Badge and a Saddle (Heroes in the Saddle Book 2)

by Randi Alexander

  “Mina, honey. I’ve been looking for you.”

  Without a glance at Rex, she set her chin. This was the part where she’d be exposed as a fraud. “This is my ex-boyfriend. Tory Pines. He was one of the men on the video. Not the shooter, but one of the people in collusion with them.”

  Tory coughed a few times. “There is a video? I thought you were—”

  “Shut up.” Rex stepped in front of her, staring into her eyes. “What’s going on?”

  Mina sucked in a breath. “I was following him. We dated for a year, and every Thursday night, he’d leave, wouldn’t tell me why, and he’d come back hours later.”

  “Don’t tell them any more.” Tory’s voice came out to whiny.

  Rex turned. “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

  Tory turned white and looked away.

  Rex grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the house, past where Clint and his partner were administering first aid to the wounded shooters. When they were out of hearing range, Rex stopped and turned her to face him. “You were stalking your boyfriend?”

  “Ex-boyfriend, and technically…yes, but I knew something was wrong.” She pulled her arm out of his too-tight grip.

  He released her, looking at his hand as if he hadn’t realized what he’d been doing.

  “When we broke up, I kept following him. I knew something was going on, and I wanted to find out what. Every week, he met with a group of uniformed police and people in suits, whom I assumed were with the department, too.”

  “You recorded all this?”

  “Yes, and when I sent the chip to the governor, I included all the video I’d recorded—about six months’ worth. Some of the videos were clearer, and they should be able to make out the faces better.” She looked at the shooters laying in the yard and the dead man on the porch. “There were more than just these four involved, but they never did anything illegal until—”

  “Okay, just stop.” He held up his hand and closed his eyes for a second. “Why didn’t you tell me all this.”

  She had to make this good. She had one chance to explain, to make him see she wasn’t a crazy stalker…and liar. “Imagine if I showed up at your house and told you I was surveilling my ex when I saw one of his associates shoot a man. And while I did record it on video, I didn’t get the actual footage of the shooting.”

  Rex shook his head. The disappointment in his gaze sent an ache to her chest.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m sorry, Rex, I really am. I didn’t mean to mislead you, but I did what I felt I had to do to survive.”

  Sirens sounded, growing closer.

  “Rex.” Bennet had Tory backed up against the SUV. “He owns a trucking company. Says he doesn’t know what the cops were moving, and the man they shot was one of his drivers who got too greedy. But he’s willing to cooperate in the investigation.”

  Rex turned and took a step away from her.

  Her fear turned to a real, living thing inside her. Rex had to see this from her side. He had to believe she wasn’t deceitful for any reason but to insure her safety. “I tried to tell you when we were on the blanket today, but—”

  “Rex, look at this.” Clint took a paper from the pocket of the man who lay dead on the porch and held it up. A four-by-six glossy of…Mina.

  Three sheriff’s cars raced into the yard.

  “Mina, you’re safe now.” He didn’t meet her gaze, and walked away.

  “Rex, please. Give me a chance to…”

  He was too far gone now, heading for the sheriffs, who were getting pieces of information from everyone who could still talk.

  Mina let him go. She’d done what she had to do to save her life, but in the process, had fallen for a too-serious, hard-edged detective who had been burned badly in his one serious relationship. Perfect. There was no one else in her life who had ever made her feel the way Rex did. He took her breath away, and gave her the confidence to be herself.

  One of the sheriff’s deputies pointed at her, Rex glanced her way and nodded, his stare as cold as the dark side of the moon.

  She’d done the one thing that Rex would never be able to forgive. She’d lied. End of story.

  ****

  Rex stood in the yard watching the sheriff’s cruiser head down the driveway toward the road. Mina was in that car.

  His chest contracted so hard, he had to force in a breath. How had he let himself get close to her? He’d had a feeling all along that something was missing from her story. Sure, she’d lied to him, but could he understand her reasoning? Maybe. And maybe he would forgive her someday, but he’d never see her again. There was nothing left between them, if there ever was anything to begin with.

