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Mentally steeling herself for what would likely amount to a verbal sparring match, Laurel took her first step toward the stupid swinging doors Grady claimed were original to the saloon. Laurel maintained that he bought it off the internet from some lame Hollywood set. Mainly because he got furious when she did.
She blew out a breath and tried to blow out her frustration with it. Yes, Grady had always rubbed her completely the wrong way, and yes, that meant sometimes she couldn’t keep her cool and sniped right back at him. But she could handle this. She had a case to investigate.
Laurel nudged the swinging saloon doors and slid through the opening, making as little disturbance as possible. The less time Grady had to prepare for her arrival, the more chance she had of getting some sensible words in before he started doing that...thing.
“I see you finally found the balls to step inside, princess.”
Laurel gritted her teeth and turned to the sound of Grady’s low, easy voice. Doing that...thing already. The thing where he said obnoxious stuff, called her princess, or worse—deputy princess—and some tiny foreign part of her did that other thing she refused to name or acknowledge.
Her eyes had to adjust from sunlight to the dim bar interior, but when they did, she almost wished they hadn’t.
He was standing on a chair, hammering a nail into the rough-hewn wood planks that made up the walls of the main area. Lining the doorway were pictures of the place over the years—a dingy black-and-white photograph of the bar in the 1800s, a bright pop of boisterous color from the time a famous singer had visited in the sixties, and photos documenting all Grady had done inside to somehow make it look less like a dive bar in a small town and more like a mix between old and new.
Much like the man himself. Laurel always had the sneaking suspicion Grady and the Carson cousins he routinely hung around with could straddle the lines of centuries quite easily. Sure, he was dressed in modern-day jeans and a simple black T-shirt that she had no doubt was sized with the express purpose of showing off the muscles of his arms and shoulders along with the lick of tattoos that spiraled out from the cuff and toward his elbow.
But he, and all the Carsons she had pulled over or served a warrant on more times than she could count on two hands and two feet, wore old battered cowboy hats like they were just dreaming of a day they could rob a stagecoach and escape to a brothel.
She wouldn’t put it past Grady to have a brothel, but for the time being the worst thing he did in Rightful Claim was sell moonshine without a license.
Something she’d reported him on. Twice.
“Gonna stand there and watch me work all day? Want to slap my wrist over some made-up infraction?”
“It’s funny you call this work, Carson. You don’t have a single patron in here.” She glared at the picture he rested on the nail he’d just pounded into the wall. It was a cross-stitched, nearly naked woman. Cross-stitched. Oh, she hated this place.
“There are no patrons because I don’t officially open until three. But there’s nothing like a Delaney coming into my place of business and criticizing my work ethic when your family has—”
“Please spare me the trip down family feud lane. I have business to discuss with you. It’s important.”
“You have business to discuss with me?” He got off the chair, just an easy step down with those long, powerful legs of his. Not that she noticed long or powerful, even when he was roaring his way down Main Street on that stupid, stupid motorcycle of his.
“I’m going to need a drink to go with this interesting turn of events,” he drawled.
“You’re going to drink before three in the afternoon on a day you’re working?”
He walked past her, way closer than he needed to, and that wolfish smile was way too bright, way too feral. How could anyone call him attractive? He was downright...downright...wild, uncivilized, lawless.
All terrible things. Or so she told herself as often as she could manage to make her brain function when he was smirking at her.
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do, princess.”
“Deputy. This is official.” She followed him toward the long, worn bar. Again, Grady claimed it was original, and it looked it. Scarred and nicked, though waxed enough that it shone. She couldn’t imagine how anyone balanced a glass of anything on the uneven wood, or why they’d want to.
“All right, deputy princess—”
She was trying very hard not to let her irritation show, but the little growl that escaped her mouth whether she wanted it to or not gave her away.
The bastard laughed.
Low, rumbly. She could feel that rumble vibrate through her limbs even though there was this ancient big slab of a bar between them. Hate, hate, hate.
“Gonna report me again?”
She schooled her features in what she hoped was a semblance of professionalism. “Not this afternoon, though if I see you serve the moonshine when I know you don’t have a license for it, I will contact the proper authorities.”
