Divine Evil

come and get me, then?”
    When Biff lunged forward, Cam hesitated only an instant. He imagined himself slamming the cue hard against the side of Biff's head. He could even hear the satisfying smack of wood against bone. At the last minute, he tossed the cue aside and took the first blow in the gut.
    The air wheezed out between his teeth, but he dodged the fist before it smashed into his jaw. The glancing shot to his temple had stars exploding in front of his eyes. He heard the roar of the crowd behind him, like pagans surrounding gladiators.
    The first time his naked fist connected with Biff's flesh, the shock sang up his arm and ended with a riff of satisfaction.The punches that rained on him were all but unfelt, like memory blows of the dozens of beatings.
    He'd been smaller once. Small and thin and helpless. Then he'd had only two choices-to run and hide, or to stand and take it. But that had changed. This night had been a long time coming. There was a wild kind of glory in it, the kind soldiers feel as they suit up and storm into battle. He watched his own fist slam into Biff's sneering mouth, knuckles and lips ripping.
    He smelled blood-his own and Biff's. Glass crashed and shattered on the floor. His own control shattered with it. Like a madman, he threw himself into the fight, hammering his fists into the face he had learned to fear and despise since childhood.
    He wanted to erase it. Destroy it. With hands that were bruised and bloodied, he grabbed Biff by the shirt and slammed that hated face, again and again, into the wall.
    “Jesus, Cam. Come on, let up. Jesus.”
    The breath was racing out of his lungs, hot as fire. He struggled away when hands reached for his shoulders, and turning, he nearly rammed his fist into Bud's face.
    The mist cleared from his eyes then, and he saw the white, strained face of his deputy, the huge, curious eyes of the crowd that had gathered. With the back of his hand, he wiped the blood from his mouth. Crumpled on the floor, beaten, broken, and unconscious in his own vomit, was Biff.
    “Clyde called.” Bud's voice was shaking. “He said things were out of hand.” Wetting his lips, he looked at the destruction of the poolroom. “What do you want me to do?”
    The breath wheezed out of Cam's lungs like an old man's. “Lock him up.” Cam put a hand on the pool table to steady himself. He was beginning to feel the pain nowfrom each individual blow, and a churning, aching nausea. “Resisting arrest, assaulting an officer, disturbing the peace, drunk and disorderly.”
    Bud cleared his throat. “I could drive him on home if you want. You know-”
    “Lock him up.” He glanced up to see Sarah watching him with both approval and derision in her sooty eyes. “Get a statement from Less Gladhill and any witnesses.”
    “Let me get someone to drive you home, Sheriff.”
    “No.” He kicked a broken glass aside, then stared down the people hovering in the doorway. His eyes were cold now, hard and cold, so that even the men who had been cheering him on averted theirs. “Fun's over.”
    He waited until the room had cleared before he left to drive to the farm and tell his mother her husband wouldn't be home that night.

Chapter 6
    W HEN CAM SWUNG HIS HARLEY into Clare's driveway, it was just after noon. Every bone, every muscle of his body throbbed. He'd soaked in his whirlpool, tried ice packs, and downed three Nuprin, but the beating he'd taken and the sleepless night were hard to counteract.
    Tougher yet had been his mother's reaction. She had looked at him with her big, tired, sad eyes and made him feel-as she always did-that he had somehow caused his stepfather's drunkenness and the fight that followed it.
    It was small satisfaction that at least until Monday, and the judge's ruling, Biff would be nursing his own aches and pains in jail.
    He turned his bike off and, leaning forward on the handlebars, watched Clare work.
    She'd left the garage door open. On a large brick-topped worktable was a tall metal structure. She was bent toward it, guiding a welding torch. As he watched, a shower of sparks rained around her.
    His reaction was instant and baffling. Desire-as hot and sharp as the flame she wielded.
    Stupid, he thought, as he painfully swung his leg off the bike. There was nothing remotely sexy about a woman in workboots and overalls. Most of her face was hidden under a pair of dark goggles, and her hair was tucked under a leather skullcap. And though he liked women in