She meant the comment in humor; Declan didn’t smile.
“How long are you in town for?”
“Until Christmas, though I might head back if I need a break from the boys at the ranch.”
“Have you told them yet? About, you know?”
Remi let out a sigh that mimicked Declan’s earlier stress-infused ones.
“No. Other than the nurse and lab tech, you’re the only one I’ve told so far.” She gave him a look she hoped was severe. “And I’d like to keep it on the down low for now. Not only is it too early to tell anyone, I also feel like we need to talk it out first.”
“Agreed. What about tonight?” He nodded out the windshield. “I can make us dinner. If you don’t mind subpar cooking.”
Remi couldn’t help laughing.
“Considering the microwave was my most-used appliance at my rental in Nashville, anything you make I bet would be ten times better than what I would cobble together at Heartland.”
After they got out of the truck, Declan paused next to her car door. He looked like he wanted to say something and couldn’t seem to find the right words. Remi felt a wave of sympathy wash over her. In its wake was a surprising and vicious pull of the fear of the unknown.
She could have misjudged the man opposite her. Children and teens did grow up, and there was no denying he had. He could still love his family. That didn’t mean he would want to be a part of their child’s life.
Either way, Remi wasn’t about to find the answer right now. She put her hand out and patted Declan on the shoulder.
“Let me know when you want me to come over and I’ll be here,” she said, trying to sound happier than her thoughts had just become. “And try not to stress too much about everything. I can already see some wrinkles trying to break through.”
He smiled. It was tight.
“I guess you’re too short to see some of the gray hairs I’ve been sprouting already.”
“Just remember, that’s when cowboy hats serve a dual purpose. Slap that puppy on and aim that stress somewhere else. Okay?”
He nodded, but she knew her words were just words. They didn’t have the power to wring the stress from his life. Just as his didn’t have the power to smooth over hers.
He opened her car door and shut it gently when Remi was inside. By the time she was pulling out of the driveway, she couldn’t help but look in her rearview.
Declan was already gone.
* * *
COOPER MANN LOOKED two shades of panicked when Declan walked into the viewing room at the sheriff’s department. The young rebel was handcuffed to the metal table in the room opposite, visibly freaking out even though there was a thick, soundproofed two-way mirror between them.
Detective Jazz Santiago, Caleb’s partner and best friend, shook her head in greeting.
“I couldn’t believe the call when it came in,” she started. “I almost asked if there was another Cooper Mann who drove a white Corvette with a piece of duct tape along the bumper.”
“But there’s not,” he finished.
She shook her head.
“Still hard to believe, though.”
Declan had to agree with her there.
“Where’s the woman he tried to grab? You said her name was Lydia?”
Jazz pulled a slip of paper out of her pants pocket. She handed it over. “Lydia Cartwright” was written in sloppy handwriting. It was a far cry from the neatness of the note he’d found less than two hours ago.
If the current situation hadn’t been what it was, Declan would have considered telling Jazz what he had found. Even though she and her husband had lived in Overlook for years, they weren’t locals. Her fascination with the triplet abduction stopped and started only when it was relevant to the conversation and only if that conversation was started by a Nash. Her loyalty, friendship and top-notch detective skills would be an asset to figuring out whatever it was that Declan and Remi had found.
Yet, he held his tongue and forced himself to focus on the present and the woman who had almost been kidnapped herself.
“She’s at the hospital getting seen about still,” Jazz answered. Her shoulders tensed. “He cut up her face pretty good with the keys on his key ring. You can still see some of her blood on his hands.”
Declan cursed beneath his breath. Sure enough he could make out smears across parts of Cooper’s hands and fingers.
“Is Caleb out there with her already?”
Caleb had been one of his calls as Declan tried to assess the situation before knowing all of the facts. He’d needed to deploy one of his best to figure out those facts. Pronto. But then he’d spent the majority of the ride over talking to his chief deputy. Mayne Cussler was, and had been, Declan’s right-hand man for a while now. When Declan had nearly died a few years ago, Cussler had stepped up in a big way while making it known he liked where he was.
“Being sheriff one day could be nice,” he’d said once Declan had been cleared for work again. “But I like where I am right now.”
Cussler was a reserved man, quiet. He hadn’t been as much when Declan had told him that Cooper Mann had tried to abduct a woman. In fact, Declan had heard the man cuss more during their conversation on the drive over than Declan had heard in the ten years of knowing him.
“Yeah. He and Nina were downtown with Parker when you called so he was able to get there pretty quick,” Jazz answered. “He said he’d update us the second he finds something out.”
Declan nodded. He tried to untangle the knots of facts threaded together in his head. One line of thought was begging to be pulled out, but Jazz angled her body toward him and dropped her voice before he could inspect it.
“Cooper isn’t asking for a lawyer. He’s asking for you. He said you two met up today?”
The question of “why” was clear in her expression, yet he was glad there was no suspicion there. She might not have been Declan’s partner but she trusted him.
