Front Range Cowboys (5 Book Box Set)

by Evie Nichole

  “Good afternoon!” The officer raised his hand in greeting. “I’m Officer Keene. I’ve known Daphne Evans for almost a year now. I wanted to talk with you a little bit about what happened here last night, if that would be okay?”

  Met stepped out in front of Laredo. “I’m Met Hernandez. Daphne is a good friend of mine. How can I help you?”

  “Daphne was telling me that you might have actually spoken with Justin Sorenson last night.” Keene pulled a pad of paper and a pencil from the breast pocket of his uniform. “Is that true?”

  “I’ve only spoken with Sorenson a few times.” Met wished he could have positively identified the man from the previous night, but there really wasn’t much to go on. “I’m not entirely certain it was Justin. It’s more of a gut feeling, and a good bit of logic, if you know what I mean?”

  “I do.” Keene looked disappointed. “I was really hoping for a positive ID. I’ve been trying to actually pin something on this guy for what seems like forever. He’s a slippery little bastard.”

  “He had a camera,” Met offered. “He took a photograph. That was what drew him to my attention in the first place. The flash of the Polaroid camera made it kind of impossible to miss him behind the bushes.”

  “The photography is new,” Keene admitted.

  The officer took a few steps toward Met and Laredo, and Met noticed that he was a tall, good-looking guy. This did not make Met feel better. What was this guy’s deal? Was he trying to somehow insert himself into Daphne’s life? Was this a rival for her affections? Did she like Keene more than just a police officer? Even the possibility was going to drive Met nuts with speculation.

  “You’ll have to excuse my brother and me,” Laredo told Keene. “We don’t tend to trust law enforcement officers very easily.”

  “I get that.” Keene sighed. “I suppose we’re all a little guilty of believing one of our own. I probably would be the first to admit that I’ve had some pretty unkind and unfair thoughts about your family thanks to my captain’s comments and beliefs.”

  Met was surprised. It took a lot of guts to say something like that. It was a gesture that deserved acknowledgement. “I appreciate that, Officer Keene. You’d be surprised how often over the years we’ve gotten harassed for one thing or another just because a younger officer is trying to make himself look good for Weatherby.”

  Keene scratched his head and looked uncomfortable. “From our perspective, it’s hard to believe that a captain in the force would just blatantly lie or try to harass someone like that. Let alone that he would do it to an entire family.”

  “Remember that your captain is a Weatherby of the Flying W first,” Laredo growled. “He’s only a cop because that helps pay the bills. If he gets this new stock contract for the rodeo livestock, he’ll retire from the police force pretty quickly.”

  “No.” Keene shook his head. “Why would someone do that when they’ve made it all the way to captain?”

  “Because being a police captain is just a way to further the interests of his ranch,” Laredo supplied. “He’ll have to quit, Keene. There’s no way he would be able to run the size of operation it would take to fulfill that contract and still pay any attention to a job with the police department. It’s going to take all of us to keep this thing afloat too. And there are five of us,” Laredo reminded Keene.

  Met nodded to the man. “I don’t have anything that will help you with a case against Justin Sorenson, but you’re welcome to look around. I don’t know if anyone checked the bushes out back. They were too busy trying to put the fire out, if you know what I mean.”

  “Then, I’ll have a look,” Keene said eagerly. “I’d like to nail this guy to the wall and get him away from poor Ms. Evans for good.”

  Laredo glanced at Met as if he were wondering how long Met was going to pretend he wasn’t hearing what Keene seemed to be insinuating. Met sighed. He couldn’t very well attack a cop no matter what he might think about Daphne Evans. Sometimes being civilized carried a high emotional and psychological price.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Daphne wasn’t exactly surprised when Mr. Thomas Abernathy invited her to a meeting in his office early that afternoon. In fact, Daphne would have been shocked if Mr. Abernathy had not, simply because of all the things that had happened in the last few days. Carson had sent over the proofs from the photo shoot and a rough draft of the article just that morning. Daphne had sent them on to Mr. Abernathy. They looked good, but she could not help but think that the article was missing something. Soon enough, it wouldn’t matter. Abernathy would look at it, and the final decision was his.

