COWBOY WITH A BADGE

by Margaret Watson

  It felt as though they hung suspended in time. Drowning in his gaze, allowing herself to get lost in the desire that flared in his eyes, she couldn't look away.

  Suddenly he jerked open the car door. "Get in," he said, his voice taut. "I'm not about to provide a show for Melba or her neighbors."

  Her heart beating a jagged rhythm, Carly settled herself on the vinyl seat and waited for Devlin to slide behind the steering wheel. He sat for a moment, staring out the windshield, then turned to her. "Have you had breakfast, or do you want to stop at Heaven on Seventh?"

  "Thanks, but I had some cereal." Her mouth curved upward. "Since it doesn't have to be cooked, there's not much Melba can do to ruin it."

  "Then let's get over to Phil's." He glanced at her as he pulled away from the curb. "Does he know you're coming?"

  "I called him yesterday and asked if I could talk to him. He said he'd be around all day yesterday and today."

  "Does he know what you want to talk to him about?" Devlin's gaze was shrewd as he glanced at her again.

  "I didn't give him any details." She looked down at her clasped hands. "I didn't want to give him a chance to think about his answers."

  "In other words, he thinks you're going to ask him some innocuous questions about Cameron and you're going to spring this murder thing on him."

  She lifted her chin. "I'm sure he's heard by now that I'm looking into Edmund Whitmore's murder. You said yourself this was a small town and everyone gossips. So I doubt it will be a complete surprise to him."

  When he glanced over at her again, there was genuine amusement in his eyes. "I'm looking forward to seeing you handle Phil."

  "I don't 'handle' anyone," she said. "I simply ask questions."

  At that he laughed. "Slick, I may be a small-town sheriff, but I'm not a complete hick. I'd say you were a world champ when it comes to handling people."

  "Except you," she muttered, under her breath.

  But he heard her. "You don't think you've been handling me?" His voice was suddenly husky again.

  "I don't think anyone handles you." Her voice throbbed in the suddenly quiet car.

  "You're wrong." She saw his hands tighten on the steering wheel. "You've been handling me since the moment you drove into town, going too fast in that flashy red Jeep."

  Desire curled deep inside her, and she realized she wanted desperately to believe him. But she couldn't allow herself to feel that way. "I'm just different, that's all. I'm not a small-town person like the rest of the people in Cameron."

  "No, you're not, are you?" he murmured.

  "I'm strictly New York."

  But as the Blazer hummed over the asphalt, around the curves and through the magnificent canyons, she wondered if that was still true. She'd felt at peace in Cameron, and oddly, in spite of her accident, safe. She liked the feeling of having a whole community of people to count on. Heck, she didn't even mind knowing that the town of Cameron was gossiping about her.

  Devlin must really be getting to her, she thought as she stared out the window. She'd have to be careful not to let it show.

  "Here we are at the Hilbert place." His voice interrupted as he turned onto a crushed gravel driveway. "The house is about a quarter mile into his spread."

  Carly sat up and reached for her notebook. Before they arrived at the house, she had already made some notes on the Hilbert ranch.

  "It's not as well kept up as your ranch," she said, after watching the fence drooping in spots, and the patches of bare earth in the pastures.

  "Shea takes good care of the Red Rock," he replied. "She'd work twenty-four hours a day if she thought that would make it a better ranch."

  "Doesn't Phil care as much about his ranch?"

  Devlin shrugged. "You'd have to ask Phil. We don't spend a lot of time together."

  They stopped in front of a house that needed a coat of paint. The shutters were faded, too, and one of them tilted slightly. The barn sagged in the middle, and its roof was missing a few shingles. All in all, the Hilbert ranch looked tired.

  She said as much to Devlin before they got out of the truck, and he looked over at her. "That's very astute. Phil is getting older, and it's probably getting harder for him to do everything that needs doing."

  "Does he have any children to help him run the place?"

  "He has one son. But Bobby was a troublemaker, and didn't find life in Cameron to his liking. He took off several years ago, and now he's probably causing trouble for some big-city police officer."

