Landon
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Delores Fossen
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19,9K
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18
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 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 Landon had to add to the list of things he would ask Tessa. And she would answer. Especially answer why Emmett’s body was found in her house and where the heck she’d been for the past four days.
“You have to help me,” Tessa whispered, her voice barely audible.
Yeah, he did have to help. Just because he didn’t like or trust her, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t save her. Landon didn’t want to move her any farther, though, in case she was injured, so he fired off a text to get an ambulance on the way.
Both the baby and she had no doubt inhaled a lot of smoke, but at least the baby’s face didn’t have any soot on it, which meant maybe the blanket had protected him or her.
“Did you hear me?” he snapped. “Why were you near the burning barn? And whose baby is that?”
He wanted to ask about that dyed hair, too, but it could wait. Though it was likely a dye job to change her appearance.
Landon couldn’t think of a good reason for her to do that. But he could think of a really bad one—she was on the run and didn’t want anyone to recognize her. Well, she’d picked a stupid place to hide.
If that was what she’d been doing.
She stared up at him. Blinked several times. “Who are you?” she asked.
Landon gave her a flat look. “Very funny. I’m not in the mood for games. Answer those questions I asked and then tell me about Emmett.”
“Emmett?” she repeated. She touched her hand to her head, her fingers sliding through her hair. She looked at the ends of the dark strands as if seeing them for the first time. “What did you do to me?”
Landon huffed. “I saved your life. And the baby’s.”
At the mention of the word baby, Landon got a bad feeling.
He quickly did the math, and it’d been seven months, more or less, since he’d landed in bed with Tessa. And he hadn’t laid eyes on her since. Seven months might mean…
“Is that our baby?” he demanded.
As she’d done with her hair, she looked down at the newborn who was squirming in her arms. Tessa didn’t gasp, but it was close. Her gaze flew to his, the accusation all over her face.
“I don’t know,” she said, her breath gusting now.
That wasn’t the right answer. In fact, that wasn’t an acceptable answer at all.
He didn’t hold Tessa in high regard, but she would know who’d fathered her child. If it was indeed Landon, she might also be trying to keep the baby from him. After all, they hadn’t parted on good terms, and those terms had gotten significantly worse with Emmett’s murder.
Damn.
Were Tessa and he parents?
No. They couldn’t be. The kid had to be Joel Mercer’s and hers, and even though Landon had plenty of other reasons for his stomach to knot, just thinking of Joel’s name did it. That night, seven months ago, Tessa had sworn she was through with Joel, but Landon would bet his next two paychecks that she had gone right back to him.
She always did.
In the distance, Landon heard the wail of the sirens from the fire engine. It’d be here soon. The ambulance, too. And then Tessa would be whisked away to the hospital, where she could pull another disappearing act.
“Start talking,” Landon demanded, getting right in her face. “Tell me everything, and I mean everything.”
The baby and the ends of her brown hair weren’t the only thing she looked at as though she’d never seen them before. Tessa gave Landon that same look.
“Who are you?” she repeated, her eyes filling with tears. “Whose baby is this?” Tessa stopped, those teary blue eyes widening. “And who am I?”
