Too Sexy for his Stetson (6 page)

“On second thought, maybe I’ll take you up on that ride.” She stood, grabbed her handbag, and headed for the exit. Seconds crawled by as she stood facing the door and waited, holding her breath, listening for the sound of his boot heels following her. At last the click–click sounded against the floor.

Outside, he waited for her to lock up, then led the way to his Tahoe.

“Hold on a second.” He moved to the rear door and unlatched it.

A magnificent faun–colored dog with black ears and muzzle greeted him, nuzzling Blade’s hand. Intelligent brown canine eyes focused on Brandy. Blade reached over. With one fist securing a substantial leash, he took Brandy’s hand with his other one.

“Rambo, this is Brandy. She’s the great new deputy I was telling you about.”

The dog’s nose twitched. He stilled, and his ears perked as he sniffed, his dark snout pointing upward. While Blade steadied her hand, Rambo edged closer and tickled her palm with his cold nose.

“Nice to meet you, Rambo.”

His silky tongue glided over her palm, and it was love at first sight. Brandy instantly gave in to a case of warm fuzzies.

“Whoa,” Blade said and patted Rambo’s head. “Never knew you to be such a pushover, buddy. Nothing like a pretty woman to get a guy to let down his guard.”

“He’s beautiful.” She moved closer and ran her fingers through thick, soft fur.

“No one’s ever won him over this easily. I think you just made a friend for life.”

“Good boy, Rambo.” She stroked his ear, a smile rising from a place inside, a place she hadn’t remembered existed. Home. Her mother. A dog named Rascal. They’d had him for only a few weeks before…

Blade eased up on the leash. “You must be a natural with dogs.”

As though he were joining the conversation, Rambo produced a soft whine–bark, which seemed to herald the ringing of Blade’s phone.

“Oh, and he’s also psychic.” Blade brought the phone to his ear. After a brief conversation, he turned to her, his expression so serious it caused her stomach to tighten.

“One of the night patrolmen found your truck parked at a lodge near Lake Shoshone. Come on, I’ll take you there to make an ID.”

Ten minutes later, they found her rusted twelve–year–old Ford abandoned in the huge Black Mountain Lodge parking lot. Someone had shot holes in the driver’s side door, forming a swastika.

“Damn.” Brandy jumped out. “Oh, baby, what have they done to you?” She turned to Blade. “I know it looks like a reject from Rent–a–Wreck. But this is the first vehicle I’ve ever owned.”

She ran her hand over the holes in the lackluster red finish. “These guys are starting to piss me off.”

Patrolman Greenwald joined them and carefully handed over a duffel bag with a familiar ID tag dangling from the handle. “Does this belong to you, Brandy?”

“My target shooting supplies.”

“We’ll check it for fingerprints and DNA.” When Greenwald tossed the bag into his cruiser, she could tell it was empty.

“Aw, man, I had two boxes of ammo, ear protectors, safety glasses, targets, adjustment tools…” Her own personal stuff. She groaned. “I’ll have to replace everything.”

“It wasn’t completely empty,” Greenwald said. “I found this belt coiled up inside with a sticky note attached to it.”

Brandy edged closer and pulled away the yellow square of paper with her fingernail to reveal the initials B.B engraved on the belt buckle.

Blade read the note aloud. “B.B., you and that bitch cop better keep your nose out of our business, or a couple of nosey deputies might turn into a couple of dead deputies.”

Greenwald whistled and shook his head.

“Pretty accommodating of them to threaten us in writing.” Blade lifted the belt by the edges and handed it back to Greenwald so he could bag it as evidence.

“Get this and the duffle over to forensics and have someone bring Brandy’s truck into the station,” Blade said.

“Oh my God.” Brandy’s jaw clenched. Her chest tightened. “It’ll be my fault if the Neo Nazis identify you because of the initials.” He wouldn’t have left his belt behind if it hadn’t been for her.

“Don’t go there, Brandy. You’ll only undermine your confidence. It’s not your fault.” He curved his hand around her waist and led her to the Tahoe. “Besides, we’ve got ourselves a threat. And that gives us some leverage. Come on, I’ll drop you off at your apartment. We’ll make sure no uninvited guests are hanging around. Then I want you to stay there until I pick you up in the morning.”

