Stella Bagwell - The Deputy's Lost and Found / Her Second Chance Cop - The Deputy's Lost and Found / Her Second Chance Cop

“I’ve questioned the staff at the airport. None of them recalled seeing you. As for passenger records, the personnel at the airport has promised to go through them, but since we don’t have your name, it’s impossible to know when you arrived, or even if you arrived by plane. So that effort might not lead to any sort of productive information. Hank has already checked all the car rental places in town. Nothing there. So that means you probably took a taxi. We’ve left your photo with all the cab services. But I’m not expecting much to evolve there. There are simply too many tourists and strange faces in town and a cabbie would’ve only seen you for few short minutes at the most. Plus there’s still the possibility that someone else drove you to the track.”

“Someone else drove me to the track,” she repeated blankly. “Like who? If I was with a friend or relative where are they now? Why did they leave me on that mountain road?”

“I understand that possibility doesn’t make sense to you, Lass. But as a lawman, I have to go at things from every angle. Some person you met in town could have simply offered you a ride to the track out of kindness, then left town after the races.”

“I see,” she murmured, while wondering why this news left her feeling so confused. She wanted Brady to discover her real identity, didn’t she? Of course, she did. Her whole life was missing. And yet, a part of her didn’t want to return to who she’d been before. A part of her wanted to start her life right here. Right now. With him. Oh, God, what was happening to her?

“Come on, you’ve worried about all that stuff enough for one day. Do you feel like a walk?”

Grateful that he understood she needed a break from the turmoil going round in her head, she smiled at him. “I’d love to take a walk.”

He helped her from the chair, then ushered her out of the room before his parents or grandmother even noticed they were leaving. At the end of a long hallway, near a door composed of paned windows, he snatched a white shawl from a rack on the wall.

“You might get a little cool,” he explained as he draped the crocheted lace around her shoulders. “Mom won’t mind if you borrow her shawl.”

Swallowing nervously, she focused on the front of his pale yellow shirt instead of his face. “Thank you, Brady.”

“My pleasure.”

When they stepped outside, Lass could see they were at the side of the house. It was shaded deeply by tall ponderosa pines, but footlights illuminated a graveled path leading to the front and back of the huge rock structure.

“Let’s go to the backyard,” he suggested as he splayed a hand against her back. “Have you been down to the pool yet?”

“No. I’ve only gotten as far as the porch,” she admitted.

He ushered her forward and they began to slowly walk abreast. He’d been right about the air turning cool. The temperature felt as though it had dropped several degrees, but the touch of his hand felt so hot against her, it chased any chilliness away.

Breathing deeply, she tried not to think of his nearness or the way it had felt to kiss him.

“Do you like living here with the rest of your family?” she asked as they strolled along a walkway of loose river gravel.

“I can’t imagine living anywhere else.” He darted a glance at her. “That probably sounds like I lack ambition, doesn’t it? You’re probably wondering why a man like me doesn’t want a place of his own.”

“I’m not wondering anything like that,” she admitted. “I see a man who loves his family.”

“Hmm. That’s true. But I don’t hang around here because I’m too green to cut the apron strings.”

Lass smiled in the darkness. Green was the exact opposite of the image he portrayed, she thought. He was strong, brave and independent. The exact opposite of … whom? For a split second, a man’s image almost popped into her head, but it was so fleeting and her mind so weary, she didn’t bother to try to catch it.

“I would never think that,” she assured him.

His hand moved downward until his fingers were curled snugly around the side of her waist. “You’re being very polite.”

“I’m not just being polite. I’m being honest.”

He chuckled then. “Well, I guess to the outward person my brothers and I look like mama’s boys. But that’s not the case at all. Conall and Liam run the ranch operations. Without all their work, Dad wouldn’t be able to retire and enjoy these years with Mom. And me, well, I don’t do ranch work on a day-to-day basis, but I help as much as I can.”

“That’s something I’ve been curious about,” Lass told him. “Why did you become a lawman? Particularly, when your brothers are ranchers like your father.”

They walked for several yards before he finally answered and by then they’d entered a garden filled with ornamental bushes and low, blooming flowers. The graveled path had turned to stepping stones and the sweet smell of honeysuckle filled the night air.

Brady paused to face her. “I’m lucky, Lass. From the time we were young children, our father has always encouraged us to follow our own dreams. If that meant something other than raising thoroughbreds, then that was okay with him.”

“You don’t like working with horses?”

There was a perplexed frown on her face, as though she couldn’t imagine anyone opposing such a job. It made Brady realize just how much she loved horses and that she’d no doubt been involved in the equine business in some form or fashion. But that was a wide-ranging possibility that included farms, ranches, tracks, trainers, stables and veterinarians, coupled with all the offshoot jobs from those businesses. Unless she remembered something helpful, finding her identity was going to be like searching for one tiny mosquito in the middle of a giant swamp.

Keeping that worrisome thought to himself, he said, “Oh, sure. I love horses. But I never had that special touch with them. Not the way my father and brothers have always had. They understand what a horse is thinking and planning way before the horse even knows it. And I … well, I learned the hard way. By being bit or kicked or bucked off. You get the picture. But that didn’t matter. I just happened to have other ideas about my career. And it wasn’t breeding or racing horses.”

She nodded that she understood his independence wasn’t born out of retaliation. “How did you decide you wanted to be a lawman? You have other relatives in the business?”

He chuckled. “I wish. Then everyone wouldn’t look at me like I’m the lone wolf of the bunch.” Curling his arm around her shoulder, he once again urged her forward. “Actually, I first planned to be a lawyer. A horse farm of this size always needs legal work and I liked the idea of laying out rules and regulations.”

“A lawyer,” she repeated with faint amazement. “I can’t imagine you in a courtroom.”

“No? Well, Grandma could imagine me in that role. She said I could argue better than anyone she knew,” he teased. “But after I started college it didn’t take me very long to realize I didn’t want to be confined behind four walls for the rest of my life.”

“So you quit college and went to work for the sheriff’s department?”

“Not exactly,” he answered. “I went to work part-time for the sheriff’s department, did my rookie training and continued earning a degree in criminal justice during my off hours. All of it together was tough going for a while. But now I’m glad I put out the effort.” With a wry smile, he glanced down at her. “I took the long way about answering a simple question, didn’t I? So I’ve talked enough about myself. Let’s talk about you.”

By now they had reached a long, oval-shaped pool surrounded by footlights. The crystal clear water sparkled invitingly and as she stared at the depths, she envisioned herself in a similar pool, the water slipping cool against her arms, the night air above her hot and humid. She tried to hang on to the image, to memorize every detail, but like before, it was gone almost as quickly as it came and with a frustrated sigh, she said, “We can’t talk about me, Brady. I don’t know anything about me.”