Chapter One

      Deputy Landon Ryland was looking for a killer.

      He stood back from the crowd who’d gathered for the graveside funeral, and Landon looked at each face of the fifty or so people. Most he’d known since he was a kid, when he had visited his Ryland cousins here in Silver Creek, Texas.

      But today he had to consider that one of them might have murdered Emmett.

      Just the thought of it felt as if someone had Landon’s heart in a vise and was crushing it. Emmett and he were cousins. But more like brothers. And now Emmett was dead, and someone was going to pay for that.

      Especially considering how, and why, Emmett had died.

      Landon knew the how, but it was the why that was causing his sleepless nights. He intended to give the killer a whole lot worse than just lack of sleep, though.

      He glanced out of the corner of his eye when he sensed someone approaching. Landon didn’t exactly have a welcoming expression, and everybody had kept their distance. So far.

      Since he was on edge, he slid his hand over his gun, but it wasn’t necessary. It was Sheriff Grayson Ryland, yet another of his cousins.

      Grayson, however, was also Landon’s new boss.

      The ink was barely dry on his contract with the sheriff’s office, but he was the newest lawman in Silver Creek. Newest resident, too, of the Silver Creek Ranch since he’d moved to the guesthouse there until he could find his own place. Landon just wished his homecoming had been under much better circumstances.

      “You see anything?” Grayson said. He was tall, lanky and in charge merely by being there. Grayson didn’t just wear a badge—he was the law in Silver Creek, and everybody knew it.

      Grayson was no doubt asking if Landon had