****

Ten minutes after Blade helped Brandy search her apartment, with no sign that it had been breached, he returned to the office. At Brandy’s desk, he hit the spacebar to wake up the computer. She’d been hiding something earlier.

“The Trial of Amanda Wilcox,” flashed onto the screen.

Wilcox?
His insides clenched. He scrolled to the section entitled “Background.”

Milwaukee police officer Amanda Wilcox was married to an American soldier killed in Iraq. The couple had one child. Her second marriage was to fellow officer Skip Coogan.

Skip Coogan? Holy shit!

The marriage ended in divorce while Amanda Wilcox was in prison. After being convicted of murder in the first degree, Wilcox served one year of a life sentence before she died at the hand of a fellow inmate in the Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

“Jesus,” he whispered. His rookie came from the school of hard knocks.

He felt a presence more than heard or saw it. He glanced up.

Quiet as a cougar, Brandy stood leaning against the door. What could he possibly say? “I’m sorry,” he finally uttered, knowing the words were insufficient. He truly did understand the depth of her burden. “I had no idea.”

“Did you get to the part that says my mother tried desperately to get the case reopened and prove her innocence?”

She shoved away from the door and plunked onto one of the orange plastic chairs by the receptionist’s desk. “I was eleven years old when the case went to court. Twelve when she went to prison. The court ordered me to stay with my paternal grandparents. They never let me visit her.”

Her forearms resting on her knees, she lifted her head and stared blankly into space. “Sometimes I can’t even remember what she looked like unless I bring up the pictures on the computer. But I remember the sound of her voice. I hear her begging a courtroom full of people to believe she was innocent. She tried so hard to get the case reopened and prove she was wrongly convicted. But she didn’t live long enough.”

Blade’s heart wedged in his throat. He slogged across the faux tile floor and hunkered down beside her. Feeling helpless, he took her chilled fingers and wrapped his hands around them. He’d never before had the urge to take a woman in his arms simply to console her, but at that moment he wished he could make all of Brandy’s pain go away.

Because he didn’t know how to put his feelings into words, he crouched silently and stroked her hand.

“She was framed, and I’m going to prove it.” Tearless, she jutted her chin.

“Of course you will.” As though he were comforting a lost child, he pulled her head to his chest and held her against his heart until she hiccupped back what should have been an onslaught of tears. But she didn’t cry.

He held her until he realized the effect her soft curves were having on him. Brandy was not a little girl any more. And now was not the time or place for him to be thinking about a different set of circumstances—a time and place where her
naked
curves would be pressed against his aroused body.

But he thought about it anyway.

Then his mind started to churn. As if he didn’t have enough ghosts of his own to chase.

Skip Coogan had been married to Brandy’s mother.

Why in the hell hadn’t she told him that? Was it her omission that stuck in his gut? Or the fact itself? Or the possibility of something far worse that he didn’t want to think about?

CHAPTER SIX

“Y
ou’re awfully quiet today, Deputy,” Blade said on the way to the office late the next afternoon.

Brandy’s shoulders tensed. “I don’t usually run off at the mouth like I did last night.” Brandy Wilcox never shared her thoughts with anyone. Period. At least, she hadn’t before, but her handsome FTO was too damn easy to talk to. Especially when his arms were wrapped round her.

“It’s not like you’ve been a chatterbox today either.” She tossed the ball back at him. Actually, though, she hadn’t minded his quietness. She enjoyed the quiet rapport. It was nice when two people could just “be” and didn’t feel the need to fill space with words. There were too many things she liked about her FTO, and that meant she needed be careful. A guy like him, who oozed enough testosterone to flood the entire valley, could be dangerous to her defenses.

“I can hear your mind going a hundred miles an hour.” He glanced at her.

“I’ve never been a big talker.”

“Thinking about the Reverend Abraham McKee and our interview this afternoon?”

“How’d you guess?”

“It’s my innate intuitiveness.”

She tucked away a grin. “McKee, the self–appointed reverend of the Church of God’s Chosen People. He’s an NNFF boy if ever there was one. Did you notice his body language when you mentioned that the department intended to prosecute the shooters to the full extent of the law? He got so nervous I thought he was going to pee his self–righteous pants.”

