Maverick Sheriff Read online

  He was afraid she’d say that, but since he had already walked out on this limb, Cooper kept right on walking. He led her farther down the hall and into a room with a set of stairs.

  “There’s an observation deck,” he explained. “They bring in medical students sometimes.”

  And sometimes he’d used it to check on the status of a perp or a victim who’d been injured. Cooper had stood right in that very spot to watch Doc Howland dig a bullet from his brother’s chest. That had turned out all right.

  Maybe the same would happen today.

  Maybe.

  Jessa hurried to the glass, her breath instantly fogging it. Her son was indeed on the table, though Cooper couldn’t see much of him because of the green sea of scrubs surrounding him. Cooper’s blood was there, already flowing into the boy.

  Man, he looked so little.

  Hardly more than a baby.

  “The surgeon seems to be finishing up,” Cooper told her. “Everything looks good.”

  Well, the machines were all beeping and doing the right thing. That had to be good. Ditto for the fact that no one appeared to be in panic mode. Except for Jessa, that was. Even Dr. Howland was standing near the surgeon, just calmly watching.

  “I can never thank you enough,” she repeated.

  And just like that, she came at him, and despite how he felt about the woman, it was the terrified mother whom he put his arms around.

  “You don’t have to thank me.” Cooper tried to ease her away, but she stayed put. Pressed against him.

  This wasn’t a man-woman thing, but maybe because he was so raw from the memories, he got another punch of feelings that he didn’t want to have. Jessa was attractive, and his stupid body didn’t let him overlook that. When Cooper felt that too-familiar curl of heat go through him, he untangled himself from her and stepped back.

  Way back.

  Getting involved with a convicted felon would cause him less trouble than getting involved with this woman.

  Jessa didn’t seem shocked that he’d pushed her away. Only a little embarrassed that she’d sought out comfort from him in the first place. She snapped back to the window, her gaze fastened to her son.

  “What are the odds that you’d be here right when Liam needed you?” he heard her say.

  A different kind of uneasy feeling went through him.

  Yeah, what were the odds?

  Cooper tried to stop any crazy thoughts from flying through his head, but he failed at that, too. He was failing at a lot of things today.

  “How old did you say your son is?” he asked.

  “Two.”

  “And his birthday?”

  The sharp look Jessa gave him made him wish he’d used a little more tact in asking that question. A stupid question. Because her son had nothing to do with Cameron.

  “March 3,” she finally said.

  Cameron had been born on February 27 of that same year. So it was close, but not the same.

  Not that it would have mattered if it had been.

  His son had washed away in the flood. His son, with the same rare type of blood as Cooper had.

  And Jessa’s adopted son.

  Less than six percent of world’s population had that blood type, and no one else in the county that he knew about. Even his brothers had dodged the rare-blood-type bullet that Cooper had managed to get from a bad combination of Jewell’s B-negative and his father’s A-positive blood.

  Cameron, however, had inherited it.

  That uneasy feeling got worse.

  Cooper couldn’t stop himself. He moved to the glass, stepping all the way to the side until he could get a look at the little boy.

  There was an oxygen mask on his face, but it didn’t conceal his forehead. Or his hair.

  Oh, mercy.

  The uneasy feeling slammed into him like a Mack truck.

  That was the shape of Cooper’s forehead. The color of his hair.

  And even though it didn’t make sense, Cooper had to wonder if he might be looking at the son he’d thought he had lost.

  God, was that Cameron?

  Chapter Two

  Jessa didn’t know what had caused that bleached-out look to appear on Cooper’s face, and she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer. Something about this just wasn’t right.

  But then, how could it be?

  Cooper had saved her son, and yet she and the sheriff were basically enemies. On opposite sides of the law, and it didn’t help that he was the top lawman who ran this town. Heck, one of his brothers was the deputy and another was a Texas Ranger, making this a situation of her against an entire family of testosterone-heavy, badge-wearing cowboys.

