Melissa Cutler - Cowboy Justice

“I still have some questions,” Jenna said, dabbing at the streaks of mascara under her eyes. “What ever happened with you and Vaughn? Have you two been an item all this time?”

“No. I broke it off with him after Mom’s overdose.”

Setting the tissue box on the rock, Jenna let out a halfhearted laugh. “Your idea of breaking it off with a guy must be different from mine, if half the accounts of you two running around town are true.”

Rachel rubbed her neck, wondering how to explain the complicated back and forth she and Vaughn were locked in. “I don’t know what to do about him. I can’t let him go like I should. I think about him, about being with him, all the time. Every day. But then, when I snap and give in to temptation, as soon as it’s over, all that guilt about Mom and my farm responsibilities comes rushing back at me. It’s torture.”

“Sounds like it. What’s Vaughn’s side of the story?”

She reached for a second tissue and used it to dry her eyes. “He doesn’t want a relationship with me any more than I want one with him.”

“How do you know? Has he told you as much?”

“The affair started during Vaughn’s investigation into Dad’s car accident. There was no way he should’ve been messing around with me. The accident turned out to be just that—a freak malfunction of his truck’s steering mechanism during a rainy night that Dad should’ve never been out driving in. But at the time, when the sheriff’s department was still entertaining the possibility of foul play . . .”

Jenna nodded, getting the picture. “Vaughn could’ve gotten in a whole heap of hot water for having an affair with you.”

“We had to keep it a secret for the sake of his job and the investigation. Not that I wanted anybody to know, either. Not after what happened to Mom. And now, with the shooting in Parillas Valley, if anyone found out about our history, he’d have to recuse himself from the case. So you can see why our relationship can never amount to more than a dirty little secret. We’ve been doomed from the start.” She heard the sneer in her words as certainly as she felt it tugging on her lips.

“Problem is, people in town are starting to figure it out on their own.”

“I thought we’d been more careful than that, but I was in town this morning, and I had it out with Kate Parrish when she brought Vaughn up.”

Jenna’s mouth opened on the word No and stayed there.

“Oh, yeah. She asked me to let her know when I was done with him so she could have a crack.”

Jenna gasped, wrinkling her nose. “What a slut! How’d you answer?”

Rachel wrung the tissue between her hands. “That’s the problem. Instead of denying it, I added fuel to the fire.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad. What did you say?”

Despite her remorse over her reaction to Kate, she felt the hint of a smile in her cringe. It had felt pretty dang satisfying to knock Kate down a notch, even if it was the wrong course of action. “I told her if she had a thing for sloppy seconds, she could go ahead and get in line.”

Clapping her hands, Jenna let out a whoop of laughter that echoed off the foothill. “That’s cool, Rach. I love this new side of you.”

“I don’t. Now I’m screwed. Kate’s probably spread the news to every corner of the county by now.”

Jenna patted her knee. “Sweetie, there’s no such thing as secrets in Catcher Creek to begin with, so there’s no sense wasting your energy worrying about discovery. What’s done is done. Next time you go into town, keep your chin up and act like you know what you’re doing.”

Rachel bit her tongue to keep from bringing up the irony of Jenna’s words. There was no such thing as secrets in their town. At least one big one, anyway. As far as Rachel and Amy could tell, not a soul in the town had any proof of the identity of Tommy’s father. Everybody had a theory, including Rachel. But it didn’t do any good to press Jenna on it because she was as tight-lipped as a kid confronted with a plate of spinach.

“He might need to recuse himself after all, in that case,” Rachel said. “I know he wants to put Wallace Meyer Jr. and the others behind bars, but it’s not worth jeopardizing his career over.”

“Do you love him?”

There it was—the fifty-million-dollar question. She rubbed her hands together, choosing her words carefully. “I always thought if I settled down, it would be with a farmer. I’ve been doing this job alone for a long time. A partner would be a welcome change.”

“True. That would be nice. Too bad life doesn’t work that way. It’s funny how often we get what we need instead of what we think we want.”

She raised her brows, huffing. “That’s the damnedest thing about it all—I don’t needVaughn. No one in their right mind needs that kind of hurt, where you can’t live with someone, but you can’t live without them either. Vaughn’s brought nothing but pain and upheaval into my life. He’s the last thing I need.”

