Shotgun Sheriff--A Western Sheriff Romance of Intrigue

by Delores Fossen

  It wouldn’t keep Reed out.

  Livvy and he could simply use the narrow footpath to the side of the gates. But it would mean a quarter-mile walk to question Jonah about how the devil a piece of his shirt had gotten torn on a tree branch mere yards from a double crime scene.

  Though he figured it was futile, Reed called the ranch again and this time got the housekeeper. When he asked her to open the gate, she mumbled something about her boss saying it was to stay shut for the day. She further mumbled there was trouble with some of the calves getting out.

  Right.

  Jonah just wanted to make this as hard as possible.

  Even though Reed hadn’t specifically mentioned the shirt fabric they’d found, Jonah no doubt suspected something was up, and that something wasn’t going to work in his favor. Of course, the real question was—had Jonah really committed a felony by burning Livvy’s SUV and destroying evidence at a crime scene? And if the answer to that was yes, then Reed also had to consider him a candidate for Marcie’s murder.

  Livvy and he got out of the truck and started the trek along the deeply curved road. Thankfully, the road was paved so once they made it through the turnstile pedestrian gate, they didn’t have to continue to use the muddy ground or pastures that fanned out for miles on each side of the ranch.

  “It’s a big place,” Livvy commented, while shifting her equipment bag that had to weigh at least twenty-five pounds, especially now that it had the trap inside.

  Reed figured it would result in a glare, but he reached out and took the bag from her. He waited for the argument about her being able to do it herself, but she simply mumbled “Thanks.”

  “Thanks?” he repeated.

  Her mouth quivered a little. A smile threatened. “This doesn’t mean anything. Well, other than you’re stronger than I am.”

  But the smile that finally bent her mouth told him it might be more than that. The slight change of heart was reasonable. They were spending nearly every waking moment together, and they were both focused on the case. That created camaraderie. A friendship, almost. It definitely created a bond because they were on the same side.

  Reed frowned. And wondered why he felt the need to justify his attraction to a good-looking woman. True, he hadn’t planned on an attraction that might result in a relationship, but he was coming to terms with the notion that not having something in his plans didn’t mean it wasn’t going to happen anyway.

  “Hold up a minute,” Livvy said. She picked up a stick and used it to scrape some of the mud from those city heels on her boots.

  “Those boots aren’t very practical out here,” Reed commented.

  “No. My good pair was lost with some luggage when I was visiting my dad. I ordered another pair last night off the Internet, and I’m hoping they’ll get here today.”

  So, this wasn’t normal for her. What was, exactly? And what did she wear when she wasn’t in her usual Ranger “uniform” of jeans and a white shirt? While Reed was thinking about that, he realized she’d stopped scraping mud and was staring at him.

  “We, uh, both started off with some misconceptions about each other,” she admitted.

  “You’re still from New York,” he teased. But Reed immediately regretted his attempt at humor. He saw the darkness creep into her eyes and realized he’d hit a nerve. “Sorry.”

  “No. It’s okay.” She looked down and started to scrape at the mud again.

  Since she wobbled and seemed on the verge of losing her balance, Reed caught on to her arm. He immediately felt her muscles tense. And her eyes met his again. Not a stare this time. Just a brief glance. But a lot of things passed between them with that glance.

  Both of them cursed.

  It’d been stupid to touch her, and Reed upped the ante on that stupidity by moving in closer still, lowering his head and putting his mouth on hers. Reed expected profanity. Maybe even a slap. He certainly deserved it, and a slap might just knock some sense into him.

  But Livvy didn’t curse or slap him.

  She made a sound of pleasure, deep within her chest. It was brief and soft, barely there, but she might as well have shouted that the kiss was good for her, too. It was certainly good for Reed. Her mouth was like silk and, in that kiss, he took in her breath and taste.

  That taste went straight through him.

  And for just a moment he had a too-vivid image of what it would be like to kiss her harder and deeper. To push her against the nearby oak and do things he’d wanted to do since the first time he’d laid eyes on her.

  Now, Livvy cursed and jerked away from him. “I know what you’re thinking,” she grumbled.

