Travis

I made it to town in twenty-five minutes. As my car roared to a halt next to the sheriff’s cruiser in front of Cross’s, DC just shook his head.

“Keep driving like that,” he said in a stern tone as I climbed out of my car, “I’m going to be forced to deputize you, just so you can write your own citations. You two are a pair.”

I shot Christine a questioning look. “What did you do?”

Christine shrugged, slid her sunglasses off her face, and hooked them into the front of her off-the-shoulder top. “I jaywalked at rush hour.”

My gaze lingered on the front of her shirt, where she had parked the glasses. Then I looked at her face. Her eyes held no shadows, only a flash of temper. The tightness in my throat eased. My heart rate returned to normal, well as normal a pace it ever had in her presence.

Little things edged into my awareness. How the breeze lifted the wisps of hair escaping from her loose ponytail. How the turquoise of her shirt contrasted with her caramel skin. How the shirtsleeves rode off her shoulders, exposing a path my lips remembered following all too well, while the rest of the fabric embraced the curves, I had yet to explore to my satisfaction. And… there went the heart rate again. Six inches or so of caramel delight above the waist of her low-rise jeans and below the hem of her shirt.

A delicate gold lizard dangled from her belly button. I swallowed, but my throat was dry. Echoes of feelings from the night before stirred. She was the perfect blend of sexy and beautiful, and just being near her was a fantasy come true. But we had a lot to talk about, and I didn’t know when or where to begin.

DC’s nudge broke into my contemplation. His mouth was moving, and presumably sounds were coming out, but nothing I could make sense of.

I blinked. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

With an exasperated sigh, DC rolled his eyes. “I’m going to have to look at Christine’s truck, get the knife out of the tire. But I’m guessing this is all connected.” He gestured to a cluster of evergreen bushes. “There’s a pile of cigarette butts on the ground over there, looks like almost a whole pack. Someone sitting just right wouldn’t be spotted from the road, but sure would have a good view of Valentine’s.”

“Why would anyone be watching my bar?”

Over Christine’s head, I met DC’s troubled eyes, reading in them what the sheriff was unwilling to say out loud. The violence was definitely escalating. And it was bleeding over to stain Christine’s life.

“What happened, Christine?” I asked.

“Oh, someone decided to leave a couple of calling cards in the form of various bodily fluids on my truck, along with a love note carved into the door. And then they murdered one of my tires with a hunting knife.” Her voice was drenched with sarcasm. She angled her head and met my gaze. “How’s your day been so far?”

She was being flippant but she kept toying with the strap on her purse. She was definitely beginning to take things seriously. Good.

“We had an incident with a broken lock and dumped feed.” I addressed my next words to the sheriff. “Still think it’s not personal, DC?”

“Getting harder to discount that theory,” DC admitted. He motioned for us to follow him. “Heading to your place now, Christine.”

On the walk to Valentine’s, DC made it a point to demonstrate the proper use of the crosswalk.

“Whoo-ie!” DC muttered, about the time a distinctive sour stench greeted my nose. Screwing his face into an expression of disgust, he pointed at the sidewalk in front of the truck. “You two stay right there. I don’t want you messing up the crime scene.”

While I stared at the messed-up truck, I balled my hands into fists I knew I would plow right into Bull’s ugly face, if my old adversary made the mistake of crossing paths with me any time soon. Relieving himself on Christine’s truck might have been the drunken act of settling the score with her for rejecting him Sunday night. Or it could have been a way of marking territory. Either way, it was a threat we couldn’t ignore. The single word labeling Christine’s character was gouged into the truck’s door, and it only added fuel to my slow burn. But it wasn’t about her; it was about me. The same way the crap at the ranch ultimately came back to me.

DC had ordered me to remain on the sidewalk, but he hadn’t said anything about getting a better look at things from there. I took a couple of side steps and peered at the damaged tire.

The sixteen-inch knife jammed in the sidewall sent my blood from fiery to icy in a heartbeat. Fury turned into fear for Christine’s life.

Donning a latex glove, DC pulled the knife from the tire and popped it into an evidence bag. The last of the air in the tire escaped with a viperous hiss.

The sheriff crouched and examined the puncture. “Looks like the same marks as the ones on Allan’s tires.” He touched the double-serrated blade near the hilt with the tip of one finger. “I’ll send this to the state folks. There’re some numbers etched here. They might be traceable to the owner. Maybe we hit it lucky when this guy left the knife behind.”

Was it too much to hope that two people in the county might have the same knife? Yeah, because that was so likely. “Shit,” I whispered. Then I shook my head. “Nope, not so much. You’ll find those numbers will be my army serial number.”

