The Sheriff of Shelter Valley

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  For a second there, listening to Len openly confess his love, Greg envied the guy.

  “So, what’d you need to see me about?” Len asked moments later as the two men sat at a huge butcher-block table in Len’s kitchen. “The county need some money, Sheriff? You know you didn’t need to make a trip all the way out here for that. A phone call would’ve done it.”

  Greg sat forward, his gun a familiar weight against his thigh. He had to go carefully here. He couldn’t be sure of what Len knew—or even if what he did know could implicate him or someone else who wouldn’t take kindly to the involvement. He figured, too, that Len wasn’t going to mess up everything he had going here.

  “I need some help, Len,” he said.

  The blond man shrugged his broad shoulders. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll do what I can.” And then, setting down the mug he’d been about to sip from, he murmured, “Official help?”

  Hands around his own mug on the table, Greg nodded. “Tell me what you know about Rabbit Rock.”

  Len frowned. “You want to talk about Rabbit Rock?”

  Greg nodded again.

  “That’s not exactly the kind of help I expected you to need.”

  Rolling up the sleeves of his uniform, Greg sat back, one forearm resting on the table. “It’s important, Len.”

  “I figured as much,” the ex-linebacker said. “Or else you wouldn’t be coming to me.”

  “So what can you tell me?”

  “I wasted two years there, made the biggest mistakes of my life, and am damn lucky I didn’t die there, too.”

  Tensing, Greg forced himself to maintain his casual position. “From the partying?” Or was there more? Things he didn’t want to know about Len? He needed information. But seeing Len such a changed man, in his beautiful home, caring for his sick kid, Greg sure as hell didn’t want to be the one who sent it all crashing down around him.

  “I suppose you could blame all the times I took my life in my hands on the partying.”

  Eyes narrowed, Greg asked, “How did you risk your life? What did you do?”

  “Jumping off cliffs because I thought I could fly. Fish-tailing my rig so close to the edge of the cliff it should have flown. Filling my body with so many chemicals I didn’t know who or what I was. Having sex with so many people I couldn’t even begin to tell you who they were.” Len paused, his somber expression the antithesis of his earlier smiles. “You can stop me anytime.”

  Greg tapped the side of his thumb against the table. “Was there anything else going on up there, besides the partying?”

  Len glanced away. “Maybe. Why?”

  “I have some pretty conclusive evidence that says someone’s been driving cars into Rabbit Rock.”

  Len paled. “Again?”

  Buzzing with adrenaline, Greg sat forward as he held the other man’s gaze. “What do you mean again?”

  Shrugging, Len looked directly into his eyes. “Years ago Culver came asking if I knew of any Phoenix kids who were hanging around out in Kachina County,” he said. “I guess maybe you didn’t hear about the whole mess, since it was just about the time your dad got hurt.”

  “You told Culver.” Greg’s entire body froze.

  “Yeah.” Len nodded. “I wasn’t partying up at the Rock anymore, but I knew some of the punks who were, kid brothers of old friends.”

  Greg was going to forget about Culver for the moment. “And they were driving cars into Rabbit Rock?”

  “Hell, no. They were damn pissed about the whole thing. Some street gang from Phoenix had taken over the place and pretty much told them that if they showed their faces there again, they were as good as dead.”

  A street gang.

  “What gang?”

  “The Bloodhounds. I told Culver about them. And I was told they disbanded not too long after that.”

  Which might explain why Greg had never heard of them.

  Mind spinning, he asked, “So, if your friends stayed away, how do you know about the car thing?”

  “Come on, Greg, think back. Do you think any of the stupid punks who went up to Rabbit Rock would walk away just because these bastards told them to?”

  Of course he didn’t. He knew what they would’ve done. “They went up the mountain and spied on them.”

  “Bingo.”

  “And watched them drive cars into the Rock?”

  “Only once. I heard that after they saw what was going on, they decided the gang members were crazy enough to follow through on their death threats, and they found themselves a new place to party.”

  A street gang. Greg didn’t like the sound of it. Any of it.

  “You said Deputy Culver knew about the Bloodhounds?” It just didn’t fit.

  “I told him myself.”

  “You’re sure it was Burt Culver?”

  “Positive, man,” Len’s voice was dry. “He’d just picked me up for DUI a couple of months before.”

  Greg stood to excuse himself almost immediately. He had to get out, to think.

  To make sense of this chaos, this confusion.

  “I hear you’re still living in that house of yours all alone, buddy,” Len said, walking him to the door.

  Preoccupied, Greg nodded.

  “I’ve still got some connections,” the big man said, grinning, as he patted Greg on the shoulder. “More beautiful women than you’d know what to do with. Just one phone call is all it’d take….”

  “Thanks,” Greg said. Any other time he’d have left it at that. Today, though, because the world had apparently spun off its axis and nothing was predictable anymore, he added, “But I’ve already found the woman who’s going to move in.” He clung to that thought. Something to hold on to. To believe in.

  “Do I know her?” Len’s grin had widened.

  “Nope,” Greg said, already regretting the words. “And she doesn’t know she’s marrying me yet, so keep this one to yourself….”

