It took everything he had not to burst into laughter at how green Max Harper got. His hands fell to his sides, and he sat back on the little cot. “You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“You asshole. We had a friendly little game going and you have to play hard ball?” Harper looked like a little boy who had his toys taken away.

“Friendly little game? You call doing seventy-five miles an hour in a forty mile an hour zone a game? Then you didn’t stop when I put on the lights and the siren.”

“I was looking for a safe place to pull over.” Harper shrugged.

“For ten miles?” He’d followed that son of a bitch all the way down the damn mountain.

There it was, that arrogant smirk that made Nate want to clobber him. “Those roads are damn dangerous. I was giving you a signal that I would pull over as soon as I could.”

“You flipped me the bird, asshole.”

“See, now is that any way for a cop to talk? When my brother was the sheriff, he would never have used that sort of language.”

“He cursed your name on a regular basis,” a stern female voice added to the mix.

Harper shifted back as though the bars wouldn’t keep him safe from the terrifying newcomer. Rachel Harper was roughly five feet two and, if rumors were true, expecting a baby. Maxwell Harper was utterly terrified of his pretty little pregnant wife. She crossed to the middle of the room and stared a hole through him.

“Hi, baby.” It was obvious Max was going for sympathy. All of the arrogance on his face had fled in favor of a sad puppy look. “That man does not like me. He looks for any excuse to mess with me.”

Rachel ignored him. She turned to Callie. “Does he need to make bail?”

“No,” Callie said.

“Yes,” Nate interjected.

Now it was Callie staring at him, and Nate understood Max for a moment. Nate might not have impregnated Callie, but she had a hold on him all the same. “You are not leaving him in jail until the judge gets back from his hunting trip.”

“No, I need him to come home. I have a few words to say to you, husband number one,” Rachel said.

“I can stay.” Max nodded his head vigorously. “I don’t want any special treatment.”

“Max Harper, you will get out of that cell and get your sweet ass into the car, or there will be hell to pay.”

A long, slow smile tugged at Harper’s lips. He got up from the cot and stalked to the bars. “Hell to pay, huh? What kind of hell you going to put me through, Rach?”

Rachel cocked her head to the side as she stared at her husband. “I think you know what I’m talking about, Max. I’m going to need at least twelve hours.”

Max’s face flushed. He suddenly seemed very anxious. “I should get arrested more often.” He turned to Nate. “I am very, very sorry for the shameful way I taunted you, Sheriff Wright.” Harper snickered. “Sorry, it’s just the most clichéd name ever for a sheriff, but I utterly respect your authority.”

The asshole didn’t, but Callie was already getting the keys to the cell. He needed to hide the damn things. Every time he put someone in custody, his admin let them out.

The door to the station house slammed open, and Max’s twin brother, Rye Harper, ran in, his boots sliding across the slick floor. “Callie, I need to get Max out of here before…hey, baby.” Rye plastered a smile on his face. “I was just at the diner and found out Max had done it again. Damn it, Max, when are you going to grow up? Don’t you know we got a baby on the way?”

“Yes, you’re here to lecture Max.” Rachel Harper obviously wasn’t buying it. “BS, Rye, you’re here to bail him out and be his alibi, just like you always are.”

Max strode out of his cell and crowded his little wife, one hand sliding across the nape of her neck, the other rubbing her belly. “Don’t worry about it, bro. Me and Rach have a system worked out. If I screw up, then I have to be her sex slave for awhile. It’s a terrible punishment. It’s going to get me on the straight and narrow one of these days.”

Rye was immediately at her other side. “Well, I would like to point out that I was going to bail him out and then hide the evidence from you. That makes me every bit as guilty as him.”

Rachel’s laugh filled the station as she sent her husbands out to the car. The men ran to do her bidding, and she turned to Callie. “Sorry. Max is worried about the baby. You know how he gets when he’s anxious.”

Callie hugged the pregnant woman, her affection obvious. “He’s obnoxious all the time, Rachel. It’s part of his charm. Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to that one about being a little more tolerant.”

