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A Wanted Man
Alana Matthews
Experience the thrill of life on the edge and set your adrenalin pumping! These gripping stories see heroic characters fight for survival and find love in the face of danger.Nothing would stop US Marshal Harlan from capturing an escaped fugitive. Not even being forced to work side by side with his ex-lover, Deputy Callie, on a murder investigation. Except Harlan soon realises he has a goal more vital than outfoxing the killer: keeping Callie alive long enough to win her back.
Nothing like a brush with death to get your priorities straight.
Callie realised that the decade-old drama between her and Harlan was little more than trivial nonsense. Right now she had to worry about getting the killers behind bars.
Still, she had to admit that when she’d heard Harlan’s voice calling to her from beyond the rubble of the landslide, the relief she’d felt had been palpable. The sudden fear of losing him had ripped through her like a dark tide.
Did that mean she was still in love with him? So be it. But she couldn’t let that interfere with what they’d come here to do.
Harlan seemed to be feeling the same way. He’d gotten quiet again as they rode the trail. He’d taken the lead now, and his focus and determination was a comfort to her.
It was also, she realised as her heartbeat galloped, an undeniable aphrodisiac …
About the Author
ALANA MATTHEWS can’t remember a time when she didn’t want to be a writer. As a child, she was a permanent fixture in her local library, and she soon turned her passion for books into writing short stories, and finally novels. A longtime fan of romantic suspense, Alana felt she had no choice but to try her hand at the genre, and she is thrilled to be writing for Mills & Boon
Intrigue. Alana makes her home in a small town near the coast of Southern California, where she spends her time writing, composing music and watching her favorite movies.
Send a message to Alana at her website, www.alanamatthews.com.
A Wanted Man
Alana Matthews
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Chapter One
“I gotta make a pit stop,” Billy Boy said.
U.S. Deputy Marshal Harlan Cole sighed and glanced at his prisoner in the rearview mirror. It was one thing after another with this guy, and he was tired of listening to him.
Billy Boy Lyman had spent half the drive moaning about his cuffs being too tight, the cruiser being too cold, then he started blathering on about how the courts and the Marshals Service had him all wrong. That he was an innocent man caught up in something way over his head.
When Harlan reminded him that he’d tried to rob a bank, put a gun in the teller’s face and threatened to pull the trigger, Billy said, “My partners were the ones with the guns. I didn’t even wanna be there—you know?”
“Uh-huh,” Harlan muttered, then spent the next two hours listening to Billy Boy’s tale of woe, the majority of which was little more than a sorry attempt at justifying the commission of a very serious crime.
Now, true to form, he was making noise about having to “pick a daisy,” as Aunt Maggie used to say.
“I’m serious,” Billy told him. “I really gotta go.”
“Can’t it wait until we get to Torrington?”
“Not unless you wanna be mopping up this backseat.”
Harlan sighed again and looked out at the night sky and the empty road rolling under his headlights. He had picked Lyman up at the Criminal Justice Center in Colorado Springs, after waiting the good part of an hour for the prisoner to be processed. It had been a long day and all he wanted was to get the man squared away, then head to his motel room and go to bed.
He just wished Billy Boy would shut up. A wish that was likely to go unfulfilled.
This all came with the job, of course. Harlan knew that. The U.S. Marshals Service specialized in fugitive retrieval and prisoner transport, and he’d spent a significant amount of his career chauffeuring dimwits from one jail cell to another. He figured he’d probably heard just about every lamebrained excuse a man could come up with for breaking the law, and normally he wasn’t much affected by it. Took it all in stride.
But there was something about Billy Boy that rubbed him the wrong way. The kid couldn’t have been more than twenty-two years old, but he had one of those smirky little faces you just wanted to put a fist in. It took every bit of Harlan’s impulse control to stop himself from pulling to the side of the highway to give the kid a quick tune-up.
On nights like this Harlan wondered if he should’ve taken his father’s advice and found a different line of work. His father had been a career deputy and when Harlan had decided to follow in his footsteps, the old man had groaned.
“You’ve got smarts, boy. Use that big brain of yours to make a difference in the world.”
But Harlan figured he was making a difference. There was nothing more satisfying than taking down a fugitive and helping ensure that the world was a better, safer place. It was just that he sometimes felt as if he were little more than a cattle herder. Even if the livestock he dealt with had a dangerous streak.
Not that Billy Boy was all that dangerous. Just annoying. And the sooner he delivered him to the Wyoming Medium Correctional Institution, the happier he’d be.
“Are we gonna make a stop or what?” Billy asked. “And I ain’t talkin’ about the side of the road. I like my privacy, and there’s bound to be a gas station up ahead.”
Harlan glanced at his prisoner in the rearview mirror. “Only on one condition.”
“Which is?”
“After you’ve done your business, you shut your yap and keep it shut for the rest of the ride.”
THE CONVENIENCE STORE was one of those all-nighters with a couple of gas pumps out front. It stood just off the highway, the only sign of life in the vicinity, its fluorescent lights so bright you could see them from half a mile away beckoning late night travelers to stop in for a snack, a cup of coffee and a few gallons of gas.
It was close to midnight and Harlan wasn’t surprised to find only a single car parked out front—a battered gray Chevy Malibu he recognized as one that had passed them a few miles back.
Harlan wasn’t fond of making unscheduled stops, but he understood how merciless the call of nature could sometimes be. When he worked long transports like this one, he tended to cut back on his liquid intake, but there wasn’t much he could do about his passenger. It was up to the previous custodian to make sure the prisoner had been properly “fed and bled” before the trip. Yet despite the long processing time, someone back in Colorado Springs had neglected to do his job.
Harlan parked two slots over from the Chevy, then killed the engine and turned, staring at Billy Boy through the grille that separated the front and backseats.
“You’ll wanna watch your step in there. Even a hint of trouble and I will shoot you. You understand?”
Lyman smirked. “You ever shot a prisoner before?”
“Once,” Harlan said. “And he looked a lot like you.”
The smirk disappeared. “You got nothing to worry about with me, Marshal. Like I told you, I’m an innocent man.”
“Uh-huh.”
Harlan popped his door open and climbed out. Resting the palm of his right hand on the butt of the Glock holstered at his hip, he moved to the back and pulled open the passenger door.
With his own hands cuffed behind him, Billy Boy had to struggle a bit to climb out of the cruiser, but he managed to do it without too much of a fuss. Then Harlan took hold of his arm and guided him toward the convenience store entrance.
When they got inside, Harlan was surprised to find a woman—a girl, really—behind the counter. Places like this tended to hire males for the late shift on the belief that a lone female offered any potential troublemakers a more vulnerable target.