  The tail end of the cruiser disappeared over the rise. Now his heart wanted to stop beating. “Shit.” There was something. The beginnings of it, anyway. Physical, hell yeah, but something else. As if the two of them had found each other for a reason. Like they were finally waking from a long, dull dream to find themselves with the person they’d been waiting for. “Stupid.” He sounded like a bad romance novel.

  “Glad she’s gone.” Bennet wheeled up next to him. The small bandages covering where he’d gotten cut by flying glass made him look like he’d been in a fight with a shaving razor.

  Didn’t Bennet like Mina? He sure had seemed taken with her.

  “She’s trouble.” The old sheriff rubbed a finger under his nose. “Lying like that to save her own life. What’s this world coming to?”

  So now the old man was using reverse psychology? Rex bit back a smile. “When was the last time I told you to shut up?”

  “Hmmm. Lemme see. Guess it was the last time I cuffed you upside the head.”

  Rex remembered the occasion, when he’d been twelve. And he’d learned quick. They turned to look at the house, where sheriff’s deputies picked up shell casings and sifted through wood splinters and glass. “She caused all this. Could have gotten us killed.”

  “Well, she didn’t. Get us killed, I mean. And what good would it have done if you knew about that Pines boy? Your department would have picked him up, word would have gotten out to his partners, and they’d have been more desperate, willing to kill Pines too, and in the process, taking out more cops or civilians.”

  Rex hadn’t thought about the big picture that way. He’d have to sit and cogitate over it some. “Did I ever tell you you’re a smart old fox?”

  “Not nearly enough.” Bennet leaned heavily on his walker. He had to be exhausted.

  “Well, you are, and you mean a lot to…I love you, Bennet.”

  The old man sucked in an uneven breath. “Love you too, son.” His voice cracked halfway through.

  They stood silently for a few minutes as Rex’s heartbreak seemed to ease a little.

  Rex looked down the hill at the outbuildings. “You want me to move your crap over to the foreman’s house?”

  Bennet turned to look at the place that had sat empty since Rex had divorced Aletha. “Guess I got no choice.”

  “I could put you in an old folks’ home, where you belong.” Rex backed up a step, smiling.

  “Get your ass over here, boy. That comment deserves a thunk on the head.” Bennet laughed and wheeled his way toward the other door into the house, mumbling about who was the old folk and who was the dumb-as-dirt young shit who was letting an amazing girl get away from him.

  “Dumb as dirt.” Maybe he was, but there were things that just couldn’t be overcome in a relationship. Doc Mina had chosen to execute number one on that list. Rex headed toward the barn to retrieve his horse.

  ****

  Four days later, Rex sat at his desk at police headquarters. His partner’s desk butted against his, but Sontag would not be coming back. Once Internal Affairs was through with him, he’d do prison time and never work in this or any other precinct again.

  Around him, detectives talked on phones, typed on keyboards, and shuffled paperwork, but all the activity in the bullpen seemed to be moving arou
nd him, like he wasn’t part of it any longer.

  Flashes of the shootout on the ranch kept running through his mind. It could have turned out much worse. If it hadn’t been for Clint and Treven, he and Bennet could be in the morgue right now, and Mina? Could she have made it to Treven’s ranch before the bad cops found her?

  The way he’d left her out there, exposed and vulnerable, still ate at him. He constantly ran through other scenarios, things he could have done instead of what he did. With her not knowing how to handle a horse, putting her on Merle’s back and pointing her toward Trev’s ranch wasn’t an option.

  No, he’d done the only thing he could, considering the circumstances. The whole thing kept him up at night, and he took another pull on his cup of strong, bitter coffee. That wasn’t what really kept him awake all night, though.

  Mina. He’d let her go, had seen her once in the local sheriff’s office in Wild Oak when he’d brought Bennet in so they could give their official statements and turn over the video of the shooting at the ranch that Rex had recorded on his phone. She’d spotted him and her whole body froze, as if she would wait there forever for him to say something.

