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Shotgun Sheriff
Delores Fossen
MILLS & BOON
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About the Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Copyright
About the Author
Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace. With ancestors like that, it’s easy to understand why Texas author and former air force captain DELORES FOSSEN feels as if she was genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny, Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent. With all those romantic bases covered, she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.
Chapter One
Comanche Creek, Texas
Something was wrong.
Sheriff Reed Hardin eased his Smith and Wesson from his leather shoulder holster and stepped out of his mud-scabbed pickup truck. The heels of his rawhide boots sank in the rain-softened dirt. He lifted his head. Listened.
It was what he didn’t hear that bothered him.
Yeah, something was definitely wrong.
There should have been squawks from the blue jays or the cardinals. Maybe even a hawk in search of its breakfast. Instead there was only the unnerving quiet of the Texas Hill Country woods sardined with thick mesquites, hackberries and thorny underbrush that bulged thick and green with spring growth. Whatever had scared off the birds could be lurking in there. Reed was hoping for a coyote or some other four-legged predator because the alternative put a knot in his gut.
After all, just hours earlier a woman had been murdered a few yards from here.
With his gun ready and aimed, Reed made his way up the steep back path toward the cabin. He’d chosen the route so he could look around for any evidence he might have missed when he’d combed the grounds not long after the body had been discovered. He needed to see if anything was out of place, anything that would help him make sense of this murder. So far, nothing.
Except for his certainty that something was wrong.
And he soon spotted proof of it.
There were footprints leading down and then back up the narrow trail. Too many of them. There should have been only his and his deputy’s, Kirby Spears, since Reed had given firm orders that all others use the county road just a stone’s throw from the front of the cabin. He hadn’t wanted this scene contaminated and there were signs posted ordering No Trespassers.
He stooped down and had a better look at the prints. “What the hell?” Reed grumbled.
The prints were small and narrow and with a distinctive narrow cut at the back that had knifed right into the gray-clay-and-limestone dirt mix.
Who the heck would be out here in high heels?
He thought of the dead woman, Marcie James, who’d been found shot to death in the cabin about fourteen hours earlier. Marcie hadn’t been wearing heels. Neither had her alleged killer. And Reed should know because the alleged killer was none other than his own deputy, Shane Tolbert.
Cursing the fact that Shane was now locked up in a jail he used to police with Reed and Kirby, Reed elbowed aside a pungent dew-coated cedar branch and hurried up the hill. It didn’t take him long to see more evidence of his something-was-wrong theory. There were no signs of his deputy or the patrol car.
However, there was a blonde lurking behind a sprawling oak tree.
Correction. An armed blonde. A stranger, at that.
She was tall, at least five-ten, and dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt that she’d tucked into the waist of belted dark jeans. Her hair was gathered into a sleek ponytail, not a strand out of place. And yep, there were feminine heels on her fashionable black boots. But her attire wasn’t what Reed focused on. It was that lethal-looking Sig-Sauer Blackwater pistol gripped in her latex-gloved right hand. She had it aimed at the cabin.
Reed aimed his Smith and Wesson at her.
Maybe she heard him or sensed he was there because her gaze whipped in his direction. She shifted her position a fraction, no doubt preparing to turn her weapon on him, but she stopped when her attention landed on the badge Reed had clipped to his belt. Then, she did something that surprised the heck out of him.
She put her left index finger to her mouth in a shhh gesture.
Reed glanced around, trying to make sense of why she was there and why in Sam Hill she’d just shushed him as if she’d had a right to do it. He didn’t see anyone other than the blonde, but she kept her weapon trained on the cabin.
He walked closer to her, keeping his steps light, just in case there was indeed some threat other than this woman. If so, then someone had breached a crime scene because the cabin was literally roped off with yellow crime-scene tape. And with the town’s gossip mill in full swing, there probably wasn’t anyone within fifty miles of Comanche Creek who hadn’t heard about the latest murder.
Emphasis on the word latest.
Everyone knew to keep away or they’d have to deal with him. He wasn’t a badass—most days, anyway—but people usually did as he said when he spelled things out for them. And he always spelled things out.
