“Crap,” the driver grumbled, batting away the bag and sending some of that powder right at Leyton. The motion caused the dozen or so thin silver bracelets she was wearing to jangle. Her earrings did some jangling, too. There was a trio of what appeared to be Goth-clad fairies in her right earlobe.
He helped her with the batting, unhooking her seat belt, but Leyton stopped her when she tried to get out. “You need to stay put,” he told her. “I’ll call for an EMT to come and check you.”
Leyton fired off a text to the dispatcher to get that started. Since the hospital was just a couple of blocks up the street, it wouldn’t take them long to get there.
“Crap,” she repeated, turning her head in his direction.
Their eyes met. Familiar dark blue eyes. And despite the fact the woman’s face was covered in talc, the rest of her was familiar, too.
Hadley Dalton.
Leyton got the jolt he always did when he saw Hadley. Which wasn’t very often. But it was sort of a gut-punch mixture of red-hot lust and cold, dark dread. The lust because, well, this crap-muttering woman would apparently always ring his manly bell. The dread was because there wasn’t another woman on earth who could give him as much trouble as Hadley.
It’d been a while, years, since Leyton had seen Hadley, but he had heard that she’d come back for a visit about six weeks earlier. A short visit where their paths hadn’t crossed. Considering how small Lone Star Ridge was, that likely meant she’d purposely avoided him. Judging from the scowl she gave him, she would have preferred for that avoidance to continue.
“It’s Badly Hadley,” Carter said as if making an announcement to the entire town.
Hadley immediately shifted her scowl from Leyton to Carter. With good reason. Badly Hadley was the nickname Leyton knew she hated. She’d gotten dubbed with it when she and her triplet sisters had been the “stars” of the reality show Little Cowgirls. The episodes had documented plenty of embarrassing moments of the triplets’ lives and been filmed right here at her grandmother’s ranch in Lone Star Ridge. The show had stayed on the air for a dozen years. A dozen years of TV viewers tuning in to see just how bad Badly Hadley could be.
Leyton knew for a fact that she could be very, very bad.
“Are you drunk?” Carter asked her because he, too, knew about the very, very bad. In a generic sort of way, that is. Unlike Leyton, whose knowledge of Hadley was a bit more...personal.
“No, I’m not drunk,” she snarled. She blinked as if trying to focus and looked at Leyton. Her gaze slid from his face to the badge he had clipped to his belt. “I wrecked because I dodged a chicken.”
“A rooster,” Leyton corrected.
Though the rooster was now nowhere in sight. He made a mental note to find it so it didn’t cause any other accidents. There were plenty of ranches and farms nearby that had poultry, but this was a first for one making its way into town.
Still scowling and groaning, Hadley turned in the seat and would have gotten out had Leyton not stopped her again. “Just wait until the EMTs get here.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “But I need to move this unicorn horn. It’s poking my thigh.”
Of all the things Leyton had thought she might say, that wasn’t one of them. “Unicorn horn?” he questioned.
Hell. She probably had a concussion or was maybe in shock if she was hallucinating about something like that.
Hadley nodded as if she’d just explained everything to him, and she practically oozed off the seat. Leyton caught her in his arms. Good thing, too, because Hadley wobbled when she stood, and she looked down. Leyton followed her gaze, and that’s when Leyton saw that there was indeed a, well, unicorn horn.
It appeared to be a hat with a hard plastic horn jutting out from the rainbow-colored head. The horn was jammed and tangled in the laced-up side of Hadley’s black jeans. She yanked it out, winced, and Leyton saw some blood. Not much, but it appeared to have broken the skin.
“It’s something my grandmother wanted me to make,” she said, her voice a little steadier now. “It was on the seat next to me when I wrecked.”
Hadley was a costume designer in California so that made sense. Well, sort of made sense. Her grandmother Em wasn’t the most conventional person, but a unicorn hat seemed on the extreme side even for her.
“You’re bleeding,” Carter blurted out the way a weatherman would warn of a tornado bearing down on him. There was volume, urgency and panic in his voice, and he hooked his arm around Hadley’s waist.
