The Sheriff's Daughter

by Jessica Andersen

  His face had relaxed in slumber, but it looked no less forbidding. Even in sleep, he was in control.

  “Logan?” His name felt strange on her tongue, but after spending the night listening for his movements, a more formal address seemed equally strange. “Are you awake?” He clearly wasn’t, but the sound of her voice was a breakfast call to the clinic patients, who set up a din of barks and yowls.

  “Freeze!” Logan bolted to his feet in one smooth motion that had the shotgun up and aimed at the door between one of Sam’s quick heartbeats and the next.

  “Whoa, hey, no!” She jumped across the small space, grabbed for the gun and staggered when her injured leg folded.

  He held the shotgun away and caught her with one strong arm, making her feel like a featherweight, though she was a curvy hundred and thirty pounds.

  He scowled down at her, his face close enough that she could see the dark stubble on his jaw, the agitated pulse beneath the tanned skin of his throat. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Her hip burned from the bullet crease. Her body burned everywhere else from his touch, from the strength of the man against her and the knowledge that he was everything she had vowed not to want anymore. Because of it, she pushed away. “Waking you up, at least long enough to let you know that I’m leaving. Bloody Horace Mann is fighting dogs again.”

  When she headed for the door, he grabbed her arm. “You’re not going anywhere. At least not until Jimmy and I find the shooters.”

  “Not an option.” Annoyed by Logan’s high-handed pronouncement and suffused with the urge to get to Mann’s place now, to get away from Logan now, she pulled against his grip. When he didn’t let go, she glared at him. “Listen. We’ve been trying to catch these bastards for nearly two years. Every time we get close, they change the location. A few months ago, one of the dogs got loose and savaged a little girl.” She closed her eyes against the image and sucked in a breath, willing him to understand. “Izzy says they’re fighting in Mann’s barn, right now. I don’t have time to debate this with you—Jimmy’s incommunicado and I’m the only animal officer in town.”

  Some of the urgency must have penetrated, or else he realized there was no dissuading her, because he nodded. “Okay. Give me a minute.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m coming with you.” He held up a hand to cut off her automatic protest. “Jimmy called me around midnight. The rifle they found on the beach was wiped clean, but he figured we might get something off of trace or latent prints. He ran the rifle up to the state lab and is waiting for results.”

  Something in his expression stopped Sam’s head- long rush out the door. She cocked her head. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  His jaw set, his distinctive eyes holding hers. “Viggo’s usual muscle is all accounted for. We’re not sure who he hired for the hit. It could be anyone.”

  She wasn’t quite sure how that differed from where they’d been the night before, but the seriousness of his tone sent a shiver through her body. “So where does that leave us?”

  He hefted the shotgun and gestured for her to get behind him. “That leaves you in my protection until Jimmy gets back from the state lab. I’d prefer to keep you safe in here, but I’m smart enough to know that’s not happening. So I’m going with you to this dogfight. Got a problem with that?”

  The rational, slightly scared part of her thought it sounded fine. But her heart rebelled, knowing it was safer for them to be far apart rather than risking the spontaneous combustion that was sure to follow if they spent too much time together.

  And that included time spent in the small cab of her vet’s truck.

  “I don’t know…” she began, but trailed off when she saw the implacable set to his jaw and the hard glint in his eye, one that reminded her quite strongly of her father when he was in Sheriff Bob mode. The image was oddly reassuring, so she nodded instead of arguing. “Okay. Come on, then.”

  They passed the ten-minute ride to the Mann place in a tense, ready silence laced with things better left unspoken. Logan glared at the passing scenery and held the shotgun in his lap until she turned down the narrow road leading to the local transfer station.

  Then he glanced at her. “What’s the story on this guy?”

  “Local thug,” she answered, and concentrated on her driving, on the urgency that beat in her chest. “I went to school with one of his younger brothers. The whole family was a little run-down, but the other kids did okay. Two of them have good jobs in town, and one moved out of state. Horace, though…he’s rotten.”

