Landon. Delores Fossen
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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 seen a killer. He hadn’t. But one thing was for certain: she wasn’t here.
“Any sign of her yet?” Landon asked.
Grayson shook his head, but like Landon, he continued to study the funeral attendees, looking at each one of them from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat. Also as Landon had done, Grayson lingered a moment on Emmett’s three brothers. All grief stricken. And that didn’t apply just to them but to the entire Ryland clan. Losing one of their own had cut them each to the bone.
“Tessa Sinclair might not be able to attend, because she could be dead,” Grayson reminded him.
Yes. She could be. But unless Landon found proof of that, she was a person of interest in Emmett’s death. Or at least, that was how Grayson had labeled her. To Landon, she was a suspect for accessory to murder since Emmett’s body had been found in her house. That meant she likely knew the killer.
She could even be protecting him.
Well, she wouldn’t protect that piece of dirt once Landon found him. And old times wouldn’t play into this. It didn’t matter that once she’d been Landon’s lover. Didn’t matter that once they’d had feelings for each other.
Something that didn’t sit well with him, either.
But despite how Landon felt about her and no matter how hard he looked at the attendees, Tessa wasn’t here at the funeral. With her blond hair and starlet looks, she would stick out, and Landon would have already spotted her.
Grayson reached in his pocket, pulled out a silver star badge and handed it to Landon. It caught the sunlight just right, and the glare cut across Landon’s face, forcing him to shut his eyes for a second. He hoped that wasn’t some kind of bad sign.
“You’re certain you really want this?” Grayson pressed.
“Positive.” He glanced at his cousin. Not quite like looking in a mirror but close enough. The Ryland genes were definitely the dominant ones in both of them. “You haven’t changed your mind about hiring me, have you?”
“Nope. I can use the help now that I’m short a deputy. I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into.”
Landon knew. He was putting himself in a position to catch a killer.
He clipped the badge onto his shoulder holster where once there’d been a different badge, for Houston PD. There he’d been a detective. But Landon had given that up when Emmett was murdered, so he could come home and find the killer.
Too bad it didn’t look as if he would find him or her here.
“I’ll see you back at the sheriff’s office,” Landon said, heading toward his truck. It was only about a fifteen-minute ride back into town, not nearly enough time for him to burn off this restless energy churning inside him.
This is for you, Landon.
The words flashed through his head and twisted his gut into a knot so tight that Landon felt sick. Because that was what the handwritten note had said. The note that had been left on Emmett’s body. Someone had killed Emmett because of Landon.
But why?
Landon had thought long and hard on it, and he still couldn’t figure it out. Since he’d been a Houston cop for nearly a decade, it was possible this was a revenge killing. He’d certainly riled enough criminals over the years, and this could have been a payback murder meant to strike Landon right in the heart.
And it had.
Somewhere, the answers had to be in his old case files. Or maybe in the sketchy details they’d gotten from witnesses about the hours leading up to Emmett’s death. Something was there. He just had to find it.
He took the final turn toward town, and Landon saw something he sure as hell didn’t want to see.
Smoke.
It was thick, black and coiling from what was left of a barn at the old Waterson place. The house and outbuildings had been vacant for months now since Mr. Waterson had died, but that smoke meant someone was there.
Landon sped toward the blaze and skidded to a stop about twenty yards away. He made a quick 911 call to alert the fire department, and he drew his gun just in case the person responsible for that blaze was still around. However, it was hard to see much of anything, because of the smoke. It was stinging his eyes and making him cough.
But he did hear something.
A stray cat, maybe. Because there shouldn’t be any livestock still inside that barn.
Landon went to the back of the barn, or rather what was left of it, and he saw something that had his heart slamming into overdrive.
Not a cat. A woman.
She had shoulder-length brown hair and was on her side, moaning in pain. But she was only a couple of feet from the fire, and the flames were snapping toward her.
Cursing, Landon rushed to her just as the gust of the autumn wind whipped some of those flames right at him. He had to put up his arm to protect his face, and in the same motion, he grabbed her by the ankle, the first part of her he could reach, and he dragged her away from the fire.
Not a second too soon.
A huge chunk of the barn came down with a loud swoosh and sent a spray of fiery timbers and ashes to the very spot where they’d just been. Some of the embers landed on his shirt, igniting it, and Landon had to slap them out before they became full-fledged flames.
The woman moaned again, but he didn’t look back at her. He kept moving, kept dragging her until they were finally away from the fire. Well, the fire itself, anyway. The smoke continued to come right at them, and it sent both Landon and her into coughing fits.
And that was when he heard that catlike sound again.
Landon dropped down on his knees, putting himself between the woman and what was left of the fire. Part of the barn was still standing, but it wouldn’t be for much longer. He didn’t want them anywhere near it when it finally collapsed.
“Are you okay?” he asked her, rolling her to her back so he could see her face. Except he couldn’t see much of her face until he wiped off some of the soot.
Ah, hell.
Tessa.
He felt a punch of relief because she was obviously alive after all. But it was a very brief punch because she could be hurt. Dying, even.
Landon checked her for injuries. He couldn’t see any obvious ones, but she was holding something wrapped in a soot-covered blanket. He eased it back and was certain his mouth dropped open.
What the heck?
It was a baby.
A newborn, from the looks of it, and he or she was making that kitten sound.
“Whose child is that?” he asked. “And why are you here?”
Those were just two other questions