Taming a Texas Devil (Bad Boy Ranch Book 5)

by Katie Lane

  Dixie was scared. She didn’t like being laughed at. And there was a very good possibly that if she declared her love to Lincoln she would end up looking like a fool. But she didn’t like losing either. If she lost Lincoln, it wouldn’t be like losing to her daddy. This wasn’t about her ego. This was about her heart. Her mama was right. If she lost Lincoln, she would lose the one thing she wanted most in the whole wide world. He’d lied to her, but maybe he hadn’t lied about everything. He couldn’t have faked the way he made love to her. That had been real.

  Dixie got out of bed. “I’m going after him.”

  “That’s my girl.” Winona stood and walked to the closet. “You’ll need to look your best.” Dixie expected her to pull out some slinky dress. Instead, she pulled out Dixie’s deputy shirt.

  “Mama, I can’t wear that. I need something sexy.”

  “What’s sexier than a woman in uniform? Now go take a shower and put this on along with the tightest jeans you have and the highest boots.”

  “But I’m not a deputy anymore.”

  Winona tossed her the shirt. “Then I guess you’ll need to fix that too.”

  Since the sheriff’s office was on the way to the Double Diamond, Dixie stopped there first. She hoped the sheriff hadn’t arrived yet. If she could get to the computer before he did, she could erase her email with her resignation letter and no one would be the wiser. His truck was parked in the same spot it had been in the day before, but his sheriff’s vehicle was gone.

  She pulled in next to his truck and quickly got out, hoping to erase the email and get out of there before the sheriff showed up. But as she was closing her car door, she dropped her keys. She bent over to pick them up, but they slid so far under the sheriff’s truck that she had to get on her hands and knees to retrieve them. Even then she couldn’t reach them, so she got on her stomach and wiggled beneath. So much for looking sexy for Lincoln. She would have to go back to her house and change before she headed to the Double Diamond. Especially since there were clumps of dried red mud lying under the truck. As she stretched out her arm to reach her keys, her gaze caught on the back tire. It was muddy too, but the treads still showed through. The zigzag pattern struck a chord with her. She had seen that exact pattern before.

  She shifted so she could take her cellphone out of the holder. She pulled up the picture she’d taken of the tread marks she’d found in the field behind the Dailys’ trailer, then held it up to the tire. The tread pattern was an identical match. As was the red mud.

  “No, it couldn’t be,” she breathed. Why would the sheriff want to burn down the Dailys’ trailer? Cal had said the sheriff had never liked him. But burning down their home wasn’t the same as handing out a few parking and speeding tickets. And yet, the mud and tread marks said the sheriff had been in the field behind the trailer park. She needed to figure out why. She snapped a few pictures of the mud in the fender wells. When she was getting a good picture of the tire treads, the sheriff’s voice caused her to freeze.

  “What are you doing, Deputy?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Blistered biscuits, she’d been so excited about her find, she hadn’t heard the sheriff pull into the parking lot. Had he heard the clicks of the phone? Did he know what she’d been doing? Her first thought was to crawl out the other side and get the heck out of there. But good law officers didn’t run with their tails between their legs. They confronted suspects and then arrested them if need be.

  But before they did. They called for back up.

  “I’ll be right there, sheriff. Just getting the keys I dropped.” She quickly fired off a text to Lincoln telling him what she suspected and that she was at the office with the sheriff. Once it was sent, she slid the phone into her bra and started to shimmy out from beneath the truck. Before she was completely out, she unhooked the safety from her holster and prayed she wouldn’t have to use her gun.

  Her prayer was answered.

  She didn’t have to use her gun.

  Before she could even get to her knees, pain exploded in her head and the world went dark.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sheriff Willaby lived in a small stucco house a twenty-minute drive from Simple—but only a short hike from where Sam’s truck had been found and towed. The pieces of the puzzle continued to fall into place, and Lincoln now had a pretty clear picture on what had happened that night at Cotton-Eyed Joe’s.

