Branded by the Sheriff

by Delores Fossen

  “Good,” she managed to answer. She tried to step away, but he held on. And she didn’t fight him.

  She was obviously losing her mind.

  “The Rangers dressed like security technicians so anyone looking wouldn’t realize the authorities had staked out the place.” He paused. His jaw muscles stirred. “There. That’s what I came to say. Now, let’s finish this.” He shook his head. Cursed. Shook his head again. And finally, he let go of her and took a step back. “This can’t happen between us.”

  “You’re right. It can’t.”

  Neither of them looked relieved.

  And neither of them looked as if they believed it.

  That tug inside her pulled harder. So hard that she moved away and returned to the window. She needed a few deep breaths before she could continue. “I want a different plan than the one the Rangers came up with.”

  He paused. Nodded. Nodded again. “I’m listening.”

  It took her a moment to realize that was all he was going to say. “Well, I don’t have a different plan,” she admitted. “I just want one.”

  “Welcome to the club. I sat up most of the night trying to make a list of options.”

  She huffed and glanced at her list. “Since Sgt. Caldwell made it clear that the Rangers don’t have the manpower to provide protection for Aubrey, Marita and me, I was thinking of hiring a private bodyguard from Harland Securities in San Antonio. A friend owns the company.”

  “Ross Harland,” Beck provided. “I’ve heard of him. He’s your friend?”

  “We used to date.” Though she had no idea why she’d just told him that, especially since things hadn’t ended that well between Ross and her. Ross might not even want to talk to her, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying. “I plan to call him this morning and ask if he can help.”

  “You mean so that Aubrey and you won’t be in my protective custody?”

  Suddenly, that made her feel a little petty, but she pushed the uncomfortable feeling aside. Who cared if he was insulted that she would look elsewhere for protection? “You said yourself the personal stuff keeps getting in the way.”

  His jaw muscles went to war. “I swore I’d protect Aubrey, and I will. I’ll protect you and Marita, too. There’s not enough personal stuff in the world to ever stop me from doing my job.”

  She believed him. More than she wanted to.

  Their eyes met again, and something circled around them. A weird intimacy. Something forged with all the emotion of the bad blood. And this bizarre attraction that had reared its hot, ugly head.

  Faith forced herself to look away. To move. She shook off the Beck Tanner hypnotic effect and reached for the phone to call Ross Harland. She pressed in the number to his office, hoping she remembered it correctly, and the call went straight to voice mail. It was still before normal duty hours.

  “Ross, this is Faith,” she said. “Please call me. I’m in LaMesa Springs, and my cell-phone service is spotty so if you can’t get through, you can reach me at the Bluebonnet Hotel.”

  She read off the number of the hotel phone and her room number and clicked the end call button just as the door to the suite burst open. The movement felt violent. And suddenly so did the air around them.

  The woman who rushed into the room was Nicole Tanner.

  Beck’s sister-in-law. Pete’s wife.

  Faith hadn’t seen the woman since the night of the motel incident, but Nicole hadn’t changed much. Sleek and polished in her high-end, boot-length, black duster, London blue pants and matching top. Her shoulder-length honey-blond hair was perfect. Not a strand out of place. She looked like the ideal trophy wife.

  Except for her eyes and face.

  The tears had cut their way through her makeup, leaving mascara-tinged streaks on her porcelain cheeks.

  “Nicole, what are you doing here?” Beck demanded.

  “Taking care of a problem I should have taken care of years ago.”

  And with that, Nicole took her hand from her coat pocket and aimed a slick, silver handgun right at Faith.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Hell.

  That was Beck’s first thought, right after the shock registered that his sister-in-law had obviously gone off the deep end. Now he had to diffuse this situation before it turned deadly.

  Beck stepped in front of Faith. He didn’t draw his weapon, though that was certainly standard procedure. Still, he couldn’t do that to Nicole.

  Not yet anyway.

  He lifted his hands, palms out, in a backup gesture. “Nicole, put down that gun.”