  Hell. He hoped not. “What?”

  “You’re thinking that was unprofessional.”

  “Uh, no. Actually, I was thinking you taste even better than I thought you would, and my expectations were pretty damn high.”

  The smile threatened again, but it was quickly followed by a full-fledged scowl that she seemed to be aiming at herself. Livvy grabbed the equipment bag from him and started marching toward the ranch house.

  “I have to do a good job here,” she said when Reed fell in step alongside her. “I have to prove I can handle a complex crime scene on my own.”

  Reed understood the pressure, though he had never experienced it firsthand. “It’s been the opposite for me,” he admitted. “My father was the sheriff so folks around here just accepted that I was the best man for the job.”

  “Lucky you.” But she didn’t say it as a snippy insult. More like envy.

  “Well, maybe that luck will rub off on you.” Which sounded sexual. His body was still begging for him to kiss her again. That would be a bad idea, especially since they were now close to the ranch house.

  Livvy must have realized that as well because she looked ahead at the massive estate that peeked through the trees. “Jonah will probably try to convince us that the fabric’s been there for a long time.”

  “Probably. But it hadn’t been there long because it showed no signs of wear or of being exposed to the elements.”

  Jonah would try to refute that as well, but the man was still going to have a hard time explaining how he tore his shirt in that part of the woods, just yards from a murder scene.

  As they got closer, Reed saw Jonah. He was waiting for them on the front porch.

  And he wasn’t alone.

  Jonah’s daughter, Jessie, had just served her father and his guest some iced tea. She tipped her head toward them in greeting.

  “Don’t work yourself up into a state,” Jessie told her father, and she gently touched his arm. Her gaze came back to Reed, and she seemed to issue him a be-nice warning before she disappeared into the house.

  Seated in a white wicker chair next to Jonah was a sandy-haired man Reed knew all too well: Jerry Collier.

  “He’s the head of the Comanche Creek Land Office,” Livvy pointed out.

  Reed nodded. “Jerry was also Marcie’s former boss. And on various occasions, he acts as Jonah’s attorney.”

  “Jonah lawyered up,” she grumbled.

  Apparently. And that was probably wise on Jonah’s part. The man’s temper often got in the way of his reason, and he must have guessed something incriminating had turned up.

  “Reed,” Jerry snapped, getting to his feet. Everything about him was nervous and defensive. That doubled when he turned his narrowed dust-gray eyes on Livvy. “Sergeant Hutton. I’m guessing you’re responsible for this visit because Reed knows Jonah didn’t have anything to do with what went on in his cabin.”

  “Is that true?” Livvy asked the rancher.

  Jonah stayed seated and didn’t seem nearly as ruffled as Jerry. “I understand you found a piece of cloth.”

  Reed groaned and didn’t even bother to ask who’d told the man, but he’d ask Kirby about it later. His deputy apparently hadn’t kept quiet as Reed had ordered.

  Livvy set the equipment bag on the porch steps and took out the bagged swatch of fabric. She held it up
for the men to see. “Does this belong to you?”

  “Don’t answer that,” Jerry insisted. He wagged his finger at Reed. “First you accuse Woody of wrongdoing, and now Jonah? Am I next?”

  “That’s entirely possible,” Reed calmly answered. “The investigation’s not over. Who knows what I’ll be able to dig up about you.”

  “And everybody else in town?” Jerry tossed back.

  “No. Just the folks with motive to kill Marcie. Like you, for instance. I can’t imagine you were happy when she showed up, ready to testify against you. And you couldn’t have been pleased about it, either,” Reed added, tipping his head toward Jonah.

  Jerry aimed his comments at Livvy. “Marcie could testify all she wanted, but that doesn’t mean Jonah and I did anything wrong.”

  “You’re talking to the wrong person,” Jonah told his lawyer. A faint smile bent the corner of Jonah’s mouth. “Reed’s in charge of this investigation, aren’t you? The Rangers don’t have a lot of faith in Sergeant Hutton.”

  Reed didn’t have to look at Livvy to know that brought on a glare.