  A scared deputy is called out to handle a bar fight. He removes the instigator from the bar but, either in the parking lot or at the jail, the drunk man becomes belligerent and threatens the young deputy’s authority. The scared officer pulls his gun and, in a scuffle, or just due to fear, the officer shoots the instigator. He knows he’s in a lot of trouble—especially if the man he shot didn’t have a weapon—he panics and decides he has to hide the truth. He buries the body on the Double Diamond so if Sam’s disappearance is discovered, he can blame it on the troubled teens. Which would be easy since the entire town blames the delinquent boys for everything. Then he leaves the truck on the side of the road and hikes back to his house. Later, he will have the truck towed. But in his hurry to cover up what he did, he doesn’t realize his hat fell off in the parking lot of Cotton-Eyed Joe’s.

  It becomes the only evidence to the crime.

  The story made perfect sense. And Willaby would’ve gotten away with it if Maisy hadn’t shown up looking for her father.

  Lincoln parked in the front of Willaby’s house and got out. The yard was filled with weeds and there was no sign of the sheriff’s truck or official SUV. But they could be in the big barn-style garage next to the house. Lincoln unhooked the safety on his holster and peeked in through the gaping hole between the two doors. The only vehicle inside was an old truck with two missing tires.

  Which meant the sheriff had already headed into town.

  For the first time, he was thankful Dixie had turned in her badge. He didn’t want her anywhere near the sheriff until he was behind bars. Willaby might not have started out as a cold-blooded killer, but fear of being caught could turn him into one.

  Lincoln pulled back one door of the garage. While he was there, he might as well look around for more evidence. The only thing he found of interest was an empty gasoline can. But there would be no way to prove it had been used to start the Dailys’ fire.

  The sound of a vehicle pulling into the yard had him sliding his gun from the holster and moving back against the wall of the garage. It wasn’t the sheriff who came strutting in. It was Maisy. She froze when she saw him standing there with a gun pointed at her.

  She held up her hands. “Now’s your chance to get rid of me. Not a soul would suspect a Texas Ranger.”

  He holstered his gun. “What are you doing here?”

  “I followed you. I’m through waiting for you to tell me what’s going on with my father’s case. If you won’t keep me in the loop, I’ll just tag along after you and be annoying. Which happens to be my specialty. Now why are you snooping around the sheriff’s house?”

  “How do you know it’s the sheriff’s?”

  “Because I came here one day to ask him if he’d found anything else out about my daddy.”

  The thought of Maisy coming out here alone freaked Lincoln out. “Don’t you know that curiosity killed the cat?”

  “Only because she wasn’t packing. But don’t worry, cowboy. I’m not going to shoot you . . . yet. So answer the question. Why are you—” She glanced at the gas can in his hand and her eyes widened. “You think the sheriff started the Daily fire, don’t you?”

  He had to give it to her. She was a smart little thing. He set down the gas can. “I’m not going to make any assumptions until I have all the facts. But I want you to stay away from the sheriff until I get things figured out.”

  “You think the sheriff is responsible for Sam’s disappearance? Or are you just trying to frame the sheriff for his murder?” She paused. “He’s dead, isn’t he? My father.”

  He nodded. “I think so. I
’m sorry.”

  She swallowed hard as if fighting tears. She wasn’t just smart. She was also tough. She had to be growing up without a father to watch out for her. “Did you kill him?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She stared at him as if trying to read the truth on his face. Her eyes might be the same color as her father. But other than that, they were completely different. Sam’s had been cold and cruel. Maisy’s were warm and kind. Something Lincoln should’ve realized sooner, instead of seeing only what he’d wanted to see.

  “I didn’t kill Sam, Maisy,” he said. “I give you my word.”

  “Then why didn’t you come clean about your mama’s relationship with Sam?” she asked.

  The question took him by surprise, but it shouldn’t have. He should have known Maisy would be smart enough to figure it out. Especially when she had done enough investigating on Sam’s previous life to bring her to Simple.

  “How did you find out?” he asked.

  “When I talked to Sam’s sister—I’d call her my aunt but she made it clear she didn’t want to be my aunt. She didn’t like my daddy either.” It looked like Lincoln wasn’t the only one who had judged Maisy by who her father was. She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but he knew it did. “Anyway, when I called her, she thought my mama was Tonya Hayes. I guess your mama was the woman Sam was dating the last time his sister talked to him. Sam’s sister didn’t know anything about my mama or Sam getting married or me. She just knew about Tonya and her son, Lincoln. I guess he had sent a picture of the three of you to his mama before she passed away.”

