Return to mccall, p.1
Return to McCall, page 1
Return to McCall
Synopsis
Overwhelmed by sudden fame, Lily Larimer retreats from LA and returns to McCall, the last place she’s felt truly happy, even if that means seeing her ex, Sam, who seems to have found exactly what she wanted in life. Hoping to get her future back on track, Lily isn’t looking for romance—not until she meets Alex, the gorgeous Cuban dance instructor at Lake Haven, Sam’s newly opened lesbian retreat.
Sam Draper, McCall’s chief of police, and her wife, Sara, are ready to start their family, but their plans go awry when Sara experiences fertility issues. Summer heats up as they open Lake Haven, but cracks soon start to emerge with the realization that what they want most, a family, might be just out of reach.
As the secret evil lurking just beneath the surface of their sleepy little lake town emerges, all four women discover that sometimes happiness comes when you least expect it.
Return to McCall
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By the Author
McCall
London
Innis Harbor
Last First Kiss
Wild Wales
Laying of Hands
Return to McCall
Return to McCall
© 2023 By Patricia Evans. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-63679-387-0
This Electronic Original Is Published By
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, NY 12185
First Edition: March 2023
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Barbara Ann Wright
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design by Tammy Seidick
eBook Design by Toni Whitaker
Acknowledgments
A huge thank you to Brenda Trobaugh and LJ Hooper, who have helped me immeasurably on both Return to McCall and Last First Kiss. Your expertise and experience with law enforcement and firearms made these books what they are, and I treasure your friendship.
This book is dedicated to Michelle O’Keeffe,who has no idea how beautiful she is, inside and out.
And Jennifer Pettijohn, who reflects the shimmering courage of a thousand female warriors that came before her.
Chapter One
A spicy waft of cinnamon enveloped Sam Draper as she opened the door of Moxie Java, cradling the phone between her face and shoulder as she searched her jacket pocket for her wallet. “I’m here now, babe, and it smells like they have those amazing cinnamon rolls. Want me to drop one by the restaurant before I head back to the station?”
Sam pulled her wallet from her pocket as she said a quick good-bye to her wife, Sara, and dropped the phone back into her jacket. For once, there was no line at Moxie Java, the only coffee shop in the tiny mountain town of McCall, Idaho. Sam congratulated herself on her timing as she spied their famous cinnamon rolls dripping with cream cheese frosting on a cooling tray behind the counter.
“Good morning, Heather.” Sam smiled at the teenager behind the counter, who stared back blankly, her face strangely pale and tense. “I’ll take two of those beauties behind you and a large black coffee.”
Heather bit her lip and stood stiffly in place, an unattended lock of bright teal hair falling across her face, her eyes locked over Sam’s shoulder. The walls seemed to echo Sam’s words, bouncing them across the café, then watching as they drifted slowly to the floor, reverberating in the hollow silence. The tension in the air settled onto Sam’s shoulders as she instinctively shifted her focus. Her eyes flicked to Heather’s hand, stiff and motionless by her side except for the single finger pointing to the left. Sam shifted her face into neutral and turned slowly where she stood, keeping her gaze soft and steady as it settled onto another thin teenage girl. This one held a Glock semiautomatic weapon, her hands shaking, her finger pulled tight against the trigger.
Sam studied the girl’s red-rimmed eyes and uneven black hair haphazardly tucked behind one ear. She wore glasses with a crack down the center of the left lens and had a tense grip on the gun. Too tense.
“Hey there.” Sam kept her voice soft and wished that she’d worn her service weapon while off duty for the first time in her career. “Take it easy. My name is Sam.”
The girl shook her head slightly as if to discard Sam’s words, then jerked her head toward the sound of a young boy coughing in one of the window seats. His mother pulled him closer and whispered in his ear, looking frantically out the window before wrapping him in her jacket.
Sam took a quick glance around at the situation. Moxie Java was at about half-capacity, about fifteen people in the building, including herself and the staff behind the counter. Everyone was staring, their eyes darting back and forth between her and the gun pointed in her direction, including a portly deputy in a beige Ada County Sheriff’s Department uniform handcuffed to the back of his chair. His shiny bald head was slick with sweat, and his wrist strained against the metal rungs as he stared at the gun.
Sam turned back to the shooter and softened her gaze. “Look, why don’t you tell me why you’re doing this? There has to be a reason.” She paused, watching the girl’s eyes fill with tears that were quickly blinked back. “What’s going on?”
“Stop talking!” Her words were sharp, staccato, and seemed to clatter and fall flat onto the floor in front of her. “I just need her—” The girl paused, then jerked her head toward Heather. “To go lock the damn door so no one else can get in.”
Heather waited until Sam nodded, then walked with shaky steps around the counter to lock the door. She hesitated before she went back toward the counter, her eyes still locked on Sam.
