Branded by the Sheriff. Delores Fossen

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СКАЧАТЬ shook her head. “Stating the obvious here, but if that’s true, why wait until now?”

      “Because you were here, alone. Or so he thought. You were an easy target.”

      Faith zoomed in on the obvious flaw in his theory. “And his motive for wanting me dead?”

      “Maybe Nolan thinks you’ll use your new job to come after him for the two murders. He might even think that’s why you’ve come back.”

      She opened her mouth to deny it, but she couldn’t. In fact, that’s exactly the way Nolan would think.

      Other than in confidence to her boss, Faith hadn’t announced to anyone in Oklahoma that she had accepted the job in LaMesa Springs.

      Not until this morning.

      This morning, she’d also called LaMesa Springs’ DA to tell him she would be arriving. She had arranged for renovations and a security system for the house. She’d made lots and lots of calls, and anyone could have found out her plans.

      Anyone, including Nolan.

      “Where’s your daughter right now?” Beck asked. His tone alone would have alarmed her, but there was more than a sense of urgency in his expression.

      “Aubrey’s still in Oklahoma with her nanny. Why?”

      “Because I was just trying to put myself in Nolan’s place. If he came here to scare you off and it didn’t work, then what will he do next?” His stare was a warning. “If he’s got an accomplice or if it was his accomplice who just tossed those rocks, that means one of them could be here in LaMesa Springs and the other could be in Oklahoma.”

      Her heart dropped to her knees.

      Beck took a step toward her. “Either Darin or Nolan might try to use your daughter to get to you.”

      “Oh, God.”

      Faith grabbed her phone from her purse and prayed that it wasn’t too late to keep Aubrey safe.

       Chapter Three

      By Beck’s calculation, Faith had been pacing in his office for three hours while she waited for her daughter to arrive. Even when she’d been on the phone, which was a lot, or while giving her official statement to him, she still paced. And while she did that, she continued to check her delicate silver watch.

      The minutes were probably dragging by for her.

      They certainly were for him.

      Beck tried to keep himself occupied with routine paperwork and notes on his current cases. Normally he liked keeping busy. But this wasn’t a normal night.

      Faith Matthews was in his office, mere yards away, and sooner or later he was going to have to break the news to his family that she’d returned. Since it was going on midnight, Beck had opted for later, but he knew, with the gossip mill always in full swing, that if he didn’t tell his father, brother and sister-in-law by morning—early morning, at that—then they’d find out from some other source.

      As if she knew what he was thinking, Faith tossed him a glance from over her shoulder.

      Despite the vigor of her pacing, she was exhausted. Her eyes were sleep-starved, and her face was pale and tight with tension. On some level he understood that tension.

      Her daughter might be in danger, and she was waiting for the little girl to arrive with her nanny and the Texas Ranger escort from the Austin airport. Beck hadn’t had the opportunity to be around many babies, but he figured the parental bond was strong, and the uncertainty was driving Faith crazy.

      “You’re staring at me,” she grumbled.

      Yeah. He was.

      Beck glanced back at his desk, but the glance didn’t take. For some stupid reason, his attention went straight back to Faith. To her tired expression. Her tight muscles. The still damp hair that she hadn’t had a chance to dry after her shower.

      Noticing her hair immediately made him uncomfortable. But then so did Faith. Dealing with a scrawny eighteen-year-old was one thing, but Faith was miles away from being that girl. She was poised and polished, even now despite the damp hair. A woman in every sense of the word.

      Hell. That made him uncomfortable, too.

      “I figure you’re having second thoughts about accepting the ADA job,” he grumbled, hoping conversation would help. It was a fishing expedition since she’d kept her thoughts to herself the entire time she had been waiting for her daughter and the nanny to arrive.

      “You wish,” she tossed at him. “The DA and the city council want me here, and I have to just keep telling myself that not everyone in town hates me like the Tanners.”

      Okay. No second thoughts. Well, not any that she would likely voice to him. She had dug in her heels, unlike ten years ago when she’d left town running. Part of him, the part he didn’t want to acknowledge, admired her for not wavering in her plans. She certainly hadn’t shown much backbone or integrity ten years ago.

      She flipped open her cell phone again and pressed redial. Beck didn’t have to ask who she was calling. He knew it was the nanny. Faith had called the woman at least every half hour.

      “How much longer?” Faith asked the moment the woman apparently answered. The response made her relax a bit, and she seemed to breathe easier when she added, “See you then.”

      “Good news?” he asked when she didn’t share.

      “They’ll be here in about fifteen minutes.” She raked her hair away from her face. “I should have just gone to the airport to meet them.”

      “The Texas Rangers didn’t want you to do that,” Beck reminded her, though he was certain she already knew that. The Ranger lieutenant and her new boss, the DA, had ordered her to stay put at the sheriff’s office.

      The order was warranted. It was simply too big of a risk for her to go gallivanting all over central Texas when there might be a killer on her trail.

      “So what’s the plan when your daughter arrives?” Beck asked.

      “Since the Texas Rangers said they’ll be providing security, we’ll check in to the hotel on Main Street.” She didn’t hesitate, which meant, in addition to the calls and pacing, she’d obviously given it plenty of thought. “Then tomorrow morning, I can start putting some security measures in place.”

      He’d overheard her conversations with the Rangers about playing bodyguard and the other conversation about those measures. She was having a high-tech security system installed in her childhood home. In a whispered voice, she’d asked the price, which told Beck that she didn’t have an unlimited budget. No surprise there. Faith had come from poor trash, and it’d no doubt taken her a while to climb out of that. She probably didn’t have money to burn.

      She made a soft sound that pulled his attention back to her. It was a faint groan. Correction, a moan. And for the first time since he’d seen her in СКАЧАТЬ