Branded by the Sheriff Read online

  He could tell from the resolve in her eyes that he wasn’t going to change her mind. Not that he thought he could anyway. At least he’d gotten his point across that there was still a lot of water under the bridge that his brother and she had built ten years ago in that motel.

  But there was another point he had to make. “Even with security measures, it might not be safe for you or your daughter. The man who killed your mother and sister is still out there.”

  Oh, she was about to disagree. He could almost hear the argument they were about to have. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. A little air clearing. Except the old stench was so thick between them that it’d take more than an argument to clear it.

  She opened her mouth. At the exact moment that Beck caught movement out of the corner of his eye.

  Outside the window.

  Front yard.

  Going on gut instinct, Beck dove at Faith and tackled her onto the bed. He lifted his head and saw the shadowy figure. And worse, it looked as if their visitor had a gun pointed right at Faith and him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Faith managed a muffled gasp, but she couldn’t ask Beck what the heck was going on. The tackle onto the bed knocked the breath from her.

  She fought for air and failed. Beck had her pinned down. He was literally lying on her back, and his solid weight pushed her chest right into the hard mattress.

  “Someone’s out there,” Beck warned. “I think he had a gun.”

  Just like that, she stopped struggling and considered who might be out there. None of the scenarios that came to mind were good. It was too late and too cold for a neighbor to drop by. Besides, she didn’t have any nearby neighbors, especially anyone who’d want to pay her a friendly visit. Plus, there was Beck’s reaction. He obviously thought this might turn dangerous.

  She didn’t have to wait long for that to be confirmed.

  A sound blasted through the room. Shattering glass. A split-second later, something thudded onto the floor.

  “A rock,” Beck let her know.

  A rock. Not exactly lethal in itself, but the person who’d thrown it could be a threat. And he might have a weapon.

  Who had done this?

  Better yet, why was Beckett Tanner sheltering her? He had put himself in between her and potential danger, and once she could breathe, Faith figured that maneuver would make more sense than it did now.

  Because there was no chance he’d put himself in real harm’s way to protect her.

  “Get under the bed,” Beck ordered. “And stay there.”

  He rolled off her, still keeping his body between her and the window. Starved for air, Faith dragged in an urgent breath and scrambled to the back side of the mattress so she could drop to the floor. She crawled beneath the bed amid dust bunnies and a few dead roaches.

  Staying here tonight, alone, had obviously not been a good idea.

  Worse, Faith didn’t know why she’d decided at the last minute to stay. Her plan had been to check in to the hotel, to wait for the renovations to be complete and for the new furniture to arrive. But after stepping inside, she thought it was best to exorcise a few demons before trying to make the place “normal.” So she’d sent the cab driver on his way, made a fire to warm up the place and got ready for bed.

  Now someone had hurled a rock through her window.

  There was another crashing sound. Another spray of glass. Another thud. Her stomach tightened into an acidy knot.

  Beck got off the bed as well. Dropping onto the floor and staying low, he scurried to what was left of the window and peeked out.

  “Can you see who’s out there?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer her, but he did take a sliver-thin cell phone from his jeans pocket and called for backup. For some reason that made Faith’s heart pound even harder. If this was a situation that Beck Tanner believed he couldn’t handle alone, then it was bad.

  She thought of Aubrey and was glad her little girl wasn’t here to witness this act of vandalism, or whatever it was. Faith also thought of their future, how this would affect it. If it would affect it, she corrected. And then she thought of her brother. Was he the one out there in the darkness tossing those rocks? It was a possibility—a remote one—but Beck wouldn’t believe it to be so remote.

  Her brother, Darin, was Beck’s number one murder suspect. She’d read every report she could get her hands on and every newspaper article written about the murders.

  She didn’t suspect Darin, though. She figured her sister’s ex, Nolan Wheeler, was behind those killings. Nolan had a multipage arrest record, and her sister had even taken out a temporary restraining order against him.

  For all the good it’d done.

  Even with that restraining order, her sister, Sherry, had been murdered near her apartment on the outskirts of Austin. Their mother’s death had happened twenty-four hours later in the back parking lot of the seedy liquor store where she worked in a nearby town. The murder had occurred after business hours, within minutes of her mother locking up the shop and going to her car. And even though Faith wasn’t close to either of them and hadn’t been for years, she’d mourned their loss and the brutal way their lives had ended.

  Still staying low, Beck leaned over and studied one of the rocks. It was smooth, about the size and color of a baked potato, and Faith could see that it had something written on it.

  “What does it say?” she asked when Beck didn’t read it aloud.

  His hesitation seemed to last for hours. “It says, ‘Leave or I’ll have to kill you, too.’”

  Mercy. So it was a threat. Someone didn’t want her moving back to town. She watched Beck pick up the second rock.

  Beck cursed under his breath. “It’s from your brother.”

  Faith shook her head. “How do you know?”

  “Because it says, ‘I love you, but I can’t stop myself from killing you. Get out,’” Beck grumbled. “I don’t know how many people you know who both love you and want you dead. Darin certainly fits the bill. Of course, maybe he just wrote the message and had Wheeler toss it in here for him.”

