by Annie Jones
“You know, I think you should be reevaluating those life rules of yours, Shelby.” He reached out and took her hand. “Starting with asking yourself why you put that ‘With God all things are possible’ as number one.”
“God I trust. It’s people who are giving me a problem right now, Jax.”
“Nope. Sorry. Doesn’t work that way.”
“You’re the one who thinks Mitch is involved.”
“I did not say that. I also didn’t say there aren’t some people out there who don’t deserve your trust. But, Shelby, you’ve got to trust that there are plenty of good people out there.” Jax fixed his gaze on the porch, where Miss Delta had settled on the arm of Harmon’s rocking chair, and the pair of them were cooing to Amanda. “You are looking at two who certainly earned it, your dad and Miss Delta.”
“Three,” she said softly. “I see three people who have earned my trust.”
“Amanda is kind of young but—”
“I’m looking at you, Jax.” She leaned in and placed a kiss on his lips.
With that kiss, Jax felt his ties to Sunnyside, Texas, and Shelby beginning to slip away. He reached out to her. He touched her hair, her face, and leaned back in, unwilling to let go yet. Just one more kiss, a real kiss, a goodbye kiss before he—
A loud banging from the back of the minivan made them both jump.
Shelby gasped. She pulled away and looked around.
Jax gritted his teeth, determined not to let loose on Harmon for his idea of a joke in scaring them, only to look up and find Harmon and Miss Delta still on the porch—and Sheriff Denby’s grinning face at the driver’s side window.
A few minutes later, they were all sitting on the porch with ice-cold lemonade in tall tumblers in their hands.
“So, Mitch did still own that red car?” Jax asked
“He reported it stolen this morning,” Denby confirmed.
“Before or after we saw him at the café?” Jax pressed the issue.
“Right after, it would seem. Got the info on it in that flurry of calls that came in while you were in my office, since the car was registered in this county.”
“One cowboy. That’s one cowboy who can’t be trusted,” Jax rushed to remind Shelby.
“Mitch Warner? A cowboy?” Harmon scoffed. “What’s the saying? A cat can have kittens in the oven, but that don’t make them biscuits. That boy ain’t no more cowboy than...” He looked at Denby, then at Jax, and shrugged. “Than a kitten is a biscuit.”
“You all think Mitch stole from me and made this up to cover for it, don’t you?” Shelby shook her head.
“It’s wrong to jump to conclusions.” Miss Delta rushed to play the diplomat, but not a single face on the porch reflected that attitude.
“I’d sure like to ask him some hard questions.” Denby took a long sip of lemonade.
Jax sat forward on the porch swing. “Like to? You mean you aren’t going to?”
“Not ’less I can get him to come to the office, son. I don’t have time to run him down. I’m operating on a skeleton staff as it is.”
“I’ve seen your staff, Andy, honey.” Miss Delta got up and gave him a brisk rub across the shoulders. “They are some of the best-fed skeletons I’ve ever seen.”
Denby chuckled. “I would personally like the time to take up jogging and some of that exercise dancing to take the pounds off, if I could ever get my name off the ballot for sheriff.”
Again Jax’s phone went off. He knew better, but somehow the ring seemed more insistent this time, almost aggressive. He took a peek at the caller ID.
Shelby leaned her head next to his to ask, “A building is calling you?”
He glanced up and into those eyes. The eyes that had first touched his conscience with teary defiance now held a sadness that he could not bear. He sent the call to voice mail once again.
“I can’t help you with that dancing thing. I don’t even know if I can get the image of you trying it out of my head anytime soon.” Jax stuffed his phone in his pocket. “But I think I can help you with Warner.”
“You want your badge back?” Sheriff Denby pinched the lemon slice from the side of his glass and gave it a squeeze, sending lemon juice squirting into his drink and onto his uniform. “That’s a temporary fix. No pay. If, on the other hand, you wanted me to talk to the mayor, I could arrange a political appointment to a higher office.” He raised his tanned, beefy hand to brush a droplet of lemon juice off the boldly etched Sheriff on his shiny gold-and-silver star.