“If that’s your idea of pillow talk—”
“I know, all those multisyllable words, too hard for you to comprehend,” she snapped, irritated with herself, as always, for letting him get to her. “But this is about your brother. And murder.” His eyes went as hard as his expression, which gave her a little burst of satisfaction. Not so tough now, are you? “Care to shut up and listen?”
* * *
GRADY HAD ALWAYS had a little too much fun riling up the Delaneys, Laurel in particular. She got so pinched-looking, and when he really got her going, the hints of gold in her dark eyes switched to flame. And unlike the rest of the Delaneys, Laurel gave as good as she got.
But her words erased any good humor riling her up had created. Murder and Clint. Damn. Clint might be his half brother without an ounce of Carson blood in him, but he was still family. Which meant he was under Grady’s protection.
Grady jerked his chin toward the back of the bar. Though the regulars knew not to swing through the old saloon doors until three on the dot or later, he didn’t want anyone accidentally overhearing this conversation.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak caveman. Is that little chin jerk supposed to mean something?”
He flicked a glance down her tall, slender frame. He could see her weapon outlined under the shapeless polo shirt she wore. The mannish khakis were slightly better than the polo because they at least gave the impression of her having an ass. A shame of an outfit, all in all.
“Let me ask you this,” he said, leaning his elbows on the freshly waxed surface of the bar. He’d spent most of a lifetime learning how to appear completely unaffected when affected was exactly what he was, and this was no different. “Is this visit personal or professional?” he asked, making sure to drawl the word personal and infuse it with plenty of added meaning.
“Professional,” she all but spat. “Like I said earlier. Trust me when I say I will never set foot through those pointless swinging doors for anything other than strictly professional business.”
“Aw, sweetheart, don’t lay down a challenge you won’t be able to win.”
“I see that even when it comes to your brother, you can’t take anything important seriously. How about this? The murder victim is Jason Delaney. The only person around at the time of the murder was Clint Danvers.”
Grady swore.
“I need to question your brother before news of this murder and that he was a witness spreads through town like wildfire. All we need is for one person to see a Delaney’s been murdered, and know Clint is technically a Carson and a witness, and we have a whole feud situation on our hands. Are you going to help me or not?” she said evenly, the only show of temper at this point in her eyes, where he could all but picture the flecks of gold bursting into flame one by one.
He didn’t trust a Delaney in the least, but Laurel Delaney wasn’t quite like the rest. She hated the feud, and he almost believed she might be more interested in the truth than crucifying Clint without evidence. The rest of the town would be a different matter. This would result in the kind of uproar that could only cause problems for everyone.
Clint was in trouble, and Bent was in trouble, and the thing that kept the Carsons and Delaneys in this town, most of them hating and blaming each other for good or for bad, was that something about Bent had been poured into their blood at birth.
Something about the buildings that had stood the test of time in the shadow of distant, rolling mountains, far away from any kind of typical civilization. Something about the way history was imprinted into their fingerprints and their names, even if some people chose to ignore it.
Bent was like an organ in the body of those who stayed, and no matter what side of the feud you were on, Bent was the common good. Usually no one could agree on what that meant.
This wouldn’t be any different. Laurel would want to solve the problem with warrants and investigations and all sorts of time-consuming bull. He and his cousins could have it sorted out with a few well-timed threats, maybe some fists, probably within the week.
So, he smiled at Laurel, as genially as he could manage for a man who wasn’t used to being genial at all. “Have to pass, princess. Guess you and your gun will have to do all the heavy lifting.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Sometimes I can’t decide if you think I’m stupid or if that’s just you. This is real life, Grady, not the Wild West—especially your lame version of it. If you want to arrest a murderer, you have to conduct an investigation. If you want to save your brother from the possibility of not just being a suspect, but being convicted, you need to work with the police. This isn’t about Delaney versus Carson. It’s about right and wrong. Truth and justice.”
“Guess we’ll find out.”
She shook her head. “Don’t come crying to me when Clint is locked up.”
