Double Action Deputy, page 8
He followed her gaze to all the people dressed in shorts and sandals. It made him think of a summer when his parents took them to Yellowstone Park. Growing up on the ranch, there was no such thing as a lazy summer. There was always work to do. It was why he used to sneak away and find a place in the shade to take a nap, but his mother always found him. She would scold him and before she was through, she’d suggest they all go down to the creek for a swim.
That summer in Yellowstone he’d felt like one of the tourists. It had been a great summer with his twin, Angus, brother Hank, sister Mary and cousins Ella and Ford. He realized Mo was staring at him.
“Nice memory?” she asked. “Let me guess. There’s a girl involved.”
He laughed. “As a matter of fact, there is. My mother.” He told her what he’d been thinking about and the picnic lunch they’d had in Yellowstone, swimming in the Firehole, watching Old Faithful go off at sunset before pitching tents at Lake Campground and sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows. Ranch kids often didn’t get those kinds of trips. Too many animals that needed tending to. “The whole trip was my mother’s idea.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “She sounds like a great lady.”
He smiled. “She is. Not that Dana Cardwell Savage isn’t tough when she has to be. She’s one strong, determined woman.” He met Mo’s gaze. “A lot like you.”
“She doesn’t want you doing this, does she.”
Brick leaned back behind the wheel, watching tourists stream past for a moment. “She doesn’t want me doing a lot of things, including becoming a deputy marshal.”
He could feel Mo openly studying him. “Maybe you should listen to her.”
He turned so he was facing her. “You don’t think I have what it takes?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But it’s what you were thinking.”
She shook her head. “Don’t assume you know what I’m thinking.” They both grew quiet. “I just don’t want to be responsible for your mother having to attend your funeral.”
“Then you’d better make sure nothing happens to me,” he said and laughed. “Look, it’s nice to know you care, but I’m not your responsibility. This is my choice and I can take care of myself.”
He followed her gaze. Mo was watching the older couple down the street. They were taking all day to eat their ice cream cones. “And you aren’t responsible for me. If the only reason you’re here is to stop me, well, I just hate to see you risking your life for nothing.”
“What was your nightmare about?” he asked.
“I don’t remember.” She opened her door. “I thought you said you were hungry?”
Brick knew a nightmare when he saw one. He found himself watching Mo out of the corner of his eye as they took a booth inside the café.
After the waitress brought them menus and water, he opened his, but found himself distracted by what had happened in the pickup earlier. Mo had been sleeping soundly when she began whimpering. He’d asked if she was all right, but hadn’t gotten an answer. Her whimpering had become louder and stronger and she began to quiver until he’d reached over and touched her arm.
She’d come unglued, swinging her fists at him, her blank blue eyes filled with terror. Did this have something to do with Natalie and her fears that the woman was telling the truth and Tricia didn’t take her own life? Or was there more about Maureen Mortensen that he had to worry about?
“I’ll take the special, the chicken-fried steak,” Mo was saying. “Mashed, white gravy and the salad with blue cheese.”
He hadn’t realized that the waitress had come back until Mo spoke. He closed his menu. “I’ll take the same.” He could feel her staring at him.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said, when the waitress had picked up the menus and moved away.
“Wouldn’t order what you did?”
She mugged a face. “Wouldn’t ask.”
He nodded sagely. “Wouldn’t ask about your nightmare. I’m guessing it isn’t your first. I say that because I’ve had a few of my own lately.”
Mo seemed surprised to hear that.
Brick looked away. “Supposedly I almost died after being shot. But I don’t think that’s what’s causing the nightmares. I killed a man after he shot me.”
“Your first.” It wasn’t a question. She picked up her fork and her napkin and began to polish the tines.
“What about you? Have you had to kill someone as a cop?”
She put down the fork and picked up the knife and began polishing it. “Why did you order the same thing I did?”
The woman was anything but subtle when it came to changing the subject. “I wasn’t paying any attention to what was on the menu. I was more concerned about you.”
“Having doubts about coming with me now because I had a bad dream?”
He shook his head. “I had doubts about going anywhere with you long before that.” Their gazes met across the expanse of the table and held for a long moment. He felt heat race along his veins.
The waitress put down their salads, breaking their connection. Mo laid her knife down and picked up her fork again. He watched her eat her salad, wondering if she’d felt that flutter at heart level that he had just moments ago. The waitress brought the rest of their food and Mo dug in, avoiding his gaze. He was hungry too and happy to just eat in the companionable silence that fell between them.
“You’re a cowboy, right?” she asked halfway through the meal. “So why follow your dad into law enforcement?”
“I grew up on Cardwell Ranch, yes. But I never wanted to just be a rancher.” He shrugged. “When I heard that a deputy marshal position was opening up, I thought, why not? I found out that I could do a lot of my year at the police academy online. The rest I’ll do once I get my medical release.” He looked up and met her blue eyes and again felt as if he was falling down a deep well before she shifted her gaze back to her plate. “When Natalie stumbled out into the street in front of my pickup that night...” He shook his head. “The more I learned about this case, the more I wanted to know what happened.”
