by Snow, Nicole
Whatever I do, whatever I decide, doesn’t just affect me or my parents. It will affect this entire town, several thousand people.
People whose livelihoods depend on Earhart Oil and hence, depend on me.
Holy hell, that’s sobering. And scary. And true.
“You okay?”
I turn and look at Drake, who’s probably wondering why I’ve crawled into my own head for the past ten minutes. “Yeah. Just thinking.”
I smile. Gramps knew what I’d be facing, and he gave me a leg up.
A warmth fills my chest. He trusted me. Left me a way to execute that trust.
One man. The only thing I need to make sure Jonah Reed’s legacy never disappears.
Drake seems trustworthy, and handsome, and for the next six months, mine. The partner that I need. A smile forms, and I nod. “And yes, I’m okay.”
“You’ve barely said a word since we left the ranch,” he says, pulling the keys out of the ignition. We’ve arrived.
“A lot on my mind.” I open my door and climb out of the truck.
We meet on the sidewalk before he asks, “Yeah? Anything I should know?”
“That Gramps was right in what he did. Maybe you are, too.” I glance at the white BMW as we walk past it toward the door to the sheriff’s office. “Thanks for agreeing to help me, to be here for...you know. It can’t be easy.”
There’s a touch of skepticism in his brilliant eyes, even as he smiles. “He’d be happy to hear you say that.”
I hook my hand around his arm. “I’m happy to tell it like it is. I won’t lie; this whole thing freaked me out. Still does. But it’s hardly the worst that could happen.”
Drake glances up and down, sizing me up. “Really?”
Looking up at him, I smile and nod.
He lets out a low whistle. “My turn to freak, darlin’. You’re starting to scare me bad.”
I laugh, mainly because I don’t believe him.
In fact, I don’t believe much of anything would scare this behemoth of a man.
We’re both laughing when he opens the door. My parents are there, standing in the lobby. Mother’s eyes instantly settle on the hand I have around Drake’s arm. If this were a cartoon, I’m pretty sure she’d turn cherry red and start spitting bullets.
Reason enough to leave my hand on Drake’s very big, ink-kissed forearm.
She shifts her gaze to me, and her eyes narrow into slits. “What’s he doing here? Seriously? We can’t have any privacy?”
Awesome start. I just know this is going to go about as well as I expected.
Smiling, I shrug, and knowing full well what she’ll think of my answer, I say, “He lives with me, Mom. And after yesterday, I’m not exactly comfortable with two or three on one.”
The way she sniffs and turns her nose up tells me she’s as unimpressed as I expected.
So be it. I’m done obeying like a good puppy just because that’s what they expect.
“We’ll just see. What happened to your face?” she asks.
Crap.
I’m surprised she even noticed with the way she’s glaring at Drake.
And no, we won’t see because there’s nothing she can do about it. That thought tickles me as I shrug.
“I tripped and took a fall by the barn. Honest mistake.” I turn to my father. “Why are we here?”
“Sheriff Wallace wants to talk to us. Everybody, he said.” Dad gestures toward a door, the kind with a small, thick glass window. “Now that we’re here, best not to keep him waiting.”
With my hand still on Drake’s arm, we walk in that direction.
I don’t look up at him because I’m not sure what he thinks about what I just said. We both live at the ranch, but not in the way I’d purposefully implied.
He’s a stranger. Not my boyfriend. Not my husband. Not for real. Not my anything.
Mother arrives at the door first and pushes a button.
A buzzer whirs and a moment later, the door pulls open from the other side. Dressed in her brown uniform, Shelia sees me as soon as the door opens far enough, her curly hair bobbing.
“Bella-Bell!” She rushes past Mom. “It’s so wonderful to have you home.”
I’m reminded how long I’ve been away as we hug. I remember her hair being brown. It’s half white now, but her smile is the same, taking over her entire face.
“It’s good to be home, Shelia,” I tell her.
The truth hits a second later. It is good to be home, isn’t it?
The change of her hair color reinforces the fact that I’ve been gone too long.
