Bitter Justice (Cowboy Justice Association Book 12)

by Olivia Jaymes

  "Not when there's a dead body. The sheriff asked me to help but I told him no."

  There was a pause before Logan replied.

  "Isn't that what you're doing right now?"

  "I'm not helping officially," Tanner explained. "I'm just helping the guy gather some information and pointing him in the right direction. This isn't my case. I'm not a lawman anymore."

  Apparently, he'd said something hilarious because Logan was howling with laughter, making Tanner pull the phone farther from his ear.

  "What's so damn funny?"

  "You. Saying that you're not a cop anymore. It's in your blood. Even down there on vacation, you just can't help yourself."

  "Because the sheriff doesn't have any experience. If he did, I wouldn't have bothered."

  "Right," Logan said, drawing out the word. "You wouldn't have cared either way. Do you even hear yourself? You miss it. But you don't have to. Come work with me and you can call your own shots. Choose your cases."

  I should be jumping on this offer.

  But it didn't...excite Tanner. That restlessness that he'd been feeling wasn't going to go away by taking a job with his friends. It would be different, but the same.

  "I'm not ready to go back to work yet," Tanner finally said. "Give me a break. I've been working since I was fifteen. Can't I have a few weeks off before you start busting my balls?"

  "You can have all the time off you want. Just name the day you want to start."

  "You're starting to piss me off."

  "I did all of this digging for you today and that's the thanks I get," Logan laughed. "I don't know how Maddie puts up with you."

  "I don't know how Ava puts up with you," Tanner shot back. "She's a saint. So is Maddie, though. We married very patient women."

  "We did. Now to get back to business, we're still digging into the other names you gave me. I'll have more soon."

  In the meantime, there were a hell of a lot of unanswered questions.

  Who was Bibi with last night?

  Did her husband know? Did he care?

  Did Leo Gordon kill his wife? Or did someone else do the deed?

  And was Caroline Gordon's death an accident?

  One thing was for certain; Gordon was looking mighty suspicious at the moment.

  "Do you and Dan talk about death?"

  It wasn't exactly the best way to start a conversation with her best friend but Maddie had suspicions. Strong ones. There was something about Leo's story that didn't sit well with her, and despite her husband's relaxed attitude, she couldn't shake it.

  "Uh...hello to you, too. You must be having a wonderful second honeymoon if you're dwelling on death. Is Tanner being a shit or something?"

  Maddie quickly filled Sherry in on what had happened. They hadn't spoken since last night.

  "Holy crap," Sherry marveled. "And you think the husband did it?"

  "I think that he has a highly suspicious story about his wife's wishes about death. Have you ever told Dan what kind of funeral you wanted?"

  "No, but to be fair, I don't like to talk about death. At all. In fact, how can I get you to change the subject right now?"

  Sherry had issues. Lots of them. Not in the least was hearing about Maddie's work where sometimes a patient didn't make it. She didn't want to think or talk about it, if at all possible.

  Sighing, Maddie plopped down onto the bed, her head resting against a fluffy pillow. Tanner was in the living room supposedly reading, but she could hear his muffled voice through the door. He was also talking on the phone.

  "I'm sorry. I know you don't like to talk about stuff like that."

  "Maddie, I don't know anyone who does," Sherry explained patiently. "I'm sure there are couples who have talked about this but Dan and I aren't one of them. We've talked about life insurance and whether I'd marry again, but not about a funeral. Frankly, he can do whatever he wants if I go first."

  "That's what Tanner said. And would you marry again?"

  "Maybe, but only for the sake of the children. Dan says that he couldn't marry again because I've ruined him for any other woman. What about you? Would you marry again?"

  Dan was a smart man.

  "I can't imagine being married to anyone else but Tanner."

  "That's what I thought you'd say. So what are you going to do now? You seem really focused on this woman's death."

  Maybe because it kept her mind off her own issues.

