Alana Matthews - A Wanted Man

“He’s one nasty piece of work, isn’t he?”

Callie jammed the car in gear. “Pot … meet kettle,” she said.

Then she turned them around and headed down the drive.

“You know what you are? You’re an idiot. An idiot disguised as a fool.”

Good old Callie. She’d never been one to mince words, and Harlan could see that she hadn’t changed.

Back in the day it had been a trait he’d found endearing. Most of the girls he’d known in college had been hesitant to show their true colors until they had you on the hook. They spent far too much time playing the games they’d learned in high school, and the guys they pursued weren’t much different.

But Callie had always been what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Take it or leave it. And that was a large part of what had made Harlan fall in love with her in the first place.

That and the simple fact that she was the single most intriguing human being he’d ever met. Still was.

They were rolling along the highway now, headed toward town, Harlan once again relegated to the backseat while Callie drove and her partner Rusty rode shotgun.

She said, “You do realize you almost got us killed back there.”

Harlan looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror. “Don’t be so dramatic. Pritchard doesn’t strike me as stupid. And technically, he was right.”

“You think? ” Her hands were gripping the steering wheel as if she had hold of his neck and wanted to snap it. “Then what was with all that cowboy nonsense?”

“Just giving the old guy a nudge, see how he reacted.”

Callie shook her head. “You haven’t changed at all, have you, Harlan?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Forget it,” she muttered.

“No, you opened the box, let’s see what’s inside.”

Callie sighed, glancing at Rusty. He had his cell phone clamped to his ear, speaking quietly into it, pretending not to listen to them.

She said to Harlan, “Maybe Jonah wouldn’t have done anything drastic, but there were no guarantees of that. You make stupid moves, you risk people getting hurt. You should know that better than anyone.”

Harlan knew a lot of things. Like the fact that she wasn’t talking about Pritchard at all.

“Look,” he said, “why don’t we save the recriminations for another day? Right now we need to concentrate on searching that house. And we need to do it legally.”

“That could be a problem,” Rusty said, snapping his phone shut. “Sheriff Mercer tells me the judge went out of town for a weekend hunting trip. He’s trying to track down another judge in Sheridan, but it could take a while. Says we might as well grab some chow, then head back to the station house.”

Now it was Harlan’s turn to sigh. Times like these made him wish real life was more like the movies. Everything happened so quickly on the big screen. Getting a warrant took minutes rather than hours, and the bad guy rarely got away.

He kept thinking about that smirk on Billy Boy’s face, and would like to put a fist in it. But as much as he’d like to play the hero and storm Pritchard Ranch, he believed in the letter of the law and knew that such a move was a mistake for a whole variety of reasons.

One thing you quickly learned in law enforcement was the value of patience. No matter what they might say, Justice was neither swift nor blind.

“Maybe the sheriff is right,” he said. “I haven’t had a bite to eat since yesterday afternoon. By all rights I should be famished.”

Callie eyed him skeptically. “You really expect me to sit down and break bread with you?”

“I expect you to be a professional,” he told her. “Is that too much to ask?”

EVERY TOWN HAS ITS cop hangout.

Williamson’s was a place called the Oak Pit Bar & Grill, a name Callie had always found a bit odd, since Wyoming wasn’t known for its overabundance of Quercus imbricaria . But she supposed the Cottonwood Pit didn’t have the same ring.

As far as she knew, however, there were no trees in evidence here, the indoor barbecue fueled by coals rather than wood. The low lighting and pool hall atmosphere were not to her particular taste, but she couldn’t argue with the food they served, and cops all over Williamson County had made the place a regular pit stop.

No pun intended.

Callie didn’t want to be sitting in a booth across from Harlan Cole, but she knew he was right. As cruel as fate might be, she was a professional and needed to act like one.

Truth was, she was more concerned about Rusty than herself. Poor guy was caught in the middle of a rich and heated history that he knew nothing about. And as his training deputy, she owed it to him to maintain her composure.

Besides, she was hungry. Thanks to Nana Jean’s torturous attempt at matchmaking this afternoon, she hadn’t had a chance to eat before she’d been called back to the office.

So here they were, the three of them sitting there awkwardly as they waited on their food, poor Rusty trying to make small talk with two people who clearly had other matters on their minds.

“How long you been with the Marshals Service?” he asked Harlan.

Harlan pulled his gaze away from the sports report on a nearby flatscreen. “Close to ten years.”

“You trained at Glynco, right? Out in Georgia?”

“That’s right.”

Rusty leaned back, took a sip of the ice tea he’d ordered. “I did my basic at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy in Douglas, but for a while there I had my eye on Glynco and the Marshals Service. Recruiter approached me while I was still in college.” He looked at Callie. “Same with you, right? You almost went federal.”

Callie stiffened slightly. “Yes.”

“So what changed your mind?”

“Circumstances,” she said tersely, but didn’t feel like elaborating. Those circumstances were sitting across the table from her.

Rusty gave her room to continue, but when he realized she was finished, he said to Harlan, “So anyway, I decided I’d rather stay local. No chance of being transferred across country, and I like Wyoming. Good place to raise a family. You got family?”

“Brother in California. That’s about it.”

“Have you always been in Colorado Springs, or do they move you around a lot?”

“I’ve bounced around a little, but Colorado seems to be the best fit. Been there five years.”

“They keep you busy, I guess. Transporting prisoners—that must be pretty interesting sometimes.”

“It has its moments,” Harlan said. “Especially when one of them smacks you in the head with your own weapon.”

Rusty smiled. “At least you’ve got a sense of humor about it.”

“One of my trainers at Glynco always said, you don’t find a reason to laugh, you might as well hang it up.”

“Amen,” Rusty murmured.

Callie was thinking that she could use a reason to laugh right now, when someone called out to Rusty—one of the fake-boobed, underdressed cop groupies who rolled in every evening looking for attention. She was standing near an available pool table, gesturing to him with the cue stick in her hand.

Rusty gave her a wave, then turned to Callie. “Citizen needs assistance,” he said. “Call me when the food comes.”

Callie rolled her eyes. She could just imagine the kind of assistance the girl needed, but this was Rusty’s chance to escape the torture and she couldn’t blame him. He quickly slipped out of the booth and left them alone.

Harlan watched him go. “I used to be that young once.”

Callie scoffed. “You’re what—thirty-five? Not exactly Jonah Pritchard territory.”

“It’ll happen soon enough. Goes by fast, doesn’t it? The past ten years are barely a blip on the radar.”