Branded by the Sheriff

“Sheriff Beck Tanner,” he identified himself.

But his name died on his lips when he saw the person standing in the tub. It certainly wasn’t Darin Matthews.

It was a wet, naked woman.

A scream bubbled up from her throat. Beck cursed. He didn’t know which one of them was more surprised.

Well, she wasn’t armed. That was the first thing he noticed after the “naked” part. There wasn’t a gun anywhere in sight. Just her.

Suddenly, that seemed more than enough.

Water slid off her face, her entire body, and her midnight-black hair clung to her neck and shoulders.

Because he considered himself a gentleman, Beck tried not to notice her small, firm breasts and the triangular patch of hair at the juncture of her thighs.

But because he was a man, and because she was there right in front of him, he noticed despite his efforts to stop himself.

“Beckett Tanner,” she spat out like profanity. She swept her left hand over various parts to cover herself while she groped for the white towel dangling over the nearby sink. “What the devil are you doing here?”

Did he know her? Because she obviously knew him.

Beck examined her face and picked through all that wet hair and water to see her features.

Oh, hell.

She was obviously older than the last time he’d seen her, which was…when? Just a little more than ten years ago when she was eighteen. Since then, her body and face had filled out, but those copper brown eyes were the same.

The last time he’d seen those eyes, she’d been silently hurtling insults at him. She was still doing that now.

“Faith Matthews,” Beck grumbled. “What the devil are you doing here?”

She draped the towel in front of her and stepped from the tub. “I own the place.”

Yeah. She did. Thanks to her mother’s and sister’s murders. Since her mother had legally disowned Faith’s brother, the house had passed to Faith by default.

“The DA said you wanted to keep moving back quiet,” Beck commented. “But he also said you wouldn’t arrive in town until early next month.”

Beck figured he’d need every minute of that month, too, so he could prepare his family for Faith’s return. It was going to hit his sister-in-law particularly hard. That, in turn, meant it’d hit him hard.

What someone did to his family, they did to him.

And Faith Matthews had done a real number on the Tanners.

“I obviously came early.” As if in a fierce battle with the terry cloth, she wound the towel around her.

“I didn’t see your car,” he pointed out.

She huffed. “Because I took a taxi from the Austin airport, all right? My car arrives tomorrow. Now that I’ve explained why I’m in my own home and how I got here, please tell me why you’re trespassing.”

She sounded like a lawyer. And was. Or rather a lawyer who was about to become the county’s new assistant district attorney.

Beck had tried to convince the DA to turn down her job application, but the DA said she was the best qualified applicant and had hired her. That was the reason she was moving back. She wasn’t moving back alone, either. She had a kid. A toddler named Aubrey, he’d heard. Not that motherhood would change his opinion of her. That opinion would always be low. And because LaMesa Springs was the county seat, that meant Faith would be living right under his nose, again. Worse, he’d have to work with her to get cases prosecuted.

Yeah, he needed that month to come to terms with that.

“I’m trespassing because I thought your brother was here,” he explained. “The clerk at the convenience store on Sadler Street said he saw someone matching Darin’s description night before last. The Rangers are still analyzing the surveillance video, and when they’re done, I figure it’ll be a match. So I came here because I wanted to arrest a killer.”

“An alleged killer,” she corrected. “Darin is innocent.” The towel slipped, and he caught a glimpse of her right breast again. Her rose-colored nipple, too. She quickly righted the towel and mumbled something under her breath. “Before I got in the shower, I checked the doors and windows and made sure they were all locked. How’d you get in?”

“The back lock’s broken. I noticed it when I came out here with the Texas Rangers. They assisted me with the investigation after your mother was killed.”

Her intense stare conveyed her displeasure with his presence. “And you just happened to be in the neighborhood again tonight?”

Beck made sure his scowl conveyed some displeasure, too. “As I already said, I want to arrest a killer. I figure Darin will eventually come here. You did. So I’ve been driving by each night on my way home from work to see if he’ll turn up.”

She huffed and walked past him. Not a good idea. The doorway was small, and they brushed against each other, her butt against his thigh.

He ignored the pull he felt deep within his belly.

Yes, Faith was attractive, always had been, but she’d come within a hair of destroying his family. No amount of attraction would override that.

Besides, Faith had been his brother’s one-night stand. She’d slept with a married man, and that encounter had nearly ruined his brother’s marriage.

That alone made her his enemy.

Faith snatched up her clothes from the bed. “Well, now that you know Darin’s not here, you can leave the same way you came in.”

“I will. First though, I need to ask some questions.” In the back of his mind, he wondered if that was a good idea. She was only a few feet away…and naked under the towel. But Beck decided it was best to put his discomfort aside and worry less about her body and more about getting a killer off the streets.

“When’s the last time you saw your brother?” he asked, without waiting to see if she’d agree to the impromptu interrogation.

With a death grip on the towel, she stared at him. Frowned. The frown deepened with each passing second. “Go stand over there,” she said, pointing to the pair of front windows that were divided by a bare scarred oak dresser. “And turn your back. I want to get dressed, and I’d rather not do that with you gawking at me.”

It was true. He had indeed gawked, and he wasn’t proud of it. But then he wasn’t proud of the way she’d stirred him up.

“Strange, I hadn’t figured you for being modest,” he mumbled, strolling toward the windows. He could see his SUV parked out front. It was something to keep his focus on, especially since he didn’t want to angle his eyes in any direction in case he caught a glimpse of her naked reflection in the glass.

“Strange?” she repeated as if this insult had actually gotten to her. “I’d say it’s equally strange that Beckett Tanner would still be making assumptions.”

“What does that mean?” he fired back.

Her response was a figure-it-out-yourself grunt. “To answer your original question, I haven’t seen Darin in nearly a year.” Her words were clipped and angry. “That’s in the statement I gave the Texas Rangers two months ago. I’m sure you read it.”

Heck, he’d memorized it.

The part about her brother. Her sister’s ex. Her estranged relationship with all members of her family. When the Rangers had asked her if Aubrey’s father, Faith’s own ex, could have some part in this, she’d adamantly denied it, claiming the man had never even seen Aubrey.

All of that had been in her statement, but over the years he’d learned that a written response wasn’t nearly as good as the real thing.