  Lincoln shook his head. “I don’t know why he sent a picture of me. He couldn’t stand me.”

  “At least he hung around you for a while. He left as soon as I was born. Before he even got to know me. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so determined to find him. I wanted to give him the chance to . . . love me, I guess. Which is just plain stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid.” Lincoln knew what it felt like to desperately want to be loved. He’d wanted Sam to love him too. He realized that now. After his father passed, he’d been starved for male attention. Unfortunately, his mama had chosen the wrong replacement. “I don’t think Sam could love,” he said.

  Maisy sank down on the moldy hay bale sitting in the corner and pulled off her beat-up cowboy hat. “It’s weird that I should feel so sad about him being dead when I didn’t even know him. Especially when he sounds like such a jerk. It makes you wonder why our mamas fell for him.”

  He walked over and sat down next to her. “I’ve asked myself that same question.”

  “My mama said he was good-lookin’ as sin. But maybe she just said that because I look like him.” She glanced at Lincoln. “Is that why you hate me?”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  He conceded. “Okay, I might’ve hated you a little.”

  “And you don’t now?”

  “You’re growing on me.”

  “Sorta like a toenail fungus you can’t get rid of?”

  “Exactly.”

  She laughed, but then quickly sobered. “He was mean to you, wasn’t he? That’s why you hate him.”

  Sam had been mean and abusive to Lincoln, but that wasn’t why Lincoln hated him the most. And now he realized that Sam wasn’t who he’d hated at all.

  “Yes, Sam was abusive. And I hated him for it. But I hated him more for what he did to my mama—or what I thought he did to my mama. I tried to blame your father for my mother’s suicide. But Sam had been gone for years when Mama killed herself. Which left only one person to blame. Me. And nobody wants to blame themselves. It’s easier to blame someone else.”

  Maisy stared at him. “I didn’t know your mama took her own . . . I’m sorry.”

  “I am too.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Thirteen. Just a punk kid who gave my mother all kinds of grief.”

  “All kids give their parents grief one time or another.” She rested a hand on his shoulder. “You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”

  He nodded. “In my head I do. But in my heart, I still see myself as a bad boy who pushed his mother to suicide. I guess that’s why I’ve worked so damn hard at being this perfect lawman. I’ve been trying to make amends.”

  “You’re far from perfect, cowboy.”

  She said it teasingly, but she was right. He wasn’t perfect. And as Lucas had pointed out, neither was anyone else. Everyone had their imperfections. That didn’t stop people from loving and being loved. He had been so busy trying to reach the point where he was worthy of love that he’d missed out on enjoying the love he had. And he had a lot of love. Love from Chester and Lucas and all the Double Diamond boys. And love from Dixie. She loved him. He knew it. He had seen it in her eyes and felt it in her arms. If he let her go, he was the stupidest man on the face of the earth.

  He got up. “I need to go, but let’s do this again sometime.”

  “You want to meet here in the sheriff’s garage?”

  “How about the soda fountain? I’ll treat you to a Coke float for being such an asshole to you.”

  “And a burger and fries. You were a major asshole.”

  He laughed. “Fine. I’ll even buy you a piece of pie with a big scoop of ice cream on top.”

  She got up and sent him her gap-tooth smile. “Deal. And maybe we can even go hunting or riding sometime. I mean we are kinda like siblings.” Her cheeks flamed as she waved a hand. “Never mind. Stupid thought.”

  His cellphone pinged with an incoming text, but he ignored it. “It’s not that stupid. We could’ve been half siblings. Dixie Leigh certainly thinks we look enough alike.”

  “Look alike?” Maisy drew back. “We don’t look anything alike, cowboy. I am good-lookin’ as sin and you’re butt ugly as hell.”

  “Butt ugly?” He hooked an arm around her neck and gave her a good dose of noogies on the head. “Take it back, brat.”

  “Never.” She frogged him in the side and gained her release.

  He would’ve kept up the chase if his cellphone hadn’t pinged again, reminding him of his text. He pulled it out of his pocket. Dixie’s name made his heart start thumping overtime. She’d texted him. Which meant that she couldn’t still be mad at him.