“Don’t let the doors slap that pretty little ass of yours on the way out. You might end up enjoying it.”
“You know, I don’t get to say this enough in a day. Screw you, Grady.” She flipped him off as she sauntered out of the saloon. The doors didn’t hit her on the way out, but that didn’t stop him from watching her disappear.
He waited until she was completely gone, then watched the clock tick by another few minutes. Casually, he pulled out his phone, then gave one last glance at the doors that had gone completely still. As if he didn’t have a care in the world, he sent off a text to his cousins.
We need a meeting.
Ty was the first to respond. Mine, cow, or woman?
Grady’s mouth quirked at the code they’d developed as teens. Mine was property, because the Carsons had managed to eke out some of their own, even with the Delaney name stamped all over this town since the first Delaney bastards had screwed the first Carsons out of their rightful claim to land and gold. Because of that nasty start of things in Bent, the Carsons didn’t let anybody mess with what was rightfully theirs.
Cow meant family, because the Carsons and the Delaneys of old had gone to great and sometimes disastrous lengths to protect their livestock around the turn of the twentieth century, and these days, going to great lengths to protect family was still a number one priority for the Carsons.
And woman...
Grady stared at where Laurel had gone. Well, she was a woman, and she was a pain. A cop. A Delaney.
Yeah, he had a woman problem, but it was one that he was going to ignore, and it would go away. So, he typed Cow into his phone before grabbing his keys and heading out the back.
Chapter Two (#uce746380-9f89-51ff-a5c4-6e35043b0edc)
Laurel wasn’t big on breaking rules or protocol, but considering she was currently investigating a murder, and Grady likely knew where the only potential witness/suspect was, following him was necessary.
It was, however, difficult to follow someone surreptitiously in Bent. There weren’t any cars to hide behind, and the roads that crisscrossed in and out of town were surrounded by long, wide stretches of plains, the mountains a hazy promise in the distance.
Still, when Grady’s motorcycle roared out of town toward the west, quickly followed by another motorcycle, Laurel was pretty sure she knew where the motorcycle parade of doom was headed. Which made her job a hell of a lot easier.
She gave them a few minutes, then drove out of Bent in the direction of the Carson Ranch. Though Grady didn’t live there full-time, everyone knew he routinely bunked out at the ranch Noah Carson ran.
Much like the Delaneys tended to congregate around their own ranch on the exact opposite side of town. As if the two ranches were facing off, Bent their no-man’s-land in between.
Laurel sighed. This whole thing was going to make that no-man’s-land erupt into a chaos they hadn’t seen for decades, if she didn’t get some information out of Clint, and soon. She’d been stupid to think Grady had half a brain and would grant her access.
But she wasn’t stupid enough to give up, and she was too darn stubborn to let Bent get dragged into another foolish war. It might not be the Wild West anymore, but people—many of whom were far too armed for their own good—getting riled up and fighting was never a good thing.
Especially when she had a murder to solve.
Laurel parked her car at the curve in the road, the last place she couldn’t be seen. She’d have to hike up the rest of the way and do her best to stay behind underbrush and land swells and whatever she could find. Hopefully the Carson clan would be too busy planning how to hide away Clint to look out the windows and see her.
She pocketed her keys, checked her weapon and set out into the brisk fall afternoon. She remembered to turn the sound on her cell and radio off as she walked, keeping her eyes on where the Carson spread would eventually come into view.
When it did, she paused. She might be the practical, methodical sort, but she never failed to take a moment or two to appreciate where she lived. The sky was a breathtaking blue, puffy white clouds drifting by on the early fall breeze. The grass and brush were a mix of browns and gold. Surrounded by the all-inspiring glory of the majestic peaks of the Wind River mountains and the rolling red hills was a cluster of buildings sitting in the middle of a broad golden field.
The Carson Ranch wasn’t much like its Delaney counterpart. It was populated with sturdy, mostly Carson-built buildings. They’d preserved most of the original ranch house, making improvements and expanding only when necessary. Like the saloon, it was a bit like stepping back in time with a modern layer over top.