“You want to solve it.”
“Don’t you?”
She shrugged and continued eating for a moment. “Law enforcement isn’t for everyone. It can be dangerous and soul-stealing. It can take you to places you never wanted to go and can never forget.” She looked up, locking eyes with him. “It can change you into a person you no longer recognize.”
“Was it law enforcement that did that? Or Natalie Berkshire?”
Mo said nothing as she finished her meal. But her words were still haunting him as they left the café. As they climbed into the pickup to drive to the closest motel, he saw her freeze for a moment.
“What’s wrong?” He followed her gaze up the street.
“Nothing. I thought I saw... Never mind. I just imagined it. Let’s go.”
But he noticed how quiet she was as they checked into a room with two beds. Had she thought she’d seen Natalie? Or someone else?
“And yes, I got us just one room because I don’t trust you, in case you’re wondering,” he said as she looked at the two queen beds that took up most of the space.
“If I wanted to get away from you, I could.”
“So why haven’t you?”
She seemed to study him. “I either like your company or I think you might come in handy.”
He raised a brow. “Let’s be clear. I’m here to keep you from doing anything stupid when we find Natalie.”
Mo smiled as she closed the distance between them. “I asked around the jail about you. I know about your reputation with women. You’re a heartbreaker.”
He started to object, but she placed a finger against his lips to silence him.
“You won’t be breaking my heart, and please don’t take that as a challenge.” She had a great smile. Her lips turned up at one corner a little more than the other. It was cute. She was more than cute. She was adorable, but also dangerous if the pounding of his heart was any indication.
He pulled her finger from his lips. “Like I said—”
“Right, you’re just here to protect Natalie and me from myself.” She moved within a breath of her lips touching his lips. “Then I should be able to rest peacefully tonight knowing you will keep me from doing anything...stupid.”
As she stepped away, he let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
* * *
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Hud looked up from his desk to see his deputy standing in front of him, grinning. “You found the motor home we’re looking for.”
“Well,” he said, his grin shrinking some. “I think so. It was returned yesterday, and it did have damage to one of the bedroom doors.”
The marshal got to his feet. “Tell me it hasn’t been cleaned or the damage repaired.”
“It hasn’t. It was rented by a man named Herbert Lee Reiner out of Sun Daisy, Arizona.”
Arizona? Hud recalled one of the inquiries he’d gotten about Natalie Berkshire was from Arizona. “Send a forensic team.” He frowned. If the man had used his real name to rent the motor home, then maybe this wasn’t the right one.
As the deputy left his office to notify the team, the marshal returned to his computer to gather what information he could about Herbert Lee Reiner. Married to Doris Sue Thompson for fifty-two years. Herbert had been a postman until his retirement. That meant his fingerprints would be on file.
It didn’t take long before their names began coming up in newspaper articles. The articles read much like the ones that had run in the Billings newspaper. The older couple were the grandparents of an infant with health problems born to their youngest child. The other name that came up in the baby’s death was Natalie Berkshire.
* * *
BRICK WOKE TO the sound of the shower. He looked around the motel room, then at the queen-sized bed he lay in. The covers weren’t overly disturbed. He hadn’t had a nightmare. That alone surprised him.
He stretched, feeling better than he had in weeks. That too surprised him. Maybe what he’d told his father was true. Maybe this was exactly what he’d needed, something he could sink his teeth into, he thought as Mo came out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel.
“Oh, good you’re awake.” She dug in her suitcase, pulled out jeans, a T-shirt and white panties and bra. “I thought you might want a shower,” she said pointedly when he hadn’t moved.
He’d been doing his best not to look at her since the towel was pretty skimpy. “You think I need one?”
“I just don’t want to have to try to dress in that dinky bathroom.” She cocked her head toward the open bathroom door. “Do you mind?”
He threw back the covers and swung his legs over the side. Last night he’d slept in his boxers and nothing else. He hesitated.
“I’ve seen men in a lot less,” Mo said, shaking her head with obvious amusement.
As he strutted past her into the bathroom, he heard her chuckle. He stepped into the bathroom and opened his palm to remove the keys to the pickup he’d grabbed before coming in here. He tucked them under a towel and turned on the shower, smiling to himself. If Mo was planning to leave in his pickup this morning, she was in for a surprise.
He recalled last night when she’d told him he wasn’t going to break her heart. It had sounded way too much like a challenge, he thought. But that was the old Brick. He hadn’t been serious about any woman—at least not for long. That apparently was how he’d gotten the reputation—news to him.
When he thought about Mo, about the look they’d shared at the café, about how his body had reacted with her standing so close last night and again this morning in that towel... The woman had been taunting him. Well, if she thought for a moment that he was going to make a move on her...