Hadley gave Carter a look that could have frozen lava. “Carter Bodell, if you’re going to shock me or have some kind of device on you to make farting noises, I’ll knee you in the nuts,” she snarled.
Unlike the unicorn horn, this particular comment hadn’t come out of left field. Carter was a prankster. One with the sense of humor of a third grader. He often had shocking/farting devices on him that went off when he shook hands with someone or slapped that person on the back.
“And if you try to feel me up again like you did in high school,” Hadley added to the snarl, “I’ll also knee you in the nuts.”
Leyton wasn’t sure if Carter had intended to do any feeling up, but that got the undertaker backing away from Hadley. However, she hadn’t given the same warning to Leyton, which was ironic since he had indeed felt up Hadley many times. Not now though.
Definitely not now.
Hopefully, not ever again. He needed an entanglement with Hadley about as much as he needed a unicorn horn in his thigh or a wreck-causing rooster on Main Street.
“Is she okay?” someone called out.
Ty Copperfield, the young, fresh-faced EMT, was running up the sidewalk toward them. Leyton knew him, of course. He knew everyone in town and vice versa since Leyton had lived here most of his life.
“I’m fine,” Hadley grumbled, and she wiped some of the talc from her face.
With enough of the airbag powder gone, Leyton got a better look at her. No cuts or nicks as there sometimes was with an airbag deployment.
“Her leg’s bleeding,” Carter said, pointing in the direction of the wound.
“It’s just a scratch,” Hadley insisted, but that didn’t stop Ty from stooping down and checking it for himself.
“You’re right,” Ty said a moment later. “Just a scratch, but you’ll need to have it cleaned.”
Ty stood, waved a little penlight in front of her eyes, made a sound of approval and then as Leyton had done, he continued to check Hadley for other injuries. So did the crowd that was gathering on Main Street. But the crowd did it from a respectable distance.
Everyone who’d been in the shops and businesses was now outside, and the possibility of heatstroke from the sweltering July temps wouldn’t stop them from milling around to find out what was happening. Leyton saw a lot of texting and calling going on, and soon it would be all over Lone Star Ridge that Hadley was back and had been involved in a wreck. There’d be embellishments to the gossip, no doubt. Gossip that might include him since he still had an arm around Hadley.
Ty halted his once-over exam of Hadley and snagged her gaze. He grinned. “Say, you’re Badly Hadley. Man, I can’t believe it’s you. I used to see you on that TV show when I was a kid.”
“Little Cowgirls,” Carter supplied as if being helpful. “Hadley used to be a star.”
Talk about some ego slamming. Used to be a star was the same as saying a has-been, and Ty’s when I was a kid remark sure hadn’t helped. Hadley was just thirty-three, only a year younger than Leyton, but to the twenty-two-year-old Ty, she probably did seem old-ish. Added to that, Little Cowgirls had been off the air for eighteen years now, so Ty had indeed been a kid when he’d watched the show.
“I need to go,” Hadley muttered, and she stepped out of Leyton’s grip so she could turn and look at the Jeep.
Hadley groaned, then cursed when her gaze ski
mmed over the airbag debris in the front seats, the bashed-in front end and the still-spewing radiator. The engine was no longer running, which meant there’d been enough damage that the Jeep would have to be towed.
She certainly made an odd picture standing there in loose laced-up jeans, black tank top and bloodred flip-flops. Her long straight hair was black—which he knew was dyed from her natural dark brown—and was pulled back in a ponytail. Not fussy but that only seemed to draw more attention to it. Just like the woman herself. Hadley might have been born and raised here, but she looked city. And very much out of place on a small-town main street where a rooster could cause a wreck.
“I need to go,” she repeated, this time aiming her comment at Leyton. Ty resumed his exam and began checking Hadley’s head. “I have to see Em.”
It wasn’t a surprise that she’d want to see her grandmother. Em had practically raised Hadley, her sisters and their brother since their own parents had been pretty much scum. But there was a high level of concern in Hadley’s voice that made him think this was more than just a visit.
