by Keaton, Elle
“Hello?” Shay Delacombe’s voice cut through his wandering thoughts. Mat swiped the glasses off his face and stood from his desk, waving Shay over.
Shay was dark and tall, like Niall, although not quite as heavily muscled. Now that they knew Shay and Niall were half brothers, the similarities between them seemed obvious, and Mat wondered that no one had noticed over the years. It was amazing to him how often people only saw what they wanted to see.
“Come on back. What’s up? Want some coffee or something?”
Shay stepped around the barrier and into the bullpen—calling it that was a bit of a stretch, since it housed five desks and two or three officers at a time at the most. Mat noticed Shay wasn’t wearing one of his usual suits; instead he had on blue jeans, sneakers, and a comfortable-looking dark green sweater that reminded Mat the weather was getting more and more fall-like every day.
“Good coffee, or the stuff everybody else drinks?”
Mat nodded toward their tiny break room. “I’ll make a pot of the good stuff.”
Shay followed him and leaned against the door of the nook-sized room. “I heard the news.”
Mat glanced over his shoulder, meeting Shay’s dark gaze. “Are you here as an attorney, or…”
Shay’s wolfish grin flashed. “Niall called me.”
“Niall called you?” Christ, it was even worse than he’d thought.
“Apparently he thinks you need a sitter while he’s gone. Seriously, though, he’s very concerned about Cooper showing up dead right now, and I can understand why.”
With careful, methodical movements, Mat prepped the coffee and pushed the On button before turning back around and leaning one hip against the counter. “Unbelievable.” He shook his head.
“What?”
“A perp blew up a building yesterday, and it fell on Niall and his new partner. I think he’s the one who needs a guardian angel.”
“He’s okay?” Shay asked sharply, his expression full of concern.
“They kept him overnight for observation, but he’s on his way home. He should be on the next ferry. The suspect didn’t survive, and other agencies are taking over now.”
Shay crossed his arms, leaning against the doorjamb. “He’s a damn lucky man.”
“Don’t I know it. So, Niall wanted you to… what?” Because Niall was going to hear from him if he thought the sheriff of Piedras County needed a bodyguard.
“I don’t know, exactly, but I was headed up here anyway. I’m closing my office in Seattle and moving back here. In fact, it’s done already.”
“Wow, Shay, that’s great.” Having Shay on Piedras would be good, Mat thought. Shay and Niall were slowly getting to know each other, and the move would make it easier.
The coffee maker beeped. Mat twisted around, grabbing two clean mugs and filling them with the hot brew.
“There’s creamer in the minifridge if you need it,” Mat offered. “Moving here is a big change for you, right?”
That reminded him, they’d received an application that came with high recommendations, and he’d scheduled an interview for the following afternoon. If Soren Jorgensen interviewed as well as his resume indicated and he accepted their offer, he’d be moving to Hidden Harbor from Skagit, a small town on the mainland just south of the Canadian border. Mat desperately needed another deputy. The island’s population was expanding, and his department was already stretched thin.
Shay took the mug Mat offered him, sipping at the hot liquid before answering Mat’s question.
“Not really. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. Claribel isn’t getting any younger, and even though I’m only her great-nephew, I’m the one who watches out for her. Not like her useless sons can be bothered. I’ve rented a house out past Killegen’s Point, for now.”
Mat was sure when Shay said house, he meant a very nice home. The rentals past Killegen’s Point were high-end, and Mat couldn’t imagine Shay settling for anything less than the best. At the far end of Piedras, a mile or so past their small airstrip, was Brooch Harbor Resort. The harbor there was actually more protected than Hidden Harbor, but it was smaller and privately owned.
Brooch was upscale, owned by one of the oldest families on Piedras—not Delacombes or Dempseys, surprisingly. They even hired their own private security. That was fine with Mat; he didn’t have the time to send a deputy out there every time somebody lost a diamond earring.
“Have you found anything out about Cooper?” Shay probed, bringing Mat back to the conversation at hand.