  Nicole shook her head and swiped away her tears with her left hand. “I can’t. I have to make her leave.”

  Beck could hear Faith’s raw breath and knew she was afraid, but that didn’t stop her from leaving the meager cover he’d provided her. She stepped out beside him.

  “Get back,” he warned her. “Nicole’s not going to shoot me,” he added. But he couldn’t say the same about what she might do to Faith. He didn’t want his sister-in-law to do anything stupid, and he didn’t want bullets flying with Aubrey just in the next room.

  He didn’t want Faith hurt, either.

  “I’m not leaving,” Faith said, though her voice trembled slightly.

  Man, it took courage to say that to an armed woman. Ill-timed courage.

  “Let me handle this,” he insisted. He then fastened his attention to Nicole. “You have to put the past behind you. Faith won’t cause you any more trouble.”

  Nicole’s hysteria increased. “She already has caused more trouble. Pete’s been up all night talking about her. You know how he is when he gets upset. He shuts me out, and he drinks too much.”

  Beck did know. Like Nicole, Pete had a low tolerance for certain kinds of stress, and Faith’s return would have set him off.

  “Put down the gun, Nicole,” Beck tried again. “And I’ll talk to Pete.”

  “It won’t do any good. I have to make Faith leave before it destroys my marriage.”

  “Your marriage?” Faith spat out. She obviously didn’t intend to let him handle this in his own way. “You have a gun pointed at me, and my daughter is just one room away. You’re endangering her as well as Beck, and yet your top priority is saving your marriage?”

  Nicole blinked. She probably hadn’t expected this. Faith hadn’t stood up for herself ten years ago. “My marriage is in trouble because of you.”

  “No,” Faith countered. “Your marriage is in trouble because of your cheating husband. Now, put down that gun, or I’ll take it away from you myself.”

  Since this was quickly getting out of hand, Beck moved in front of Faith again. The new position wouldn’t last long. Faith was already trying to maneuver herself to his side, but Beck didn’t let that happen. It was a risk. He didn’t want to push Nicole into doing something even more stupid.

  “Give me the gun,” he insisted. Beck didn’t bolt toward her. He kept his footsteps even and unhurried. No sudden moves.

  But Beck was just about a yard away when there was movement in the hall, just outside the suite. Nicole automatically glanced over her shoulder, and that split-second distraction was all Beck needed. He lunged at Nicole, snagged her by the wrist and latched on to the gun. The momentum sent them flying, and they landed against the two men who’d just arrived.

  His brother, Pete, and his father, Roy.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Pete shouted.

  “I’m disarming your wife,” Beck snarled. He took control of the gun and stepped back just in case anyone else decided to try to make a move toward Faith.

  Pete shot Nicole a glance. Not of disapproval, either. The corner of his mouth actually lifted as if he were pleased that Nicole was in the process of committing a felony.

  “I tried to get her to leave,” Nicole volunteered.

  “Well, this probably wasn’t the way to go about it,” her father-in-law interjected.

  Good. Father was being reasonable about this. Beck needed another voice
of support since Faith’s and his didn’t seem to be enough.

  He checked Nicole’s gun and discovered that it wasn’t loaded. Beck showed Faith the empty chamber, causing her to groan again.

  “I wanted to scare her into leaving,” Nicole explained. “I didn’t want to actually hurt her.”

  Well, that was something at least, but it didn’t make this situation less volatile.

  With emotion zinging through the air, his father and Pete stood side by side, and Pete glared at Faith. Roy only shook his head and mumbled something under his breath. The men were the same height, same weight, and with the exception of some threads of gray in Roy’s hair, they looked enough alike to be brothers. That probably had something to do with the fact that Roy had only been eighteen years old when Pete was born.

  Beck glanced back at Faith. He could tell she wasn’t about to back down despite being outnumbered.

  “Before this gets any worse, I want everyone to know that I’m not Beck right now. I’m Sheriff Tanner, and this is not going to get violent.”

