Page 17 of Seducing the Sheriff (Charming Butte #2)

Chapter Nine

Greg

I stared at Cash’s tasty-looking lips for a millisecond too long, I was sure of it. He knew. Somehow, he knew I was falling for him, that I was racing past friendship village to romance metropolis.

“Umm…” We were in a public place. With people. I glanced around. Well, not at that exact second, but Marisa or another history nut could appear at any second. “So, should we try Jim Brannigan again?”

Cash abruptly straightened, his body tensing. He averted his gaze, fishing for his phone in his pocket. As he turned from me, what felt like a boulder landed in my stomach.

“Of course,” he said. “It’s getting late anyway. Maybe if we’re lucky, we can catch up to him before the day is over.”

Over.

Cash made his way toward the entrance, and I wanted to kick my own ass so hard, I’d be propelled into orbit.

I trailed behind him, taking several deep breaths.

More than anything else, I worried that I’d insulted him, hurt his feelings.

I was used to disappointment, but I didn’t want to cause someone else to feel that way.

But that didn’t mean I had to admit defeat. I could salvage the situation.

I waved at Marisa as I breezed past, then stepped outside, the sunshine blinding me for a sec before I spotted Cash.

He was standing next to a row of sagebrush lined up in a bed of white rocks along the side of the museum.

His voice was friendly and animated, so it seemed like he’d finally gotten hold of Brannigan.

This was a good development if that was the case. A stop at the historical society in Charming meant there was a chance to salvage the day, maybe bring us back to the easy flirtation we’d begun earlier.

I approached him but hung back a little in case the conversation related to something that wasn’t meant for me. I was close enough to hear Cash end the call with a ‘Great, let me check with Greg, but we should be there within the hour’.

A good portion of tension drained from my body, replaced by a decent amount of hopefulness. Cash closed the small distance between us, smiling.

“I got hold of Jim. He’s at the station right now visiting and said we’re welcome to stop by.”

“He’s going to take us to the historical society?”

Cash shook his head with a laugh. “No, it’s small, but it’s there at the station. I don’t know if you’ve been out that way, but there’s an old, brick building that’s the original firehouse next to the modern station. Volunteers man it on the weekends and help him out with maintenance.”

“Oh, wow. Sounds like it’s his baby.”

Cash nodded. “What do you say? Still have enough energy to pursue this mystery?”

“Enough for just about anything.”

Cash’s eyebrows shot up, but this time, I hoped he took it the wrong way. Or was it the right way? Maybe I could salvage the day in more ways than one.

His lips pulled into an easy smile. “I guess we’d better get moving then.”

As I’d hoped, the drive back to Charming returned us to the natural connection we’d been forming earlier, before my big mouth put a wrench in the proceedings. In between funny stories from his early years in law enforcement, peppered with my own on-the-job anecdotes, I mentally formulated a plan.

It wasn’t a great plan. Not even a good one. But it was better than climbing out of Cash’s car at the end of the day, waving goodbye as he drove off, then trudging my way into my lonely as fuck house.

Nope. I was going to quit being a big chicken and stop second-guessing every little moment between us. Even if I made a complete ass of myself, I couldn’t live the rest of my life wondering what might have been. I’d done enough of that already.

Once we reached Charming, Cash drove past Main St. to a section on the other side of downtown.

Of the few times I’d ventured into town, I’d never gone this far.

It was clearly an older section of Charming.

The homes sat on larger lots and were an eclectic mixture of classic adobe and cute, post-war bungalows.

It made perfect sense that this area was where the historical society would be located.

Case drove up the dusty, gravel driveway that led to a small patch of concrete that boasted six parking spaces between the fire station and a much older building. Three were taken, and we nabbed the fourth. Right as we both exited the car, a tall older man approached with a smile and a wave.

I sidled up alongside Cash. “The ex-Chief Brannigan, I presume?”

Cash smiled and waved in Jim’s direction. “Yup. He said he’d let us in. I think he’s as curious about our little mystery as we are.”

I liked the sound of ‘our’. “Awesome. We get the star treatment.”

Cash gave me a playful jostle with his elbow. “Stick with me and I’ll get you into all the trendiest places.”