“I talked to Marshal earlier. As I thought, death was caused by the gunshot to the chest. He’d probably been dead twenty-four hours, give or take, but Marshal thinks less because the body hadn’t been, uh, nibbled on much. And he wasn’t a true floater yet; he’d been dragged by the tide. This is off the record, by the way.” He raised an eyebrow at Shay.
“I’m a lawyer, not the press.”
“You know what I mean.” Opening the fridge, Mat pulled out the milk and poured some into his coffee mug. He needed the caffeine after getting less than three hours’ sleep.
“Yeah, I won’t say anything. What else?” Shay prompted.
“He was in bad shape, and not just from being shot. Marshal said he was severely underweight, as if he hadn’t been eating.”
“If he’s been on the island all this time, it would’ve been hard for him to hide without help. Everyone knew to be on the lookout for him.”
“I guess.” It bothered Mat, though. Where had Cooper been hiding, and why was he killed now? Had he become a threat or perhaps a burden?
Mat’s cell phone vibrated. He pulled it out of his pocket and read the text. Looking over at Shay, he said, “The ferry is about twenty minutes out, and Niall’s on it. Want to ride over there with me?”
6
Tuesday—Niall
Ryder was driving Niall up a fucking wall. The kid was nice in small doses, a great person with a sharp mind. But after a ten-hour car trip with a nagging headache, Niall was at his wit’s end. Ryder seemed to think he needed to speak for both of them, all the time, for the entire drive. Every single fucking minute.
Niall had pretended to be asleep for an hour or so, but his head ached enough he couldn’t quite nod off for real. Furthermore, the car Ryder had been able to rent on short notice did not accommodate Niall’s long legs. The doctor in Idaho had said keeping him overnight had been a precaution but he still needed to take it easy for a few days. Niall pondered what the definition of “taking it easy” actually was.
Normally, the ferry ride would’ve soothed him. Niall loved being on the water at night, loved watching the San Juan Islands slide by, the dramatic evergreen trees defying gravity, trunks jutting off of cliffs, rugged silhouettes catching the light of the moon. But there was no moon tonight. In fact, Ryder had informed him just minutes ago that this was a black moon, the third new moon in a season with four moons. Who the fuck knew that kind of shit?
The moon was absent from the sky tonight; the only light visible was from the faraway stars. It was a perfect night for smuggling and other nefarious goings-on. A thought struck him. Why he hadn’t realized it hours ago, Niall didn’t know. “Where are you staying?” he asked his chaperone.
This was the last ferry of the night that would sail all the way back to Anacortes. There would be one more interisland ferry but no way for Ryder to get back to the mainland. And it was the tail end of tourist season, and likely the ferry line was backed up for fucking miles. They’d only made it on this run because Ryder had flashed his WCF ID around like it was government issued. Whatever, it got them on the boat.
“Um.” Ryder glanced at Niall, his brown eyes wide behind the thick horn-rimmed glasses he wore. “I figured I’d just grab a room somewhere. I was going to look online”—he waved his smartphone around—“but there’s no service out here.”
Another thing Niall liked about the long, normally quiet ferry ride: there was no cell service until about ten or twenty minu
tes out of Hidden Harbor. But in any case, Ryder wasn’t going to find a room this late in the day.
God, he was such an asshole, but all he wanted was to collapse in bed with Mat’s arms around him and let his lover take care of him. He didn’t want to deal with Ryder Mann and where he was going to sleep tonight. But he owed it to Leo—and to Ryder, who’d driven a hell of a long way to help him out.
The crackly announcement that all drivers needed to head back to their cars came over the ferry’s sound system. Niall and Ryder slowly made their way to where the car was parked and got inside, waiting for the ferry to dock.
After what seemed like hours to Niall, the big boat bumped against the pilings and settled against the dock. They watched a dock worker on the land side throw out a massive rope toward the deck hand waiting at the front of the ferry. There was an audible thud when it hit the deck. The woman grabbed it with both hands and jogged forward, looping the rope around a huge post. Niall wondered if it would actually hold the ferry or if the ritual was just for show. He knew from experience that the water around them was churning from the ferry’s engines.