  "That's too bad," she murmured.

  "Don't feel too sorry for Phil," he warned. "Hell use your sympathy against you when you're interviewing him."

  Her heart warmed and she couldn't resist smiling at him. "Thank you," she said quietly. "I think I like it when you're on my side."

  "I wasn't ever on the other side. And I still don't want to see anyone get hurt because of what you're doing."

  Her smile faded. "I try never to hurt the innocent."

  He studied her for a moment, then nodded. "All right. Let's go find Phil."

  Devlin stayed close to her side as they walked over to the two-story house. She wondered if he intended to stay with her during her interview with Phil. She hoped not. She had a feeling that Phil Hilbert would be a lot more forthcoming if the neighbor he hated wasn't close by.

  Phil opened the door a moment later. "Hello, Carly. Welcome to the Tall T Ranch." He noticed Devlin standing next to her, and his gaze sharpened. "You too, Dev. Are you providing an escort service out to the dangerous Tall T?"

  "Carly's car was damaged in an accident a couple of days ago," he answered evenly. "Her new rental hasn't arrived, and she didn't have any way out to your place. She didn't want to keep you waiting on her convenience, so I offered to give her a lift."

  He looked over at Carly. "I have a lot of paperwork to do, so I'll wait in the car."

  "That's fine," she murmured, but her heart softened. His glance was plainly asking her if she was all right. She knew if she asked, he wouldn't budge from her side.

  She couldn't help watching as Dev strode back to the Blazer. The sun glinted off the burnished gold of his hair, and he looked strong and vital.

  "Good-looking young man." Phil Hilbert's voice held a trace of malice, just enough to whet her curiosity. She turned to face him.

  "Is he a good sheriff?"

  He shrugged. "Good enough, I guess. He's left me alone. I was a big backer of Bert Pickens, the sheriff before McAllister. I told him not to retire. He had a lot of good years left in him."

  Carly asked Hilbert some general questions about Cameron, then brought up the subject she was really interested in. "I understand there was a murder in Cameron about twenty years ago."

  For just a moment, Hilbert's eyes flattened, and he had the wary look of a cornered animal. Then he blinked, and slowly shook his head. "I'd forgotten all about that. A kid was murdered, wasn't he? By a drifter?"

  "Yes, it was a kid." Carly swallowed hard. "And the drifter story seems to be the popular one."

  "You don't believe it." Hilbert's eyes were shrewd. "It does seem very convenient," she said carefully. Hilbert let his gaze settle on the Blazer. "The body was found on the McAllister ranch," he finally said. "Way up in the mountains." He shrugged. "Hard to imagine that a kid would wander all that way. Or a drifter. But the sheriff was satisfied."

  "Are you implying that the McAllisters were responsible?" Carly's hand tightened on her notebook as she watched Phil Hilbert.

  "I'm not implying anything." Again he looked at the truck, and his gaze hardened. "It just seems mighty coincidental. Especially since the McAllisters had a gun go missing before the murder."

  "For someone who'd forgotten all about the incident, you seem to remember a lot." Her voice was perfectly expressionless.

  "Talking to you about it brings it back."

  "Do you have any idea why the boy was killed?"

  Phil shrugged carelessly. "None at all. Maybe the kid got into a fight with
the drifter. Maybe he tried to rob him. He was a teenager, after all."

  His careless dismissal of her brother stirred Carly's temper, but she forced herself to clamp it down. "Can you tell me anything else about your local history?" She made herself change the subject. "Anything else that our readers would find interesting?"

  Phil steered the conversation into safe waters, and they talked for a while longer. Finally she reached out and shook his hand. "Thank you for your help, Mr. Hilbert. May I quote you in my article?"

  "Of course." He held her hand a moment longer than necessary. "And call me Phil."

  "Thanks, Phil. I appreciate your time." She gently extricated her hand from the older man's grasp.

  "Always glad to help the media."

  She felt his eyes on her as she walked down the stairs toward Devlin's Blazer. She had to resist the urge to run to the truck and Devlin.

