Grant shrugged. “The town is growing, and the world is changing. Big cities don’t have the market cornered on lowlife drug dealers.”
“It’s a small operation.” Cole inclined his head toward JJ Waring, a second deputy who stood about twenty feet from them, camouflaged by an overgrown bush and the darkness of the hour. “Waring and I can handle it.”
“I’m fine, Sheriff.” Grant moved so he was standing in front of Cole. “Elaina is fine.”
Cole blew out a breath. Last fall, Grant’s young daughter had gotten caught in the middle of an incident with a tweaked-out petty criminal who’d had too many run-ins with the department to count. But on that night, the man had gone too far, and Elaina had ended up hospitalized from a knife wound. Grant and his wife, Melody, had witnessed the whole thing.
Although everyone from Grant to Marlene to Jase had insisted it wasn’t Cole’s fault, he couldn’t help but blame himself. There had been something about the man that had reminded Cole of his brother, Shep. The brother he hadn’t seen in close to seven years. Cole had gone easy on the guy too many times, and his drug use and subsequent bad behavior had escalated.
Cole took his responsibilities as sheriff seriously, but his duty to the men and women who worked for him was even more important. He knew that each of them understood the risks involved but that didn’t stop him from wanting to protect them, along with every person who lived under his jurisdiction.
Since that night last fall, he’d made it his personal mission to take down the underground drug ring that had spread its slimy tentacles up from Denver and into several of the high mountain communities.
It went beyond the legal marijuana that had become so popular in Colorado in the past few years. The stuff these guys were manufacturing was hard-core, and the bigger operations in the city had set up satellite sites in rural areas where there was more room and less monitoring by local law enforcement.
Not in Crimson if Cole had anything to do about it.
He unholstered his gun and nodded at Grant. “Glad to have you by my side,” he said, and together they slipped into the shadows.
* * *
Sienna blinked awake, then glanced at the clock. Two in the morning.
She sighed and sat up, the sheets and comforter twisted into a ball at the foot of the bed. Maybe a glass of water would help—or warm milk. Anything to stop her from tossing and turning, sleep remaining elusive as her mind spun in a dozen different directions.
She went to the bedroom window, unlatched it, then pushed it open. Cool air was good for sleeping, too. Her gaze snagged on the familiar white Jeep parked at the curb in front of The Bumblebee. Was there something wrong in this quiet neighborhood to bring out Crimson’s finest at this late hour?
The SUV was dark, no motor running. She couldn’t see the driver but knew without a doubt that Cole was behind the wheel.
She hadn’t seen him since yesterday at the bakery, and tried to ignore the thrill that zipped along her skin at the mere thought of him now.
After walking away from him, she’d planned to march down the street to the mayor’s office in the county courthouse, a redbrick historic building situated across the park that made up the center of downtown Crimson.
But the thought of facing her brother made her break out in a cold sweat, heart pounding and hands trembling. Why was it so difficult to face Jase or her father?
Her mother had been the one to take her away from Crimson, but Sienna still felt the painful sting of rejection from being let go so easily. The argument could be made that her life had been better far away from the turmoil of her alcoholic father—she knew her mother would contend that Sienna had been given many more opportunities in Chicago than she ever would have had in Crimson.
That didn’t matter either. She’d felt expendable. Even though they’d both been kids, Jase had stayed in Crimson because Declan had needed him, not Sienna. The two Crenshaw men were a pair, and she was an outsider in the town where she’d been born.
Not allowing herself to think too much about her actions, she padded downstairs, slipped on a pair of shoes and let herself out the front door. The driver’s side window lowered as she rounded the front of the Jeep.
“Is there a problem, Sheriff?” She wrapped her arms around her waist, still surprised by the nip in the air. The temperature in the mountains dipped every night when the sun went down, so different from the Midwest, where it often stayed within a few degrees of the sweltering heat and humidity of daylight hours.
“No.” The one syllable was a low rumble. Cole’s face remained in shadow, but something was different tonight. The invisible current that seemed to connect them was still there, but there was an unusual charge to it.
“Was my restless sleep disturbing the neighbors tonight?”
“I didn’t get a call from the neighbors.”
She stepped closer to the SUV. “Then why are you—” She sucked in a breath. “What happened? You’re hurt.”
He was leaning back against the headrest and shifted to meet her gaze fully. “I’m fine. Just not ready to go home.”
“The bandage on your shoulder doesn’t look fine,” she insisted, reaching for the door. “Oh, my God, Cole. Were you shot?”
He didn’t argue when she reached around him to unfasten the seat belt. He wore a white T-shirt with one sleeve bunched above the bandage that covered the upper part of his arm. “You said my name again.” One side of his mouth curved. “It sounds good coming from your lips.”
“You’re delirious. We need to get you to the hospital.”
“I’m fine. Bullet grazed me.”
“Who shot you?” she demanded, tugging him from the Jeep.
“Bad guy,” he muttered.
“There’s a cut on your forehead.”
“It’s only a scratch. I chased him through the woods.”