  IT WAS A TOSS-UP—who should he see first? Greg drove around town, inventing reasons for Culver to keep Len’s information from him—and passing by the houses of various people he knew were clients of Beth’s, looking for her car parked outside.

  He found it outside the Sheffields’ three-bedroom bungalow.

  “Greg?” The toilet brush in her hand didn’t make the expression on her face seem any less frightened, any less hunted.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he said, used to the drill by now, even if he wasn’t really any closer to understanding the reason for it.

  “You don’t look like nothing’s wrong.”

  The alarm in her eyes gave way to compassion. And he knew why he’d come.

  “How long till you’re finished here?”

  “Another half hour. I still have to finish the master bath and vacuum the bedrooms.”

  “I’ll vacuum.”

  “Absolutely not,” she said, but stepped back as he came in the door.

  She looked adorable in her black sweats and white sweatshirt, her auburn hair up in the usual ponytail.

  “You aren’t going to vacuum this house!”

  “Sure I am. You’ll be finished sooner.” And he really needed that.

  “You’re in uniform!”

  “It’s seen a whole lot worse than lint on carpet.”

  Beth shook her head. “Greg—”

  “Beth,” he interrupted, slowing himself down with effort. “I really need to talk to you and I don’t have a lot of time. Please, may I help you finish here so we can have a few minutes?”

  After one long searching look, she nodded and silently led him to the back of the house.

  That was when Greg knew for sure he’d met the woman he wanted to have living in his house.

  “I’VE KNOWN CULVER most of my life,” Greg told Beth half an hour later as they sat together in his squad car parked just outside town. “I know there’s got to be an explanation. I just can’t figure out what it is. And I can’t go to see him with my head full of doubts.”

  Her eyes
were serious. “Maybe the doubts need to be there.”

  He couldn’t accept that. “After all my years in law enforcement, I know there are very few things you can believe in, very few things you can count on. But loyalty to and from those closest to you is one of those things.”

  This was a tough one for him, something he struggled with. Trusting. Having faith in people. Shelby’s defection—the way she’d just left without any warning after a lifetime of building trust, of loving—had robbed him of so many years, had rendered him incapable of developing a close relationship with anyone else. He wasn’t going to let it taint him for the rest of his life.

  “Just look at the facts, Greg. Burt missed Rabbit Rock. He missed the hermit. He’s the only one talking with Sheriff Foltz, and there’s nothing to say that he’s giving you all the information he’s getting. And now this…”

  “Burt Culver knew my father. Hell, he was one of our most frequent visitors during those last years. He used to come over and talk with my dad for hours. Never gave the old man a hint that the conversation wasn’t perfectly normal. Never lost patience with the repetition.” Greg’s mind was made up. “This is not a man who would’ve hidden evidence from me. Especially evidence involving my father.”

  “Unless they were guilt visits.”

  Fighting back a surge of anger, Greg tried to listen with an open mind. After all, he’d asked Beth to help him sort this out. He was too close to the situation; he knew that. And then he shook his head.

  “He and my dad were golf buddies from way back. Culver’s visits didn’t just start when my dad got hurt.”

  “Okay,” Beth said, hands crossed demurely in her lap. “Maybe something was driving him to act completely out of character when he withheld that information. You have no idea what circumstances prompted any of this. Maybe there’s something here that involves a member of Burt’s family. A person acting out of character normally does so to protect what matters most to him.”

  “Burt doesn’t have any family.”

  “Then, what really matters to him?”

  “His job.” And there was no way Burt would jeopardize that. Not ever.

  He couldn’t even guess why Burt would’ve kept Len’s information from him, but talking with Beth had allowed him to straighten out his own thoughts. One thing had become very clear. Knowing Burt’s reason wasn’t even important; Greg already felt sure it would be an acceptable one. Because he knew Burt Culver. Had faith in his deputy. Trusted him. And what, after all, was faith if a man didn’t keep it in the face of difficulties? If he only believed when belief was easy?

  It was nothing.

  And without faith, life was nothing.

  Greg had faith in Burt Culver.

  And that was that.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “HE LOOKED ME STRAIGHT IN THE EYE and lied to me,” Greg said, his expression hard as he stood, still in his uniform, by her front door later that same night. The look on his face, the acute effect Culver’s dishonesty was having on him, struck Beth with fear. There was none of the compassion she’d come to associate with him. She realized something about Greg Richards: he did not tolerate liars.

  Heart heavy with dread, Beth tried to maintain her equilibrium. Tried not to panic over something that had nothing to do with her.

  “Please come in and sit down,” she said. She’d already said it once, when he’d first arrived. He was intimidating in his uniform, so tall—and justifiably indignant.

  He led the way over to the sofa. He even sat down. But then he stood up again, his hands shoved deep in his pockets as he paced.

  Beth felt at a definite disadvantage, still wearing sweats she’d worn earlier in the afternoon. Ryan had been unusually difficult that night, and he’d kept her running from the time they got home until he’d dropped off to sleep just half an hour ago.

  She’d thought longingly of a shower. But she’d known she should do her bookkeeping before she was too exhausted to keep the numbers straight. Paperwork was spread all over the small desk at one end of the living room.