  He’d just nodded and walked past. Asshole. She didn’t deserve that. She’d lied, and that made him angry. But what would he have done in the same situation? Alone and on the run, no one to trust, unable to rent a car, to find a place to hide, to even sleep at night. Hell, for her to put as much trust in him as she had—that must have been fucking scary for her.

  Had she used him for sex? He tried to tell himself she had, tried to keep up the wall of fury so he didn’t have to face the fact that he’d turned away from her when she’d needed him most. But he knew that wasn’t her. She had been sweet and generous, sexy and wild, and she’d somehow gotten into his heart.

  “Damn.”

  “What?” His captain stood next to his desk.

  “Sir?” Rex straightened in his chair.

  “I asked if you were finished with IA.” He set his palm flat on Rex’s desk. “You need a few days off? I don’t see much brain activity going on inside you.”

  “No, sir. Yes, sir.” He took a breath. “No, I don’t need time off, and yes, I’m finished with Internal Affairs.”

  “All right, but if desk duty gets old, you can take a break.” He set three files in Rex’s in-box. “But in the meantime, stop staring at the wall and get some of this paperwork done.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  The captain grumbled and walked away. The man tried to be a hard-ass, but he cared about his detectives.

  Rex went back to the boring part of the job, and worked steadily until just after noon when his phone rang. Bennet. “Hi.”

  “Turn on channel…ah hell, what channel is that pretty blonde reporter on?”

  Was this something more about the shootout? Rex walked into an empty conference room and turned on the television, flipping channels looking for… “Mina?”

  “Yeah. She’s giving a press conference.”

  She stood tall and proud, her red hair shiny, and looking professionally cut now, not the chopped-off look she’d come to him wearing. She read from a paper in her shaking hands.

  Rex had the overwhelming urge to hold her, help her through this, be her strength, and stop her from shaking.

  She finished her statement, and now the reporters shouted questions at her.

  One man raised his voice. “You intentionally withheld the name of one of the conspirators in the shooting at the college. Two men and one woman were injured at that ranch, and one man was killed by bullets from his co-conspirators. Do you take any responsibility for that?”

  “Fuck him.” Rex said the words into the phone.

  “Yeah.” Bennet snorted. “They’re gonna be giving it to her hard. I’m gonna hang up so I don’t have to hear you swearing, son.” The call ended.

  Rex slid his phone is his pocket and leaned his ass on the edge of the table. He needed some support to watch Doc getting grilled this way.

  She looked right into the camera, her pretty blue eyes clear, a crease marking her perfect brow. “I made a mistake by not telling Detective Tarrow everything.” She glanced down, then back into the lens. “If I had revealed everything to him, maybe things would have turned out differently.” A tear ran from her eye. “I wish, more than anything else, that I could use my super powers and reverse time. I’d be honest with the detective and lives might have been saved, and people wouldn’t have been hurt. Please, forgive me.”

  “Uh, Doctor Cooper.” The interviewer looked confused by her answer. “You’re referring to the connection between you and Tory Pines…” The questions and answers went on, but Rex didn’t hear any more of it.

  What she’d said was directed to him.

  He needed to talk to her. Just to let her know that it wasn’t her fault. Things might have been worse if she had revealed her acquaintance with the owner of the truck fleet. He stood and muted the volume. Who was he kidding? That wasn’t the only reason he needed to see Mina.

  There was a piece of his life missing now that she wasn’t in it. Was her public apology just to clear her conscience, or was it more? Could he convince her he wasn’t a tight-assed hothead who would shove her away every time she made a mistake?

  He stalked across the bullpen and into the captain’s office, knocking twice on the open door. “Captain, I’d like to take you up on that offer of a couple days off.”

