by Christa Wick
He turned his head and let the shadows eat his smile.
“Not what I was doing,” he fibbed. Pointing the flashlight to his right, he ran the beam down the line the fallen tree had gouged in the earth. The velocity and weight had pushed everything to the side, leaving a slightly cushioned padding of rich black soil.
“Follow me.”
Ashley picked her way after him, pausing only when he stopped to point out a protruding root or similar obstacle the flashlight had missed on his initial survey. Reaching the road, she clicked her key fob, the headlights illuminating the rest of their walk.
“Don’t even think about driving,” she chuckled, opening the back of the Jeep so he could put away the body bag and case.
“Your truck, your rules,” he agreed—right up to the point he reached the driver side door first and held it open for her.
Snorting, Ashley climbed up and waited for him to slide in on the passenger side before she started the engine. The Jeep growled itself awake as she shifted into drive and made a tight turn to point the vehicle in the direction of Willow Gap.
“May I?” he asked, pointing at the built-in navigation panel on the dashboard. “Mama’s place is west of town.”
“Sure.” With her right hand on the wheel, she rooted around behind her seat with the left, coming up with two more protein bars. She offered him one.
“I’ll hold off,” he said, finished inputting the address to his mother’s ranch house. “You might want to leave some room. Mama’s cooking is always delicious, but on a day like today, even her leftovers are heaven.”
“I don’t want to put her out.”
Turning in his seat, he studied Ashley’s face by the glow of the dashboard. He’d had little opportunity to do so on their return from Lewis & Clark to the job site because his eyes had to stay on the road—mostly. But now he could pretty much cast all the surreptitious, and occasionally blatant, looks he wanted.
“You don’t want to get her nose out of joint by refusing,” he teased. “I’ll text her now and give her a heads up. We’ll need to make a quick stop by the stables to drop off the fox.”
The fact that Ashley only nodded told Walker she was aware of him watching her. He shifted in his seat to look out the window instead. After a while, he closed his eyes and contented himself with the smell of wildflowers.
Opening his eyes again, he realized he had fallen asleep when he saw the faint glow of the perimeter lights around the stable. He tried to process the fact that he’d been comfortable enough with Ashley to doze off, but the idea dredged up memories he didn’t want to deal with at that moment. From childhood, the only person he’d let drive while he slept was his father.
Brody Turk had died half a year earlier. The same wreck claimed the life of Dawn, Walker’s baby sister and the only girl among their parents’ six children. The deaths had been hard on the family. The aftermath had threatened further loss that only recently settled down.
“You okay?” Ashley asked, pulling to a stop.
He rummaged up a smile, his throat too tight to answer right away. After a rough swallow, he nodded.
“At least I will be when I get some home cooking in me.” Taking off his seatbelt, he opened the door. “I’ll fetch the fox then show you the set-up we had for Deacon.”
Ashley followed after him, closing the rear door once he had the body bag out. He led her past the stalls and equipment area to a windowless room. He turned the light on and she grunted.
“There are six freezers in here. And they all have locks on them,” she mused. “Care to explain?”
“First five are bull and stallion seed,” he answered, leaving it to her imagination to fill in the details. “Last one is reserved for you. Key is always in the lock unless it’s in your pocket.”
Reaching the freezer, he waited while she twisted the key and lifted the lid.
“There’s always someone on shift.” With the carcass deposited, he pulled out his wallet and shifted through the business cards. He handed her one for the ranch and pointed out the bottom number. “That’s the night line. Just give a call if you’re heading in so you don’t have twenty men running out of the bunkhouse with their rifles.”
She slid the card into her wallet. “Thank you.”
“Family has always tried to give back to the land.” Leading Ashley out of the freezer room, he turned the light off. “Keeping poachers and idiots from ruining resources is part of that.”
She stopped and turned to face Walker, her smile on high beam. “Really, thank you. After California, it’s really refreshing to know there will be a few friendly faces on my routes.”