But this particular female didn’t look even remotely vulnerable. In fact, despite her youth and obvious beauty, there was a defiance in her expression that was a little off-putting. A look that said, mess with me and find out. She probably had a loaded piece resting somewhere under that counter, just in case the class got unruly.
Harlan saw her hackles rise as a buzzer announced their arrival and they came through the door, her gaze immediately shifting to Billy Boy’s cuffed hands.
He didn’t bother explaining the obvious, and didn’t waste any time with chitchat, either. “Restroom?”
A guy in the potato chip aisle at the back of the store—the driver of the Malibu, no doubt—looked up at the sound of Harlan’s voice. He glanced curiously at the man wearing cuffs, then went back to minding his own business.
Harlan waited as the girl reached under the counter and brought out a key attached to a wooden paddle. He’d always thought that the necessity for such things was a pretty sad commentary on the state of the world, but he took it from her without comment, then moved in the direction of her pointed finger toward a hallway just to her left.
The hallway was small and cramped with a single door marked Toilet. Harlan shoved the key into the lock, then pushed the door open and gestured Billy Boy inside.
Billy frowned. “Ain’t you gonna take these cuffs off?”
“Once we’re inside,” Harlan said.
Billy looked surprised. “We? You’re gonna watch me do my business? I told you, I like my privacy.”
“My mandate is to keep you in sight at all times, whether I like it or not. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I should trust you.”
“What do you think I’m gonna do? Whack you with my—”
“Just get inside, Billy. I’ve had about all I can tolerate of you. The sooner we’re done here, the better off we’ll both be.”
“You ain’t exactly Officer Friendly, are you?”
“Sorry to disappoint. Now let’s get this over with.”
Billy Boy scowled but did as he was told, stepping into a room about the size of a broom closet that sported a single toilet and sink. There wasn’t enough room inside for both of them, so Harlan moved forward and uncuffed his prisoner, then stepped back and waited in the open doorway.
“You ain’t gonna close the door?”
“I’m gonna close your mouth with my fist if you don’t hurry it up.”
“All right, all right,” Billy said, stepping up to the toilet. “Don’t get your panties in a wad.” He turned his head slightly. “Speaking of which, what do you think of that counter girl? Kinda cute, huh?”
“I think she’s way out of your league.”
“Yeah? I bet if I treated her right, she’d do anything I told her.”
Harlan almost laughed. “Dream on, Billy. Now will you please get to it already? I’d really like to—”
Harlan froze as something cold and metallic touched the back of his head.
“Hands behind your neck,” a voice said.
A female voice.
Damn.
Harlan didn’t have to see her face to know it was the aforementioned counter girl. He also didn’t have to use that big brain of his to figure out that she wasn’t a counter girl at all. She’d no doubt been riding in the battered Chevy Malibu parked outside, along with the potato chip lover. And chances were pretty good that the real counter girl—or more likely man—was either dead or tied up in a closet somewhere.
Harlan inwardly cursed himself. He’d been at this job for nearly ten years now and he’d just pulled a rookie move. Let the prisoner lull him—or, in this case, annoy him—into lowering his guard.
How could he be so stupid?
“Hands,” the girl said again. “Now.”
As Harlan sighed and laced his fingers behind his neck, Billy Boy Lyman turned around, that infuriating smirk once again adorning his face. He reached forward and removed Harlan’s Glock from its holster.
“You were right not to trust me,” he said.
Then he brought the gun up fast, slamming it into the side of Harlan’s head.
Chapter Two
They found the burned-out shell of the pickup truck parked on the side of the highway about forty miles south of Williamson. It was still smoldering when a highway patrol officer pulled off the road behind it, thinking it was just another abandoned vehicle whose owner had gotten a little carried away.
As soon as he took a closer look, however, he discovered it hadn’t been abandoned after all.
There was a body inside.
The medical examiner on scene had warned Callie that what she was about to see would not be pleasant—what people in the trade referred to as a crispy critter. And true enough, the sight of that blackened lump on the front seat was one she knew she’d be spending the next couple weeks trying to bleach from her brain.
Despite the damage, the truck’s rear license tag had been spared—an oasis amidst a desolate landscape—and when she called it in, she found out the pickup belonged to none other than Jim Farber, a local rancher.
Considering the fact that Farber hadn’t been seen since yesterday morning, the logical conclusion was that he was the lump on the front seat.
Callie wouldn’t know for certain until forensics did its thing, but she was a strong believer in Occam’s razor—that the simplest explanation was the most likely one. After seven years with the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department, working crimes a lot more complicated than this, she’d come to rely on that dictum as if it were gospel.
The question, as always, was who had done this and why? Williamson, Wyoming, wasn’t exactly known for its violent crime, and the handful of murders Callie had investigated in the course of her career usually led her straight to a member of the victim’s family.
That, however, didn’t seem to be the case here. Only careful examination would determine the actual cause of death, but whatever it might be, Callie couldn’t imagine Farber’s wife or either of their two kids pouring gasoline over the family truck and setting it on fire. This was a dispassionate crime, and the Farbers were anything but. It was certainly possible that Callie was wrong about that, but she didn’t think so.
A groan pulled her out of her thoughts. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” Rusty said, clutching his stomach, his face a couple shades whiter than it had been when they’d pulled up in their SUV a few moments ago.
Rusty Wilcox was a good number of years younger than Callie and hadn’t been on the job long enough to build immunity against sights like this. Even Callie was finding it more difficult than usual to shut her mind off to the horror of it all.
But she couldn’t let Rusty know this. She was his training deputy, breaking him into the cold, cruel reality of the sheriff’s Major Crimes Squad, and it was important to maintain her professionalism at all times.
This wasn’t much of a struggle for her, however. Over the years she’d learned to bottle up her emotions, a trait that had soured quite a few relationships.
The truth was, she was the dispassionate one. And at thirty-four, she had come to the conclusion that she was destined to spend the rest of her life flying solo. She no longer embraced the dream of a husband and kids and a white picket fence.
She looked at Rusty and could see that he was struggling to hold back the blueberry muffin he’d gobbled up on the ride over, despite her warning that what he was about to see wouldn’t be pretty.
“Do it on the other side of the road,” she said tersely. “You don’t want to contaminate the crime scene.”
As Rusty stumbled across the blacktop, Callie went back to her thoughts only to have them interrupted again by a shout from the far side of the pickup truck.
“Deputy Glass! I think I’ve found something.”
She glanced at Rusty, then moved around toward the source of the shout and found one of her crime scene techs crouched next to the passenger door—a grinning, gap-toothed kid named Tucker Davies.
Why did everyone around Callie seem to be getting younger these days?
“Check this out,” he said, excitement lighting his eyes as he pointed to a spot just under the truck.
Callie hunkered down and looked. Saw a lump of half-melted polymer that roughly formed the shape of a handgun. A forty caliber Glock from the looks of it. Just like the one she carried.