Christine’s startled gaze shot over to me and she studied me, her features unreadable. Great. She was probably trying to determine if I was a sore loser who’d defiled her truck in retaliation for the brakes she’d put on our romantic interlude. Sighing, I grimaced at DC and rattled off the digits from memory.

“Damn moth—” Red stained DC’s face as he bit off the rest of his streak and slid a glance at Christine. “Sorry.” He turned and squared off with me. “You want to explain what your damn knife is doing in Miss Christine’s tire here? Or do we need to go to the office for a discussion?”

I held my old friend in a long glare, but DC didn’t budge, just stood there balancing the damning knife across my palm, one eyebrow cocked upward in query. So that was the way it would go down?

The breeze shifted and the fetid odor intensified. Trying not to gag, I drew a shallow breath and broke the stare. “The last time I saw it was at the Hawk MC. I used it in the tack room the other night when I was doing some leather work.” Picturing Bull’s face, I balled my right hand into a fist, grinding it against the palm of my left. “That son of a bitch Bull probably took it when he ruined our feed.”

DC nodded at the fist. “Calm down, McGee. We’ll sort this all out. But the fact is, we got no actual suspect here. Not yet.”

My blood pounded in my ears as the anger I’d kept in check exploded. “What the hell! DC, you know this was all Bull. What else do you need?”

Christine gasped and stepped forward but then clamped her mouth shut. “Catching someone in the act would make a nice tidy case.” DC scratched his chin. “But for starters, conclusive evidence would prove helpful. Maybe we’ll find fingerprints on the knife. But officially, Trav, I can only consider him a person of interest based on the history between your families, the incident here last Friday, and what happened last night. And since the knife turns out to be yours, that puts you and yours on the short list as much as Bull, maybe a tad higher.” DC’s tense jaw belied his calm voice.

I snorted. “You think I took a leak in our grain then came here to use my knife on Christine’s truck?”

Before DC could answer, Christine spoke up in a soft voice. “Travis spent the night here, DC. Since I have a perfectly usable bathroom upstairs, I doubt he felt the need to relieve himself on my truck and slash the tire as he was leaving.”

It took me a second for her words to set in, and when they did, I stared in horror. What was she doing? Didn’t she realize the picture she was painting of herself? Not to mention placing me at the scene.

I shifted, but froze when she touched my arm and shook her head. Then, rolling her eyes, she faced DC and gestured to the truck’s hood. “And given what we were doing most of the night, I also doubt he felt the need to whack any monkeys on my truck —or whatever you guys call it these days.”

Oh, crap. My jaw dropped as the horror of her words caught up with me. Say something! But my brain was fried. No words presented themselves.

DC focused a narrow-eyed gaze on Christine, assessing her silently for a moment before he answered. “Christine, you just admitted Trav was here, and it’s his knife we found.”

Twin spots of pink decorated her cheeks, turning cherry red when she tossed her hair and the sun fell upon her face. “I just told you we had crazy monkey sex, too, so he didn’t have anything left for—”

“Yeah, I got your meaning!” DC held up a hand as though to ward Christine off. His face was even redder than hers.

“Geez!” I finally sputtered. “Christine—”

With a single defiant glare, she forced me to swallow back my words.

Breathing a little heavily, DC took a step back and continued in a tight voice. “Even if you want to file a complaint about Bull’s visit here Sunday night, suspicion’s gonna bounce off him and back onto Travis because of the crap between the two of them.” He shrugged and some of the tension drained from his stance. “At least that’s how a lawyer’ll spin it. So until we’ve got something, we’ve got nothing. I don’t like it either, but—”

“How did you know about Sunday, DC?” Without waiting for an answer, Christine whirled and flashed a glare at me, temper flaring anew in her narrowed gaze. “You went to the sheriff?” The heat chilled and her eyes never left me. “I told you… he never touched me. You can’t arrest someone because I thought he wanted to —touch me. I didn’t want him to know I was afraid of him. I didn’t want to give him any power, so I didn’t report it.” She shivered in the eighty-degree heat and from several feet away, I felt it.

I understood her anger. By going to DC, I’d stolen her sense of control over her encounter with Bull. Understood it and didn’t care. Just as her tenuous control of her horse was often an illusion, so was her control over any situation with Bull. I tightened my jaw, prepared for the fight.

“Can I change my tire now, DC?” Her tone was calm, flat actually. But I could still see anger in her rigid stance, the impatient way her fingers twitched against her leg. Her eyes still shooting sparks in my direction.

An itch developed between my shoulder blades then ran the length of my spine. Probably wants to do more than call me a jackass this time.