  Chapter Ten

  Mina pressed a button on her computer that shifted to the last graphic, and projected it behind her on the giant screen. She looked up at the dimly lit auditorium seating where the fifteen graduate students had spaced themselves out among the rows of seats. Not many made it this far in the program, but those who had were like bright stars to her. She knew and mentored each of them, and saw amazing potential for their futures.

  “Here’s what you’ve been waiting for. Your homework.” She stood from her chair behind the desk as groans came from a few different directions. She smoothed her knee-length skirt and tucked the back of her blouse into it. Wearing traditional wardrobe during class seemed to give her more confidence, and that translated into a better student response. “Any complaints, take it up with NASA.”

  A few people laughed.

  She pointed to the screen. “Non-ideal fluids. Sussing their applications for use in problems of astrophysical interest, such as steady and unsteady flows, instabilities, and turbulence.” A movement caught her eye, way up in the back row. Had someone just come into the room? She’d checked everyone who belonged here off her attendance list.

  “This will lead us to our next section, which is conducting fluid flows or magnetohydrodynamics.” That fun word she’d put in a big red font. She waited a few seconds. “Great, no more grumbling? Just for that, I’m letting you go five minutes early.”

  Her students thanked her as their books slapped shut and their papers crackled.

  She pressed a button on the panel on her desk and the lights in the room grew slowly brighter.

  The newcomer in the back of the room wore a dark shirt and a…black cowboy hat? Her heart skittered for a second. No, it couldn’t be him. But who was it? It couldn’t be anyone who’d enrolled in any of her courses. One of the silly rules she added to her syllabus was that no astronomy student should wear a hat to class, or after sunset. There was too much to see in a dark sky at night, and too much info to lose in her classroom if someone fell asleep under the brim of a hat.

  Her students filed up the steps and out the door and she walked across the floor, her high-heeled black pumps silent on the carpet. She stopped at the first step, looking up at the man with his head tipped down. “Can I help you?”

  A blast of recognition hit her, even though she couldn’t see his face, and most of his body was hidden. It was like the light from a far-away star reaching her. “Rex?” She reached for the back of the chair next to her to steady her wobbling knees.

  He took off his hat.

/>   His dark hair was short now, his gaze focused right on her, and his jaw worked. “It wasn’t your fault. What happened on the ranch, I mean. Bennet saw that, and me bein’ a rookie hadn’t caught it.”

  She heard the words, but they didn’t lessen any of the guilt she felt on a constant basis, even in her dreams…nightmares. Was that why he was here? Yesterday’s press conference? Or was there more? “How do you figure?”

  He sat forward and rested his forearms on his thighs. “If you’d told me his name and where he worked, I would have brought him in for questioning, which would have tipped off the cops. These people were desperate, so anything could have happened, then.”

  She’d gone over her choices a million times, but hadn’t thought of that consequence. “I could have told you, but then asked you not to act on it.”

  He dropped his head with a bitter laugh. “You asking me not to follow up on a solid lead would be like…” He gestured to the blank screen at the front of the class. “Like asking the magnet-hipro-dynamic to just stop…doing whatever it does out there in space.”

  A giggle, a very nervous one, bubbled out of her throat. “Magnetohydrodynamics. It’s the study of the magnetic properties of electrically conducting fluids.” Why had she corrected him? And given him more information than he could ever want?

  He stood and moved to the steps in the center of the seats, directly above her, but so far away. Would he leave now? She’d make a complete fool of herself chasing after him down the hallways, begging him to come back.

  Rex didn’t turn to go, though. “I’m here to ease your conscience, but also to ask you for a favor.” He took a step down. “Will you meet me halfway?” His whole body went still, as if her answer to that question was about far more than just the stairs.

  She put her foot up onto the first step and levered herself up, her chest working too fast, hope and longing making her a little dizzy. “What’s the favor?”

  He came down another step. “Will you teach me what that means?” He looked at the screen. “That magneto thing?”

  Her eyes closed as moisture burned behind them, and emotion choked her. Was he saying he wanted to be with her? She took another step up. “Is this just for educational purposes, or do you have an ulterior motive?”