Last Shot at Justice (A Thomas Family Novel Book 1)

by Kristi Cramer

  “I think I could get used to that endearment,” she said, almost bashfully. Shyness wasn’t a usual demeanor for her, but she was venturing into new territory here.

  “Good,” he said. “Because that is what comes to mind when I think of you. A fellow has to get past those buzzing bees first, but all that trouble is what makes your sweetness that much more rewarding.”

  ⋘⋆⋙

  Mitzi blushed again, and that widened Blue’s smile. He liked seeing such a rare glimpse of her vulnerability.

  But it obviously made her uncomfortable.

  “I should probably call Mack and have him send a patrol car out to get me and take me home,” she said, although she didn’t make any move toward her phone. “Mr. Tuggles needs to be fed.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Tuggles?”

  “My cat.”

  “You really want to chance running into the media circus that is surely waiting for you at your house? For a cat?” he asked persuasively, suspecting that any cat of Mitzi’s had to be just as resourceful as she was. “Stay with me.”

  She gave him a small, weary smile, and he worried she was going to insist on leaving.

  “Hang on a sec.” Blue held out a hand as if to stop her from leaving. He stood and opened the cupboard above the fridge, then rooted around for a moment, looking for a particular CD to put in the boombox that sat inside the cupboard. When he found the one he wanted—with a song he’d heard on NPR by an artist he liked so much he ordered the CD—he slid the disc into the player and turned the volume up.

  When he stood back from the cupboard, he held out his hand for Mitzi’s. She scooted around the table and took his hand, and he pulled her in close to dance as the first bass notes of Mayer Hawthorne’s “Get to Know You” slid out of the speakers like honey.

  She laughed as the singer started speaking in lilting tones about coming to the end of a date. “Blue Thomas,” she said. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

  “Shh,” he responded. “Listen.” He swayed and turned her in a small circle, the most that the cramped space would allow. As the singer began to sing, he whispered the lyrics in her ear: “I really want to get to know you.”

  “Blue,” she declared, pulling back just enough to look into his eyes. She put her arms around his neck and smiled. “This is totally a make-out song.”

  “So what,” he proclaimed airily.

  He turned her in another circle, gazing down into her brown eyes as they slowly softened from laughter to desire.

  “How many women have you played this song for?” she asked, still trying to summon reasons to resist him.

  “Just one,” he said. “And I’m looking at her.”

  She stilled in his arms, and he brought his hands to her face, gently brushing a strand of her hair away from her eyes. Then he bent to place his lips against her forehead in a chaste, tender kiss. He felt her breath shudder as she exhaled against his neck, and he smiled.

  “Still want to leave?” he asked.

  “I thought you were tired,” she said in a last ditch effort to resist him, though he could tell her heart wasn’t set on retreat.

  Blue just smiled.

  Epilogue

  Blue was beautiful to watch in the saddle. Mitzi had never considered that anything a man might do could be beautiful, but Blue on a horse was. It was better than watching Kevin Costner ride in Dances with Wolves. It didn’t matter how often she saw him riding, she didn’t think she would ever get her fill. He could have been glued to the saddle even though the horse galloped full speed along the fence line.

  As he thundered by her spot on the rail he smiled, and she knew he was showing off. Again. He brought the beast into a great arc that took him back to where she waited. Though she had to fight the urge to flinch, she held her ground as he pulled back on the reins and brought the snorting horse to a stop in front of her.

  “Good morning, Deputy Reardon,” he said, tipping his hat to her.

  “Good morning, Mr. Thomas,” she returned, matching his formal greeting. “I’ve got news.”

  “Oh? Wanna hop up and tell me while I finish riding the fence line? I need to backtrack a little. I think I saw a break just back there a little ways.”

  “Now, if you hadn’t been showing off, you would know for sure, wouldn’t you?”

  Blue laughed. “But Daddy taught me to never keep a lady waiting. Come on up.” He held his hand out to her, and she eyed it dubiously.