  "It was just so shocking. We met her yesterday and now she's dead."

  "And you want to find out who did it."

  Sherry didn't phrase it as a question.

  "I want Tanner to help find the killer," Maddie admitted. "The sheriff seems nice but is clueless. The murderer might get away with it. Tanner wouldn't let that happen."

  The other end of the phone was quiet for a long moment and then Sherry spoke.

  "I'm just going to play amateur psychiatrist here for a minute. Are you so intent on Tanner solving this murder because of this woman, or do you want him to do it because you think it will snap him back to the old Tanner before he was fired?"

  "Sometimes I hate you."

  "Feeling is mutual. Now answer my question. I have a feeling I struck a nerve."

  Sherry had, indeed, hit a sore spot. Maddie didn't like to think that she might be right but...

  "It's a possibility."

  "On a scale of one to ten, with one being no possibility and ten being a whopper of a possibility where do you think you are?"

  "Is the size of possibility important? Does it really matter?"

  "I'll take that as a seven," Sherry said. "Maybe an eight. You do know that Tanner isn't a cop anymore, right? This murder isn't his problem or responsibility. You're supposed to be having fun. You're on vacation."

  "I know, I know. But he could do it. I know he could."

  "Does he not want to?"

  "He seems surprisingly reluctant. He keeps saying that we're on vacation and that he'd never do that to me. As if I'm the thing holding him back. But I haven't said a word about not wanting him to do it."

  "Maddie...have you thought...well...maybe he doesn't want to be a cop anymore?"

  She had thought of that. Briefly. In the far recesses of her mind. She simply couldn't quite wrap her brain around it. Tanner being a sheriff was all she knew. He'd been the sheriff for as long as she could remember.

  "That's a possibility, too."

  "On a scale of one to ten, with one–"

  "Stop," Maddie begged. "Let's just be okay with it's a possibility."

  "Fine. So you're not going to the wake tonight?"

  Even two thousand miles away and on the phone, Maddie could hear disapproval in Sherry's tone.

  "You think I should go," Maddie sighed. "You think I'm being impolite."

  "No," Sherry snorted. "You barely know these people and you'll never see them again. Go or don't go. It's fine. I'm just thinking that if you go you might find out a bit more about this Gordon guy. It might help you figure out if he's a killer or not."

  "I'm not the detective."

  "Why not? Ava helps Logan all the time. Maybe if you showed some enthusiasm for solving the case, Tanner might feel more free to do the same."

  Sherry had a point. It wasn't the worst idea in the world.

  They could stop in to the wake tonight and have a look around. Talk to a few people. Hear what they were saying. If what Ashley had told her was true, Gordon's own friends might suspect him.

  "I'll do it."

  12

  Tanner hadn't said much when Maddie had told him that she thought they ought to go to the wake for Bibi. He hadn't seemed surprised or dismayed or glad or...anything. He'd simply nodded and said that it was probably the polite thing to do. He was certainly keeping his emotions under wraps these days. He'd never been a man with super-highs and lower-than-lows but it was as if he was training to become a poker player.

  She could hear him in the bedroom getting dressed while she put on her makeup in the bat
hroom. They'd brought a set of dressy clothes since they were planning to go out to a fancy dinner on her birthday, which made getting ready rather easy. She had the one dress and a pair of matching shoes. That was it. She had no decisions to make except what shade of lipstick - of the two she'd brought - to wear. A bright red or a subdued nude? She was leaning toward the nude since this was a more somber event than a birthday dinner.

  Stroking mascara over her lashes, she let her mind drift to tonight and what she would say to Leo Gordon. How to express her condolences to a man that might have killed his wife? It wasn't as straightforward as she would have wished it to be.

  Tanner stuck his head into the bathroom. "Are you almost ready to go?"

  "Just lipstick and my shoes, then I'll be ready. Do you need help with your tie?"