  “Oh, they trust her,” Reed corrected before Livvy could get into a battle of words with Jonah and Jerry. “The only reason I’m in charge is because the Rangers believe I know folks around here well enough that I can help Livvy get to the truth. And one way or another, we will get to the truth,” Reed warned.

  Jerry motioned toward the road. “You’re looking for truth in the wrong place. Neither one of us had anything to do with Marcie’s death.”

  Reed stepped closer, making sure he got way too close to Jerry. He knew Jerry wouldn’t like that. For lack of a better word, the man was anal. Everything in its place. Everything normal. It wouldn’t be normal for Reed to get in his face.

  “Jerry, if I thought for one minute you were innocent in all of this, I wouldn’t be talking to you. I believe you’re just one step above being a snake-oil salesman. One step,” Reed emphasized, showing him a very narrow space between his thumb and index finger. “And I think you’d kill Marcie in a New York minute and then come here and pretend that you need to defend your old friend Jonah.”

  That caused the veins to bulge on Jerry’s forehead, and he opened his mouth, no doubt to return verbal fire.

  “Jerry, why don’t you head back to your office?” Jonah ordered. “Just use the code I gave you to open the gate.”

  “I’d rather stay here,” Jerry insisted, glaring at Reed.

  Jonah angled his eyes in Jerry’s direction. “And I’d rather you didn’t. Go ahead. Head on out.”

  But Jerry didn’t. Not right away. It took Jerry turning to Jonah, probably to plead his case as to why he should stay, but Jonah’s eyes held no promise of compromise.

  “Leave now,” Jonah growled.

  That sent Jerry cursing and storming off the porch and toward his silver-gray Mercedes. He gave Reed and Livvy one last glare before he got in, slammed the door and sped off.

  Jonah calmly picked up his glass of iced tea and had a sip. He looked at Reed over the top of his glass that was beaded with moisture. “That fabric you found—it came from a shirt I used to own.”

  “Used to own?” Livvy questioned.

  Jonah lazily set the glass aside as if he had all the time in the world. “I did some spring cleaning about two weeks ago and sent a bunch of old clothes to the charity rummage sale the church put on. That shirt was just one of the things I donated.”

  Well, there had been a rummage sale two weeks ago, but Reed had never known Jonah to be a charitable man.

  “You donated it,” Livvy repeated. “That’s convenient.”

  “It’s the truth.” Jonah didn’t smile, but there was a smug look on his face. He took a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Reed. “That’s a copy of the things I donated.”

  Reed glanced over the dozen or so items, all clothing, and there were indeed three shirts listed on the tax receipt form.

  Livvy leaned over and looked at it as well. “I don’t suppose the church group would know who bought the shirt.”

  “No need,” Jonah said before Reed could answer. “I already know because I saw him wearing it in town just a couple of days ago. I guess some people don’t have any trouble with hand-me-downs.”

  Reed waited. And waited. But it was obvious Jonah was going to make him ask. “Who bought the shirt?”

  “Shane’s father, Ben Tolbert.”

  If Jonah had said any other name, Reed would have questioned it, but Ben probably did buy his clothing at rummage sales. Better yet, Ben had a powerful motive for burning down that cabin and Livvy’s SUV.

  Shane.

  Ben wasn’t a model citizen, but no one in Comanche Creek could doubt that he loved his son. Add to that, Ben did have a record and had been arrested several times. Nothing as serious as this, though.

  “I already called Ben,” Jonah continued, “and he didn’t answer his phone. When you get a chance to talk to him, tell him I’m none too happy with him burning down my place and that I’m filing charges. I want his butt in a jail cell next to his murdering son.”

  Reed figured it was a good thing that Jonah’s own son, Trace, wasn’t around to hear his dad call Shane a killer. Trace and Shane had been friends since childhood, and Reed knew for a fact that Trace believed Shane to be innocent and had even tried to pay for a big-time lawyer to be brought in if the case went to trial.

  “If I find out you’re lying about Ben having the shirt, then you’ll be the one in a jail cell next to Shane,” Reed warned.

