by Nicole Helm
As it was, he could smell her. Something floral and feminine and so unlike her usual asexual appearance he was a little tempted to get his nose in there and take a good sniff.
Which was insane and more than a little perplexing. He didn’t care what a woman smelled like. Vanilla. Citrus. Nothing at all. It was all the same to him as long as they were warm, willing and up for anything.
Laurel Delaney would not be up for anything.
Yeah, couldn’t let himself go down that particular road. At least, not unless he was making her blush while he did it.
The door opened. Laurel stood with her notebook and pen in hand, her mouth opening to say something that was no doubt important.
Then she saw him and fury flickered across her features like a thunderstorm sweeping through the valley. “Get out of my bed, Grady.”
“You know, a woman has never ordered me out of her bed before,” he returned conversationally, crossing his ankles.
“There’s a first time for everything. Your brother’s answers are sufficient for now, but he needs to stay in town in case I have more questions, and it’s very possible he’ll still be considered a suspect if I can’t find something more concrete. But I don’t have enough on him to apply for warrants, so I suggest you do your darnedest to get through to him.”
“Will do, Deputy.”
“Now, if you aren’t out of my bed and my room in ten seconds, so I can get dressed, I will get my weapon and shoot.”
Grady folded his arms behind his head and flashed a grin at her. “Go ahead and get dressed. I don’t mind.”
She made a squeal of outrage, or maybe she was actually having an aneurysm. “You have got to be the most infuriating man alive.”
“Part of my charm.”
“I’ll claim immunity.”
“Oh, don’t tempt me to test that when I’m in your bed, princess.”
“Ten, nine, eight...” She began to count, looking at the ceiling, which he’d count as a bit of a victory, because if she wasn’t glaring at him maybe she was at least having a few inappropriate thoughts about him in her bed.
He would have been more than happy to let that countdown run out, see what she did. Would she really pull her gun on him? He doubted it. But whatever fun he was about to have was completely ruined when he heard his motorcycle engine start.
Without him anywhere near it.
Grady swore and hopped off the bed so fast the bed screeched against the hard floorboards. He ran past Laurel and out the door of her pretty little cabin and yelled after Clint’s retreating form.
“That little punk will rue the day he touched my bike.”
“Rue the day, huh?”
Grady whipped around to glare at Laurel, who was leaning against her open doorway, looking more than a little smug.
“No one, and I mean no one, touches my bike.”
“It appears he already did.”
Clint had indeed, and he would soon find out what it meant to cross Grady Carson, half brother or no half brother.
“I’ll get dressed and drive you into town. Just wait for a few minutes,” Laurel said, pushing off the doorway and stepping inside. Grady took a few steps toward the doorway, but Laurel lifted an eyebrow.
“Out here,” she added. And for the second time this morning, she slammed a door in his face.
Chapter Four
Laurel hummed to herself as she poured her coffee into her thermos. Turned out watching Grady get the crap end of the annoyance stick was quite the morning pick-me-up.
Plus, now she had a lead. It wasn’t much of one, all in all, but Clint hadn’t heard any yelling. Just murmured voices, which Laurel could safely assume meant Jason knew his murderer. Knew him and agreed to meet him in a field in the middle of nowhere.
Which meant Jason had been more than likely into something shady. So, her investigation needed to start focusing on her deceased distant relative.
It was a relief, in some ways, that it might be personal or even professional rather than random. Random was harder to solve. Random was more dangerous.
But Jason had known who killed him, there was a trail to follow, and she’d do her job to follow it.
With renewed purpose, and the image of Grady nearly losing his crap firmly in mind, Laurel slipped on her coat, hefted her bag and grabbed her thermos before heading outside.
She frowned a little when Grady was nowhere to be seen. Had he decided to walk back into town? No skin off her nose and all that, but quite the long walk in the cold when he didn’t have to.
She walked to her car parked on the side of the cabin, and that was when she saw him.
He stood with his back to her, clearly surveying the sprawl of Delaney buildings—houses, barns, stables. Shiny, glossy testaments to the wealth and success of the Delaney clan.
It shouldn’t make her uncomfortable. Her family had worked long and hard for their success, and they’d always upheld the law while they did it. She was born of sheriffs and bankers and good, upstanding people. She knew that.
But no matter how traitorous the thought, she’d always been a little jealous of the Carsons. Not their wildness by any means, but the way they treated their history. They didn’t just know the dates and the people, they lived it. Embodied it. A Carson today was not much different than a Carson one hundred years ago, she was sure.
Laurel had always felt a little disconnect at her father’s edicts of bigger, better and more when they had so much to be proud of just in who they were.
“Tell me something, princess,” Grady said, his voice something like soft. Which might have bothered her, or affected her, if she thought it was sincere. As it was, she figured he was just trying to lower her guard.
“What’s that?”
He turned slowly, those blue eyes of his direct. Sometimes she wondered if she couldn’t just see the past through them.
Get a hold of yourself, idiot.
