Nicole Helm - Wyoming Cowboy Justice

Laurel sighed. “If it is, we’re in the same boat.” It was a very strange thing to work the death of someone you were related to, but didn’t know. Laurel figured she was supposed to feel some kind of sympathy, and she did, but not in any different way than she did on any other death she worked.

“All right. I’ll take my pictures, then I’ll get in touch with next of kin,” Gracie said.

Hart and Gracie discussed details while Laurel studied the area around the body. There wasn’t much to go on, and until cows learned how to talk, she had zero possible witnesses.

Except Clint Danvers .

She didn’t mind arresting a Carson every now and again no matter what hubbub it raised about the feud nonsense, but murder was going to cause a lot more than a hubbub. Especially the murder of a Delaney.

She processed the crime scene with Hart and Gracie. Even though Hart had taken pictures when he’d first arrived, Laurel took a few more. They canvased the scene again, finding not one shred of evidence to go on.

Which meant Clint was her only hope, and what a complicated hope that was.

Gracie loaded up the body with Hart’s help, and Laurel tossed her gear back into her car. “I’m going to go question Clint. You on until three?”

Hart nodded. “Let me know what I can do.”

Laurel waved a goodbye and got into her car. She didn’t have to look up Clint’s residence as Bent was small and intimate, and secrets weren’t much of ones for long. He lived with his mother in a falling-down house on the outskirts of Bent.

When Chasity Haskins-Carson-Danvers and so on answered the door, freshly lit cigarette hanging out of her mouth, Laurel knew this wasn’t going to go well.

“Mrs. Danvers.”

Chasity blew the smoke right in Laurel’s face. “Ms. Pig,” she returned conversationally.

“I’m looking for Clint.”

“You people always are.”

“It’s incredibly important I’m able to talk to Clint, and soon. This is far more serious than drugs or speeding, and I’m only looking to help.”

“Delaneys are never looking to help,” the older woman replied. She shrugged negligently. “He’s not here. Haven’t seen him for two or three days.”

Laurel managed a thin-lipped smile. It could be a lie, but it could also be the truth. That was the problem with most of the Carsons. You just never knew when they were being honest and helpful, or a pack of liars trying to make a Delaney’s life difficult. Because to them the feud wasn’t history, it was a living, breathing entity to wrap their lives around.

Laurel thanked Mrs. Danvers anyway and then sighed as she got back in her unmarked car. Most unfortunately, she knew exactly who would know where Clint was. And he was the absolute last man she wanted to speak to.

Grady Carson. Clint’s older half brother and something like the de facto leader of the Carson clan. Much like the men in her family, Grady Carson put far too much stock in a feud for this being the twenty-first century.

A feud over land and cattle and things that had happened over a hundred years ago. Laurel didn’t understand why people clung to it, but that didn’t mean she actively liked any of the Carsons. Not when they routinely tried to make it hard for her to do her job.

Which was the second problem with Grady. He ran Rightful Claim, which she pulled up across the street from.

She glared at the offensive sign outside the bar—a neon centaur-like creature, half horse, half very busty woman, a blinking sack of gold hanging off her saddle. Aside from the neon signs, it looked like every saloon in every Western movie or TV show she’d ever seen. Wood siding and a walk in front of it, a ramshackle overhang, hand-painted signs with the mileage, and arrows to the nearest cities, all hundreds of miles away.

Laurel refused to call it a saloon. It was a bar. Seedy. It would be mostly empty on a Tuesday afternoon, but come evening it would be full of people she’d probably arrested. And Carsons everywhere.

Grady wasn’t going to hand over Clint’s whereabouts, Laurel knew that, but she had to try to convince him she only wanted to help. Grady was a lot of things—a tattooed, snarling, no-respect-for-authority hooligan—but much like the Delaneys, the Carsons were all about family.

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.