by Kym Roberts
It was Travis who broke the silence first. “What’s this all about, Sheriff?”
“This is between Dalton and me. No one else.”
“He’s got a right to know why you’re detaining him.”
Mateo ignored Travis. “Dalton, I’m asking you as a gentleman to stand up and put your hands on your head. Let’s not make a scene.”
“You’re creating the scene—”
“Travis.” Dalton cut his rival off. “It’s okay. I’ll find out what’s going on and everything will be fine. Take care of Scarlet for me, okay?”
“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” Scarlet said at the same time as Travis responded, “Sure.” Yet I could tell one word from Dalton and Travis would be out of his seat. It didn’t make me feel very comfortable.
Scarlet grabbed Dalton’s hand. “I’m coming with you.”
But Dalton just smiled and winked. “I don’t think that’s going to be possible right now, darling.” He pulled his hand loose, slowly rose to his feet, and placed his hands on top of his head. Mateo moved closer as the deputies closed the distance from behind Travis. One laid a hand on Travis’s shoulder, reminding him to stay seated.
Mateo handcuffed Dalton one hand at a time, and I thought Travis was going to come unglued. “What the h—”
“Dalton Hibbs, you’re under arrest for the murder of Erik Piper.”
Dalton’s face dropped. All the color drained out of it as if it suddenly chose to pool in his toes. Aiden and Aubrey scrambled for better views. A sea of mouths fell open throughout the diner. I expected tears from Scarlet, but she just sat there in stunned silence.
It was the God-awful noise coming from the bar that turned out to be a saving grace. Everyone turned to look at the source.
Taylor Goode was sobbing in the arms of my ex, and he didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable. Mateo was carting my best friend’s boyfriend off to jail on a murder charge, leaving Scarlet sitting next to me like a lump on a log. And my first date in months was madder than a hornet in a beehive.
I knew this night was too good to be true.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Somehow Travis collected his anger and convinced Scarlet she wouldn’t be able to see Dalton until the next day. A murder charge was not going to go away in a few hours, and the best thing to do would be to wait for Dalton to call her. Most of the reporters left with Dalton and Mateo, yet when the three of us left, it felt like we were on our own walk of shame. And if I felt that way, I knew Scarlet felt it ten-fold.
We walked Scarlet home and made sure the media wasn’t lurking in the area before Travis walked me to my apartment. He helped me up the steps and unlocked my door like a true gentleman. I wasn’t sure anyone had ever done that for me before. I was relieved when he gave me a kiss on the cheek and didn’t try to turn it into something it wasn’t, but irritated that I hadn’t gotten a grain of information out of him the entire night. Not that I could have with Scarlet and Dalton present, but still, it would have been nice to get something.
I fed Princess and let her out. Then made my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. I had just finished when Princess scratched to come inside. Most armadillos would spend the night eating grubs and digging up flowerbeds. Princess preferred a bath, her cat food, and her bed. Or my pillow.
I’ve gone through a few pillows since I’ve been home.
When I opened the door, Cade followed Princess inside.
Drat the man.
“What are you doing here?”
“I think a better question would be what are you doing with Travis Sinclair?”
“Excuse me?”
“At first I thought it was a date, but I know better.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re digging into stuff you’ve got no business looking into.” Cade doesn’t get mad in public. He doesn’t get mad around me. But I could tell by the way he rubbed his neck that he was so wound up he could hardly stand it.
“I think you better go, Cade. Taylor Goode might need you.”
We stood staring at each other for a few moments. but I was the first to break. I reached past him and grabbed the tubs for Princess to take a bath. My bandaged arm worked just fine, even if it hurt like the dickens; it was nothing I couldn’t handle. It was the squatting down that like to kill me.
I took the tubs into the kitchen to fill them and wondered how I was going to manage to get them filled and over to the door and on her mat. Princess took a bath in one tub, then ran to the other tub to rinse. The mat kept her from dragging water all over the floor, but even on a good day I always cleaned up after her.
Cade followed me and took the tubs from me without saying a word. He filled them, put soap in one, and brought the two tubs over to the door for Princess.
“Thank you.”
“How do you plan on doing that every night?” he asked.
“I’ll move the mat to the kitchen and fill them with the sprayer. Then I’ll ask my dad to empty them in the morning when he comes to work.” It was a brilliant plan and I was glad I came up with it so quickly.
“And the days he doesn’t work? Or the days Princess needs two baths?”
I lifted my chin, not about to be defeated. “We’ll manage.”
“Geezus, do you know you are the most frustrating woman to walk this green earth?”
My back immediately bristled. “How can a woman who means nothing to you frustrate you?”
“Means nothing to me?” Cade crowded me, backing me against the sink. “You know better than that.”
“Do I? How am I supposed to know better than that?” Cade was looking at me in a way he hadn’t looked at me in months. Actually, not since I’d first returned to Hazel Rock and he’d kissed me right here, in my kitchen.