I snorted out a laugh. “I’m impressed.”

The more Cash played, the more emboldened I became. Maybe my brazen plan for later wasn’t as fraught with danger as I feared.

“Hello, Cash.” Jim gave his hand a hearty shake, then turned to me and did the same.

“And you must be Greg. I hear you had quite the surprise the other night at the Jenkins’ place.

” He shook his head with a chuckle. “In all my many years in Charming, I’ve never come across anything like that.

” He rubbed his palms together with a grin.

“Let’s see what we can dig up, so to speak. ”

Jim had barely come up for breath, so I nodded and followed him as he quickly made his way to the front of the old station. Cash leaned in and whispered as we walked, “If anyone can get to the bottom of this, it’s Jim. I can already tell how invested he is.”

I’d just met the guy, and I could tell. Fellow history geeks unite.

After letting us in and turning on a few of the overhead lights, Jim beckoned for us to keep following him.

I tried to keep from getting distracted by all the vintage coolness surrounding me, but it was a losing battle.

Every time I dragged my heels to take a quick peek at old firefighting apparatus or black and white photos of famous local emergency incidents, Cash would take a step back and nudge me along.

I even spotted several pics of the old mine Cash had told me about, and a display case filled with artifacts.

“There’s too much to look at,” I whispered to Cash.

“Come on, boys,” said Jim. “You can sight-see another time. I’ve got to pick up Lindy in about an hour. We’re headed to Dex and Meyer’s place for dinner tonight.”

That’s them, Dex and Meyer. I mentally repeated their names over and over in my head, an attempt to cement them in memory.

Cash leaned in. “You’re gonna get me into trouble, you bad boy.”

I almost choked on my spit. His low, husky growl was doing terrible, wonderful things to me. Although my dick was only interested in the wonderful parts.

We followed Jim into a large office that I imagined had once been the administrative heart of the old firehouse.

“Let’s see…” Jim muttered to himself as he flipped through files in one of the mismatched five-drawer, standing metal cabinets. They lined the two walls that didn’t have half windows, and I imagined they’d been brought in from various sources over the decades.

The chief yanked a thick accordion file from the top of one of the cabinets and brought it over to the large oak desk.

“Grab a chair, fellas.” He gestured to a small group of folding chairs.

“This contains a list of prominent families who settled in Charming early on.” Jim removed several individual manila files, then spread them around the desktop, as if we were about to play a bizarre game of cards.

“Based on the age of the Jenkins property, it must have originally been owned by one of these families.” He tapped his index finger on the pile. “I think this is where we start.”

“Should we each take a file?” I asked.

Jim shuffled them around, his bushy eyebrows dipping low as he examined them. “How about we each take four? There are thirteen, but whoever finishes going through their four can grab that one.”

We each took randomly selected files, and as soon as I opened my first one, I realized what we were up against. Not that I’d expected to find all the answers to a murder mystery in one afternoon, but this was shaping up to be a considerable undertaking.

My file detailed the origins of the Vazquez family in the area, who had owned a massive ranchero in what became Charming since the mid-1800s.

However, much of their property had been lost through a land grab when the mining company moved into town.

What followed was decades of conflict over rightful ownership, with the Vazquez family ultimately on the losing end.

I rubbed my forehead as I read through various deeds, legal filings, hand-drawn maps, birth and death records, and more. One thing that caught my interest was that their primary industry was sheep farming. Somehow, that knowledge made me more determined to raise some of my own, almost as a tribute.

I glanced up to see both Cash and Jim equally engrossed in their own files. “Is there a map I can compare to the hand-drawn ones I have in here? I’m wondering if maybe the Jenkins property was part of the ranchero the Vazquez family owned.”

Jim shook his head. “No. The Vazquez property was on the other side of Bobcat. Stretches way out into the desert. The corporation that bought out the mining company owns part of it, and the rest was taken by the Federal Government.” He frowned.

“Alisa Cortez lives with her great-grandmother, the last Vazquez. She’s Carmen’s caretaker.

” Jim stretched. “Goodness. I think Carmen is almost a hundred by now. All they have left of the original ranchero is five acres, not too far from the diner.”

“That’s so sad.”