Taming a Texas Devil - Katie Lane Page 0,54

thinking. Lucas and Chester live by the code of the West and sometimes that code can be pretty brutal.” He stared out at the garden for a few moments before he spoke. “Chester did ride back to the ranch the day Sam threatened you. When he saw Sam leaving, he followed him and cut him off on the road. He claims he didn’t try to kill Sam. He just fired some shots at his truck.”

Val blew out his breath. “A jury might see it differently.” He glanced up. “Have you told Holden? He might need to defend Chester.”

“Damn, I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Val reached out and placed a hand on Lincoln’s shoulder. “I know you feel torn between your duty and your love for those old cowboys.”

Torn didn’t even come close to summing up how Lincoln felt. And the fact that he hadn’t taken Sam’s disappearance seriously made it even worse. “When the forensics report comes back, I’ll have to report what Chester told me. I’m just praying I figure out what happened to Sam before that.”

“And you have no leads.”

“It’s hard to find leads on a sixteen-year-old murder. I’m going to start questioning people in town about Sam.”

“What about Maisy? Have you told her anything?”

“No. And I’m not going to until we find out if the femur is Sam’s.” Then he needed to tell Maisy the entire truth, including the truth about his relationship to Sam. He owed her that. He also owed her an apology for being such an ass to her. She wasn’t Sam. She was just a young woman searching for her father. Which proved that she’d suffered from Sam’s abuse too. Maybe not physically, but desertion was a form of abuse.

“Hey,” Reba peeked her head out the open screen door. “You two bad boys need to call it a night. Dixie’s done in.”

Lincoln wasn’t sure what Reba was talking about until he got to the front porch and found Dixie sound asleep in the porch swing with Queenie asleep on her chest.

He gently shook her arm. “Wake up, Deputy Meriwether.” The cat woke and jumped to the ground, but Dixie was dead to the world. Not knowing what else to do, he scooped her up and headed down the porch steps. Val hurried to open the passenger side door of Lincoln’s truck.

Once Lincoln had Dixie inside, he reclined the seat so she would be more comfortable, then fastened her seatbelt. Strands of golden hair had fallen over her face, and he smoothed them back before gently closing the door. When he turned, Val stood there holding Queenie with a knowing smile on his face.

“Yeah, you just work together.”

Lincoln didn’t comment as he took the cat and headed around to the driver’s side of the truck. “Thanks for dinner, Reba,” he called up to Reba who stood on the porch.

“Anytime, Linc. Same goes for Dixie.” She wore the same goofy smile as her husband.

It was a short drive to Dixie’s apartment. When he pulled in front, he misjudged the curb and drove up on it. Obviously, he shouldn’t have had that last beer. The jarring bounce caused the cat on his lap to sink her claws into his thigh.

“Sonofa—” He cut off, not wanting to wake Dixie, but only a second later she sat up in the seat and looked around.

“What . . . where are we?”

He unhooked the cat’s claws from his jeans and handed her to Dixie. “Your apartment. You fell asleep on the porch.”

She blinked sleepily and then yawned and stretched before noticing that one tire of the truck was sitting up on the curb. “What happened?”

Lincoln cleared his throat. “I misjudged the curb a little.” He put the truck in reverse and tried to ease the tire off the curb, but the landing was still jarring.

“A little?” Dixie looked over at him. Her hair fell around her face in mussed, sexy waves of butterscotch gold and her green eyes were heavy-lidded. She had never looked sexier. “Are you drunk, Lincoln?”

“I’m fine. I’ll see you in the morning. We need to fill out a report on the fire.” He waited for her to get out, but instead she reached across and pushed the ignition button, turning off the engine. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“My job.” She grabbed the key fob out of the cup holder before she opened the door and got out. She was almost to her front door before Lincoln got over his shock and jumped out of