  Devlin watched through the rearview mirror as Carly shook hands with Phil, then turned and walked toward him. Her dark red hair curled around her shoulders, shining in the sunlight, and her long legs in trim jeans seemed to go on forever.

  His mouth dry, his heart pounding, he waited until she was halfway across the yard, then he jumped out of the truck to open the door for her. She flashed him a grateful smile, and scrambled into the truck more quickly than she needed to.

  When he'd settled himself back behind the steering wheel, he looked over at her. "You seemed in a hurry to get back in the truck."

  She gave him a small smile. "Just anxious to get back and write down my notes."

  He studied her for a moment, then he started the truck and drove back toward the road. But instead of heading back toward Cameron, he continued down the road toward the Red Rock Ranch.

  When they had pulled into the driveway of his ranch, out of sight of the road, he stopped the truck and turned to her. "What did Phil say that upset you?"

  She shot him a startled look. "How did you know I was upset?"

  He didn't want to tell her that he seemed to know a lot of things about her. He didn't want to be this aware of her, but that didn't seem to matter.

  "Don't ever take up poker, Slick. You'd lose your shirt in no time. It's written all over your face."

  For a moment, she stared out the windshield. Then she sighed. "I didn't like him," she said quietly. "And that's not supposed to happen. I should be able to talk to him and write my story without letting my emotions get in the way."

  "Why didn't you like him?" He tried to keep his voice casual, but his hands tightened on the steering wheel. If Phil had done or said anything out of line, he'd take him apart, piece by piece.

  "I don't know for sure." Carly turned on the seat of the car to face him. "He didn't say anything wrong to me, or do anything out of the ordinary. But I still didn't care for him."

  "What kinds of things were you asking him?"

  Carly shrugged. "The usual. I asked him about the town, about the people who live here." She slanted him a look. "I asked him if you were doing a good job as sheriff."

  "And what did he say?"

  She smiled for the first time since getting back in the truck. "He gave you a rather lukewarm endorsement. Then he told me he hadn't wanted Bert Pickens to retire."

  Dev snorted. "Of course he didn't want Bert to retire. They were poker buddies, and he figured he had a nice little 'in' with the sheriff's department." He glanced in the direction of the Hilbert ranch, and felt his anger stirring. "But I've never treated Phil any different than any other citizen of Cameron."

  "I know that. And I think Phil knows it, too."

  She laid a hand on his arm, and he looked down as her fingers curled gently around him. A fire started burning, deep in his gut, and he wasn't sure if he wanted her to move her hand or hold on forever.

  When she drew her hand away, he shifted on the seat. "What other insights did Phil give you?"

  She met his gaze, and she wasn't smiling anymore. "He implied that your family was responsible for the death of Edmund Whitmore."

  Anger stirred again, and this time he didn't try to restrain it. "What did he say?"

  "He told me that the boy's body was found on your ranch, way back in the mountains. His implication was that it was too far off the beaten path for anyone but a McAllister to have killed him. And he mentioned the gun that was missing from your house."

  Devlin stared at the red cliffs that rose above the green pastures, the symbol of this land and his home. Phil had cast a shadow over his land, over his family. He hadn't wanted to reopen the case, but now he had no choice. "Phil was wrong," he said softly.

  "What do you mean?"

  "The McAllisters weren't responsible for that boy's death. My father wasn't a murderer. Why would he have wanted to kill a child? They never did find a motive for the murder. It was a senseless crime, with no explanation." He stared at his land again, land that had been in his family for three generations. "Phil must hate us more than Shea and I realized."

  "I don't intend to write about innuendo and suggestion in my article," she said quietly.

  "Then what do you intend to write?" He turned to face her.

  "The truth. And I'll find it, believe me."

  Her eyes were hard and determined, and her chin was tilted defiantly. He sighed.

  "Apparently someone else thinks you'll find it, too. I'm going to reopen the Whitmore boy's case. I'll get to the bottom of this murder, once and for all." He watched her carefully. "Are you satisfied now?"

