Delores Fossen - Taking Aim At The Sheriff

Well, there went his plans for a quiet night. Dinner and sleep. Maybe not even in that order since he was fully spent after pulling a twelve-hour shift. But apparently his shift wasn’t over. Yes, his brother could handle this. Jax could handle pretty much anything when it came to a lawman’s work. But this was personal, and that meant Jericho would have his hands in it.

The truck engine continued to chug and spew steam, but he was finally able to reach his place. Thankfully, it was at the front of the ranch property, the house that’d once belonged to his great-aunt and -uncle.

Jericho kept watch around him, just in case the bad-driving nut job returned, and he hurried up the back steps and into his kitchen so he could get the keys for his spare truck. He instantly spotted the note taped to his door.

“‘I put up a tree for you. Love, Mom,” he read aloud.

He automatically scowled. He wasn’t much of a Christmas person. Definitely didn’t put up trees—even though Christmas was only two days away. But he made a mental note to thank his mother, anyway.

Jericho stepped inside and cursed again once he turned on the lights and noticed the blood on his shirt.

Then, on his shoulder.

He peeled off his jacket and cowboy hat, dropping them on the table, and after he removed his badge, he sent the shirt flying straight toward the washer in the adjoining laundry room. It wasn’t a deep cut, barely a nick, but it was bleeding enough that he’d need a bandage.

Jericho made it one step into the living room when he heard someone moving around.

And he put down his badge and drew his gun.

Great day in the morning, had the idiot in the SUV gotten here ahead of him?

“Jericho,” a woman said. Her voice was a whisper.

He picked through the dark room and located her. Right next to a Christmas tree with all the trimmings. Even though he could barely see the brunette sitting on his sofa, he knew exactly who she was.

Laurel Tate.

She wasn’t the very last person on earth that he would have expected to see in his house, but it was close. Jericho hadn’t laid eyes on Laurel in over two years, since she’d moved from her father’s nearby ranch to Dallas where she was supposed to run one of her family’s businesses.

A shady one, no doubt.

Which pretty much described all her family’s businesses.

Heck, Jericho’s nights with her had been shady of a different sort since she was hands off. But those nights had been memorable, as well. He wasn’t very happy about that. Wasn’t happy about giving in to this scalding heat that’d always been between them.

Still was.

Much to his disgust.

“Nice tree,” she remarked. “Your mother’s doing?”

“Really? I doubt this visit is about Christmas trees. Or my mother. Why are you here?” he growled. “And how’d you get in?”

She fluttered her fingers toward the back door. “It wasn’t locked, and I had to see you, alone , so I didn’t want to go to your office,” Laurel said, as if that explained everything.

It didn’t explain squat. “Well, you can use that same unlocked door to let yourself out. I don’t have time for a visit.”

Laurel got to her feet. Slowly. Her cool blue eyes fastened to him. Not just on his face, either. Her gaze slid over his upper body, reminding him that he was bleeding and shirtless. Jericho hoped it was the blood that caused her breath to go all shivery like that, because he wasn’t the least bit interested in having her react to his body.

They were enemies now. But lovers once.

Okay, not just once.

They’d been sixteen when they’d first discovered sex together, in this very house the summer he’d been staying at the place when his great-aunt and -uncle had been away. Jericho had actually discovered sex a year earlier with the cute cheerleader whose name he couldn’t remember, but he’d been Laurel’s first. A first had turned to a second, third and so on until his father’s murder two years later.

Things had changed big-time between them then.

Everything had changed.

But he damn sure remembered Laurel’s name.

Every inch of her body, too. A reminder that Jericho told to take a hike.

“You’re bleeding,” she said.

“And you’re leaving so I can take care of it.” But then he got a bad thought. Really bad . “Did you have something to do with the guy in the SUV who ran into me? Let me rephrase that. Did your scummy father have anything to do with it?”

Because Laurel wasn’t the sort to get her hands dirty. She just associated with the lowlifes who did.

Her eyes widened and she shook her head. “Someone tried to hurt you?” And yeah, it sounded like a genuine question from a concerned, surprised woman.

“Is your father responsible for my bloody shoulder and bashed-up truck?” he pressed.

It wouldn’t have been Herschel Tate’s MO to be so obvious. He was more a knife-to-the-back sort of guy. Too bad Jericho had never been able to pin any crimes on him. Especially one big crime.

The murder of Jericho’s own father.

Twenty years later, the pain of that still cut him to the bone. And that pain spilled over onto Laurel because she’d refused to see the truth or help him put her murdering father behind bars.

“I don’t think my father was involved with anything that happened to you tonight.” Laurel shook her head again. “But I can’t be positive.”

Well, that was a first—having her admit that her precious daddy could do anything wrong. But Laurel didn’t elaborate. She hurried past him, and for a moment Jericho thought she was leaving. Instead, she came back from the kitchen with some paper towels that she pressed to his shoulder.

Jericho eyed her. Her nursing attempt put her fingers in contact with his bare skin. “How’d you get here?” he snapped. “Did your father or somebody else drop you off?”

Though he couldn’t imagine why Herschel would do that. The hatred Jericho felt for the man was mutual.

“No. My father doesn’t know I’m here. No one does. I parked behind your barn.”

Since he had a big driveway and side yard, there was only one reason to park behind the barn. To conceal the vehicle. Jericho couldn’t think of a single good reason for her to do that, but since he was a cop, he could think of some bad ones.

“Start talking,” he insisted.

Laurel didn’t do that, though. She kept dabbing at the cut. And more. Now that she was this close to him, Jericho could see her bottom lip tremble a little. He could also see that the whites of her eyes had some red in them.

Had she been crying?

“Your hair’s longer,” she said, her breath hitting against his neck right next to the hair she was apparently noticing. “It suits you.”

That earned her a flat stare, and to end the little touching session, Jericho snatched the paper towels from her. “Are you really here to chat about my infrequent trips to the barbershop?”

“No.” She moved away from him, repeated her answer and tucked a strand of her own loose hair behind her ear. “But we need to talk.”

“So you’ve said. Well, start talking. Jax is waiting on me to come back to the station so we can go after the guy who hit my truck.”

Jericho made sure he sounded impatient enough. Because he was. But Laurel didn’t seem to be in a hurry to start this conversation that he didn’t exactly want to have. So, Jericho started it for her.

“If you’re here on your father’s behalf—to try to make some kind of truce or deliver a threat—I’m not in a truce-making or threat-listening kind of mood.”

“It’s not anything like that.” Laurel paused, pulled in her breath. “It’s about...marriage.”

Jericho went still. The woman sure knew how to keep him surprised. After all, Laurel was already married. Or at least she was supposed to be. But now that he had a better look at her left hand, she wasn’t sporting a flashy diamond or a wedding band.