by Dee Tenorio
“Not you?”
She shrugged. “I’m different.”
He settled his arms on his knees, his big hands falling between them so he could hold his hat and run it through his fingers. Round and round, the soft purr of the texture against his skin becoming a strangely soothing sound. “Seems to me being different around here isn’t much of a good idea, either.”
Hmm, that almost sounded like concern. “I’ll be fine. Frank gives me some leeway as long as I keep my head down and my mouth shut when he’s giving orders in my bar.”
He faced her again, definite interest now.
“He doesn’t have much choice. His boss told him I’m not to be touched.”
“Frank Carter has a boss?”
Shit. This just got worse and worse. “The sheriff didn’t brief you on this place before you came?”
“Rick Trelane gave me files when I got here, but I haven’t gotten through all of it.”
“You need to.” Like, immediately. She should have known Clive Barrows had done nothing to fill him in—the sheriff was useless as hell—but she’d thought his former teammate would have been more thorough. “Red Dog Killian has run Wheels of Pain for over twenty years. He owns the bar they use for their headquarters. He got pulled up on a parole violation last year and he’s finishing his last sentence. Frank’s just holding down the fort ‘til Red Dog comes back.” Which, if she had her way, would never happen.
“Frank doesn’t seem like the second-in-command type.”
She agreed cheerfully. “He’s not, but Red Dog will rip off his head and shit down his throat if he takes a step out of line, and Frank knows it. I heard Red Dog once snapped this guy’s legs like toothpicks and staked him to the ground in the desert for stealing from him. By the time they found the guy’s body there wasn’t anything left to ID but the gnaw marks on the bones.”
“And he’s not up for murder?”
She snorted. “People don’t testify against Red Dog. If the cops could get more on him, believe me, they’d lock his ass up for life. He’s too slippery for that.”
“Sounds like real husband material.”
She laughed at his sarcasm, bumping his leg with her elbow. “He’s my uncle. I’m just here to keep an eye on the bar so he doesn’t shit down my throat.”
“Uncle?” His disbelief came through loud and clear.
“You really think I’d admit he’s family if I didn’t have to?” Red Dog wasn’t exactly her favorite relative, and she sure as hell wasn’t his. Deputy Sheriff Anaconda Arms could believe her or not.
“It’s probably not smart telling me all this.”
“Everyone else in town already knows. Trelane should have told you first.” But this man’s worry was heart-warming. “Don’t worry about me, rookie. I know six different ways to make a shiv out of a toothbrush. I’m safe enough.”
His jaw clamped shut and she saw all the relaxation she’d managed to get from him disappear. Damn shame, but probably for the best. Her curiosity about him was already getting the better of her.
“You’ve been to jail?”
She nodded, aiming for his solemn demeanor. “Not everyone grows up to be all they can be. I grew up boosting bikes and getting sent to juvie. Vicious circle, let me tell you. Do the circuit long enough, you start moving up to the big leagues. Does that mean you won’t be picking out any china patterns with me now?”
His grim expression had her failing to stifle a laugh.
“That’s okay, we can just have clandestine sex in shadowy corners instead.”
His scowl now was simply priceless. “Are you always this aggressive?”
“Only when it’s fun and trust me, Sergeant Sexy, hitting on you is just about the highlight of my life.”
He didn’t seem to like that at all.
“Don’t call me that.” For all that he hadn’t been effusive before, his voice was sharp as a blade now.
She blinked, trying to remember what she’d said that could have been insulting. “You don’t like being called sexy?”
The muscles in his jaw worked a few times, but he resolutely stared at the playground.
Okay, that wasn’t it. She frowned. The rank?
“You don’t like people knowing you were in the military?” Was that what had him twitching? She didn’t even bother to hold back her amusement. If so, he was just going to have to get over it. “Even if I hadn’t heard the new cop had served with Mr. High and Mighty, you’re an easy peg. You practically have Hard-Core Military tattooed on your forehead. Trust me, you’re gonna have to work a lot harder to shed that skin than just growing out your hair.”
Thick black brows crashed together as he finally looked at her again. “Known a lot of us, then?”
She snorted, deciding to ignore the implication in that question. “You guys have a posture, uniform or not. And you’re proud bastards. Doesn’t matter how long you’re out, it’s all over you.” She shrugged when he didn’t seem to be buying her explanation. “My dad was in the Navy, okay?”
That, he finally accepted. “Squiddy father and biker uncle, huh?”
“Both of them were, actually. Vietnam vets.” Which probably explained more to this man than it did to most. “You and Rick were Marines, right?”
He shifted those hawk eyes to the playground again, the movement sharp and dismissive. It felt like a wall slammed down on her fingers, the abrupt move almost making her gasp.
She could have left then. Gotten up and walked away. He wouldn’t have said a thing to stop her, and she knew that’s exactly what she should have done. Just talking was putting them both at risk.
But she stayed.
And he let her.
“Strange, isn’t it?” she asked, following his gaze toward the kids on the playground “How is it they don’t know what kind of danger they’re in? How are they so blissfully blind?”
“That’s not what I was thinking.”
She looked over, surprised he’d answered. She thought he’d keep ignoring her until she went away.
