Gray Wolf Security: Wyoming

by Glenna Sinclair

  “If you’re wondering why I didn’t go home, it was because I had a girl in Santa Monica. We were to get married, so I settled there, but things changed.” His jaw tightened as he told me all that. It was clear that whatever changed was not pleasant. I felt a little awkward asking anything else, but I felt like, as the client, I had the right to know if this was his first case for Gray Wolf. I mean, this was my livelihood. It was everything. I rolled back on my heels a little.

  “I know you’re new to Sutherland’s security firm, but—”

  “I worked for Gray Wolf in Santa Monica.”

  “So, this isn’t your first case.”

  That was a relief.

  “It’s my first pretending to be someone’s husband, but not my first security case.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly feeling a little vulnerable and very awkward in the narrow hallway. He stood close to me that I could smell hints of his cologne. And the way he towered over me was intimidating.

  “I should go back to the front desk. We have a couple of reservations that haven’t arrived yet.”

  He stepped back against the wall to allow me to pass, but then he called out to me before I could escape.

  “Kirkland thought we might need these.”

  I turned and he was holding an open jeweler’s box with two wedding rings nestled inside. My heart kind of stuttered a little, watching this gorgeous man hold those rings in his masculine hand. Tears suddenly filled my eyes and I felt like an absolute fool. I’d wanted to get married someday. Despite my father’s on again, off again relationship with me and my mom, I wanted to marry and have a couple of kids. But when Momma got sick, I had to accept that some things were no longer an option. Marriage was one of those.

  Seeing those rings… it was just a concrete reminder of that fact, but I had to take one.

  I stepped forward and slipped the slimmer ring free of the box. I walked away without stopping to watch him put his on. That might have been the one nail in my coffin that would finally send me over the edge and I couldn’t go there.

  I stepped out of the apartment without saying a word to my mom and stopped in the hall, pressed my back against the wall, the heel of my hand in my mouth, and gave in to the tears that weren’t going to be ignored.

  How did my life become so pathetic?

  Chapter 4

  Grainger

  I walked into the small bedroom and ripped open the curtains. I don’t know what it was about these women, but every window in the house was covered with heavy drapes that wouldn’t allow a bit of natural light into the room. It made the place seem claustrophobic, even though it was a large place for being part of a motel office. But then I realized that this window looked out onto the building beside it, the west wing of the motel itself.

  I sighed and closed the drapes again.

  I went out the back door to get my bag out of the Bronco, determined to have a bath and a nap. I was exhausted. And this place… it was damn depressing! Between the harassment and the mother’s illness and this girl’s constant penchant for tears… I wasn’t sure I could survive it for longer than a few days.

  I climbed into the shower and found myself surrounded by Eve’s bathing crap. Strawberry body wash, a pink bar of soap that was probably strawberry, too. A huge bottle of shampoo that was also strawberry scented. The conditioner was coconut, but I was sure it was overpowered by strawberry. She had loofas and nail brushes and some sort of face scrub, too. Why? She didn’t look like the kind of girl who cared much about her appearance.

  She didn’t wear makeup. She was overweight—though I had to admit that the twenty or thirty pounds looked pretty good on her curves. Her hair was short, one of those haircuts that was designed to be wash and go. And her clothes were frumpy, jeans and oversized t-shirts that only added to her exaggerated curves. She wasn’t the kind of woman I would be attracted to if we just met on the street. She was about as far from Misty—my former fiancée—as a woman could get. Misty was blond and blue eyed, perfectly fit and she wore these tight pants and almost not there tops all the time. And her makeup was always perfect. She was a model, for Christ’s sake! Eve would never make it in Misty’s world.

  She did have pretty eyes, though. Hazel eyes that were more gold and green than anything else. Her hair was a deep brown with gold highlights. And she had this little upturned nose… but that wasn’t quite enough to make up for the lack of femininity.

  Not my kind of girl. Would anyone really believe that I’d moved my life all the way to Wyoming to be with her? I wouldn’t. No one who knew me would. But these hicks out here? They might.

  Idiots!

  I washed up and climbed out of the shower, once again wondering if I’d made a mistake coming all the way out there. I stared at myself in the mirror after wiping away the steam, thinking about Misty. If she hadn’t…

  I didn’t want to think about it.

  I dressed quickly and decided to go make myself a sandwich before I lay down for a nap. Rachel was still in front of the television, so memorized by The Match Game that she didn’t even notice me walking by. There was ham and turkey in the fridge, so I made myself a sandwich, assuming Eve wouldn’t mind. Rachel came into the room as I was slathering mayonnaise on the bread.

  “What the hell are you doing in here? You’re supposed to be outside fixing the gutters! Are we paying you to steal our food?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We hired you as a handyman, not a mooch!”

  “Ms. Spraberry,” I said as calmly and kindly as I could, “I’m not the new handy man. I’m your daughter’s husband.”

  The words felt alien on my lips, but it seemed like the easiest way to deal with this batty woman. I didn’t sign on to be a crazy woman’s babysitter. But, again, I didn’t sign on to be a plain woman’s husband.