The Delaney Ranch, on the other hand, was sleek, modern and gleaming, thanks to Laurel’s father. The only building on the entire spread that predated her father was the one Laurel used as home right now. A tiny cabin that had supposedly been her ancestor’s original homestead, though modernized with plumbing and electricity and whatnot.
It would fit in well enough on the Carsons’ land. Laurel frowned at that uncomfortable thought. Nothing about her or her life would fit in with this group of ne’er-do-wells.
She edged along the fence line, trying to stay out of sight from any windows. Two motorcycles were parked in front of the main house, and Laurel had to wonder if they’d come here because Clint was here, or if they’d chosen the place to have some kind of pseudo-planning meeting.
Laurel knew one thing: Grady wasn’t as nonchalant as he’d pretended. She’d never known him to bow out of the bar this close to opening before.
Maybe Clint was here. She could go to the house, demand to see him and show the three Carson cousins she wasn’t scared of them—not Grady and his swagger, not Noah and his quiet stoicism, and not Ty, who’d recently returned after having served years as an army ranger. They might be big, strong men, but she was a law enforcement agent, and she’d faced bigger, badder men than them.
It would set a good precedent to stare them down, to demand access or answers. The Carsons seemed to think they were above the law, especially if it was a Delaney trying to enforce it, and she didn’t have to let that stand.
But she didn’t see another intact vehicle anywhere, just a handful of rusting, tire-less old cars and trucks. If Clint was here, he’d either gotten here on foot or hidden his vehicle.
There were a ton of outbuildings. While the Carson boys sat inside and planned whatever they were planning, maybe she could find a clue in one of those.
She quickened her pace, making it into the stables first. There were four horses in stalls, huffing happily, and a surprising amount of tidiness inside for the lack of it out. She made her way to the empty stall toward the back. It could fit a motorcycle or—
“Hands up,” a husky feminine voice commanded.
Laurel whirled at the sound, hand on the butt of her weapon, and then scowled. “Vanessa, do not point a gun at me.”
“Got a warrant?” Vanessa Carson asked, holding an old-looking rifle pointed directly in Laurel’s direction.
“Is that a musket?” Laurel asked incredulously, then shook her head. “Regardless, stop pointing it at me. That’s an official order.”
With a hefty sigh, Grady’s sister lowered her rifle. Laurel felt the same thing she always felt when she looked at her former best friend. Regret, and a pang for a childhood before things had been poisoned by some stupid feud.
“Why are you sneaking around our stables?” Vanessa demanded.
“Official reasons.”
Vanessa smirked and pulled her phone out of her pocket. She held it up to her ear. “Hey, Grady. I’m out in the stables. We’ve got an uninvited visitor.”
Laurel threw her hands in the air, frustrated beyond belief. “When will you all realize I am trying to help you. Help Bent.” It was all she’d ever wanted to do. Help Bent. Even people who hated her because of her last name knew that was true.
“Helping Bent usually translates to helping the Delaneys when it comes to your people, Laurel. Why should this be any different?”
Laurel had a million arguments for that. Even though she’d beat her head against that concrete wall time and time again, she had no compunction about doing it again now. But she saw something out of the corner of her eye.
Something that looked suspiciously like a skinny teenager running for the mountains.
Laurel didn’t hesitate, didn’t concern herself with Vanessa’s musket, of all things, and most definitely didn’t worry about the impending arrival of Grady.
She pushed past Vanessa and ran after the quickly disappearing figure. She ignored Vanessa’s shouts and put all her concentration into running as fast as she could.
“Clint Danvers, stop right there,” she yelled, gaining absolutely no ground on the kid, but not losing any, either. “Bent County Sheriff’s Department, I am ordering you to stop!” She could threaten to shoot, of course, but that would cause more problems than it’d ever solve.
Clint darted behind a barn at the west edge of the property, and Laurel swore, because he could go a couple different directions hidden behind that barn and she wouldn’t be able to see which one he chose.
Her lungs were burning, but she pushed her body as fast as it would go, cutting the corner around the barn close. Close enough she ran right into a hard wall of something that knocked her back and onto her butt.
