by Linda Conrad
“Yes, of course. We talked about it back when…we knew each other. The FBI found your aunt dead of an overdose, as I remember. What does that have to do with…?”
He held up a palm and went on. “Well, my brothers and I will never give up looking for our sister. The trouble started when I thought I spotted a woman who looked just like Cami might’ve looked today.”
The rest was an embarrassing thing to have to admit, but he hoped it would give Lacie reason to trust him enough to open up. “I let my attention lapse for just long enough to get me shot in the back. And to ruin the whole frigging sting we’d set up. Worse yet, my loss of focus led to the death of another federal agent that I’d talked into helping with the sting.”
“Oh.” Her eyes drifted down to her coffee mug. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Me, too. It’s been six months and I’m still working the physical-therapy exercises, trying to beat the doctors’ predictions and bring my body back to full strength.” But his guilt might never be conquered.
“Are you staying with one of your brothers?”
He was glad for the change in the conversation; her sympathetic expression suddenly gave him hope. He caught the first real hint that he was talking to the same girl he used to know—just all grown up.
“No. I’m living alone in my mother’s old office trailer on the Bar-C. Remember?”
She nodded and her eyes went all gooey, lost in a shared memory of their last kisses. But he still couldn’t accept that the same girl he’d been infatuated with was now working for the same man she’d hated only ten years ago.
This beating around the bush, being careful of every word he said until he felt completely sure of her loyalties, was not his style. “Why are you working for your stepfather?” His usual style tended to be blunter.
Her eyes widened and she scooted her chair back. “You still haven’t told me why you were sneaking around the sheriff’s offices late at night.”
Mexican standoff. Neither of them was willing to completely trust the other. At least not yet.
“It’s still late.” He softened his voice and tried to let his eyes telegraph his trustworthiness. “And getting later. Will you trust me enough to finish this interview tomorrow? I promise not to leave town.”
Lacie stood and paced to the door. “Maybe. Promise me you won’t sneak back here until we talk again?”
“Definitely.”
“I’ll drive out to your mother’s trailer right after daybreak. Will that do?”
Colt didn’t figure he would get much sleep anyhow. “That’ll be fine.” He stood and limped toward her.
When he got close enough, he took her hand in his. “I’m really glad to see you again, Lace. I’ve missed you.”
Her eyes went dreamy again and her upper body leaned toward his. “I…uh…”
He caught himself leaning, too, and drawing in the same scent of gardenias about her that he remembered so well from all those years ago. His mind went blank.
Lacie blinked once then pulled her hand away and straightened her spine. Lifting her chin to look up at him, she said, “Don’t say anything on the way out. Just keep your mouth closed. I don’t want Louanna wondering if anything is amiss.”
“Why?”
She bunched up her mouth and narrowed her eyes. “You’ve done nothing wrong so far. Don’t make me regret not throwing you in a cell and asking questions later.”
“No, ma’am.” But he thought that all in all, he’d been getting the right kind of vibes from her.
Tomorrow morning would tell the tale. And just maybe he would end up with a new partner in his investigations—and give them both a finish to old business he’d left half done all those years ago.
Chapter 3
Lacie drove along the caliche road that crossed the range on the Bar-C through a dusky pink sunrise. She hadn’t come this way in over ten years but still could’ve negotiated the route blindfolded.
She would never forget those days gone by, afternoons spent with the boy who’d held her heart in his hands. Back then he’d been both a dream and a brilliant reality all wrapped into one. More important than being a rich and sexy cowboy, every teenage girl’s wish come true, he was the very first person who’d ever cared about what she thought and who she was inside.
This morning, negotiating her beat-up hatchback over cattle guards, a dry wash and past horses grazing in their pasture, she let her mind drift back. Back to those terrible teen years when the world had seemed determined to make her life miserable and every day looked darker and bleaker than the one before. It seemed everyone and everything had been set against her then, save for one bright and shining star. One person who kept her sane and alive through it all.
Colt Chance.
Last night she thought she’d been seeing ghosts when he appeared out of the darkness. But as she’d touched him and felt that same old sizzle, it’d been clear she wasn’t dreaming. Her past came back with a resounding thud, reminding her of the many questions that still had no answers.
It seemed Colt had his share of unanswered questions, as well. Last night his eyes had filled with curiosity every time his gaze turned in her direction. And she had noticed that he’d asked a lot more questions than he’d answered.
When his mother’s old office mobile home came into view under a stand of winter-whipped cottonwoods, Lacie thought of what she’d learned after spending a couple of hours on the internet last night. The first thing she’d looked for was evidence of Colt having a wife—either current or past. Nothing came up except pictures of him attending society events with various debutantes. Never the same one twice.
She’d also discovered that Colt had become a big-shot lawyer working for the justice department. Not so much of a surprise, as she’d always known he was smart. A “boy wonder,” some news article from a DC paper had called him. No doubt that was why he’d considered himself entitled to ask all the questions. Asking questions had been what he’d done for a living before his department’s sting went so horribly wrong.
