Her Cowboy Avenger

He automatically turned and headed in that direction. Elena waited a few seconds before following, watching him walk away with that same strange sense of unreality washing over her again. Her whole world seemed to have been upended again in a mere hour. It didn’t seem possible that this was happening, yet evidently it was.

Matt Alvarez was back in her life, as suddenly as he’d once left it.

And it seemed, for the moment at least, this time he intended to stay.

Chapter Four

“Tell me about the sheriff,” Matt said as they headed back into town.

Elena glanced over at him from the passenger’s seat, grateful he’d raised the subject—any subject. Anything to distract her from her still unsteady emotions, and his closeness in the truck’s cab. “All right. What do you want to know?”

He kept his eyes on the road, his profile hard as stone. “Is he good at his job?”

Elena considered the question. “I’ve always figured he was. Walt’s been the sheriff for, I’d say, at least six years now, and he was a deputy for years before that.”

“So there’s a chance he might remember me from back then.”

Elena frowned at the memory. “There’s a chance,” she agreed.

“We can worry about that when we need to. Ever had any trouble with him before?”

“None. I didn’t have that much direct interaction with him, and when I did, he was always nice enough to me. When I was a teenager, there were a few times when he brought my father home, and he was always nice about it.” Too nice, she thought with a trace of irritation. The kind of niceness that was really just pity. Far too many people had looked at her like that back then, if they’d acknowledged her existence at all.

Poor girl. Mother took off. Father’s a drunk.

Of course, that was a lot better than the way people were looking at her now, she thought, as a grim smile touched her lips. She’d never imagined a day when being Ed Reyes’s outcast daughter would seem like a step up to her. Or maybe that was the natural progression of things in some way. She’d turned out to be the bad seed her disreputable beginning had always made them think she’d be.

“So there’s no reason to believe this is personal for him and he’s not just trying to do his job.”

“Not for him, no.”

“But for someone else?” he concluded. “The deputy?”

“Travis is—was,” she corrected with a wince, “Bobby’s best friend. Was ever since they were little kids.”

“No wonder he’s gunning for you, if he thinks you killed him.”

“It probably doesn’t help that he never liked me to begin with.”

“Why not?”

“He didn’t think I was good enough for Bobby. But then, most people didn’t. After all, he was a Weston. His great-great-grandfather was one of the founders of this town and Bobby’s family was practically royalty around here. People used to say the town should have been called ‘Weston’s Bluff.’ He was golden in this town. He could have had any girl he wanted.”

“And he wanted you.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Yes,” she said, her tone distant. “He did. In the beginning, at least.”

As soon as she’d said the last words, she wished she could take them back. There was too much she didn’t want to get into, things she didn’t want to explain.

But if he wondered what had changed, he didn’t ask. Maybe he didn’t want to know any more than she wanted to get into it. A tiny bit of relief pierced her uneasiness.

“Did you ever think there might be another reason one of them is so determined to pin the murder on you?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What if one of them is the killer?”

The idea was so absurd she nearly laughed. “Neither of them have motives.”

“That you know of. You said nobody had a motive to kill your husband, but clearly somebody must have. After all, if you didn’t kill him, somebody did, and there had to have been a reason. You just don’t know what it is.”

He was right, of course. She’d spent more than one sleepless night wondering who had killed Bobby—and why. The first answer depended on the second, but she hadn’t had any luck answering either one, hadn’t even come up with any remote possibilities. Rather than find a solution to her situation, her efforts had merely confirmed how dire it was.

She tried to wrap her mind around the idea of Walt or Travis killing Bobby in cold blood. It just didn’t make sense, and not just for the lack of motive.

“If it were Walt or Travis, then why wouldn’t they have left the gun, or planted it somewhere they could claim to have found it? Somewhere that would have made me look bad? The fact that the gun is missing is one of the only things keeping them from making an arrest. If one of them is the killer, then that person has the gun.”

He fell silent for a moment, and she sensed him considering her words. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “That’s a good point. I’m just trying to keep an open mind. We can’t dismiss any possibility out of hand, no matter how far-fetched. We can’t afford to overlook anything or anyone, not if we want to get to the bottom of this.”

He was right, she acknowledged. This was the way it had to be. Sure, it didn’t seem like anyone had a motive to kill Bobby, but someone clearly had. Until they figured out who it was, everyone had to be looked at as though they could be the killer.

It was only fair. After all, that was how everybody in town was looking at her.

“OKAY,” MATT SAID, PUSHING himself to his feet. “You’re good to go.”

Elena glanced at the two fully inflated tires, the truck now perfectly balanced on all four. “Thank you. Let’s get out of here.”

Matt had no trouble understanding her relief. He’d had his attention on the tires most of the time since they’d arrived back at her truck, but he’d been able to feel people watching them. No one had approached or said a word. It hadn’t mattered. He’d known they were there. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

Still, he wasn’t ready to retreat just yet. Getting her truck fixed had been just the first item on his agenda when they got to town. He had other business to take care of.

“You go on ahead,” he told her. “I want to poke around here a bit.”

Her attention already drifting to the street and their unseen watchers, she turned back to him in surprise. Not that there was any reason for her to be surprised. It was, after all, what he was here for.

As if realizing it, she slowly nodded. “All right.”

“I’ll see you back at the house.”

He waited, expecting her to turn and get into the truck. She didn’t. She simply stood there, her eyes searching his face, her expression suddenly uncertain. It seemed as though she wanted to say something else.

And in an instant, he understood.

They were already saying goodbye, so soon after meeting again after so long. The strangeness of it hit him. It had always felt strange saying goodbye to her. He’d never been quite ready to do it. It didn’t matter that they would see each other again in a little while. Or was she wondering if that was true, if she should say something, a more definitive goodbye than the last time, just in case?

This was actually a lot like the last time they’d said goodbye. They’d been on the street, not too far from here in fact. The difference was it had been night.

And they’d both had no reason to think he was ever coming back.