The Sheriff of Silverhill

Dana folded her arms across her chest. “What are you doing here, anyway? I told you I didn’t need a ride into town.”

“I had business on the reservation. I figured I’d pick you up on the way. Emmett’s already in Silverhill. It’s a good thing I came out here.”

Dana turned to Auntie Mary. “Are you going to be safe here tonight? Maybe you should stay with Alice and Gerald next door until I get home.”

“Nonsense.” Auntie Mary’s hands fluttered. “I’m neither young nor pretty. I don’t have anything to worry about. Besides, the aura of danger I see encompasses you, not me.”

“Aura of danger?” Rafe jerked his head up.

Dana shot Auntie Mary a look through narrowed eyes and snorted. “Vague superstitions. That’s all. Just vague superstitions.”

As Rafe placed his hand on her back to guide her toward the car, Dana stared into the blackness and saw…nothing.

Nothing at all.

D ANA HAD A SECRET .

Rafe clicked his seat belt into place, started the engine and glanced to his right. Damn, despite her recent scare, the woman looked good enough to lick up one side and down the other.

Her appearance at the murder scene this morning hadn’t surprised him. Emmett told him she was coming out to assist the other agent, Steve Lubeck, in the investigation of the murders of two Southern Ute women—and then the murderer struck again on the day after her arrival. Coincidence?

After the attack on Dana tonight, the protective instinct that landed him in trouble with her ten years ago surged through his veins once again. She didn’t like being coddled. Maybe that’s why she broke it off with him…he’d smothered her with too much attention. Strong women didn’t like smothering. That’s why his mom left.

Her aunt Mary obviously hadn’t told her about his return to Silverhill, but then why should she? He and Dana had a high school romance that didn’t last. Nothing earth-shattering about that.

At least that’s what he’d been trying to tell himself these past ten years.

Dana sighed and tucked her dark, stylishly cut hair behind her ear. The hairstyle, longer in the front and bobbed in the back, gave her a polished, sophisticated look, as did her silk wool pantsuit and sky-high heels.

But Rafe remembered the leggy girl with the cutoff shorts, bare feet and the long, almost black hair that hung right down to her behind. He recalled how she trailed her hair down his naked body as they made love in the caves above Silverhill, the secrecy of their desire heightening their passion.

He sucked in a breath, jerking the steering wheel of the car.

“You okay?” Dana drew her straight, dark brows over her nose.

“What really happened outside your aunt’s house?” Rafe relaxed his grip on the wheel and shifted forward in his seat. “From what I know of you and from what I’ve heard, you don’t back down from a fight so easily.”

“Easily? The guy came at me from behind and clamped his hand around the back of my neck. I didn’t know if he had a gun or a knife on him, and I didn’t want to find out the hard way.”

“Sorry.” He brushed her arm. “You’re right. You played it safe.”

Too safe. Without visible evidence of a weapon, most trained law enforcement officers would’ve tried to take the guy down. Something didn’t click. He tightened his jaw. Growing up in a household full of lies and secrets taught him to hate deception.

She snorted. “I guess it’s not how a McClintock would’ve handled it, huh?”

Rafe raised his brows. She made McClintock sound like a dirty word. When had she developed such a dislike for his family?

After their relationship during their high school years, she dumped him, even before graduation. Pam, his stepmom, told him Dana probably just dated him for his family’s money and connections and dumped him when she got that full scholarship to Georgetown, but that didn’t make sense. Dana was the smartest girl in school. There was no question she’d get a full ride somewhere. She didn’t need his family’s money or connections.

“I’m not second-guessing you, Dana. We all do what we have to do out there to survive. Just be careful. Maybe you shouldn’t stay on the reservation with your aunt Mary.”

Without turning around, Dana said, “Who appointed you my guardian? Auntie Mary worries enough.”

“I remember.”

She swung around and tilted her head. “Do you?”

“Like it was yesterday.” He continued recklessly, “The blanket I spread out in the cave. The flower petals you showered all over to mask the dank smell. Your sexy, smooth skin under my fingertips.”

“Stop right there.” Dana held up her hands and he captured one in his own.

“Why did you run, Dana? What were you afraid of?” He gripped her hand, running his thumb along her knuckles.

Dana turned her head toward the window and blew out her breath, creating a patch of condensation on the glass. “Your stepmother didn’t approve of our relationship.”

Rafe shrugged. “Yeah, Pam kind of had it in for you. Never stopped me though.”

Dana drew an X through the moisture on the glass. “Rafe, your stepmother is a bigot. She didn’t like me because I was half Ute Indian.”

“Pam’s not my favorite person, either, but nothing she ever said made a damn bit of difference to me. Is that why you left, because my stepmother was a bigot?”

She snatched her hand away and pointed out the window. “Look. Emmett and Steve are already here.”

Rafe clenched his teeth. Looked like Dana didn’t have any interest in replaying their failed romance, or was it just a high school crush?

As soon as he swung his car into the reserved parking space in front of the station and pulled to a stop, Dana pushed open the door and launched out of the car. Whatever she’d feared from him ten years ago, it still existed.

By the time Rafe got out of the car, Dana had already apprised Emmett and Steve of the evening’s activities. Rafe stood at the edge of their circle, listening as Dana finished her story. They didn’t seem to find anything amiss in the fact that she hadn’t tried to nail her attacker. The FBI always did things a little differently from local law enforcement anyway.

Emmett scratched his chin. “Did you see anything out there after the attack, Rafe?”

“A few freshly broken twigs and trampled underbrush, but the road into the reservation doesn’t pass that way. Dana’s assailant either took off on foot into the hills or he doubled back into the reservation.”

Steve swore. “Cocky SOB, isn’t he? FBI agent comes to town and the next day he’s warning her.”

“Wait a minute.” Dana wedged her hands on her hips. “What makes you all so sure this is our serial killer? We all know the nuts and wannabes come out of the woodwork during an investigation like this. Maybe this guy just wants to get close to the action.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But you need to be more aggressive in the use of your weapon, Agent Croft.” Rafe patted his own gun, holstered over his shoulder. “If you’d gone for your gun, we might be interviewing a suspect right now…or bagging a dead body.”

Rolling her eyes, Dana pushed past him. “Well, we’re not doing either, Sheriff McClintock. So why don’t we go inside this little hovel you call a sheriff’s station and get to work.”

Okay, maybe he deserved that after his own cheap shot, but she’d bruised his ego on the ride over here. Rafe shrugged his shoulders at the other men, their mouths hanging open, and followed Dana across the sidewalk to his…hovel.

Once inside, Rafe tossed his hat onto his desk and introduced the others to Brice Kellog, who was manning the station and the phones. The other sheriff’s deputy on duty had patrol. Silverhill couldn’t afford to put more than one officer on patrol at a time and Shelly, their dispatcher and receptionist, worked the day shift.

Like it or not, that’s why they needed the FBI for an investigation like this, but Rafe planned to solve the case before the fibbies called in their big guns. He didn’t want them to upstage him in his own town where he accepted full responsibility for the residents’ safety.

Rafe gestured toward a round table next to the single interview room. “We can work over there.”