But being a sheriff’s deputy gave her the right to a few questions of her own. In fact, in Chance County, her questions took priority.
Streaks of reddish-gold shot above the horizon and across the prairie as she pulled up next to a pickup she recognized from last night as being Colt’s. Instead of just watching him walk away after they’d left the sheriff’s office, she’d volunteered to drive him the half mile down the highway to the truck he’d hidden behind a couple of dried-up mesquite trees and a boulder. Obviously he hadn’t wanted anyone to spot him coming and going. But she still didn’t know why.
He had a lot to answer for this morning.
After turning off her car, she hopped out and headed for his door. But as she put one foot on the first step of the front porch, a noise originating in the side yard caught her attention. Something—or someone—had to be back there.
Out this far from civilization it could be anything. A coyote. A giant coon. Or maybe Colt had a pet dog. But she wanted to double-check before she went inside. Just to be on the safe side.
Carefully rounding the corner with her hand resting on her weapon, Lacie felt her heart skip a beat when she discovered what was there. Before her stunned eyes stood Colt, naked to the waist, straddling a bench and working out with a barbell. Earplugs, probably connected to music, had kept Colt from hearing her or her car’s approach.
Thinking she’d be unobserved, she let her gaze roam freely down his sweat-glistened chest to the dark hair that arrowed past his waistband and disappeared beyond his jeans. Heat flooded through her veins, bringing dampness between her breasts and at the apex of her thighs.
She wasn’t a naive young girl. She’d seen plenty of men working out, with and without their shirts, and never thought a thing of it. But the sight of Colt using his chest and shoulder muscles, bunching and rolling, left her stupefied and panting like some preteen girl.
He looked up just then and his gaze arrowed straight to
her face. His eyes met hers and darkened as though he’d known exactly what she’d been thinking. He set the weight down, pulled the earplugs free and lifted his chin.
Her pulse began to race. “I…uh…” She knew her face had gone beet-red, but she couldn’t put a coherent thought together.
“Morning. You’re very punctual.” He grabbed a sweatshirt off the bench. “Go on inside. Coffee’s hot. I’ll be there in a sec.”
She turned tail and hustled into his kitchen, grasping for both air and calm. What was her problem? An old boyfriend, accent on the old, should not shake her up this way.
By the time Colt arrived and pulled a bottle of water from the fridge, Lacie more or less had her nerves under control. She’d come here to find out what was going on with him and why he’d been sneaking around the sheriff’s office. Not to start up anything between them.
Colt probably wouldn’t be interested in a relationship with her anyway. He’d been living in the big cities, the way he’d always claimed he wanted, and, according to the papers, had plenty of sophisticated girlfriends. Women who knew all about how to please a man.
As he took a long swig from the water bottle, her eyes locked on his mouth and throat. The blast of heat inside her ignited again and branded her as an idiot for a second.
She tore her gaze away and coughed. “You look pretty healthy to me.” What? That wasn’t what she’d wanted to say. “I mean, it’s good you work out. You’ll get back to health sooner that way.”
Colt set aside the water and took a deep breath. “My upper body never was a problem.” He didn’t want to talk about this with her. “It’s the lower body that may never heal. There was a time when the doctors claimed I would never walk again. Now they say the limp might be the best I can hope to achieve.”
Well, hell, he shouldn’t have said that much. “I’ve come this far. I’m not ready to give up yet.” Something about her felt so comfortable. So right.
“Good.” She moistened her lips and swallowed hard, and his body hardened in response. “We need to talk about last night. You have to tell me what’s going on.”
Jumping into things without thinking them through was one of his bad habits, and a tough one to break. But this time, his gut told him everything would work out all right. She hadn’t changed that much. So, she was a deputy. She hadn’t told anyone about last night, had she?
He pulled out a chair and sat down. “My career, the one I screwed up, was as an investigator for the…”
“Justice department. Yes, I know.” She sat at the table across from him.
He let a big, sloppy grin cross his face. “Been checking up on me, Deputy?”
“It’s my job.”
Before she could say anything else, he plowed ahead. “The job made me the inquisitive type. Do you ever wonder about things from our childhood? Things that never seemed quite right back then?”
“Stop doing that.” She screwed up her mouth and narrowed her eyes on him. “This is my time to ask questions.”
God, she was beautiful. Not classically gorgeous or sophisticated in her uniform and with a gun on her hip. But he’d always thought she was the most alive and vibrant person he’d ever known. None of that had changed.
“No, really,” he said, ignoring her complaint and urging her to answer. “Anything still bothering you about the past?”
“I’m a little curious about a few things.” She frowned but added, “That’s at least partially the reason why I came back to Chance—to exorcise old ghosts.”
The way she said that last sentence made him wonder if he counted as one of her ghosts. “Yeah, me, too. The thing that bothers me the most is wondering about what really happened that day when my mother was murdered.” He tipped the water bottle to his lips again, but watched for her reaction over the top of the rim.
“I don’t remember much about the murder,” she murmured quietly. “You and I were only ten at the time. It really made a major difference in your life, though. I do remember that.”
