"If she's been in labor for a while," she said persistently, keeping her eyes steadfastly on his, "you'd better get medical attention. Immediately."
"No," Sabra said hastily. "Don't listen to her, Ronnie."
She grabbed his sleeve. "I'm okay. I'm-"
A pain seized her. Her face contorted. She gasped for breath.
"Oh, God. Oh, Jesus." Ronnie studied Sabra's face, raking his teeth across his lower lip. His gun hand wavered.
One of the Mexican men-the shorter of the two- surged to his feet and lunged toward the couple.
"No!"Tiel shouted.
The cowboy made a grab for the Mexican's leg, but missed.
Ronnie fired the pistol.
The bullet shattered the glass door of the refrigerated compartment, making a horrific sound and puncturing a plastic gallon jug. Everything nearby was showered with glass and milk.
The Mexican man drew up short. Before he came to a complete rest, inertia caused his body to rock slightly forward, then back, as though his boots had become stuck to the floor.
"Stay back or I'll shoot you!" Ronnie's face was congested with blood. A common language wasn't required to get his message across. The man's taller friend spoke to him softly and urgently in Spanish. He backed away until he reached his starting point, then sat down again.
Tiel glared at him. "You could have gotten your fool head blown off. Save your machismo for another time, okay? I don't want to get killed because of it."
Although the words were unknown to him, he caught her drift. Pridefully, his dark eyes smoldered resentment over being dressed down by a woman, but she didn't care.
Tiel turned back to the young couple. Sabra was now lying on her side, her knees drawn up to her chest. For the moment she was quiet.
By contrast, Ronnie looked on the verge of losing all self-control. Tiel didn't believe that, in the span of a single afternoon, he could have been transformed from a student who'd never been in trouble into a cold-blooded killer. She didn't think the boy had it in him to kill anyone, even in self-defense. If he had wanted to hit the man who had charged him, he could have easily. Instead he appeared as upset as anyone that he'd had to fire the pistol.
Tiel guessed that he had intentionally missed the man and fired the gun only to underscore his threat.
Or she could be entirely, terribly wrong.
According to Gully's information, Ronnie Davison came from a broken home. His real father lived far away, so visits couldn't have been too frequent. Ronnie lived with his mother and stepfather. What if little Ronnie had had a problem with those arrangements? What if his personality had been twisted by the forced separation from his father, and for years he'd been harboring hatred and mistrust? What if he had been concealing murderous impulses as successfully as he and Sabra had concealed her pregnancy? What if he'd been driven over the edge by Russell Dendy's reaction to their news? He was desperate, and desperation was a dangerous motivator.
For speaking out, she would probably be the first one he shot. But she couldn't just lie there and die without at least trying to avoid it. "If you care anything for this girl…"
"I've told you before to shut up."
"I'm only trying to prevent a disaster, Ronnie." Since he and Sabra had addressed each other, he wouldn't wonder how she knew his name. "If you don't get help for Sabra, you're going to regret it for the rest of your life." He was listening, so she took advantage of his apparent indecision.
"I assume the child is yours."
"What the hell do you think? Of course it's mine."
"Then I'm sure you're concerned for its well-being as much as you are for Sabra's. She needs medical assistance."
"Don't listen to her, Ronnie," Sabra said weakly, "The pain's better now. Maybe it's a false alarm, after all. I'll be okay if I can just rest for a while."
"I could take you to a hospital. There's got to be one fairly close."
"No!" Sabra sat up and gripped his shoulders. "He'd find out. He'd come after us. No. We're driving straight through to Mexico tonight. Now that we've got some money, we can make it."
"I could call my dad…"
She shook her head. "Daddy could've got to him by now. Bribed him or something. We're on our own, Ronnie, and that's how I want it. Help me up. Let's get out of here." But as she struggled to get up, another pain seized her and she gripped her distended abdomen. "Oh my God, oh my God."