Callie immediately understood Tucker’s excitement. “Let’s just pray the serial number is intact.”
“Only one way to find out.”
Tucker reached a gloved hand under the truck and carefully picked up the weapon. He pulled it out, studied it, then showed Callie the trigger guard which looked relatively unscathed. “Only a partial, but it might be enough.”
This was turning out to be a good day for numbers. First the license tag, now this. And maybe the question of who and why would be answered much more quickly than Callie had dared hope.
“Let’s get it into the system as soon as possible. Hit every database you can think of. I want to know who owns that weapon.”
“Might take a while,” Tucker told her.
“Then I guess you’d better get started.”
WILLIAMSON COUNTY Sheriff’s Deputy Callie Glass was a Wyoming native, born and bred. She’d drawn her first breath on a cold Thursday morning in her mother’s bedroom. Her mother was eighteen years old and barely out of high school, screaming in agony as she pushed her first and only child into the world, then promptly passed on.
Some said that Callie’s mom might have survived if she’d been in a proper hospital and hadn’t been victim to an inexperienced midwife. But there was no way to know that for sure. The hemorrhaging had come on swift and without warning, and the poor girl was dead within minutes of the delivery. Besides, Mary Glass was a free spirit who had never trusted hospitals, and wouldn’t have poked so much as a toe inside one—even if her life had depended on it.
Callie’s father was a kid named Riley Pritchard, who had enlisted in the army a week after he’d found out young Mary was pregnant. The Pritchards were one of the richest families in Williamson, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Riley’s father, Jonah, had nudged the boy into action, hoping to avoid the possibility of a bastard child claiming heir to their precious family fortune.
By the time Callie was born, Riley had been killed when a base supply struck overturned and crushed him, so the only parent she’d ever known was the woman she called Nana Jean.
Despite being widowed and borderline destitute, Nana had stepped up to the challenge of raising an infant and had done it without complaint.
Most of the time.
What few complaints Nana did have, came much later in Callie’s life, after a string of romantic disasters had made it clear that her granddaughter’s spirit wasn’t easily tamed, a trait she had inherited from her mother.
“I just wish you’d settle down,” the old woman often told Callie. “Find yourself somebody to share your life with. I won’t be around to hold your hand forever.”
But Callie was defiant. “Who says it needs holding?”
“Listen, child, you can be the most independent woman on the face of earth, but you still need a little romance in your life. It’s been far too long.”
“So why didn’t you ever get married again?”
“Your grandfather was one of a kind. Any man tried to replace him would only wind up heartbroken, and I’m not about to do that to someone.”
“He must’ve been pretty special.”
Nana nodded, a wistful look in her eyes. She’d never been a sentimental woman, so Callie knew that what she was about to say was sincere. “This’ll sound like a lie, but I swear to you that up until the day he died, my heart would flutter every time Walter walked into the room.”
Callie smiled. “That’s sweet.”
“Yes, it is, and I keep hoping you’ll find someone who does that to you. I thought you had it, once, but you’re too stubborn to—”
“All right, Nana. I think we’re done here.”
This conversation was just a rehash of a dozen others they’d had over the past few years, Nana worried about Callie’s ever-ticking clock. Such exchanges usually ended with Callie politely but firmly suggesting that Nana let her worry about her own love life. That she had more important things to think about, like putting bad guys in jail.
And that, she insisted, was about all the testosterone she was interested in dealing with these days.
“You go on, keep lying to yourself,” Nana would always say—a handful of words for which Callie had yet to find a suitable response.
NO MATTER WHAT CASE she might be working on, Callie tried her best to go home for lunch every day, and today was no exception.
Once the crime scene was squared away and the evidence had been tagged and bagged, she dropped Rusty off at the station house with instructions to make sure Tucker Davies called her just as soon as he got a hit on the Glock.
Then she drove the mile and a half home, where she knew Nana would be waiting for her with a sandwich and a glass of iced tea.
Their usual routine was to sit and watch Nana’s favorite soap. And as the melodrama played out on screen, Callie would invariably start thinking about how old and frail Nana was looking and worry that she might not be around long enough to see how the stories ended.
Today, however, as Callie pulled up to the curb, she was surprised to find a plumber’s truck parked in their driveway. Which didn’t make sense. They’d had the entire house repiped less than six months ago, and for the money they’d spent, there shouldn’t be any need for an emergency visit. Besides, Callie herself usually handled such arrangements, and if there was a problem Nana would have called her.
But when she went inside, she found Nana and the plumber sitting in the front parlor, sharing a pitcher of tea, as if this were nothing more than a social visit.
Although he looked vaguely familiar—about Callie’s age and marginally handsome, if you liked the type—she had no idea who this man might be.
Nana took care of that straightaway. “Cal, this is Judith’s grandnephew Henry. He just moved to town and I thought it might be nice for him to drop by for a little refreshment.”
The lightbulb suddenly went on and Callie remembered where she’d seen him before: in a photograph on Judith’s mantel. Judith had been Nana’s best friend since childhood.
Callie knew immediately what was going on here and forced a smile. “Hello, Henry, nice to meet you.”
Henry got to his feet and shook her hand as Callie shifted her gaze to her grandmother. “Nana, can I speak to you for a moment?”
“Why don’t you have a seat, dear? I’ll pour you some tea.”
“I think we need to talk alone.”
Nana reluctantly rose from her chair and followed Callie into the kitchen. Callie could see that the old woman was bracing for a scolding, and she was all too happy to give her one.
As they passed through the doorway, she felt heat rising in her chest and struggled to keep her voice low. “What in God’s name are you thinking?”
“He’s a nice boy, dear. What’s the harm in having him stop by for a glass of tea?”
“Is Judith in on this, too?”
Nana smiled. “Well, I guess she’d have to be, wouldn’t she?”
“How many times have I told you, I can handle my own love life. I don’t need you and Judith interfering.”
“With what? You haven’t had a date in six months.”
Callie glared at her. “I mean it, Nana.”
“Listen, hon, those pipes of yours must be just about frozen solid. Wouldn’t hurt to have a handsome young plumber check �em out. Who knows where it might lead?”
Callie felt her face grow red. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“What—you think because I’m old I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a little—”
“Stop,” Callie said, her voice louder and more shrill than she’d intended it to be. She did her best to calm herself. “Nana, I appreciate your concern, I really do, but please, stop trying to force the issue.”
“Dear, if I don’t force the issue, I’ll be dead before—”
The ring of Callie’s cell phone cut her off. Callie took it from her pocket and checked the screen: Tucker Davies.
Already?
That was fast.
She jabbed a button on the keypad and put the phone to her ear. “Tell me this is good news.”