“Where am I taking you?” Ryder asked as he turned on the engine and began to follow the car ahead of them off the ferry and into Hidden Harbor.
Niall gestured to the right, toward a small gravel parking lot that acted as a waiting area, usually for picking up walk-on passengers. Two figures stood next to a police cruiser. He recognized one of them as Shay. Standing next to him was the person Niall wanted to see most in the world right now, Mat Dempsey.
Who would’ve thought, a year ago, that Niall Hamarsson, the tough Seattle homicide detective, would move back to the island he’d done most of his growing up on and fall in love with the local sheriff? He snorted. Someone who read too many romance novels, that’s who.
“Pull in there,” he said to Ryder.
“Jesus, Niall, you look awful,” Shay blurted.
“Thanks, Shay, that’s what happens when a building falls on you,” Niall growled as he eased himself out of the rental car. After being jammed in the car for hours and then sitting on the ferry, he was sore and stiff, and not in the way he most enjoyed.
Ryder came around the front of the car. “This is Ryder Mann,” Niall said. “Ryder, my partner, Sheriff Mat Dempsey, and my half brother, Shay Delacombe.”
“They grow you guys big out here,” Ryder joked, waggling his eyebrows at them. He was five foot seven or eight, so a couple inches shorter than Mat and a head shorter than Niall and Shay. Definitely the outlier among them.
“Shay, thanks for coming out,” Niall said, ignoring Ryder’s comment.
“Yeah, about that,” Mat began, his eyes narrowing.
“So hey, does anyone know where I can stay for the night?” Ryder interrupted, which this time Niall was grateful for. He held up his phone. “I just checked on Hotels.com, and everything seems to be booked up. I can understand why,” he added, looking around. Even in the growing dark, Piedras was beautiful and peaceful.
Niall sighed. Looking at Mat, he asked, “Do you think Alyson would put him up for a couple nights?” Because so help him god, if he had to spend more time with Ryder today, there was going to be a fourth homicide on Piedras.
Ryder opened his mouth, probably to argue, but Niall kept talking, shooting him what he hoped was a sufficiently quelling look. “Leo asked me to make sure Ryder took a couple days before he dropped off the rental car and hopped a plane back to the Bay Area.”
Ryder snapped his mouth shut, eyes wide. Clearly, he’d had no idea about Leo’s request.
“From what Leo told me, Ryder hasn’t taken a vacation in years.”
As they were talking, the other cars in the small lot began pulling out and heading toward their homes. Across the street, the lights went out in Harbor Barber, the owner, Kim Carr, closing up for the night. Niall had the nebulous thought it was about time for him to get his hair cut.
“But…” Ryder began.
“I wouldn’t argue, if I were you.” Niall glared at his coworker. “Accept the damn hospitality.”
Ryder snapped his mouth shut.
“Niall.” Mat’s soothing tone washed over him. “I don’t think that’s how we treat people who just traveled across multiple states to bring you home. Let me call my mom. I’m sure she’ll say yes.”
“Don’t bother,” Shay interjected. “He can stay with me.”
Ryder’s head swiveled toward Shay, his eyes wide.
Mat frowned at Shay. “Do you even have furniture? Have you actually moved in yet?”
“Let’s not argue with the man,” Niall said. “If Shay’s offering, we’re accepting. All I want is to have you take me home. My head is pounding. I want to lie down, and I want you to be there with me. I don’t want to deal wi—er, see Alyson tonight. I love your mom, but I’m done. Except for Fenrir. Where is he?”
Ryder said, “I think that’s the longest sentence I’ve ever heard you string together.” He glanced at Shay again, assessing him. “If you’re positive?”
“My place is huge; I won’t even know you’re there,” Shay assured him.
Niall grumbled, “I’m certain that’s impossible.”
“Okay, it’s time to get you home.” To Shay, Mat said, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Niall’s skull throbbed again, and all he wanted was to be lying down with Mat next to him. That’s all. Was it too much to ask? Mat moved to his side, seeming to understand Niall didn’t want help, but he needed Mat to be right there.
“Wait!” Ryder cried out after them. “Sheriff Dempsey, Hamarsson’s bag is in the trunk.”
