Page 6 of Engaging the Deputy (Silver Stars of Montana #3)

“Let alone Rusk.” For Jaden, Rusk was no laughing matter. He was the boogeyman who’d come out of his closet at night all during his childhood. “Good luck narrowing down the suspects.”

“The coroner says there are two sets of human remains. One a teenage girl and the other a man somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. Apparently, they were buried together in the root cellar.”

“All in a night’s work,” the sheriff said. “I’m finishing a case up here or I would help you.”

“I’m good,” Jaden said, then thought of Olivia. Not as good as he was pretending to be. What was she doing back here, let alone with Cody Ryan?

* * *

The morning was almost gone by the time Olivia walked into her mother’s house.

She’d gotten a ride into town with one of the rescue team after giving her statement to Jaden.

Just her luck that she’d been in Starling with her former high school boyfriend and the investigating deputy had been her former fiancé.

“You’re not planning to leave town, are you?” he’d asked her. “I need you to stick around because the state boys might want to talk to you about what happened out in Starling.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You staying out at the house with your mother?”

“I am.”

He’d been all business, all sheriff’s deputy, not the man she’d almost married, so she’d done her best to do the same.

She’d imagined seeing him again but never under these circumstances.

She wished that she’d called him as soon as she’d returned.

She’d definitely thought about it. But after the way they’d left things when the engagement had ended, she wasn’t sure he’d want to talk to her—let alone care that she was back in the area.

“Jaden?” It was the first time she’d said his name in so long, it had sounded strange on her lips.

“Was Rob really murdered?” He’d nodded. “They still haven’t found Dean?

” He’d only shaken his head. “You can’t really believe that I had anything to do with what happened out here. That I did something to Cody.”

“Like leave your former boyfriend to die in that hole after clobbering him with a rock? Someone killed Rob and I suspect someone attacked Cody. The same person could have done something to Dean Marsh as well. Or had help with all three.”

She had felt her eyes widen, alarmed that he would even say something like that. “You know me,” she’d cried. “You know I had nothing to do with any of it.”

His answer had been evasive. “The investigation is ongoing.” He’d sounded so cold, not that she could blame him.

He’d even asked her about the last time she’d seen Rob Perkins.

If she hadn’t gotten turned around after leaving Cody in the root cellar, it wouldn’t have made her look so guilty.

It had been dark and there’d been so much debris to try to get through…

But she’d said all of that to him and it appeared he hadn’t believed anything she’d told him. What he must think of her.

He’d asked if she’d seen anyone after she and Cody had gone for a walk.

“I only saw them from a distance when I heard the girls with Emery and Rob screaming. I glimpsed them down by the creek playing around. After that I never saw any of them again.” She’d registered his expression and felt her ire rise.

“ You know me. You know I’m not a killer.

” He hadn’t commented. “I can’t believe this. ”

“Let’s get you a ride home” was all he’d said after that.

* * *

Her mother was pouring herself a cup of coffee as Olivia came into the kitchen. “You’ve been out all night?” Then Sharon Brooks took a good look at her. “What happened to you?” she demanded, alarmed.

“I got caught in a tornado.” She poured herself a cup of coffee, even though the smell made her stomach roil. Cupping the mug of hot coffee in her hands, she tried to quit shaking. “I almost died. Cody…” Her voice broke and she couldn’t continue.

“Cody Ryan? You were with him? I thought that was over a long time ago?”

Olivia shook her head, too exhausted to explain why she’d gone out with him tonight, let alone everything that had happened.

She kept seeing Cody down in the root cellar, bleeding and unconscious.

If that wasn’t awful enough, she couldn’t forget Deputy Jaden Montgomery’s expression when he’d questioned her.

He actually believed she could be responsible for what had happened to Cody, let alone the others?

“I should never have come home.”

“Why did you after six years without hardly a word?”

She looked at her mother and felt a wave of guilt. Cody was right. She hadn’t looked back when she’d left, not even to do more than occasionally keep in touch with her mother. But if anyone should be able to understand why she’d left, it was her mother.

Sharon had left small-town Montana, only to return home after she’d realized she was pregnant with Olivia.

She’d moved in with her parents. Her mother and her grandparents, to make ends meet, had both raised Olivia.

After her grandfather had died, Olivia had gone off to college, but her mother had stayed to take care of her own mother until her death.

Olivia took a sip of her coffee. “You came back here because you had no place to go,” she said. “I came home for the same reason.”

“You’re pregnant?”

She shook her head. How could she explain that her dream hadn’t turned out the way she’d thought it would?

She’d gotten her degree in business administration and had no trouble getting a job.

But she hadn’t been able to explain the hollowness she had felt.

She’d been haunted by the feelings that she’d made the wrong choices and not just with her job.

She’d felt as if she’d left something undone back here and that she’d needed to go home.

“Don’t you think I know why you fell in with Cody Ryan and then broke his heart when you hightailed it out of here? You didn’t want to be me.”

“Mom—”

“It’s all right. I don’t blame you. I never resented it.

You had to leave. I wish you had at least come home once in a while to see me, but I understand that too.

What I don’t understand is why you came back now.

I suppose you know that Jaden Montgomery is now a deputy over in Fortune Creek.

Is it true what I heard, that the two of you were engaged? ”

Olivia waved that away, definitely not wanting to talk about her broken engagement. “I saw him last night. He’s in charge of the investigation out in Starling, where the tornado hit, almost destroying the entire community. Rob Perkins is dead, Cody’s unconscious and Dean Marsh is missing.”

Her mother shook her head. “I won’t even ask what you were doing out there.” Her expression softened as she asked, “Are you still in love with one of these men? Is that what brought you back?”

Olivia felt tears blur her vision as she shrugged. Maybe she was only in love with the past and that feeling of being silly and a fool in love with her whole life ahead of her. “I missed them both in their own ways.”

Her mother rolled her eyes and rose to pour herself more coffee.

“Your grandmother was right about you. She always said you were too much like me, just give your heart away willy-nilly. Go get a shower and go to bed. You look like you’re going to fall on your face. I’ll make you some breakfast later.”

She kissed her mother on the cheek and headed for the bathroom, knowing it was going to take more than a shower and sleep to make this nightmare go away.