“I’m Sheriff Reed Hardin,” he grumbled when he got closer.
“Livvy Hutton.”
Like her face, her name wasn’t familiar to him. Who the devil was she?
She tipped her head towards the cabin. “I think someone’s inside.”
Well, there sure as hell shouldn’t be. “Where’s my deputy?”
“Running an errand for me.”
That didn’t improve Reed’s mood. He was about to question why his deputy would be running an errand for an armed woman in fancy boots, but she shifted her position again. Even though she kept her attention nailed to the cabin, he could now see the front of her white shirt.
The sun’s rays danced off the distinctive star badge pinned to it.
“You’re a Texas Ranger?” he asked.
He hadn’t intended for that to sound like a challenge, but it did. Reed couldn’t help it. He already had one Ranger to deal with, Lieutenant Wyatt Colter, who’d been in Comanche Creek for days, since the start of all this mess that’d turned his town upside-down. Now, he apparently had another one of Texas’s finest. That was two too many for a crime scene he planned to finish processing himself. He had a plan for this investigation, and that plan didn’t include Rangers.
“Yes. Sergeant Olivia Hutton,” she clarified. “CSI for the Ranger task force.”
She spared him a glance from ice-blue eyes. Not a friendly glance either. That brief look conveyed a lot of displeasure.
And skepticism.
Reed had seen that look before. He was a smalltown Texas sheriff, and to some people that automatically made him small-minded, stupid and incapable of handling a capital murder investigation. That attitude was one of the reasons for the so-called task force that included not only Texas Rangers but a forensic anthropologist and apparently this blonde crime-scene analyst.
As he’d done with Lieutenant Colter, the other Ranger, Reed would set a few ground rules with Sergeant Hutton. Later, that was. For now, he needed to figure out if anyone was inside the cabin. That was at the top of his mental list.
Reed didn’t see anyone near either of the two back curtainless windows. Nor had the crime-scene tape been tampered with. It was still in place. Of course, someone could have ducked beneath it and gotten inside—after they’d figured out a way to get past the locked windows and doors. Other than the owner and probably some members of the owner’s family, Reed and his deputy were the only ones with keys.
“Did you actually see anyone in the cabin?” he asked in a whisper.
She turned her head, probably so she could whisper as well, but the move put them even closer. Practically mouth to cheek. Not good. Because with all that closeness, he caught her scent. Her perfume was high-end, but that was definitely chocolate on her breath.
“I heard something,” she explained. “Your deputy and I were taking castings of some footprints we found over there.” She tipped her head to a cluster of trees on the east side of the cabin. “I wanted to get them done right away because it’s supposed to rain again this afternoon.”
Yeah, it was, and if they’d been lucky enough to find footprints after the morning and late-night drizzle, then they wouldn’t be there long.
“After Deputy Spears left to send the castings to your office,” she continued, “I turned to go back inside. That’s when I thought I heard someone moving around in there.”
Reed took in every word of her account. Every word. But he also heard the accent. Definitely not a Texas drawl. He was thinking East Coast and would find out more about that later. For now, he might have an intruder on his hands. An intruder who was possibly inside with a cabin full of potential evidence that could clear Shane’s name. Or maybe it was the cabin’s owner, Jonah Becker, though Reed had warned the rancher to stay far away from the place.
With his gun still aimed, Reed stepped out a few inches from the cover of the tree. “This is Sheriff Hardin,” he called out. “If anyone’s in there, get the hell out here now.”
Beside him, Livvy huffed. “You think that’s wise, to stand out in the open like that?”
He took the time to toss her a scowl. “Maybe it’d be a dumb idea in Boston, but here in Comanche Creek, if there’s an intruder, it’s likely to be someone who knows to do as I say.”
He hoped.
“Not Boston,” she snarled. “New York.”
He gave her a flat look to let her know that didn’t make things better. A Texas Ranger should damn well be born and raised in Texas. And she shouldn’t wear high-heeled boots.
Or perfume that reminded him she was a woman.