  Even now, with her mind a tornado of emotions, that bothered her.

  Cooper and his brothers could be manipulating evidence, and no telling what else to shelter their father from the fallout of a crime their mother had committed. Jessa was actually thankful for that aggravating reminder.

  Because it was better than thinking about what was going on below them in surgery.

  It broke her heart for her baby to be here on that operating table. Maybe in pain. And with no certain outcome. Yes, the doctor had said he’d be okay. Cooper had said it, too. But Jessa wouldn’t believe it until she could hold Liam in her arms again.

  The tears came again, though she tried her best to blink them back. They tumbled down her cheeks, and this time Cooper didn’t move to pull her into his arms.

  Good thing, too.

  Everything inside her was tangled into one giant, raw nerve, and she didn’t need to be leaning on this man.

  “Will you call his birth parents and let them know what happened?” Cooper asked.

  “No.” It took her a moment to pull herself out of her thoughts and fears to answer him. “It was a private adoption. The records are sealed.” She paused, noted his weird expression again. “Why do you ask?”

  He lifted his shoulder in what was probably meant to be a casual shrug, but that wasn’t a casual look in his eyes. “I just wondered what would happen if he needed more blood. They won’t let me donate any more for a while.”

  Sweet heaven. She hadn’t considered that. Cooper and she were at odds, but his blood had saved her baby’s life. And she might have to ask him to do it again.

  But what if he couldn’t?

  Since she suddenly felt as if her legs might give way, Jessa groped behind her to locate one of the metal chairs and dropped down into it. “Liam has to be all right. He’s all I have.”

  “Yeah.” And with just that one word, she heard the old scars that had created this dark and brooding lawman. “There are other donors out there with my blood type. None in this area, but Dr. Howland’s probably already put out the call to make sure he has enough blood on hand.”

  That helped. Well, as much as a basic reassurance could help. The only thing that would truly get her through this was having her baby well.

  “Keep talking,” Cooper insisted. “They’re doing all they can do for your boy, and for his sake, you can’t fall apart.”

  He was right, but Jessa thought she would explode if the surgery didn’t end now. God, how did other mothers handle this? It seemed impossible.

  Cooper buttoned the cuff on his dark blue shirt and eased down next to her.

  Not directly next to her, though.

  He put his cocoa-brown Stetson in the seat between them. Only then did she realize she’d never seen him without the hat that was nearly the same color as his hair. The Stetson had seemed like part of his cowboy-cop uniform—like his boots, badge and jeans.

  Yet another thing that was off.

  He had on the other uniform items, but without that Stetson on his head, he no longer looked like the formidable lawman she’d been battling for weeks.

  As if to anchor his hands in place, he hooked his thumbs over the belt holster that held both his gun and his badge. What he didn’t do was take his attention off her son.

  “Why’d you go the adoption route?” he
asked.

  Jessa kept her attention plastered to Liam, too, and tried to tamp down her breathing. “You mean there’s something you don’t know about me? I figured you had run a thorough background check by now.”

  “Oh, I have. I know you’re thirty-three. Divorced. And you were an assistant D.A. one county over before you moved here. Nothing in that background check said why you adopted.”

  No. It wouldn’t. Résumés and records didn’t reveal a need so deep that she’d ached for it. “Because I wanted a child, and I figured there were plenty of children out there who needed a parent.”

  Besides, she’d given up on finding Mr. Right to help her make a baby and a family. There’d been too many Mr. Wrongs in her life for her to keep believing that particular fantasy, and she hadn’t wanted an unfulfilled fantasy to get in the way of what she wanted most—motherhood.

  “It’s funny,” she added. “But just this week I requested information about Liam’s birth parents. You know, family history stuff in case something like this happened. If I’d gotten the info sooner, I would have known about his rare blood type. I could have told the doctor straight off and it wouldn’t have wasted precious minutes.”

  “They still would have had to test him,” Cooper assured her. “They can’t go pumping blood into somebody without confirming the type.”