“You don’t believe in the feud,” he said in that rusty scrape of a voice that might have made women weaker than her shiver. “So, what do you believe in?”
She didn’t need to think about it, or even look away. “Bent.”
He sighed heavily, his gaze traveling to the mountains in the distance. “I was afraid that’s what you’d say,” he muttered. “I suppose we don’t agree about the way people go about it, but I feel the same. As long as Clint’s a suspect, Bent’s at risk.”
“I agree.”
“So, I’m going to help you.”
Laurel frowned. “I don’t need your help, Grady. This is my job.”
“And if everything Clint says is true, that relative of yours was in some shady business that got him killed.”
Laurel’s frown deepened. She hated that he’d put that together, even if it was easy enough. Grady had good instincts, and she didn’t want to have to compliment him on them. Or anything.
“And, baby, you don’t know a thing about shady. But I do.”
“What are you going to do? Eavesdrop at the bar? Beat a few answers out of people? This is a police investigation.”
“I can be subtle.”
She barked out a laugh. “You’re as subtle as a Mack truck. One that nearly broke my nose.”
Grady quirked one of those smiles that, if she wasn’t careful, could make her believe there was some softness in this man. But that was utter insanity. Grady was and always had been the opposite of subtle or soft.
“I can listen. I can put out a few feelers. I can do it all without anyone raising an eyebrow. It’s the beauty of owning a saloon.”
“Bar,” Laurel muttered. But she didn’t get the rise out of Grady she expected.
“This is my brother we’re talking about, Laurel.”
Her first name. Not princess, not Delaney. Just her first name.
“Okay,” she sai
d carefully, because even though she knew she shouldn’t let it get to her, it did. If the positions were reversed, if one of her siblings were in trouble... Well, she’d probably break a few laws. Who was she to think Grady couldn’t uphold a few to save his brother? And Bent. “But you’d have to promise me, really, honestly promise, that we do this my way. If there’s a murderer out there, I have to be able to build a case on him. One with evidence, and no questions as to the validity of that evidence. Or a murderer gets away.” She refused to entertain that thought, but Grady had to.
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t smile or joke or do anything except nod. Then hold out his hand.
“You have my word.”
Laurel could not have predicted this turn of events in a million years. Working with a Carson... It was insane, and risky, but maybe if the town saw a Carson and a Delaney working together for the truth, they’d be able to find something of the same.
She took his outstretched hand and shook, firmly. “So. We’re in this together,” she said, because she couldn’t quite believe it.
“Only until my brother is cleared and to save Bent from another wave of feud crap.”
“I thought you believed in the feud wholeheartedly.”
“I believe in enemies. I believe in history. I believe in Delaneys mostly being so high on their horses they don’t see anything.”
Laurel tried to tug her hand away, but Grady held it in his, his large hand grasping hers tightly.
“I believe violence is sometimes the answer. Just like I can believe in the feud, the importance of that history, and think not all Delaneys are scum of the earth.” His mouth curved into that dangerous thing. Dangerous and feral and so completely the opposite of arousing.
She wished.
“But mostly, Deputy Delaney,” he said, holding firm on her hand and even tugging her closer. Close enough she could feel his breath mingle with hers, close enough she could see that the vibrant blue of his eyes matched the blue of the fall sky above them.
“I believe in Bent. And I believe you do, too. So, we’ll do this your way until we have the murderer behind bars.”
“And after that?”
“After that, I’ll go back to doing things my way, princess.” The curve of his mouth morphed into a full-blown grin. “So try not to fall in love with me.”
“Such a hardship,” she muttered, and when she gave one last tug of her hand and he didn’t let go, she let her temper take over a little bit. She moved quick and clean and managed to land an elbow to his stomach that had his grasp loosening enough for her to free herself.
“Next time you hold on to me like that, you’ll let me go the first time I pull away, or that elbow to the gut will be a knee to the balls.”
Grady made a considering noise. “I like that you plan on there being a next time I hold on to you like that. Desperate for another touch?”
“I don’t know how you’ll hear anything shady going on in that bar of yours over the infernal buzz of your outrageous ego.”
“I think I’ll manage.”
And the irritating part was, she was quite positive he would.
* * *
GRADY HAD CONSIDERED, for a moment or two, hauling her over his shoulder as payment for the elbow to the gut. Maybe he’d even slap that pretty ass of hers for good measure. It was a fantasy with some merit, but it would have to stay a fantasy.
He’d heard enough bedtime stories about a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old feud to know that Carsons and Delaneys getting mixed up in each other’s asses was never, ever a good thing.
Besides, he needed to focus on Clint, which meant figuring out this case. A lot faster than the police would. He got that Laurel had some of the same concerns he did, and he got and respected the fact she knew what she was doing.
But he didn’t have time for bureaucratic red tape, or following all leads. His goal wasn’t so much the truth as it was making sure his brother didn’t get wrapped up in this. Laurel could do her police work, focus on her job, and Grady could focus on Clint.
