COWBOY WITH A BADGE

by Margaret Watson

  His eyes darkened and he scowled at her. "We're a small, quiet community and we want to stay that way."

  "I'm not planning to change that. Cameron is a town that caught my interest and I thought the readers of Focus would be interested in it, too."

  He leaned forward again. "You write about Cameron in your magazine and before you know it we'll have a steady stream of damn fools coming to town and the shopping malls and fudge shops will follow them. Or else they'll want to commune with nature, and that's even worse. We don't have the resources to go hunting for them when they get lost in the mountains or fall off the cliffs."

  "You make all tourists sound like idiots and incompetents."

  He rubbed his hand across his face, and her fingers tingled when she imagined what the stubble of his beard would feel like. Shaking herself, she sat up straighter and tried to concentrate on his words.

  "Hell, I know they're not," he said, and his voice was weary. "But we're not equipped to deal with tourists in Cameron. Where would they stay? At Melba Corboy's?"

  At that, he grinned at her, a slow, lethal weapon that set her stomach to twirling again. "That's the solution right there. You go ahead and write all you want about Cameron and give everyone Melba's address. It won't take long before the tourists stop coming."

  She couldn't stop herself from laughing. "You're wicked, Sheriff."

  "No, ma'am, but I sure would like to be."

  His eyes gleamed as bright as silver, and a shiver chased itself up her spine. God help her, she wanted to know how he defined wicked.

  "What can you tell me about your crime wave here in Cameron last July?" she asked, determined to ignore her body's response to him.

  The grin faded and he leaned back in the booth. "I'm sure you've read everything that's been published about our excitement."

  "I have," she admitted. "I wouldn't be here if I hadn't. But I'd like to hear your spin on it."

  "Hell, there wasn't any spin. Facts are facts. Damien Kane was hiding three people from hired killers here in Cameron. Two of the dirtbags came looking for them, and they ended up in our jail. Then we had the situation with the Farrells at the same time. Sy Ames used to own the Flying W Ranch. He sold it to Grady Farrell, and when Farrell moved to town he met up with Becca Johnson again. They'd known each other years earlier, when they were both kids, and the sparks started to fly again. Sy took exception because he had his eye on Becca, and he tried to kidnap her. He didn't succeed. End of story."

  "So why did it become a national news story?" she asked.

  Devlin's face darkened again. "Because they both happened at the same time, and someone saw an angle to exploit. 'Even small towns aren't immune from crime wave.' 'Big city woes come to small town.' I think they wanted to make their readers feel better by pointing out that they aren't alone."

  "Don't you think that might be a good thing?" she asked gently. "Point out to people that crime can happen anywhere?"

  "I suppose it is." His voice was hard. "But I don't want to put the people of Cameron at risk doing it."

  Carly swallowed once as she watched Devlin glance around the restaurant with a proprietary eye. Caring about what happened to the people of Cameron was the last thing she expected to hear from a McAllister.

  "I can't promise that my story won't step on any toes, but I'll try to do it gently." His gaze snapped back to her and he watched her with narrowed eyes. "I'm not going to back down, Sheriff. I came here to do a job, and I'm going to do it."

  Before he could answer, Mandy slid two plates onto the table in front of them. For the next few minutes, neither of them spoke. Finally Carly said, "None of the guide books mention how wonderful the food is. This is fabulous."

  "Janie is a genius in the kitchen."

  "Who's Janie?"

  "She's the owner of Heaven on Seventh." He glanced toward the kitchen. "I'd introduce you, but Janie's kind of leery of strangers. And she doesn't like reporters." His mouth curled up into a grin. "You should have heard what she said to some of that bunch that was here earlier when they tried to take her picture. It curled my hair."

  Picturing an older woman wielding a spatula like a weapon, Carly smiled and asked the sheriff an innocuous question about Cameron. After only an infinitesimal pause, he answered her, and they spent the rest of the meal talking about his town. Carly was surprised at the depth of feeling he clearly had for Cameron and the people who lived there.

  "You really love this town, don't you, Sheriff?"