“Because you’ve always meant something to me.”
Suddenly he kissed me. It was hot, and passionate, and holy crap the man could always take my breath away—literally.
I gasped when he pulled me tighter. Pain radiated through my ribs and I wasn’t sure if the stars in my eyes were from his lips, or the pain.
Cade released me and the light returned. We were both breathing heavy, but I think it was for different reasons.
“Are you okay?”
I moaned my response. I really wished it was out of something other than pain.
“This is exactly what I’m talking about.” Cade ran his hand through his hair. A sign of total exasperation—with me.
“What?” I stupidly asked.
“I know you were snooping around about those murders when someone tried to make sure you were crushed into bull—”
“Don’t say it.” I stood up straight.
“I was going to say excrement.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“How do you know what I was going to say?”
“The same way you know I was looking into the murders.”
He pointed at me like he just got the biggest confession of the year. “So you admit it!”
“I admit that I am not about to sit around and let my best friend get painted into this horrible person by the media.”
Cade lost his cool for the first time since I’d returned to Hazel Rock. He was angry, upset, and completely frustrated.
Join the crowd, Mr. Mayor.
“This is why I can’t be seen out on a date with you! I’m up for re-election!”
If I could have kicked him out, I would have. “I don’t believe we’ve been on a date, so you have nothing to worry about.”
He paced back and forth in my living room. Princess decided she’d had enough of her bath and our argument and headed for the bedroom without being dried off. A trail of water followed her all the way to my bed.
Cade was going to owe me a pillow when we were through.
“What do you want to do with your life, Charli?”
His question caught me off guard. “What do you
mean, ‘do with my life?’”
“Surely you don’t want to work for your dad the rest of your life.”
That question hurt more than I cared to admit, and the pain came out in my tone. “I run The Book Barn Princess for my father.”
“You quit your job—”
“To work the family business.”
“Are you wanting to expand? Do you want to have Book Barns throughout the country, in every small town? You could do that.” A glint of excitement twinkled in his eyes.
I hadn’t thought of expanding. I’d been content with getting to know everyone in Hazel Rock again. Getting away from the big city and just enjoying small-town living. What was wrong with that? Did I have to have grand ambitions?
“I can’t have a wife who’s always stirring up trouble. I don’t just want to be the mayor. I want more.”
“A wife.” It figures I got stuck on those two words out of everything he was saying.
“Princess, everywhere you go, there’s trouble. From the day you moved to this town, you’ve been trouble.”
My back bristled again. “What are you talking about?”
“The eight-year-old new girl in town who saw Jimmy Bob stealing a piece of candy at The Country Mart and tried to make him put it back.”
“He was stealing!”
“Yet instead of telling on him, you tried to make him put it back.”
He was right of course, but to my eight-year-old self, getting in trouble was a lot worse than being corrected by another little kid. And I couldn’t imagine Jimmy thinking any differently. As a kindergarten teacher, I learned otherwise. “I thought that he would give up once he knew he was caught, and then he wouldn’t get in trouble.”
“Jimmy Bob was twice your size.”
“I was almost as tall as he was—”
“You were a little string bean!”
“Excuse me, Cade Calloway.”
But he didn’t stop there. He kept going. “When you were ten, you picketed the feed store because they were selling kittens.”
“They were selling them without the kittens being spade or neutered to people who were letting them roam around town. The kittens were there in the first place because they were strays!”
“And you brought animal rights activists to town over the issue.”
“I solved the problem by writing that letter.”
“You nearly started a town brawl over kittens!”
“Do you see any stray cats in Hazel Rock? No. Why? Because I brought awareness to a problem.”
“My point is—”
“Yes, Cade, please tell me what your point is—”
“I need a partner who knows how to get things done—without the drama.”
“A partner? I didn’t think we were talking about anything but a date.”
“A mayor can’t date the wild girl in town.”
That comment opened a whole new can of worms that were armed with a lot of pent-up angry estrogen.
“The wild girl? Seriously? In what archaic age are you living in? Oh, wait, I know the age where you can date all the other women in town as long as they’re from your economic circle. But not the woman who lives and works in a barn.”
“That’s not what I said, and you know it. There are ways to get things done that don’t end up with you in the doctor’s office.”
“I heard you loud and clear, JC.” Cade used to hate when I called him by his father’s name, and apparently, he still did. He picked up one tub and emptied it over the railing of my steps. He followed up by emptying the second tub and stacked the two just inside the door. He turned the lock on the door, glanced in my direction, and walked out, closing the door behind him. He wiggled the handle to make sure it was secure and disappeared out of sight, the sound of his boots stomping down the steps echoed through my heart.
I knew calling him by his daddy’s name was below the belt, but so was “the wild girl” comment. I was the least wild girl in this town.
And wasn’t that depressing?
Chapter Twenty-Three
The alarm went off and I’d thought I’d died and gone somewhere other than heaven. My body hurt in places it wasn’t supposed to, like my pinkies and toes. Princess didn’t budge when I literally rolled out of bed and hit the floor.