It made them something like the perfect team. Which made it something like amusing to follow her to her car and get in as a passenger. She tossed her bag in the back, and got into the driver’s seat as he stretched out in the passenger’s.
“Can’t say I’ve ever sat in the front seat of a cop car before.”
“And I’ve never been pushed into the back of one. Such different lives we’ve led,” she returned dryly, turning the keys in the ignition.
She drove away from the Delaney spread, a monstrosity of glitter and shine, the antithesis of what it should be in Grady’s estimation. You built a name for yourself, you ought to give some nod to the past platforms you built yourself on. But the Delaneys liked it slick and new. And if he was being honest, at least part of the appeal for the Carsons was finding joy in the old and patched-together.
“You guys really hire all your ranch work out?” Grady asked, more because he knew it would make her stiffen than because he didn’t know.
“Dylan helps some. Cam might when he comes home. Being a navy SEAL keeps him busy.”
Grady made a humming noise he knew would irritate her. “Seems a bit of a misnomer to call it the Delaney ranch, then.”
“If you insist,” she replied, and though she clearly tried to use cop tone on him, some of her snap crackled through.
Grady grinned. Laurel always gave a hell of a snap. “Where exactly are you planning on letting me out?”
“Rightful Claim,” she replied matter-of-factly as she maneuvered her neat, sparkling car down the winding road back toward the town’s heart.
“So, you’re going to drive through town, for all and sundry to see, and then drop me off at my bar to do the walk of shame?”
Her head whipped to his for a brief second before she returned her concentration to the road. “No one will think that.”
“Baby, everyone will think that. What better story is there in Bent? Number one: a Carson murdered a Delaney. Number two: a Carson defiled a Delaney. Hell, we could create our very own Civil War.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“It wasn’t a joke.” Though he couldn’t blame her exactly for thinking he took this lightly. He wasn’t a man prone to giving away his deeper emotions. Especially to the Delaneys, but he was also no idiot. Once the whisper of murder made it through town and who the suspect was, added to any whisper of him and Laurel spending time together—no matter how ludicrous—things would really get going.
Any romance rumors now would only fan the fire, and make him and Laurel’s life harder while they were trying to clear Clint.
Laurel sighed heavily. “So, where do you want me to drop you off?”
“Go out of town to the north, circle around back, and there’s a small, gravel access road back of Carson property we can sneak through.”
“I should not have to sneak. Or waste half my morning sneaking.”
“Lotta things we shouldn’t have to do in this life, princess, but we do them anyway.”
Her lips firmed, but she posed no other arguments. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, as it usually was, her jaw clenched tight, also usual. But something about seeing her in her pajamas, lying in her bed—it was like seeing a slightly different, softer side to Laurel Delaney.
He clearly needed more coffee. He didn’t needle her the rest of the way. Well, he fiddled with the buttons on her fancy police car dash, even in this unmarked car, before she slapped at him, but other than that he was on his best behavior.
He couldn’t imagine Clint had ridden Grady’s motorcycle anywhere else but the Carson ranch, because if the kid had, well... Grady wouldn’t consider it on account of a bad temper and an insane dislike to people touching his few prized possessions. His bike chief among them.
Morning broke like a glorious blast, rays of sunshine re
flecting the gold of everything. Fall in Bent could make the snobbiest of city folk smile. As for Grady, it was always a reminder his soul belonged here. Those roots that bound him to this land and that sky weren’t shackles but gifts.
He glanced at Laurel. She did everything efficiently. The turn of the wheel, the checking both ways before making a turn. Always so serious and conscientious. He supposed that was the fascination. He’d never known anyone quite like her, even in the passel of uppity, glossy Delaneys that ran Bent, or tried to.
“Turn here,” Grady instructed, gesturing toward a barely visible turn off the highway. Laurel nodded and drove her car through a canopy of green and gold, leaves and pine, until they reached the gate.
“You can walk from here,” she said primly.
Something about her prim always made him grin. “A polite woman drops her man off at the door.”
“Consider me impolite and you very much not my man.”
Grady pushed the car door open and stepped out. “I’ll put a few feelers out tonight at Rightful Claim, let you know what I come up with.”
She nodded, all business. “I’m going over to the mining company to talk to Jason’s boss and any coworkers he might have been friendly with. I’ll let you know if I’ve got a specific lead I want you to listen for.”
“Look at that, Deputy, we’re acting like partners already.”
She rolled her eyes. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t kill each other.”
The grin that had never fully evaporated spread across his face. “Funny, killing each other isn’t what I’m worried about.”
Her eyebrows drew together, all adorable, innocent confusion. Oh, to be as sweet and rule-abiding as his deputy princess.
“You just think on that, and we’ll be in touch.” He closed the door and started walking toward the old homestead. The wind was cold, but he didn’t mind. It was a good kind of cold. A thinking cold. And he needed to get his head in the thinking game. The keeping-Clint-out-of-trouble game.
When Laurel’s car didn’t immediately turn around and drive away, he chuckled. He kept walking, but he waited for what he knew would come. Because deputy princess didn’t know when to quit.