  He set his fork on his clean plate and leaned forward again. "Of course I do. I've lived here almost my whole life. I know everyone in town and on the surrounding ranches, and this is my home. I don't ever want to live anywhere else. As far as I'm concerned, Cameron is as close as you can get to heaven on earth."

  "If you've lived here your whole life, what basis for comparison do you have?"

  "I was in the service." The words came out clipped. "I spent some time in California, in big cities. Enough time to know it wasn't for me. I couldn't wait to get back home."

  There was a story here. Carly could smell it. Her reporter's nose had never failed her yet. But she forced herself to ignore it. His years in the service had come long after the time she was interested in, and therefore weren't relevant. "Then maybe you could show me around the town sometime, Sheriff. Let me see it from your perspective."

  He nodded slowly, and she wasn't sure she trusted the gleam in his eye. "I'd like to do that, Ms. Fitzpatrick. And the name's Devlin. Or Dev. We don't stand on formality here."

  "I'm Carly."

  She felt as if something intimate had passed between them, something more private and personal than just the exchange of first names. She always told her subjects to call her Carly. It made them feel more comfortable and made it more likely they'd tell her something they'd rather keep hidden.

  But she felt, in some subtle way, that the sheriff had turned the tables on her. Like he knew her strategy and was going to use it against her.

  Turning her head, she looked for Mandy and her check. Devlin McAllister wasn't going to worm her secrets out of her. They were too important—her purpose here was too important—to let that happen.

  "Let me walk you back to Melba's."

  Devlin's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Thanks, but I drove. I parked over on Main Street

  . I thought I'd take a look at the town on the way here."

  After paying the check, Devlin held the door for her, and they emerged into the soft light of early evening. "So what did you think of Cameron?" he asked.

  "I don't think there is a more beautiful spot in the country. As I drove here, the mountains and the canyons took my breath away. It's hard to believe no one knows about Cameron," she answered. But she had. She'd known all about Cameron. And she hadn't remembered the beauty. Her only memories of Cameron were filled with pain and ugliness.

  "That's us. An anonymous small town in a spectacular setting. We want to keep it that way."

  As they turned the corner onto Main Street

  , his elbow brushed her arm. Even through the silk of her jacket she felt his heat, and the current that jolted between them. It tried to hold her captive, to pull her farther into his orbit, but she forced herself to move away. And she wanted to put more than a physical distance between them.

  "You're not going to stop me from doing a story about Cameron, Sheriff."

  He looked down at her, and even in the fading light she saw the flash in his eyes. "I wouldn't dream of trying. I just have one suggestion for you. You treat the people in Cameron the way you'd want to be treated if this was your home, and you won't have any problems, Ms. Fitzpatrick."

  His words were a small dagger in her heart, but she swallowed and plastered a smile on her face. "That's just what I intend to do, Sheriff."

  Cameron had once been her home, until the McAllisters had killed her brother.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  «^»

  Devlin walked into Heaven o
n Seventh the next morning badly in need of coffee. Sleep had eluded him the night before, and the darkness had tormented him with vivid memories of Carly Fitzpatrick. When he managed to doze off, he'd been awakened by hot, needy dreams and snarled sheets.

  "Everyone's here already, Sheriff." Phyllis, the morning waitress, greeted him and nodded toward the corner booth where his deputies were seated. Devlin grunted a thank-you and headed toward the table.

  Sometime during the past couple of years his morning meeting with his deputies had migrated to the restaurant. The scenery was a definite improvement and the coffee was a hell of a lot better than the sludge they brewed at the office. Devlin slid into the last seat at the booth and reached for the mug Phyllis had already left at his place.

  His hand froze halfway to his mouth. Carly was sitting between two of his deputies, smiling and talking, and all six of the deputies were hanging on her every word.

  Slowly he lowered the coffee mug to the table. "Good morning, Ms. Fitzpatrick."

  She tossed him a casual smile. The jolt it caused in his chest didn't help his temper. "Hi, Sheriff. Your deputies were welcoming me to Cameron."