“I was thinking they don’t have anyone to protect them.” The wind, warm and strong, rustled his hair. He blinked, but never changed his focus.
“Is that why you come here every day? To keep an eye on them?” She couldn’t quite keep the disbelief from her voice.
His head shake was faint. “I come because they’re peaceful.”
She turned a skeptical eye on the small people making crazy all over the slides and sand. Nothing peaceful was happening over there.
“They’re perfectly content in their lives. They know something isn’t right around here, kids always do, but they still manage to be happy despite it.”
Her derision melted. Put like that, she felt kinda crappy for her other thoughts.
“Someone should protect that.”
Someone. “Not you?”
He shook his head again. “What I know how to do, children should never see.” The stiffness in his form made her own muscles ache. She’d have touched his shoulder, the granite line of his jaw, if she didn’t think it would shatter him. Voice thick with bitterness, couched in a finality that told her he wouldn’t answer any questions on this, he added, “I’m not the one for that job.”
She didn’t have the first clue what to say now.
“Why did you come here?” he asked suddenly. She found herself in the stark scrutiny of his dark brown gaze. “It wasn’t to hit on me, no matter what you want me to think. Women like you don’t have to do the chasing.”
Not usually, no. “Maybe I like to do the chasing.”
He didn’t flicker an eyelash.
Damn. So he wasn’t going to be swayed with feminine charm. In fact, he didn’t appear willing to be swayed at all. She drew in a careful breath, her heartbeat speeding up under that unrelenting stare. He’d wait all day for an answer, she realized, portent sinking in her stomach like a stone.
He didn’t move, hardly blinked, and he damn sure didn’t say a word, but in that moment, so
mething became very clear to her. This one was going to be trouble. To her. To everything she was risking her life to achieve. Possibly to himself.
Of all the things on that list, for some reason the last one was the one that bothered her most.
For the first time in a long time, honesty seemed the best option. “There’s a rumor in town that you’re damaged from the war. I wanted to see for myself if you were safe.”
“I’m not. I think we both know that.” His solemn pronouncement didn’t help her discomfort. He made it sound as if everyone knew that. Or maybe he simply wanted everyone to think it.
“So how did you get this job if you’re not safe around people?”
Not even a shrug. “Sheriff can deputize whomever he wants.”
Katrina barely kept herself from rolling her eyes. “Is that supposed to make me sleep better at night? You’re armed, for fuck’s sake.”
He pierced her with a sharp glare. “Do you really think my guns are what make me dangerous?” He shook his head when she could only swallow. “The people in this town are safe enough from me. I passed all my psych exams before my discharge. That should give you your answer.”
She couldn’t say for sure if it did. In fact, the only thing clear from this conversation was that both of them were hiding something.
“Why are you still here?”
Breaking his intense gaze, she rolled to her feet. She wasn’t sure what had happened. One second she’d been following an unwise impulse she knew she could control, the next she was in over her head. “I’m curious about you.”
“Why?”
She didn’t know him anywhere near well enough to answer that. “I have no fucking idea.”
He took a few seconds to reply. “Is your curiosity satisfied?”
She turned to give him some kind of sassy answer, wanting to walk away with the upper hand in this conversation. He looked her in the eye, the same impassiveness on his face as had been there earlier, but the shadows in his gaze—even with the sun lighting them—struck her like a weight she couldn’t ignore.
No, her curiosity about this stranger wasn’t remotely satisfied. “Why are you here?”
Beneath his steely reserve, she sensed a deep, endless rage seething. Like a powder keg waiting to go off. A place like Marketta was the last place a man like this should be.
“To help my friend.” He raised his chin toward the playground. “Maybe if Rick has someone watching his back, we can keep some of them safe.”
“You won’t last long if you’ve really got a condition.” Not a threat. More a worry, one she couldn’t explain to herself or him. Which was okay, because he wasn’t asking questions. “You need to get some help.”
“Got all the help I need. Or want.” He rolled to his feet as well, the movement smooth as silk. Whatever his issues were, they weren’t physical. He might as well be a fine-tuned machine. His pants weren’t even wet from sitting on the damp grass. He dusted his hat on his thigh before plopping it on his head, nodded to her, then turned to walk away.
That bothered her. No, it itched. Like a rash.
“My name is Katrina Killian, by the way. Katy for short.” She hated that nickname, but it’s what people around here called her.
He paused, glancing over his shoulder at her. Then he nodded again…and kept walking. As if she didn’t matter.
Like hell.
“So, sex on the second date, then?” she yelled after him, making sure everyone and their grandmother could hear her.
That big body stopped, spine rigidly straight. Nothing moved except his hands, which curled into big, white-knuckled fists.
She grinned.
There. Now he could leave.
Chapter Two
“So what you’re really telling me then,” Cade Evigan said to his new “partner” a few hours after his confusing incident with Katrina Killian—even thinking of her as Katy was out of the question—by the park, “is that I can’t trust anyone in this place.”
“Basically.”
“Not even the other deputies?” He swallowed the soreness still in his throat. Two years of barely speaking to anyone had left his voice rusty and uncooperative.
“Especially not them.”