Reed knew that was petty, but with four murders on his hands, he wasn’t exactly in a generous mood. He extended that non-generous mood to anyone who might be inside that cabin.
“Get out here!” he shouted. And by God, it better happen now.
Nothing. Well, nothing except Livvy’s spurting breath and angry mumbles.
“Just because the person doesn’t answer you, it doesn’t mean the place is empty,” she pointed out.
Yeah. And that meant he might have a huge problem. He didn’t want the crime scene compromised, and he didn’t want to shoot anyone. Yet.
“How long were Deputy Spears and you out there casting footprints?” he asked.
“A half hour. And before that we were looking around in the woods.”
That explained how her footprints had gotten on the trail. The castings and the woods search also would have given someone plenty of time to get inside. “I’m guessing Deputy Spears unlocked the cabin for you?”
The sergeant shook her head. “It wasn’t necessary. Someone had broken the lock on a side window, apparently crawled in and then opened the front door from the inside.”
Reed cursed. “And you didn’t see that person when you went in?”
Another head shake that sent her ponytail swishing. “The place was empty when I first arrived. I checked every inch,” she added, cutting off his next question: Was she sure about that?
So, he had possibly two intruders. Great. Dealing with intruders wasn’t on his to-do list today.
Now, he cursed himself. He should have camped out here, but he hadn’t exactly had the manpower to do that with just him and two deputies, including the one behind bars. He’d had to process Shane’s arrest and interrogate him. He had been careful. He’d done everything by the book so no one could accuse him of tampering with anything that would ultimately clear Shane’s name. Kirby Spears had guarded the place until around midnight, but then Reed and he had had to respond to an armed robbery at the convenience store near the interstate.
Lately, life in Comanche Creek had been far from peaceful and friendly—even though that was what it said on the welcome sign at the edge of the city limits. Before the spring, it’d been nearly a decade since there’d been a murder. Now, there’d been four.
Four!
And because some of those bodies had been dumped on Native American burial ground, the whole town felt as if it were sitting on a powder keg. With the previous murder investigations and the latest one, Reed was operating on a one-hour nap, too much coffee and a shorter fuse than usual.
He glanced around. “How’d you get up here?” he asked the sergeant. “Because I didn’t see a vehicle.”
“I parked at the bottom of the hill just off the county road. I wanted to get a good look at the exterior of the crime scene before I went inside.” She glanced around as well. “How’d you get up here?” she asked him.
“I parked on the back side of the hill.” And for the same reason. Of course, that didn’t mean they were going to see eye-to-eye on anything else. Reed was betting this would get ugly fast.
“Reed?” someone called out, the sound coming from the cabin.
Reed cursed some more because he recognized that voice. He lowered his gun, huffed and strolled toward the front door. It swung open just as Reed stepped onto the porch, and he came face-to-face with his boss, Mayor Woody Sadler. His friend. His mentor. As close to a father as Reed had ever had since his own dad had died when Reed was seven years old.
But Woody shouldn’t have been within a mile of the place.
Surrogate fatherhood would earn Woody a little more respect than Reed would give others, but even Woody wasn’t going to escape a good chewing-out. And maybe even more.
“What are you doing here?” Livvy demanded, taking the words right out of Reed’s mouth. Unlike Reed, she didn’t lower her gun. She pointed the Blackwater right at Woody.
Woody eased off his white Stetson, and the rattler tail attached to the band gave a familiar hollow jangle. He nodded a friendly greeting.
He didn’t get anything friendly in return.
“This is Woody Sadler. The mayor of Comanche Creek,” Reed said, making introductions. “And this is Sergeant Livvy Hutton. A Texas Ranger from New York.”
Woody’s tired gray eyes widened. Then narrowed, making the corners of his eyes wrinkle even more than they already were. Obviously he wasn’t able to hold back a petty reaction either. “New York?”
“Spare me the jokes. I was born in a small town near Dallas. Raised in upstate New York.” As if she’d declared war on it, Livvy shoved her gun back into her shoulder holster and barreled up the steps. “And regardless of where I’m from, this is my crime scene, and you were trespassing,” she declared to Woody and then fired a glance at Reed to declare it to him as well.