I never realized how good the people of this town were to me. My memories were all focused on Gramps, but it was more than him.
It’s Shelia, and so many others like her who always made me feel welcomed, and missed, on each and every visit.
She steps back and grasps my shoulders. “You’re so grown up, and as adorable as ever!” Frowning, she touches my cheek. “Is this from last night?”
Before I can answer, she turns to Drake. “Where else was she injured?”
His eyes darken. They’d been bright blue earlier, when he’d been laughing about being scared, but now they’re a midnight shade.
“Her palms and forearms got scraped, but her leg was sliced open by the trip line they’d put out,” he answers.
“Oh, no. How bad?” Shelia asks, grasping my hands and flipping them over to examine my palms.
She’s more than just a concerned friend, now she’s in evidence mode.
“Not bad,” I say, pulling back my hands. “I’m totally fine.”
“I put butterfly stitches on her leg,” Drake says.
My face heats, remembering how he helped, so gentle and in charge. I flash him a look that says enough already.
He lifts a brow, but it’s his eyes I focus on. There’s a challenge in them.
Payback, maybe, for what I told Mom about him living with me. But hell, we’re married, aren’t we?
“Scumbags,” Shelia hisses. “Don’t you worry. They’re already apprehended, cooling their heels in jail. Rodney won’t let them get away with this.”
Drake lifts his other brow. I get why. It’s funny to hear her call the sheriff just Rodney.
I still can’t believe he’s right, that they’re married. I didn’t need proof, but think it’s cute that he’s rubbing it in with his subtle told ya eyebrow.
“This way,” Shelia says. “Rodney’s waiting for you.”
Drake places a hand on my back and follows me through the open door to where my parents are standing. The heat of his palm penetrates the material of my shirt like it’s nothing.
God, it feels good, especially thanks to the rabid glare Mom levels on all three of us.
Glancing up, I lift a brow of my own to tell him, see what we’re up against?
He winks at me. It’s quick, but it’s there.
I pinch my lips together at how such a simple gesture makes my cheeks burn, but then I let a full-blown smile come.
Mom saw his wink, too. I see how her gaze intensifies, how her fingers fold into fists, how her lips twitch like a rabbit denied its dinner. She can’t possibly believe anyone would dare have any claim to my mind except her.
She lets out a subtle hiss before snapping at Shelia, “Her name’s Annabelle, you know.”
“Sure it is. And she’ll always be our little Bella-Bell,” Shelia answers, opening a door.
“Don’t wear it out,” Drake says, a smirk pulling at his lips. “A beautiful name for a beautiful lady.”
My knees suddenly don’t want to work, and it’s got nothing to do with the beating they took last night.
Mom sucks in so much air I worry she might pop like a balloon. I consider nudging Drake, tell him it’s too much, but decide not to.
“What can I say? Gramps gave me the nickname, and it stuck. Sometimes, we let the people closest to us give us special names.”
“He gave you special in spades,” Drake tells me. “Be
t there’s not a lot of chicks walking around named after badasses who used to own the skies.”
I smile, weirdly impressed he remembers my middle name. It shouldn’t be so shocking after he signed the papers, but...
“Oh, please. The real Amelia Earhart was never any relation,” Mom says, angrily flipping the zipper tag on her purse. “That old man made it all up to make himself seem more impressive.”
Shelia rolls her eyes and shakes her head as Drake and I walk past her into the room. I smile at her, and then at the sheriff who stands near a table.
He hasn’t changed at all. Rodney Wallace is as tall as ever and still waxing his mustache so the long tips curl up like the Kaiser a hundred years ago, wearing his stiff-brimmed cowboy hat.
He nods at us. I wave in return, but sense Drake stiffen at my side.
I glance up, wondering why the sudden hardness of his stance makes my insides shudder.
Following his gaze, I see why.
Avery Briar sits perched in the room on a chair in the center, adjusting his tie.
“Howdy, Bella-Bell,” the sheriff says. “Mr. Larkin. I believe you both know Mr. Briar.”