“Why the hell is everyone watching you?” A touch of panic elevated the girl’s voice, and her eyes spun wildly around the room. “I’m the one with the gun.”
Silence settled between them. Out of the corner of her eye, Sam caught one of the employees starting to say something, so she jumped in first.
“The rumor is that I look like a tall Tom Cruise.” Sam flashed her most charming smile, silently willing the McCall locals to take the hint and not reveal her status as law enforcement. “So that could be it.”
“No.” The girl studied her with the barest hint of a smile. “That’s definitely not it.”
One of the bussers behind the counter snorted, and she glared at him, the smile fading quickly from her face. The boy in the window seat started wheezing again as his mother dropped to her knees at the end of the booth, pulling him toward her.
Sam kept her eyes on the girl with the gun. “What’s your name?”
“Why?” Her eyes snapped back to Sam. “So you can pretend to care?”
“Look, it sounds like that kid is having an asthma attack. And if he doesn’t get out of here and get treatment, things could get real serious, real quick.” Sam paused, locking eyes with the shooter. “And I can tell you don’t want that to happen.”
“Right, so they can go straight to the cops?” Her glance flitted to the ground, then back to the boy. “That’s all I need. More police up in here.” Her eyes flicked over to the handcuffed deputy, then back to Sam.
Another snort from the teenage busser, and this time, both Sam and the shooter turned to look at him.
“Um…” the busser said, trying not to look at the gun she now had pointed at his head. “Hate to burst your bubble here, but…” His voice trailed off as he nodded in Sam’s direction.
“What?” The shooter haphazardly swung the gun back in Sam’s direction. This time, it was close enough for Sam to see that the safety was off. “He’s a cop?”
Sam was about to answer when several local voices behind them did it for her. In unison. “She’s a cop.”
The gun in her hand sagged slightly as she registered the information, then snapped back up.
“Listen,” Sam said softly. “I’d love to return to this fascinating discussion on misgendering butch women, but I think something else is more important.” She looked pointedly back to the boy struggling to breathe by the window. His breath had sunk to a low, audible scrape.
“Just go.” The shooter’s voice was low and soft as she caught his mother’s pleading gaze. “Get him outside. But nobody else moves, and you…” She spun the gun toward Heather. “Lock the door behind her.”
The mom scooped him up in her arms and carried him to the door, followed by a nauseated-looking Heather, who quickly unlocked the door to let them out, then locked it behind them. She walked back toward the counter, lifting her eyes to the girl only once. “She said to tell you thank you.”
For just an instant, the girl’s face softened before she pulled it back to stone.
“Look, unless you want me to start calling you Moxie, you need to tell me your name.” Sam paused. “It’s not too late to get out of this, but we’re going to have to work together for that to happen.”
The girl kept the gun trained on Sam but lowered one stiff hand and shook it out. The busser chose that moment to pick up one of the cinnamon rolls and leisurely fold half of it into his mouth, icing dripping onto the front of his apron.
“All right. Moxie it is.” Sam turned her attention back to the girl and took a slow breath. “You need to let the rest of these guys go. Whatever you want, they don’t have it. So let’s simplify things here.”
The last of Sam’s words were drowned out by sudden shouting from the deputy, who’d decided now was a good time to get up, wave his one free hand around, and act a damn fool. “Goddammit! I’ve had it!” He attempted to drag the chair toward the front of the restaurant, his face fury red and spitting with every word. “All I had to do was get one lousy delinquent from point A to point B, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that little thieving Mexican bitch make me look like a—”
Moxie’s face was expressionless as she trained the red laser sight at the deputy’s head with a look serious enough to make everyone but the deputy duck under the nearest table. Dust floated in the wide beam of silent sunlight between them, and everyone watched the next move in the deputy’s master plan, which was to stand in the middle of the floor and wet himself, apparently.
It was all Sam could do not to roll her eyes as she turned back to the girl. “Listen, Moxie.” Soft sounds of crying and true panic had started from every direction as Sam paused, choosing her words carefully. “We’ve got to get everybody out of here. I’m not going to be able to help you fix this and closer to what you want if that gun goes off.”
“Why do you think I want something? Why does everybody always think that?” Moxie lowered her gun and swiped at a tear with the heel of her hand. “’Cause I don’t. I just can’t go to one more stupid house.” She paused to draw in a shaky breath. “I can’t. And I’m sure as hell not going to where that guy just tried to take me.”
Sam looked out the expansive front windows of Moxie Java at the officers running up to the building in formation, guns in the low ready position. Her brother-in-law Murphy brought up the rear and signaled them to surround the building. Sam caught his eye through the glare of the window as he held his hand to his face in the phone sign.
“Listen, if you put that gun down long enough for me get these people to safety, it’ll be just you and me. We can figure out how to get past this.”
