Page 100 of Cowboy Heat

The sports magazine I’m holding between my hands starts to blur.

My head aches at the effort to keep any and all tears inside.

That life is a dream. One I can’t have.

Beau only kissed me earlier because our emotions were running ragged. Because he felt bad for me. Because, well, I could have killed more than one person today trying to keep him safe.

The lump in my throat tightens.

I could have killed someone today, and here I am pretending to read an article on the ethics of advertising in college football.

It’s…not right.

I want to say something. I want to say a lot, I think, but just when I get the courage up, Beau stands.

“Detective Wayland is pulling up.”

He has his phone in one hand, and I’m startled to see the gun I took in the other. He goes to the front window first and peers out as a pair of headlights sweep across him. I join him in time to see that the detective is in her personal vehicle, an older Bronco that I’d once complimented her on after she’d done the same to my Jeep.

“Let me go out. Stay here.”

Beau’s talking quick and manages the same pace in going outside. From where I’m standing, I can’t see them all that well. However, Beau must have given her a stamp of approval because he leads her in a minute later. I watch him take himself to the other side of the kitchen island. He sets the gun down away from himself but in no way accessible to the stools across from him that he motions his guest into.

Detective Ally Wayland is a tall woman. She’s lean, too, and wears her badge and gun well. Right now, if she has a gun, it’s not where I can see it. Her badge is missing too. She has on a light jacket, and her hair is pulled back tight in a not-moving brown braid. Thunder rolls as she settles on a stool, and I hope that’s not a bad omen.

I know she’s mid-thirties, but it’s hard to tell most days.

Right now, though, her face is all drawn in worry lines.

Her shoulders are so tense, I sit down next to her as a show of sympathy for her stress.

And mine too, I guess.

I think about the man I shot.

About Grant’s head that I bashed in.

I feel sick.

I push the feeling away to listen.

“I want to start out by saying that there are only four reasons I’m not hauling you two off to the department right now.” She angles herself on the stool so she can address us both. “First and foremost, I’ve never been so updated on a situation. Whether it’s by you two calling the department or your brother tying up my phone line, I managed to find myself a crime sceneanda dead body all before lunch. Not to mention, you two haven’t gone and fled, which definitely works in your favor.”

I cut a quick glance to Beau at that. He was right for us to come to Big House to show we aren’t about to run and hide.

“Secondly, I did some digging on you.” She nods to Beau. “I was trying to figure out if you’re the kind of guy who attracts trouble, starts it, or is the unlucky bastard who seems to always find himself in it. But based on what happened with Sarah Tate, and then you having such a good reputation out in Orlando, well, I’ve decided you’re probably a good mixture of the first and last part.”

I don’t know who Sarah Tate is, but I know as the name lands, Beau goes tense. More tense than when he’d first woken up after being stabbed and unconscious for a while.

“And your verdict on me because of that?” he asks, even his tone is a bit flatter than I expect.

Detective Wayland gives him a nod.

I see it in her then.

It passes briefly across her face, but it’s there.

Admiration.