  True. But Jessa couldn’t help but think that she could have done more. Every second had been critical, and she prayed those lost seconds hadn’t hurt her son’s chances of making a full recovery.

  “How’d this car accident happen?” Cooper asked. “You said someone sideswiped you?”

  Jessa certainly hadn’t forgotten about the accident that had brought them here. In fact, she would press Cooper for a thorough investigation later, but it was hard to remember the details with all these emotions cutting through her. Still, she tried. Best to tell him before she forgot anything.

  “I was on Silver Mine Road, less than a mile from my house, and this truck came out of nowhere. The driver must have been on one of those old ranch trails because he pulled out right behind me. He was going so fast and tried to pass. That’s when he hit my car, and I went into the ditch. He stopped for just a second or two, but then this other car came, and the driver of the truck sped off.”

  Thankfully, the other driver, Herman Hendricks, a rancher who owned the property not far from hers, had called the ambulance right away.

  Cooper made a sound to indicate he was thinking about what she’d said. “And you didn’t get the truck’s license plate number?”

  She shook her head. “I barely had time to think. The air bags deployed, even the one in the back where I had Liam strapped into his car seat.” The guilt tore through her, and she had to choke back a sob.

  “This is my fault,” she managed to say. “Liam’s favorite toy is this hard plastic horse, and I let him hold it while he was in the car seat. The air bag must have hit the horse, and that’s what ruptured his spleen.”

  Cooper huffed. “Even if that’s what happened, you had no way of knowing that some fool would force you off the road.” He paused. “Did you recognize the truck?”

  Another head shake. “And I wasn’t really looking for side traffic. I mean, there’s usually no one else on that part of the road at that time of morning. It was a miracle Mr. Hendricks was there.”

  She’d allowed herself to be lulled into a false sense of safety. And she’d desperately wanted safe. That was why she’d moved her son to the small rural house three miles outside of town.

  Cooper looked ready to launch into more questions, but his phone buzzed. He stretched out his jeans-clad leg so he could take it from his pocket. They were close, practically shoulder to shoulder despite the seat with his Stetson between them, so she could see the name on the screen.

  Colt McKinnon.

  His brother, the deputy.

  Cooper didn’t put the call on speaker, but it was impossible for her to miss what Colt said in the otherwise soundless room. “Jewell and the others are coming in the day after tomorrow. They’re not going straight to the county sheriff’s office, though. They’re coming out to the ranch.”

  His mouth tightened. “Why the hell are they going there?”

  Colt didn’t answer right away. “Dad asked her that, and Jewell reminded him that she owns the ranch. Not him. Not us.”

  Jessa hadn’t thought it possible, but Cooper’s mouth tightened even more.

  The ranch’s ownership wasn’t a surprise. She knew that Jewell owned it outright, an inheritance from her own grandfather before she’d married Roy McKinnon. But Jessa was surprised the woman would play the ownership card when she had to know she wouldn’t be welcome there.

  “Jewell wants the guesthouse fixed up for her stepson and the twins,” Colt added. “She says they’ll be staying there while she’s awaiting trial.”

  Jessa silently groaned. Oh, mercy. Cooper’s mother was really pushing it hard. Even though her daughters were Cooper’s full-blooded siblings, Jessa had heard that he hadn’t seen them since they were kids. Thankfully, Jewell wouldn’t be bringing her second husband, since he’d passed away years ago. Still, it’d be a mess since it would no doubt be months before the trial even started.

  “What about the arresting officer?” Cooper asked. “Will he come out to the ranch for her?”

  Cooper said arresting officer as if it were some kind of bug to be squashed. She hadn’t expected a different reaction. Nor had Jessa had a choice in requesting someone from outside of Sweetwater Springs. She couldn’t expect Jewell’s own sons to make the arrest. The FBI was out, too, since Jewell’s stepson was an agent. Ditto for the Rangers, because Cooper’s brother was one.

