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Date Posted: 14:30:00 12/21/02 Sat
Author: SoldierBlue
Subject: Re: Studs, Texas - Book Two - The Little Alamo III
In reply to: dqfan 's message, "Re: Studs, Texas - Book Two - Sat Night goes on" on 08:49:28 12/16/02 Mon

Valerie’s scream lasted only a moment. She and Nick turned simultaneously and fired at the shooter, knocking him down from the rocks in a lifeless heap. Then they stood up and turned to where Shane lay still at the foot of the wall.

Numbly, Nick watched Valerie lower her gun and get out from among the rubble, walk slowly towards Shane. She crouched beside the sheriff, didn’t touch him, didn’t say a word. Nick saw her shoulders tremble. And all of a sudden, unexplainably, memories came flooding back with painful sharpness...

It was ten years before, as he was being wheeled away on a stretcher from the scene of the explosion in the drug den, back in New York. Just before he lost consciousness, he had seen a heartbreaking scene by the sidewalk. A young policeman lay in a pool of blood, and a female colleague was frantically trying to revive him – a rookie, little more than twenty, a bit on the plump side, long dark curls tied behind her head under her hat. There was no way Nick could have recognised her, and yet finally he did – the same girl, now a woman, short-haired and thin as a blade, rising slowly from Shane’s side with a frightening look in her eyes, her life destroyed once again: and he was there, he had been there - both times. Exhausted, without real surprise, without any sense of injustice, he watched Valerie raise her gun towards him in both hands, and knew with absolute certainty that she was going to kill him.

A hand grabbed Valerie’s trouser cuff.

She gasped and almost jumped out of her skin. She looked down to see Shane trying to stop her, whispering “Don’t.” She fell on her knees, putting down her gun on the rocks with a rattle of metal, and finally held out her hand to touch him, fearfully, afraid to find a pool of blood under his jacket. Instead she encountered a flat rigid surface.

She almost squealed. “You did - you wore the vest,” she blabbered incoherently.

“You said we all oughta...” he replied weakly.

“Oh, Shane,” she cried, tears of shock and joy spilling out of her eyes. She pushed his sheriff’s jacket open, carefully unbuttoned his torn shirt and found the bulletproof vest under it. He had probably been lucky anyway – the shooter was distant, the gun was not a big calibre – and anyway there they were, two bullets embedded in the hard surface. Shane was having difficulties to breathe. She opened the Velcro straps, carefully pulling away the upper part of the vest. He tried to draw a deep breath and grimaced in pain. The white T-shirt underneath was sweaty and plastered to his skin, but still there was no blood. She lifted it, very carefully because it stuck to him like a gauze to a wound. The skin underneath was red and patterned with the T-shirt’s weave, and big purple bruises were beginning to spread.

Valerie let out a deep breath. “Cracked ribs, I think,” she said in a shaky voice which tried to be brisk. “Does it hurt somewhere else?”

“My head,” Shane whispered, still dazed. He blinked hard and tried to rise on his elbows.

“Lie still,” she told him, but he managed to pull himself on a sitting position, his hair falling over his eyes. Valerie was still looking at him as through a dream – a nightmare that had changed halfway. He touched gingerly the back of his head and winced. She put a hand on his arm to motion him to remain still, then held out her arms and embraced him lightly, still trembling.

“Shane,” she whispered. “Shane, Shane. What on earth were you doing here?!”

“Made a search with Andy’s program,” he said, still out of breath, holding her with the arm with which he wasn’t supporting himself. He paused a little. “Learned about you and Nick, about the accident in New York... I was afraid you’d get into trouble...”

Valerie turned and saw Nick with his cell phone in his hand, calling the ambulance. She looked at him, ashamed of her animal instinct to kill him. Nick looked back without reproach and shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell me, Valerie?”

Valerie shut her eyes and sagged back beside Shane. “You had to know, that’s what I told myself.”

“How could I?” Nick insisted, gentle but intense. “I talked to his relatives and friends and colleagues, and never met you...”

“No, you couldn’t,” she whispered. “They couldn’t tell you. Nobody knew.” Shane nodded slowly. Valerie went on: “We wanted to go on patrol together... If they had known about us, they would never have allowed it.” She took a deep breath. She was holding Shane’s hand, though she didn’t seem to realise it, and he pressed her fingers to encourage her. “I *wanted* to believe you understood what had happened, Nick. I wanted to blame it all on your recklessness. Telling you would have destroyed the illusion. I wanted a reason for his death... Otherwise it was just so senseless, so cruel...” Her tears spilled out again.

Nick nodded. Valerie’s words hit home in a way she couldn’t even imagine. To want a reason... for a senseless, cruel thing... to hate somebody because of it. “It wasn’t my fault, Val,” he pleaded softly.

“I know,” she heard herself say. She looked at Shane and spoke to him. “I’ve tried to protect you so much, and you showed up here all the same and almost got yourself killed... despite whatever Nick or I could have done.”

In a while, the distant wail of the ambulance cut the night air. “Don’t need the hospital,” Shane grunted, and tried to get up. “Just a bit dizzy.”

“Shane, you hit your head,” Valerie said, trying to keep her voice calm and reasonable. She helped him get on his feet to gauge his lucidity, and looked up into his pupils. They were not dilated, but he had to get himself checked. “You lost consciousness. You could have a concussion.”

Nick helped him remove the back section of the bulletproof vest. “Yeah, Shane, go to the hospital,” he said. “Don’t be a fool.” He slapped his arm affectionately. “Man, I saw you dead. Try to make sure you’ll be all right.”

The ambulance arrived almost simultaneously with Andy and CeCe’s car. The two deputies jumped down, big-eyed. “Shane! Are you OK? What happened?”

“I’m fine,” Shane said dazedly. “Did you see Cassidy and Guerra?” Two orderlies had dismounted from the ambulance, and after a quick look around they helped him towards the open van.

“Almost ran off a cliff,” CeCe explained. “A police car was with us, they caught them.”

“Good,” Nick said, his voice still shaking, his eyes glinting. “Keep ‘em in jail, for breaking the speed limit, whatever. We’ll frame them with what we’ve heard and seen tonight. We’ll find a way.”

Valerie walked with Shane to the ambulance, and stumbled on trying to get onto it. Nick caught her, and she held to his arm for a moment.

“I’ll follow you with your car,” he said. She nodded, and disappeared inside with Shane.

“OK, I’ll drive Shane’s pickup,” Andy said. Right at that moment, his cell phone rang.

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