Which made his omission of the entire truth even harder to tell her.
“He heard a rumor about the triplets’ abduction case and wanted to pass it on to me, to pay me back for helping clear his warrant.”
Jazz’s eyes widened considerably.
“What was the rumor?”
That one thread of thought, begging to be pulled out, became the only one left in his head.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, anger rising. “I have a feeling it was all just a distraction.”
The paper in the plastic bag in Declan’s pocket felt heavier. The hope Declan had been harboring since Remi had pointed out the seam in the hallway was now souring into him feeling like an idiot.
Cooper Mann had, for whatever reason, set him up.
He should have known better.
And that just made Declan angrier.
“It’s time for me to have a little talk with our friend.”
Chapter Six
Cooper was sweating bullets. His face had paled considerably from earlier that morning. There was a slight shake to him. He wasn’t exactly the picture of a man who had brazenly attacked and then tried to kidnap a woman. But Declan was no stranger to the adage that looks could be deceiving.
He settled into the metal chair opposite Cooper in the interrogation room and laced his fingers over the top of the table, leaning in. Declan was outraged and trying his best not to let it show.
Cooper, again, wasn’t faring well when it came to keeping his own emotions in check. Declan didn’t get a word in before the young man was nearly talking over himself to get his side of the story out.
“I didn’t do this, man, you gotta know that, right? She came after me!”
“Don’t call me ‘man,’” Declan responded, voice even. “It’s Sheriff Nash.”
Cooper’s eyes widened, a deer caught in headlights. He shook his head.
&n
bsp; “She came at me, Sheriff Nash,” he tried again. “Honest to God, I was just stopping to get something to eat, and she got my attention and then bam!” He tried to bring his hands up to his face. The handcuffs kept the movement from extending past his chest, so he jerked his head down to meet his hands. He didn’t touch his face but made stabbing motions. “She grabbed my keys out of my hand and started shredding her own face!”
If Caleb had been sitting next to him, Declan imagined he would have snorted and said something along the lines of Well, that’s a new one.
However, Declan wasn’t in the mood in the slightest. He wasn’t about to encourage Cooper’s story.
“The man who called 911 said he came out of the shop because he heard her screaming and saw you trying to push her into your car.”
Cooper made a strangled sound between frustration and fear. He hit his hands against the top of the table.
“I was trying to get her out of my car! After she did that crazy thing to her face, she opened my door and tried to get in! I thought she was trying to carjack me! Then someone was grabbing me and you guys showed up acting like I was the bad guy!”
Declan didn’t roll his eyes.
He wanted to, though.
“Why would she want to do all of that?” he asked.
“The hell if I know! She’s crazy!”
Cooper was nearly panting. Declan believed something traumatic had happened. What he was having a hard time believing was that Cooper had been the victim.
“You have to understand how this looks from my point of view, Cooper,” Declan said, easy on the tone. “First you come to me today about new information on the abduction case and then you’re seen with an injured woman who swears you tried to abduct her. Were you trying to use the triplets’ abduction to distract me from you trying the same? Or were you just trying to double your chances at making headline news?”
Cooper opened and closed his mouth a few times. Objectively, Declan thought the boy looked terrified and surprised at the accusation. Then again, trying to abduct someone on his watch wasn’t just an affront to Declan’s job, it was a hard prod into his family’s past.
He wasn’t going to give Cooper an inch.
Not until he had proof otherwise.
“After we finish talking to Ms. Cartwright, I’ll be back in here,” Declan said, standing to his full height and drawing in his chest with authority and sincerity. He adjusted his Stetson and made sure his sheriff’s badge was showing. “Then we’re going to get to the bottom of this. And, Cooper? If you lie to me, you’re going pay for that lie. It’s as simple as that. Got it?”
This time Cooper found his words. They jumbled together as he again tried to tell Declan he was innocent, that Lydia had been the one lying, and he’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Declan shut the door behind him with Cooper still talking.
Jazz met him in the hallway.
“This is going to be a nightmare in the press,” she said. “Cussler can only sweet-talk Delores and the media away for so long.”
“I know.” Declan sighed. “Which is why we have to move fast and get this thing settled before it takes over the town.”
* * *
DECLAN DIDN’T CALL.
Remi shrugged deeper into her jacket and kept her leisurely pace along the dirt path across Hudson Heartland. It went from the front door of the house all the way to the front gate, and she was on her way back for the second pass. The distance wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle, yet she felt a soreness already creeping into her legs. She was also somewhat out of breath.
Was that a pregnancy thing?
Or was she just looking for pregnancy symptoms and finding her own when there were none?
Remi shook her head. She needed to calm down. Her next appointment was at eight weeks, a little too far away if she was being honest, and she’d given herself that deadline to figure out what the heck was going to happen next for her, her child and Declan.