“Is Em okay?” Leyton asked. When Hadley didn’t jump to answer that, Leyton felt the knot form in his gut.
“I’m not sure,” Hadley finally said.
And just like that, the knot tightened. Em had always been good to him. Unlike plenty of others in town. Em had never judged him, either, for being a “love child” instead of being born with the Jameson name.
Hadley batted away Ty, who was now examining her neck, and she grabbed her purse from the passenger seat of the Jeep. “Em called me late last night and insisted I come home,” Hadley told Leyton.
She opened her mouth, no doubt to add to that explanation, but she must have realized she had Ty’s and Carter’s complete attention. The attention of the dozen or so townsfolk, too.
“I’ll call the rental company and report the accident,” she continued, still gripping the unicorn hat in her left hand. “First though, I need to see Em.”
Leyton hesitated, nodded. He should probably insist on taking her to the ER and then getting her statement about the accident, but the gut knot won out. Those things could wait. “I’ll drive you.”
And just like that, their uncomfortable past washed over her expression. “I can walk.”
Yeah, she could since it was less than a half mile, but Leyton had no intention of letting her do that. “I’ll drive you,” he insisted, and he grabbed the large suitcase from the back seat of the Jeep.
Since he wasn’t sure if she was steady on her feet, Leyton took hold of her arm and maneuvered Hadley and her suitcase around the crowd and across the street to the police station parking lot, where his cruiser was parked.
It occurred to him that had this been her sisters, Sunny or McCall, more folks would have greeted her. There would have been more smiles, too, and welcome home would have been doled out for the friendlier sisters. But Hadley always seemed to have an invisible back-off sign.
“I’ll need to have the Jeep towed,” Hadley muttered, glancing back over her shoulder at it before she got into the cruiser.
“I can help with that.” He could also arrange for anything else in the Jeep to be brought out to her grandmother’s ranch. For now though, he wanted answers. So, he put her suitcase in the cruiser, got in and started the engine. “What do you think is wrong with Em?”
She shook her head, causing more of the talcum to fall and her ponytail to swish. “Like I said, she insisted I come. I asked her why and she said she just had something important to tell me.” Hadley cursed under her breath. “She also asked me to bring her the unicorn hat.”
Leyton met Hadley’s gaze before he pulled out of the parking lot. “Why the hat?”
Hadley made a frustrated sigh. “She said it was for a costume party at the preschool where she does story time. She sketched out a picture of what she wanted and asked me to make it for her. Apparently, she already has the actual costume but wanted the hat to finish off the look.” Look went in air quotes.
Well, Em did do story time, but he couldn’t imagine that the hat would be safe to have around kids. However, it did ease the gut knot some. Things couldn’t be that bad for Em if she still planned on going to the preschool. Then again, maybe the hat was some kind of ploy. Exactly what kind of ploy, he didn’t know, but it could have something to do with the rumors he’d heard that Hadley had recently been fired from her job. Maybe this was Em’s way of giving Hadley busywork?
“I got stuck in a traffic jam in San Antonio,” Hadley went on, “so I took out the unicorn cap from my luggage and did some work on it. Em wanted rhinestones added to the horn.”
He heard the tension and worry in her voice and pushed for more info. “Do McCall and Sunny know if anything’s wrong with Em?”
“No. I called them right away, and they said that Em seemed fine. McCall’s in Dallas, closing down her office there, so I told her to stay put, that there was no need to worry.”
He knew about McCall being in Dallas. Knew, too, that she was shutting down her counseling practice there so she could move it to Lone Star Ridge. McCall was living at the ranch with Em, but that would change as well once her fiancé, Austin Jameson, and she got married. Since Austin was also his half brother, Leyton had stayed apprised of their plans.
“Sunny’s on a book tour for the next couple of days,” Hadley added. “I told her to stay put, too.”
