Because tit for tat. If you share something with me, I’ll share my oh-so-interesting chat with Bill O’Neil’s campaign committee with you.
“Mercy?”
“Because we’re either fighting or fucking, and there’s a lot I don’t know about you.”
“There’s a lot you haven’t wanted to know about me,” he corrected.
“So here’s your chance, Dawson. Talk to me. Tell me something juicy.”
Dawson toyed with my hair, a sure sign he was deep in thought. “This is a whopper of a secret. You sure you’re ready?”
No. “Yep. Unless it’s something kinky, like you’re into submission games.”
“That’d be an easier confession if it were true.”
Maybe this game of secret swap hadn’t been such a hot idea.
He inhaled. Exhaled. “I have an eleven-year-old son.”
I remained curled into him, listening to the increased tempo of his breathing. Waiting.
“Ain’t much to tell, to be honest. His mother was a cocktail waitress at the bar where I moonlighted as a bouncer in Minnesota. She moved away, and I became a cop. End of story, right? Five years later she informed me via legal summons that I’m a father and demanded child support. I called bullshit, but the paternity test confirmed that I am, indeed, this boy’s father.”
A secret love child was a whopper of a secret. “Do you share custody or anything?”
“No. I see him maybe twice a year, for a day at the most. Mona doesn’t encourage it, and he’s shown little interest in me, no matter how much interest I show in him.”
That made my insides ache. “Where does he live?”
“Denver.”
“Is that why you moved out here?”
“Yeah. I thought if I was closer, maybe we’d connect or something … but it hasn’t changed a goddamn thing.”
I thought of Jake. Even though Levi hadn’t known Jake was his father, Jake had gotten to watch Levi grow up. That’s more than Dawson was getting. “What’s his name?”
“Lex. Lex Pullman, not Lex Dawson. Seems pointless to talk about him, when there ain’t anything to talk about, know what I mean?”
I adjusted my position so I faced him.
His eyes searched mine. “You’re taking this well. It doesn’t freak you out that I hadn’t told you before now?”
“No. If you don’t hold it against me that I can’t reproduce, then I figure I can’t hold it against you that you have.” I maneuvered him closer until we were mouth-to-mouth, wanting to end this conversation.
Wasn’t the whole point of this “sharing” exercise so you could come clean about the campaign committee before he heard it from someone else?
Damn conscience. I eased back only far enough to speak. “Dawson, I should tell you—”
“It’ll keep.” He fed me those drugging soft-lipped kisses I craved. “Now can we go inside before I freeze my ass off ?”
I tried one last time. “Don’t you want to talk—”
“No talking, because if we talk, we’ll fight. And I don’t want to fight with you tonight.”
“We do get into less trouble when talking isn’t on our minds at all,” I murmured against his throat.
“See? We can agree on something.” Dawson carried me inside and locked the door.
I rolled out of bed three hours after Dawson left. I’d needed the intimacy of connecting with him, a man whose baser instincts matched mine, yet it’d muddied the waters, regarding my choice to let the campaign committee run me as a replacement candidate.
Phrased that way it seemed less my decision.
But my cynical side suspected Dawson had shown up, acting sweet, loving, spouting the “I don’t want to fight” line, knowing full well I’d been asked to run against him.
Would that bother me if it were true?
Not as much as it’d bother me if Dawson had shown up, acting sweet and loving, spouting the “I don’t want to fight” line because he hadn’t known I’d been asked to run against him.
What if Dawson hadn’t been making a political maneuver by using our sexual relationship to confuse me? What if he’d shown up because he’d … missed me? Was it time that I owned up to the fact that we were involved on a deeper level than just casual sex? Probably. I wasn’t exactly sure how to go about it.
I ended up at the sheriff’s office, telling myself it was only to pick up my gun. Not to look for a sign. Not to go googly-eyed over the man who’d rocked my world and had finally opened up to me.
Jolene manned the front desk, not Robo-Barbie. Dawson had stepped out, but she told me to hang out in his office—a natural reaction after all the years she’d sent me back to wait for my dad.