She took his hand and led him up the flagstone walkway toward the house. Paige was a deep sleeper, so Sienna didn’t think the inn owner would wake up, but she climbed the stairs to her bedroom quietly, Cole following behind her.
She pushed him toward the bed. “Sit down,” she ordered. “I’m going to get something to clean out that cut.”
“Scratch,” he insisted.
“Tomato, to-mah-to,” she shot back and hurried toward the bathroom at the end of the hall. She found a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls and a small box of bandages, returning to the bedroom to find Cole sprawled across the bed.
He glanced at her as she moved toward him. “Nice wallpaper,” he said, circling a finger in the air.
A rose-hued paper with a pattern of red and pink roses covered the walls. The queen-size bed had a wrought-iron frame in a delicate design with filigree decorating the end of each post. There was a tall chest of drawers against one wall, and a shorter, longer dresser on the opposite wall. Both were covered with lace doilies and vases of dried flowers.
It was like a throwback to an inn of a hundred years ago, and Sienna had immediately appreciated all the homey touches. It was a feminine space, but even on his back, Cole looked ridiculously masculine in it.
“Tell me what happened.” She sat on the edge of the bed, placing the supplies on the nightstand.
“Drug bust,” he said tightly. “More guys than we anticipated.”
“A drug bust in Crimson?” She soaked a cotton ball with hydrogen peroxide. “That seems hard to believe.”
“I only wish our mountain Mayberry, as you call it, was safe from the issues people associate with big cities. But drugs are an insidious problem. Maybe not to the level other places find, but we deal with our share of bad here, Sienna.”
“Was it a success?”
He nodded, then hissed out a breath when she dabbed the cotton ball against his broken skin. “Did you ever consider a career as a nurse?”
She smiled sweetly and pressed harder against the cut. “I should take you to the hospital.”
He gave a small laugh. “Spent some time there ear
lier and not going back. One of my deputies shot a guy who was fleeing the scene. He’ll live, but his leg needed some attention.” He moved his arm, then groaned. “The doc wrapped up my shoulder so I know it’s fine.”
“Was anyone...?”
“Killed? No, thankfully. But we arrested four of them and shut down the local operation. It was a good night.”
She took a bandage strip from the box and unpeeled the wrapper. “So why are you here?”
“I really am sorry,” he said quietly. “Not that I told Jase about you being in town, but that he and Declan knowing seems to be messing with your head.”
“My head is fine,” she whispered, covering his cut with the bandage.
“Your head is gorgeous,” he countered, “just like the rest of you. I didn’t intend to hurt you, Sienna.”
“The road to hell...” she said, making her voice light. Pretending it didn’t mean anything to her that he’d come here tonight.
Not fooling either of them.
He encircled her wrist with his big hand. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded, ignoring the butterflies fluttering through her chest. “I probably would have freaked out either way. Somehow the idea of facing Jase and my dad is way different than the reality of it.”
“But you’re still here.”
“Call me a glutton for punishment, but I’m not ready to give up quite yet.”
“Good.”
She tugged out of his grasp, stood and walked to the window. “You’re in my bed,” she told him, stating the obvious.
He flashed a wry smile, sat up and placed his feet on the floor. “I should go.”
“You can stay,” she blurted, feeling color flood her cheeks as he arched a brow.
“Sienna.”
“I don’t mean I’m going to sleep with you.” She pressed her fingers to her flaming cheeks. “Or I guess I do mean sleep. But nothing else. No hanky-panky.”
“Hanky-panky,” Cole murmured.
She rolled her eyes, walking to the opposite side of the bed. “I remember my...Declan using that term when Jase and I were little, before Mom and I left, of course. There was a young couple that moved into the trailer next to ours for just a few months, but they were quite enamored of each other. When Jase asked why they turned off the lights and went to bed so early every night, Declan answered ‘hanky-panky.’” She reached down and smoothed a hand over the pillowcase. “I didn’t even understand what he meant, but the phrase stuck with me.”
“It’s strange the things we remember from childhood.”
“Tell me something funny from when you were a kid,” she said, slipping between the cool sheets and leaning back against the headboard.
Whether from her proximity or the thought of having to share something personal, she saw Cole’s shoulders stiffen. Maybe he’d shut her out, as he had the other night. But she wouldn’t regret her curiosity. He was like a puzzle she couldn’t stop trying to solve.
He straightened from the bed, massaged the back of his neck with one hand. “We moved every couple of years because of my dad’s career in the army. Me and my twin brother, Shep—”
“You have a twin brother?” she asked, stunned. “I thought you said your family was gone.”
His jaw clenched. “They are. My parents are dead, and Shep could be for all I know. We haven’t spoken in years, and he seemed hell-bent on destruction before he left. I don’t even know where he is at this point.”
“But you could—”
“Do you want the funny story or not?”
She clamped her mouth shut and nodded.
“Shep and I are identical, so we did a lot of pretending we were each other, especially when we first got to a new school. Fourth grade in Germany, we spent an entire semester taking tests for each other because we were in different classes. They wanted to suspend both of us but couldn’t prove anything.”
Sienna gave a small laugh. “Was your mom mad?”
