Something About a Lawman

by Em Petrova

  Hoyt and Madison took up a conversation, allowing Aiden time to think… about Amaryllis and how soon she’d be in Crossroads. Rain and wind battered the front of the diner. He hoped she really had that rock-solid constitution her reputation said she did. The mountains of Wyoming could be a bitch on a good day, but in this storm, she was in for a hell of a drive.

  * * * * *

  Amaryllis was accustomed to small-town Podunk sheriff’s offices, but this one took the prize. The building sported peeling gray paint and a front door with a dent or five that looked to be from some harsh kicks. A few small windows were set into the front, but they couldn’t offer much light.

  She glanced around at the vehicles in the parking lot. Same as Texas—trucks in various states of hard use. Judging by the hints of rust, most had a lot of miles on them.

  She turned for the front door. Inside, a petite woman sat behind the desk, the phone pasted to her ear. When she spotted Amaryllis, her mouth dropped in an O. Moving the phone away from her ear, she said, “You must be Ms. Long.”

  “Amaryllis, please.” She gave her a smile.

  “We didn’t expect you so soon. Thought you’d have a nice lie-in after that terrible drive you must have had yesterday.”

  “I’m fine.” Amaryllis offered her a smile.

  “The sheriff’s out right now.”

  “That’s okay. All I need is Roshannon.”

  “Well, he’s flitting around here somewhere. Check his office.” She pointed and Amaryllis nodded in thanks. “Nice meeting you!” the secretary called.

  She raised a hand in acknowledgement and wove around office furniture to get to the space that was Aiden Roshannon’s office. Closet, more like. The space barely fit a desk, a chair and a wastebasket, which was emptied. And his desk was neat with small stacks of papers in the corner and a pen cup.

  No photos, no personal belongings. Nothing to show her a glimpse of the man she was going to spend her days with.

  “Hello.” The deep voice sent a spark of electricity through her. She turned to the doorway to find Aiden Roshannon. Taller than she’d guessed, wearing the same battered black hat he had been on their video call. His gray eyes seemed to slice through her.

  A flutter in her chest had her breath catching. What the hell was that about?

  “Your eye’s healing.”

  He blinked and then a ghost of a smile touched his lips. His hard, perfect lips. A crease extended from the corner of his mouth up into his cheek. He fingered the edge of his eye. “Yep, I’m a fast healer. Should be gone by week’s end.”

  She thrust out her hand. “Amaryllis Long.”

  An odd familiarity came over her. Like she’d known him much longer and not only spoken a few times on the phone or seen each other once on a computer screen. In person, he was more ruggedly handsome. Bigger. Smelled good too.

  Dang, why did her body have to wake up now? It had been in a state of dormancy for months and months. Not only asleep but in a coma.

  Probably because the male specimens she encountered did nothing for her.

  He dropped an appraising look over her. A slow dip of his eyes from face to body that felt like a physical touch. He took her hand, enveloped it in his big, rough one, and shook it like he would a man’s as he looked her in the eyes.

  Exactly what she wanted—to be treated no different than any man Roshannon would meet. So why did she feel like drawing her hand free and going outside to get her bearings for a minute?

  She must still have trauma from that horrible flight. No other reason for her behavior or odd thinking.

  “Aiden Roshannon.” Damn, the man spoke his name like the military man he’d been.

  She let go of his hand and leaned back against his desk. His closeness and the small office was definitely affecting her. She thought about climbing over his desk and putting distance between them.

  “How long you been working with rustlers?” she asked.

  He lifted a shoulder and let it fall, making his T-shirt seem about to burst at the seams. She tried not to look at the flex of muscle—the man was stacked with it. Did the Marines have some new training regimen that layered men with an inhuman amount of muscle these days?

  “Been working here little more than a year. Before that I was working with a different kind of rustler.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, ones carrying assault rifles.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” She tried to pretend she knew little of him, but why? She wasn’t the type of woman to pretend ignorance on any topic. Aiden Roshannon was throwing her off balance, and she had no damn reason for it.