“Yeah, right.” Moxie glanced up, suddenly looking very young and completely exhausted. “How do I know you’re not trying to trick me?”
Sam shook her head, her voice soft. “I don’t trick people, Moxie. That’s just not my style.”
“Yep, that’s true.” The same busser finished the last of his cinnamon roll and swiped at the icing of the next one with his finger. “Draper’s good people. Everyone knows that.”
Sam turned back to Moxie and lifted an eyebrow in a silent question. Moxie slowly lowered her gun and stepped back as Sam stepped into action, informing the officers outside of the plan with a quick call and making the exit process as smooth as possible. Everyone but the deputy was out the door in under sixty seconds until the busboy stopped to swipe one of the chocolate muffins out of the display box.
“Oh, for the love of God, man.” Sam signaled him out the door, trying not to laugh despite herself. “Step on it!”
His hair flopped into his face, and he grinned as he passed her, tucking a sugar cookie into the chest pocket of his shirt.
Finding the keys and unlocking the fuming deputy’s handcuffs took forever, and Sam walked him to the door to put as much distance as possible between him and Moxie. He jerked from her grasp and out the door, shouting more of the same tone-deaf obscenities. It was all she could do to not slam the door behind him.
When she got back to the front of the shop, Moxie was sitting on the floor, the gun still cocked, but it was now lying quietly in her lap. Sam got a takeaway cup of water from behind the counter and set it on the floor a few feet away. When she raised her head to speak, Sam noticed a smattering of caramel freckles across her nose.
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
“I’ve been in law enforcement a long time. Long enough to know this isn’t what you want to be doing.” Sam steeled herself against the smile she felt forming on her face. “So tell me, how did you get away from the Deputy of the Year over there?”
Moxie’s face melted into her first smile, at least until she saw the officers with their guns pointed at the glass door.
Sam’s phone buzzed, and she checked it, then held it up. “It’s the officers outside. They need an update. Is that okay?”
“Whatever.” Exhaustion softened the edges of her words as she dragged a hand through her hair. “Just tell them to back the hell up.”
Sam phoned one of the officers. The second Murphy picked up, he asked her if anyone was hurt. Sam said no, feeling the burn of Moxie’s stare as she glanced in her direction. Murphy paused, then asked if Sam wanted the officers to hold their position until otherwise instructed. Sam hesitated before she said yes. She was betting on her ability to get through to this girl, but she was very aware that that’s exactly what it was. A bet, one she could lose in a split second.
Sam slipped the phone back into her pocket. Moxie traced the lines of the gun with her finger, then tipped her face to the ceiling. A tear slipped off her chin and onto the black barrel in a silent splash.
Sam looked around until she found what she knew would be there. A rumpled black trash bag stuffed to the top and slumped against the table leg where the deputy had been cuffed. “So,” she said, waiting until Moxie met her eyes. “Foster kid, huh?”
“What?” Her eyes locked onto Sam’s in a look of delayed shock. “How’d you know that?”
Sam nodded at the limp bag leaning against the side of one of the tables. “Your fancy luggage kinda gave that away.”
She nodded, swiping at another tear with the heel of her hand. “Yeah. I feel like I live out of those.”
Sam nodded, noting the bruise on her cheekbone that had faded to a greenish-yellow outline. “So the deputy was taking you to your next placement?”
Moxie nodded, then reached for the water and drank it greedily with a shaking hand, as if she’d just remembered she was thirsty. Afterward, she crushed the cup, sinking it into the corner trash like a pro.
“You play?”
“I did. I was at my last place for my first two years of high school.” Moxie shook her head, still staring at the trash where the cup had disappeared. “I made the varsity team, but who knows now? I don’t even know where they’re sending me.”
“So just a sudden shift, huh?”
Moxie nodded, her eyes fluttering closed for just a second before she tightened her grip on the gun in her lap.
Sam nodded toward her. “Something to do with that bruise on your cheek?”
Moxie’s fingers rose slowly to the side of her face. “How could you possibly know that?”
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out a shiner like that and a new foster placement at the same time means trouble.” She softened her voice and met Moxie’s eyes. “You get in a fight?”
“Nah. Not really.” Moxie shook her head. “My foster mom caught her new man picking the lock on my bedroom door a couple of nights ago and decided she needed to remind me who he belonged to.”
“Yeah, she doesn’t want to lose that one.” Sam rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “He sounds like a straight-up prize.”
That made Moxie laugh, and the tears had cleared from her eyes by the time she looked up. “Hey, didn’t I hear you tell someone that you were bringing them a cinnamon roll?”
“Yep, my wife, Sara.” Sam smiled. “She owns the restaurant across the street.”
Moxie nodded, clicking the safety back into place. “Gus’s Place or something, right? I saw it as we came into town.”