She knew the sheriff was out there being the sheriff, yet, when seven o’clock turned into eight and then nine, Remi had felt a sting of rejection at his absence. Rescheduling their talk was okay—she’d understand that—but Declan hadn’t even texted her.
The reasons he hadn’t gotten in touch with her all stemmed from issues Remi had been afraid of when she found out about the pregnancy.
Declan being so busy with work that he’d forgotten about their chat was the leading suspect in her mind. Which opened up a Pandora’s box of potential issues for her. One, Declan’s job was chaotic and dangerous. Not a point against him but definitely not a point of stability for Remi’s comfort or liking. Two, he was a sheriff who didn’t just do his job, he was his job.
She took in a deep, cooling breath. She’d recognized the look in Declan’s eyes after finding the note. It was one of purpose. It was one of excitement. It was a solid stubbornness.
Stubbornness to do whatever it took to see through what he meant to see through.
She’d encountered it before in her father. A dogged approach to life: the job came first because it had to, the rest of them be damned.
Remi knew the balance between family and obligation to protect that family was a difficult dance. One her father had lost when she was younger, resulting in her parents’ divorce. And that had revolved around taming horses for clients and then boarding horses, not solving kidnapping cases and trying to protect an entire county of people.
She also knew that she and Declan were friends who had momentarily become more.
Could she really expect him to keep her within his orbit? Especially with his job?
And if Declan hadn’t forgotten about her?
Well, then, that was another set of issues she’d have to deal with.
Remi saw movement ahead of her. The outline of a man was illuminated by the exterior lights set up around the house. For a moment her stomach turned into an excited mess of static, then she realized the proportions of the man didn’t fit the wide stature of the sheriff.
He came close enough that the light shifted. Jonah had his eyebrow raised in question.
“You know it’s cold out here, right?” he greeted, zipping up the plaid monstrosity their mother had given him a few Christmases ago. Of all the Hudson clan, Jonah and Remi resembled each other the most. Lean, on the shorter side, dark blond hair, and freckles that had faded since they were children. Along with their mother, they both had almond-brown eyes. Remi had liked to think hers resembled more of a burning ember in the right light, but she seriously doubted Jonah would ever want such a frilly descriptor of his features.
Jonah Hudson might have looked like her, but he was all their father in personality. No-nonsense, no-frills, just hard work and a stifling need to guilt others about family obligation while rising to equally intense and set-way-too-high family expectations. Jonah might have been a year younger than her but Remi had always felt he was light-years older.
Even now his gaze felt belittling.
It did nothing for her current mood.
“You know that’s what jackets are made for, right?” She motioned to hers and returned his eyebrow raise.
Jonah rolled his eyes but turned so he was at her shoulder. He matched her steps as she followed the curve of the path that went around the house and to the back porch.
“I don’t know why you’re out here right now anyways,” Jonah kept on. “Last I heard you weren’t a fan of the ranch. Now you show up two weeks early for the holidays and you’re out walking it?”
Remi groaned.
“Just because I don’t want to run the ranch doesn’t mean I can’t love it, you know,” she shot back, neck getting hot as her anger spiked.
Jonah raised his hands in surrender.
“I didn’t come out here to fight,” he backtracked. “I saw you and thought I’d join you.
Dad and Josh are in a mood together.”
Remi heard the annoyance she often felt for the three Hudson men coming out of one of those men now. Her anger took a turn for the curious.
“Really? I didn’t pick up on that at supper.”
Jonah’s breath misted out in front of him for the smallest of seconds. It wasn’t cold enough to sustain a more noticeable cloud. It did show Remi a frustrated side of her brother that wasn’t, for once, aimed at her.
“You haven’t exactly been around the last few years so that doesn’t surprise me. Dad and Josh butt heads more and more every day, but ever since Josh started dating this new woman he’s been more vocal than normal. One moment he’s talking about turning the ranch back into the place to tame and train horses, the next he’s talking about running off into the sunset with this new fling.”
Remi was absolutely stunned at that news. A common theme she’d encountered since leaving for college had been how living a life outside of the ranch was akin to familial treason. Josh hadn’t pulled any punches as Remi had decided to commit that treason with every new choice that wasn’t coming back to Overlook and taking an interest in Hudson Heartland.
“A fling is making him rethink his gospel?” Remi mocked, unable to keep the bad feelings of her brother’s disappointment from slinking into her words. “Does that mean I finally get a pass if he decides to run off into the sunset?”
“This is serious, Remi,” Jonah tried. “He barely knows this woman and yet he’s ready to throw everything he’s worked for away? For what? A few rounds in the sack?”
Remi made a disgusted noise.
“I don’t need to hear that,” she said. “Please and thank you.”
They made it to the back porch. The light in their father’s bedroom room was off. Josh’s room was at the other corner of the house along the back. His light was on. Jonah looked up at it with concern clear on his face.
Despite their differences and the chasm that had opened up between them since becoming adults, Remi softened and took pity on her little brother.
Last Stand Sheriff Page 5