  "I can see that." He worked to gather the threads of his temper. "Did they tell you this is a business meeting? A private business meeting?"

  Her mouth curled up in what he already recognized as her challenging smile. "Don't worry, Sheriff. I'm not looking for Cameron police secrets to splash across the cover of Focus. I wanted to meet the rest of the sheriff's department because I thought it was the polite thing to do. After all, I'll be working in your town for a while."

  "We'll be sure to watch out for you, won't we, officers?" he said to the deputies.

  There were eager nods around the table, and Devlin scowled. He suspected that he and the deputies had different ideas about the term "watch out for."

  "I'm sure we're all anxious to see what you're going to write about Cameron," he continued, watching her carefully.

  "You'll be the first to know, Sheriff."

  If he hadn't been watching closely he wouldn't have noticed her knuckles suddenly whiten, or the way her eyes hardened and narrowed.

  He was trying to figure out what it meant when she gathered up her purse and a small notebook, then slid out of the booth. When she stood up the smell of oranges and exotic flowers surrounded him, driving all other thoughts out of his head. He gritted his teeth and fought to control his body's reaction. Her scent had played a too-vivid role in his dreams of the night before.

  "Have a good day, Sheriff," she said. She walked away without looking back.

  None of the deputies would meet his gaze. In spite of Devlin's irritation with Carly, his mouth twitched into an involuntary smile. Clearly they'd all worked for him long enough to recognize the signs of his temper.

  "Let's get down to business," he finally said, beginning to eat the food Phyllis had set down in front of him. "What happened last night that we need to know about?"

  Ben Jackson, the deputy who'd worked for him the longest, was the first to speak. The rest of the deputies relaxed and began talking, but Devlin couldn't concentrate on what his men were saying.

  Carly hadn't left the restaurant. She'd taken another booth and ordered breakfast, and Devlin could see that she consumed as much gossip as food. While his deputies continued to speak, he strained to listen to Carly. He simply wanted to know what she was asking, he told himself. And what people were answering.

  "What do you think, Dev?"

  The voice of his newest recruit interrupted his thoughts. Devlin had no idea what Matt had asked. As he turned back to his deputies, he could feel his face reddening. "I'm sorry, Matt, I wasn't paying attention."

  The deputy repeated his question, and Devlin answered him. Forcing himself to concentrate on the status reports from all the men, he did his best to ignore Carly and her questions. But apart of him stubbornly refused to pay attention to the details of the traffic stops from the night before.

  He didn't have to turn around to know that Carly was still in the booth on the other side of the restaurant. He felt her presence so acutely that she might as well have been sitting right next to him, he thought with disgust. He swore he could distinguish her perfume lingering in the air, taunting him with her essence. When he found his mind wandering away from what his deputies were saying once again, he stood up.

  "Sorry, fellows, I'm not good for much this morning. If there's anything important, catch me back at the office. If it'll keep, save it 'til tomorrow."

  The deputies filed out, one by one. Devlin was surprised that Ben Jackson stayed behind.

  "Is something wrong, Ben?" he asked.

  Ben's dark eyes watched him. "You tell me. What's going on with the Fitzpatrick woman? Trouble?"

  Ben always saw too damn much. Devlin sighed and rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. "No more than the usual reporter, I guess. I'm just damned sick of them."

  He watched as Ben focused his gaze on the woman across the room. "She looks determined."

  "Yeah, she is. And smart, too. If she wants to make Cameron into a tourist destination, we'll be swarming with minivans and whining kids within a year."

  Ben shifted his gaze back to Devlin. "You couldn't keep your eyes off her this morning."

  Devlin managed a careless shrug. "She's an attractive woman. And last time I checked, I still had all my working parts. It doesn't mean I'm interested. Hell, she's a reporter from New York, for God's sake."

  Ben shook his head. "Sometimes the heart ignores what the head is telling us." He froze for a moment, his eyes following someone behind Devlin, and his face suddenly became expressionless. Then he shifted on the vinyl cushion of the booth and deliberately turned back to his boss.

