as was Timber Falls’ style.

  Most everyone in town believed that Lydia had become embittered after the accident and was set on getting even with her brother and that’s why she’d kidnapped Angela. Others believed Lydia did it to spare her brother the embarrassment when it came out that the baby wasn’t his.

  Whatever had motivated Lydia, Wade had hired her the best lawyer his money could buy. But then he didn’t have much money. Daisy was going through with the divorce. It was rumored there was a new man in her life. In fact, several people had seen her with Lee Tanner.

  The general consensus was that it was nice that the two had found each other especially after what they’d both been through.

  The antiques Angus had stored in the warehouse turned out to all be stolen. It seemed Angus had been working with a man named Jerome “Bruno” Lovelace for years. Lydia was right about one thing, Angus was quite wealthy in his own right. And he’d left it all to his favorite step-niece Desiree. She had gone away to college but she’d called Jesse before she left.

  “You are the one person in town who will appreciate this,” she said. “I took a DNA test. I guess I’ve always known but I wanted to be sure, you know, after everything that happened. You and I…”

  “You’re my sister,” he said.

  She laughed lightly. “You knew, too.”

  “I figured. You were too w
ild, too much like me,” Jesse said.

  “I guess we’ll all have to get together one of these days, you, me and Maggie,” Desiree said.

  Jesse knew Maggie would like that. “Let’s do that.”

  “I guess you know about our parents,” she’d said before she’d hung up. “I’m okay with it. Wade, well, he’s talking about leaving town. I think it’s the best thing. Mom’s taken over the decoy plant. Who knew she had it in her?”

  Lee Tanner turned now as Daisy came into the art gallery. Jesse couldn’t believe the change in his father. His step was lighter. He was definitely happier.

  It was good to see Liam Sawyer with Florie, too. Roz and her fiancé Ford Lancaster had also stopped by and bought one of the paintings.

  As Jesse looked around the gallery, he was glad to see how many of the locals had turned out. Timber Falls was an okay town. He would hate to have to leave it. That, he realized would be up to Maggie. If she still wanted him.

  He noticed that only one of his paintings hadn’t sold. It was one he’d done of a Mexican cantina. In it a young woman was dancing and the men at the bar were watching her. He noticed that someone had put a Hold sticker on it.

  And then he turned. How had he known it was her? Maybe the way the air seemed to contract. Or his heart kicked up a beat. But there she was standing in the doorway. Maggie. And he knew then who’d had the painting put on hold.

  She moved to him, hesitant at first. She must have seen his expression because she broke into a smile and ran the last few steps, throwing herself into his arms.

  “I thought I would never get home,” she said.

  “Home?” he echoed, holding her close.

  She pulled back and looked up at him. “I’m never leaving you again Jesse Tanner. Never.”

  He heard his brother’s voice behind him. “Ask her to marry you, fool.”

  Jesse laughed and looked down into Maggie’s brown eyes, losing himself in them. He’d wanted her from that first night, had been waiting for years for her to come into his life. He couldn’t believe how kind fate had been to him. Florie said it was written in the stars.

  He figured heaven did have something to do with it. “I’d planned on something a little more romantic…” he said, then cleared his throat. “Will you marry me Maggie Randolph?”

  “Tell her you love her, fool,” Mitch whispered behind him.

  “We could have a double wedding,” Charity said.

  “Shush,” Lee Tanner told them both. “He’s doing just fine.”

  Maggie laughed, glanced around the room at all the people waiting to hear her answer, then she smiled up at Jesse. “I love you, too, Jesse Tanner. Marry you? Absolutely.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6172-7

  WANTED WOMAN

  Copyright © 2004 by Barbara Heinlein

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