Wyoming Cowboy Justice

“You sure it’s not broken?” he asked, and he was close enough that the hair hanging around her face stirred.

“I’m sure.” She stared at him with those golden-brown eyes and there wasn’t an ounce of animosity hiding there. He couldn’t help that his gaze dropped to her unpainted mouth.

Laurel had always been easy to resist, not because he’d never found her attractive, but because it only ever took him opening his mouth to rile her up enough to have her walk away. But she wasn’t bristling like she usually did, and he figured that was all kinds of dangerous.

“I’m not out to get you,” she said as sincerely as she’d ever said anything to him.

Her sincerity was good enough to break this particular spell. “You’ll have to pardon my lack of belief, considering how many times your father has tried to get Rightful Claim shut down.” He stepped away and tossed the cloth in the sink. He crossed his arms across his chest and frowned intimidatingly down at her.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with me. Should I blame you for everything your father’s ever done? Because I hear it’s quite a list.”

He wouldn’t admit she had a fair point.

“Work with me, Grady,” she implored, speaking to him for once like he was a person instead of a Carson. “For your brother’s sake. For Bent’s sake. Put everything that came before behind us for the sake of this case and this case alone. If Clint is innocent, I don’t want to be the one who puts him away for murder. I don’t want a real murderer to get away with something because of feud crap.”

“Haven’t you ever heard the old saying that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it?”

“Well, I don’t think there’s any chance of me falling in love with you and dying in some army-led Native American massacre, or you and all the Carsons going off to war and eradicating an entire generation. So we might just make it. Did I cover all the idiotic Delaney-Carson fairy tales?”

His mouth curved. “I don’t know, the illegitimate Carson who married a Delaney as payback always struck my fancy.”

“That poor woman died in childbirth.”

“And thus the waters between Carson and Delaney never commingled.”

“You’re terrible.”

“Don’t you forget it, princess.”

The door squeaked open and Noah entered, slapping his cowboy hat against his thigh so that dust puffed up. “Must have had some help. That boy isn’t anywhere out there.”

“I need a list of friends, places he might have gone, that sort of thing,” Laurel said in her demanding cop way that got Grady’s back up like few other things.

But she’d implored him to help, and while helping a Delaney was the first and biggest thing on his Don’t Ever Do list, this was about Clint. It was about Bent. Much as he might enjoy the feud tales and riling up the Delaneys, he didn’t actually want any trouble in town. Trouble wasn’t good for business, and as much as he would never admit to anyone, a little too hard on his heart.

He loved the town like he loved his brother. He loved his saloon like he loved the graves of every Carson before him. He might not have sworn to protect this place like Laurel had, but he had the sneaking suspicion they both wanted the same thing.

Damn it all.

“Your best bets are Pauline Hugh or Fred Gaskill,” Grady offered.

Laurel hopped off the barstool. “Hugh, Gaskill. Got it. And if he comes back here, call me. Or bring him to me. I only need to question him. The longer he runs, the worse this looks. Please let him know that.”

Grady nodded and Noah did, too, and then Laurel was striding out of the house.

“So, we’re working with a Delaney,” Noah said as if he didn’t quite believe it.

“That Delaney and that Delaney only. And only until we get a handle on what Clint’s involvement is and how much we need to protect him.”

Noah made one of his many noncommittal sounds that Grady usually found funny, but he wasn’t much in a mood to find anything funny today. “What’s that grunt supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing. You just seemed awfully cozy with Deputy Delaney there.”

“At least I wasn’t blushing in front of her.”

Noah bristled. “I was not blushing.”

“Just don’t get any hooking up ideas of your own.” Which was the wrong thing to say. It was beyond irritating, since he always knew the right thing to say, or when to keep his mouth shut. Grady never gave too much away.

Noah’s rare smile spread across his face. “You staking a claim, cousin?”

“No, I am not. We just have to be careful how we play this. I’m going to work now. Go shovel some manure or something.”

“Oh, there’s plenty right here to shovel up,” Noah replied.

Grady flipped him off and headed out of the house. He took a second to stand on the porch and look at the blazing sun in the distance, the rolling red hills, the rocky outcroppings of this beautiful Wyoming world.

He definitely wasn’t watching Laurel Delaney stride down the long gravel driveway, a woman on a mission.

A mission he was more than a little irritated to find he shared.

Chapter Three (#uce746380-9f89-51ff-a5c4-6e35043b0edc)

Laurel fumbled with her phone to turn off the beeping alarm. She wanted desperately to hit Snooze, but there was too much to do.

She hadn’t gotten home until well after midnight, after tracking down all the names the Carsons had given her yesterday. She’d questioned both teens, but neither one had been able to give her the faintest hint on Clint’s whereabouts.

She yawned and stretched out in bed. Oh, she didn’t believe any of the shifty teenagers, but she couldn’t force them to tell her anything. Which meant today would be another long day of investigating. Even if she got ahold of Clint to question him, she wasn’t hopeful she’d get anything out of him.

She didn’t have time to find Clint and investigate a murder that would be common knowledge in Bent and the surrounding areas by now.

Murder. Who had murdered Jason Delaney?

She forced herself out of bed and walked from her small room to the tiny kitchen. It was a cold morning, but it would have to be a quick one. Coffee, shower, get on the road. No time to build a fire and enjoy the cozy fall silence.

She frowned at the odd sound interrupting said silence as she clicked her coffee maker on. Something like a rumble.

Or a motorcycle.

“Hell,” she muttered. She could not argue with Grady before she had coffee. Before she even had time to get dressed. She looked down at the flannel pajamas. It could be worse—she could be wearing the ones with bacon and eggs on them, or more revealing ones.

But she wasn’t wearing a bra and she very nearly blushed at the idea of being bra-less in the same room as Grady.

She jumped at the pounding on her door, which was silly when she knew it had been coming. But she hadn’t expected it to all but shake her little cabin.

Well, no time to fix the pajama situation. Worse, no time to fix the no-coffee situation. So she put her best frown in place and opened the door. “What do you—” But she stopped talking because it wasn’t just Grady.

Grady shoved Clint through the door before following, and for a few seconds Laurel could only stand there and stare. Grady had brought her the only potential witness and the main suspect all rolled up into one. He’d brought a Carson into Delaney territory.