  Should she stand there, toe to toe with Greg? Or sit down and pretend she wasn’t affected by his imposing stature? She sat. In the rocking chair that gave her a sense of security.

  “What did Burt say?” she asked, because she wanted to help Greg. She didn’t want to hear about Burt. She’d been ready to see the man exposed only hours before, and now was filled with this odd need to defend him.

  As though his fate and hers were somehow tied together.

  Greg was staring at her, but his gaze was vacant. She had a feeling he was replaying, word for word, his afternoon meeting with Burt Culver.

  She wished this wasn’t happening. Wished she didn’t have so much at stake.

  That she didn’t care so much for Greg.

  Or hate herself so much for deceiving him.

  Beth lost her mental battle—she feared that the anger he was now directing toward Burt Culver would one day be directed at her. She and Burt were both liars.

  And Greg’s reaction to one could apply equally to the other.

  She’d been furious when she’d thought of Burt double-crossing Greg. Because she’d been thinking only of Greg. Her vision had changed since that afternoon. To include Burt. And herself.

  Shaking his head suddenly, Greg shrugged. “What did you just ask me?”

  “What Burt said.” Even if she wasn’t sure she wanted to know…

  “Not much. It didn’t really get that far.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I asked him if he remembered Len Wagner.” Greg’s expression was steely. Had there been any sign of emotion—even disillusionment—she’d have taken hope.

  Greg started to pace, over to the window, around her paper-covered desk.

  That paperwork made her nervous. There was no way Greg could know what she’d been doing—that every month she figured how much she’d owe in taxes and put that money away at the bottom of her towel drawer.

  No way for him to tell, just by looking at the stuff on her desk, that she paid all her bills in cash—that she had no bank accounts.

  But Greg was the sheriff. And a damn good cop. He could see things no one else even knew were there.

  Like rabbit shapes in the front ends of smashed cars.

  “I wasn’t asking any leading questions,” Greg said. Clearly the day’s events were hard for him to accept.

  “There was no thought in my mind of testing him or trapping him. I asked the question casually, as a way to open the conversation.”

  Her neck stiff from looking up at him, Beth guessed what had happened. “Burt said he’d never met Len.”

  Greg nodded.

  “So maybe he forgot. It was ten years ago. Do you remember the name and face of every single person you’ve questioned over the past ten years?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, there you go, then,” she said, feeling a little more in control.

  “Len Wagner holds an NFL record for yards run in a single season,” Greg said, his voice devoid of emotion. “Culver’s second love, next to police work, is football. He’d remember if he was ever in the same room with Len, let alone questioned him.”

  “But Len wasn’t famous then, was he?”

  “He hadn’t set the record yet, but he’d been signed by the Cardinals.”

  Okay, Culver had secrets. But sometimes good people did, for any number of reasons. Beth hated how quick she’d been to condemn Burt Culver only hours before. What kind of person did that make her? She’d been so heartless—so unforgiving—until she’d pictured herself in the same place.

  She felt a little sick.

  “What explanation did he give when you told him you knew he’d questioned Culver?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “He just said nothing?” Beth couldn’t imagine being able to stand up to Greg that way. Not unless something was life-or-death important.

  Greg dropped to the edge of the co
uch, running a hand wearily through his dark curls. “I didn’t tell him I’d talked to Len,” he said, the first note of uncertainty creeping into his voice. “Since I have no idea why he’s lying, I can’t trust him with my progress on this case. I have a better chance of finding the missing pieces if he isn’t going around hiding them from me.”

  “Wouldn’t he already have hidden whatever evidence he could?”

  “Not until he has to,” Greg said. When he glanced over at her, Beth felt the prickling of tears. The steely look was gone. She almost wished it back. The disillusionment in Greg’s eyes, the draining away of all the strength and confidence that made him Greg, was heartbreaking.

  She could hate Culver for doing this to him.

  But then she’d have to hate herself, as well.

  “The more Culver tampers with things, the greater the likelihood that I’ll catch him at it. Those photos that were mysteriously damaged, for instance. It was a risky move, but one I now suspect he was behind. I was getting too close.”

  “What do you think is going on?”

  “I can’t even guess,” he said, his head leaning against the back of the couch.

  She’d never seen him so exhausted.

  “But you can rest assured I’ll find out.”

  Beth did not doubt it for a second.

  Which made him a dangerous companion for someone with secrets… Someone like her.

  “Come here,” he said softly.

  Heart pounding, Beth stared at him. He held out his arms to her. “Please?”

  It was the undisguised need in his voice that she couldn’t resist. Beth had no idea if she gave her heart lightly. Frequently. Or if she’d never fully given it before. She knew only the here and now, and that she’d rather hurt herself than Greg.

  She felt an overwhelming helplessness at the knowledge that hurting him was something she might not be able to avoid. Some things were completely out of her control.

  And Ryan came first. That was the one constant in her life.

  “Please?” he asked again.

  There were some things within her control, too.

  Trembling, Beth stood and went to him. If sex had been all he was asking for, she could have refused—for his sake as well as her own. But tonight Greg needed comforting.