“Do you know who the fuck you’re dealing with? I’m the goddamn police!” Vance jerked and twisted, trying to find an advantage, but Kye had him locked in with an elbow about his neck and his arm twisted up behind his back.
“What you are is about half a second away from a dislocated shoulder. I can feel your rotator cuff shredding under the pressure. Your call.”
“Let me go!”
Kye gave him a push that forced Stokes down hard onto the gravel on his hands and knees.
Yardley was on him in an instant, kicking and punching and lifting the hammer to strike.
“Whoa, Yard.” Kye grabbed her from behind, one hand gripping the hammer to stop its descent as he lifted her off the man. He pulled her back in tight against his chest, one arm clamped across her torso to hold both her arms to her sides. In the driving rain, no easy task. “You’re okay. You’re okay, Yard.”
“You bastard!” It was a desperate cry torn from the back of her throat.
Over the roar of rain and rumble of thunder Kye kept talking low, directly into her ear. “Breathe, baby. Come on, get a grip. I don’t want you hauled into court behind this. He’s not worth it.”
Finally she stilled and he let her go. She swung around on him, her eyes wild, her hair streaming water, fury in every line of her. “I had that.”
He grinned at her. “You did. You sure as hell kicked his ass. Now call the police.”
CHAPTER TEN
“You say Ms. Summers was on the ground when you arrived.” Sheriff Wiley looked at his notepad. “Where, exactly, was the alleged perpetrator?”
“On top of Ms. Summers. I can draw you a picture.” Kye’s tone was arctic as he watched Yardley, who sat a few yards away talking with a female EMT.
“I know it’s irksome to have to keep repeating things. Ms. Summers has a lot of respect in this community. Her story isn’t in dispute. But we need to make certain we haven’t overlooked anything that could allow the suspect to beat the charges. Stokes is pretty beat up.” He smirked. “You take a few swings? Just for fun?”
Kye’s gust of laughter was more of a snort. “Ms. Summers was giving as good as she got when I got there.”
The sheriff’s eyes widened. “Everything they say about her being hard-core is true, I guess. Still, it’s too bad he caught her without her dogs.”
Both men glanced toward the front windows. The drapes and blinds were in shambles on the floor. Long Cujo-type scratches marred the glass. Deep claw marks in the wooden window frame looked like a buzz saw had been at work. On either side of the front door, huge pieces of plaster had been gouged out down to the studs. Oleg had tried his best to come to Yardley’s assistance. The dog was now kenneled in a back room, to protect the enforcers of the law.
The sheriff grunted. “Maybe Stokes is lucky you came along when you did.”
Kye didn’t reply. His heart had just stopped slamming in his chest.
At first, he hadn’t been able to accept what he was seeing in his brights as he came up the drive. Rain was sheeting down his windshield so fast the wipers were almost useless. But there, in the twin cones of his headlights, were two figures wrestling in the mud. A flash of lightning confirmed that the figure on the bottom was Yard.
Despite what movie-choreographed brawls portrayed, being on the bottom in a fight was a position only the most highly skilled fighters ever reversed. She’d needed help. Or a weapon.
His mind did a quick flashback to the hammer she’d raised just as he’d reached them. She might have made that first strike count. It didn’t bear thinking about what Stokes might have done to her if she’d missed, or only slightly injured him. And he hadn’t been there for backup.
“You haven’t said what brought you out here today.”
Kye looked back, surprised that the sheriff was still talking to him. “I’m visiting. As a friend of the family,” he added as the man’s gaze turned speculative. “I trained with her father, Bronson Battise. Her brother Lauray Battise and I served together in Afghanistan. K-9 military police.” He pulled out his business card for the second time that day. “In case you need me to make a formal statement or anything.”
Sheriff Wiley nodded. “We’re just about done here.”
Yardley straightened from her slump when she noticed Sheriff Wiley and Kye coming toward her. Kye had hardly taken his eyes off her. He came toward her now like some vengeful totem, his face a mask of controlled anger as he stared down at her.
She didn’t need his tight expression to tell her she looked like hell. Beneath the swaddling of an EMT Mylar blanket, she was soaked to the bone. There was a muddy puddle around her shoes of water that had dripped from her clothing and boots. She could feel bruises beginning to set in different parts of her body. Somewhere in the struggle she’d bitten her tongue.