With time to kill, I examined Dawson’s meager personal effects. A framed commendation and a silver star from the president of the United States for bravery, valor, and service in Desert Storm. A diploma from a vo-tech school in Minnesota for his law enforcement degree.
I stopped in front of the last item on the wall; a sizable shadowbox. Inside was a gigantic fancy silver-and-gold championship belt buckle with a hand-tooled brown-and-black leather belt, from the PRCA Midwest Circuit, for first place in bull riding, inscribed to Mason “Mad Dog” Dawson. Alongside the buckle was a picture of a much skinnier, much younger cowboy, wearing chaps, a neon-green western shirt with red flames on the sleeves, holding the buckle, almost with a look of surprise on his lean, handsome face.
With my propensity toward picking cowboys, if Mad Dog and I had crossed paths in our younger years, would we’ve given each other a second look? Was part of the reason we ended up together now because neither of us had a better option?
Such a cynic.
I wandered to the chairs across from his desk. The same desk my dad had used, but neater. The out-box was emptied. Campaign promotional materials were strewn across the surface. Notes scrawled in a spiral-bound notebook sat directly below the phone. I told myself it’d be wrong to snoop so I plopped into the chair on the right side of the desk.
And that’s when the in-box caught my eye, seemingly empty, save for one envelope. A familiar envelope. The envelope I’d dropped off at Dawson’s request.
A solid minute passed. I don’t think I blinked as I stared at that envelope.
Maybe he kept it there for quick reference.
My hand was in the basket before I’d thought it through.
Heart pounding, I flipped over the plain cream-colored envelope with the Gunderson Ranch logo in the upper-left-hand corner. The envelope I’d personally sealed.
Almost a week ago.
The fucking thing hadn’t been opened at all.
Oddly, red rage didn’t consume me. I was plenty mad, but the feeling that followed on the heels of disbelief was worse than blind fury.
Disappointment.
In him. In myself.
Had I really believed Dawson would do his job? It was obvious he hadn’t. Every doubt I’d ever had about him resurfaced.
His heavy tread stopped behind me when he saw the envelope in my hand.
“Mercy?”
I very carefully replaced the letter where I’d found it. My resolve helped me get to my feet and face him.
Something—regret or guilt—flashed in his eyes, and then it vanished. He sidestepped me and skirted his desk. I heard his chair squeak as he sat. I heard him sigh. What I didn’t hear? An explanation. An apology.
An excuse?
There was no excuse. I let him stare at the rigid line of my back for another minute before I whirled around.
“Why are you here?”
“To pick up my gun and to tell you that Bill O’Neil’s campaign committee asked me to run as his replacement candidate.”
No change in his expression. “And what did you say?”
“Yes.” My gaze swept his office before my eyes caught his. “Don’t get too comfy here, Sheriff.”
I spun on my heel and walked out.
TEN
Geneva dragged
me to the courthouse to officially verify my candidacy. One of my stipulations for running was working with her for this campaign, not Kit.
An hour later we sat in the Blackbird Diner, poring over preliminary campaign strategy. She counted off the talking points on Bill’s election platform.
“How do you feel about the county commissioners slashing the emergency services budget by ten percent?”
“Pissed off.”
She rolled her eyes. “Language. Remember, no one likes a gutter mouth.”
Stupid double standard. Dawson could say pissed off, and he’d be lauded as a “straight talker,” whereas I’d be called a gutter mouth. I slapped on a beauty contestant smile. “I’m upset with the commissioners shortsightedness. Injuries and tragedies don’t cease because we don’t have the money to properly deal with them.”
“That’s good, keep going.”
“In a rural area, especially in a county our size, we should be increasing the amount of money on a yearly basis, rather than slashing it, forcing us to rely on other counties’ emergency services to fill our needs.”
“Excellent. Next question. The pipeline.”
