Melissa Cutler - Cowboy Justice

“The footprints that begin in the canyon and continue up the south side of the mesa match Rachel Sorentino’s shoe size,” Stratis said.

“I know.”

Stratis shifted to look at him. “She reloaded. Twice. You know what that means.”

Vaughn chewed the inside of his cheek. Once the flare of frustration subsided, he regarded Stratis full in the face. “Not my first case, okay? I’m well aware of what that means.”

The two shells in the canyon and the six .38 rounds scattered near the footprints meant she’d taken the time to manually remove the casings from the revolver and reload the weapon. Even more damning was that when he’d arrived on scene and took the revolver from her hand, he found six more empty casings inside. She’d fired fourteen rounds total, and even if the first two she fired from the canyon were heat of the moment shots, the act of reloading—twice—spoke of a conscious choice. Premeditation all the way. Thank goodness she’d taken photographs of the four men and their rifles, lending just cause to her actions.

“She needs to come in for another interview. Today.” Stratis paused, then added, “I think I should handle it.”

Hell, no. “Binderman called from the hospital. She was released a couple hours ago. I’ll pay her a visit this afternoon.”

Stratis’s lips smashed into a straight line. Narrowing his eyes, he looked over Vaughn’s shoulder. “She can’t be here.”

Vaughn pivoted, following Stratis’s glare, and saw Rachel racing across the valley on horseback.

Her ever-present ponytail whipped in the wind beneath a cowboy hat that seemed to be staying on her head out of pure stubbornness, despite her speed. Today, as she usually did, she drove her horse hard and fast, eating up the ground they traveled over, her body a fluid, graceful wonder.

The first time they’d met in this valley, on an afternoon two weeks into their affair, she’d ridden horseback. Vaughn had leaned against the hood of his patrol car, rendered frozen by awe and arousal at the tough, quiet command with which she moved through nature, the give and take of power, as if the land and sky and horse existed only for her, and in turn, she lived only for them. Watching her, he’d thought at the time, She yields that power to me . The thought had ripped through him like an orgasm. He loved controlling her pleasure, peeling away her inhibitions along with her clothes, making her as wild as the land surrounding them.

She’d made him wild too. With her, he’d become something other, something extraordinary—a part of the earth, just as she was. In this untamed valley, he’d clutched the soil in his hands as he rose above her. He’d spent himself onto the ground beneath the shade tree. Lying beside her on a blanket, he’d watched the reflection of the clouds in her eyes, the sun on her cheeks. He’d breathed in the fragrance of dried grasses and snow melting into the red earth.

But mostly, there had been Rachel—naked, open, blooming for him. Only him.

The tingling in his throat kicked to life, as if he’d swallowed bugs and they were crawling back up his esophagus. He looked away from her. Now, with his undersheriff standing next to him, wasn’t the time to get a hard-on over memories of a former lover. And this valley wasn’t a place of refuge and discovery as it once had been. It was a crime scene, and, as a person involved in the crime, Rachel wasn’t welcome there.

“Did you know she was coming?” Stratis’s voice was flat, but Vaughn read disapproval in his words, even though there was no way Stratis would know Vaughn and Rachel’s history. They’d been so careful.

Then he recalled the photograph on Rachel’s camera. Maybe Stratis did have the right idea after all. Maybe he should’ve agreed to let Stratis conduct her interview.

“Something you want to say to me, Wesley?”

He never called Stratis by his first name, and it hung in the air between them, loaded with warning. Stratis held his ground. He met Vaughn’s don’t-fuck-with-me stare with one of his own in a face-off that went on long enough that Vaughn knew, sooner or later, the two of them would come to blows over Rachel.

Then Stratis’s eyelid twitched. “I’m going to head to the office to touch base with my source about stolen AR-15s.” He glanced at Rachel.

Vaughn did the same. She was still a solid five minutes out. “You do that. I’ll be along shortly.”

He followed Stratis from the mesa to the patrol cars parked in the valley. While Stratis fired up his engine and got organized, Vaughn reached through the open passenger window of his own car. He groped in the glove compartment for the pack of cigarettes he kept on hand.

Stowing a pack in the car was a mind-over-matter trick he’d started his first day of quitting. There was a certain power in having the substance he was addicted to within reach and making the conscious choice every time he got behind the wheel not to succumb to temptation. Problem was, every now and then the pull of addiction was too strong to resist.

Leaning against the hood, he held the sealed pack and watched Stratis’s car disappear in a cloud of dust, his mind locked on Rachel and cigarettes. His fingers grew slick with clammy sweat, sticking to the cellophane wrapper as he tried fruitlessly to remove it. A few puffs would provide so much relief. He’d snub it out after that, but then maybe he could face Rachel without ripping his throat out to stop the tickle.

She’d smell it on me. If I took a quick smoke, she’d smell it on my breath and in my hair and on my clothes. Then again, if she got that close, I’d have bigger problems to worry about.

A glance over the top of the car told him Rachel was close. He needed to intercept her before she crossed into the crime scene.

He shook the box, listened to the cigarettes moving inside. Halfway through a deep inhale of the faint tobacco scent, he froze. “What am I doing?”

Sniggering in self-disgust, he returned the pack to the glove compartment and walked away from the car. Any other day, he might have felt good, noble even, about rejecting the lure of nicotine. But it was impossible to feel strong with his other, more powerful addiction flying across the desert valley on horseback, headed straight at him like a force of nature.

He positioned himself at the edge of the crime scene, his legs apart, hands on hips, bracing for impact.

Rachel and her mount stopped several yards away from Vaughn. He didn’t recognize the horse, a lean, muscular palomino with a golden mane, but it looked as though it had enjoyed the run as much as its rider did.

Tendrils of long, brown hair had pulled loose from their binding to frame Rachel’s flushed cheeks and neck. Her position in the saddle accentuated the curve of her hips and small waist. A large white bandage peeked out from under the hem of her short-sleeve T—shirt, but otherwise, she looked as strong as ever, her body giving no indication that she’d been laid up with a gunshot wound until a few hours ago.

“You’re home from the hospital already.”

Way to state the obvious, jackass. He’d always prided himself on knowing exactly how to play any given situation, but not around Rachel. Her presence stripped him of even that basic skill.

She shrugged the shoulder of her good arm. “I don’t know about already . Felt like it took forever to get out of that place.”

During their affair, he’d lost count of how many nights he’d awoken alone in bed only to find her on his back porch, watching the stars. The house is too small, she always told him with a self-deprecating smile. “That’s because you hate being stuck indoors.”