  “My daughter?”

  “Eve.”

  The woman began to shake her head, but then something clearly clicked in her head.

  “Evie?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Evie.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “My Eve got married?”

  A little dread pumped its way through my chest. “Ms. Spraberry—”

  She shook her head, her eyes moving over my face more lucid than they’d seemed before. “Are you a good man?” she asked me softly.

  “I try.”

  “Good.”

  She turned away before I could say anything else. I assumed she was going back to her game show, so I finished my sandwich and settled in a chair at the old Formica table and dug into the food. I closed my eyes, savoring the first bite. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until just then. And hunger made everything taste like pure culinary gold.

  I was halfway through the sandwich, thinking I could handle this assignment. So, it wasn’t the ideal situation. It wasn’t even close. But it was a job and any job that paid the bills was good enough. Not that I had a lot of expenses, but my parents depended on the five or six hundred I could send home every month and I wasn’t about to start letting them down now.

  I had this brother… Tommy. Every penny helped.

  “What did you say to her?”

  I looked up, a little surprised by the pitch of Eve’s voice.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What did you say to my mother?” she demanded, her hands balled into fists at her sides as she stared down at me. And then she just spun around and began digging through drawers, tossing things asides, searching for something.

  “What’s going on?” I asked around the last bite of my sandwich.

  “She came out there—I should have locked the door. I don’t know why I didn’t lock the damn door! I always lock the door!”

  “Slow down,” I said, moving up beside her, watching her tear through another drawer.

  “She came out there, said something about going to see the doctor, and then she just walked out of the motel!” she slammed the drawer with her hip and moved on to another, throwing matchbooks and bread ti
es and rubber bands onto the floor. “I chased after her, but she got into a car down by the diner.”

  “Your mother? Why would she do that?”

  She glanced at me, the expression on her face telling me just how much of an idiot she thought I was. And then she went back to her digging.

  “Did you call the police?”

  “I called the sheriff, but it’ll take him a few minutes to get here.”

  “We should go look for her.”

  “Brilliant idea. But I have to wait for Marko to get here to watch the front desk and I need to talk to Steve…” She made a little growling sound. “Where the hell is that doctor’s card?”

  “This one?”

  I grabbed a business card off the little peg board that was hung beside the phone—a landline! Who had a landline anymore? She spun around and tore it out of my hand, grabbing the phone’s receiver to dial the number.

  “Answer the phone,” she muttered against the receiver.

  I snatched the phone from her just as a woman with a voice like honey answered on the other end.

  “Hello, yes, this is Grainger North. I’m Rebecca Spraberry’s son-in-law. Ms. Spraberry walked out of the apartment a few minutes ago, saying that she planned to come see the doctor. We were hoping you could keep an eye out for her and let us know if she shows up.”

  “Of course, Mr. North. We will be happy to do that.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  I hung up the phone and looked at Eve. She didn’t even stop to offer any gratitude. She walked off, storming out of the apartment and into the motel’s office.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” she was muttering under her breath. “She hasn’t done something like this in a long time.”

  “It’s the change. It’s throwing her off.”

  Eve glanced at me, again that look that suggested I had no idea what I was talking about. But before she could comment, a man in a sheriff’s uniform came through the front door.

  “Came as soon as I got the call, Evie,” the man said, concern written all over his face. He charged around the edge of the counter like he had every right to be close to her, drawing her into his arms with his hands on her shoulders. For a brief second, Eve let him hold her, but then she pulled back, a slight blush on her full cheeks. She brushed the longer strands of hair from the top of her head away from her forehead and sighed.

  “She just got in a car and took off. She’s never done anything like this before.”

  “Which direction did she go?”

  Eve pointed. “Toward Casper.”

  The cop nodded. “I’ll get a couple of guys to head out that way. Do you know where she might be going?”

  “She said something about her doctor. She was upset, said she wanted to talk to him about an assisted living center.”

  Steve frowned. “Was she having a lucid moment?”

  Eve shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay.” He touched her shoulder again, his thumb brushing her jaw. Eve pulled away, clearly not interested in his touch. It made me very curious about what might have, or was, going on between these two.

  I moved up behind her, slid my own hands over her shoulders.

  “I’m sure she’ll be okay, darling,” I said with as much charm as the situation seemed to warrant. “We’ll find her.”

  She hesitated just a second, but then she leaned back into my chest as she glanced a little uncertainly up into my face. I kissed the center of her forehead, catching her by surprise. But she didn’t react big, just a flash in her eyes that I’m sure I’m the only one to see. The cop was clearly surprised, though, his eyes narrowing as I made a point of looking him directly in the face.

  “Who’s this?” the cop demanded.

  Eve touched the ring she’d slid onto her finger, the simple gold band Kirkland had provided.

  “Steve, this is Grainger North. He’s my husband.”

  The cop reacted as though some invisible force had just punched him in the stomach. He stepped back, air whistling out of his chest. He was suddenly pale under his fake tan, his eyes wide as he studied my hands on her shoulders.