  “I don’t know, Blue. I haven’t had much luck so far getting along with these creatures.” To her own consternation, she hadn’t been able to make herself get within two feet of one of these giant creatures. They always snorted or reached out toward her, or twitched, or lifted their feet as though just waiting to squish her underneath their hooves.

  “It’s only because you haven’t had the right experience on a horse, and you’re a little scared of them. They can sense fear.”

  “You’re saying I’m a coward?”

  “Oh, heck no. I know better. I’m just saying climb up here behind me, and you’ll start to get used to horses. After you’re used to them, you’ll have a better time around them.”

  “If you say so,” Mitzi muttered, and hoisted herself up the rail of the gate until she could straddle the top of it. Blue edged the horse closer and shook his foot out of the stirrup.

  “Put your foot in there, then swing your other leg over the back of the horse. I won’t let you fall.”

  She looked up into his earnest eyes and took his hand. Without quite knowing how, she was suddenly astride the horse, clutching Blue around his waist so she could scoot up close to him. She felt the horse quiver beneath her, but otherwise the animal held still. She slowly opened her eyes and looked around at a world that was subtly different, seen from this height.

  “There, you see?” Blue said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be sitting on top of an animal that could easily kill her in half a dozen ways if she fell. “Hang on now, ’cause we’re going to start walking.”

  “Just take it slow,” she replied, not quite a plea.

  “Of course,” Blue said. “I want you to like riding horses. If you’re going to be a Hamilton County Sheriff, folks are going to expect you to ride. You might not even make it past probation if you can’t sit a horse proper.”

  “Sheriff Jonas didn’t say I had to be able to ride!” she protested, holding Blue tighter as the horse began to walk back up the fence line. “I wouldn’t have burned my bridges back in Denver if I had known riding was a requirement.”

  Not that bridges had been burned by her choice. While officially the department praised her for exposing the Chief as a bad apple, the investigation had been harsh and far reaching—and had stomped on a lot of toes. Dozens of good officers had endured hours of grilling as the powers-that-be determined who needed to go. Even though the house cleaning routed relatively few dirty cops, her fellow officers had looked askance at her, justified or not, for turning in their own. In the end, she had followed temptation and applied to the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office in Syracuse, Kansas.

  “Well, it’s not exactly a requirement,” Blue stated. “Just, you know, an expectation. And didn’t you tell me you wanted a pony growing up? There’s some part of you that wants this. Just relax, and tell me your news.”

  “Oh yes, my news.” Mitzi paused a moment, getting the feel of the horse beneath her. “The judge finally sentenced Hatfield.”

  “Good,” Blue responded, and she heard a hard edge to his voice that she heard only when he spoke about Hatfield.

  Despite the idea they might never have met if it wasn’t for Winston Hatfield, it was hard to think fondly of a man who’d ordered their deaths, inflicted pain upon the Wharton family, and disgraced the Denver Police Department. Not to mention the loss of the better part of a year to investigations, depositions, testimony, and a trial that seemed more like a media circus.

  The prosecuting attorney had presented an airtight case aga
inst Hatfield. Neil, Murray, Cantrell, and two other DPD officers had rolled on him with minimal encouragement and in exchange for lighter sentences. Mitzi’s and Blue’s testimony rammed the case home for the jury.

  Hatfield had bought the best attorney money could buy, and had made a lot of noise about justice and getting railroaded. Rumor was that he had appealed to countless businessmen and public figures he had called friend, but none had stood up for him.

  The jury had deliberated less than five hours on all counts. And there were plenty of counts on plenty of charges: kidnapping, conspiracy, coercion, racketeering...the list went on and on.

  “Don’t you want to hear the sentence?” Mitzi asked.

  “Will he be an old man before he’s eligible for parole?” Blue countered.

  “Yes. Very old.”

  “That’s all I need to know, Miss Mitzi. I reckon he found out what good all his power and money did him. It’s good to know Justice is still blind, after all.”