  "I got it." He stepped into the bathroom, his gaze running from her toes to the top of her head. This time he wasn't hiding that he liked what he saw. "Damn, you're a beautiful woman."

  She waved her mascara wand at him. "Don't you start. We have to go to this party. We don't have time for whatever it is you're planning."

  "We'll have time afterward. We don't have to stay very long."

  "It's a date." She hesitated for a moment but then decided to plunge right in. She wasn't fond of his closed-mouthed mood of late. "Are you mad that I said we should go?"

  Pinching his brows together, Tanner shook his head. "Of course not. Why would you think that I'm mad?"

  Sighing, Maddie shrugged her shoulders. She didn't really want to get into it with him right now but she'd been avoiding this conversation for so long it was beginning to feel like years, even though she knew it hadn't been more than six months or so. She'd been waiting for him to snap out of whatever it was that was getting him up before dawn every single day.

  This isn't the time or place.

  But I'm tired of waiting.

  Too bad. Don't start something that you can't finish.

  "It's not important. Give me a minute and then we'll go."

  Frankly, she and Tanner rarely argued. One of them usually compromised and it all worked out. But this wasn't a restaurant that one of them didn't want to eat at. This felt like more.

  Turning on his heel, Tanner moved toward the door but before she could even reach for her lipstick tube the words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them.

  "I know that you get up before dawn every morning."

  He stopped, his back to her, tension in his shoulders. She didn't say anything else, simply waiting for him to respond. After a few beats, he turned around, his expression almost panicked.

  "Why didn't you say something?"

  Was he kidding?

  "I'll ask you the same question, Tanner. Why didn't you say something? I waited for you to tell me that you were having bouts of insomnia but you never did. The only thing I could conclude from that was that you were getting up for a specific reason. Maybe you didn't want to have morning sex, or maybe I snored too much. I didn't have any clue why you were doing it but it was clear to me that you didn't want me to know about it. And that's what bothered me. My husband keeping secrets. That isn't the man that I know. Or thought I did, anyway."

  By the time she was finished she was breathing fast, her anger and frustration building with every word and sentence. She'd been keeping this all inside for far too long and the dam was breaking.

  "And it's not just you getting up early and not telling me about it. It's more than that. You've been acting strangely for months. Then you get fired and you almost rip our house apart with improvement projects. I was afraid to come home at night because I didn't know what I was going to find. When you suggested this vacation, I jumped on it because that meant that you couldn't rip up the baseboards while we were in Florida."

  His lips quirked up in an almost smile. "You're angry with me."

  "I'm frustrated with you."

  "You're angry, too. It's okay to admit it."

  In a few steps she was right in front of him, poking his chest with her finger.

  "I don't need your permission to be angry, Tanner Marks. I'm a grown woman and I can be as furious as I want to be, thank you very much."

  "I've always known that, Maddie."

  Tears were burning her eyes. She always cried when she was mad and she hated that. Now he was going to think she was sad when she was simply angry with him.

  "Did you? Because every time I've been mad at you, you either back down or you give me some lecture about how you're older and I should trust your wisdom. Just so we're clear...your wisdom sometimes lets you down."

  "Damn, I've fucked this up." He rubbed the back of his neck and then reached for her hand, leading her into the bedroom. Tugging her down on the mattress, they sat side by side. "I think we need to start at the beginning."

  "I don't even know where the beginning is."

  She sniffled and he reached across her to the tissue box on the bedside table, snatching one from the box to hand to her.

  "I messed up my first marriage, Maddie. A lot of our problems were my fault. My drinking. My job. The pressures of being a military wife and then a cop's wife. I could have done a hell of a lot better and when you and I got married I swore that I'd do better this time. I'd do everything right." Chuckling, Tanner shook his head. "That I'd be the perfect husband because I knew deep down that you could do so much better than me."

  She'd heard him say some of this before. That he hadn't been the best husband and father but that he hadn't been the worst, either. He wished he'd been more in tune with how his decisions affected his family.

