Confessing to the Cowboy - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,81
her for so long, and when his fantasy of making love to her had finally come true, it had been far beyond his best fantasy. But that didn’t mean he was the right man for her.
He should have never gotten intimately involved with her in the first place. It would have been much easier if she’d remained just a fantasy, a vision to fill his dreams at night.
He had to figure out a way to get her out of his heart. She’d become his addictive habit...thinking about her, dreaming about her and ending almost every night of the day sitting with her across the counter at the café.
She was definitely a habit he had to break and ultimately she was a citizen of his town who he had to protect from an unknown perpetrator.
Where in the hell was Jason McKnight? And if he wasn’t committing the murders himself, then who had he hired to do his dirty work? Although he’d managed to pull Denver Walton’s and Thomas Manning’s finances and background records based on probable cause, the judge had known that it was more of a fishing expedition and wouldn’t be so lenient the next time Cameron came to him.
As far as he was concerned Denver and Thomas were his best suspects and yet there was nothing concrete to tie either of them to the crimes.
He couldn’t help but feel as if he was missing something...overlooking something vital, but he’d gone over the reports a hundred times and nothing had popped out. He and his men had checked each person in town they thought the right height and weight to be the perpetrator and they’d all come up empty-handed.
He stood and grabbed his coat. Time to get Mary and get home before the roads became completely impassable. He was just about to leave his office when his cell phone rang.
“Cameron, it’s me,” his mother said.
“Mom, what’s up?”
“Your damn fool father decided he needed to go out to the barn in the middle of this weather and he was walking back from there when he slipped and fell. I can’t get him up and he’s just lying out in the yard. Please, can you get out here?” There was a wild panic in his mother’s voice.
“I’ll be there as quickly as I can,” he replied. A glance out the window let him know that the sleet still fell down from the sky.
He then dialed Mary’s cell phone number and frowned when it went directly to voice mail. Maybe she had a few customers show up despite the weather and was busy serving them.
“Mary, there’s an emergency out at my parents’ place. It shouldn’t take me too long, but I’ve got to get out there before I come to get you. Just sit tight, I’ll be there as soon as possible,” he said to her voice mail.
He’d head out to his parents’, see that his father was okay and then get to the café as quickly as possible. Hopefully by then whoever had decided to stop in and eat would be finished with their meals and he and Mary could get to his house and end this long, irritating night.
* * *
“You don’t look very happy to see me,” Brandon said as he advanced closer to where Mary stood, still stunned and half-breathless.
No, not Brandon. Jason. In a nanosecond her brain worked to process all the physical changes that had made her not recognize the man from her nightmares.
He’d gained at least thirty pounds since the last time she’d seen him and his brown eyes had obviously been turned blue with colored contacts. His bald head and missing eyebrows made it impossible to tell what his hair color might have been and the scars...the makeup she’d thought he’d used in an attempt to cover his scars had obviously been used to make them. He looked nothing like the man she’d run from so many years ago.
She backed up from him, aware of the knife’s sharp edge gleaming in the security lights overhead. “How... How did you find me?” She finally found her voice.
“You mean after you left me half-dead on the floor in our living room?” His eyes narrowed and despite the facade of Brandon Williams, war veteran, she saw Jason McKnight’s soul shining from the hatred in his miscolored eyes.
“It took me months in the hospital to recuperate from what you did to me.” He took another step closer and she retreated a step back, icy terror making her entire body