“Hollace was about to enter the diner when we found him,” Knight said. Calm and cool. Clint had to admit the other man’s manner had his own fury receding enough to figure out what to do next. He needed to get Maggie back where she belonged. He had a lot of making up to do to that woman. “Marin was in front of him. That’s all I could see. Then she collapsed. The end.”
“Hollace confessed. And he was the only one involved in what happened at your place.” Weatherby changed the subject. “You can have Dr. Talley bring your…housekeeper…and baby back.”
Clint already had the phone number to where they were. When he was certain they were safe, he was going to get Maggie back to Masterson County. They were going to have a long talk. He was going to tell her he was sorry for what had happened between them and the way he had handled it and make it clear that they were going to do the right thing by the new baby, and by Violet. And then he’d have Maggie where he wanted her. Where he’d wanted her for two months, but was afraid to let her be there.
He’d be a good husband. He’d make sure of it. He’d love her the way she deserved to be loved. He already did. He’d just been stupid, that was all. In time, maybe she’d grow to love him, too. Maybe he’d be able to make up for her getting stuck with him somehow, someday.
He’d quit his job and go back to school. Finish out his law degree, maybe hire on with Joel Masterson’s cousin, Jack. Jack had a firm in the county that wasn’t doing too badly, and rumor had it his younger brother, Jason, was returning to town to help expand that firm.
Maggie deserved him home every night. He needed to be there for his kids, too. In ways that Clive hadn’t been for him. From the moment Violet was conceived and he’d known about her, Clint had vowed to be a better father than he’d had himself. That resolve had doubled as he’d thought about the baby he and Maggie had made that night. It had been one of the most beautiful nights of his life. He’d ruined it with his stupidity, though. Completely ruined it.
His fists balled up when he imagined how scared she had been, alone, when he wondered where she was right now. How badly she was hurt. When he was going to see her again. He’d just left her at the ranch like it was any other day. And he could have lost them all.
He watched Hollace as he was led down the long hallway toward processing. “I want to kill him.”
Clint said the words flatly, but the emotion burning in his gut—the pure hatred—would be something he never forgot.
Knight shifted right into his way. “You do that, and the woman who matters to you? You’ll never be able to be there for her again. Something to remember. Growing up without a father isn’t exactly a picnic. It screws with you for a long, long time. Don’t do that to your kids. You owe them better than that, more than throwing that away on a piece of dirt like Jim Hollace. Remember that. You owe those kids their father.”
Weatherby took it a full step further. He grabbed Clint’s wrist and had him cuffed to the handrail faster than a man his size should have been able to move.
Clint just stared at the metal cuff. He swore.
Weatherby just shrugged. “We’re not going to let you do something stupid.”
Weatherby always had been a bit of a ass.
Knight just looked at them both, a dark look on his face. “You have a future, man. Don’t blow it now.”
“Clint?” a soft voice said behind him. Clint turned, feeling like a fool handcuffed to a polished handrail. Miranda stood there, a calm, quiet look on her beautiful face. “Want to take a walk? Talk? I know you probably have questions about Maggie right now.”
“You make sure he controls himself?” Weatherby demanded. “Better question—can you control him?”
Miranda just stared at him, giving him a small smile identical to her sister’s. Weatherby’s face darkened. “I think I can handle him just fine.”
“Then take him. As long as you don’t try to read his palm or anything like that.”
“Marin reads auras—not palms,” Miranda said. “And thanks. For keeping her from getting hurt today. It was greatly appreciated. Clint? Shall we?”
Weatherby uncuffed him. Clint drove his fist into the man’s stomach. Weatherby just grunted.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Clint said. “I owe you one.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
55
Miranda had taken that ex-boyfriend of hers on a walk through the town’s backstreets. To talk to him. To tell the other man where his family had been taken. Knight felt sick, thinking what Clint had experienced in those two long hours between them discovering the blood in the barn and Miranda whispering that the woman and baby were safe now. That kind of hell was something he never wanted to see again on the face of someone he respected. And he did respect Clint. He seemed like a fine cop, and a decent man.
He hadn’t deserved this. Not by a long shot.
Knight watched Miranda from the window. They’d both agreed that Jac and the sheriff would handle the interrogation of Jim Hollace right now. Technically, what the man had done was not a federal crime, but a local one. That put it fully in the sheriff’s jurisdiction, as Clint’s ranch was just on the edge of Masterson County.
Knight had assigned himself to keep an eye on Clint. With what had happened to his family, Clint was now a wild card. Wild cards had a way of bringing swift and brutal changes, in Knight’s experience. Clint bore watching. Just to be on the safe side.
Cinnamon hair caught his attention as Clint and Miranda rounded the front of the building.