DC sighed and shook his head. “Ah… Christine, I’m going to have to impound your vehicle as evidence. I’ll try and get it back as quick as possible but the state police need to process the… ah…” DC cleared his throat and stared at the ground as he finished speaking in a hushed voice. “The, uh, DNA evidence.”

Christine’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, that’s rich. Someone attacks my truck, leaves it covered in nasty filth, and now I can’t even drive it? How am I supposed to get my errands done now?” She kicked at the gravel, sending a few stones flying through the air to land about ten feet away.

A strangled sound garbled past my lips, despite my best effort to hold it in, and I swiftly looked away, pulling my hand down my face, trying to wipe away the smile I couldn’t contain. I wasn’t nearly fast enough.

“What’s wrong with you?” Christine fixed me with a glare. “You think it’s funny? I’ve got a ton of errands to run and no way to get them done.”

“No,” I said a little too quickly.

Christine straightened, settling her hands on her hips. “Then why are you laughing like a jackass?”

DC’s eyes slid between Christine and me. “Plead the Fifth. Seriously.”

“Yeah, pretty sure it’s too late for that,” I murmured. “DC, go Mirandize yourself.” Christine’s blue eyes leveled on me. “I’m waiting.”

I could think of no way to make it sound good. “When you kicked the gravel, you reminded me of the way your horse kicks when he’s pissed off. Only his kicks are generally followed by snapping teeth.”

DC sighed and eased back —out of range, the jerk.

Angling her head, Christine raked me from head to toe with a harsh stare. My skin stung as though I’d been dragged through a field of nettles. Then a slow smile began to light her face, and her eyes slid to the Corvette.

I followed her gaze. “Oh, hell, no! You’re not driving my baby while you’re in this mood.”

“Fine. I get it. You don’t want to share your toys.”

Oh, well, that just made me feel selfish. I didn't want to lose the argument, but she sure as heck didn't fight fair. “You can borrow Dad’s truck. He doesn’t drive any longer.”

“Thank you.” She smiled sweetly and I knew I was in trouble. “But since Justin’s truck isn’t here, are you going to drive me out there to get it so I can come all the way back to town to run my errands?”

DC cleared his throat and handed them each a sheet of paper. “Receipts for your property. So are you two okay? Getting things worked out? Anyone gonna die in the next few minutes?” He held up a hand when Christine drew a deep breath. “Just checking.”

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I guess I’ll be driving Christine on some… errands.”

DC snickered and clapped me on the shoulder, looking me in the eye. “Friend, you should have pled the Fifth about the horse.” To us both, he said, “Do the best you can to keep this from interrupting your life. It could be just something random. I can’t think of a reason in the world why old Allan got dragged into it, if it’s not.”

I leveled a stare at DC. “He sold me a tire last week.” The sheriff gave me a hard, unreadable stare in return. Finally he nodded and looked away, and I knew I’d at least given DC something to consider.

I held out my hand to Christine. After a hesitation so brief I might have imagined it, she slipped her hand into my and we walked to my car.

“Use the crosswalk!” called the sheriff.

Lifting my hand without looking back, I refrained —just —from making it a one-finger wave, as we stayed carefully between the lines.

“Where to?” I asked, after Christine secured her seatbelt.

She slid her sunglasses back on her face and rattled off her list of errands with a sigh. “Thanks for the lift,” she muttered, apparently still miffed.

I slid an appreciative glance over her body. “I can think of a lot worse things I could be doing right now.” Like dealing with her cantankerous horse.

“Still, I know you’re busy and I really do appreciate the help,” she said a little stiffly.

Her formal tone was already grating on my last nerve. I started the car and peeled out in a spray of gravel. As we blew past the bar’s parking lot, DC tapped his badge and shook his citation pad in the air.

* * *

Christine

“I just sent out a substantial order to the Hawk MC last week.” Adam Reed scratched his head. “I can fill a partial for you, let you have about a quarter of this here order, but if I wipe myself out, I’m not going to be able to take care of other customers. I’m liable to lose business.”

I stared at Adam, wondering about the chill in his voice when he spoke. Travis’s deeply furrowed brow and grim mouth matched the storm brewing in his narrowed eyes. Arms appeared to be benignly at his sides, but his right hand was alternately clenching and relaxing. Didn’t Adam realize he was about to lose the McGee’s business? Did he care?

“How fast can you get an extra order from the supplier?” He was either oblivious or ignoring the message behind the cold attitude. Given the set to his jaw, my money was on ignoring it. Adam shrugged. “I don’t usually special order as a rule, so I don’t know how fast they can deliver.” He looked into his storeroom, avoiding Travis’s eyes. “I’m expecting a delivery end of next week.”