  She swallowed hard, and the lump in her throat caused her to ache. God. This couldn’t be happening.

  Faith forced herself to think this through. Instead of Nolan being Darin’s accomplice, Nolan himself could be doing this to set up her brother. Still, that didn’t make it less of a threat.

  “Listen for anyone coming in through the back door,” Beck instructed.

  There went her breath again. If Beck had been able to break in, then a determined killer or vandal would have no trouble doing the same.

  Because she had to do something other than cower and wait for the worst, Faith crawled to the end of the bed where she’d placed her suitcase. After a few run-ins with Nolan Wheeler, she’d bought a handgun. But she didn’t have it with her. However, she did have pepper spray.

  She retrieved the slender can from her suitcase and inched out a little so she could see what was going on. Beck was still crouched at the window, and he had his weapon ready and aimed into the darkness.

  With that part of the house covered, she shifted her attention to the bedroom door. From her angle, she could see the kitchen, and if the rock thrower took advantage of that broken lock, he’d have to come through the kitchen to get to them. Thankfully, the moonlight piercing through the back windows allowed her to see that the room was empty.

  “You don’t listen very well,” Beck snarled. “I told you to stay put.”

  She ignored his bark. Faith wouldn’t make herself an open target, but she wanted to be in a position to defend herself.

  “Do you see anyone out there?” she barked back.

  She clamped her teeth over her bottom lip to stop the trembling. Not from fear. She was more angry than afraid. But with the gaping holes in the window, the winter wind was pushing its way through the room, and she was cold.

  “No. But if I were a betting man, I’d say your brother’s come back to eliminate his one and only r
emaining sibling—you.”

  “Maybe the person outside is after you?”

  He glanced back at her. So brief. A split-second look. Yet, he conveyed a lot of hard skepticism with that glimpse.

  “You’re the sheriff,” she reminded him. “You must have made enemies. Besides, my mother and sister have been dead for over two months. If that’s Darin or their real killer out there, why would he wait this long to come after me? It’s common knowledge that I was living in Oklahoma City and practicing law there for the past few years. Why not just come after me there?”

  “A killer doesn’t always make sense.”

  True. But there were usually patterns. Her mother and sister’s killer had attacked them when they were alone. He hadn’t been bold or stupid enough to try to shoot them with a police officer nearby. Of course, maybe the killer didn’t realize that the car out front belonged to Beck, since it was his personal vehicle and not a cruiser. Therefore he wouldn’t have known that Beck was there. She certainly hadn’t been aware of it when she had been in that shower. Talk about the ultimate shock when she’d seen him standing there.

  Her, stark naked.

  Him, combing those smoky blue eyes all over her body.

  “Dreamy eyes,” the girls in school had called him. Dreamy eyes to go with a dreamy body, that toast-brown hair and quarterback’s build.

  Faith hadn’t been immune to Beck’s sizzling hot looks, either. She’d looked. But the looking stopped after the night he’d given her a Breathalyzer test at the motel.

  A lot of things had stopped that night.

  And there was no going back to that place. Even if those dreamy looks still made her feel all warm and willing.

  “I hope you’re having second and third thoughts about bringing your daughter here,” Beck commented. He still had his attention fastened to the front of the house.

  She was. But what was the alternative? If this was Darin or her sister’s slimy ex, then where could she take Aubrey so she’d be safe?

  Nowhere.

  That was a sobering and frightening thought.

  But Beck was right about one thing. She needed to rethink this. Not the job. She wasn’t going to run away from the job. However, she could do something about making this a safe place for Aubrey. And the first thing she’d do was to catch the person who’d thrown those rocks through her window.

  She could start by having the handwriting analyzed. Footprints, too. Heck, she wanted to question the taxi driver to see if he’d told anyone that he’d dropped her off at the house. Someone had certainly learned quickly enough that she was there.

  “I think the guy’s gotten away by now,” Faith let Beck know.

  He didn’t answer because his phone rang. Beck glanced at the screen and answered with a terse, “Where are you right now?” He paused, no doubt waiting for the answer. “Someone in front of the house threw rocks through the window. Check the area and let me know what you find.”

  Good. It was backup. If Nolan Wheeler or whoever was still out there, then maybe he’d be caught. Maybe this would all be over within the next few minutes. Then she could deal with this adrenaline roaring through her veins and get on with her life.

  Faith waited there with her fingers clutched so tightly around the pepper spray that her hand began to cramp. The minutes crawled by, and they were punctuated by silence and the occasional surly glance from Beck.

  He still hated her.

  She could see it in his face. He still blamed her for that night with his brother. Part of her wanted to shout the truth of what’d happened, but he wouldn’t believe her. Her own mother hadn’t. And over the years she’d convinced herself that it didn’t matter. That incident had given her a chip on her shoulder, and she’d used that chip and her anger to succeed. Coming back here, getting the job as the assistant district attorney, that was her proof that she’d risen above the albatross of her family’s DNA.

  “It’s me,” someone called out, causing her heart to race again.

  But Beck obviously wasn’t alarmed. He got to his feet and watched the man approach the window.