“I didn’t touch anything,” Woody insisted.
Livvy obviously didn’t take his word for it. She bolted past Woody, grabbed her equipment bag from the porch and went inside.
“I swear,” Woody added to Reed. “I didn’t touch a thing.”
Reed studied Woody’s body language. The stiff shoulders. The sweat popping out above his top lip. Both surefire signs that the man was uncomfortable about something. “You’re certain about that?”
“I’m damn certain.” The body language changed. No more nerves, just a defensive stare that made Reed feel like a kid again. Still, that didn’t stop Reed from doing his job.
“Then why didn’t you answer when I called out?” Reed asked. “And why’d you break the lock on the window and go in there?”
“I didn’t hear you calling out, that’s why, and I didn’t break any lock. The door was wide open when I got here about fifteen minutes ago.” There was another shift in body language. Woody shook his head and wearily ran his hand through his thinning salt-and-pepper hair. “I just had to see for myself. I figured there’d be something obvious. Something that’d prove that Shane didn’t do this.”
Reed blew out a long breath. “I know. I want to prove Shane’s innocence, too, but this isn’t the way to go about doing it. If there’s proof and the New York Ranger finds it, she could say you planted it there.”
Woody went still. Then, he cursed. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“I believe you. But Sergeant Olivia Hutton doesn’t know you from Adam.”
Woody’s gaze met his. “She’s gunning for Shane?”
Probably. For Shane and anyone who thought he was innocent. But Reed kept that to himself. “Best to let me handle this,” he insisted. “I’ll talk to you when I’m back in town. Oh, and see about hiring me a temporary deputy or two.”
Woody bobbed his head, slid back on his Stetson and ambled off the porch and down the hill, where he’d likely parked. Reed waited until he was sure the mayor was on his way before he took another deep breath and went inside.
He only made it two steps.
Livvy threw open the door. “Where’s the mayor?” she demanded.
“Gone.” Reed hitched his thumb toward the downside of the hill. “Why?”
Her hands went on her hips, and those ice-blue eyes turned fiery hot. “Because he stole some evidence, that’s why, and I intend to arrest him.”
Chapter Two
Livvy was in full stride across the yard when the sheriff caught up with her, latched on to her arm, whirled her around and brought her to an abrupt halt.
“I’m arresting him,” she repeated and tried to throw off his grip.
She would probably have had better luck wrestling a longhorn to the ground. Despite Sheriff Reed Hardin’s lanky build, the man was strong. And angry. That anger was stamped on his tanned face and in his crisp green eyes.
“I don’t care if Woody Sadler is your friend.” She tried again to get away from the sheriff’s clamped hand. “He can’t waltz in here and steal evidence that might be pertinent to a murder investigation.”
“Just hold on.” He pulled out his cell phone from his well-worn Wranglers, scrolled through some numbers and hit the call button. “Woody,” he said when the mayor apparently answered, “you need to get back up here to the cabin right now. We might have a problem.”
“Might?” Livvy snarled when Sheriff Hardin ended the call. “Oh, we definitely have a problem. Tampering with a crime scene is a third-degree felony.”
The sheriff dismissed that with a headshake. “Woody’s the mayor, along with being a law-abiding citizen. He didn’t tamper with anything. You said yourself that someone had broken the lock, and Woody didn’t do that.”
“Well, he obviously isn’t so law-abiding because he walked past crime-scene tape and entered without permission or reason.”
“He had reason,” Reed mumbled. “He’s worried about Shane. And sometimes worried people do dumb things.” He looked down at the chokehold he had on her arm, mumbled something indistinguishable, and his grip melted away. “What exactly is missing?”
“A cell phone.” Livvy tried to go after the trespassing mayor again, but Reed stepped in front of her. Worse, her forward momentum sent her slamming right against his chest. Specifically, her breasts against his chest. The man was certainly solid. There were lots of corded muscles in his chest and abs.
Both of them cursed this time.
And Livvy shook her head. She shouldn’t be noticing anything that intimate about a man whom she would likely end up at odds with. She shouldn’t be noticing his looks, either. Those eyes. The desperado stubble on his strong square jaw and the tousled coffee-brown hair that made him look as if he’d just crawled out of bed.