  “How… when did this happen?”

  “This morning,” I told him. “We met over Tinder and I drove up here from Santa Monica. We met in Casper and were married by the justice of the peace before coming home.”

  The cop shook his head, completely ignoring me as he stared at her. “That’s not possible. What about your mother? What about the motel? You never leave here.”

  “Angel covered for me,” she said, her voice a little weak with the lie.

  He shook his head again, but he couldn’t deny what was right in front of him. His gaze fell on the ring on my finger that matched hers—making me very grateful I hadn’t forgotten to put it on when I finished my shower. He waved his hand and I couldn’t miss the ring on his finger, a silver band that was clearly a symbol of the same commitment our rings were meant to represent.

  This whole thing—his clear jealousy and his possessiveness over Eve—very curious. And it made her so much more interesting to me than she’d been before.

  “Don’t you think you should be out looking for Rachel?” I asked politely.

  The questions seemed to bring the cop back into himself. He nodded, tugging at the radio mic that was attached to his shoulder. We listened as he called in the report Eve had just made to him. As he talked, a tall, dark man with aging bruises all over his face walked into the office.

  “Marko,” Eve sighed.

  She moved away from me and went to greet this new arrival, sliding her arms around his waist briefly. This man, too, was wearing a wedding ring.

  Was Eve involved with every married man in town?

  “Are you okay?” Marko asked. “Where did she go?”

  She shook her head. “She said something about going to see the doctor. We’re headed out to look for her now.”

  “Do what you need to do. Don’t worry about the motel.”

  “I’m sorry I had to pull you out of bed.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Just find her.”

  Eve nodded, glancing back at me before heading toward the door. We climbed into my Bronco and headed out, with Eve silently guiding me with little gestures here and there to point me in the right direction.

  “Marko’s the night manager, right?”

  I could feel her glance at me. “He is.”

  “And the bruises are part of this harassment campaign?”

  “Yeah. Jim Bob and another guy beat him up a couple of nights ago, when he tried to stop them from destroying our vending machines.”

  “And the cop?”

  She didn’t answer immediately, her eyes glued to the windshield. I knew she was desperately trying to find a sign of the car that took off with her mother inside, but I got the impression she was also trying to avoid answering my question.

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  “I get the impression the two of you were involved.”

  “No,” she said immediately, reaching up to brush at the sudden heat filling her cheek as she blushed. “We were never involved. Not really.”

  “Then why did he seem so possessive over you?”

  She sighed, clearly not happy with having to answer this question.

  “He and his wife were separated over the summer. He stayed at the motel for a few weeks and we… I guess you could call it a flirtation. But nothing really happened, and I put an end to it the moment he went back to his wife.”

  “I think you forgot to tell him it was over.”

  “Steve isn’t the kind of guy who likes to be told no.”

  I glanced over at her, wondering how plain the women in this town were for a married man to find this woman irresistible. Not that she wasn’t pretty. She just wasn’t the kind of woman I imagined when I thought about a powerful man’s mistress. And being the sheriff in a small town… that was probably as powerful as a man got.


  “Isn’t it a sin to have an affair with a married man?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, her fingers searching for something at her neck that wasn’t there.

  “We didn’t have an affair.”

  “A man doesn’t become that possessive over nothing.”

  “We talked. A lot.”

  “A man doesn’t become that possessive over a couple of conversations.”

  She glared at me. “Maybe you’ve never had a real conversation.”

  I chuckled softly, loving the little spark of temper.

  “Come on. You at least kissed him.”

  Her blush deepened and I knew I was right. But before I could ask anything else, she sat up a little straighter, leaning toward the windshield.

  “Stop!” she demanded.

  I saw her a second later. Her mother, her head held low, her feet shuffling, was walking along the side of the road.

  I pulled over a yard or two behind her. Eve jumped out of the Bronco before I even had a chance to put it in park. The moment she approached her mother, however, the woman panicked and started to run into traffic. The same traffic that was going along at eighty miles an hour. I jumped out of the car, the engine still idling, and grabbed her just before she stepped in front of a minivan filled with teenagers.

  “Let go of me!” she shrieked, slapping at my arms.

  I forced her off the road and whispered in her ear, my arms wrapped tightly around hers so that she couldn’t get away from me.

  “You’re okay, Rachel. You have to trust me. You are safe.”

  I just repeated those words over and over again until she began to calm down. She let me put her into the back of the Bronco and slip the seatbelt over her shoulder. Eve climbed in beside her, but she began to shake her head and cry.

  “I don’t know you,” she said over and over again.

  “Momma, it’s me,” Eve told her, trying to touch her, but the woman slapped at her hands, screaming.

  “I don’t know you!”

  Rachel was becoming hysterical. I had to climb into the back of the Bronco and pull her into a near stranglehold, had to put pressure on her carotid, to get her to calm down. The woman went limp in my arms, the reduction of air to her brain not hurting her, but knocking her unconscious harmlessly for a while.