  “And you’ve been with the Rangers five years.”

  “That’s right.” She sized him up. Could he handle her methods of tracking down criminals? “Well, now that we’re acquainted in person, let’s get straight to it.” She stepped up to the door to pass through. He was close, so close she caught the piney scent coming off his body.

  Aiden looked down at her, and she fought the urge to step back, to look away. Dammit, why was she reacting to him this way?

  Lifting a brow, she waited for him to step aside and let her pass. He arched his brow right back at her. A heartbeat passed between them and then he moved aside, sweeping his arm toward the door in a gentlemanly gesture.

  “Thanks,” she muttered. Her strides couldn’t be long enough to get her outside fast enough. She could use the breathing room.

  “Which truck is yours?” she asked, knowing he was right behind her.

  “Black one there.”

  One of the newer ones, well-kept with a new wax job. She tried not to be impressed by silly things like how neat he kept his office or his vehicle. She’d worked with some real slobs in her time and those things had become pet peeves for her, especially when she was climbing into the passenger seat of a dirty truck littered with fast food bags.

  She strode to the truck, opened the door and climbed behind the wheel.

  “What do you think you’re doin’?” He stood at the door, on eye level with her, his gray eyes narrowed.

  Pine scents hit her again.

  “Driving,” she responded.

  “You don’t know where you’re going and we don’t have a plan together yet.”

  “We can pull it together on the road. Besides, I’ve got a GPS on my phone.”

  He stopped short of rolling his eyes. “You don’t know these parts.”

  She stared at him. “I was hired to do this job.”

  “Then get your own truck. I’m drivin’, woman.”

  She offered him a mocking, toothy smile.

  He stepped back to give her room to jump out again. While she walked around the rear of the truck, she swore she felt his gaze burning holes in her back.

  Or maybe her backside?

  He got in and started the truck before she was seated.

  “Guess we’re jumping right into work.” He gripped the wheel.

  “Time’s a-wasting. You’ve got a lot of angry ranchers with their hopes pinned on you solving these cases.”

  She barely got her seatbelt fastened before he was backing out onto the road. She’d seen a bit of the town but hadn’t ventured far in her rental car. “Where are we headed?”

  “Where were you planning to go once you were behind the wheel?” He sent her a long look across the cab of the truck.

  Now that she was seated next to him, she realized how overwhelming he was. It wasn’t his size—there were bigger men out there. But he packed a huge Texas-style wallop. Could be a chip on his shoulder, but she’d worked with worse.

  “I have some ideas where to start.”

  “Hmph.” He pushed the sound through his chest, which seemed to rumble the airwaves throughout the truck cab. Her nipples puckered at the vibration. Damn. She stared out the windshield. What the hell was up with her body?

  Recovering her brainwaves, she asked, “What’s your plan, Roshannon?”

  “A neighbor of one of the ranchers never seems to b
e home when I call. Jack Mitchell’s his name. It’s about time I run him to earth.”

  “Good start.”

  She didn’t want to say she had the same plan in mind—to speak with the neighbor. Since nobody had any information from that man, she thought it was a little fishy. Maybe Roshannon wasn’t such a newbie as she’d thought.

  But that didn’t make him different. Like the others she’d worked with, he didn’t bother asking her ideas on the case. Well, she’d go along for the ride, for now. When they found the neighbor, she might change her mind about that.

  * * * * *

  The damn woman was as gorgeous as she’d been onscreen, and then some. Curves for miles, her hips something a man could grab onto and use to drag her down on his hard cock.

  She had an air of confidence Aiden hadn’t seen in the women he’d been around. Something about her seemed earthy, like she could be happy grabbing a backpack and setting out across the country on foot. At the same time, the way she held herself gave him the idea she was well-traveled. Or an Army brat.

  He tried to keep his gaze from straying to her as he drove, but he was distracted as hell by those strawberry blonde waves and deep chocolate eyes. Not to mention the smattering of freckles across her nose, cheeks and forehead.