  “Why Blue, I do believe you’ve been reading the newspapers.”

  “Even better,” he answered smugly. “I saw a headline that mentioned ‘Blind Justice,’ and I Googled it.”

  “Oh dear Lord,” Mitzi declared, hugging him around his middle. “I don’t know whether to be proud or horrified.”

  “Probably horrified. It’s kind of addicting.”

  “If you turn into a computer nerd, or open a social media profile, I’m packing up and moving back to Denver.”

  Blue laughed and squeezed her hands. “Not to worry. There’s far too much to do out here to make a habit of surfing the web. Just because that reward money paid off the bills from Momma’s cancer and got the bank off our backs doesn’t mean this ranch will run itself. Would you look at that?” He pulled to a stop and threw his leg over the horse’s neck. “Stay put,” he commanded, then slid off to land lightly on the ground, which suddenly looked very far away to Mitzi.

  “Blue,” she said in a strained voice, gripping the saddle as tight as she could. Without Blue to hang onto, she felt very insecure, even with the horse standing still as a rock. “What should I do?”

  “Give me a sec,” he said, and she turned to see him rooting in the grass along the fence.

  She frowned. “What’s wrong? Is there a break?”

  “Nah,” he replied, rustling a few moments longer before turning around and presenting her with a bouquet of star-shaped white flowers, with long yellow stamens and six petals. “Just some sand lilies.” He held them up so she could take them. “For you, my honey.”

  “They’re beautiful, Blue.”

  “Not as beautiful as you. Scoot up there in the saddle, would you?” When she hesitated, he offered encouragement. “Come on, tough girl. You’re not going to fall.”

  “How do you know?”

  “’Cause Hobbit here is as steady as they come. He knows you’re new at this, and you’d be hard pressed to aggravate him. Plus, I won’t let you fall.”

  “He’s awful big for a hobbit.”

  “It’s the little ponies you have to watch out for. Hobbit is patient and trustworthy.”

  Just like you, she thought.

  “All you do is lean forward,” he continued, “grab the apple, and pull yourself up.”

  She knew from an earlier lesson that the apple was what she would have called a saddle horn, so she did as he suggested, trying not to damage the flowers in the bouquet. Without too much fuss, she got herself into the saddle.

  “Do you want to drive?” he asked, looking up at her.

  “Only if you’re up here with me,” she answered.

  “Okay. For now. Like I said, I want you to like riding horseback. Someday you’ll want to break out on your own.”

  “I expect so, but thanks for not trying to rush me. It was a big enough stretch for me just moving out here. I still haven’t gotten used to so much sky and such dark nights.”

  “I reckon you’ll grow to love it just as much as I do,” he smiled. Then he put his foot in the stirrup and swung onto the horse behind her. Hobbit took a couple of steps as he adjusted to the new weight on his back. At Blue’s urging, the horse started ambling along the fence line again.

  Mitzi felt completely secure with Blue’s arms wrapped around her, and she leaned back against him. She knew she wasn’t really driving, but she didn’t much care.

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Blue said, bending down to nuzzle his chin against her neck.

  “What’s that?”

  “I got this notion about the way we’ve been living....”

  “What, in sin?” she asked with a laugh.

  “Well, yeah,” he replied. He went on, apparently choosing to ignore how still she had become. “I mean, it’s not like we’re living under the same roof officially. But everybody in town knows I spend more nights with you than I do at home. And, well, now that this darn trial is over and done, I’d really like to make an honest deputy out of you.”

  She sat up and twisted in the saddle to look at him. Hobbit, sensing her sudden tension, skipped forward a few steps before Blue brought him under control.

  “Blue Thomas, are you proposing to me?”

  “Well, yeah. I got a ring and everything.” He fished in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a ring made of sturdy white gold, with a decent-sized rock snuggled in a well-built setting. “It’s not very girly or anything. It was my mee-maw’s, and she was just too dang practical to ever have a thing that wouldn’t hold up to all the hard work she did.”