“Uhng.”
I lay there and counted how many places that didn’t hurt. There weren’t many.
“Who would voluntarily subject themselves to this?”
Princess didn’t answer. She didn’t understand bull riding or fighting any more than I did.
I finally made it to the shower where the hot spray helped loosen up some of my tight muscles. After I cleaned up, I put food in Princess’s bowl. She was still snoring in the other room, so I decided to let her sleep and join us when she finally did get her lazy butt out of bed.
I made my way through the hidden bookcase to the store with my donut in tow. The broad winding staircase to the lower level was much easier to maneuver than the exterior steps to my apartment and I decided to use them until I could move my hips without feeling like someone was kicking me in the backside.
Dad was in the tearoom making sweet tea and taking cheese and herb biscuits out of the very little, very ancient oven. He had sausage gravy cooking in a skillet and I decided I had woken up in heaven after all—I’d just traveled through that other place to get there.
“Morning, Princess.”
“Morning, Daddy. This has got to be the best way a woman could start off her day. I’m surrounded by books and the one man I can always count on. It doesn’t get any better than that,” I said as I placed my cushion on the nearest chair.
He nodded as he put two biscuits on two plates and smothered them with gravy. “Would you like to try some coffee?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Tea.”
My daddy had forever tried to get my momma to drink his rich blend of Colombian coffee beans. But from the aroma wafting through The Barn, I suspected he’d made Texas pecan coffee today. Still, I was like my mom. I wanted a sweet glass of tea to start my day. I grabbed a plastic cup, since it was on the counter and a glass would have required me to reach way too far, and filled it with tea. Then I refilled my daddy’s coffee mug and brought both over to the table.
We sat down and bowed our heads for grace before digging into my favorite breakfast.
“There was a time when you didn’t think you could count on me for anything,” he said.
“That time has passed.”
“Sometimes the best of men say the wrong things. Things that aren’t in their hearts. Things that hurt…” He took a drink of his coffee and watched me from over the top of the cup.
“You’ve already had breakfast at the diner, haven’t you?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Coffee?”
He grinned and took another sip. “I used to be able to make you think that I knew things without people telling me.”
“I’m not that naive little girl anymore. Did you have coffee with a certain mayor?”
He avoided my question with another question. “Did you know the rodeo made a record amount of money for opening day?”
“I figured it would. The place was packed.”
“Yes, the crowd was pretty big. Instead of the CBR’s usual thousand-dollar donation on opening day, it was ten thousand dollars.”
“What? That’s impossible. The crowd wasn’t that much bigger this year.”
“That’s what Cade said when Ms. Goode gave him the cash deposit last night. He would’ve had an officer escort her to the bank, instead of meeting her at the diner, if he’d known.”
It was daddy’s subtle way of telling me Cade wasn’t on a date with Taylor last night; it was all business. But what really got my attention was the size of the donation made by the CBR to The Cowboy Ranch.
“But if someone was stealing funds, wouldn’t the amount of ticket sales give th
at away?”
“The tickets are given out on a donation basis. Someone can give five dollars, or they can donate five hundred dollars. It’s completely up to the fans.”
“Has the ranch ever made that much money during the entire week of the rodeo?”
“Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t be the one to ask that question. The Invitational was started by the Calloways.”
The only way for me to get more information would be from the mayor himself. Or one of his parents. His mom was a possibility; she always liked me. His dad was a whole ’nuther story.
“How’s that donut working for you?”
The fine hairs on my neck stood at attention. That was a loaded question from my dad if I ever heard one. “Fine.”
“Better than what that chair would feel like if you’d just let Mateo do his job?”
“Are you trying to ruin my breakfast?”
“I’m trying to make you see another side.”
“It’s not working.”
“The difference between me and Cade is that I know when to throw in the towel.”
“That’s a good trait to have.”
“Your mother taught me.”
“His mother didn’t teach him.”
“Only a wife can teach a man.”
“Doesn’t look like the mayor is getting married anytime soon.” I took a bite of my biscuit and it suddenly didn’t want to go down. I quickly took a drink of tea and asked, “He’s not planning on getting married, is he?”
Daddy smiled. “No. His head is all caught up in his career…or at least, it was before you came home. You’ve kind of messed up his plans.”
There wasn’t anything I could say to that so I took my last bite, stood up, and grabbed both our plates. It hurt more to move both my arms today than it did yesterday, but there was no way I was going to let anyone know that. Yet, somehow my dad did.
“I’ll do the dishes; you go get the till ready.”
I didn’t argue, the alternative would be too painful. I grabbed my donut and took it up to the counter, where I opened the cash register before unlocking the front door. Traffic on Main Street was picking up, everyone heading toward The Cowboy Ranch for the rodeo that was due to start in an hour. I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through Dalton’s head as he sat in jail and the second round of qualifiers began. Did it matter when you were facing murder charges?