“Against it.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“You want me to go off on a tangent about eminent domain? The company is planning to go to the governor, knowing he’d side with them and grant it. Then there’d be a slew of condemnations in the courts. Titan Oil’s using other scare tactics to get ranchers on board. Or should I deliver the even more dire news that as long as Titan Oil complies with every step of the regulatory process, and gets the proper permits from the DOT, the EPA, the PUC, the DENR, and finally that all-important presidential permit from the State Department, there isn’t a single thing we can do? And if the pipeline fails and there’s a spill, the landowner’s on the hook for the cleanup because the state’s thrown away everybody’s rights for a few tax dollars?”
She tapped her pen on her notebook. “Okay. It’s great you’re up to speed on this issue. But right now, I’m not sure if the brutal truth is the best option.”
“Or I could go with the optimistic idea that we should be looking for alternative energy resources indigenous to our part of the world, like wind and solar power? And we can all hope that the president will refuse to sign the State Department permit, tabling the issue, at least until there’s a new bunch in Washington.”
“Better. So let’s skip to … your qualifications.”
“Twenty years’ military service. Daughter of the sheriff who held the office for almost thirty years. I’ve had personal experience with violence directed toward my family and me, so community safety is my primary goal. And I’ll use all the resources at my disposal to solve the crimes that come across my desk. None are too big or too small.”
“Now that sounds like a candidate we can sink our teeth into, eh?” Rollie scooted in the booth next to Geneva. “Whatcha ladies doin’?”
“She’s grilling me on my platform.”
He peeked at Geneva’s notebook from beneath the brim of his dirty, stained, crumpled PI hat. “Don’t see nothin’ on there about race relations.”
“I was getting to it.” Geneva looked at me expectantly.
“What?”
“Race relations.”
“I don’t got no Indian relations I can race, hey. And I’d probably lose because them injuns run fast, whoo-ee.”
Geneva whapped me on the arm. “Don’t joke about stuff like that, Mercy. You’re liable to get hung.”
“Or scalped, eh?” Rollie winked at me.
She whapped Rollie on the arm, too. “Don’t encourage her.”
“I’d be a lot more encouraged if I could have my pie now.”
“Fine. Stuff your face. I need to call Brent anyway.” Geneva slid closer to the wall, cell phone trapped against her ear.
The waitress brought out two pieces of warm rhubarb cream pie. I ate mine like I eat everything—super fast—and watched Rollie savor every bite. He pushed his plate back and squinted at me.
“What?”
“Gonna tell me what’s on your mind, Mercy girl?”
I glanced at Geneva, still chattering on the phone. “Besides the fact I’m now a candidate for sheriff ?”
“That ain’t what’s eatin’ at you.”
The doorbell chimed. When Rollie looked up to see who’d entered the diner, his brown eyes turned flat and cold.
He scooted out of the booth. “Think about it. I’ll catch up with you later, hey.”
What was up with the hasty retreat? I peeked over my shoulder to see who’d caused Rollie to turn tail and run.
Shay Turnbull sat at the lunch counter.
Geneva clicked her phone off and nudged a stack of papers toward me. “Here’s your homework. Go over it thoroughly. We’ll powwow tomorrow morning at the conference room in the library, okay?”
“Fine. Sure. Whatever.” What the hell was Shay Turnbull doing here?
Geneva leaned across the table to ensure she had my full attention. “You’re doing the right thing. You’ll make a great sheriff, Mercy. Your dad would be proud.” Pep talk over, she sailed out the door.
I picked up my coffee cup and snagged a chair next to Turnbull. “Mitzi, could I get a refill?”
“Sure, sweetie.”
Turnbull didn’t look up from his newspaper when he said, “Some of us are offended by the use of the term powwow in that context.”
“And some of us aren’t.”
“I forget you’re Indian.” He folded his newspaper and faced me. “So. I hear you’re running for sheriff.”
“Didn’t anyone tell you it’s impolite to eavesdrop?”
“Oh, I didn’t hear it from listening to your conversation; I heard it at the post office about an hour ago.”
“You’re quite the man about town.”