  Finding her standing in his office had thrown him for a twist. He liked his space private, and nobody went in there unless invited. Then she’d gotten behind the wheel of his truck.

  As if she owned it.

  He worked his molars together until he felt his jaw cramp. She was a piece of work, for sure. Her believing she could drive his truck was a liberty he would not stand for.

  He had no idea how to speak to a woman like Amaryllis. She sat there in silence, legs crossed in a relaxed pose, gazing out the window at the landscape as if she hadn’t a care in the world and no need to make small talk with a stranger like him.

  Yet he had to break the ice. He wasn’t a chatty man but if they were spending long days together, he couldn’t do it in complete silence. He fished around for something to say.

  “Have you been to Wyoming before?”

  She shook her head. “Spent about four months in Colorado last year, but I’m mostly a Southerner.”

  She had a lilting drawl that coiled his body into a knot.

  Maybe he didn’t want to hear her talking a lot, after all.

  “What do you think of Wyoming?” He navigated a hairpin bend that backtracked around the mountain. The rancher experiencing the theft and neighbor they’d be speaking to owned land that backed right up against the mountain like a tail on a dog.

  Amaryllis smoothed her long hair over her shoulder. “Doesn’t matter what I think of Wyoming, Roshannon. I have a job to do.”

  “That’s true.” Could she be any more contrary? It was a simple question.

  “Crap weather when you flew in probably didn’t help your opinion of the place.”

  “That’s true.” She echoed his words. Was she mocking him? He replayed her response in his head a few times, listening for sarcasm. He didn’t detect any, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t being… What was the word Judd had used? Intense.

  Aiden fell silent, his mind sidestepping to the case. Before he could conjure a thought on it, Amaryllis spoke.

  “What’s the head count up to now? Nineteen cows stolen and four dead?”

  “Five dead now. I was out half the night investigating it and helping the owner get the remains in a hole.” His eyes still felt grainy, despite a few rounds of eyedrops. If he closed his eyes, he swore he still saw the bright headlights of his truck trained on the butchered cow.

  Not butchered—slaughtered. The way they had gutted it and taken the back meat, leaving most of the cow on the road with flies buzzing around it... A damn shame. Luckily the rancher had a front-end loader and was able to dig a hole and also deposit the carcass in it without a lot of physical labor.

  Amaryllis pivoted in the seat to look at him, arms folded. Eyes flashing. “You didn’t fill me in on this new discovery.”

  “No time. You were eager to get on the road.”

  “You could have told me after we got in the truck.”

  He grunted. She was a piece of work, all right.

  “Who’s the owner of the latest cow killed?”

  “Cole.”

  She pressed her lips together. “That’s his second.”

  He had to hand it to her—she knew her stuff. He nodded. “Cole’s had two killings and one theft. They did some property damage stealing the cow, broke some fence.”

  It was her turn to grunt, but it was the sweetest, most feminine sound he’d ever heard. It made him think of steamy summer nights rolling on hot, twisted sheets.

  Or her taking his cat o’nine tails on her sweet ass.

  “Typical to cut fence. But I’ve seen worse for property damage.”

  Was this a pissing match? The whole I’ve-seen-worse-from-cattle-rustlers-than-you-have? He wasn’t entering that competition. She scooted forward in her seat. “How much farther?”

  He shot her an amused glance. “Don’t know these parts?”

  She narrowed her brown eyes. “Of course I don’t. But like I said, I can drive anywhere using a GPS.”

  He chuckled. “You can try, but it doesn’t always work here.”

  She waved a hand in dismissal.

  A smile tugged at his lips but he controlled his expression and kept a straight face. Last thing he wanted was for her to think he was laughing at her. Working together was going to be difficult enough.

  As they drove, silence fell between them. Oddly, it wasn’t entirely awkward. He could appreciate a woman who didn’t feel the need to chatter and fill every spare moment. In the years since he’d been in the service, he hadn’t had a regular girlfriend, but he slept with a few women after leaving the Marines. None of them were permanent girlfriend material, though a few of them had tried their hardest to keep him.