Gulping, he nodded, felt the slow flush of his cheeks and hurried past before she could catch him blushing.
It wasn’t completely about giving back to the land, after all. Not with the way he felt every time he looked at the woman.
Chapter Four
Entering the kitchen at oh-six-hundred, Ashley found herself face-to-face with a dark-haired beauty dressed in the uniform of the county sheriff’s department, minus a firearm on her utility belt. The woman had her hands wrapped snugly around a warm mug of coffee or some other hot drink, her glossy red lips pursed and blowing at the steam rising up.
“Morning, Agent Callahan,” Lindy Turk called as she pulled a tray of hot biscuits from the oven.
“Good morning and, please, Ashley or Ash is fine.” Turning to the woman in uniform, she extended her hand as she glanced at the nametag. “Deputy…Turk.”
Okay, that was odd. Walker had mentioned a brother in the FBI, but not a family member in the sheriff’s office.
“Siobhan, and I’m only ‘Deputy Trainee,’” the woman volunteered, accepting the offered hand and giving it a firm yet comfortable squeeze. “Additionally, I am not married to any of Aunt Lindy’s meathead boys. I’m their cousin.”
“Okay,” Ashley said, the word stretching far beyond the four letters as she tried to figure out the reason, if any, behind the deputy trainee’s clarification.
“I like to make that explicitly known to any eligible bachelorettes,” Siobhan put in after another sip. “Let’s them know they have a clear field and avoids unnecessary catfights.”
“I’m not…” Ashley couldn’t bring herself to address the woman’s statement.
Ashley hadn’t taken a promotion and moved all the way to Montana to find a husband. Between her overdeveloped work ethic, excess curves and reclusive personality, there was nothing “eligible” about her.
“Here,” Lindy said, offering a welcome distraction as she finished filling another mug. “You said last night that you take it black, but it’s extra strong to get this crew running in the morning. So there’s cream in the refrigerator and a sugar bowl on the counter to your left if needed. And ignore my niece, at least when she’s talking about her cousins—or her brothers.”
Taking a seat and crossing her legs, Siobhan picked at a speck on her uniform pants. “Face it, Aunt Lindy, your boys aren’t getting any younger. We still need to marry off four of them.”
“A toddler is more subtle than you,” Lindy scolded, pulling out a plate from the cupboards and handing it to Ashley. “There’s bacon and sausage under the first platter, scrambled eggs under the second. Hot biscuits on the table and honey next to the sugar. That tureen there is sausage gravy. Dig in.”
Putting her coffee down, Ashley began to fill her plate, her attention laser focused on the food in case Siobhan tried to draw her back into the awkward conversation.
“Clocks are ticking,” Siobhan needled her aunt. “Walker and the others need a nudge or two if they’re ever going to get married.”
Walker came in, catching his cousin mid-sentence. She kept right on talking, her dark eyes glittering at him.
“I’ve never needed your help roping fillies, Monkey Butt.”
Rising up from her chair, Siobhan gave him a condescending pat on his broad chest. “So, stud, you admit needing someone’s help. That’s progress
, of a kind.”
He rolled his eyes and prowled toward the coffee pot, his dark-lashed gaze an appealing mix of sleepy irritation.
“Are you here on official business or mooching another free breakfast?”
Siobhan stuck her nose in the air. “I’ll remember that next time you’re mooching a meal at my mom’s kitchen table.”
Huffing, she brushed at her shoulder then flashed an exaggerated smile.
“To answer your question, I’m here at your brother’s behest. He’s coming down to interview your crew.”
Her head swiveled until she faced Ashley. “He also hoped he would be able to consult with you today, unless it’s more convenient for you to meet up with him in Billings.”
“Of course, but my involvement was limited.” Ashley took the seat one over from Lindy and directly opposite Siobhan.
Walker came to the table, his plate loaded down like he hadn’t eaten for the last twenty-four hours. For one fleeting second, he cast a glance at his cousin like he wanted her to move, but she smirked and he picked a different seat.