  That was the other reason Daphne was pretty sure that Abernathy was coming to see her. There was no further reason that Daphne needed to have any kind of contact with the Hernandez family after this. It was over. She could focus on other accounts and, of course, her Justin problems.

  Daphne paced back and forth in front of her picture window and tried to decide what it was that was making her feel so restless and uncertain of things. Usually she felt good after a project was completed. The article would go to print and she could focus elsewhere. Of course, she did not generally wind up personally involved in her client’s lives, and they did not generally get personally involved in hers.

  “Are you okay?” Phyllis had been puttering around like a mother hen since the moment Daphne walked in after ten o’clock that morning. “I’ve just been so worried about you, sweetie. You need to be careful.”

  “I’m fine, Phyllis.” Daphne turned to look over her shoulder at the woman. Then she looked back at the peaceful scene outside her window. “The police will eventually catch Justin. They’ll put him away, and I won’t have to worry about him anymore.”

  “That’s crap!” Phyllis’s high-pitched voice left no doubt how she felt on this topic. “You cannot be expected to just go about your day as if that man was not downstairs plotting against you.”

  “He isn’t plotting against me.” Daphne rolled her eyes. “You’re being a tad overdramatic, don’t you think? Besides, if he keeps up challenging the Hernandez brothers, he’s going to find himself face to face with a very disturbing end.”

  “Speaking of the Hernandez brothers,” Phyllis said in a tantalizing voice. “Tell me what’s going on between you and that scrumptious young man! He’s not only handsome, but he’s also a very adorable specimen of manliness.”

  “Adorable specimen of manliness?” Daphne snorted. “You don’t think that sounds a bit like an oxymoron?”

  Phyllis was just opening her mouth to give Daphne a response when Thomas Abernathy came striding through the door right behind her. She cut herself off mid gush with a squeak. She wiggled her fingers at Daphne. “We’ll talk later, sweetie. Thomas, you be nice to this young lady!”

  And with that embarrassing beginning to Daphne’s meeting with her boss, she found herself standing awkwardly in front of her windows wondering what was about to happen. She did not bother giving Mr. Abernathy a fake smile. The man appreciated honesty, and Daphne would rather not put on a good face. Abernathy needed to see what was real.

  “How are you doing, Daphne?”

  Thomas Abernathy was a grandfatherly looking man in his late sixties who had been running this company since his father had died at the age of fifty-five. Before that, the firm had been started by Thomas’s great-great-grandfather. This was before public relations had been a genuine thing. It had been more of a concept of making people look good or bad dependent upon the public perception of their actions and other biological facts.

  “I’m going to be just fine,” Daphne told Abernathy. “I’m not the one who received the actual live fireball on my doorstep. That was Met Hernandez. My admirer stuck with the gasoline-soaked cardboard box. That’s his usual, anyway.”

  “His usual.” Abernathy’s voice trailed off, and he scratched his clean-shaven chin. He had iron-gray hair that was always impeccably cut. His face never seemed to sport a five-o’clock shadow at any time of th
e day, and even his eyebrows would not have dared step out of line. “And are you still making the assumption that this individual is Justin Sorenson?”

  Over the months since she had broken off her relationship with Justin, she had gotten used to people thinking that she was being overdramatic and unnecessarily blaming her coworker. Justin had a knack for putting on a mask of civility and goodwill with Mr. Abernathy. Of course, Abernathy controlled Justin’s job. It was important for Justin to have a good standing with Abernathy. It also made things more difficult for Daphne. And that was certainly part of Justin’s game. He wanted other people to think that she was an attention-seeking woman who was making up lies to implicate her coworker.