  She’d love to bust one of Mann’s dogfights. She was sick of the local kids bringing her the torn up pit-bull crosses and junkyard dogs Mann’s buddies tossed in the woods to die after their fights.

  It was inhumane, and it was illegal. And she intended to stop it.

  “How smart is he?”

  She slid a glance over at Logan. “Not that smart. I doubt this is an ambush, or that he’s working with the shooter.”

  And what must it be like to even think that way? A shiver crawled across her shoulders at how his mind worked, at the experiences that must have shaped him into the suspicious, on-edge man sitting beside her.

  He seemed to accept her assurance, but part of her wondered. So once she parked the truck in Mann’s driveway, she reached across Logan and grabbed her .38 out of the locked glove compartment. Just in case.

  “Come on.” She jumped out of the truck and tried to ignore the slow, creeping warmth that flared where her arm had brushed against his leg. “Look big and threatening.”

  “I can do that.”

  “I bet you can.” Heart pounding with anticipation of a fight, she focused on the scene before her, though there was a sneaky warmth and a sense of safety from the man at her back.

  Don’t get used to it, girl. He’s temporary.

  Yeah, she acknowledged. Very temporary. Like on his way out of town.

  Annoyed with the direction of her thoughts, she shoved them aside and strode toward the big red barn out behind Mann’s one-story home. New this year, the barn had been built with the blood money she and Jimmy knew had come from a hundred illegal pit fights.

  Now it housed them. It had to.

  But Sam’s heart sank as they rounded the corner of Horace’s white-painted house and skirted the planted flower beds.

  No cars. No barking or shouting.

  “You sure about this?” Logan’s voice sounded close behind her, closer than she’d expected. She jumped at the tone of it, and the sizzle of warmth that shot through her, reminding her once again that hormones were not to be trusted.

  Especially not hers.

  “I’m sure,” she said, brazening out the sinking of her heart. “But we’re too damn late.”

  As though in answer to her statement, the barn doors rolled opened. Horace Mann stood in the dark gap, eyes narrowed with a false smile. “Why, it’s Dr. Blackwell. What a surprise. And who is this?” His eyes slid to Logan and she imagined they darkened a bit in worry.

  “A trainee,” she lied. “We got a call about dogs barking and a bunch of trucks parked back here. You wouldn’t be pit fighting, would you?”

  It galled her to play this game by the book, but her father had taught her that an illegal arrest was no arrest at all. Not that she could arrest the odious man, but Jimmy could—and would—the moment she had evidence.

  “Me? Of course not.” Mann shrugged and gestured deeper into the barn. “You’re welcome to look around.”

  Which meant there was nothing to see. None of the bloodstained plywood the bettors used to make temporary fighting pits. No spiked collars or barbed ankle straps, no fur, no bloodstained floorboards or swept-up sand. And most important…

  “Where are your dogs?” she asked after ten minutes of fruitless searching with both Logan and Horace on her heels.

  “The dogs?” Mann shrugged. “At the groomer.”

  If the crossbred beasts Horace kept ostensibly to patr
ol his yard had ever seen the inside of Birdie White’s grooming salon, Sam would eat kibble for a week. “Oh, really? And Birdie will confirm this?”

  Mann wrinkled his nose. “Not Birdie. A friend of a friend.”

  “And when will they be returned?”

  “Today, tomorrow.” He shrugged. “Eventually.”

  In other words, whenever they healed up enough to reenter the pit. Frustration bubbled up inside Sam’s chest, the familiar feeling of failure she experienced whenever she went toe-to-toe with Mann, who she often suspected was smarter than most of the locals thought.

  Smarter than she liked. Smart enough to get himself involved with Viggo Trehern? a little voice asked in the back of her head.

  No. Not that smart. But smart enough to cause trouble, nonetheless.

  “Damn it,” she said aloud, not caring that Horace smirked at her obvious defeat.