“So Emerson is willing to consider this as something in his wheelhouse?” Walker asked after swallowing a thick bite of sausage.
“Gamble made the request.” Siobhan’s face suddenly lit up. She whipped her phone out, tapped a couple of times at the screen then proceeded to type at a furious pace. Mouth settling into a satisfied smile, she returned the phone to her pocket.
Lindy sighed. “You didn’t just text Sutton, did you?”
“He has a right to know his twin will be in town,” Siobhan answered then reached across to Walker’s plate and stole a sausage link.
He growled at the theft.
She blew a kiss in reply.
With all the facts and subtext Siobhan was tossing around, Ashley wanted to cradle her head in her hands—or grab her gear and go. Usually, she was good at remembering names, good at remembering almost anything, but her brain refused to focus. She wanted to blame it on the pain still coursing through her leg, but she knew that wasn’t it. She couldn’t stop looking at or thinking about Walker Turk. It was one or the other, sometimes both, and it needed to stop.
Lifting her mug, she took a long, slow sip until her expression didn’t give the impression that she was sucking on a lemon.
“Emerson is FBI, right?” she asked when the conversation grew too quiet for comfort. “Sutton is his twin?”
Lindy nodded. “They’re my youngest. Sutton won’t admit to it because he’s a few minutes older than Emerson.”
Siobhan smiled into her coffee. “Sutton won’t admit to a lot of things.”
Walker cleared his throat, the sound having a distinct edge to it.
“Why’d Gamble invite him to check it out? Or is that above dispatch’s pay grade.”
Siobhan sipped at her coffee in silence, her face a study in serenity as Walker’s scrunched into a scowl.
“Fine, Deputy Trainee Turk. If it’s not classified, what changed their minds?”
Siobhan nodded at Ashley. “Someone almost got killed yesterday, federal law enforcement, no less. Things are escalating.”
Ashley poured some gravy over her biscuits, the meal a far cry from the dishes she might find on the menu in California. Cutting into her biscuits, she tilted her chin at Walker.
“There haven’t been any threats or other communications?”
He shook his head. “None. This is the third site with a problem. The first two were so minor, we thought they might be kids getting up to no good for kicks. But we checked and rechecked the locations, went through all the mail, did web searches for anything said on public pages that might show someone had it out for us.”
Putting his fork down, he finished with a shrug.
“Then we can probably rule out both environmental groups and extortion,” Ashley suggested.
Siobhan put her hands together, the tips of her index fingers touching her lips as her gaze lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Extortion? How’s that?”
“Yeah,” Ashley explained. “Just like how mobsters would go into stores with baseball bats, bust up a few glass counters then say they’d be back the following week and do it again unless you had an envelope full of ‘insurance’ money for them. It’s getting to be a thing again, but they’ve moved to small towns as easier targets. Walker’s would be the first timber company I heard of getting this kind of treatment.”
Pausing to take a breath, Ashley shrugged. “Not that I have personally worked on a case like that. But, for some service officers, they’re the only law around for any appreciable distance and they’re the first to pick up calls on the issue.”
Siobhan bobbed her head in agreement. “True, we have some gaps in Montana—although there’s not a lot of population in those areas and even fewer businesses to extort.”
“Like I said, without contact making any other threats or demands or some kook-drafted manifesto, it’s not likely to be extortion or an environmental group.”
Ashley shoveled a forkful of eggs into her mouth. She chewed, her mind nibbling at Walker’s problem at the same time. She chased the eggs with a gulp of coffee before hooking his gaze.
“Also highly unlikely, but I have seen something similar to this before. Twice, actually.”
He had already been watching her when she first glanced up from her plate. But his face changed when she mentioned a possible connection. His expression sharpened, the soft contemplation of a few seconds before vanishing.
“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Siobhan demanded as she whipped out a notebook.