“Just deputize me. I’ll find Warner and see what he knows before I have to head to Florida.”
Chapter Twelve
“What are you doing here?” Mitch met them in the driveway of a small frame house in a neighborhood a couple of miles outside Sunnyside.
His shirtsleeves were unbuttoned, his hair a mess, and he was hopping on one booted foot while trying to pull his second boot on. He looked like he’d been sleeping or, at the very least, lying on the couch, watching TV in the middle of the day.
Shelby slipped out of the passenger side of the new temporary deputy’s sleek black pickup. He’d said he didn’t want to tip Mitch off that they were looking for him by being seen around town in Shelby’s minivan. That rang true enough to her, but she also noted that the tall, broad-shouldered man in the low-fitting Stetson climbing out of that big black truck made an impressive—to some people, maybe even intimidating—sight.
Mitch glanced her way, then back at Jax, then back at her again. “Hey, Shelby. How’d you know where I was living now?”
Shelby winced. Mitch seemed to change his living arrangements every six to ten months, always saying he was moving up to the next good thing. Why hadn’t Shelby realized he might really have just been moving away from the last bad thing?
“You filed a police report today. Gave this address.” Jax strode right up to Mitch, close enough that if the shorter man lost his balance while struggling to put his boot on, he’d go face-first into Jax’s chest.
“I don’t know what you’re here for, Stroud, but I...” Mitch forced his foot into the boot, then stomped it on the cement drive a few times to get it all the way on. When he straightened up, he squinted at Jax and spoke through clenched teeth, like a bad guy in a Western hoping to call the hero’s bluff. “I reckon you’re sticking your nose where it don’t belong.”
“Got the authority of the great state of Texas, or at least this county’s sheriff’s department, which says I do belong here.” At this point, on a TV show, the deputy would flash his shiny badge to add some clout to his words. Jackson Stroud didn’t need that kind of clout. “I just came to ask you a few questions.”
“I didn’t do nothing.” Mitch turned to Shelby. He stabbed his fingers through his reddish-brown hair a few times, squashing it into place as he asked her, “You believe me, right, Shelby?”
“I want to believe you, Mitch.” That summed up their relationship and probably explained why other people thought they could predict her responses and sometimes needed to push her toward the best action. She wanted so badly to think everyone was really trying to do the right thing. “You just make it hard to do.”
“Because of this place?” He motioned to the house behind them. “I don’t live here. I mean, my name’s not on the lease. I’ve just been crashing with some friends until I can get on my feet.”
“What friends?” Jax asked, eyeing the house.
“Uh, people.” Mitch shrugged. “They come and go. It’s not a formal deal, you know. They’re good people, and they help each other out.”
“By loaning each other cars?” Jax asked. He stepped to one side and craned his neck to check the side of the house.
“Yeah, exactly.” Mitch folded his arms and anchored his boots in the middle of the drive.
The two of them
gave Shelby the feeling of a storm brewing, and it made her stomach tighten.
“Then what did you do with your car, Mitch?” Jax crossed his arms, as well, fixed his eyes on the other man and narrowed them to slits. “Loan it to someone, then report it stolen to cover up for...something?”
“Yeah.”
Jax shot a quick glance in Shelby’s direction.
“No!” Mitch threw his hands out.
“What is it, yes or no?” Jax pressed.
“Yes, I did loan my car out but, no, that ain’t the whole story. I got my car back, and this girl, Courtney, who I’d let use my car before, disappeared with it.”
“So you’re sticking with that story?” Jax spoke softly, without even a hint of a threat.
In fact, if Shelby had her eyes closed, she might have thought Jax was actually accepting Mitch’s story. Yet the immovability of his stance, even the hint of a smile on his otherwise calm face, gave the feeling that Mitch was about to learn firsthand why you don’t mess with Texas’s lawmen.