  She didn’t really hear his quaint story about the ring. “You’re asking me to marry you because you think people are talking about us?”

  “Well, folks are always going to talk. No. I’m asking you to marry me because I love you. I have since the first moment I drew gunfire on your account.”

  “What!?!”

  He smiled that slow, sexy smile of his. “Just making sure you’re really listening. I fell in love with a brave policewoman somewhere between all the running and gunning, and me taking care of you and you taking care of me. Then over this last year, I got to fall in love with more of you. The honest, direct, no-nonsense witness. The determined recruit proving she has what it takes to be a deputy sheriff on our little neck of the prairie. The passionate lover who can always get a rise out of me. I see you, and I want you to be a permanent part of my life, before God and everybody. I want you. So I’m asking, Miss Mitzi Reardon, will you marry me?”

  Mitzi thought carefully about this offer, staring out over Hobbit’s ears without seeing the rangeland they rode through.

  The words were beautiful, but poetry didn’t make a marriage work. She was perfectly happy to shack up with him, or go on with their current arrangement, where he just spent the night most nights, then went home to give her some space.

  “I’d make a crappy wife, Blue,” she said, without looking at him. “I barely cook. I don’t clean more than the bare minimum. I don’t know anything about ranching, and I’ll probably keep odd hours, even here in the land of watermelon poachers. I’ve lived alone for a long time, and get cranky when I don’t get space to myself.”

  “Well, when you put it that way.” Blue laughed. “That’s the other thing I love about you, my honey. Those bees that make the sweet that much sweeter.”

  “But what if the bees get in the way too often, and you start to think the sweet isn’t worth getting stung?”

  “Do you love me?” he asked. He continued holding the ring out, still smiling, as if to prove he had that much confidence in her.

  “Of course I do.” She squeezed the arm holding her around the middle. “You make me a better person. More trusting, open, and loving. I have never felt more safe and loved since I met you. Mr. Tuggles even likes you. But is that enough?”

  “Here’s what I know, Mitzi. You barely cook, but what you do cook tastes really good. And when I don’t cook either, I can eat at the ranch house with the rest of the hands. It’s not perfect, but it is doable
. You don’t clean more than the bare minimum, but you don’t make a mess either. You’re organized and neat. Like me. I don’t see a problem. And any time you want your own space, all you need to do is speak up. But I reckon between your job and mine, we’ll get plenty of space in the normal course of life. Daddy always told me that marriage is about figuring out the big stuff, and not sweating the little stuff. So are you going to take this ring or not? I’m starting to feel a little foolish.”

  Mitzi smiled and turned to face him, secure in the knowledge that his arm around her would keep her safe in the saddle. Without another word she held out her left hand. After Blue slipped the ring on her heart finger, she closed her hand into a fist. “And we can always work it out in the boxing ring,” she grinned.

  He smiled back and kissed her fist. “Anything you want, Deputy Thomas.”

  “I’m terrified,” she confessed, looking at the ring, then up into his tender gaze.

  “In a good way, I hope.”

  “In the best way.”

  ⋘⋆⋙

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to honor the memory of my first editor, Anne, for making Last Shot at Justice shine, and thank Debra for going over it one more time.

  I would also like to thank my preview readers, Elaine, Lynda, Angela, Emma and Megan, all of whom had my back.

  Edwin Rosales saved me from butchering the few Spanish phrases I used. Thank you, my friend!

  Any mistakes you may find surely arrived after they turned it back over to me.

  Last, but never least, I thank my husband, Collin, for driving solo all winter while I finished this up. Blue is based in no small part upon the best of your character, which is why I had a crush on him while I wrote this. I love you, my honey.

  If You Enjoyed This Book...

  Please consider leaving a review.

  I love writing stories for you.

  One of the best and most important ways YOU can help me continue to write them is to tell other people whether and how much you enjoy reading my work.