  Slowly she nodded, although he thought he saw fear in her eyes. "If anyone can find out the truth, it would be you." She hesitated, then added, "But what about the gun that was missing from your father's collection?"

  "What about it?"

  "People will find out that you were the one responsible for its being stolen."

  "What if they do? It was twenty years ago. I was a child. I don't think anyone believes that I was the person who killed the Whitmore boy."

  Carly looked away from him then. Staring out the window, she murmured, "I feel like I'm responsible. I started digging into this case, and now your role in it is going to come out. I don't want anyone to think less of you, and now I'm afraid that they will."

  His heart tightened in his chest as he watched her staring out the window. Her shoulders were hunched and her back was tense. Slowly he reached out a hand and smoothed it down her back. She shuddered at his touch, and he couldn't suppress the memories of the passion they'd shared just a few days ago.

  He couldn't stop himself from reaching for her, from drawing her back against him. Still she hadn't turned around to look at him. "It's all right, Carly. No one will think less of me. No one will care, one way or another." He bent his head to kiss the back of her neck, and she shuddered again. "But I appreciate your concern."

  She twisted in his arms, so that she was facing him. "I never meant to hurt you, Dev."

  "I didn't think you had."

  She swallowed once. "I don't want to hurt your family, either."

  "You won't."

  "How can you be sure? If you reopen the investigation, you don't know what you'll find."

  "I know I won't find that my father was a murderer, if that's what you mean."

  She watched him, her eyes troubled. "Are you certain?"

  "As certain as one person can be about anything." He leaned back so he could see her better. "I would have thought you'd be delighted. I thought this was exactly what you wanted, to find out who killed Edmund Whitmore."

  "It is." She licked her lips. "I do want to find out who killed him."

  "But," he prompted as she hesitated.

  "But I don't want you to be hurt." Her whisper was so low that it was barely more than a breath. It sounded as if the words had been tom out of her.

  He was unbearably moved by her concern for him, but when she wouldn't meet his gaze, he knew she was still hiding something from him.

  Tell me the truth, he wanted to beg. Trust me.

  But she didn't. And trust
wasn't something that could be forced. He tightened his hold on her for a moment, pulled her close enough to make his already taut body even harder, then he set her gently back on her own end of the seat.

  "We'd better get back to town," he said. "It's been a long day for you, and you're still recovering."

  She looked down to fasten her seat belt, and he saw a pulse pounding in her throat. When she looked up at him, he saw desire in her eyes, a desire she tried desperately to hide. His hands started to shake and his heart began to pound.

  "I'm a lot better," she said brightly. "I hardly notice my ribs anymore, and my head is fine."

  "I could have told you it would be," he said, deliberately putting the truck in gear and turning it around on the gravel driveway. "It's too hard for a little thing like a car accident to slow you down." He kept his voice as light as hers. He didn't want to stir the passion that lay just below the surface.

  To his surprise, she laughed, a gurgle of delight that wrapped itself around him and tried to worm its way into his soul.

  "I guess my hard head is good for something, then."

  "I guess so."

  Neither of them said anything for a few minutes, then he casually asked, "What's on your agenda for tomorrow?"

  "Do you think my replacement car will be here then?"

  "Probably. The car rental office said it should take a couple of days to get it to Cameron. They're going to truck it in, and then take the wrecked one back with them."

  "I thought I'd go out and spend some time driving around the area. Other than the time you showed me the area ranches, I haven't really explored this part of Utah."

  "Are you telling me that you're going to take some time off from your story and just be a tourist?" He raised one eyebrow as he looked over at her.

  It was impossible to miss the guilty look that flashed across her face. "Is there something wrong with that?"

  "Not at all," he said dryly. "And I'd be glad to think that's what you're doing. But I know better."

  "You have an awfully suspicious mind, Sheriff." Her voice was light and teasing.

  "Like I said earlier, don't take up poker. It's not tough to figure out that you're not going to drive around and admire the scenery."