Nate stood a little taller because he was pretty sure he was about to get lectured. Rachel left to follow her husbands. Husbands. Damn, as much as he hated Max Harper, Nate was also completely fascinated with the way the man lived his life. The Harper family consisted of the twins, and their shared wife, Rachel. No one in town even blinked. Nate had caught some of the tourists shaking their heads when she smooched on both, but the citizens of Bliss took it all in stride. One of these days, he was going to sit down with Rye, who seemed far more reasonable than his brother, and talk about how it really worked.

But for now, he had to deal with Callie. He went on the offensive.

“You have to stop doing that.” He made his tone firm. He wasn’t Max Harper, afraid of one small woman. After everything he’d been through, he knew all about fear, and it didn’t come in such a soft package. He’d just been wary of dealing with her. He’d spent the last two weeks mooning over what he couldn’t have, and now it was time to take the situation in hand. “You are my administrative assistant, Ms. Sheppard. If you want to be a deputy, you can take the test, and I’ll put your name on the waiting list.”

“If you don’t like my work, Sheriff, you should feel free to fire me.” She turned on her little kitten heels and stomped back toward the front desk. She sat down on her chair and immediately began to straighten a bunch of stuff that was already neat and organized.

She had him there. He was never going to fire her. He couldn’t even stand the possibility of her quitting. Hell, he didn’t like the days she took off, and more often than not found some damn silly excuse to see her. Feeling utterly impotent, Nate stalked into his office and slammed the door shut. He slumped down into his comfy chair and pondered his situation. Zane was getting worse, not better. He hadn’t been able to get him out of the cabin to come into town in the two weeks they had been living in Bliss. Zane still didn’t know Callie was here. Nate hadn’t told him for fear that Zane would take off on that bike of his, and Nate wouldn’t see him again until he had to identify his body.

It had seemed like a good place to start over after everything that happened. Nate couldn’t go back to the DEA, and there was no way Zane would go back even if they would let him. When he’d quit the DEA, Nate had been told that the director would hold his job, but he couldn’t even consider it while Zane was recovering. Zane’s body had healed, but his mind was still in a dark place. He’d needed a place where Zane could recover, but the bastard didn’t seem to want to recover. He wanted to brood. He wanted to rage. He wanted to beat the shit out of anything that came in his path. Nate kept hoping that would change, but now he wondered. Maybe they should have just gone back to Dallas.

It would be easier if she wasn’t here, but he needed her, damn it, and in more ways than one. Nate wasn’t used to small town politics, and he doubted anyone on the planet was used to Bliss politics.

He was fumbling, and he didn’t know how to stop.

There was a brief knock on the door, and Callie popped her head in. If things were different, this was the point where Nate would haul his hot secretary into his arms, shove her skirt up, and have his way with her. His eyes glazed over as he thought about freeing his cock and settling her in his lap. He’d lower that tight pussy onto him and fuck her hard. It would be a nice little break. They got three a day. That just might start to satisfy him.

“Are you still here, or have you checked out?” Callie stared at him like he was from another planet.

Nate sat up carefully. His cock was painfully hard, but then it had been in that state for the last two weeks. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Mel. The aliens have landed, and he has proof.” Callie wrinkled her nose. “You need to get out there and talk to him. I have the Detector 4000 out on the desk.”

Every muscle in his body was suddenly weary. The Detector 4000 was just one of the reasons he should have stayed in Dallas. It was a Wii controller Stefan had “enhanced” with various bells and whistles to placate the town crazy—well, one of them, anyway. It made a lot of sounds and had little lights that went off and told the user that no alien technology was in evidence. It was complete bullshit.

Maybe it was time he took his job seriously. Nate stood up and placed the Stetson on his head. Yes, that was just what he needed to do. It was time to take this town in hand.

Callie watched him as he walked past her. “I don’t like that look.”

He waved her off. “Get used to it.”

Nate walked past the front desk, pointedly ignoring the Detector 4000. Mel would just have to deal with reality.

There was a new sheriff in town, and Bliss would just have to face the music.

* * *

Boy, he was about to screw up big time. Callie just knew it. She grabbed the Detector 4000 and raced after her boss, turning the sign on the door from “Come on in” to “Don’t commit any crimes. We’re fishing.”