  “There is no reason to believe otherwise,” Daphne said with perfect calm. She had been prepared for this reaction. “Justin has suddenly started popping into my office both before and after hours. He brought me flowers the other day, and when I did not return his advances, he grew quite violent. Phyllis was there to intercede on my behalf, but I could not say what the outcome would have been if Phyllis had not been there.”

  “That’s quite an accusation.” Abernathy put his hands behind his back and rocked back and forth on the heels of his loafers. “Are you absolutely certain this is correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “No doubts?” Abernathy was pushing unusually hard. Why? What was going on?

  “Sir? I don’t make things up. That’s not my way.” Surely he knew that about her already. She wasn’t sure why she needed to keep saying it over and over again.

  “I’ve had another complaint about Justin.” Thomas Abernathy pursed his lips. She could see the thoughts churning around and around behind his serious gray eyes. “It’s from a coworker in the accounting department. Apparently, the two men sometimes work closely together, and this other employee has been experiencing some threatening behavior from Justin.”

  “Todd Yates,” Daphne guessed.

  Abernathy’s brows shot up in surprise. “How did you know?”

  “When Justin and I were still dating, I heard him complain extensively about Todd.” Daphne began to pace a large circle on her area rug as she struggled to remember the details of what Justin had said all those months before. “He liked to claim that Todd was taking credit for his work. I suspected that it was a lot of the opposite. That’s something that Justin excels at. He does something inappropriate and then accuses others of doing that same thing and worse. It’s a sort of justification for his behavior.” Daphne bit her lip. “I believe the psychological term is projection.”

  “You’ve done your research,” Abernathy murmured. “I don’t know why this surprises me though. You always do your research. You never jump without looking. And even when I cannot understand your actions, I know that you must have a reason.”

  “You can’t understand my actions?” Daphne murmured. Then she realized what he was getting at. “Are you talking about my relationship with the Hernandez family?”

  “The one that seems to move beyond your public relations assignment for that account, yes.” Abernathy did not smile. Instead, he raised an eyebrow in what Daphne had long ago learned was a request for more information.

  “I e-mailed you the mock up on the article about Met Hernandez for two different publications here in the Denver region,” Daphne reminded him.

  “And?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know what it is you’re wondering about, sir. Yes. Met Hernandez and I have a relationship of sorts. I cannot tell you exactly what it is, because I’ll be honest—I’m not totally sure. He’s a wonderful man. He fascinates me, and I love learning about the life he’s led so far. He’s strong, and his family is so dysfunctional that it makes me want to scream. Yet they love each other and they try hard.” She cocked her head and stared at Abernathy. The man had known the Hernandez family for years. “Surely I don’t have to tell you all of this.”

  “No. You don’t.” He smiled. “I just don’t understand why a woman going through what you’re going through wants to involve herself with the Hernandez men on top of it all.”

  “Ah.” Daphne laughed. She felt like a crazy person. How could she explain? “But Justin has involved Met whether or not I wanted to. He left what amounted to a bomb on the man’s doorstep last night. We can’t find any real evidence. Justin is still walking around, and sometimes I think that the best thing for me is for Justin to keep attacking Met because those Hernandez boys don’t mess around.”

  “No, they do not.” Abernathy gave her a stern look of disapproval. “Which is why you should be perfectly sure you know what you’re getting into. You cannot play around with Demetrio Hernandez.”

  “Are you asking me what my intentions are?” She gaped at him.

  How preposterous was it to be asked such a probing question by her boss? It was embarrassing in the extreme. It wasn’t like she was playing Met just to get rid of Justin. She really liked Met. She enjoyed being with him. His kisses made her crazy, and just last night, he had rocked her whole world. But she could not very well divulge that sort of information to her boss!

  “I’m sorry.” Abernathy held up his hand. “I know that you don’t have much in the way of family here in Denver.” He sighed and offered her a warm smile. “I suppose this is just an old man’s way of making sure that you’re not getting in over your head.”