Brick turned the shower to cold for a few moments before climbing out. He wasn’t going to let this woman distract him. In the mirror, he ran his fingers through his dark hair. It was a lot longer than he usually wore it, he thought. Also, he had a day’s stubble. He rubbed his jaw, but decided to leave it, not wanting to take the time to shave. Grabbing a towel, he dried off, then pulled on his boxers. He stepped back out of the bathroom.
Mo was gone.
Chapter Eight
Mo looked up as she came out of the local grocery store. From the expression on Brick’s handsome face, he’d thought she’d left him for good. She could see that he was upset and trying to hide it—now that he’d found her. She felt almost guilty for giving him a scare. Also for giving him a hard time last night. She had seen firsthand that the man definitely had a way with women. But then, she’d known that the moment she’d laid eyes on him.
He was too good-looking, too cocky, too full of himself, she’d told herself. And yet since they’d hooked up, so to speak, she’d seen another, more vulnerable side of him. Not that she was going to let that fact weaken her resolve to keep everything between them professional.
“You could have left a note,” he said, walking up to her.
She laughed. “You sound like we’re a thing. If you must know, I went out to get us some doughnuts and coffee,” she said, indicating the bag she was holding in one hand and the to-go tray with two coffees in the other. She handed him the bag, then took one of the coffee cups from the tray and handed it to him. “Also, I looked for an apartment.” He blinked. “Not for us, sweetie. For Natalie.”
The morning was sunny and just starting to warm up. She could smell pine and river scents drifting on the breeze. There was a picnic table on the lawn in front of the small motel. She walked to it and sat down. To anyone watching, they might look like a married couple on vacation.
She opened the bag of doughnuts and offered one to Brick as he joined her.
He took a glazed one and said, “An apartment for Natalie?”
“If you were her, what would you do? She can’t keep running. We know she has limited funds. She has to look for a job. Why not a small tourist town where people with money have built huge summer homes and would love a nanny? Most are probably from out of state and have never heard of Natalie Berkshire—not that she will use her real name, I would imagine. It would only be for the summer or maybe just a few weeks. Exactly what she’s looking for.”
He shook his head. “I’m still surprised she’d stop so close to where she was caught.”
“Because she knows that we expect her to run farther,” Mo said and took a sip of her coffee. “She needs to find a job, and if I’m right, disappear into a family with her next victim. She’s getting desperate. I believe that’s why she made the mistake she did.”
“What mistake was that?” he asked and took a bite of his doughnut, chasing it with a sip of coffee. He frowned at the cup in his hand.
“You do take your coffee with sugar and cream, right?” she asked.
He looked up in surprise. “How did you—”
“It’s no mystery. You had an old cup in your pickup. It was written on the side along with your name and the logo of your favorite coffee shop.” She grinned.
“Okay, you’re observant. I’ll give you that. What mistake did Natalie make?”
“She let her guard down and got caught. She’ll want to do what comes naturally to her, which isn’t running. She’s here in this town. I feel it.” Mo saw his skepticism and reached into her pocket to take out a scrap of paper. She handed it to him. “The apartment comes with a garage where she can hide the stolen car—if she hasn’t had a chance to get rid of it already.”
“Where did you get this?” he asked as he turned the strip of paper over in his fingers. He had nice hands, she noticed. Long fingers. Strong, tanned hands. A man’s hands. She felt a shiver at even the thought of those hands exploring her body.
“You want my jacket?” Brick asked, thinking she was chilly. He was already starting to take off his jean jacket.
She shook her head. “It was on a bulletin board in the only grocery store in town advertising a studio apartment cheap with the telephone number on the slips of paper on the bottom. Only one other slip of paper had been pulled off so I figured the ad hasn’t been posted for long.”
“That doesn’t mean Natalie took the other one.”
She nodded in agreement. “But there is one way to find out.” She pulled out her phone and called the number. No answer. She left a message saying that she was looking for a long-term rental and hoped the apartment was still available.
When she looked up at Brick, she expected to see disapproval in his expression because of how easily the lie had come to her lips. Instead, he was rising to his feet, his eyes fixed on his pickup parked in front of their motel unit. She watched him walk over to the truck and pull what appeared to be a folded sheet of paper from under the passenger-side windshield wiper.
As he unfolded the paper and read what was written there, his gaze shot to her. Mo felt her heart begin to pound.
* * *
BRICK HANDED MO the note he’d found on his pickup’s windshield. He watched her quickly unfolded it and read the words neatly printed there.
Chasing me won’t give you the answers you want. You should be looking for the man Tricia had been seeing. I don’t know his name. I only saw him once. Blond with blue eyes, about six-two or six-three. I swear I didn’t hurt the baby. But if Joey was her lover’s baby... By the way, someone is following you.
He watched her refold the note and put it into her pocket without a word. He could tell that she was upset, but what was written on the note didn’t seem to come as a shock compared to what Natalie had already told her at the hospital. Was it why she hadn’t let Natalie tell her that day at the house before Joey died? She hadn’t wanted to hear it, still didn’t want to believe it.