  Dev twisted around in his seat in time to see Janie, the owner of Heaven on Seventh, disappear into the kitchen. He turned back to Ben. "Are you speaking from experience?"

  "I'm simply telling you what I saw." He paused, and a twinkle lightened Ben's normally sober expression, "But I'm thinking that the next few weeks might be very interesting."

  Devlin scowled as he pushed away from the table, leaving most of his breakfast uneaten. "Go ahead, have your fun. Just remember that what goes around, comes around."

  The twinkle disappeared from Ben's face. "Not in this case, Dev."

  Devlin threw some money on the table for a tip, paid for his breakfast, then headed outside. As the door to the restaurant shut behind him, he heard the sound of Carly's laugh, low and husky, over the other sounds in the restaurant. Clenching his teeth, he caught himself before he could turn around and look at her.

  As he headed back to the office, he drank in the scent of the Utah morning, savoring its crisp, clean taste. Although the sun was still low on the horizon, the bright blue color of the sky and the lack of clouds warned that it was going to be another hot day.

  He couldn't stop himself from glancing back at the restaurant Things were heating up, in more ways than one, he acknowledged grimly.

  * * *

  Out of the corner of her eye, Carly watched Devlin leave Heaven on Seventh. She was talking to an older woman but she caught his hesitation at the door, noticed the way he stopped himself from turning around. Deliberately focusing her full attention on the woman, she waited until she was sure he was gone before glancing back at the door.

  She'd talked to several people in the restaurant that morning, but the whole time she'd been aware of the sheriff, sitting at the table in the corner. She'd heard his voice as a background to her own conversations, easily picking it out from the threads of other voices in the room. When a glance at the door assured her that he was gone, she turned back to the older woman with a smile. Now she could concentrate on her own work without distractions.

  "What you ought to do is check at the newspaper office," the woman said, and gave her a gentle smile. "You can learn an awful lot about a town from their newspaper."

  "Thanks," Carly replied. "I'll do that." She'd intended to head o
ver to the newspaper office today, anyway, but she was pleased by the advice. She wanted the people of Cameron to feel comfortable talking to her. It was the only way she'd get to the bottom of the tragedy that had occurred here twenty years ago.

  Pushing away from the table, she smiled at the woman she'd been talking to. "Thanks for your advice, Gladys. I'll see what the paper has to say."

  "You tell Ralph Hanson that Gladys Jones sent you over," the woman instructed her. "He'll take care of you."

  After paying for her meal, Carly headed back to Main Street

  and the newspaper office. It was across the street from the sheriff's office, but she wouldn't allow herself to look for Devlin McAllister. She'd already spent far too much of her precious time in Cameron thinking about the sheriff. Unless he was going to help her with her search for the truth, she couldn't afford to think about him. And being a McAllister, the truth about the incident with Edmund was probably the last thing he was interested in.

  Carly hesitated before crossing the street, staring once again at the office of the Cameron Weekly Sentinel. Just as they had the day before, memories squeezed at her heart. Vague pictures of her father, tall and smiling, swirled in her head, but they were far too blurred and hazy. The memories of her mother in the newspaper office were more distinct, as were those of her brother. She pictured Edmund at a typewriter, looking up to grin and wink at her when she wandered into the office.

  Forcing the images out of her mind, she crossed the street and opened the door. She was very good at ignoring everything but the job. It was one of the reasons she was a damn good reporter. Stepping into the dimness of the newspaper office, she smiled at the gray-haired woman sitting at a desk by the door. "Good morning," Carly said.

  The woman peered at her with barely concealed suspicion. "You're a stranger. What do you want?"

  Carly felt her smile faltering as she said, "I was hoping to look at some back issues of the paper."

  The woman scanned her from head to toe, then said, "You're not here about a bill?"

  "No, ma'am," Carly replied, but filed the information away. She pulled out one of her business cards and handed it to the woman. "I'm here to do an article about Cameron, and Gladys Jones suggested that I start by looking at some old town newspapers."