Or off a poster for a Texas cowboy-sheriff.
It was crystal-clear that he didn’t want her anywhere near the crime scene or his town. Tough. Livvy had been given a job to do, and she never walked away from the job.
Sherriff Hardin would soon learn that about her.
By God, she hadn’t fought her way into the Ranger organization to be stonewalled by some local yokels who believed one of their own could do no wrong.
“What cell phone?” Reed asked.
Because the adrenaline and anger had caused her breath and mind to race, it took her a moment to answer. First, she glanced at the road and saw the mayor inching his way back up toward them. “One I found in the fireplace when I was going through the front room. You no doubt missed it in the initial search because the ashes were covering it completely. The only reason I found it is because I ran a metal detector over the place to search for any spent shell casings. Then, I photographed it, bagged it and put it on the table. It’s missing.”
His jaw muscles stirred. “It’s Marcie’s phone?”
“I don’t know. I showed it to Deputy Spears, and he said he didn’t think it was Shane’s. That means it could be Marcie’s.”
“Or the killer’s.”
She was certain her jaw muscles stirred, too. “Need I remind you that you found Deputy Shane Tolbert standing over Marcie’s body, and he had a gun in his hand? Marcie was his estranged lover. I hate to state the obvious, but all the initial evidence indicates that Shane is the killer.”
Livvy instantly regretted spouting that verdict. It wasn’t her job to get a conviction or jump to conclusions. She was there to gather evidence and find the truth, and she didn’t want anything, including her anger, to get in the way.
“Shane said he didn’t kill her,” Reed explained. His voice was calm enough, but not his eyes. Everything else about him was unruffled except for those intense green eyes. They were warrior eyes. “He said Marcie called him and asked him to meet her at the cabin. The moment he stepped inside, someone hit him over the head, and he fell on the floor. When he came to, Marcie was dead and someone had put a gun in his hand.”
Yes, she’d already heard the summary of Shane’s statement from Deputy Kirby Spears. Livvy intended to study the interrogation carefully, especially since Reed had been the one to question the suspect.
Talk about a conflict of interest.
Still, in a small town like Comanche Creek, Reed probably hadn’t had an alternative, especially since the on-scene Ranger, Lieutenant Colter, had been called back to the office. If Reed hadn’t questioned Shane, then it would have been left to his junior deputy, Kirby, who was greener than the Hill Country’s spring foliage.
The mayor finally made his way toward them and stopped a few feet away. “What’s wrong?”
“Where’s the cell phone that I’d bagged and tagged?” Livvy asked, not waiting for Reed to respond.
Woody Sadler first looked at Reed. Then, her. “I have no idea. I didn’t take it.”
“Then you won’t mind proving that to me. Show me your pockets.”
Woody hesitated, until Reed gave him a nod. It wasn’t exactly a cooperative nod, either, and the accompanying grumble had a get-this-over-with tone to it.
The mayor pulled out a wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and a handkerchief and keys from the front ones. No cell phone, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t taken it. The man had had at least ten minutes to discard it along the way up or down the hill to his vehicle.
“Taking the cell won’t help your friend’s cause,” she pointed out. “I already phoned in the number, and it’ll be traced.”
Woody lifted his shoulder. “Good. Because maybe what you learn about that phone will get Shane out of jail. He didn’t kill Marcie.”
Reed stared at her. “Can the mayor go now, or do you intend to strip-search him?”
Livvy ignored that swipe and glanced down at Woody’s snakeskin boots. “You wear about a size eleven.” She turned her attention to Reed. “And so do you. That looks to be about the size of the footprints that I took casts of over in the brush.”
“So?” Woody challenged.
“So, the location of those prints means that someone could have waited there for Marcie to arrive. They could be the footprints of the killer. Or the killer’s accomplice if he had one. Sheriff Hardin would have had reason to be out here, but what about you? Before this morning, were you here at the cabin in the past forty-eight hours?”
“No.” The mayor’s answer was quick and confident.