“Body language. Clichéthat it is, actions always speak louder than words. Good observation, Rookie.”

She smiled, hoping she wasn’t beaming like a school girl at a teacher’s words of praise.

“Like your body language,” he added.

Her smile deflated like a popped balloon.

“It says you’ve got… things bottled up inside you. Brandy, I’m here to listen if you ever feel like talking.”

“Thanks.”
Not happening.
But she wanted Blade on her side so she did need to talk about Coogan and his part in her mother’s conviction. Her FTO wouldn’t like what she had to say, but at some point, if there was a chance to win him over, she had to tell him anyway. She just needed a little time to ease into it.

“Hey, do you mind stopping at my place?” he asked. “I want to check on Rambo.”

“Sure. No problem.” She’d love to see Rambo again.

Avoiding eye contact, she glanced lower and tripped over the view—tanned arms exposed by a short–sleeved uniform shirt, strong fingers curling around the steering wheel. How magical would those fingers feel playing against a woman’s skin? Against her skin?

Last night, Blade’s touch had been soothing. Under the right circumstances, she imagined his hands would be downright unsettling. Which reminded her for the umpteenth time how extremely ill–advised it was to be thinking that way about Beringer. Skin to skin. His hard body pressed to hers. She swiped at beads of sweat that suddenly dampened her forehead.

Instead, she should be engaged in gaining his support. In getting him to believe her theory and side with her against Skip Coogan. What were the chances of that happening? About as much as a snowball’s chance of surviving in the Idaho sun.

Whatever. With or without Beringer, she would expose Coogan. But if she didn’t win Blade over, she’d be forced to go behind his back. The thought pressed painfully against her breastbone. As a Little Chute Deputy, she owed her partner loyalty.

The Tahoe’s wheels bobbled over gravel. Several hundred yards down the neglected drive, a small ranch sprawled among the foothills of the Black Mountains.

“Wow, this place is yours?” Like a picture from an Idaho vacation brochure, a two–story log cabin sat at the end of the winding drive. The structure sported a deck that extended the length of the front, and windows studded the entire west side, reflecting the late afternoon sun.

“You move fast, Beringer. You just got here a couple of days ago. How’d you finagle this?”

“The lady over at the real estate office found it for me. It needs some fixing, but the price was right, and it’s got lots of space for Rambo.”

“This is heaven.”

“You might be right.”

He killed the engine, and Brandy jumped out. To the right of the drive, a couple of small outbuildings squatted on rolling hills that rambled until they met the base of the mountain in the distance. From the looks of the empty cement bags and shiny silver posts sunk in fresh concrete, Blade had been busy creating a fenced–in playground for his dog.

The ranch wasn’t huge or pretentious, but it was the most glorious thing Brandy had ever seen. Suddenly, her two–room apartment above Tour d’Alene Outfitters seemed minuscule. Bottom line, it was all she could afford. Even though she was bringing home more money than she’d ever earned, attorney fees ate up her cash as fast as it came in. Would she ever have anything close to this? The sum total of her net worth consisted of her Walmart–Goodwill wardrobe, a rummage sale brass bed, an early Salvation Army maple kitchen set, used bedroom furniture, and her rusty red Ford that now sported a swastika tattooed in its hide.

Blade eased out of the Tahoe and ambled toward the fence gate. He greeted Rambo, scratching him behind the ears, ruffling the fur on his head, and then reached down and picked up a rubber ball with a rope attached to it.

Rambo yelped and danced with excitement, and he was rewarded with a game of tug of war. After several minutes, Blade tossed the toy into the air. Rambo tore after it and returned, wagging his tail.

“Good boy.” Blade patted his head. “
Sitz.
”

Once the dog sat, Blade turned his clear–water glaze on Brandy. “Want to go for a little hike with us? There’s a
plethora
of magnificent waterfalls along the trail.”

Brandy grinned, her muscles aching for the challenge of a climb. “Today’s word is
germinal
, like the germinal idea can be anything that gets your creative juices going.” Maybe a relaxing hike would be germinal in approaching the subject she’d been wanting to bring up but had avoided all day. Coogan.

At that thought, despite the arid heat, a nervous chill rippled down her back.