The Sheriff of Shelter Valley

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Without a word he closed his arms around her, pulling her so tight against him she could hardly breathe.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her lips against his throat. Sorry for whatever Burt Culver was up to. And sorrier still for the things she couldn’t tell him.

  She felt terrible guilt about that. But worse, she felt terrible fear of what she didn’t know. Of whatever Greg might find out if she told him the truth, of what he might have to do with that knowledge. To her. And to Ryan.

  His arms tightened briefly. Then his touch changed, lightened. He was cradling her, holding her, not hugging her. She could feel his heart beating beneath the palm she had on his chest. Felt the beat grow heavier. Faster.

  She knew what that meant.

  It was no surprise when his lips came down over hers, possessing hers. His kiss was not tentative. Or searching. It was the kiss of a man who desired the woman he held. Desired her deeply.

  Beth desired him, too. Just as deeply.

  Opening her mouth, Beth not only gave Greg everything he asked, she participated in the exploration. She’d been starving herself, denying every single personal need she’d had for so long, she just couldn’t do it anymore. Not when allowing herself to need Greg was helping him, too.

  She ran her hands over his shoulders, the cool cotton of his uniform shirt like a soft sheet beneath her fingers. She knew that whatever life asked of her from here on out, she’d always be thankful she’d known these moments. A perfect merging of body and mind. No, not mind so much as feeling.

  Her unrestrained fingers wove themselves through his hair, satisfaction shooting through her as the strands curled around her fingers, almost as though they were holding her there, a part of him.

  “Do you have any idea how good that feels?” he groaned, burying his face in her neck.

  Beth didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She just felt. And allowed those feelings to carry her…

  He needed her touch. Needed reassurance in a world gone crazy with broken promises and broken rules. She knew he wanted to lose himself in the flames that had been smoldering between them for months.

  God help her, Beth needed that, too. She was living on the edge. Her time could be up any day. She was fighting for the strength to endure, to shoulder her burdens and make the right decisions.

  She needed him as badly as he needed her.

  His hands skimmed her sides, touching her breasts, moving over her ribs, her waist, down to her hips, pulling her against the rock-hard length beneath the zipper of his slacks.

  Still fully clothed, Beth unfastened the top button of his uniform shirt. Driven by an almost panicked urgency, she didn’t listen to the voice of reason, or of caution. She didn’t listen to any voices at all. She just kept unbuttoning as quickly as her trembling fingers could manage, revealing his muscular chest, and when she’d unfastened enough buttons, she pulled the shirt open, discovering his tight little nipples, dipping her head to run her tongue over them.

  Greg groaned, tightening his hold on her hips, increasing her desperation. And then he relaxed his hands.

  “If you don’t stop that, I’m not going to be able to stop at all.”

  His voice was so husky she hardly recognized it. Beth wanted to pretend she hadn’t heard him. To just kiss her way down his body and not be accountable at all. But no matter how intense her passion, she wasn’t made that way. Couldn’t be so irresponsible.

  She also couldn’t bear the thought of his leaving there tonight without making love to her first. As life in Shelter Valley continued and nothing happened—she wasn’t finding herself or being found—she felt more and more uncertain, as though each day was a gift and she couldn’t count on the next. She was consumed by the fear that if she didn’t take this chance, she’d never have the opportunity again.

  She lifted her head from his chest, then slid down between his legs until her knees touched the floor. She met his gaze directly. The desire she read there, the fact that he wasn’t even attempting to bank it, had her belly spiraling with heat even as she attempted to calm herself, to think straight.

  “I want to make love to you.”

  His words made it hard for her to think at all. “Nothing’s changed.” She wasn’t even sure what the words meant. Only that she had to say them. “I can’t make any promises beyond this moment.”

  He surveyed her silently for longer than she thought she could stand. Yet, because of her hope that the night might not be ending, she withstood the scrutiny.

  “Can’t make promises because you can’t? Or because you don’t want to?”

  “Because I can’t.” It was painful to look at him. The thought of looking away was unbearable.

  “But you want to.”

  “I want to be able to.”

  He nodded, looking like the sheriff hero of some western film, as he lay there sprawled on her cheap used couch with his shirt undone and that holster still hanging by his side.

  “It’s more than just sex,” he said.

  “Far more.” Beth couldn’t believe how great it felt to have something about which she could be totally honest.

  “I’m a fool to let you do this to me,” he said, his voice seductive. He pulled her up. Kissed her gently. “To accept your secrets…”

  Beth kissed him back. Shivered when he ran his tongue along her lips. “There are so many things I don’t understand,” she said, acutely feeling the pain—and the ecstasy—of loving him. “But I can promise you that as soon as I do, you’ll be the first to know.” It was a promise she meant to keep. No matter what.

  “Why—” he kissed her “—can’t you—” he kissed her again “—let me help you understand them?” He asked the question, but prevented her from answering with a kiss that took away any chance she had of regaining control.

  Beth Allen, or whoever she was, was about to have sex for the first time since she’d come into being.

  GREG KNEW DAMN WELL he shouldn’t do this. Even as he kissed Beth, kissed her and made himself senseless, he couldn’t escape the foreboding sense of wrong. Wrong timing. Wrong circumstances.

