Nicole Helm - Wyoming Cowboy Justice

She sidestepped him and gestured Clint to a seat at her small kitchen table. “Sit, Clint. I have a few simple questions for you. Now, right now, we don’t know what happened, so I need you to be honest and forthcoming, because the more we know, the quicker we can get to the bottom of this.”

Clint sat in the chair, slumping in it, looking everywhere but at her or Grady. “Sure. Whatever,” he muttered.

Laurel opened up to a clean page in her notebook and quickly jotted down Clint’s name, the date and time. She left out Grady’s presence, and she didn’t have time to wonder about why. “Now, Mr. Jennings said you came to his door around ten asking to make a phone call. Is that true?”

Clint shrugged again, fidgeting and sighing heavily. “Guess so.”

“And why did you go to Mr. Jennings’s door?”

“Crap car broke down not far from that rancher’s house. I walked up, asked to use his phone since mine was dead, and then my girl came and picked me up.” He pulled at a thread on the cuff of his jacket. “I wasn’t anywhere near that field.”

“How did you know the dead body was in the field?” Grady growled before Laurel could voice the same question.

Clint opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Laurel had to close her eyes. The idiot kid couldn’t even lie? Hell, she’d come up with one if Grady’s furious blue gaze was on her like that.

“You promised me you were telling the truth,” Grady said, leaning over the table and getting in Clint’s face. “So help me God, Clint, you do not lie to me and get away with it.”

“Gentlemen,” Laurel said in her best peacemaking tone, smiling encouragingly at Clint and then Grady. “Let’s take a calming breath.”

She was pretty sure Grady’s calming breath included picturing breaking her neck, but he stood stock-still, fury and frustration radiating off him.

If she hadn’t grown up in this town, if she hadn’t fascinatedly watched against her will, her whole life, how the Carson clan worked, she might have been concerned.

But where the Delaneys were all cold silences and sharp words, the Carsons exploded. They acted, and it was oftentimes too much and foolish, but Laurel had never doubted it came from the same place her family’s way of dealing came from.

Love. Family.

Grady was pissed and frustrated—not just because Clint was lying to him, but at the fact Clint was clearly in trouble and Grady couldn’t fix it.

“Let’s start from the beginning, Clint,” Laurel said evenly and calmly. “With the truth this time.”

“Why are you making me talk to a Delaney?” Clint demanded of Grady. “She’s going to railroad me no matter what I say.”

Grady’s entire face looked hard as marble, and the way he had his impressive arms crossed over his chest, well, Laurel didn’t think she’d mess with him the way Clint seemed to be doing.

Clint sighed heavily, slouching even further in the chair. “Okay, yeah, I saw the body.”

“You...” Grady was clearly working very, very hard not to come unglued.

Laurel held up a hand, hoping it kept him quiet rather than riling him further. “And you didn’t call the police because?”

“Because me plus a dead body was only going to make me a suspect. I’m not stupid. I know how you cops work. Maybe you got something on Grady or are getting naked with him, but you got nothing on me.”

Laurel hated that a blush infused her cheeks. Naked with Grady? Ha. Ha ha ha. What a laugh. But somehow she couldn’t stop thinking about how she didn’t have a bra on under her pajamas.

Laurel managed to clear her throat and look condescendingly at Clint. “Would you like me to arrest you? Because I can.”

Clint began to bluster, but Laurel continued on in her even tone, because she would not be upset by a couple Carsons in her cabin. “Or you can truthfully answer my questions and allow me to investigate this. And, if you had nothing to do with it, this questioning will be all there is to it.”

“I stood up for you with your mom, kid. You screw that up, you’re out of chances, and you know it.”

Clint stared at the table, but clearly, whatever Grady was talking about got through to him. “The story’s all true. I just broke down on the other side of the ranch. I was walking up to the door to see if I could make a call when I heard a shot. I thought it was...” He shook his head. “Well, anyway, it was dark. I didn’t see anything. But I heard the shot, a thump like a guy fell over, and footsteps running away.”

Laurel scribbled it all down, her heartbeat kicking up. This was something. A lead, no matter how tiny, and that was important. “That’s all you heard?”

“Think so.”

“Thinking isn’t good enough,” Grady sneered.

“All right. That’s enough out of you.” Laurel stood and began pushing Grady into her bedroom. “You are officially uninvited to this questioning. You just stay in here until I’m done.”

She pushed him and pushed him until he was far enough in her room she could close the door. Which she did. On his mutinous face.

* * *

GRADY STARED AT the rough-hewn wood of the door and tried very hard to resist the urge to punch it.

What did Clint think he was doing? Noah had found Clint holed up in the stables early this morning and they’d all surrounded him and demanded to hear what he knew. To make a plan. To protect their kin.

In that moment Clint had said he hadn’t seen anything, that he was the innocentest of bystanders. That was the only reason Grady had decided to throw Clint on his motorcycle and drive him to Laurel’s place.

If Grady had known the kid had seen it? Witnessed the murder go down and walked away? He would have called any lawyer he could afford.

Instead... Grady swore angrily, pacing Laurel’s tiny bedroom. His idiot brother had just made everything ten times worse and in the house of a Delaney. How the hell was Grady going to get Clint out of this one?

He took a deep breath. He had to curb his temper, because getting angry wouldn’t help Clint. He needed a cool head and a plan.

He took stock of the room around him. Neat. Tidy. The bed was unmade, but considering Laurel was still in her pajamas, maybe she hadn’t had a chance. Deputy Delaney did not seem like the type to leave a mess lying around.

She had a tiny bed, all in all. Bigger than a twin, he supposed, but not by much. Which was when he knew the best way to find a sense of inner calm in order to formulate a plan. It was not to go out there and bang his head against a hardheaded moron teenager, but to irritate the hell out of Laurel Delaney while she beat her head against Clint’s teenage woe-is-me.

Grady settled himself in the middle of Laurel’s bed. Comfortable, he’d give her that. The sheets were nice, and the pillows firm and plump and a lot better than the ones he had back at his apartment above the saloon or his bedroom at the ranch.

He grinned to himself, imagining asking her about where she got her pillows. Her eyes would do the fire thing, and she’d probably fist her hands on those slim hips.

Hips that had been settled in this bed this morning. In those ridiculous flannel pajamas. Except, he didn’t think she was wearing a bra under said pajamas, and he wouldn’t mind seeing what Laurel looked like a little unwrapped.

As it was, he could smell her. Something floral and feminine and so unlike her usual asexual appearance he was a little tempted to get his nose in there and take a good sniff.

Which was insane and more than a little perplexing. He didn’t care what a woman smelled like. Vanilla. Citrus. Nothing at all. It was all the same to him as long as they were warm, willing and up for anything.