“She dragged us down to a local barber and flipped a coin to decide which one of us had to have our head shaved.” As he spoke, he toed off first one boot, then the other. Sienna’s heart raced in response. “From that day on, we weren’t allowed to have the same haircut because she never wanted us to be able to play that kind of trick again.”
“I bet you found other ways to be bad.”
“Plenty of them.”
“I was a good girl,” she blurted as he moved toward the door and flipped off the lights, plunging the room into darkness.
“I never had a doubt,” he told her, and she could hear the humor in his voice, “despite the speeding and the car-borrowing and all the other trouble I’m sure you’re going to cause while you’re in town.”
She pulled the covers tighter around her. “I meant what I said, Cole.”
“God, it kills me when you say my name.” The mattress dipped as he lowered himself to the bed again.
“Should I stick to ‘Sheriff’?”
“You know the answer to that, and I know the no hanky-panky rule.” He shifted, stretching out on his back. “But I’m tired as hell after the night I had, Sienna, so I’m going to take you up on the offer of sleeping together.” He smiled. “Emphasis on sleeping.”
“You’re laying on top of the covers,” she pointed out.
“Safer this way, sweetheart.” She heard him yawn and turned on her side. It was a crazy offer she’d made and even crazier that he’d taken her up on it, but there was something comforting about Cole’s big body next to her on the bed. She felt less alone, safer—although she had no reason not to feel safe. But she’d been off-kilter since the moment she’d arrived in Colorado.
Now she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, her weary body practically melting into the soft mattress.
“Good night, Cole,” she whispered.
“Good night, Sienna. Sweet dreams.”
Chapter Seven
Cole winced as the second stair from the bottom squeaked under his foot. It was five in the morning, and he was working on three hours of sleep—albeit the best sleep he’d had in years. He’d drifted off almost as soon as he closed his eyes, then woken a few minutes ago with Sienna snuggled tight against his chest, his arm wrapped around her waist.
He’d wanted to run his hands along her curves, to kiss the sweet spot at the base of her neck, to press himself into her—all those things and more. But she’d said no “hanky-panky” and he was going to honor that request, even if it killed him. So he’d gingerly climbed out of bed, grabbed his boots and let himself out of her bedroom without waking her.
He sure as hell didn’t need any early morning runners to notice his patrol Jeep in front of The Bumblebee and start asking questions. Crimson was a small town and a close-knit community and gossip traveled faster than a prairie fire across the drought-plagued plains.
“Coffee, Sheriff?”
He cursed under his breath, then pasted on a smile as he turned to meet Paige’s questioning gaze. “I’ll get some at the station later.”
“You must have arrived late last night,” she said conversationally, sipping from a mug that said I drink coffee for your protection. “Now you’re heading out before sunrise.”
“This is not what it looks like,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Is that so?” She scrunched up her nose. “Because despite the fact that you seem a little worse for wear with those bandages, it looks like a booty call.”
“Nothing happened between Sienna and me.” He ran a hand through his hair, unable to figure out how to explain why he’d parked in front of the inn last night in the first place. Not when he barely understood the reasons himself. “I was here but we slept. Not together. Next to each other. That’s all.”
She studied him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay? Just like that?”
“I don’t know you well, Sheriff, but you don’t strike me as a liar. Plus, I think you like Sienna.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “You really like her.�
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He didn’t bother to deny it. “It doesn’t matter how I feel about her. She’s here temporarily. She could leave town at any time.”
“Even she isn’t sure how long she’ll stay,” Paige agreed. “I guess it depends on how things go with Jase and her dad, whenever she actually has a real conversation with either of them.” She shook her head. “Family stuff is always more complicated than you want it to be.”
Cole thought of his parents and his brother, of the lies and drama that tore apart his family. His biggest regret in life was being unable to fix what his father broke.
“Yeah. Would you mind not mentioning me being here to anyone? I don’t want...”
“You like her,” Paige told him. “That matters. She needs someone in her corner.”
Cole blew out a breath. How could he be in Sienna’s corner and still remain loyal to his friendship with Jase? But he couldn’t deny the connection he felt to her.
“I’ve got to go. Thanks for understanding.”
She smiled. “I don’t understand it, but I don’t need to. Just don’t hurt her and we’ll have no problems.”
“I’ll do my best,” he promised with a low chuckle, then let himself out the front door. It was funny to think of the petite inn owner, with her bohemian dresses and crazy curly hair, giving him an implied threat. He couldn’t imagine what kind of problem Paige could possibly create for someone like him, but he still appreciated her loyalty.
He glanced at Sienna’s bedroom window as he climbed into the Jeep and turned the key in the ignition, his shoulder still aching. Where did last night leave the two of them? As he drove through town toward his house on the other side of Crimson Creek, those late-night hours spent in Sienna’s bed felt more and more like a dream.
He showered, grabbed a stale bagel from the cabinet, then headed to the station. He checked in with a couple of his deputies, then called the county jail to get an update on the men they’d arrested. There was a mountain of paperwork to process, and he was on his fourth cup of coffee when a knock sounded on the door to his office.
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