“Better than good,” Tucker said. “Turns out the Glock has a custom serial number, just like the weapons we use, only this one’s assigned to the U.S. Marshals Service.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“I put in a call and found out that one of their deputies lost it last night when the prisoner he was transporting got the better of him. They were headed for Wyoming Correctional, coming up from Colorado Springs.”
Callie felt her heartbeat quicken. That prisoner was more than likely her perpetrator. How he’d wound up in Jim Farber’s truck was a mystery, but at least they knew who they were looking for.
“I need to talk to this deputy,” she said.
“Shouldn’t be a problem, since he’s already in the vicinity. He’s on his way to the station house as we speak.”
“Oh? What’s his name?”
“Cole,” Davies said. “Deputy Harlan Cole.”
Callie hesitated, certain she hadn’t heard him right. “Say that again?”
He enunciated carefully. “Harlan … Cole.”
His words were like a sledgehammer to Callie’s chest. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear her heart had suddenly stopped dead.
The name was not unfamiliar to her.
Far from it.
And the thought of Harlan Cole walking into her life after all these years made her want to turn and flee. If this was nature taking its course, then she wanted nothing to do with it.
Without warning a bucketful of memories flooded her mind. And while the pain that the name Harlan Cole invoked had long been relegated to a tiny corner of her brain, it now sprang forward as if freed from a cage, an untamed and ferocious beast, anxious to devour.
“Deputy Glass?”
Callie had to search for a moment, but finally found her voice. “Thanks, Tucker. I’m on my way.”
As she disconnected, she realized Nana was staring at her, concern in her eyes. “What’s the matter, hon? You okay?”
Far from it, Callie thought, knowing it would take every bit of her strength to climb into her SUV and drive back to the station house.
Because Deputy Harlan Cole wasn’t just a U.S. Marshal. He was a man she had long despised.
He was also the love of her life.
Chapter Three
Harlan had no idea what to expect when he walked into the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department.
He was feeling humiliated and out of sorts after last night’s debacle, the side of his head still throbbing where Billy Boy Lyman had left a Glock-size bruise.
When he came to, he’d found himself lying in the restroom doorway, the room swaying, his weapon long gone. But what hurt most was the blow to his pride. In the span of less than a minute, he had lost a prisoner, a gun and a sizable chunk of his reputation. All because he’d been stupid enough to lower his guard, and was just biased enough to assume that the girl behind the counter wasn’t a threat to him.
Something he’d have to work on.
Whatever the case, he didn’t doubt that these mistakes would haunt him for many months to come. And as he pulled into the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office parking structure, he had no idea what he was walking into.
The locals would undoubtedly blame him for the death of one of their own, but the question was whether they’d take the professional route and hide their animosity, or—as was so often the case—treat him like a hostile intruder.
The moment he stepped into the conference room, however, such concerns immediately vacated his mind. This could have been a war zone, with bullets flying, and Harlan wouldn’t have noticed.
Of the six people sitting at the long table, only one of them—the lone woman in the room—commanded his attention, despite the fact that she refused to look him directly in the eye.
It was none other than Callie Glass.
Harlan’s internal alarm bells suddenly went off, and he knew he’d better sit down before he fell down. While he would’ve loved to have blamed his sudden disorientation on his head injury, that was only part of it. The sight of his old college flame sitting not ten feet away from him had thrown him completely off balance.
Was he imagining things? Had the bump on his noggin brought on some cruel hallucination?
No. She was real, all right. As real as a heartbeat. A little older but even more beautiful than he remembered—which, until this moment, he would’ve deemed an impossibility. He knew she was from Williamson, but he’d never imagined he’d find her here like this.
Not now. Not today.
“Deputy Cole, I’m Sheriff Mercer.”
Harlan blinked, then swiveled his head to his left to find a sunbaked cowboy in a gray suit with a string tie rising from his chair, his hand extended.
Harlan reached out and shook it, happy for the distraction. “Good to meet you, Sheriff. I wish it were under better circumstances.”
“You sure you’re up to this? Looks like your boy did quite a job on you.”
Harlan had hoped that the bruise wouldn’t be that noticeable—a symbol of his failure—but it didn’t much matter. He’d just have to learn to live with it for the next several days.
“I’ll be fine, thanks. But if you don’t mind, I think I’ll sit down.”
Mercer gestured to a chair. “By all means.”
Harlan glanced at Callie, then pulled the chair out, as Mercer introduced the people around the table. The names and faces came at him too quickly to process, but when the sheriff got to the only one Harlan really cared about, she finally looked up at him, offering him a curt, professional smile.
Her eyes weren’t smiling, however. Not even close. And her voice had a clipped, unfriendly tone. “Hello, Harlan.”
He nodded. “Callie.”
Mercer’s eyebrows went up. “You two know each other?”
“Long time ago,” she said. “Back in graduate school. We took a couple of criminology classes together.”
She’d said this with about as much warmth and enthusiasm as an accountant reciting the tax code. There was a lot more to it than that, but she wasn’t offering any details. Which was fine by Harlan. He didn’t want to think about those details—although he was finding it difficult not to.
Mercer said, “Denver, right? University of Colorado?”
“Right,” they said in unison.
They exchanged an awkward glance as Mercer studied them curiously, then sat back down.
“Small world,” he said, “but I reckon you two can catch up some other time. Right now we’ve got business to attend to.” He looked at Harlan. “Your supervising deputy says you’ve got some information to share.”
Harlan tore his gaze away from Callie and nodded. He had spent the better part of his morning at the Torrington marshal’s substation gathering up as much intel on Billy Boy Lyman as he could find. He hadn’t had much sleep since the incident, and his supervisor back in Colorado Springs had urged him to take it easy and let someone else handle the heavy lifting.
But Harlan had refused.
He preferred to clean up his own messes.
When he’d heard that his Glock had been found under a burned-out pickup truck near Williamson—a vehicle carrying the body of a local rancher—he’d made a vow right then and there that he wouldn’t rest until Billy Boy was back in custody.
Or begging St. Peter to open up the pearly gates.
“First,” he said, “I want to apologize to all of you for making any of this necessary. If I hadn’t been derelict in my duties, none of us would be sitting here right now.”
He glanced at Callie again but got nothing back. She was carefully examining her fingernails.
“Let’s not worry about blame,” Mercer said. “The way I look at it, the only reason we’re here is because of this boy Lyman.”
“Thanks, Sheriff, I appreciate that.” Harlan reached into his coat pocket and brought out a small stack of photographs. “I assume you all saw the mug shot I faxed over?”
There were nods and murmurs around the room.
“Lyman’s a Nebraska native who moved with his mother to Wyoming when he was sixteen years old. He’s been in and out of custody ever since, his latest bust for an aborted robbery attempt at the Colorado Springs Bank and Trust three weeks ago. He was out on parole at the time, and since the courts are backed up, someone on high figured it wouldn’t hurt to ship his butt up to Torrington to finish out his state sentence while he’s waiting for trial. That’s where I came in.”
