Most Eligible Spy (4 page)

Missy struck up a conversation with the old woman in front of her about what a shame it was that the sheriff’s department was getting cut when crime was so obviously rampant in town. A direct dig at Dylan, no doubt.

Molly gritted her teeth, keeping her mouth shut. When the paper printed an apology, Missy and the rest of them would stand corrected.

Whatever people say about others, it always tells more about them than the person they’re speaking about.
Wasn’t that what she always told Logan?

“How are you doing, Molly? I’m really sorry about your brother.”

She turned to the man behind her, feeling ridiculously grateful for the kind words. Her muscles relaxed a little as she smiled her gratitude at Kenny Davis, the Pebble Creek sheriff. “Thank you, Kenny.”

Kenny had gone to high school with Dylan. Good to see that he, at least, wasn’t turning his back on that friendship.

He gave her a warm smile. “How are things at the ranch?”

“All right.” She didn’t want to discuss her latest troubles with half a dozen people listening in.

“Old Woodward still renting?”

She didn’t work the whole ranch, couldn’t have handled it on her own. She had her gardens and a handful of animals. Most of her income came from what Henry Woodward paid her for renting her land as additional grazing ground for his steers. “He doesn’t get out much anymore. His sons have taken over,” she said.

“Any trouble with rustlers?”

“Not that I heard of.” With the economy being what it was, rustling was coming back, like in the old days.

Missy gave two letters to the postmaster, paid and left with head held at a haughty angle.

Molly stepped up to the window at last and handed over her package, returning a pair of boots she’d ordered online that turned out to be too large.

She said goodbye to Kenny on her way out, but he caught up with her again in the parking lot. His police cruiser stood next to her old pickup.

“I was heading over to grab some coffee.” He gestured with his head toward the diner across the road. “How about it? I have a horse that needs to be boarded. I hoped we might be able to talk about that.”

She hesitated for a moment.
The diner.
Did she want to put herself through that? The speculative glances... If someone said something nasty about her brother, God help her—

Oh, to hell with it. She wasn’t going to run and hide. She had a life in this town. She was going to raise her son here. She had just as much right to be at the diner as anybody else did, regardless of what they all erroneously thought about her brother.

Nobody would accost her with the sheriff by her side, would they?

She forced a smile onto her face. “That would be nice.” And she kept that smile as they walked across the road together.

Kenny wasn’t overly tall, just a few inches taller than she. In high school, he’d been quite the heartthrob. He’d paid no attention to her back then, of course. None of her brother’s friends on the football team had. They had their eyes on the cheerleaders. She’d been just a scrawny kid to them.

Despite the years that had passed since, he was still handsome, more handsome in the traditional sense than Moses Mann. Two of Kenny could have fitted into Mo, who was built like a tank and had a nose that looked as if it had been the landing place for a number of well-aimed punches. And with that half-missing left eyebrow, Mo had some sort of warrior vibe that Kenny lacked. It probably drew women in droves. Not that she cared. She pushed the thought away. Why was she comparing the two men, anyway?

“Booth or table?” the waitress asked as soon as they walked through the door.

“Booth,” Kenny responded.

Molly ignored the curious looks as they were seated.

“Pie?” Kenny pointed to the large color ad on the wall, pretty enough to set her mouth salivating. “The chocolate-meringue pie is killer here.”

“Better stick with the coffee.” On her short frame, any extra pounds showed way too fast. She’d gained several since Dylan’s death. She needed to stop trying to eat her grief.

“So what was that in there with Missy Nasher?” Kenny asked with an easy smile.

Oh, God, he’d noticed that, had he?

She gave a dismissive shake of her head. “She never really liked me. It doesn’t matter. Old high-school rivalry.”

Kenny drew up an eyebrow. “People who stick their noses in the air like that usually fall flat on their faces sooner or later.”

The support felt nice. “Thanks.”

But the truth was, even beyond Missy, she’d never been one of the popular people in town. She had never told anyone who Logan’s father’s was, which had started a rumor that he was a married man. It made most married women hate her on sight, because they wondered if it was their husband she’d slept with. And of course, married men went out of their way to avoid her so as not to fall under the cloud of suspicion.

