Breaking Free. Loreth White Anne

the engine purring again. She shifted into First gear, and jerked sharply forward, almost giving herself whiplash before taking off down the driveway in a blast of dust, Louisa’s blue heelers yipping at the wheels.

      Damn.

      Louisa rarely went anywhere without her two cattle dogs, and they were going to get hurt if they kept this up all the way down to the estate gates.

      Megan hit the brakes, kept the engine running as she reached over to open the passenger door. “C’mon. Get in Scout, Blue!”

      The blue heelers scrambled excitedly onto the butter leather, settling next to her in the two-seater.

      Megan engaged gears, releasing the clutch as she simultaneously depressed the gas pedal, having to consciously think in order simply to drive. Finding her rhythm, she gathered speed down the mile-long driveway under the jacaranda trees, billowing fine red Australian dust in her wake.

      As she neared the gates, a group of horses kept pace at a canter in the adjacent field.

      She wheeled the sports car onto the farm road, picking up more speed as she headed for the small town of Pepper Flats. Dusk was settling over the dry valley, and her heart hammered in her chest as she mentally prepared to face the physically disarming cop again. She wondered just how the hell she’d gotten to this point in the space of a week.

      Dylan had been born in Pepper Flats. For the past ten years he’d worked the area as a local cop, and not once during that time had he ever heard mention of a Fairchild niece.

      And a woman like Megan Stafford wouldn’t go unnoticed in this valley, he thought as he led a stone-faced Louisa into the station charge room, ordering her to sit while he entered her into the system.

      A long-lost niece conveniently popping out of the woodwork with her great-aunt tipping the wrong side of eighty seemed a little too contrived for his liking. She was probably after the old dame’s fortune, and the thought turned Dylan’s blood cold.

      He knew Megan’s type—all warm surface gloss and seductive appeal on the exterior, but calculating and devoid of compassion on the inside.

      He’d learned the hard way just how deceptive a gorgeous-looking woman like her could be. He’d married one. And he had spent the past ten years of his life raising his kid alone as a single dad, when all he’d dreamed of was a real family.

      It was a mistake he was not likely to make again.

      He handed Louisa two forms outlining her rights and began setting up the recording equipment in the interview room while keeping an eye on his octogenarian charge sitting thunderously silent.

      She’d gone ash-pale under her tan and refused his offer of water. A small wedge of worry edged into Dylan’s chest.

      It was a custody manager’s priority to watch for signs of ill health that might arise from police detention, and with Peebles executing the search warrant, Dylan was doing double duty as both custody manager and investigating officer in a station that wasn’t even a designated holding facility.

      D’Angelo would have his balls over this “transgression” alone. But given the state of emergency and the police shortage, Dylan had no choice but to wing this as best he could, and hope that Crown prosecutors would argue extenuating circumstances on his behalf should D’Angelo try to nail him for it.

      “This way please, Miss Fairchild?” he said, taking her arm. “I need to get your fingerprints.”

      “You have one hell of a hide doing this, Hastings,” she snapped. “I know your sort. You—”

      “You know nothing about me,” he said, leading her smartly to the fingerprinting station along the brick wall.

      You destroyed my family and you don’t even remember who I am.

      Not that she’d care if she did.

      “Hold still, please,” he said, taking her wrist and pressing her thumb into the ink pad, rolling it from one side to the other.

      No, he thought as he held her inked thumb apart from her other fingers and moved her hand over to the blank sheet, Louisa knew nothing about him at all.

      He rolled her thumb over the white surface until the print was complete. She muttered a colorful oath under her breath and pulled back as he began to thoroughly smear her index finger with ink.

      “Would you hold still, please?” He tried to tamp down the irritation spiking sharply through him. But as Dylan began to roll Louisa’s next finger through the ink, a movement outside the window caught his eye.

      He glanced up to see an Aston Martin DB9 Volante coming to a bone-jerking halt in front of the station, the high-performance engine stalling. Dylan felt an odd reflexive rush as he recognized Megan Stafford, looking like some Hollywood star in a casually elegant short dress, silk scarf, bare sunbronzed arms and giant shades, Louisa’s two blue heelers on the seat beside her like Lord and Lady Muck.

      He saw her mutter what could only be an expletive as she swung open the convertible’s door, extending long athletic legs. And Dylan felt a smile tempt the corners of his mouth.

      He tried not to watch those lean legs walking towards the entrance of his station, tried to focus on Louisa’s prints, but at the same time he was compelled to sneak another peek, grudgingly acknowledging that Fairchild’s grand-niece really was hot, even with clothes on.

      Heat coursed softly through Dylan as the image of Stafford in that barely there bikini reformed in his consciousness—and his body hardened in instant response. He banked down the unbidden and annoying rush of physical anticipation, reminding himself Stafford had probably come to the station to wheedle herself into Louisa Fairchild’s good graces—if there were such a thing—and right into the octogenarian’s will.

      This helped steel his focus.

      But as she entered the reception area he felt the chemistry of the smoke-tinged air in the small brick station shift, and his pulse quickened anyway.

      “Louisa?” Megan called, leaning her body over the counter. “Are you all right?” Her mouth opened in shock as she saw her aunt being fingerprinted down the hall, and her green eyes flared at Dylan. “I need to talk to her,” she demanded. “In private.”

      The cop speared her with those intense blue eyes of his. “It’s her right, Detective Sergeant Hastings. I…I’m a lawyer.”

      His brow crooked sharply up, and Megan felt her cheeks grow hot. She swore to herself. She had no idea what had possessed her to say that. The man flat-out unnerved her.

      “Would you take the dogs outside, please, Ms. Stafford? And I’ll let you in the back as soon as we’re done with the prints here.”

      Megan muttered another curse as she returned Scout and Blue to the car. He was playing power games with her by ordering her out with the dogs like that. It was probably also a ploy to rattle Louisa.

      Megan reentered the station, removing her scarf and using it to tie her damp hair back into a ponytail as she did. She wished she’d managed to get out of her wet bikini before coming. It was now uncomfortable.

      Detective Sergeant Hastings unlocked a door to the side of the reception counter, admitting her into the working part of the police station.

      It was deserted at this hour, and his presence seemed to suck up all the air in the place. Megan suddenly felt nervous. But when she peered beyond his broad shoulders and saw the normally statuesque Louisa looking so frail and vulnerable as she tried to scrub the ink from her hands at a grimy, gray, industrial-sized enamel sink, a fist of anger curled deep in Megan’s belly, squeezing away the nerves.

      “I need a moment with her,” she said quietly. “Alone.”

      He held out his hand. “Room down on the left.”

      “Come, Louisa,” she said, taking her aunt’s arm, feeling the cop’s eyes burning into her back as they went down the corridor to the interview room.