  “And I’ll be the one right there to make sure you’re fired,” Jonah warned back. “I won’t be railroaded into taking the blame for something your own deputy and his loony father have done.”

  Since Reed knew there was no benefit to continuing this discussion, he turned and motioned for Livvy to follow him. “I need to talk to Ben before I go any further with this,” Reed told her when they were a few yards away from the porch. He could practically feel Jonah staring holes in his back.

  “If Ben doesn’t corroborate Jonah’s story about the shirt, will you be able to get a search warrant?” Livvy asked.

  “Yeah. But it wouldn’t do any good. If Jonah set those fires, then trust me, that shirt is long gone.”

  “True. He doesn’t seem like the kind of man to keep incriminating evidence lying around.” Livvy shrugged. “Which makes me wonder why he would have worn such a recognizable shirt to commit a crime.”

  Reed could think of a reason—to throw suspicion off himself by drawing attention to himself. A sort of reverse psychology. Still, that didn’t mean Jonah hadn’t hired someone to wear that shirt and destroy the evidence.

  “I’ll talk to Shane,” Reed assured her. “He might know something about all of this.”

  “And he’d be willing to incriminate his father?”

  “He has in the past. Three years ago when Ben got drunk and trashed some cars in the parking lot of the Longhorn Bar, Shane arrested him.”

  “Yes, but this is different. This is a felony. His father could go to jail for years.”

  Reed couldn’t argue with that. But if Shane couldn’t or wouldn’t verify the shirt issue, then there were other ways to get at the truth, even if it meant questioning everyone in town.

  “Look,” Livvy said. She pointed to a storage barn in the pasture to their right.

  Reed immediately saw what had captured her attention. There were several traps hanging on hooks. Traps that looked identical to the one someone had set near the cabin.

  “You think they’ll have serial numbers or something on them to link them to the other one?” she asked.

  “Possibly. But even if they do and if they match the one we found, Jonah could say he set the trap because he owned the property and was having trouble with coyotes or something.”

  She shook her head. “But I have the feeling the trap was set for us. For me,” Livvy softly added. “Someone in Comanche Creek doesn’t want us to learn the trut
h about what happened to Marcie.”

  Reed had a bad feeling that she was right.

  He thought about her alone at night in the inn and considered repeating his offer for her to stay at his place. She’d refuse, of course. Probably because she knew that would lead to a different kind of trouble. But even at the risk of Livvy landing in his bed, he wanted to do more to make sure she stayed safe while working on this case.

  Reed mentally stopped.

  Cursed.

  “What’s wrong?” Livvy asked, firing glances all around as if she expected them to be ambushed.

  Reed wasn’t sure this would sound any better aloud than it did in his head. “I’m thinking about staying at the inn. Just until this case is wrapped up.”

  She stopped, turned and stared at him. “And the profanity wasn’t because of the element of danger. You know that being under the same roof with me isn’t a good idea.”

  He tried to shrug. “Depends on what you consider a good idea.”

  Her stare turned flat. “Having a one-night stand with you wouldn’t be a good idea. Or even a two-night stand, for that matter. Besides, you wouldn’t even make the offer to stay at the inn if I were a man.”

  “True,” he readily admitted. “But if you were a man, I wouldn’t be torn between wanting you and protecting you.”

  She huffed and started to walk again. She was trying to dismiss all of this. But Reed figured the time for dismissing was long gone.

  “My advice?” she said, her voice all breathy and hot. “We forget that kiss ever happened.”

  “Right.” And he hoped his dry tone conveyed his skepticism. He’d have an easier time forgetting that he was neck-deep in a murder investigation. “We’ll head back to the jail and talk to Shane about his father.”

  And once they’d done that, he’d think about his possible upcoming stay at the inn.

  The cattle gates were wide open when they approached them. Jerry had no doubt left in a huff, especially since Jonah had essentially told him to get lost. That was something else Reed needed to give some thought. If Jonah hadn’t wanted Jerry there in the first place, then what had the man been doing at Jonah’s ranch? Reed trusted Jerry even less than he did Jonah, and he hoped Jerry hadn’t made the visit because he had something to plot with Jonah.