He laid the stack of photos on the table. “We took these from the convenience store’s surveillance footage. The main unit was destroyed, but the owner keeps a backup in his office closet.”
“How’s the clerk doing?”
The question came from a young guy sitting next to Callie. Rusty-something.
“Touch and go, last I heard.”
Harlan had found the clerk tied up and shoved into a storeroom, his head caved in by a blow much harder than the one he himself had received. Once he saw the poor guy, he knew that he could easily have wound up in the very same condition. So maybe getting beaned by Billy Boy instead of the girlfriend or the potato chip lover was a blessing he should be thankful for.
Tapping the photos, he said, “These are the two perpetrators who helped Lyman escape. We think they may have been his partners in the bank job, but they were wearing ski masks at the time and managed to get away.”
Mercer said, “You run those photos through facial recognition?”
Harlan nodded. “No hits so far, which isn’t much of a surprise considering how bad the resolution is.” He looked at the others. “We found their Chevy Malibu dumped in a field about sixty miles north of the convenience store. Broken water pump. That’s probably where they hitched a ride with the victim. And since people tend to go where they feel most comfortable, I’m hoping they might be local. Maybe one of you crossed paths with them at one time or another.”
He slid the photos to Mercer, who picked up the stack and started shuffling through it. Within seconds, something shifted in the sheriff’s eyes. “Well I’ll be damned. This is getting cozier and cozier.”
“You recognize them?”
Mercer didn’t answer. Instead he took a photo off the top of the stack and spun it across the table toward Callie. “That face look familiar to you?”
Callie caught it, then dropped her gaze, studying the image carefully.
After a moment, she said, “Looks like Megan Pritchard, but this is a little fuzzy and it’s been a while. She hasn’t been around much since her last stint in juvie, and that was like—what?—three, four years ago?”
Mercer shrugged. “Give or take.”
“So who is she?” Harlan asked.
“Megan Pritchard-Breen,” Callie said. “Only nobody uses the Breen part since her mother got a divorce years ago. She’s one of our local troublemakers. Sheriff here likes to call her a wild child, but I think he’s being polite in deference to the family. Sociopath is more accurate.”
“She’s also a bit of a fire bug,” Mercer told him. “So draw your own conclusions.”
“And she’s got family up here?”
Mercer glanced at Callie, and Harlan followed his lead, but she once again averted her gaze. He sensed, however, that this time it had nothing to do with their past. There was a different kind of history at play here. An underlying discomfort she wasn’t anxious to address. And Harlan had the feeling he was the only one in the room who didn’t know about it.
“She’s the granddaughter of Jonah Pritchard,” Mercer said. “And if you spent any significant amount of time in Williamson, you’d recognize the name.”
“Local celebrity?”
“That’s one way of putting it, if you like �em old and mean and wealthier than the crown prince of Tangiers.”
“I take it you’re not a fan.”
“Let’s just say the pathology seems to run in the family, only Jonah is a little better at hiding it.” He looked at Callie. “And if that is Megan Pritchard, I think you know what it means.”
She frowned. “You want Rusty and me to go out there.”
“I know you’ve got issues with the old coot, but you are the lead deputy on this case.”
“Out where?” Harlan asked.
“Pritchard Ranch,” Mercer said. “If Meg’s in trouble, she’d go to her grandpa for help. Always has, always will.”
“Which means Billy Boy might be there, as well.”
“That’s the logical assumption. So I’d suggest you three saddle up, pronto. We don’t have a warrant, but maybe the Pritchards will cooperate.”
Harlan nodded, then got to his feet.
“Wait a minute,” Callie said, her frown deepening. “You want him to go with us?”
Mercer’s brows went up again. “Is that a problem? I thought you two were old friends.”
Harlan and Callie exchanged another glance, neither of them willing to tackle that one in public, and Harlan could feel the eyes of everyone in the room shifting in his direction. The office gossip line would be buzzing this afternoon.
Mercer tapped his watch. “Tick tock, Deputy Glass. We’ve got a trio of killers to catch.”
Looking like a woman who had just been condemned to a decade of indentured servitude, Callie reluctantly rolled her chair back and stood up.
Harlan knew exactly how she felt.
Chapter Four
“How much farther is it?” Harlan asked.
These were more or less the first words spoken since the three of them had climbed into Callie’s cruiser. Now that Harlan had broken the silence, Rusty—who had probably sensed the tension in the air and had been smart enough to keep his mouth shut—gestured from the front passenger seat, saying, “Just up the road apiece. About five or six miles.”
To Callie’s mind, it might as well be five or six hundred. With all due respect to the late Jim Farber and his family, she couldn’t wait until this day was over. From Nana Jean’s matchmaking to the surprise appearance of a man she loathed and now this trip out to Pritchard Ranch—the last place she wanted to go—this was turning out to be a record breaker. All future days would surely be measured against this one.
Callie had never considered herself a vindictive woman. She’d never been one to hold on to a grudge. More often than not she found she could remain civil with the tiny handful of men she’d been intimate with. She had long ago convinced herself that she was a much better friend than lover.
But the breakup with Harlan had been different. Maybe it was her immaturity, or maybe it was the simple fact that she had been so head over heels in love with him. Whatever the cause, she had carried this burning resentment toward him a lot longer than she wanted to admit.
It rarely came to the surface, however. No reason it should. She hadn’t seen Harlan in nearly a decade, and had long since learned to get through a day, a week, sometimes even a whole month, without thinking about him. But every time she did, she found herself hating him all over again.
She knew, of course, that her anger was simply a way of masking the pain. Not just because of the breakup, but because of the circumstances surrounding it.
She’d bet good money that if the accident hadn’t happened, she and Harlan would still be together. No question. But that tragic night had forced such an enormous wedge between them that it was no wonder they could barely stand to look at each other.
Callie didn’t think she would ever forgive Harlan for what he’d done. And until today it hadn’t been much of an issue.
Now here he was, sitting in the backseat of her SUV, and it took every bit of inner strength she could muster to keep from slamming the brakes and throwing him out in the middle of the highway.
The thing that really galled her, however, was that despite her turmoil she couldn’t stop thinking about how good he looked. The years had given his face and body an angularity, a solid, rustic dignity that had only been hinted at in his younger days. He’d been attractive back then, no doubt about it, but now he looked as if he’d just stepped out of a movie screen, his blue-eyed Hollywood good looks tempered with just enough real-world ruggedness to make him a genuine human being.
And that was all the more reason to hate him. He should be suffering for what he’d done. Balding and getting too fat and covered in festering boils.