  And he, Judd and his cousin Wes had spent a few months in Chicago working with a security company when Aiden was between tours. The Chicago Underground had taught them all a thing or two, and Aiden had come back with experience as a Dom and a lot of ideas about what he wanted from a relationship. That narrowed down the pool of women he was willing to date.

  The road downgraded from asphalt to gravel to dirt. He took a right toward Jack Mitchell’s property. He’d been here before and knew where the worst of the ruts were, so he swerved around them. Amaryllis rocked in the passenger seat, taking it all in.

  From the corner of his eye, he caught the light bounce of her breasts and the way her hair swayed. He clenched his fingers around the wheel tighter. Thoughts of wrapping all that hair around his fist and yanking her head back while he cupped her full breast in his palm was not revolving around his head. Absolutely not. No way.

  Judd and Wes would chuckle if he could hear Aiden’s thoughts.

  “Hold on now.” The truck bumped in various potholes the size of landmines.

  Amaryllis shot him a glare.

  “What? I’m not doing this on purpose. Welcome to Wyoming. Where ranchers have better things to do than fill in the holes in their driveways.”

  “I can see working with you will be a challenge.”

  “Not if you can hold on tight.” His crooked grin couldn’t be disguised this time.

  She stared at him and then shook her head but grabbed the holy-shit handle. They hit the end of the road and the ranch spread before them. Rolling land for grazing and a long house sided in rough wood. Dogs barked and chased the truck. When he rolled to a stop, the dogs leaped at the passenger window like lions lunging at prey, barking, fangs bared in greeting.

  Aiden put the truck in park and sat back to see what Amaryllis would do. The few times he’d been to the property to question the owner, the dogs had tried their damnedest to run him off.

  To his surprise, she opened her door and stepped out. The dogs surrounded her but she just held out her hands and let them sniff her. A
snarl sounded from one, but she closed the truck door and walked off toward the house without a care.

  These animals had been trained to protect their land, and they circled her like vultures on fresh meat. Amaryllis continued to walk, ignoring the hounds as she made her way forward.

  He’d hand it to her—she was a tough little shit.

  Aiden got out and hurried to catch up to her. One of the dogs snapped at him and he set a hand on his gun holster strapped across his hips. If one of them made a move to bite him or Amaryllis, he wouldn’t stand for it.

  The dogs paced around them, issuing guttural growls as they made their way onto the front porch. The place was clean, the porch free of the usual junk he saw people collect, like old tires and bits of farm equipment. About half the places he visited in these parts had toilets sitting around their front yards, some with flowers planted in the bowls but most with weeds growing around them.

  Amaryllis reached the front door and raised a hand to knock. The dogs jumped around her as if she’d raised a weapon to their master, and Aiden crowded in, set to protect her.

  She shot him a look.

  The second rap on the door was swallowed by more sounds of snarling dogs, and Amaryllis gripped the handle and turned it.

  His heart lurched. “What the hell’re you doing? You can’t just enter a Wyoming home without invitation or you’ll meet the barrel of a shotgun.”

  She arched a brow at him and called, “Hello?”

  A woman ran into the front room, her eyes wide at the gall of someone entering her home. She opened her mouth to speak, but the dogs were going nuts. She clapped her hand and they silenced instantly.

  “Hi, I’m Amaryllis Long and this is Aiden Roshannon. We had some questions for you about the terrible crime that was committed against one of your neighbors just last night. Have you heard of it?”

  The woman blinked at the sweetness of Amaryllis’s voice. She sounded like she was asking after the woman’s blue-ribbon-winning pickles.

  Amaryllis stepped farther into the space, and the dogs reacted. Aiden reached for his .40, but Amaryllis stopped him with a touch on his forearm. Then she boldly scratched the meanest, ugliest dog between the ears. In seconds it was pushing against her hand for more.