by Pamela Toth
Brandon had a good idea just where the questions were leading. “Whenever I come to Whitehorn, I stay at the ranch and I help with the chores, or I visit Emma at the café. I haven’t had time to do any exploring in those woods.”
The sheriff’s gaze sharpened. “Are you telling me that you didn’t go there with Miss Stover at any time during the night in question?”
“That’s right.” Brandon kept his voice even. “Once we got to her apartment, we stayed put.”
“Until approximately one in the morning,” the sheriff commented after he’d glanced at his notes.
“Yes,” Brandon admitted.
“And you have no idea what Miss Stover did after that? You didn’t call her from your car while you were driving back to Vegas?”
“No.” Damn, how he wished he could say that he had, and swear she’d been right by her phone.
“Did you call her later in the day?” the sheriff pressed.
Brandon struggled not to squirm in his chair like a kid who’d been caught at something bad. He felt like a louse. “No, I didn’t talk to her.”
The sheriff appeared to mull over his answer. “You spent the better part of the night with her, but you didn’t call her at all the next day. When exactly was the next time you talked to Miss Stover?”
Nervously, Emma sipped the coffee she didn’t want and watched Deputy McBride over the rim of the chipped blue mug. After showing her to an uncomfortable folding chair by his desk, he’d proceeded to ignore her while he worked at a modern-looking computer terminal. Emma strained her ears, hoping to overhear what the sheriff and Brandon were saying, but all she could make out was the drone of their voices.
She knew why Sheriff Rawlings had insisted that she leave. He wanted to get Brandon’s statement so he could compare it to hers and perhaps catch Emma in a lie.
And what about Sheriff Rafe Rawlings? Would he keep her confidence about Lexine or might he assume that Brandon already knew? Emma wasn’t sure which embarrassed her more, the idea of the sheriff finding out she’d slept with Brandon, or Brandon discovering she was the spawn of a murderer.
Finally the door to the inner office opened and Emma sat up straighter in her chair as both men came out.
“Thanks for coming by,” the sheriff told Brandon. Brandon didn’t look like he’d been worked over, but neither was he smiling.
Renewed regret that he’d become involved in this sorry mess made Emma drop her gaze and stare at the chipped blue mug in her hands.
The sheriff leaned over and muttered something into the deputy’s ear. Then he beckoned to Emma. “Would you come back in my office?”
How she wished she could question Brandon about his interview first.
“Do you want me to get you an attorney?” he asked, scaring her.
“I don’t need one. I didn’t do anything.” Her lips trembled despite her efforts to keep them still. Even when someone was innocent, just being in a place where people were arrested and jailed was pretty damn intimidating.
“I know you didn’t, baby.” Brandon’s gaze was uncharacteristically gentle, but his voice had a steely core. The fanciful image of a knight on a white charger, fiercely protective of his lady, leaped to mind. A visor hid his face, but she knew it was Brandon. How she wished he could sweep her away from all this!
“I just have a couple more questions,” the sheriff told her. “They won’t take long.”
Dismayed, Emma set down her empty mug. She would have thanked the deputy for the coffee, but he was on the phone with his back turned. Before she followed the sheriff into his office, she looked over at Brandon. “Will you wait for me?”
“I’ll be up front.” Before he went out through the swinging doors, he gave her a quick kiss on the mouth. It was the next best thing to being swept away.
Once Emma was again seated across from the sheriff with her legs crossed and her hands folded neatly on her purse, she would have given a great deal for a look at the notes he was perusing. The silence ticked between them, making her wonder if this was some kind of test to see if she would crack and spill her guts. The only problem with that was, she had nothing to spill.
To keep herself calm, she glanced around his office. On the walls were a round clock, several Wanted posters with curling edges, and a calendar with a colored picture of a real pig dressed in a navy blue police uniform. There was a window, but the view was uninspiring. Resting on a file cabinet behind the desk was a framed photograph of an attractive woman and a little girl. Apparently the sheriff had a family.