  "There's no such thing as the perfect husband. I'm certainly not the perfect wife, and I've never once thought to myself that I could do any better than you. I love you, Tanner."

  The anger and frustration were draining away as quickly as it had risen up, but that was always the way. She couldn't stay mad at this man even when she should.

  "And I love you, Madison Shay. I wanted to be such a good husband. I never wanted you to regret marrying me."

  "I don't regret marrying you, but I'm not sure what this has to do with you acting strangely these past months." A terrible thought occurred to her, her heart clutching in her chest. "Do you regret marrying me?"

  He grabbed her hand and lifted it to his warm lips. "Never. Not for a single solitary second. I was just trying to frame what I had to say. I wanted to be such a great husband for you and I'm not sure that I really have been. Sometimes...I feel like I've let you down, Maddie."

  Where on earth did he get that idea?

  "Did I make you feel that way?"

  She was already yelling at herself when he firmly shook his head. "No, you haven't done anything. It's just a feeling. When I got fired, all I could hear in my head was my old man saying that a real man provides for his family. Yet, I wasn't providing for you. I wasn't taking care of you and Amanda. You were taking care of us, and if I'm honest, the reason we're so financially comfortable is because of you. With the house mortgage-free and your medical practice, my salary as a sheriff was merely an afterthought."

  "You've worked hard all your life–"

  "I know," he broke in. "Everyone says that I deserve some time off but it doesn't feel that way. That's why I was doing all that stuff around the house. I wanted to feel like I was contributing, that I was taking care of my family."

  A few tears slipped down her cheeks. "You take care of us just fine."

  Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees. "Baby, I am so fucked up. I feel...shit...I don't even know if I can describe it. I feel...restless. I can't tell you why but that's how I feel. It's like an itch I can't scratch or reach. It's been driving me crazy and I didn't want to tell you. That's why I've been getting up before dawn, Maddie. I can't sleep because I'm thinking about my life and trying to figure out what in the hell my problem is. I didn't want to tell you about it because I'm embarrassed as fuck that I might be having a mid-life crisis. That's what Sam said. He said that I was ha
ving a midlife crisis and I told him that was bullshit. My dad didn't have a midlife crisis and I don't think my grandpa did, either. It's crazy to even think it. I have nothing to have a crisis about. I have a great life with a wonderful wife and kids but there's that restlessness that I can't pin down and I sure as shit can't get rid of. No matter how hard I try."

  It was the most he'd spoken at one time in months. Maybe years. Her husband wasn't one to go on and on about his feelings. That wasn't his way but clearly some emotions had been building inside of him, too. They were quite a pair.

  What was crazier than going through a midlife crisis herself?

  Tanner Marks having one.

  This...she hadn't expected. But boy, did it explain a whole hell of a lot.

  It looked like they both needed to talk.

  Preferably to each other.

  13

  Tanner had finally spoken the words out loud. He'd told his wife that he might be having a midlife crisis.

  And it made him sound like a huge emotionally needy wuss.

  If Maddie was thinking about how to divorce his ass, he wouldn't be surprised.

  He'd made her cry, too. He hated when that happened and he usually did everything in his power to make sure he didn’t do it. She was right, though. He always tried to make sure they didn't fight. Even if it meant burying any issues they might have. It looked like it had all caught up with them, though.

  "Do you want to hear something funny?" Maddie said, her hand gliding up and down his back in a soothing motion. He wasn't feeling relaxed, though. If he could jump out of his skin, he'd do it right now. "I've been feeling sort of restless myself. I just want to slow life down and make it last. I want to savor it but it just keeps flying by. I told Sherry about it and she told me that I was probably going through a midlife crisis. It looks like we're doing it together. It's kind of romantic in a weird and twisted way."

  His sweet Maddie. She could make him laugh at the strangest of times.

  "She told you that you were going through a midlife crisis? You're not old enough. You're only–"