Some of the single guys had come around, thinking she was an easy conquest. When she turned them down, they got offended and spread false rumors to pay her back for the rejection.

“Hullett is a small town with small-town morals. People have little to do for entertainment but gossip about their neighbors,” Kenny was saying. “Move to Pebble Creek.”

“Because that’s, what, five hundred heads bigger?” she teased.

“All right, then just ignore the idiots here.”

Easier said than done. With Dylan’s death, the gossip mill was running full force again. But she nodded.

“Must be difficult out there alone,” he said after the waitress filled their mugs.

She took a sip, the coffee burning the tip of her tongue. She set the mug down. “I’ll manage.”

He shook his head. “Having to go through Dylan’s things can’t be easy.”

She closed her eyes for a second. “I haven’t done it yet.”

He leaned forward in his seat. “If you need help—”

She shook her head. “Not ready for that yet. But thank you.” She could handle only so much at once. Someday she would deal with all that, but for now she was still grieving.

“You ever think about selling?”

She forced a smile. “Are you buying?”

He gave a white-toothed smile. “I wish I had the money. It’s a fine piece of land.”

She nodded. The farm had been in her family for generations.

“I have the animals,” she said. “And I like it there. It’s the only place I’ve ever lived.” The only place her son had ever lived, too.

And it would stay that way if she got her wish. She wasn’t exactly a big fan of change. Change always brought trouble.

Kenny stirred his coffee. “Still, out there, alone...”

“I have the dogs.” Who weren’t exactly guard dogs, admittedly. She took another sip, more carefully than the first time. Her ranch wasn’t in Kenny’s jurisdiction, but he was so nice to her, while Shane was such a... “I think someone’s been in one of the outbuildings last night,” she blurted.

Kenny sat up straighter, his full attention on her. “What happened? Did they take anything?”

“Nothing’s missing. It’s weird.” She told him about the scratches on the floorboards and the rest. Then she told him about her tires.

“You should be careful. Illegal crossings have slowed to a trickle, with the economy as it is, but there’s still smuggling. Those are not people you want to tangle with.”

That he believed her and didn’t brush her off like Shane felt nice. Kenny was a good guy. He’d always been a good friend to Dylan. “I’m always careful.”

“Maybe you should move into Dylan’s apartment in Hullett,” he suggested. “I’d be happy to help you. In the meantime, I’ll make sure to drive by the ranch when I’m on the night shift. It’s not my jurisdiction, but—” He shrugged. “Helping friends is what it’s about, right?”

Was he her friend? She felt grateful for the sentiment. She didn’t have too many friends these days. So she nodded and thanked him, then asked about that horse that needed boarding. A little bit of extra money always came in handy. And even beyond that, she was happy to help Kenny out if she could.

Making a friend was exactly what she needed.

“If anything else happens, you come to me,” he told her. “It might be even better not to involve Shane at all.”

“He’s just upset over Dylan.”

Kenny shrugged. “If Dylan was framed, we have no way of knowing right now who framed him.” He grimaced, as if having said more than he’d meant to say.

She leaned forward, her mind buzzing suddenly. “You mean Shane could be involved?” She had a hard time believing that. She’d known Shane forever.

Kenny made a dismissive gesture. “Maybe not Shane, but somebody from his office. A couple of times a year, we bust someone either on the police force or at CBP for selling out to the smugglers.”

His face turned serious. “If you find out anything about Dylan and all the bad business that went down, you come to me. Promise me, Molly.”

“I promise.”

* * *

S
INCE
SHE
WASN
’
T
HOME
,
Mo walked around the house and the outbuildings. He wasn’t sure if he was doing it to check that everything was okay and she was safe, or because he was trying to find evidence that she’d been in cahoots with her brother.

He didn’t like the ambiguity. It hadn’t happened to him often. He’d always been able to keep his professional and personal lives separate.