“It’s true,” Mitch protested.
“So you have no idea where the red car is?” Jax nodded, recounting the details. “The car that was in the parking lot this morning, when you tipped off the driver of said car to hit the road?”
“Oh, Mitch.” Shelby had had as much of the man’s lies as she could stand. “What have you done?”
“Listen to me, Mitch. I’m trying to help you, give you a shot at doing the right thing. Take it. Tell me what’s really going on.”
“Nothing, man.” He held his hands up and took a step back from Jax, then turned to Shelby. “I mean it, Shelby. I’m innocent.”
“Mitch Warner, I can think of a lot of words to describe you, but innocent is not one of them.” Her head was swimming with all this information. “Stolen or not, Mitch, you knew who was driving your red car all along, even way back when Sheriff Andy first asked you about it, didn’t you?”
Mitch grimaced.
Shelby’s heart sank. “You wanted me to believe you had changed!”
Mitch squirmed.
“Look, I don’t know you, and I don’t know if you’ve changed or if you’ve always been the man I see standing here right now,” Jax said, leaving no doubt that the man he saw before him did not impress him much. “I do know that there is someone out there who left a baby on a doorstep. That is an act of desperation, which tells me that person needs help. By refusing to tell us what you know, you may be keeping them from getting that help.”
“I...I didn’t think of it that way.” Mitch peered over his shoulder, then cleared his throat.
“You have a full name to give us?” Jax maneuvered his way between Mitch and the house. “A whereabouts would be even better.”
“She’s got so many names, I can’t remember them, and if I knew her whereabouts, then I wouldn’t have reported my car stolen, would I?” Mitch took a couple of shuffling steps toward the house.
Jax shifted just enough to block Mitch from having a clear path inside. “You’d tell me, would you?”
Mitch seethed silently for a moment, then took a deep breath and let it out in a big huff, looking more like an exasperated teenager dealing with a tough teacher than a grown man facing an officer of the law. He motioned toward the front steps of the house, as if asking them to pull up a chair and get comfy. He sat down on the left side of the bottom step.
Shelby took the second step from the top, on the right side.
Jax remained standing, but with one boot on the bottom step, not far from Mitch. He looked ready for anything Mitch might say or do.
Shelby was grateful for that and for all he was trying to do for her here. She shaded her eyes to look up at him, standing so tall against the bright Texas sky, and before she knew it, she found herself smiling.
Jax nodded her way. The smile he gave her seemed to tell her not to worry, he had everything under control.
“Now, where were we?” Mitch asked, clapping his hands together, then rubbing them and grinning. “You were here to get the lowdown on finding my stolen car?”
“If that’s what you have to tell yourself in order to finally give up some useful information, then sure, that’s why we’re here.” Jax stretched his arm out and rested one hand on the iron handrail. “We needed the lowdown, so naturally we thought of you.”
“I told you what I know. My buddy who owns this house met Courtney at a bar a few weeks ago.” Mitch jerked his thumb over his shoulder to the small but neatly kept home. “Since then she’s been around, comes and goes, borrows cars but always brings them back with gas in them, so nobody minds. That’s all I know.”
“She borrow your car the night Tyler said he saw it at the gas station?”
“She could have. I mean, without me knowing it. Sometimes if there are a lot of people, a person just grabs the keys and takes the last car in the drive.”
“Friendly place,” Jax said to Shelby, sounding far more congenial than she’d have expected him to be. He even dropped his hand, as if just about to accept Mitch’s explanation. Only, he clearly had not accepted it, which made it all the more pointed when his expression went flinty, and he homed in on Mitch. “But didn’t you tell Sheriff Denby your car had been in the shop at that time?”
Mitch opened his mouth, then shut it. He made a sort of halfhearted gesture with both hands. He started to speak again but stopped. Then he sighed and turned to look up the stairs. “Here’s the thing, Shelby.”