“Yeah.” Colt stood but had to hang on to the back of the chair to keep his balance. “Losing Mom was hard enough. God, I thought the pain in my heart would never go away. But within days, we’d lost Dad, too, when your stepfather had him arrested for the crime. There were lots of times those first few weeks when I wished I’d died along with Mom.”
Shaking out his leg, he felt a familiar twinge. He gritted his teeth and began to pace like a caged animal, determined the pain would not slow him down. “You were the only one I could talk to. Do you remember that?”
“What does any of this have to do with last night?”
Colt reached the sink and spun back around. “Now you’re doing it. That was a question not an answer. But I never believed my father could murder anyone. Especially not my mother. He loved her. I know he did.”
Nodding, Lacie seemed to agree. “I remember you saying that back then. All this time and you still think the same? Both your parents are gone now. What difference could it possibly make at this point?”
Limping over to the table, he stood beside her. “I have to know for sure. You can see that, can’t you?”
He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, gazed earnestly into her eyes and pleaded his case. “Help me, Lace. Together you and I can find the truth. I know we can.”
“Ah.” It hit her then—at last. “You were inside the sheriff’s office last night looking for old case files. Your father’s murder case.” She was shocked. “How in the world did you manage to break in?”
“Uh…I didn’t exactly break in.”
“But then how—” Amazed she hadn’t thought of it sooner, the answer came instantly. “Louanna. Our night dispatcher let you in. Why? Did you offer her a bribe?”
He backed up, ran a hand through his shaggy hair and ended up making it messier than ever. “She’s a second cousin. My aunt asked her do it for me. Seems everyone in town owes my aunt June for one thing or another.”
His expression changed suddenly—darkened. “You won’t mention that I told you? And you won’t turn her in to your stepfather? Louanna needs her job. I didn’t get a chance to find the files before you arrived.”
Lacie popped up out of her chair. “I won’t do anything to endanger Louanna’s job. Besides, nothing was taken or destroyed. Why can’t you talk to the sheriff about the old murder case? He was there and participated in the first investigation. He should…”
She lost her train of thought as she remembered finding Colt in tears behind the school one afternoon right after his mother died. Her heart had gone out to him then and there. Come to think of it, she may never have gotten her heart back. Not to this very minute.
But she couldn’t let him know that. They were not those same two kids. Far from it.
Colt took her by the elbow. “Can you really picture the sheriff helping me? You know he’s never been too crazy about the Chance family.” Touching her was making him crazy as the electricity between them zinged through his veins.
“True,” she said and suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I do remember my stepfather never liked it when you were hanging around. And he hated when I went to the Bar-C.”
She glanced down to where his hand was holding her arm. Trying to pull free, she drew in a breath. “I won’t say anything to the sheriff.”
At this point he almost didn’t care. All he cared about, all he’d ever cared about, was being with her.
But she went on to explain, “I make it a habit not to speak to him unless I’m forced to. We aren’t exactly a close-knit family. What would you need me to do?”
Hearing that should have relaxed him. “I knew I could count on you.” But there was no relaxing when her eyes grew wide and she licked her bottom lip.
A war was going on inside him. He needed to kiss her more than he needed to breathe. But he didn’t want to scare her off. He needed her help.
Sidestepping closer to her, he backed her against the kitchen counter. “Be my partner in the investigation,”
he murmured against her lips.
Tightening both hands on her shoulders, Colt couldn’t help himself. He pulled her against his chest and leaned in even closer. “Be my everything—for now.”
He whispered a kiss over her lips. Instead of pulling away, she pressed against him and wrapped her arms around his neck. A dark lust roared in him. And when she moaned, he deepened the kiss.
Shuddering with need, his erection grew hard against her belly. He cupped her bottom with both hands and growled, deep and low in his chest. He couldn’t catch his breath. Had stopped thinking minutes ago.
“Wait a moment.” Suddenly she lifted her head and pushed at his shoulders.
He was too far gone to understand the change in temperature between them. Dipping his own head, he went back for another taste of those sweet lips.
“Whoa,” she said past a raspy voice and stepped out of his reach. “I… I’ll help you with your investigation because now I’m curious, too. But as far as—” she waved a hand between them “—anything else…it’s a no go. I don’t know who you are anymore. And you don’t know me. This isn’t happening. Not now. Maybe not ever.”
*
Much later that day, while Lacie finished up her paperwork, she found herself still mulling over everything she’d said to Colt. At that moment, kissing him, she’d wanted exactly what he wanted. The need had been racing headlong through every cell in her body. But she’d put a stop to things between them before they went too far. And she knew why.
She’d been scared. Afraid of getting too close. The two of them had changed. Maybe they could be friends again, and work together for answers, but any more than that and her heart wouldn’t stand it.
After he healed and did a little investigating, he would be going back to his previous life. He’d always hated the small-town ways of Chance, Texas. His talk about leaving had given her the backbone to leave town herself at the age of eighteen. But she’d tried the big city and found it wasn’t for her. She wanted to stay in Chance.
