Delores Fossen - Shotgun Sheriff

Delores Fossen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Cover

Title Page Shotgun Sheriff Delores Fossen www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author About the Author Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace. With ancestors like that, it’s easy to understand why Texas author and former air force captain DELORES FOSSEN feels as if she was genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny, Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent. With all those romantic bases covered, she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Copyright

Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace. With ancestors like that, it’s easy to understand why Texas author and former air force captain DELORES FOSSENfeels as if she was genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny, Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent. With all those romantic bases covered, she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.

Comanche Creek, Texas

Something was wrong.

Sheriff Reed Hardin eased his Smith and Wesson from his leather shoulder holster and stepped out of his mud-scabbed pickup truck. The heels of his rawhide boots sank in the rain-softened dirt. He lifted his head. Listened.

It was what he didn’t hear that bothered him.

Yeah, something was definitely wrong.

There should have been squawks from the blue jays or the cardinals. Maybe even a hawk in search of its breakfast. Instead there was only the unnerving quiet of the Texas Hill Country woods sardined with thick mesquites, hackberries and thorny underbrush that bulged thick and green with spring growth. Whatever had scared off the birds could be lurking in there. Reed was hoping for a coyote or some other four-legged predator because the alternative put a knot in his gut.

After all, just hours earlier a woman had been murdered a few yards from here.

With his gun ready and aimed, Reed made his way up the steep back path toward the cabin. He’d chosen the route so he could look around for any evidence he might have missed when he’d combed the grounds not long after the body had been discovered. He needed to see if anything was out of place, anything that would help him make sense of this murder. So far, nothing.

Except for his certainty that something was wrong.

And he soon spotted proof of it.

There were footprints leading down and then back up the narrow trail. Too many of them. There should have been only his and his deputy’s, Kirby Spears, since Reed had given firm orders that all others use the county road just a stone’s throw from the front of the cabin. He hadn’t wanted this scene contaminated and there were signs posted ordering No Trespassers.

He stooped down and had a better look at the prints. “What the hell?” Reed grumbled.

The prints were small and narrow and with a distinctive narrow cut at the back that had knifed right into the gray-clay-and-limestone dirt mix.

Who the heck would be out here in high heels?

He thought of the dead woman, Marcie James, who’d been found shot to death in the cabin about fourteen hours earlier. Marcie hadn’t been wearing heels. Neither had her alleged killer. And Reed should know because the alleged killer was none other than his own deputy, Shane Tolbert.

Cursing the fact that Shane was now locked up in a jail he used to police with Reed and Kirby, Reed elbowed aside a pungent dew-coated cedar branch and hurried up the hill. It didn’t take him long to see more evidence of his something-was-wrong theory. There were no signs of his deputy or the patrol car.

However, there was a blonde lurking behind a sprawling oak tree.

Correction. An armed blonde. A stranger, at that.

She was tall, at least five-ten, and dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt that she’d tucked into the waist of belted dark jeans. Her hair was gathered into a sleek ponytail, not a strand out of place. And yep, there were feminine heels on her fashionable black boots. But her attire wasn’t what Reed focused on. It was that lethal-looking Sig-Sauer Blackwater pistol gripped in her latex-gloved right hand. She had it aimed at the cabin.

Reed aimed his Smith and Wesson at her.

Maybe she heard him or sensed he was there because her gaze whipped in his direction. She shifted her position a fraction, no doubt preparing to turn her weapon on him, but she stopped when her attention landed on the badge Reed had clipped to his belt. Then, she did something that surprised the heck out of him.

She put her left index finger to her mouth in a shhh gesture.

Reed glanced around, trying to make sense of why she was there and why in Sam Hill she’d just shushed him as if she’d had a right to do it. He didn’t see anyone other than the blonde, but she kept her weapon trained on the cabin.

He walked closer to her, keeping his steps light, just in case there was indeed some threat other than this woman. If so, then someone had breached a crime scene because the cabin was literally roped off with yellow crime-scene tape. And with the town’s gossip mill in full swing, there probably wasn’t anyone within fifty miles of Comanche Creek who hadn’t heard about the latest murder.

Emphasis on the word latest.

Everyone knew to keep away or they’d have to deal with him. He wasn’t a badass—most days, anyway—but people usually did as he said when he spelled things out for them. And he always spelled things out.

“I’m Sheriff Reed Hardin,” he grumbled when he got closer.

“Livvy Hutton.”

Like her face, her name wasn’t familiar to him. Who the devil was she?

She tipped her head towards the cabin. “I think someone’s inside.”

Well, there sure as hell shouldn’t be. “Where’s my deputy?”

“Running an errand for me.”

That didn’t improve Reed’s mood. He was about to question why his deputy would be running an errand for an armed woman in fancy boots, but she shifted her position again. Even though she kept her attention nailed to the cabin, he could now see the front of her white shirt.

The sun’s rays danced off the distinctive star badge pinned to it.

“You’re a Texas Ranger?” he asked.

He hadn’t intended for that to sound like a challenge, but it did. Reed couldn’t help it. He already had one Ranger to deal with, Lieutenant Wyatt Colter, who’d been in Comanche Creek for days, since the start of all this mess that’d turned his town upside-down. Now, he apparently had another one of Texas’s finest. That was two too many for a crime scene he planned to finish processing himself. He had a plan for this investigation, and that plan didn’t include Rangers.