“First time was illegal grow operations. I was pretty green at the time, still shadowing a senior officer. A new section of land had been opened for recreational purposes.”
Siobhan scribbled furiously, looking up when Ashley paused to gather her thoughts and make sure she wasn’t mixing up memories.
“There were a couple of mom and pop kind of stores before the land was reclassified. Two gas stations, a restaurant, a bait and tackle shop. No one had ever bothered them before. Then the vandalism started up, little things at first that might close one of the locations for a day or two. At the same time, road signs started disappearing and the rest area had all its toilets broken. It ended when someone set fire to the restaurant. That’s when the investigation finally got extra resources.”
Head bobbing to each word, lips moving silently, Siobhan kept writing. Ashley tried not to think of herself when she’d been at the same stage in her career. Didn’t want to remember when she’d been a too eager cub.
“And the other time?” Walker asked. “Was that pot, too?”
She shook her head, the memory of yesterday’s fox mingling with the image of a cinnamon colored bear.
“We never caught the people responsible, but we think it was for an illegal hunt. We found the remains of more than a dozen bears that had been slaughtered. After that, the vandalism stopped.”
Catching Walker’s gaze, she could almost see him thinking about the fox in the stable’s freezer and the empty den.
“I’ve got to contact my agency.” Picking up her plate, she started to stand.
Lindy lightly touched her wrist. “You let me worry about those, dear. You’ll learn where everything goes on your next visit, doesn’t seem like now is the time.”
“Thank you.” Stopping before she left the table, she looked at the three of them.
“Can one of you give me Emerson’s contact information?”
Siobhan tore off a sheet of paper from her logbook. “Already wrote it out.”
Returning to the guest room Lindy had set her up in, Ashley was surprised when Walker knocked on her door a few minutes later. She answered, her cell phone up to her ear.
“On hold with my supervisor,” she explained, gaze dropping to the fresh ice pack he held out.
Walker had brought her a similar pack before she went to bed. The ice had eased the pain enough that she was able to fall asleep fairly quickly.
“You were limping on your way out of the kitchen,” he whispered.
She sighed, a dip of her eyes acknowledging that the pain stubbornly persisted. She took the pack from him with a grateful smile.
Spotting the pack from the prior night at the foot of the bed, he whispered again.
“May I.”
She bobbed her head. He slid into the room, grabbed the thawed pack and quickly returned to the hall.
“I’ll be in the kitchen. Catch me before you go?”
She nodded, her follow-up smile short-lived as her boss took her off hold.
“Hey, Phil, I think we might have a Sheepshead scenario up here.”
Phil Moske grunted. “Give me a second to pull up the file.”
Waiting on her boss, Ashley glanced at the open door to find Walker gone. Stepping over to the room’s threshold, she looked down the long hall and watched him saunter away. He had a swimmer’s frame, the torso and legs strong and in proportion to one another. The waist and bottom were nicely tucked, forming the tight core of the machine that moved him.
As he neared the corner, she darted back into the room before he had a chance to turn and catch her ogling his tight ass.
“Sheepshead,” Moske growled as Ashley propped her leg on a pillow and laid the ice pack over her shin. “You’ve got one dead fox and maybe a missing den. What’s the connection?”
She had already sent him a write-up that included a rough sketch of the events surrounding the tree in the middle of the road. She repeated those events in greater detail and told him there were two lesser incidents with the same company that she didn’t have facts for yet.
Her boss released another heavy sigh. “That was some really nasty business up in Sheepshead.”
He strummed his thick fingers on the desk, then tapped a few keys on his computer.
“What’s your plan?”
“I’ve got the fox in a locked freezer. I’ll overnight everything else to the lab. Don’t think there’ll be much value to the evidence.”
“Probably not,” he grunted.
“I want to spend a few days on this—check the other vandalism locations, find out if any other businesses or property owners are experiencing issues but didn’t report it. I’ll coordinate with the park rangers to see if they can check on other dens and get a feel for their bear population’s movements.”