“Do you remember what time Brandon Harper left your apartment on the night we discussed?” he asked abruptly.
Emma hated for him to know the details of her personal life, but there was nothing she could do about it now. “No. I was asleep.” Would the sheriff assume she’d been worn out from making love, or was he so jaded that thoughts like those didn’t enter his mind? His face betrayed only mild curiosity, but still her cheeks burned. “I didn’t wake up until around six.”
“Did Mr. Harper call you that day?”
Her gaze skittered away from his and her voice was a whisper. “No.”
His chair creaked and she looked up to see that he was leaning forward, his dark eyes narrowed. “You didn’t go anywhere after he left that night?”
“I was sleeping,” she repeated. “I’d covered the dinner shift the day before. By the time I woke up, it was morning.”
He scratched the side of his jaw with his fingertips. “You said you usually work during breakfast or lunch.”
“I’d forgotten about that time. I was only scheduled for lunch, but I ended up staying to close up the café. The cook’s wife was sick so I volunteered to do it.”
Once more he studied her as though he expected her to blurt out some grisly truth. This time she sat back in her chair and waited him out.
“What’s your blood type?” he asked.
She had no idea. When she told him that, his expression didn’t change. “Would you take a blood test?”
The request stunned her. “W-why?” she asked, fresh fear trickling down her spine.
“It’s routine,” he said smoothly. “If you agree, I probably won’t have to bother you anymore.”
Perhaps it would rule her out as a suspect. “Okay.” She wasn’t crazy about needles, but anything was preferable to more questions.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. How soon can we do it?”
“Right away,” he replied, getting to his feet. “I’ll run you over to the lab. It won’t take long.”
She thought of Brandon waiting for her out front. Their time together was ticking away, but she wanted this ugly cloud of suspicion to disappear.
“How soon will we have the results?” she asked.
“Of the typing? Almost immediately. DNA takes longer, but that probably won’t be necessary.”
Unless she was unlucky enough to have the same blood type as the killer, she realized, swallowing hard. The idea made her knees wobble when she stood, but it was too late to change her mind. The sheriff would wonder what she was hiding. “I’m ready,” she said, clutching her purse.
“I’m sorry about all that,” Emma said as Brandon drove her back to the café later to retrieve her car. She’d been shocked when the sheriff had confirmed Brandon’s blood type on a laminated card he carried in his wallet. That the cloud of suspicion could extend to him hadn’t occurred to her until that moment. “At least you’ve apparently been eliminated as my accomplice.”
“Sharing a cell isn’t the kind of togetherness I had in mind,” he drawled. “Are you hungry?”
Emma shook her head, appetite nonexistent. Although the sheriff hadn’t commented on the results of her blood test, he’d asked her not to leave town without telling him. From that Emma inferred that she hadn’t yet been cleared. Although she kept telling herself not to worry, she didn’t feel like eating.
“When do you have to leave?” she asked. Maybe he was hungry.
She didn’t want him driving clear back to Nevada on an empty stomach. Or perhaps his remark about togetherness had been a hint about something else.
“I managed to postpone my meeting, so I’m going to stick around for another day or two,” he said as he pulled up beside her car and killed the engine. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Pleasure leaped inside her. “Why?”
A muscled ticked in his jaw as he stared at his hands clutching the wheel. “I want to make sure you’re okay.”
Although his declaration warmed her, she felt honor-bound to point out that she’d be fine. “I’ll be cleared as soon as the DNA results are in.”
“That can take weeks,” he replied. “In the meantime, I don’t want you fretting about it.”
Surely he didn’t plan to stay until the results came in. “I’m not worried,” she said stoutly. “The truth will out.”
“Of course it will,” he agreed. “We both know where you were that night.”
Wrapped around him for most of it. “You do believe I’m innocent, don’t you?” She needed his reassurance.