Niall was tired enough he managed to doze off during the drive home from Hidden Harbor. After he eased his aching body out of the cruiser, he leaned on Mat as they slowly made their way inside.
“Fenrir’s at Mom’s,” Mat said. “I’ll need to either leave to go get him or ask her to drop him by. Or we can get him tomorrow. It’s not as if he’s any trouble. He and Riley are probably planning their takeover of the world.”
Niall collapsed onto the bed with a groan. He was too old for this kind of shit. Mat moved into his space, wrapping his arms around Niall’s shoulders, and Niall let his head rest against Mat’s stomach. Mat’s sheriff’s uniform was scratchy against his face, but Niall didn’t care. The now-familiar scent of Mat enveloped him, and he was able to relax for the first time since he’d woken up in the hospital the night before.
“God, Niall,” Mat whispered into his hair.
Niall understood the weight behind Mat’s words; had suffered himself in the spring. He kept his head pressed against Mat’s body, his arms wrapped around Mat’s waist. Mat’s scent, the low-key gurgle of his stomach, the remote beat of his heart, all worked in tandem, making Niall’s aches and pains fade to a dull hum.
Finally Mat pulled away. “Let me help you undress, and then I’ll grab you something for your head.”
Minutes later, Niall was ensconced in their bed naked, because that’s how he slept best, with the lights off. Mat padded back in carrying a glass of water and a couple acetaminophen. Taking the pills from him, Niall swallowed them dry and lay back against the pillows.
Mat set the glass on the bedside table. “You need to stay hydrated. It will help.”
“Any news on Cooper?” Niall asked as Mat moved around in the bedroom, using the dim light from the kitchen area to undress and find a pair of sleep pants and a T-shirt.
“Oh, yeah,” Mat said, his words muffled as he pulled the shirt over his head, hiding the scars from the bombing from Niall’s view. “I talked to Marshal. It was definitely the gunshot that killed him, but”—he walked back over the bedside and sat down carefully—“he was underweight. As in almost starving.”
“Huh,” Niall grunted. That was interesting.
“Yeah. If I had to guess, I’d say he weighed around 190 last I saw him. Marshal said the body weighed about 160 pounds. Thirty pounds is a lot to lose in just under five months. His muscle
mass was definitely depleted. Where was he all this time?” Mat mused.
“Huh,” Niall repeated. Where had Cooper been? After a while, they’d assumed he’d managed to flee the island—but maybe he’d never left.
“And,” Mat’s tone changed, “this time, I’m going to let it slide that you called Shay to keep an eye on me while you were gone. I’m not even going to dwell on the fact that this time it was you who was hurt.”
Niall would’ve rolled his eyes, but it was too much effort. And it hurt.
“You are going to rest until Marshal clears you for work.” Mat stopped, flashing an odd sort of guilty look at Niall. “And, um, Mom is helping us plan the wedding.”
7
Wednesday—Mat
Mat left while Niall was still in bed the next morning, the comforter protecting him from the slight nip in the air, a prelude to the fall weather approaching. He’d extracted a promise from Niall that he would take it easy. Mat wasn’t sure he believed Niall’s agreement, seeing as a bored Niall historically led to trouble. He’d tried to make a case for staying home, but really, it wasn’t an option with everything going on.
Niall had insisted Mat go to the station. He claimed his head didn’t hurt as much as it had the day before, but Mat wasn’t taking any chances. Before he left, he called his mom and asked her to please drop Fenrir off at their place… and, of course, with that would come some powerful Alyson Dempsey love.
“He says he feels better, but I don’t want him driving or anything until Marshal says it’s okay.” Maybe having Fenrir around would keep Niall grounded. Mat hoped so, anyway.
Then Mat left a message on Marshal’s phone asking if he had time to stop by and check on Niall.
Mat had a busy day ahead. As much as he wished it not to be, as much as he’d wanted to stay home and take care of Niall, today’s checklist could not be delegated to Birdy. He hated dumping the remainder of the envelopes in her lap, but at this point they were the only lead they had. It was if Duane’s body had shown up out of the blue.