Tell us how you really feel, Callie.
Gripping the wheel tighter, she punched the accelerator and picked up speed.
THE PRITCHARD FAMILY had always displayed their wealth without apology. Nestled in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, the ranch was seven thousand acres of rolling hills, grassy flatland and a sleekly modern, three-story dream house that was big enough to hold the population of a small third-world country.
As she pulled up to the gate, Callie thought about her connection to the family. Despite the shared blood, she had long ago realized that there really wasn’t one. Not the kind that mattered, at least. Before she was even born, Jonah Pritchard had made it clear that neither she nor her mother were worth spitting on, and Callie herself couldn’t care less about his money.
Everyone in town knew the history between the two families. A few of her friends—including Sheriff Mercer—had urged her to pursue her stake in the Pritchard fortune. When her father was killed, he’d left behind a sizable trust that rightfully belonged to her. But pursuing it meant lawsuits and court hearings and exhumed bodies and DNA tests and a lot of bad feelings all around.
If Callie went forward, she knew full well that Jonah would wage a smear campaign against the memory of her mother. He’d hire a platoon of lawyers and PR flacks to claim the DNA tests had somehow been tainted or tampered with, claiming the girl had slept around like a common whore and that Callie could be just about anyone’s child.
There was no amount of money that would dull the sting of such an attack, especially in a town the size of Williamson, which had less than seven thousand residents—the majority of whom loved to gossip. And with Nana Jean getting frailer by the week, it just wasn’t worth it.
Callie was content to know that she had earned her place in this world. And she couldn’t help thinking how ironic it was that Megan, the so-called real Pritchard granddaughter, had turned out to be a family embarrassment. No smear campaign necessary.
Callie had to admit she’d found a certain satisfaction in this knowledge.
As she pulled her cruiser to a stop, the guard manning the gate came out of his booth and approached her window with a smile on his face. Landry Bickham was a grizzled old cowboy who had been working for the Pritchard family as long as anyone could remember, and Callie didn’t think she’d ever seen him without that smile.
“Afternoon, Deputy Glass. You sure you didn’t make a wrong turn?”
“If only,” she said. “I need to go up to the house. Police business.”
Bickham grunted. “You make an appointment?”
Callie just stared at him.
Bickham nodded, then went back to the booth and picked up the phone. Callie knew she could ask him if he’d seen Megan in the past few hours, but there wasn’t much point. Landry was loyal to a fault—the secret behind his longevity on the job.
After his call was done, he came back shaking his head, the smile still intact. “Jonah is a little under the weather today, isn’t taking any visitors.”
“I already told you, this isn’t a social call.”
Bickham shrugged. “You might try again tomorrow morning.”
“Open the gate, Landry.”
“I really wish I could do that, Callie, but I’ve got my—”
Before Landry could finish his sentence, Harlan had his door open and was climbing out. He brushed the flap of his coat back, revealing the star clipped to his belt. “U.S. Marshals Service. Open that gate now or consider yourself under arrest.”
Bickham’s smile faltered slightly. “For what?”
“For aiding and abetting a fugitive. Or for being a general pain in the butt. Take your choice.”
Callie couldn’t help feeling a little annoyed by Harlan’s intrusion. Didn’t he think she could get the job done?
Apparently not.
“Fugitive? What fugitive?” Bickham said. “I’m just following orders.”
Callie gestured impatiently. “Do what he asks, Landry. I’ll make sure Jonah knows you put up a good fight.”
“Is this fella really gonna arrest me?”
“Not if you cooperate.”
“All right, then,” Bickham said, then shuffled back to his booth and flipped a switch. The gate rumbled and started rolling to one side.
As Harlan got back in the car, Callie hit the gas, shooting forward before he had a chance to sit down and get his door closed.
He yelped, letting loose a string of profanities, and she eyed him in her rearview mirror.
“You okay back there?”
Struggling to collect himself, Harlan shot her a look of annoyance that kept her smiling all the way up the drive.
No, she wasn’t vindictive.
Not one little bit.
Chapter Five
Landry Bickham hadn’t wasted any time in sounding the alarm.
They were greeted at the top of the drive by Gloria Pritchard, a woman whose beauty had been starkly diminished by years of starvation, alcohol and cosmetic surgery. The result was the exact opposite of what she had intended, her skin stretched so tautly over her sharp bones that she looked much older than her fifty-one years.
Callie only knew her actual age because Gloria and her mother had been best friends in high school. Not that this mattered much. Gloria visibly stiffened at the sight of Callie as they climbed out of the SUV.
Neither of them offered any pleasantries.
“So what has my little darling done now?” Gloria asked. The little darling being her wayward daughter Meg.
“Is she here?”
“I haven’t seen her in a good six months.”
“Then what makes you think that’s what this is about?”
Gloria smiled humorlessly. “Experience,” she said. “I don’t need to tell you what a handful that girl has been since the day she was born.”
To put it mildly, Callie thought. Megan Pritchard was the devil incarnate as far as she was concerned. But without the brains. Even her own mother had stopped trying to cover for her.
Not that Gloria was the model of a loving parent. Twice divorced and always shopping for a replacement, she paid about as much attention to her own daughter as she might a pet hamster.
Meg’s grandfather Jonah, on the other hand, would do just about anything for his girl—whether Gloria liked it or not.
“What about your father?”
Gloria seemed to grow even more tense. “What about him?”
“Has he seen her? Recently, I mean. Like the last twelve or so hours.”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” she said. “This is a big house, and Jonah and I tend to avoid each other as much as possible.”
One thing you could say about Gloria was that, despite her family’s money and the Hollywood housewife exterior, she was always brutally frank and open about her feelings, even when it meant exposing the truth about their not-so-happy family.
Maybe it was the years of AA meetings.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” she said. “What’s Meg done now?”
Harlan apparently took this as his cue to step forward, reaching into his inner coat pocket as he did.
“Ma’am, I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Harlan Cole. I’d like you to take a look at this, if you don’t mind.”
He brought out one of the surveillance photographs and handed it to her.
“Is this your daughter?”
Gloria took a long moment to study the image, then said, “I think so, yes.”
Harlan nodded. “You say you haven’t seen her in six months, but when’s the last time you spoke to her?”
Gloria returned the photograph. “She called me a few days ago. Just to remind me how much she despises me.”
“She happen to mention she was headed your way?”
“No,” Gloria said.
“Well, we have reason to believe she was, and after last night, she’s in the company of at least one wanted fugitive and may well have participated in a bank robbery and a murder.” He paused, glancing at Callie as if seeking some kind of approval. She wasn’t sure why. He seemed content with running the show. “In light of this,” he said to Gloria, “I’d like your permission to search the premises.”
Before Gloria could answer, a stern baritone boomed. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck, Marshal.”