  “I see some tracks,” the man announced. “But if anybody’s still out here, then he’s freezing his butt off and probably hiding in the bushes across the road.”

  The man poked his face against the hole in the window, and she got a good look at him. It was Corey Winston. He’d been a year behind her in high school and somewhat of a smart mouth. These days, he was Beck’s deputy. She’d learned that during her job interview with the district attorney.

  Corey’s insolent gaze met hers. “Faith Matthews.” He used a similar tone to the one Beck had used when he first saw her. “What are you doing back in LaMesa Springs?”

  “She’s going to be the new assistant district attorney,” Beck provided.

  That earned her a raised eyebrow from Corey. “Now I’ve heard everything. You, the ADA? Well, you’re not off to a good start. You breeze into town, your first night back, and you’re already stirring up trouble, huh?”

  The huh was probably added to make it sound a little less insulting. But it only riled her more. She’d let jerks like Corey, and Beck, run her out of town ten years earlier, but they wouldn’t succeed this time.

  She would continue full speed ahead, and if that included arresting her own brother, she’d do it and carry out her lawful duties. Of course, because of a personal conflict, the DA himself would have to prosecute the case, but she would fully cooperate. It helped that she had been estranged from her mother and sister. That wouldn’t help with Darin. It would hurt. But duty had to come first here.

  Beck reholstered his gun and glanced around at the glass on the floor. “Secure the scene,” he told Corey. “Cast at least one of the footprints, and I’ll send it to the lab in Austin. We might get lucky.”

  “You think it’s worth it?” Corey challenged. But his defiance went down a notch when Beck stared at him. “It just seems like a lot of trouble to go through considering this was probably done by those Kendrick kids. You know those boys have too much time on their hands and nobody at home to see what they’re up to.”

  “There’s a killer on the loose,” Beck reminded him.

  That reminder, however, didn’t stop Corey from scowling at Faith before he turned from the window and got to work. He grumbled something indistinguishable under his breath.

  Beck looked at her then. He wasn’t exactly sporting a scowl like Corey, but it was close. “I need you to come with me to my office so I can take a statement.”

  It was standard operating procedure. Something that needed to be done, just in case it had been the killer outside that window. Besides, she didn’t want to be alone in the house. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. She would truly have to rethink making this place a home for Aubrey.

  Faith grabbed her purse and got ready to go.

  “I don’t believe it was the Kendrick kids who threw those rocks,” Beck said to her.

  That stopped her in her tracks. “You think it was Darin?” she challenged.

  “If not Darin, then let’s play around with your assumption, that your mom and sister’s killer was Sherry’s ex, Nolan Wheeler.” He hitched his thumb toward the broken glass. “If Nolan was outside that window tonight, he could want to do you harm.”

  She shook her head. “Stating the obvious here, but if that’s true, why wait until now?”

  “Because you were here, alone. Or so he thought. You were an easy target.”

  Faith zoomed in on the obvious flaw in his theory. “And his motive for wanting me dead?”

  “Maybe Nolan thinks you’ll use your new job to come after him for the two murders. He might even think that’s why you’ve come back.”

  She opened her mouth to deny it, but she couldn’t. In fact, that’s exactly the way Nolan would think.

  Other than in confidence to her boss, Faith hadn’t announced to anyone in Oklahoma that she had accepted the job in LaMesa Springs.

  Not until this morning.
/>   This morning, she’d also called LaMesa Springs’ DA to tell him she would be arriving. She had arranged for renovations and a security system for the house. She’d made lots and lots of calls, and anyone could have found out her plans.

  Anyone, including Nolan.

  “Where’s your daughter right now?” Beck asked. His tone alone would have alarmed her, but there was more than a sense of urgency in his expression.

  “Aubrey’s still in Oklahoma with her nanny. Why?”

  “Because I was just trying to put myself in Nolan’s place. If he came here to scare you off and it didn’t work, then what will he do next?” His stare was a warning. “If he’s got an accomplice or if it was his accomplice who just tossed those rocks, that means one of them could be here in LaMesa Springs and the other could be in Oklahoma.”

  Her heart dropped to her knees.

  Beck took a step toward her. “Either Darin or Nolan might try to use your daughter to get to you.”

  “Oh, God.”

  Faith grabbed her phone from her purse and prayed that it wasn’t too late to keep Aubrey safe.

  CHAPTER THREE

  By Beck’s calculation, Faith had been pacing in his office for three hours while she waited for her daughter to arrive. Even when she’d been on the phone, which was a lot, or while giving her official statement to him, she still paced. And while she did that, she continued to check her delicate silver watch.

  The minutes were probably dragging by for her.

  They certainly were for him.

  Beck tried to keep himself occupied with routine paperwork and notes on his current cases. Normally he liked keeping busy. But this wasn’t a normal night.

  Faith Matthews was in his office, mere yards away, and sooner or later he was going to have to break the news to his family that she’d returned. Since it was going on midnight, Beck had opted for later, but he knew, with the gossip mill always in full swing, that if he didn’t tell his father, brother and sister-in-law by morning—early morning, at that—then they’d find out from some other source.