His eyes narrowed. “Most of your regular customers must already have made their monthly purchases.”

“Look, McGee, I don’t want any trouble here.” Adam shifted his stance backward and cast a look in my direction. “What about Cloud’s blend? I have plenty of that in stock. Maybe you’ll want to upgrade.”

Trav stared at the older man, one eyebrow raised. “Change their diet without a transition period? Sounds like I’d be asking for a stable full of sick horses.”

I couldn’t stand it any longer. For whatever reason, both Adam and Allan had apparently decided Travis was trouble walking, and they weren’t going to make things easier for him. Where was that famous small town, close-knit fellowship?

“Travis, Max Freeman sometimes uses a feed and tack in Oslow. Why don’t we take a run up there?”

Adam stood up straight. “Well, you know, I don’t want to put you out, either.” He rubbed his jaw. “I can put up about half this order and I’ll call over to Oslow myself, see if Ned can spare the rest, and have it to you by tomorrow or day next.”

Travis glanced at me, then back to Adam. He nodded, reaching into his back pocket and sliding out his wallet.

Pickens eyed the gold credit card in my hand. “So you won’t be needing store credit?”

His eyes glinted and he smirked, sliding the card across the counter. “Nope. But thanks for the offer.”

* * *

Travis

“I usually take the feed out myself when I pick up Cloud’s blend to save Grant the delivery fees,” Christine said as we crossed the parking lot.

She was almost running to keep up, so I slowed my steps to accommodate her shorter legs, though all I really wanted to do was put immediate distance between myself and Adam Reed, before I plowed a fist into the old geezer’s sorry mouth. I’d known it wouldn’t be easy, coming home. I’d known my welcome wouldn’t be warm. Apparently gossip and propaganda were still running Pine Haven. Grant had described things as having been worse for a while. It must have been damned near intolerable right after I’d left. A twinge of guilt stabbed at my heart. If I could go back… But I couldn’t.

“Well, since it won’t fit in my car, today it’s all going to be delivered instead.” I winced. She didn’t deserve my temper. I shot her a weak smile as I opened the car door for her.

“Trav…” She rested one hand on the roof of the ‘Vette. She obviously had something to say but she remained silent, just looked at me with those incredible blue eyes.

The breeze toyed with her hair, mesmerizing me when one strand wouldn’t stop teasing her face. The third time it tickled her nose, my hand got there before hers and I tucked it behind her ear.

The tip of her tongue touched her upper lip. “Do you really think all this —the stuff here, the things that happened at the bar —is about your history with Bull?”

If anything, I was less surprised that she’d asked, than by how long it had taken her to pose the question. I tapped my fingers against the top of the car door as I looked across the parking lot to the veterinarian’s office. Recalling my chilly reception there and Grant’s explanation for it, I nodded once. “Yeah, I’m afraid it might.”

She stared at me for a long moment with pleading in her eyes. I should tell her about the grudge now, give her a chance to make her own decision about whether she wanted to stick it out with me. No words formed. Darts of cramping pain shot up my arm. I released my white-knuckled grip on the door and stepped back.

She dropped into the seat and I shut the door, then rounded the car and settled behind the wheel.

“One more stop?” Christine pointed to the drug store, her expression carefully benign.

With a shrug of agreement, I put the car in gear and changed parking lots. When I turned off the engine and opened my door, she shot me a pleading look. “Let me go in alone. I’ll only take a minute.”

“I was thinking of picking up some, um, protection. In case, ah…” Heat rose at the back of my neck. Now why was trying to do the responsible thing, making me feel like I was sixteen again? Christine regarded me with an arched eyebrow. “Travis, this drug store has the biggest gossip chain outside of Sundays in front of Brother Bobby’s church. I’m aware the town knows we’re seeing each other by now, but given what I told DC, do you really want to go in and pick up condoms while I’m refilling my monthly birth control? Can you imagine the talk?” Stepping back, she folded her arms across her chest, which had the effect of directing my attention there.

My mouth went dry. How did I answer that? Why was she on birth control? And why did I even think that was anyone’s business but my own?

Christine leaned over and forced me to meet her eyes. She chuckled. “When you think, sometimes I can literally see your mind working. At the risk of over-sharing here, the pill is for medical purposes. I’m not —and haven’t been —seeing anyone in a way that requires it for actual birth control.”

I slowly nodded my head. “Okay.” Stupid! As if she needs your approval. Still unable to find my voice for a more profound statement, though, I did the next best thing. I winked, tipped my hat, and leaned against the fender of my car to wait for her. Just as she reached the door to the drug store, she tossed a frustrated look over her shoulder. My body reacted instantly.

So did my heart.