  “I think I already did that with Justin, don’t you think?” Daphne sighed and laced her fingers together. Then she put her hands on the top of her head and sighed. “Met is probably the least screwed-up thing in my life.”

  “All right, then.” Abernathy’s tone took on an edge that hadn’t been there before. “Then, let’s talk about the article. It’s good, but it doesn’t have that extra special something.”

  “I know.” She slumped onto her office chair and sighed. “I knew you were going to say that.”

  “I taught you a long time ago what I meant when I said something,” Abernathy reminded her. His gray eyes were severe. “Don’t screw this up for that family now.”

  “But the only way I know to do what you’re suggesting is to violate Met’s privacy.” Daphne whispered the words. Why? Was she that afraid of facing them? Was she honestly that afraid of what Met would no doubt see as a violation of his privacy? “He never gave me permission to use the information that I have. The only reason I have it is because my relationship with that family isn’t quite as professional as it should be.”

  “Does that matter?” Abernathy’s kindly look only served to make her feel like a silly schoolgirl. “We’re talking about the family’s image. They’re struggling to get past a lot of accusations that are being leveled at them by a member of the local law enforcement community. They are right on the edge of losing a very lucrative business contract. We’re talking about a rather large series of connected events. Laredo is working furiously behind the scenes. I know this because I’ve been talking to him about it. That is why I entrusted this thing with Met Hernandez to you.”

  Great. Now Daphne felt as though she were failing. She had failed Abernathy. She was failing Met and his family. And why? Because she was afraid that Met would be a little irritated if she told one of his secrets? Surely he would understand if she explained. Surely he wouldn’t believe that she had intended to hurt him.

  “Do what needs to be done,” Abernathy told her firmly. He turned to leave her office. When he reached the doorway, he swung back around. “And prepare yourself. I’m going to fire Justin. This is probably going to end badly. You should stay here at least until he’s escorted out. Then I’m going to notify the Denver PD and have them keep an eye on him.”

  “Thank you,” Daphne whispered.

  She watched her boss leave her office and felt both better and worse. And maybe better and worse again. She hadn’t gotten in trouble. Well, not exactly. She had simply been reminded of something that she should have known already. Unfortunately, there was really no time. She needed to talk to Carson immediately if she was g
oing to give the man enough time to integrate the changes that she wanted him to add.

  Turning in her chair, she faced her computer screen and started drafting a letter to Carson. She outlined her thoughts and tried very hard to keep her mind on her task. Once this e-mail was done, she could try and figure out what was going to happen when Met found out about the changes. She obviously had to tell him. And she really needed to do it before she pushed the send button on this letter. It was her responsibility to let Met know that she had divulged some information he hadn’t necessarily given to Carson himself.

  Phyllis’s familiar knock made Daphne look up from her computer screen. “Sweetie, are you all right?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Daphne said automatically. “It went better than I expected. That’s good. Right?”

  Phyllis came the rest of the way into Daphne’s office. She put her hand over her mouth as though she were struggling not to freak out. “Mr. Abernathy told Ruth and me that he’s firing Justin. I have a bad feeling about this, Daphne. I really do.”

  “So do I,” Daphne murmured. “I think we should all plan on staying in the rest of the afternoon.”

  “And when we leave tonight,” Phyllis added, “I think we should plan to leave together.”

  “That would probably be a good idea.” Daphne thought about that long drive back to her little condo and the empty home that waited for her. “I’d be willing to get dinner if anyone else is interested.”

  “Well, now, that sounds like fun!” Phyllis exclaimed. She clapped her hands and grinned. “I’ll let Ruth know she has to find a different jazzercise class this week. We’re doing a girls’ night!”

  Girls’ night. Yay.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Dinner had been a very good idea. It was cathartic to sit in a little Italian restaurant right around the corner from their building and enjoy good wine and even better mushroom ravioli while Daphne and her friends let the day’s worries melt away.