What about a beautiful woman with black hair, laughing blue eyes, and a disconcerting little mole beneath her left eye?
He didn’t ask the question—it was ridiculous as hell—but he was tempted to find out more about her. She hadn’t seemed the least bit afraid of him, which was a welcome change after the last few years. She was a little too friendly, though, which had his instincts sparking and sending his nerves into a near riot. There were places in the world where the kindest strangers had the most interest in seeing him dead. She wasn’t kind—sexually aggressive and downright invasive, yes, but not kind—so he had no idea what to do with her but think about her second date invitation.
He wanted to rub his hand across his face. Wouldn’t that be the smartest move to make, he thought sourly. Have sex with a woman who was not just part of the group of felons and drug trafficking murderers, but god damned born into it? And if he had to arrest her, would he be able to tell himself they were just celebrating “Bring Your Girlfriend To Work Day?”
No. Hell, no.
Back here, in the States, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Up didn’t mean down, wrong wasn’t right, and sunlight didn’t mean death. Not here. He’d been gone too long, though. His brain just couldn’t sort through the gray areas as easily as it used to. Which meant shoving any thoughts of Katrina Killian as far away as possible. She was a gray area he simply couldn’t afford.
At least Trelane, cold-eyed bastard and undersheriff of this little mountain town, had found a way to navigate the confusion. Sort of.
His old friend didn’t used to be this…distant. But hell, who was Cade to judge anyone’s cute-and-cuddly rating? He wasn’t the man he used to be, either. Which was why both of them were here, as far from a war zone as they could get.
Sort of.
Cade shifted in his seat, watching the rocky, unforgiving scenery speed past his window. The incongruity of the idyllic town nestled within it wasn’t lost on him. Houses sprinkled on hillsides you could see from the distance, roads etched into the dense overgrowth like scars. The bulk of the town spread through the elevated valley, wrapping itself around the bases as if it had been spilled there by a careless kid.
Cade could see why the man from his former unit had decided to come back here after they’d both left Afghanistan. Left the Marine Corps and MARSOC—the Marine Corps Special Operations Command—behind. Rick had been born in this place, raised inside its Rockwellian innocence. But that innocence had been burned out of his friend, and Cade could tell it was being strangled out of Marketta along with him. Too little money and too much violence in recent years. People were losing their hope. Some had gone far enough to sell it, throwing their lot in with Wheels of Pain for any chance of surviving, leaving the rest to try and get by without getting hurt. Most of which didn’t seem to be handling that last part too well. Like the woman they were currently speeding down the highway to help.
274D in progress. Domestic violence, if Cade had done his homework properly. Rick had pushed his paperwork through, but Cade refused to be caught flatfooted on any situation they were forced into.
“Tell me more about Barrows.” From what Rick had outlined when he asked Cade to join him, the actual sheriff of Marketta was more concerned with politics than protection. Barrows had offered Trelane the job of undersheriff more as a publicity stunt than a serious position, not realizing Trelane had lost his ability to be anything but serious. He took advantage quickly, leaving the department in the hands of their town’s “returned hero.”
Cade briefly wondered if Barrows had any idea Rick was returning the favor, using Barrows’s resources however and whenever he saw fit, including hiring, deputizing, and prioritizing cases Barrows would otherwise have brushed under a rug.
“He’s a
n asshole.” Short and sweet as always. At least that hadn’t changed. “You could probably tell that when you met him.”
Cade nodded. It’d been hard to miss. Tall, a developing beer belly straining the buttons of his coat, Barrows hadn’t even nodded in Cade’s direction the morning Rick had tried to introduce them. He just passed them as if they weren’t even there. “Anything else I should know about him?”
Rick flicked him a mildly irritated glance. “When did you get so fuckin’ chatty?”
Cade flipped him off, which settled the other man’s bristles well enough to squeeze a few more words out of him.
“You won’t have to worry about Barrows. He’s almost never in the office these days, too busy setting up his run for mayor. As long as no one gets in the way of his gravy train, he couldn’t give a shit. Besides, he won’t deign to talk to you unless you have something he can use. You just stay out of his way, he’ll stay out of yours.”
They turned off the highway, heading up a mountain road pitted and rocky enough to make their reinforced truck bounce and Cade’s teeth slam together. Moments later, a shanty of a house came into view, the yard little more than a cleared expanse of hard-packed dirt. The small building sagged, white paint peeling from nearly every inch. They pulled to a stop, both of them taking a necessary breath.
“The one you need to worry about is that son of a bitch in there.”
Cade looked a little harder at the house. This wasn’t going to be like the drug raids they’d been running all week. Complacent, not expecting any hitches with the law, the men in the warehouse roundups had been easy to bring down. No one innocent in those situations to worry about protecting… He rubbed his wet palms on his uniform pants. “Anything I should be aware of before we go in?”
“Keep an eye out for knives. Bastard likes slicing people and he’s fast. Strong, too, especially when he’s high.”
Cade nodded, tucking that little factoid as deep as he possibly could.
Rick glanced at him, measuring one last time, the same way he had for each bust they’d made in the last week. Cade’s nod was more of a blink, but he opened his door and Rick followed suit.