“We do,” I say, wondering what would happen if I told the entire room my last name is Larkin, too.
I don’t know why that hits me right now, but it does.
Mom would pitch one hell of a fit if it slipped out. Right here. Right now.
She’d try to find a way to put a stop to it, too. I don’t need that right now, but I won’t mind making them wonder what’s really going on between me and Drake.
I take a step closer to his side. “We’ve met once. Mr. Briar was at the ranch yesterday.”
The sheriff frowns and turns to Avery. “You didn’t mention that?”
“He was with us,” Mother says. “A simple business call. Regrettably, it was cut short.”
God, I hate how she looks at me, then Drake.
I’m equally disgusted at how she’s so ready to defend him.
She’s never defended me that way.
Of course not. He has what she wants. Money.
I’m just holding the key to what she thinks is already rightfully hers.
“Mind filling us in on what you were doing out at the Reed residence?” Sheriff Wallace asks.
“Trying to make us sell North Earhart Oil to him,” I say, purposefully saying us instead of me.
“That’s hardly the reason we’re here. Frankly, our private discussions don’t seem pertinent to the Dallas police, either. Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, yada-yada-yada.” Mother smiles knowingly as she looks at Avery. “Besides, Mr. Briar’s hardly the guilty one here. He caught the men trying to steal that old horse of Jonah’s.”
My spine goes stiff. Caught them? What?
Drake’s hand presses against my back a little firmer.
“That’s...odd. How’d he know someone tried to steal Edison in the first place?” I wonder out loud.
Drake looks at the sheriff. Sheriff Wallace looks at Avery. My eyes drift to Mom, whose gaze screams, shut up already.
Avery shakes his head. “I didn’t know. Not at the time I apprehended them.” He shrugs. “A black truck nearly ran me right off the road. Must’ve been doing over a hundred miles per hour. I saw that and called 9-1-1, then I chased them down myself.”
Jesus. Has this guy never heard of road rage?
He’s not a small man, but he’s not muscular either, and I’d guess he’s past his prime. Unless he’d been packing a thirty-eight, he wouldn’t have stood a chance against those two men from last night.
An odd tension fills the room. I look up at Drake, and taking advice from his stoic silence, I hold my own.
“Wasn’t that nice of him?” Mom asks, beaming a smile at Avery. “Practically a citizen’s arrest and looking out for our property without even knowing it. Now that’s a man you can trust.”
My stomach flips.
Sheriff Wallace turns to me. “I’ve taken Mr. Briar’s statement, and now we need one from you, Bella. Just tell us what you saw.”
I shrug, racking my brain. “Not much, honestly. It was dark, and Drake sent you the pictures. I went outside to check on Edison, heard him making noises, and that’s when I found them. They were trying to pull him to their truck, I think. So I yelled for Drake and they took off. That’s pretty much it.”
The sheriff doesn’t respond with more than a nod. He turns to Avery again. “Well, we’re all finished with you, Mr. Briar. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else. I’ll have my lovely wife show you out.”
Avery nods, but even though Shelia still holds the door open, he doesn’t move away from the table he’s leaning against. “Please do, Sheriff. I know Jonah was having trouble at the ranch. Petty theft. Trespassers. Property damage. Even a few wild animals, I hear.”
The coldness of his eyes as they settle on me makes me shiver.
Drake’s hand on my back slides around to my side. I lean closer to him, welcoming an invisible safety blanket I can feel wrapping snug. I’ve never felt anything like it before.
“I’m happy to help find who’s responsible,” Avery continues. “It could be someone Jonah thought he knew well. Maybe even trusted.”
I catch his meaning, know who he’s referring to, and it pisses me off.
“Really?” I ask, trying to sound dumb. “An insider? You think that’s likely?”
I can’t believe he thinks he can play me so easy against Drake. He doesn’t have a clue how close I came to turning on him myself.
“It makes perfect sense,” Mother says.
Avery smiles at her before he looks back at me and lifts a single thinning eyebrow.
