She turned back to Sara. “How far out are the police?”
“They’re on their way, but it’s a twenty-minute drive.”
Riley knew this and yet had hoped for a different answer.
Only a few seconds passed while she stood by the door debating what to do. A few seconds in which the worst outcome rushed through her mind. Lucas would intervene, and the man would stab or shoot him. Lucas had left the police force because his family wanted him to have a safer job, and instead, he would bleed to death in the cold.
She saw herself with vivid clarity weeping in the parking lot, cradling Lucas’s head in her lap as his life slipped away, all while waiting for an ambulance that wouldn’t come quickly enough.
The revelation was instant. Despite all the walls she’d erected around her heart, she was in love with him again. Stupidly, foolishly, in love. She couldn’t lose him. The searing pain of that thought was enough to overpower her sense of self-preservation. She grabbed the biggest thing she could wield as a weapon—a ceramic lamp with some heft to it—and hurried out the door.
She heard the shouting right away. Across the lawn in the parking lot, a large man leaned threateningly toward a woman who stood, hands clenched into fists, near a couple of cars.
“Leave me alone!” she shrieked back at him. “You don’t own me!” She was too thin, making her legs seem stork-like against her puffy white ski jacket. A black ski cap poked up awkwardly over her blonde hair. A battered suitcase sat at her feet.
The man hit a hand on the nearest car hard enough to dent it. He was tall, with a protruding belly and dark hair that seemed to spike out of his head. “Shut up and get in the car!”
Riley understood the situation at once. The woman was Ms. Jenkins, their month-long reservation scheduled to check in today. She was breaking off her relationship with the man, and he didn’t want to let her go.
Lucas had told Riley once that domestic violence calls were the most dangerous, the ones where people, emotional and irrational, struck out and injured police officers.
And he was seconds away from this one.
Riley ran to catch up, but he was still far ahead of her, his long legs eating up the distance.
“Sir!” Lucas called to the man. “Drop your weapon and step away from her!”
The man turned to face Lucas. He wasn’t as tall as Lucas, but he had a hefty girth and no apparent fear of losing a fight. His chin jutted outward, and he lifted both hands in a,I don’t care if you come at megesture. Something dark was gripped in one hand. “Back off. This ain’t your business.”
“I manage this inn. It’s my business.” Lucas gestured to the woman. “Move away from him.”
The man stepped toward Lucas, raising his hand to show a knife. The blade caught the light and glinted threateningly. “Don’t tell my wife nothing.”
This was where Lucas should back up. That was clearly the smart thing to do.
He didn’t.
Instead, he lunged, seizing the man’s wrist in a brutal grip and twisting his arm behind his back. The knife clattered to the pavement. In the same motion, Lucas slammed him against the car. Metal rattled with the impact, and the man’s head cracked against the frame.
He went limp.
“Wow,” a voice behind Riley said.
She glanced over her shoulder to see Kathy sidling up to the group. She carried the matching lamp from the sitting room, lifted like it was a club.
Lucas noticed the two of them for the first time. He didn’t say anything, just returned his attention to the man sliding down the side of the car.
Ms. Jenkins’s hand covered her mouth, her eyes wide with alarm. “Is he okay?”
Lucas checked the man’s breathing. “He’ll be fine, but he’ll have a goose egg when the police take him away. Did he hurt you? Do you need medical help?”
She trembled, sucking in deep breaths. “I’m fine.”
None of this was fine.
Riley handed her lamp to Kathy. “We need to take this guy inside so he doesn’t freeze while we wait for the police.” She went to pick up the man’s feet.
Lucas grabbed the man underneath his arms. “I’ve got him.” He flicked his chin toward Ms. Jenkins. “Help her inside.” Without another word, he began dragging the man across the parking lot.