  “Then she’s leaving.” That from Pete, and it was a threat aimed at Faith. Their father caught onto Pete’s arm and stopped him from moving any closer.

  “No. I’m not,” Faith threatened right back. “Maybe it is time for an air clearing. For the truth. I’d planned to do it anyway, just not this soon.”

  That got everyone’s attention, and the room fell silent.

  Faith pointed to Pete. “I didn’t sleep with you ten years ago. Or any other time.”

  There it was. The finale to the conversation that Faith and he were having shortly before Nicole arrived.

  Beck pushed aside his own surprise and checked out the responses of the others. Nicole went still, the muscles in her arms going slack. The reactions of his father and brother, however, went in different directions. Pete’s face flushed with anger, and it seemed as if Father had been expecting her to say just that. He didn’t look surprised at all.

  “You were drunk,” Faith reminded Pete. “All the years I’ve told myself that maybe you actually didn’t lie about what happened, that you simply couldn’t remember what you’d done, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “I didn’t lie.” Pete’s voice was low and tight. Dangerous.

  Faith walked closer. “Well, it wasn’t me in that motel room with you. It was my sister, Sherry.”

  “Sherry,” Beck mumbled. Since Sherry had been the town’s wild child, he didn’t have any trouble believing that, but apparently two members of his family did: Pete and Nicole. His father was still just standing there as if all of this was old news.

  And maybe it was to him.

  Had his father known the truth this whole time?

  Nicole shook her head. “If that’s true, why didn’t you say so sooner? No one put a gag on you when you were outside the motel.”

  All attention turned back to Faith.

  She pulled in a long breath. “I didn’t say anything because Sherry’s boyfriend, Nolan, would have killed her if he’d found out she cheated on him with your husband or with any other man, for that matter.”

  That made sense, and it also made Beck wonder why he hadn’t thought of it sooner. But he knew why—he’d believed his brother.

  “So why were you even there that night?” Nicole questioned Faith again. Judging from her expression, she wasn’t buying any of Faith’s account.

  Faith took another breath. “When you came to the motel and started pounding on the door, Sherry called me. She was terrified word would get out that she’d been with Pete. I came over, hid on the side of the building and waited for you to leave. Then I took Sherry out of there. I was trying to get your husband out, too, when you and Beck showed up and accused me of seducing Pete.”

  “That’s not the way I remember things,” Pete insisted.

  “Then your memory is wrong,” Faith insisted right back.

  Pete rammed his finger against his chest. “Why would I lie about which Matthews sister I’d slept with when I was drunk?”

  “Only you can answer that, Pete.” Faith volleyed glares at each one of them. “I want you all out of here. Now. If not, I intend to call the Texas Rangers and have you arrested.”

  He understood Faith’s desire to be rid of his kin, but that riled Beck. Of course, he was already riled about this entire situation, so that was only frosting on the cake. “I don’t need the Rangers to handle this,” he assured Faith. “Do you want to file charges against Nicole?”

  That earned him a fierce look from Pete, a raised eyebrow from his father and a surprised gasp from Nicole. Why, Beck didn’t know. Nicole couldn’t have possibly thought brandishing a gun, even an unloaded one, wouldn’t warrant at least a consideration of arrest.

  “I won’t file charges at the moment,” Faith said, pointing at Nicole. “But let’s get something straight. I won’t have you anywhere near my daughter or me with a weapon again. Understand?”

  “But you ruined my life. You. It wasn’t Sherry in that motel room. If it’d been your sister, my husband would have said so.”

  “Get them out of here,” Faith mumbled, and she turned and walked into the adjoining room.

  She didn’t slam the door. She closed it gently. But Beck figured if she’d been wrongly accused and run out of town, that had to be eating away at her. Now add this latest incident with Nicole, and, oh, yeah, Faith was no doubt stewing.

  “Go home, Nicole,” Pete told his wife.