  The bastards had been fighting dogs here not half an hour ago, she was sure of it. She could smell the blood and the violence. The locals—and some not-so-locals—had leaned over the bloody pit and shouted encouragement as the creatures had torn at each other, their natural instincts heightened with hormones, starvation and cruelty. Bets had been won and lost, the lookouts had done their jobs.

  And in the end, the true losers were the dogs, who were likely dead or dying. Somewhere.

  But until she could find a corpse, witnesses or evidence of a fight…she had nothing.

  “Come on, let’s go.” She gestured toward Logan, who had yet to relax his bristling, protective stance. “There’s nothing here.”

  Mann narrowed his eyes and his false smile edged toward something a little more sinister. “I could have told you that, Dr. Blackwell. And I’m getting tired of your harassment. I have half a mind to—”

  With a movement so quick it caught her unawares, Logan spun and grabbed Mann by the shirtfront. “Obviously you have half a mind, so I’ll speak slowly. Dr. Blackwell is doing her job. You and I both know you were fighting dogs here—the place stinks of blood.”

  Though his eyes bulged in their sockets, Horace managed a snort. “Ya can’t testify to a smell and you’ve got nothing else on me.”

  “Not yet.” Logan leaned close and glared. “But you keep this up and they will. When that happens, I’ll be here to see that you’re prosecuted…and convicted.”

  Logan’s words weren’t strictly a threat, but the punch of his tone, and the deadly stare that backed them up told Sam he wasn’t kidding. The force and the barely restrained violence kicked heat into her stomach.

  You don’t like too-macho men, she told herself, though history said otherwise. Aloud, she said, “We’re done here, Logan. Come on.”

  She didn’t, as she had done so many times in the past, keep one eye behind her, in case Mann sicced one of the half-mad dogs on her or chased after her with his shotgun. She trusted that Logan had her back.

  “And it doesn’t matter worth a damn,” she muttered to herself as she climbed into the truck, “because he’s out of here the moment the deputies get back into town.”

  “What was that?”

  She slammed her door. “Nothing. Come on, let’s get out of here and see what Jimmy has on the rifle.”

  AT THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE a half hour later, Logan scowled at the report in his hand. “They didn’t find a damn thing.”

  “Nothing useful, anyway.” The sheriff raised an eyebrow. “Though they found their nothing damn quickly.”

  “I called in a few favors,” Logan admitted, still frowning down at the report. When Samantha took it from him, he didn’t protest. He’d seen everything there was to see.

  Nothing. No prints. No trace evidence. No serial numbers. Nothing. Either these guys were professionals or they were very, very lucky.

  Knowing Viggo as well as he did, Logan was betting on the former. Which left them no closer to identifying the shooters than they’d been the day before. And since Cage’s big deal overseas meant that no other HFH operatives were readily available to make the trip to Black Horse Beach to back Logan up, there seemed to be only one good solution.

  He glanced over at Samantha, knowing full well she wouldn’t like it.

  She caught the look. “What?”

  “I think you should come to Boston with me. HFH can offer you protective custody until we’ve identified the shooter and Trehern’s trial is over.” He didn’t men tion that at the rate they were going, the trial could take months.

  He half expected an explosion. He got a shrug. “No thanks.” She handed the fruitless evidentiary report back to Jimmy, who seemed to be giving Logan’s idea serious consideration. “I’ll carry my .38, and the deputies can cruise past the clinic a few times per night, but I’m not leaving. My patients need me, and frankly, I’m not convinced that I’m in real danger.”

  Logan might have bought it if he hadn’t seen her hand tremble. The sheriff noticed it as well, and reached out to touch Samantha’s shoulder. “Sam, you should think about going. Jennifer can take care of the small animal stuff and refer the large animals to someone else. I’d hate for anything to happen to you.”

  She didn’t move away from Jimmy’s touch, which sent a sharp flash of annoyance through Logan’s chest.

  It was irritation, he told himself, not jealousy. He had no right to be jealous, no right to her at all, particularly not after what the sheriff had told him about her history. She deserved a steady man, one who wanted to stay in town.

  A man like Sheriff Jimmy.