The dogs followed him around, tails wagging, tongues lolling, a goofy bunch. He sincerely hoped she wasn’t counting on them for protection. He checked the outbuildings, since she kept them all unlocked. Everything looked fine. Until he stepped into the shed. He didn’t like what he found there.

He had worked himself into a right dark mood by the time her red pickup rolled down the road and pulled into the driveway.

“Someone’s been here, searching your place,” he said in the way of greeting as he strode forward to meet her. “Any idea who that might have been?”

She stood by her vehicle, her posture stiff. “What are you doing here?”

The jean shorts and pink tank top she wore kicked his heart rate up a notch. “Checking on you.”

He lusted after her body. So there, he admitted it. He appreciated her curves, her loyalty to her brother and her dedication to her son, and was drawn by that hint of vulnerability in her eyes. She wasn’t tough the way Grace Cordero was or some of the women he’d worked with on overseas missions. Yet she was plenty strong in her own way. She intrigued him.

He pushed all that out of his mind. “Somebody was out here, looking for something.”

“I know. Last night.”

“Who?”

“Maybe someone headed north, looking for food.”

“Under floorboards?”

She stayed silent.

“The same week that someone slashed your tires?” He shook his head. “Too much of a coincidence for my taste. It could be one of your brother’s smuggling partners looking for something.”

“My brother had no smuggling partners, because he wasn’t smuggling anything. Just as nobody was trying to send me a message with those tires. This has nothing to do with Dylan.” She emphasized the last words, saying them slowly, as if she thought he had trouble understanding.

Part of him wanted to let her have the fantasies that she clung to. But with the situation she was in, denial could be dangerous. He didn’t want her in danger.

He looked her straight in the eye. “You need to accept the truth so you can start dealing with it.”

She stuck out her chin, her spine ramrod straight. “If I want free life-management advice, I’ll tune in to Dr. Phil. I do own a television,” she said in an icy tone, instead of telling him to go to hell. Oh, but she wanted to. Her eyes flashed with fire.

She had plenty of restraint, but underneath all that she hid heat and passion. Not that he needed to be intrigued any further by Molly Rogers. He filled his lungs. He was here for a reason.

He cleared his throat. “Do you know a Garcia Cruz?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Who?”

“Have you ever heard the name before? Maybe from your brother?”

She shook her head. “Who is he?”

“Are you aware of any links between your brother and the local gangs?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “There are no gangs in Hullett.”

He nearly rolled his eyes back at her. “How about we let go of the delusion that small towns are paradises untouched by crime and that bad things happen only in the inner cities?” She needed a reality check, and he was the man to give it to her. “Who do you think handles the drugs and the guns and all the other illegal activity?”

She stared at him.

Could she be that naive? Maybe she was, living out here in the middle of nowhere, her life revolving around the ranch and her son. But oblivious was a dangerous way to be in today’s world.

He didn’t like the thought of her out here alone with only an eight-year-old for company. “You should stay in town for a while in your brother’s apartment.”

“I have animals.”

“You can drive out twice a day to do what needs to be done. You don’t need to spend the nights out here.”

“The apartment hasn’t been released yet.”

“Still?” That seemed odd. It had been searched, everything cataloged. It wasn’t a crime scene. He wondered what the holdup was. “I’ll see what I can do about that. I don’t want you here alone at night.”

“I don’t want to move.” She turned her back to him, signaling that was her final word on the subject, then went around to the passenger side of the pickup to grab some groceries. He helped her, even though it only earned him a glare.

“Where is Logan?” he asked.

“In school.”

“Any more trouble?”

She shook her head.

“He must miss your brother.”

She stared for a moment, then blinked hard. She turned away and began walking toward the house. “I don’t think he can even fully comprehend that Dylan is gone forever. I’m not sure I can. Sometimes I still almost call him to check when he’ll be home for dinner.”

She wasn’t one of those stick women a man was afraid to look at for fear of breaking, but there was an aura of fragility to her as she walked away from him, and he suddenly had to fight the urge to comfort her. “I’ll stop by as often as I can.”