“Like I said before, Eagle River County isn’t exactly a metropolis. So tell me, candidate Gunderson, what will you do differently as sheriff if you’re elected?”
“I’ll pursue every lead on a case, no matter how insignificant it might seem.”
“Even if there are extenuating circumstances?”
Puzzled by his cryptic comment, I looked at him. “If a crime occurs in the county, it’s the job of the sheriff’s department—specifically, the sheriff—to investigate to the end. Period. Extenuating circumstances have nothing to do with it.”
Mitzi appeared, setting a white bakery bag and a Styrofoam cup in front of him. “That’ll be three dollars and eighteen cents.”
Turnbull passed her a crisp five-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
“Thank you.”
He smiled, showing beautiful, straight white teeth. “You’re welcome.” He slid on his shades, grabbed his food, and stood. “See you around, Mercy.”
I don’t know what I’d hoped to accomplish with him, but that sure as hell wasn’t it.
Hope, Jake, and Sophie ambushed me the second I walked into the kitchen.
“You’re running for sheriff in Bill O’Neil’s place?” Hope demanded. “And you didn’t think to tell your family?”
Jake stared at me coolly, yet I could read him as clearly as if a cartoon bubble bounced above his head: You lasted less than a week a rancher. I can’t count on you.
Sophie came to my defense. “Leave her be. I’m sure Mercy had a good reason for keepin’ it to herself.”
I dropped into the closest chair. “The campaign committee only asked me last night. I was almost certain I’d tell them no today.”
“What happened to change your mind?”
“I stopped in the sheriff’s office, looking for a sign from Dad, or any kind of sign, really.” I let my gaze wander to the buck stops here plaque that’d always hung next to the sink. “When I was in Dawson’s office, I saw something that changed my mind. So in some ways it was a spur-of-the-moment decision.”
“And in other ways, it was what you were always destined to do,” Sophie said.
W
as Sophie pleased or appalled by the prospect?
“Let’s celebrate.” Sophie dished up spice cake with maple frosting. Pie for breakfast. Cake for lunch. If I continued to stuff my face like this, I’d need to add more miles to my PT.
“Well, it’s good you’re here, because we need to talk,” Hope said.
I scraped the last of the cake crumbs onto my fork before I looked at my sister. “About?”
“About me—us—moving out.”
Jake froze. Sophie froze. Evidently this was news to them.
“Where would you go? You sold your trailer. The cabin is too small for all three of you to live in.”
Hope’s chin lifted; her eyes gleamed defiance. “Iris Newsome’s house has been sitting empty since we bought their land the first of the year.”
I couldn’t look at Jake. I knew he wasn’t looking at me.
“It’s a perfect solution,” Hope pointed out. “You can move back in here all by yourself, which is what you want. This place has always been more yours than mine.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is, especially since you redecorated the downstairs. It’s like I’ve been living in a stranger’s house.”
Ooh. That stung.
“Iris’s place is close, and it won’t affect Jake’s foreman duties.”
My gaze collided with Jake’s. “Did you know about this?”
“No.” Angrily, he pushed his chair back. He shot Sophie a dark look. “Was this your idea?”
Her black eyes snapped fire. “I will caution you to watch your tone, takoja.”
Jake was beyond upset. With good reason.
Hope had just opened a big ol’ can of worms. She had no idea our neighbor Iris Newsome had actually killed Levi, not Hope’s dead ex-lover Theo, as I’d sworn in a courtroom.
As much as I dismissed that evil-spirit crap, Iris’s house pulsed with malevolence. Hoping to exorcise the demons, I’d hired an auction company to sell every last piece of the Newsome’s household belongings. When I had to sign off on the contents, requiring another inspection of the empty house, anger and bitterness still clouded the space.
“Hope,” Jake said her name as a weary sigh. “Can we wait and talk about this later in private?”
“No. I’m tired of waiting. I want my own house again. As half owner of this ranch, I’m also half owner of the Newsome place. So I’m moving into that house, whether or not any of you like it.”
Mercy Kill Page 11