Creep. His brows are too perfect. They almost remind me of mother’s, which goads me even more.
I’m not in this alone, and she might as well know it. Leaning my shoulder against Drake’s chest, I let them have it. “Thanks, Mr. Briar, for your help. We’ll take it from here, I think, and keep our eyes open because our property is very important to us. Luckily, Drake knows everyone who may have tried to weasel their way into Grandpa’s business over the past few years. We’ll look at everything.”
“This way, Mr. Briar,” Shelia says.
Avery keeps a phony smile on his face. It’s as fake as his eyebrows, which flutter one more time as he walks across the room and out the door. Shelia follows him out, and I wouldn’t doubt that she tracks him all the way to his big black Suburban.
I hadn’t noticed it in the parking lot, but my attention wasn’t on vehicles then, other than my parents’ white BMW.
“Our property, Annabelle?” Mom huffs out a breath. “You clearly don’t mean your father and I, so I wonder who you’re referring to. Surely, you don’t mean Mr. Larkin. That senile old bat left everything to you, not some old Army—”
“It’s time to get your statements. Still need a formal one,” Sheriff Wallace says, interrupting. He points to the table and chairs. “Bella, would you like your folks present or not?”
Being interrupted sits as well with Mom as my ‘our’ statement had.
Again, I’d love to tell her that Drake and I are married, but that information could be the dynamite I’ll need another day, so I’m better off saving it. “I don’t care, Sheriff. I don’t have anything to hide.”
Drake and I walk to the table and sit down, then Wallace and my parents.
Drake keeps one hand on the back of my chair as the sheriff begins asking questions.
I run through everything as well as I can remember, and then it’s Drake’s turn.
He tells the sheriff about hearing me shout for him, and the trip wire, and my injuries, as well as the evidence he sent to Shelia.
Sheriff Wallace asks if we took pictures of my injuries.
When I said we hadn’t, he asks if it’d be okay with me for Shelia to take some after we’re finished here.
I agree, though I doubt it’ll make any difference.
The men hadn’t stolen Edison, so I’
m not sure they can even be charged with anything besides trespassing, and maybe criminal neglect or something over the wire.
Mug shots of the men are then shown to us. Front facing and side views.
I don’t recognize anything about them, but seeing their pictures makes my insides shrivel up.
They’re rough looking people, with short, dark hair and angry eyes.
One has a scruffy beard. The other has a dragon tattoo on the side of his neck.
Once again, I’m glad Gramps did what he did, bringing in Drake.
Otherwise, I would’ve been alone at the ranch when these guys showed up.
Worse, I’d have been alone when my parents and Avery Briar showed up yesterday, too, and again today.
Where would I be without my shield? Without him?
I glance at Drake, thankful I’m not alone.
He smiles slightly, then glances up as Shelia lays a hand on my shoulder. She’s returned from showing Avery out.
“Come on, Bella-Bell,” she says. “Let’s get those pictures.”
The idea of getting pictures taken where I’m half undressed in a police station isn’t what makes my stomach drop and my heartbeat triple. It’s leaving Drake alone with my parents.
Crap, crap, crap.
He understands my reluctance, I think, because he gives my shoulder a quick squeeze, nodding toward Shelia. “I’ll wait here with her folks.”
“Won’t take long,” she says.
I nod and stand. Shelia leads me out of the room and across the hall, into another room that has a table and chairs like the one we’d just left.
I remove the western shirt I’d pulled out of my closet this morning and hold out my hands and arms as Shelia snaps pictures of my palms and forearms. She’s chatting the entire time, and I make small talk, but my mind is across the hall, wondering if my parents are giving Drake the third degree. Or a freaking cannonball to the head.
I pull down my jeans and carefully remove the outer gauze bandaging for Shelia to get shots of the cut on my knee. When she’s done, I replace everything and jerk up my jeans.
“I don’t want you to worry,” Shelia says. “You’re in good hands. Those men aren’t getting out of jail anytime soon. Rodney will see to it.”
I put my shirt back on. “For trespassing? How long can you hold them?”