His surprised expression was enough. “Are you asking if I thought you pretended to be asleep when I left and then you sneaked over to the woods in the middle of the night on the slim chance of finding someone to kill for no apparent reason?”
Put that way, it did sound ludicrous. “Pretty farfetched, huh?” she asked.
“As dumb as the idea that we did it together instead of spending the time in bed.” His words were blunt, but his touch on her cheek was gentle. When he pulled her into his arms, she went willingly.
“Thank you,” she murmured against his chest. “I can’t tell you how much your support means to me.”
“Anyone who knows you will feel the same.” He set her away so he could look into her face. “Now can we talk about something else for a while? Like, how we’re going to spend the rest of the day?”
Happiness burst inside Emma. “Yes, please.”
They ended up going for a drive and stopping for a pizza, which they took back to Emma’s apartment. She threw together a green salad and they split a wine cooler that had been in the back of her refrigerator. If strawberry-kiwi zinger wasn’t a beverage that normally caressed Brandon’s palate, he didn’t comment on it.
“It’s nice you decided to stay an extra day,” Emma said shyly after they’d consumed most of the pizza dotted with slices of pepperoni and black olives, and he was helping her clean up the remnants of their meal.
As Emma wiped off the table, he drained his glass and put it in the dishwasher along with their few utensils. Then he came over to where she was standing and leaned forward with his hands braced on the back of the chair. His shirt was open at the neck, his thick hair mussed. Her fingers itched to sift through the silky strands while she nibbled on his tanned throat.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Emma knew he was referring to the incident with the sheriff. “I’m fine,” she insisted. “The truth will out,” she added with only a little more confidence than she actually felt. This was Whitehorn, Montana, not New York City. Everyone knew everyone else, and from what she’d heard about Sheriff Rawlings, she didn’t figure him for the kind of lawman who’d settle for less than the truth just to close a case.
Brandon said, “If you need money for an attorney—”
Emma shook her head. “Thanks for the offer. I appreciate it more than you know, but the DNA test will prove my innocence beyond anyone’s doubt. Hiring a lawyer would be a huge waste of money.”
“Okay. I know you didn’t kill Christina, but if you change your mind about retaining counsel, let me know. I’ll talk to Garrett and we’ll get you the best criminal attorney in Montana.”
Emma thanked him again, but she knew his offer was unnecessary. Besides, she didn’t want to involve his family in something that would blow over soon enough.
“I’m glad you decided to give me another chance.” Brandon’s gaze searched hers, his expression solemn, as he changed the subject abruptly. “That is what you’re doing, isn’t it?”
Was it possible that a man as successful and attractive as he was could suffer the same doubts as other mere mortals? Emma remembered what she knew of his background, which wasn’t a great deal. For whatever reason, his mother had decided against keeping him. Once he was old enough to understand, it must have been a serious blow to his self-esteem. Was it possible he hadn’t completely worked through the feelings that so often accompanied that kind of rejection?
The idea that Emma might hold, in some small measure, the power to hurt him, or to heal him, was a heady one. It gave balance to her own painful vulnerability where he was concerned.
He appeared to be totally at ease as he waited for her answer, but she was learning to read beyond the confident facade he threw up like a smoke screen. There was a faint tightness to his smile, a slight narrowing of his blue eyes. Tension hummed ever so faintly in the set of his shoulders and the way his hands gripped the chair.
Those little signs gave her the courage to smile flirtatiously and to close the distance between them. As she gazed at him, he straightened abruptly and turned so they were facing each other. She leaned toward him, her body nearly brushing his. Her heart was pounding so hard that she wondered if he could hear it. Her nerve endings were on red alert and her breathing was as shallow as a mountain stream in a drought.
He didn’t say a word, but he eyed her carefully. A muscle ticked in his jaw. There was no sound in the apartment except the slow, soft music she’d put on when they’d first come in.
Emma reached up her hands and grasped his collar. Astonished by her own boldness, she went up on her toes and kissed him.