  Logan turned away. “I have some calls to make. I’ll be out in your truck when you’re ready to run me back to my place.”

  Just because she wasn’t for him didn’t mean he wanted to watch her with someone else.

  She joined him a few minutes later, sliding into the driver’s seat with no explanation. “You ready?”

  He nodded curtly as they set off down the road. He wished he didn’t care who she spent time with, wished the idea of bringing her into the city for protective custody didn’t sound so good. But the idea wouldn’t leave his head.

  He could set her up in one of Boston General’s ultra-secure apartments. Better yet, she could stay in his rooms. During the day, he could do his damnedest to identify the shooter and ferret out what else Trehern planned for the short list of witnesses lined up to convict him. At night, he would sleep in an apartment nearby. Maybe they could share a meal. A movie. A conversation.

  Maybe more.

  The truck hit a bump, jolting him back to reality. What the hell was he thinking? Hadn’t he just told himself she was far better off with Sheriff Jimmy than with him?

  “You’re scowling,” she commented without looking at him. “What’s wrong?”

  What was wrong? Everything was wrong. He was stuck in Black Horse Beach protecting a woman who wanted things to run business as usual even though her life was in danger. Worse, he was attracted to her, and it seemed that the safest option was for them to enter protective custody.

  Together.

  So he frowned harder. “Nothing’s wrong.” She turned down a side road that hugged the rocky coast and he focused on the unfamiliar surroundings. “Where are we going?”

  She stared straight ahead and concentrated on the twisty road. The view of ocean breaking on the rocks below was breathtaking. The view in the suddenly small-seeming cab no less compelling but far less simple.

  After a moment, she glanced at him, then quickly looked away. “I have a stop to make. It’ll only take a minute.”

  The last was said with a faint underlying challenge as she turned the truck between a pair of wide, sweeping granite pillars edged with curls of wrought iron.

  A tasteful brass plaque read Bellamy Farms. Beneath the larger lettering ran a single boastful line: The home of the highest winning percentage ever in thoroughbred racing.

  Sam parked as the silence stretched thin between them. “Come on, we’ll need to walk from here. Bellamy is a tightly guarded operation.”

  Her words
proved true moments later, when they were denied passage through a second ring of stone-and-iron fencing.

  “Sorry, ma’am. I can’t let you in.” The fair-haired guard didn’t bother to look at his paperwork or radio for confirmation.

  Sam stopped and surprise flitted across her expressive face. “I was here two days ago, helping a little chestnut mare with her delivery. I just want to check on the foal. Surely you can give me five minutes.”

  Faint color washed up the guard’s throat and his voice dropped from professional to young. “I’m sorry, Sam. But Doc Sears is back from his conference, and he was furious when he found out you’d worked on the mare.”

  The faint tingle of suspicion in Logan’s brain subsided. He could understand professional jealousy. In that, human and animal medicine weren’t too far apart.

  “Come on, Billy,” Sam said quietly. “Five minutes, nothing more. I’ll put in a good word for you with the sheriff the next time the deputy’s exam comes up.” She smiled, but Logan could see from the tightness around her eyes and mouth that she was ticked. And hurt.

  It was odd how well he’d come to know her in such a short time.

  The guard shook his head. “No can do, Sam. Honest. Doc Sears left strict instructions and Mr. Bellamy backed them up.”

  “Damn it! I’m good enough to spend six hours saving the life of a foal that was too big for its mother in the first place, but the moment Sears returns, I’m not even good enough to get in the front door?”

  She cursed sharply enough to startle Logan, but when she turned away from the guard shack and stalked back toward the screened parking area where they’d left the vet-mobile, he thought he glimpsed tears.

  “Samantha.” He caught her arm. “Sam. Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” She glared at him through wet, angry eyes, and the flash in their depths told him she felt the sizzle of contact, too.

  He dropped his hand and backed away. “Sorry.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” She rubbed her arm where he had touched it, then swung into the truck and cranked the starter so hard it whined. “Get in. We’ll head back to the clinic.”