“Enjoying your stay here?” he asked, shoving back his Stetson to expose a pair of very blue eyes fringed in dark lashes.
“Not really.” He was more handsome than she’d taken the time to notice at the hospital. Handsome, well-built and physically fit. And he was clearly looking for a fight. She could tell she’d banged up his ego more than his body.
“You go by Mo?” he asked.
She waited, fairly sure she already knew what had brought him here. She just wondered how long it would take him to get to the point.
Fortunately, it wasn’t long. “Look, I know you were planning to kill her earlier in the hospital—just as I know she told you something,” he said.
She wanted to say, “Prove it!” but thought better of it. Antagonizing a deputy, let alone the son of the marshal, was probably not in her best interests—even out here in the sticks. Maybe especially out here in the sticks.
“I’m sorry if there was a misunderstanding at the hospital,” she said with cavity-inducing sweetness.
He laughed, a beguiling sound. “Oh, I understood you just fine. I saw the way you were looking at Natalie Berkshire. Like you wanted to kill her.”
“Fortunately, that’s not against the law.”
“Attacking an officer of the law is.”
She tried not to smile. “I didn’t realize you were a lawman.”
“The uniform probably threw you,” he said sarcastically.
She shrugged. “I thought you were a lecherous security guard.”
His blue eyes narrowed, but he smiled.
“You did grab me, and you didn’t announce who you were. It was a innocent mistake.”
“I doubt there is anything innocent about you,” he said.
Mo chuckled at that, thinking how true that was. She was no longer the naive woman who’d believed in the law. That had changed everything about her. She was more daring in every aspect, she realized, as if she had nothing left to lose. In the past, she would have been more careful around a deputy who had her locked up behind bars. Heck, she would have been maybe even a little tongue-tied around a cowboy as handsome as this one. But right now she didn’t feel shy or cowed in the least.
She met his Montana-sky-blue gaze, so much deeper and darker than her own. “You’re new at this, aren’t you? Green as springtime in the Rockies.”
His brows furrowed. “Seasoned or not, I’m still a deputy—”
“On medical leave. I also heard that you’re the one who found her last night,” Mo said. She didn’t want to argue semantics. She didn’t have time for it.
He eyed her sharply. “Sorry it wasn’t you who found her?”
She was, but she wasn’t about to admit it to him. “You haven’t asked if I was the one who abducted her.”
“I don’t believe you are. Not your style.”
Mo raised a brow and couldn’t help but chuckle. “You think you know my style after one...confrontation? I must have made quite an impact on you.”
To her surprise, he chuckled, as well. “You could say that. It’s why I was anxious to see you—behind bars.”
She liked that he could joke. She also liked that he was smart. He’d spotted her quickly for the fraud she was at the hospital. Too quickly. She was curious, though, why he was really here. Just to taunt her? Or did he want something, as she suspected? It was clear that he thought he knew her. That was almost laughable. He had no idea.
“What did she say to you?” he asked.
She felt his gaze on her, a welding torch of heat and intensity.
“She said something to you,” he continued. “I heard her.”
“I’m not sure what you thought you heard, but the patient, I’m told, is in a catatonic state, unable to speak.” She was still dealing with Natalie’s words. They’d been private, disarming, horrifying if true. She wasn’t about to share them with anyone, especially this half deputy.
“What she said got one hell of a reaction from you,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her denial. “It stopped you from killing her.”
She said nothing, surprised to be hearing the truth in his words. She had gone to the hospital to get an answer to one question and then, well, then, she planned to make sure Natalie never destroyed another family again.
“Sorry, but I don’t believe you,” the deputy said. “You were leaning over her. I saw her lips moving. I heard her whispering something to you. I want to know why her words made you change your mind.”
She started to argue that he had no idea what was in her mind—and even if he did, he couldn’t prove it, but he cut her off.
“You want out of this cell? Tell me the truth.”
“The truth?” she mocked. “The truth is that Natalie Berkshire is guilty as sin.”
“You can prove that?”
“It will get proved, but unfortunately, not before someone else dies because our judicial system takes so long.”
“I’m still waiting to hear what she said to you,” he said, cocking his head to study her with those intense blue eyes of his.
Mo pulled her gaze away first. She didn’t want to tell this cocky cowboy deputy anything. She’d overheard the nurses talking about him last night at the deli. The cowboy had reputation with the women and yet women still seemed to be attracted to him, knowing that he might break their hearts. Good thing he wasn’t her type.
“I’m guessing that what Natalie said had something to do with your sister.” When she said nothing, he added, “Tricia, isn’t that right?”
Her pulse pounded in her ears. Had he heard Natalie say Tricia’s name? She groaned inwardly. Natalie Berkshire wasn’t just a killer. She was a psychopath who manipulated people. Look how she’d deceived Tricia and her husband, Thomas, and especially Mo herself. Wasn’t that the part that kept her up at night?
Trust