They all turned to find Jonah Pritchard standing in the doorway, a tall man in blue jeans and a dark flannel shirt. He was close to Nana Jean’s age, but with none of the frailty. In fact, he was as solid as a twenty-year-old and didn’t look even remotely under the weather.
Callie knew she should probably feel something. After all, he was her grandfather, too. But feelings are reserved for those you care about, and she’d have to reach down pretty deep to find anything that resembled an emotional attachment to this man.
“I own this house,” he said to Harlan, “and permission is definitely not granted.”
Harlan stepped toward him now, once again flashing the badge on his hip. “Then I guess you’d be Jonah Pritchard.”
“That’s right,” the old man said.
“Well, I was only asking to be polite, sir, so if you’ll move to one side, we’d like to get started.”
Callie threw him a look.
Say what?
Jonah shook his head. “Without a warrant? If you want to come in, you’ll need a judge’s signature.”
Harlan cocked a brow at him, then turned to Callie and Rusty. “Did you two hear that?”
Callie frowned, not sure what he was getting at. “What?”
“He just asked me if I want to come in. Sounded like an invitation to me.”
Uh-oh, Callie thought. So Harlan was one of those. She was a strong believer in procedure and didn’t appreciate the cowboys who ignored it in hopes of getting a pass from the courts. She should’ve realized he was a “Wyatt Earp” the minute he jumped out of her SUV to confront Landry.
But before she could tell him that neither she nor Rusty were about to play along, Jonah stepped aside, moving out onto the wide front porch. Not to invite them in, but to make room for a couple of burly ranch hands who emerged from the doorway behind him.
He looked pointedly at Harlan. “You take one more step in this direction, I’m within my rights to stop you.”
Callie watched as Harlan studied the two ranch hands. They weren’t carrying weapons, but then they didn’t need to.
Harlan said, “Not like this, you aren’t. The law doesn’t look too kindly on assault against peace officers.”
Jonah shrugged. “It isn’t too thrilled about illegal search and seizure, either. And it won’t keep these boys from putting you three in the hospital.” He gestured to his daughter. “Gloria, get in the house. No reason for you to be here for this.”
In other words, get lost.
Callie could see the resentment in Gloria’s eyes. Resentment that went back many years. But Gloria did as she was told. And without protest.
When she was gone, Jonah said, “There’s no need for this to get ugly, Marshal.”
Now Callie spoke up. “Tell that to Megan, Mr. Pritchard. And to Jim Farber’s family. She and her friends left him in quite a state.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
He gave her a look that said he was offended by the remark, but she sensed he was feigning it. Nothing she said could offend him. The old guy was bulletproof.
“Meg decided a long time ago that she wasn’t interested in associating with this family,” he said. “Not that that’s any of your business.”
Callie knew that his words were meant to cut much deeper than they did, but after thirty-four years she was immune to him. She’d long been aware that Jonah despised her. By his skewed logic, his son wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for her whore of a mother.
The thought of this suddenly brought to surface another part of her life—her years with Harlan—and she wondered for a brief moment if she’d applied her own skewed logic to that situation.
But no. That was different. And she had no desire to wander into any dark alleys right now.
Focus, Callie.
Concentrate on the matter at hand.
“We could clear all this up,” Harlan said to Jonah, “if you’d just let us do our job. If you’ve got nothing to hide, then this conversation is over.”
“It’s already over,” a voice said, and Callie heard the ratchet of a scatter-gun behind them.
She and Harlan and Rusty all turned to find a smiling Landry Bickham holding a pump-action twelve-gauge. He kept it pointed at the ground, but Callie knew he’d use it if the old man gave him the nod.
Her heart started thumping.
This wasn’t the direction she’d wanted this afternoon to go.
Harlan turned back to Jonah. “You’re making a grave mistake, Mr. Pritchard. I could arrest you for obstruction, right now.”
“I suppose you could try,” Jonah said.
They were all silent for a long moment, and Callie could see the fury creeping into Harlan’s gaze. She’d seen that fury before, when she told him she never wanted to lay eyes on him again.
Jonah gestured. “You go on, now, try to get your warrant. If the judge says I’ve gotta open up my house, I’ll open up my house. In the meantime, you’re just trespassing, far as I can see.”
For a moment Callie thought Harlan might do something stupid, but he held back. Thank God.
“This isn’t over,” he said quietly.
Jonah’s gaze didn’t waver. “I don’t doubt that for a minute.”
Harlan stared at him a while longer, then his fury seemed to dissipate and he turned, moving back to the cruiser.
Then they were all inside, Callie feeling both frustrated and relieved as she started the engine and watched Jonah and the others go back into the house.
“You think they’re in there?” Harlan asked.
Callie wanted to punch him. “Even if they are, unless Pritchard cooperates, there’s not much we can do about it right now.”
“He’s one nasty piece of work, isn’t he?”
Callie jammed the car in gear. “Pot … meet kettle,” she said.
Then she turned them around and headed down the drive.
Chapter Six
“You know what you are? You’re an idiot. An idiot disguised as a fool.”
Good old Callie. She’d never been one to mince words, and Harlan could see that she hadn’t changed.
Back in the day it had been a trait he’d found endearing. Most of the girls he’d known in college had been hesitant to show their true colors until they had you on the hook. They spent far too much time playing the games they’d learned in high school, and the guys they pursued weren’t much different.
But Callie had always been what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Take it or leave it. And that was a large part of what had made Harlan fall in love with her in the first place.
That and the simple fact that she was the single most intriguing human being he’d ever met. Still was.
They were rolling along the highway now, headed toward town, Harlan once again relegated to the backseat while Callie drove and her partner Rusty rode shotgun.
She said, “You do realize you almost got us killed back there.”
Harlan looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror. “Don’t be so dramatic. Pritchard doesn’t strike me as stupid. And technically, he was right.”
“You think?” Her hands were gripping the steering wheel as if she had hold of his neck and wanted to snap it. “Then what was with all that cowboy nonsense?”
“Just giving the old guy a nudge, see how he reacted.”
Callie shook her head. “You haven’t changed at all, have you, Harlan?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Forget it,” she muttered.
“No, you opened the box, let’s see what’s inside.”
Callie sighed, glancing at Rusty. He had his cell phone clamped to his ear, speaking quietly into it, pretending not to listen to them.
She said to Harlan, “Maybe Jonah wouldn’t have done anything drastic, but there were no guarantees of that. You make stupid moves, you risk people getting hurt. You should know that better than anyone.”
Harlan knew a lot of things. Like the fact that she wasn’t talking about Pritchard at all.
“Look,” he said, “why don’t we save the recriminations for another day? Right now we need to concentrate on searching that house. And we need to do it legally.”