“Oh, no!” Shelby stood right up. “Not the old ‘Here’s the thing,’ Mitch. When you start in with that, you might as well say, ‘Let’s draw a big red circle around what I’m about to tell you, because this is the part I want you to believe, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.’”
Jax laughed. “I’m getting a feeling that nobody is going to buy what you’re peddling with that line anymore, Mitch.”
If someone else had said that, they would have meant Shelby was not going to buy what Mitch had to say. They would have been letting Mitch know what they thought Shelby felt and what she was going to do. But when Jax said it, because of the way he said it and because of who he was, what Shelby heard was “Shelby’s made herself crystal clear, and I agree with her.”
She pulled her shoulders up. “Just tell us what you know about this Courtney, Mitch. No excuses. No long stories.”
“All right! All right!” Mitch stood up, looked up the steps, then out at the driveway. “My car was in the shop, because Courtney took it that night, put over a hundred miles on it and somehow knocked the muffler loose. This time, she really did steal my car.”
“Warner, man, your story just does not hold together.” Jax shook his head. “How could she have stolen your car when you told her to drive off in it this morning?”
“What do you mean?” Mitch looked sincerely confused, maybe a little hurt, by the line of questioning. “Didn’t you hear me yellin’ at her not to take it to parts unknown?”
Jax clearly wanted to respond to that, but the look on his face said he had no idea how.
“I believe him, Jax. He may be a practiced liar, but he clearly needs that practice. Take him by surprise, and he’s not so...” She looked over the disheveled man standing there, scratching behind his ear and shifting from foot to foot. “Smooth.”
Jax chuckled, not laughing at Mitch but with Shelby. It was a subtle kindness and cool control that marked him as a thorough professional and a good man. It was the kindness-and-good-man part of that equation that had Shelby weak in the knees.
Jax took a deep breath and pushed his hat back on his head. He exhaled, shaking his head. “Okay, then, Mr. Smooth Guy, I’m guessing you also don’t know anything about Shelby’s debit card situation.”
“Just what they’re talking about in the café,” Mitch said, tucking his hands in his back pockets.
“You mean the café this morning?” Jax asked, seeking clarification.
“Yeah. Sorry, Shelby. Tough break, huh? But the bank covers that kind of thing, right?”
“This morning, when we saw you?” Jax asked, pressing on.
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Mitch snapped.
“Jax, why are you being so...”
Jax started speaking the same time she did, and when she let her words trail off, he kept talking. “In the café this morning, when we saw you, hours before Shelby even found out about what happened with her account?”
“Yeah.” Mitch did not miss a beat. “People were talking about who all had their accounts hacked around town, so when you said Shelby had a problem...I’m not stupid. I did the math.”
“You know, Mitch, I believe you.” Jax gave the other man a buddy boy–style smack on the back. “You have done the math.”
Shelby knew that Jax had no interest in being Mitch’s buddy. “What’s that supposed to mean, Jax? Are you accusing Mitch of something?”
“You asking me if I’m suspicious of the guy, the answer is yes.” He looked right at Mitch and did not back down. “But I’m just doing the job Sheriff Denby expected of me. Asking questions, looking for motivation.”
“You want to know my motivation? It’s taking care of Shelby. That ain’t no lie. Look me in the eye, Stroud. You’ll see it. That ain’t no lie.”
Jax did look Mitch in the eye, and to Shelby’s surprise, her ex held that look and did not back down.
“Okay, Mitch. You want to do right by Shelby, then if you see this Courtney or if you hear from her—”
Mitch held up his hands to let Jax know he was miles ahead of him. “I’ll let her know you’re looking for her.”
“Please don’t. In fact, maybe it would be best if you didn’t do anything. Just ask her if she was there the night Amanda was left, and if she was, if she saw anything—a car, a person, a note flying off in the wind. Even something that doesn’t seem important but got her attention. Just find that out and let us know. Got it?”