  That left the county sheriff, but that was a conflict of interest, too, since the county sheriff’s father was the very man Jewell was accused of murdering. That was why Jessa had gotten permission from the state attorney general for a county deputy to do the deed. Hardly in the county deputy’s job description to make an arrest for a murder in a town that had an entire law enforcement team, but it seemed the best alternative considering the circumstances.

  “Are you out at the accident scene where the A.D.A. was run off the road?” Cooper asked.

  “Yeah. No skid marks, but I can see the point of impact on her car where she was sideswiped.”

  “Look for tracks on the ranch trail several yards before the impact. Jessa says that’s where the truck came out.”

  Cooper had used her given name, but he hadn’t said it with any kind of affection. In fact, it’d seemed to stick in his throat, but it would have seemed petty to call her Ms. Wells after she’d launched herself into his arms earlier.

  Something Jessa already regretted.

  No sense breaking down the kinds of barriers that needed to stay in place.

  “How’s her boy?” she heard Colt ask.

  Since Cooper’s gaze was still on her son, he had a quick answer. “Surgery’s finishing up now.”

  “You okay?” Colt said after pausing.

  “Fine.” Cooper jabbed the end-call button so hard she was surprised his phone didn’t shatter.

  Like her.

  The panic was boiling through her again, and since it did indeed seem as if the surgery was wrapping up, she headed for the stairs. Cooper followed. Well, he ambled along behind her anyway, and caught up with her when she stopped outside the operating room doors.

  She wanted to burst into the room, to beg for any information anyone could give her, but being closer to Liam didn’t lessen the panic. It only made it worse.

  Jessa started pacing.

  “You should go,” she said to Cooper. Though she didn’t want him to leave. Yes, it was crazy, but he might be the only person nearby who actually knew what she was going through.

  “I got a few minutes.” Though he did check the time on his phone. “I need to do some paperwork, but it can wait.”

  There wasn’t as much venom in his voice as she’d expected. Especially c
onsidering the massive amount of venom that’d been between them since she’d requested the county sheriff reopen this investigation.

  “You think I’m on a witch hunt to have your mother arrested,” she said. She didn’t want to have this discussion with him, but after what he’d done for her and Liam, Jessa wanted to give him an explanation.

  Well, as much as she could give, anyway.

  Cooper already knew about the forensics. He’d no doubt studied every last detail. Twenty-three years ago, there’d been enough of Whitt Braddock’s blood found in a hunting cabin on the grounds of his massive ranch for him to be declared dead, despite the fact his body was missing.

  Dragged from the cabin, from the looks of it.

  Rumors were rampant that Whitt and Jewell had been having an affair, and that she’d killed him in the heat of passion when he’d tried to break things off with her and go back to his wife. The rumors had stayed just that.

  Rumors.

  Until Jessa had arrived in town as the new A.D.A., and she’d requested items taken from the old crime scene be tested. Jewell’s DNA had been discovered on both the bed sheets and the knife that’d been found near the scene.

  “I’m just sorry your mother’s the target of my investigation,” she added.

  Cooper spared her a hard glance. “It’s not my mother I’m worried about. She can take care of herself.”

  There it was. The venom. It wasn’t aimed at her but rather his mother. Of course, Jewell had abandoned her husband and sons when she’d fled town under a cloud of suspicion. Cooper, his brothers and his father had to resent that, and it showed in his voice.

  The door behind her finally opened, and Jessa turned so fast that her neck popped. It was Dr. Howland, and even though she’d never been happier to see someone, she couldn’t read his expression.

  He tugged the surgical mask off his mouth and nodded. “Liam’s going to be okay.”

  The relief was instant, flooding through her and turning her legs to mush. If Cooper hadn’t taken hold of her arm, she probably would have just crumpled to the floor.

  Maybe sensing that Cooper wasn’t exactly comfortable with rescue detail, the doctor took over. “Come on. They’re moving him to the recovery room soon, and you can see him.”