“That could be a problem,” Rusty said, snapping his phone shut. “Sheriff Mercer tells me the judge went out of town for a weekend hunting trip. He’s trying to track down another judge in Sheridan, but it could take a while. Says we might as well grab some chow, then head back to the station house.”
Now it was Harlan’s turn to sigh. Times like these made him wish real life was more like the movies. Everything happened so quickly on the big screen. Getting a warrant took minutes rather than hours, and the bad guy rarely got away.
He kept thinking about that smirk on Billy Boy’s face, and would like to put a fist in it. But as much as he’d like to play the hero and storm Pritchard Ranch, he believed in the letter of the law and knew that such a move was a mistake for a whole variety of reasons.
One thing you quickly learned in law enforcement was the value of patience. No matter what they might say, Justice was neither swift nor blind.
“Maybe the sheriff is right,” he said. “I haven’t had a bite to eat since yesterday afternoon. By all rights I should be famished.”
Callie eyed him skeptically. “You really expect me to sit down and break bread with you?”
“I expect you to be a professional,” he told her. “Is that too much to ask?”
EVERY TOWN HAS ITS cop hangout.
Williamson’s was a place called the Oak Pit Bar & Grill, a name Callie had always found a bit odd, since Wyoming wasn’t known for its overabundance of Quercus imbricaria. But she supposed the Cottonwood Pit didn’t have the same ring.
As far as she knew, however, there were no trees in evidence here, the indoor barbecue fueled by coals rather than wood. The low lighting and pool hall atmosphere were not to her particular taste, but she couldn’t argue with the food they served, and cops all over Williamson County had made the place a regular pit stop.
No pun intended.
Callie didn’t want to be sitting in a booth across from Harlan Cole, but she knew he was right. As cruel as fate might be, she was a professional and needed to act like one.
Truth was, she was more concerned about Rusty than herself. Poor guy was caught in the middle of a rich and heated history that he knew nothing about. And as his training deputy, she owed it to him to maintain her composure.
Besides, she was hungry. Thanks to Nana Jean’s torturous attempt at matchmaking this afternoon, she hadn’t had a chance to eat before she’d been called back to the office.
So here they were, the three of them sitting there awkwardly as they waited on their food, poor Rusty trying to make small talk with two people who clearly had other matters on their minds.
“How long you been with the Marshals Service?” he asked Harlan.
Harlan pulled his gaze away from the sports report on a nearby flatscreen. “Close to ten years.”
“You trained at Glynco, right? Out in Georgia?”
“That’s right.”
Rusty leaned back, took a sip of the ice tea he’d ordered. “I did my basic at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy in Douglas, but for a while there I had my eye on Glynco and the Marshals Service. Recruiter approached me while I was still in college.” He looked at Callie. “Same with you, right? You almost went federal.”
Callie stiffened slightly. “Yes.”
“So what changed your mind?”
“Circumstances,” she said tersely, but didn’t feel like elaborating. Those circumstances were sitting across the table from her.
Rusty gave her room to continue, but when he realized she was finished, he said to Harlan, “So anyway, I decided I’d rather stay local. No chance of being transferred across country, and I like Wyoming. Good place to raise a family. You got family?”
“Brother in California. That’s about it.”
“Have you always been in Colorado Springs, or do they move you around a lot?”
“I’ve bounced around a little, but Colorado seems to be the best fit. Been there five years.”
“They keep you busy, I guess. Transporting prisoners—that must be pretty interesting sometimes.”
“It has its moments,” Harlan said. “Especially when one of them smacks you in the head with your own weapon.”
Rusty smiled. “At least you’ve got a sense of humor about it.”
“One of my trainers at Glynco always said, you don’t find a reason to laugh, you might as well hang it up.”
“Amen,” Rusty murmured.
Callie was thinking that she could use a reason to laugh right now, when someone called out to Rusty—one of the fake-boobed, underdressed cop groupies who rolled in every evening looking for attention. She was standing near an available pool table, gesturing to him with the cue stick in her hand.
Rusty gave her a wave, then turned to Callie. “Citizen needs assistance,” he said. “Call me when the food comes.”
Callie rolled her eyes. She could just imagine the kind of assistance the girl needed, but this was Rusty’s chance to escape the torture and she couldn’t blame him. He quickly slipped out of the booth and left them alone.
Harlan watched him go. “I used to be that young once.”
Callie scoffed. “You’re what—thirty-five? Not exactly Jonah Pritchard territory.”
“It’ll happen soon enough. Goes by fast, doesn’t it? The past ten years are barely a blip on the radar.”
Callie had to admit he was right. She sometimes felt as if she had stepped onto a bullet train, the past decade an indistinct blur of joys and heartbreaks and not much in between.
She found herself thinking about the heartbreak that had torn them apart, when Harlan glanced at her left hand and asked, “You never got married?”
She stiffened again. Why was he asking her that? What difference did it make?
“Cops and marriage don’t mix,” she said.
He nodded. “I found that out the hard way.”
She felt a small stab of disappointment. She shouldn’t have cared, but for some reason she did. “You were married?”
“Thirteen months,” he said. “Lucky number.”
“When was this?”
“About a year after you and I split. But I don’t know what I was thinking. I knew it was a mistake before it even happened.”
“Why?”
His gaze locked on hers, those blue eyes enough to make any woman’s legs tremble. Even one who hated his guts.
“Because she wasn’t you,” he said.
HE DIDN’T KNOW WHY he’d said it.
The words came out impulsively, a surprise even to him. He could just as easily have told her that he and his ex simply hadn’t been in love. But he didn’t often think about his marriage, and until this moment he’d never realized that Callie was the reason it had been doomed from the start.
Because she wasn’t you.
The minute he said it he was plagued by regret, inwardly cursing himself for being so impulsive. He knew how Callie felt about him and she wasn’t likely to be receptive to such a statement.
It was no real shock when she sat up slightly, looking as if he’d slapped her across the face.
“What did you just say?”
“Forget it,” he told her. “That just slipped out. Don’t pay any attention to—”
“You say something like that and you think I’m suddenly going to fall all over you? �Oh, Harlan, it’s so good to see you after all these years. Oh, Harlan, I never should’ve—’”
“Stop,” he said. “This isn’t funny.”
Callie paused, studying him soberly. “What you did hurt me, Harlan.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Didn’t you? These past ten years may have gone by fast, but they don’t change the fact that you’re the reason Treacher is dead.”
So there it was. The thing that had been simmering between them ever since he’d walked into that conference room. They’d both known it was there, but neither of them had been willing to say it out loud. Until now.
She still blamed him for the accident.
He and Treacher and Callie had been inseparable in college. The Three Amigos, everyone called them—a study group that had morphed into a solid, unwavering friendship. And for Harlan and Callie, it became something much deeper.
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