  “What has you grinning like a Cheshire cat?” Maisy asked. “Let me guess, it’s from Dixie Leigh. I knew something was going on between you two.”

  Lincoln couldn’t deny it. And he didn’t want to. “As a matter of fact, there is something going on between us. I’m crazy about her.” He opened the text. As he read, his smile faded and the beating of his heart took on more the rapid pace of fear instead of happiness. He quickly called her. When she didn’t answer, the fear grew. “Shit.” He hung up and headed for his truck.

  Maisy followed behind him. “You really need to work on your mood swings, cowboy.”

  “It’s Dixie. She might be in trouble.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  He pulled open the door of his truck and hopped in. “Pray. Because if that bastard Willaby hurts her, they’ll be no place on earth he can hide from my wrath.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Dixie woke to her head pounding like she had downed a boatload of margaritas the night before. But she couldn’t remember going to a party. All she remembered was . . .

  Her eyes flew open. She was lying face down in the backseat of a car with her cheek stuck to the vinyl. She didn’t have to guess whose car it was. She knew even before she sat up and saw the back of Sheriff Willaby’s head through the security cage that divided the seats. She reached for her gun, but her gun belt was gone.

  “So you’re awake,” he said as if they were on some fun road trip and she just decided to take a little nap. She reached up and touched the back of her head where most of the pain was radiating from. There was a huge lump, but no blood.

  “You just had to be nosy, didn’t you?” the sheriff said. “You couldn’t ju
st leave with your senator daddy. You just had to go snooping around my truck.” He thumped the steering wheel with his fist. “And now I have to figure out what to do with you.”

  That did not sound good.

  “Do with me?” she croaked.

  “You didn’t think I could let you live. Not when you’ve connected me to Sam Sweeney’s murder.”

  Dixie didn’t know if it was the “let you live” part or the “Sam Sweeney’s murder” part that had her heart almost pounding out of her chest. Probably the “let you live” part. Deep down, she had known the fire was somehow connected to Sam’s disappearance. She just hadn’t been able to connect all the dots. The sheriff did it for her.

  “It was the hat that put you on my trail, wasn’t it? Cal Daily told you about finding my hat the night I came out to break up the fight.” Dixie’s eyes widened. It had been Willaby who went to the Cotton-Eyed Joe’s that night to break up the fight. Not Sheriff Miller. Willaby banged the steering wheel again. “Why didn’t Cal leave after his mama died? Why did he have to stay and keep wearing that damn hat?”

  The hat explained why the sheriff had burned down the trailer. Not only had he wanted to get rid of it, but he’d hoped if their home was gone Cal and Cheyenne would move before Cal brought up the hat to Dixie or Lincoln.

  “So you killed Sam Sweeney,” Dixie said.

  “I didn’t plan to.”

  If Dixie didn’t want to be the sheriff’s next murder victim, she needed to make him think she was on his side. “Well, of course you didn’t. I don’t believe for a second that you planned to kill Sam. It had to be an accident.”

  Sheriff Willaby’s voice switched from angry to dull and listless. It was like he was talking to himself, not her. Like he was reliving the night. Something he had probably done numerous times before.

  “I was scared of Sam. There was something about his eyes that gave me the willies. When I saw he was the one who had instigated the fight at Cotton-Eyed Joe’s, I wanted to turn right around and leave. But I couldn’t do that with most of the town watching. So I acted like I wasn’t scared. While the bouncers took care of the other men in the fight, they left me to handle Sam. He didn’t give me any problems at first so I didn’t handcuff him. But once we stepped out the back door, he shoved me up against the dumpsters. He said he was sick of old men and scared little kids pushing him around. His eyes looked wild, and I got scared and pulled my gun. I didn’t even know I had shot him until he fell to the ground at my feet. It was self-defense. Except I knew that the sheriff wouldn’t think so. He’d already written me up for drawing my gun when it wasn’t necessary. So when no one heard the shot and came running out, I figured I could cover up what I’d done. And I did. I got rid of Sam’s body and I got rid of his truck. The hat wouldn’t have even been an issue if Sam’s daughter hadn’t shown up. No one had cared what happened to Sam until she came.”