  But not wrong woman.

  That was what drove him. Beth was the right woman for him. He had control over so little where she was concerned. Certainly not her and—as he’d just begun to realize—not himself, either. His heart had given itself away in spite of his repeated warnings.

  If he could at least have this, the most intimate communication there was between two people, if he could feel they’d shared something that was for the two of them alone, he would have one certainty to hold on to.

  He stripped her slowly, reaching beneath her shirt to undo her bra, pulling it off through the sleeve of her sweatshirt. As their eyes met and held, his hands cupped her breasts through the shirt.

  “You have the most perfectly shaped breasts,” he whispered, and welcomed the ache in his groin when her eyes darkened.

  Lifting her shirt, he exposed her womanliness. His entire body was heavy with desire as he gazed at the white skin contrasted with the dark nipples that tightened while he watched.

  “You don’t have a bedroom where we can shut the door.” That had just occurred to him when he’d realized that what he wanted to do next was pull that shirt right off her. “Ryan’s way too young to get this kind of education.”

  “It’s okay.” She cleared her throat but her next words were just as husky. “He can’t climb out of his crib yet. If he wakes up, he’ll call out to me.”

  Greg did not even recognize the man who stripped off Beth’s clothes and his own, then donned a condom without any finesse at all. He was taken off guard by the energy that coursed through him so strongly. Despite that, he could slow down, caress her gently, bring her to the same point as he. Lying back on the couch, he lifted her up.

  Then he lowered her immediately, sheathing his aching penis inside her. He had to stop for a second, not just because she was so tight and he didn’t want to hurt her, not even because she was so tight
and he didn’t want to come immediately, but because she felt so incredibly good. He needed to savor that moment. To remember it always. To know how glorious it felt to be part of her, and she of him.

  Beth groaned, fell forward until she was lying on his chest, planting her breasts against him, and began to rock. She loved him confidently, sliding along him with exquisite slowness, then knowing just when to move harder, faster, and when to use slow, seductive strokes.

  I love you. The words repeated themselves over and over in his mind. She raised her upper body, and Greg suckled her nipple, briefly afraid that he’d said them aloud.

  She was seductress and nurturer all at once, and he couldn’t get enough. Couldn’t possess enough of her or give enough of himself. He felt the orgasm coming and tried desperately to hang on. He didn’t want this experience to end. Didn’t want to return to the real world—a place where he didn’t share her life.

  And then he felt her tightening around him, her body pulsating with the power of release, and he spilled himself inside her, the spasms coming over and over again. In his mind there were shouts of incredible bliss, a brilliance beyond anything he could imagine, an awareness that he was someplace he’d never been before.

  The end was different, too. Instead of deflation settling in, leaving him tired and ready for sleep, a serene joy spread through him. It gave him a sense of great peace. I love you, his mind said. Over and over. I love you, Beth.

  And in that moment of grand awareness, he was almost able to pretend that she loved him back.

  BETH CRAWLED INTO BED sometime in the small hours of the morning. Her body was sore in places she’d hardly noticed before, and that made her feel fully alive for the first time since Beth Allen had come into existence. Her skin, her nerves, were tingling with an awareness of what she’d just done. She felt healthier. Stronger. Calmer. And strangely, like she’d just done something she’d been commanded to do.

  Suddenly shaking, cold sweat breaking out while the skin of her face burned so hot it was scaring her, Beth sat straight up.

  Commanded to do?

  What an odd thought to have. An incredibly frightening thought, somehow. Where had it come from?

  Why did it feel so real? As though having sex because she’d been told to was a natural part of her life?

  Who would have commanded her to have sex? And why?

  God forbid, had she been a prostitute? Had it been her pimp who’d beaten her up? Was he the person she’d been running from? Trying to save her son from being part of such a sordid life?

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to return to the state of mind she’d been in seconds before, when the commandment thought had slipped out. She tried to recapture anything at all that might have been there. To get even a single clue to the truth.

  And found nothing.

  Great big damn nothing.

  “I hate you,” she whispered to the woman she’d once been, as tears dripped from her eyelids. “I hate you so much.”

  But whoever was hiding inside her didn’t respond. That person remained numb and uncaring.

  She eventually lay back down, automatically using relaxation techniques, and eventually drifted off to sleep.

  If she had any dreams, she didn’t remember them in the morning.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  PUTTING PUZZLES TOGETHER might be a pastime for some. For Greg it was, in every sense, a vocation. Standing over the card table in his office, he studied the thousand pieces of a jigsaw rendition of cops’ badges Katie had given him for his birthday a couple of months before. Bonnie had special-ordered it from a puzzle club she’d joined just for the purpose of keeping Greg challenged. Shaped like a badge, with no clearly defined edge pieces, it’d been a hell of a thing to get started.

  The going was faster now that he was three-quarters of the way done.

  Greg found the piece he’d spent at least an hour searching for—if he added up all the moments like this one, when he wandered over from his desk. A small piece, it had a rounded top and two interlocking notches. Its bottom left corner had the distinct darker silver that indicated it belonged to a badge on the right side of the puzzle.