Again, Leyton knew about that. Sunny was an illustrator for a popular graphic novel series, Slacker Quackers, and she’d gone on a tour to promote the latest issue. In fact, he knew plenty about Sunny as well since she was engaged to another of his half brothers, Shaw.
“I hadn’t texted Em my flight info because I didn’t want her coming to the airport to pick me up,” Hadley went on. “I didn’t want her making that drive. So, I called her when I landed to tell her I was getting a rental car and would be here soon, but she didn’t answer.”
She took out her phone from her purse, and with the call on speaker, she tried again. The call went straight to voicemail. “Em hasn’t answered any of my six calls or texts,” Hadley added.
Hell. He hoped the woman hadn’t fallen or something. Em was in her seventies, and while she seemed in good health, that didn’t mean she hadn’t had an accident.
Leyton pushed the accelerator, going well past the 30 mph speed limit, and he pushed it even more when he took the turn on the road that led to the ranch.
Whenever he came here to Em’s, he always got the same feeling. That time had somehow stopped. The house and the grounds hadn’t changed since Little Cowgirls had been filmed here.
Maybe Hadley was also seeing that because she dragged in a long breath, and he didn’t think it was his imagination that she seemed even more unsteady than she had right after the wreck. Home usually held plenty of memories, and in Hadley’s case, there were just as many bad as good ones here.
Hadley barreled out of his cruiser the moment Leyton came to a stop, and he had to hurry to catch up with her. By the time he was on the porch, she already had the front door open—it was unlocked—and she rushed inside.
“Em?” she called out.
No answer.
“Em?” Hadley tried again.
Still nothing, but Leyton tried to tamp down any real concern. The ranch was a big place, and it was possible that Em was in the barn or outside in her garden.
Obviously, Hadley wasn’t tamping down anything. Moving fast and leaving a trail of the talcum in her wake, she raced through the maze of rooms and to the kitchen. Em wasn’t there, either, so Hadley headed toward the woman’s bedroom suite. And she stopped cold.
Because Leyton was behind her, it took a moment for him to see why she’d frozen. Another moment to figure out what was lying on the floor. Or rather what was possibly on the floor. It appeared to be a stretchy rainbow unicorn costume, and it was in the middle of the hal
l as if someone had dropped it there.
Hadley picked up the costume, taking it with her into Em’s room. Again, no sign of the woman, but her dresser drawers were wide open, and there were more clothes and shoes strewed around.
“Is this usual?” Leyton wanted to know since this was the first time he’d been in this part of the house.
Hadley shook her head. “No. She’s usually a neat freak.” And still clutching the costume, she walked to the bed, her attention zooming in on something there.
A note.
“Is that Em’s handwriting?” Leyton asked.
She nodded and picked it up. “‘Hadley, I’m fine, but I had to go on a short trip to visit an old friend,’” she read aloud. “‘Remember that secret box we buried when you were twelve?’”
“Box?” Leyton repeated, but he didn’t wait for an answer. Looking over Hadley’s shoulder, he read the last part of the note, his voice blending with Hadley’s.
“‘Well, it’s time for you to dig it up,’” they read, “‘because there are some things about me that you need to know.’”
CHAPTER TWO
HADLEY REREAD HER grandmother’s note several times, and she tried to steady herself with Em’s I’m fine, but nothing about this felt anywhere near fine. Something was wrong.
“Do you know anything about these old friends she’s visiting?” Leyton asked, and he sounded very much like the cop that he was.
She shook her head. “I’ve never heard her mention any old friends.” Hadley looked at Leyton. “You’d know as many of her friends as I would. Maybe more.”
After all, Leyton had lived in Lone Star Ridge since he was a kid when he’d moved in with his biological father, Marty Jameson, and his then wife. Unlike Hadley, who’d left town when she turned eighteen, Leyton had stayed.
And he’d become the sheriff.
It didn’t surprise her that he had gone the good-guy route, but it always felt a little like salt in an old wound to her.
“What about this secret box?” Leyton pressed, tapping what Em had written.
Chasing Trouble in Texas Page 32