The Sheriff of Heartbreak County

he was going to be expected to do his best to help convict.

He knew all that and it didn’t change a damn thing, so he was feeling less than pleased with himself by the time the back door of the salon opened and the cause of his frustration appeared, looking like a mouse venturing out of her hole.

She hesitated when she saw him waiting there, looking for a moment as though she wanted to slip back into that hole and close the door. Then, darting a desperate look around as if searching for a new place to hide, or run to-or hoping there’d be somebody else there to rescue her-she came slowly toward the car. Roan rolled down his window and she halted, looking now like someone about to meet the hangman. She drew a shaky breath and said, “Okay, what now?”

Blame guilt, or his grouchy mood; he snarled back at her, “What do you mean, what now? I’m here to take you home, dammit.”

And instantly her shoulders got hunched up and she seemed to flinch. “You don’t need to do that.”

He couldn’t seem to stop himself from scowling at her. “Look, are we going to go through this again? I brought you here, I’ll take you home. Get in.”

Still she hesitated, and he said impatiently, “For God’s sake, Red, you don’t need to look at me like I’m the Big Bad Wolf. I’m just giving you a ride home.”

He didn’t know what to think when she went pale and jerked back as if he’d slapped her.

Chapter 8

Her eyes, framed by those godawful glasses, reminded Roan of terrified wild critters cowering in the shadows. “What…what did you say?”

Watching her narrowly, he said, “Uh…Big Bad Wolf…Little Red Riding Hood? You know-”

“Oh-of course.” A smile blossomed, misty with embarrassment and relief.

“What the hell did you think?” He still felt wary, and oddly shaken. But there was a new tingle of alertness running through him, too…a feeling there was something important in this little misunderstanding, if he only knew what it was.

She tried her best to divert him with a nervous laugh and a not very convincing gesture. “I thought-you reminded me of something, that’s all.”

Something? Or…someone? But he didn’t see any point in pursuing the issue. Not then.

Gathering up his patience, which he seemed to have been losing his grip on a lot lately, he said in a weary voice, “Well, all right, Miss Mary, but do you think you could get in the damn car? I’m not gonna eat you, you know.”

She threw him her vivid green glare and muttered, “You might not believe that either, if you could see your face.” But she trotted around the SUV and opened the passenger-side door.

While she was doing that, Roan had a chance to look at himself in his rearview mirror. What he saw made him snort, then laugh silently. He was smiling when she slipped in beside him, fingering back a lock of limp brown hair that had escaped the confines of the ponytail she’d clipped haphazardly to the back of her head. Watching her, his smile grew broader.

“What now?” she demanded, instantly suspicious again. “Why are you smiling?”

What was he going to say? He couldn’t tell her he was thinking how he’d like to take that damn clip and pitch it out the window, then slip his fingers into the silky softness of her hair…and that he was smiling the same way he would if he’d just set eyes on a meadow full of wildflowers, or a wild red sunset, or a nice piece of horseflesh running free. For no other reason than to acknowledge and thank God for the beauty of it.

And he didn’t want to ask her why she was trying to hide how beautiful she was, either-not then…although he did file that question away for a future time and place, along with the others he’d collected. Because he was more and more certain the dowdiness she put on with those ugly glasses and oversized clothes wasn’t ignorance or bad taste. Considering the woman made her living making other people beautiful, it was hard for him to believe she wouldn’t know how to recognize it in herself.

Which meant… his pulse quickened as his mind tripped quickly along the path that thought opened up for him. Say she’s a protected witness, but a new identity, a new location, aren’t enough. Say she’s recognizable whoever or whatever she is. If she’s trying to hide it, could it mean it’s the fact she’s beautiful that makes her recognizable?

He put on an expression of mock bewilderment and adopted a wounded tone that wouldn’t fool Susie Grace. “Hey, a minute ago you didn’t like my face because I wasn’t smiling, now you don’t like it because I am? I just can’t win with you, can I?”

She didn’t answer that, but busied herself fastening her seatbelt, then turned her head and studied him thoughtfully while he started up the SUV and checked his rearview mirrors. When they were headed down the alley, she shifted to face forward and said conversationally, “Don’t you have anything better to do than chauffeur a murder suspect around town? Like…a department to run? Criminals to catch?”

“See, that’s the good thing about being the boss,” he said cheerfully. “You get to delegate. Happens I’ve got a whole bunch of good people working for me. Amazes me, sometimes, how much they can get done so long as I stay out of their way.” His eyes slid past her as he made the turn onto Main Street, and he added softly and without a trace of humor, “The fact is, Miss Mary, right now you’re my number-one priority.”

I wonder why he calls me that-Miss Mary, she thought.

I wonder why I don’t mind that he does.

There was a knot of tension sitting at the very top of her chest, and she rubbed it absently as she watched the quaint Old-West-style storefronts on Main Street flash by. She noticed that many of them were wearing new coats of paint now that spring had come, and some had flower boxes sitting out in front, planted with pansies and snapdragons and daffodils that nodded in the wind. A lot of them had hung American flags, too.

I wonder why he looks at me the way he does sometimes…as if he really does see right through this charade of mine…as if he knows who I really am.

I wonder how he can know who I am when even I don’t, and why it bothers me so much that he does.

I wonder why I wonder about him so much…

“What do you do when you’re not working?”

Her heart gave a nervous lurch and her breath hitched, and she’d already flicked him a startled glance before she caught herself and murmured, “What do you mean?”

Watching the street ahead, he casually lifted one shoulder. “What do you like to do in your spare time? Read? Garden? Build birdhouses? Go out with friends?”

Warning instincts shivered over her skin. What is he doing? Is he trying to trick me? “Why are you asking?” she said lightly, on guard now.

The glance he gave her seemed more amused than exasperated, like the look an indulgent parent might bestow on a rebellious child. “It’s called conversation-you know, polite small talk? That’s where I ask you unimportant questions and you answer them, then you ask me some and I answer, and maybe in the process we get to know each other a little better.”

He was patronizing her. Annoyance crept over her, banishing the pricklings of suspicion. “Conversation?” she said with an incredulous huff of laughter. “You must be kidding. We shouldn’t even be talking at all-about anything.”

He was silent for a moment, then said quietly, “I’m not trying to trick you into anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. My asking didn’t have anything to do with you having secrets…me trying to find out who you are. Maybe I shouldn’t be asking any kind of questions-most likely I shouldn’t-hell, Lord knows I shouldn’t. But look, you’re a newcomer in a town where everybody knows everybody and half are related by blood or marriage. I’d like to learn more about you. That’s it-that’s all it is.” He was frowning when he finished, maybe realizing how many contradictions there’d been in what he’d said.

Mary studied his rugged profile, cast in bronze by the setting sun. The dent in his cheek was a purple shadow,