“Okay, but do you love him?”

Rachel puffed her cheeks full of air. She’d answered that question for herself the last time she and Vaughn had slept together the month before. But knowing the answer and feeling good about sharing it with her sister were two entirely different animals. She walked to the side of the house and picked at the chipping paint. The cottage needed a new coat. Maybe she and Jenna could tackle the project together now that Ben was here to manage the daily chores.

Jenna’s searching gaze felt heavy on Rachel’s back.

When she’d built up the nerve to speak, the power of confessing her deepest secret hushed her voice to a whisper. “Yeah. I do. Makes no difference because nothing will ever come of it, but yeah, I’m crazy in love with him.”

Jenna joined her at the siding. Rachel watched her gaze travel past the house and up the hill that split her valley with the main house. “Speak of the devil.”

Rachel whipped around. Sure enough, Vaughn’s squad car, followed by a sheriff’s department patrol truck, then another squad car, paraded down the road in the distance. At the fork, they turned toward the main house.

Rachel dusted her jeans, praying her eyes weren’t as red and puffy as Jenna’s. At least she didn’t wear makeup so she didn’t have to worry about having the same raccoon eyes Jenna was sporting.

Rachel handed her a tissue. “Here. Your makeup’s running.”

Jenna wiped the smears. “Thanks. You should know I’m not going to tell Amy any of this. It’s your story to tell when you’re ready.” She set her hands on Rachel’s shoulders. “Remember, you didn’t owe me an apology, and you don’t owe Amy one either. What you need to do is figure out what you want with Vaughn.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Jenna. What I want is for things to be the way they were in simpler times. Before Dad died and Mom’s depression took a turn for the worse. Before we had to peddle our way of life for a tourist dollar. The way things were before Vaughn.”

Jenna tossed the tissue box in her car. “Despite the way you’ve got it pictured in your head, our lives were never simple. They were predictable, and that’s a big difference, but you’re only fooling yourself if you think we ever had it easy.” She draped an arm across Rachel’s shoulders. “C’mon, sweetie. Let’s go see what’s brought your sheriff out to the farm today.”

The first thing Vaughn noticed when Rachel stepped out of her truck was that her eyes were rimmed in red. Her cheeks and nose were red too. So were Jenna’s, he saw after she walked around from the passenger side of the truck.

It threw him off something fierce to know Rachel had been crying. He was dying to know what would push her to such an openly emotional state, though he didn’t dare ask. The ways of women when they got together weren’t meant to be understood by mankind, his dad used to say when the two of them retreated to the workshop on Bunco night or during his sisters’ innumerable sleepovers.

Stratis and Binderman were busy organizing their evidence kits and preparing for the task at hand, so Vaughn met the sisters to explain the reasons for their visit. Rachel’s gaze barely touched on him as she looked at the vehicles and Binderman before resting her gaze on Stratis, who was digging through his trunk. She frowned at him, her eyes wary.

He hated that she was uncomfortable, but there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it.

“Good morning, Sheriff,” Jenna said.

He touched the brim of his hat in greeting, then turned his focus to Rachel, “How are you feeling today, with the gunshot wound?”

“Better, thanks. It’s healing nicely.” Her response was as woodenly delivered as his question. They were quite a pair.

Maybe that was why Jenna was staring at him like she was trying to read his thoughts telepathically. Maybe she could. What the hell did he know? Of all the Sorentino sisters, Jenna was a complete mystery to him, though it hadn’t always been that way. When Jenna was in high school, he’d had her figured out to a fault, a product of hauling her butt to school or Rachel’s door near about every week. But this new Jenna, the single mom, he didn’t know a thing about her except that, from all accounts, she had a whip-smart mind that rivaled her older sisters’.

When she wouldn’t stop staring at him, he extended his hand in greeting. “How are you, Jenna?”

“Doin’ fine, Sheriff.”

As he was scouring his brain for a bit of small talk to engage her with, Binderman chose that moment to walk up, for which Vaughn was eternally grateful.

“This is Deputy Binderman, and Undersheriff Stratis is over by the truck. We’re here to gather evidence and ask you all a few more questions.”