Livvy didn’t intend to take his word for it.
“You can go now,” Reed told the mayor.
Woody slid his hat back on, tossed her a glare and delivered his parting shot from over his shoulder as he walked away. “You might do to remember that Reed is the law in Comanche Creek.”
Livvy could have reminded him that she was there on orders from the governor, but instead she took out her binoculars from her field bag and watched Woody’s exit. If he stopped to pick up a discarded cell phone, she would arrest him on the spot.
“He didn’t take that phone,” Reed insisted.
“Then who did?”
“The real killer. He could have done it while Kirby and you were casting the footprints.”
“The real killer,” she repeated. “And exactly who would that be?”
“Someone that Marcie got involved with in the past two years when she was missing and presumed dead.”
Livvy couldn’t discount that. After all, Marcie had faked her own death so she wouldn’t have to testify against a powerful local rancher who’d been accused of bribing officials in order to purchase land that the Comanche community considered their own. The rancher, Jonah Becker, who also owned this cabin, could have silenced Marcie when she returned from the grave.
Or maybe the killer was someone who’d been furious that Marcie hadn’t gone through with her testimony two years ago. There were several people who could have wanted the woman dead, but Shane was the one who’d been found standing over her body.
“See? He didn’t take the cell phone,” Reed grumbled when the mayor didn’t stop along the path to retrieve anything he might have discarded. The mayor got into a shiny fire-engine-red gas-guzzler of a truck and sped away, the massive tires kicking up a spray of mud and gravel.
“He could be planning to come back for it later,” Livvy commented. But probably not. He would have known that she would search the area.
“Instead of focusing on Woody Sadler,” Reed continued, “how about taking a look at the evidence inside the cabin? Because naming Shane as the primary suspect just doesn’t add up.”
Ah, she’d wondered how long it would take to get to this subject. “How do you figure that?”
“For one thing, I swabbed Shane’s hands, and there was no gunshot residue. Plus, this case might be bigger than just Shane and Marcie. You might not have heard, but a few days ago there were some other bodies that turned up at the Comanche burial grounds.”
“I heard,” she said. “I also heard their eyes were sealed with red paint and ochre clay. In other words, a Native American ritual. There’s nothing Native American or ritualistic about this murder.”
Still, that didn’t mean the deaths weren’t connected. It just meant she didn’t see an immediate link. The only thing that was glaring right now was Deputy Shane Tolbert’s involvement in this and his sheriff’s need to defend him.
Livvy started the walk down the hill to look for that missing phone. Thankfully, it was silver and should stand out among the foliage. And then she remembered the note in her pocket with the cell number on it. She took out her own phone and punched in the numbers to call the cell so it would ring.
She heard nothing.
Just in case it was buried beneath debris or something, she continued down the hill, listening for it.
Reed followed her, of course.
Livvy would have preferred to do this search alone because the sheriff was turning out to be more than a nuisance. He was a distraction. Livvy blamed that on his too-good looks and her stupid fantasies about cowboys. She’d obviously watched too many Westerns growing up, and she reminded herself that in almost all cases the fantasy was much hotter than the reality.
She glanced at Reed again and mentally added maybe not in this case.
In those great-fitting jeans and equally great-fitting blue shirt, he certainly looked as if he could compete with a fantasy or two.
When she felt her cheeks flush, Livvy quickly got her mind on something else—the job. It was obvious that the missing cell wasn’t ringing so she ended the call and put her own cell back in her pocket. Instead of listening for the phone, she’d just have to hope that the mayor had turned it off but still tossed it in a place where she could spot it.
“The mayor’s not guilty,” Reed tried again. “And neither is Shane.”
She made a sound of disagreement. “Maybe there was no GSR on his hands because Shane wore gloves when he shot her,” she pointed out. Though Livvy was certain Reed had already considered that.
“There were no gloves found at the scene.”
She had an answer for that as well. “He could have discarded them and then hit himself over the head to make it look as if he’d been set up.”
“Then he would have had to change his clothes, too, because there was no GSR on his shirt, jeans, belt, watch, badge, holster or boots.”
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