  When Nicole didn’t move, Roy caught onto his daughter-in-law’s arm and led her toward the door. “I’m sorry about this, Beck. We’ll talk later.”

  Beck nodded his thanks to his father and turned back to unfinished business. “Did you sleep with Faith or not?”

  Pete glanced away. “What does it matter?”

  Beck cursed under his breath. “That’s not an answer to my question.”

  “Because it’s not a question you should be asking. I’m your brother, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Being my brother doesn’t mean I’ll gloss over your indiscretions. Especially if that indiscretion has put the blame on the wrong woman for all these years.”

  Pete looked him straight in the eye. “I was with Faith that night, not Sherry.”

  For the first time, Beck was seriously doubting that his brother had told the truth. But if he was lying, why? What could be worse than letting everyone, especially Nicole, believe he’d had sex with Faith? Unless fear of Nolan did play some part of this. The problem was his brother wasn’t usually the sort to fear anyone.

  “So what happens now?” Pete asked. “Faith just stays in town like nothing ever happened?”

  Beck didn’t want to mention that Faith, Aubrey and the nanny would soon be going to his house. And that they were in his protective custody. Besides, he didn’t want anyone to know that his place was now essentially a safe house for the three. He wanted to get Faith, Aubrey and Marita in there without anyone else noticing. Or knowing about it. That would mean hiding them in the backseat of his car, parking in his garage and getting them inside only after the garage door was closed.

  Of course, there was the other part to the plan. The part he could tell Pete since he needed the gossip mill working for the bait plan to succeed.

  “Faith plans to stay at her mother’s old house,” Beck informed him, and he watched carefully for his brother’s reaction. There wasn’t much of one, just a slight shift in his posture. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted on staying there.”

  “Then she’s an idiot,” Pete declared. “Her brother’s a killer, and he’s out on the loose. Anything could happen to her at that house.”

  And it wasn’t a surprise that Pete didn’t seem torn up about that. He probably wanted Darin to go after Faith.

  Beck nodded and tried to appear detached from the situation. He realized, much to his disgust, that he wasn’t detached. He didn’t like this plan, and he didn’t like that he’d just used his brother to set it into motion.

 
“You need to leave,” Beck said, unable and unwilling to keep the anger from his voice. “See to your wife and make sure she doesn’t come anywhere near Faith again.”

  Beck practically shoved his brother out the door, and he locked it. He made a mental note to keep it locked in case Nicole or Pete returned for round two. He needed to do some damage control from round one first.

  Because once Faith gave it some thought, she just might file those charges against Nicole.

  And if so, he’d have to arrest his own sister-in-law. Beck didn’t want to speculate what kind of powder keg that would create between Pete, Nicole and Faith.

  The phone on the desk rang. Figuring that Faith was still too shaken to answer it, Beck snatched it up. “Sheriff Tanner,” he answered.

  He was greeted with several seconds of silence, and for a moment Beck thought this might be another threat, similar to the rocks.

  “Ross Harland,” the caller finally said. “I’m returning Faith’s call.”

  Beck glanced at the closed bedroom door. “She’s, er, indisposed at the moment.”

  “Is she okay?” It didn’t sound like a casual question, which might mean this guy, this former boyfriend, still had feelings for her.

  “Faith’s fine, but she had a rough morning. And a rough night, too.”

  “What happened?” Another noncasual question.

  Beck didn’t intend to get into specifics, but for anyone who knew Faith, her background was no doubt common knowledge. “Faith’s brother is suspected of murder and is still at large. Aubrey and Faith might be in danger because of him.”

  “Who’s Aubrey?”

  That caused Beck to pause a moment. “Faith’s daughter.”

  “A daughter?” He sounded shocked.

  “I figured you knew.”

  “No. Faith and I dated for a year or so, but we stopped seeing each other nearly two years ago.”

  He didn’t want to, but Beck quickly did the math. Aubrey was sixteen months old, which meant she’d been conceived a little over two years ago.