  Sliding the piece into place brought him great satisfaction.

  With a few phone calls first thing that morning, he’d found it surprisingly easy to learn most of what he’d wanted to know about the Bloodhounds, the gang that, according to Len Wagner, had taken over Rabbit Rock ten years before. They’d been based out of Hohokom High School, and while no charges had ever officially been brought against them, they’d had the reputation of being one of the roughest gangs in Phoenix. They’d been accused of drug dealing, robbery, even rape, although no decisive proof had ever materialized. Obviously their leader had been a professional. Knew what he was doing. And how to get away with it.

  Then, ten years before, the gang had indeed disbanded, just as Len had reported. There’d been no record of any connection to car crimes in the gang’s history. No police intervention, period, which made the whole disbanding appear odd.

  As far as Greg was concerned, too odd.

  He was looking for a piece with a pear-shaped prong. A light-silver tip. He picked one up.

  Piece in hand, he strode across the tile floor to his desk. He had an old buddy from the Phoenix police department on the phone in ten seconds.

  “Cliff, check something for me,” he said without introduction or other social preamble.

  “Sure, what’ve you got?”

  “I need a list of possible members of a gang called the Bloodhounds. They reportedly disbanded about ten years ago.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Back at the puzzle, Greg put in his second piece of the morning. A good sign; his luck was changing.

  Third piece in hand, he stopped to stare out the window. He knew he’d make headway on his father’s case. The sky was more blue, the sun more vibrant.

  Greg’s heart was lighter than it had ever been.

  He’d made love with Beth. She’d let him see her naked. Touch her. Love her. She’d given herself to him in the most ultimate sense.

  Life was good.

  His phone rang. “I think I have what you’re looking for.” It had taken Cliff an hour.

  “What?” He hadn’t known for sure that he was looking for anything.

  “Don’t know how any of this connects, but one of my sources from Hohokom High tells me Colby Foltz was a member of the Bloodhounds at the time they disbanded.”

  Dropping the puzzle piece, Greg frowned. “Foltz?” he asked. “Any relation to Hugh?”

  “Kid brother.”

  “Foltz never mentioned him.”

  “Didn’t know him well,” Cliff said. “Story goes that after her divorce, Mrs. Foltz moved to Phoenix with her youngest son. Hugh didn’t see him much.”

  I’ll be damned. Greg kept his breathing steady. “Thanks, man, I owe you one.”

  “Yeah, right,” Cliff said. “In a million years maybe…”

  Ignoring the puzzle piece on his desk, Greg hung up the phone and sat down.

  A powerful street gang disbands for no apparent reason. A sheriff’s younger brother is a member. There’s a carjacking involving the father of one of that sheriff’s deputies.

  The sheriff’s younger brother. A powerful street gang disbands.

  Burt Culver, a man with no family, a man married to his job, a man whose superior was his closest friend.

  A hermit who’d talked to the sheriff. An ex-football player who’d talked to Culver.

  Dazed, Greg continued to sit at his desk. There were still some missing pieces. Like why a gang as professional and able as the Bloodhounds had resorted to carjacking. There were easier ways to make money. A lot more money…

  And what kind of connection could there be between the current string of carjackings and a gang that had been disbanded for ten years?

  How deep into this was Culver?

  All were questions that needed answers. But at this point they were me
rely inconveniences, not problems.

  Greg had the important answers. Before this day was out, he was going to be well on his way to avenging the senseless waste of his father’s life.

  He had to call Beth. And Bonnie. To let out a victory cheer.

  Except that following too closely on its heels was a howl of anger. The pain of betrayal made a far greater impact than the satisfaction of victory.

  He had to get Burt Culver off the streets.

  And pay a visit to his mentor and predecessor, Hugh Foltz—a man he’d spent most of life admiring. A man who’d covered up the crime that had killed Greg’s father.

  And Culver—all those times he’d come to see Dad. Sat in his house, ate at his table…

  Insides shaking with dangerous emotion, Greg made himself stay at his desk, weighing the facts, formulating a logical plan of action. The weight of the holster on his hip was a reminder of who he was. What he could and could not—would and would not—do.

  Perhaps another puzzle piece or two was his best choice for a first move. Picking up the piece he’d dropped, Greg still didn’t get up. His heart wasn’t in the completion of a jigsaw puzzle. His mind raged too fast to allow for the quiet contemplation that accompanied puzzle building.

  Instead of adding another piece to the badge puzzle, Greg stared sightlessly at the small stack of mail lying on his desk. A missing person postcard was on top; he recognized the familiar layout.

  He got them all the time. They were part of a national program and had nothing to do with him or his job. They were sent biweekly to all Arizona mailing addresses in the hope that someone, somewhere, might recognize the person in the picture. Nine times out of ten they depicted children, and most often the disappearances involved known abductions, frequently due to custody disputes.

  Out of habit, and because he was still too filled with energy to make his next move, Greg picked up the card and looked at it. Chances were slim that he’d ever be instrumental in finding any of these poor children, or in the arrest of someone vile enough to steal a child from home, but he looked diligently. Every two weeks. Every time the card came.