For the space of a heartbeat he stood frozen, allowing her control of the kiss. Her arms circled his neck, her breasts flattened against the hard muscles of his chest as she crowded closer. A shudder rippled through him and he widened his stance so she was pressed intimately against him, but his mouth remained compliant, his lips parting slightly to tempt her inside. Bravely, Emma traced those firm male lips with the tip of her tongue and then she gave in to temptation.
His reaction to the caress was instantaneous. He gasped, his hands clenching at her waist, and his control shattered. His arms closed around her like steel bands and he nearly lifted her from the floor as his mouth claimed hers in a kiss so hot it threatened to melt her fillings. Conscious thought evaporated as Emma hung on, giving as good as she got.
Sweet heaven, how she had missed him, missed the passion exploding between them.
Way too soon for her, he tore his mouth away to nibble at her closed eyelids, her cheeks, the lobes of her ears and the sensitive area along her jaw. Emma’s head fell back and she anchored her fingers in his hair as he continued to taste her. His breath was hot on her skin, his hands shifting from her back to her arms, to the underside of her breasts. When his thumb caressed her nipple, her knees nearly buckled. Helplessly, she clung to him, surrendering to his sensual onslaught.
Returning his attention to her mouth, he drank in her moan of pleasure as he held her face between his hands. She could feel his arousal. Breathlessly, hysterically, she thought of her white knight and his lance.
Brandon’s hands released their grip on her jaw. Beyond her tightly closed lids, the room spun and dipped alarmingly around. Had she laughed? She wasn’t sure, she only knew she was falling, twirling—
Her eyes flew open and she stared up at him, horrified to think she might have hurt him with an inappropriate giggle. He had lifted her into his arms and he was staring intently at her face. Although the room wasn’t overly warm, his complexion was flushed. Emma blinked, confused. Brandon threw back his head and dragged in a tortured breath that expanded his chest and bared his teeth.
“What?” she managed to ask as he leaned down and touched his forehead to hers. His eyes were closed, those sinfully thick lashes lying on his cheeks like a black fringe.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was d
eep, thick, rough as tree bark. Carefully he set her back on her feet. She swayed, but his arms were still around her. Her mind, moments before a white-hot blank, was tripping over itself in its haste. What had gone wrong between them?
“You wanted time,” he mumbled, burying his face in her hair. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I haven’t lost control like that since…” He lifted his head. “Hell, I’ve never been so…” Again his voice trailed off. “Are you okay?” he finally asked. “Did I, um, hurt you?” Concern furrowed his brow as he looked her up and down.
“I’m fine.” Emma peered up at him, tempted to lick his taste from her lips like a cat licking cream. “I’m better than fine.” She extended her hand, intending to caress his cheek.
He backed up so quickly he almost tripped, his palms out as though to ward her away. “Oh, no,” he cautioned. “That’s how this all started in the first place. Maybe you’d better give me a few minutes.”
Normally a remark like that would have plunged Emma into a bottomless pit of rejection and humiliation. Instead the flair of panic in Brandon’s eyes filled her with a dose of feminine satisfaction that was as heady as it was new. He wanted her!
As quickly as the surge of triumph appeared, it faded again. For Emma, wanting was no longer enough. She had feelings for him, feelings she hadn’t yet sorted through. With a quiver of dismay, she realized that the desire sizzling in her blood whenever she thought of him was only one small part of the total package. She was in real trouble here.
“You look like you just saw a ghost.” Brandon’s tone was flat. “Did I scare you?”
Emma blinked and then she noticed the dull flush that darkened his cheeks, the self-deprecating twist to his mouth. “Oh, no. Of course not.” She managed a smile. “I was the one coming on to you, remember?” As an attempt to make him feel better, the reminder was weak, but it seemed to do the trick.
The harsh set to his features thawed slightly. “Yeah, you did, didn’t you?” He looked bemused and then he sobered. “Perhaps I’d better leave.”