Hot on the Trail. Vicki Tharp

of them had been parents, as far as he knew, the last time he’d seen them.

      “Pull up a chair,” Lottie said, as she and Dale returned to their seats at either end of the table. “You must be starved.”

      Jenna pulled out the chair on the other side of her, the way she used to when he’d worked at the ranch. By rote, his feet nearly took him there, but he chose the empty seat next to Mac instead.

      If he sat beside Jenna, it would feel too much like nothing had changed, when, in fact, nothing was remotely the same.

      Between fighting to save his career and Kurt’s death, piling relationship issues on top would only add to his unneeded stress.

      But Jenna had always been a pretty girl, and even if he wasn’t the man for her, that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the beautiful woman sitting across from him.

      He helped himself to a full serving of brisket, drizzled it with gravy, and eyed Jenna over the top of the gravy boat. Okay, so “beautiful” was too generic of a word to describe her.

      With her brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail and dirt smeared on the cheek of her makeup-free face, when she looked at him with those green eyes, she had a way of making him feel like he was the only one in the world who mattered.

      Well, at least it had seemed that way to him. But that was a long time ago. He’d been a different man back then.

      Mac ribbed him with her elbow. “Dale was talking to you.”

      Quinn glanced up, feeling the burn as his face flushed. “Sorry.”

      “I wanted to offer our condolences. Kurt wasn’t one to invite people in, but he seemed like a good man. We’re all sorry about his passing.”

      The bite of corn bread must have soaked up all of his saliva because the mouthful refused to go down. His throat bobbed painfully. Quinn stared at his plate, unable to meet Dale’s gaze and maintain his composure. “Thank you,” he muttered around the bite of food. When he managed to choke the morsel down, he added, “and you’re right. Kurt was one of the good guys.”

      The light outside had faded, and almost everybody’s plates had been scraped clean when he heard the crunch of gravel beneath tires.

      “Must be the sheriff,” Lottie said as she began clearing the table.

      Quinn stood, taking his and Mac’s empty plate to the sink and stepped out onto the porch. Jenna flipped on the outside light, and joined him.

      After introductions were made, the sheriff gathered a kit the size of a briefcase and followed them back to the hay barn to collect the evidence.

      Carefully, the sheriff cut the bloody hay free, placed it in a bag, and labeled it. “We can run tests, but unfortunately since the scene has already been released, the courts could consider the evidence tainted.”

      At that point, a trial was the farthest thing from Quinn’s mind. “How long will the results take?” Quinn asked.

      “I have to send this to the lab. Depends on how backed up they are. Could be a few days or so for blood type match. And weeks or months for any DNA results.”

      “Brilliant.” He fisted his hands at his sides to keep from wrapping them around the sheriff’s neck and shaking some sense of urgency in the man.

      “It’s out of my hands, son. This isn’t an episode of CSI. Real cases aren’t resolved in an hour.”

      “I don’t expect an hour, but sometime this century would be nice.”

      The sheriff gave him a hard, level look, but Quinn refused to back down.

      “We should climb down before we lose all of the light,” Jenna said, putting a hand on the back of Quinn’s elbow as she urged him ahead of her.

      By the time they’d made it out of the hay barn, the sun had set behind the Rockies, the ridges backlit in broad swatches of red and gold and fiery orange.

      Nearing the sheriff’s pickup, Jenna asked, “Did you find anything else with Kurt’s body?”

      Quinn stiffened, knowing where Jenna was going with the question, but he was at a loss to stop her without the sheriff noticing.

      “Like what?” St. John asked.

      “Like a g—”

      Desperate, Quinn kicked a boot out in front of her as she stepped, and caught her around her bicep with his hand to keep her from hitting the ground.

      “Gum,” Quinn filled in, as Jenna stumbled. Gum? Seriously, that’s the best you could come up with?

      Jenna cut him a look. Though the fading light masked the details of her expression, he figured it could freeze ice. In the Mojave Desert. At high noon.

      “What would gum have to do with anything?”

      Quinn’s brain scrambled for an answer that didn’t sound completely lame. His heart rate climbed. One beat. Two. Three.

      “Quinn was telling me Kurt chewed mint gum a lot when he was trying to stay away from the drugs,” Jenna said. “We just—”

      “It would mean a lot to me if I knew that in some way, he was trying to stay clean.” The truth. Mostly.

      “No. No gum. Not that I know of.” The sheriff returned his gear to the back seat of the truck and climbed in. Quinn and Jenna waved good-bye.

      As he drove out of sight, Jenna gave Quinn’s shoulder a light shove. “What was that all about? I almost landed on my face.”

      “I had a hand on you the whole time. I wouldn’t let you fall.”

      Another look. Either ‘go to hell’ or ‘asshole.’ Difficult to tell.

      “I didn’t want you mentioning the gun.”

      “Yeah,” she said with a frigid laugh, “I got that. You don’t think the gun is something the sheriff should know about?”

      “Maybe.” He reached a hand to the back of his neck and worked the stiff and knotted muscles there. “You could be right.”

      He dropped his hand to his side, the mental and physical exhaustion slamming into him as hard as if he’d walked into the rotor wash of his Sikorsky CH-53. “And for what it’s worth…I know this shouldn’t matter…but I don’t want the sheriff getting the wrong impression of him.”

      “Kurt really meant a lot to you, didn’t he?”

      “More than a brother.”

      * * * *

      The next morning, Quinn rose before the roosters or the sun. The breeze whipped and fell and ozone filled the air. He jogged up the two-track road from his cabin, the familiar scrunch-scrunch of gravel under shoes came from the darkness behind him. Only, the rhythm was off—a slight hesitation in the cadence.

      Boomer fell into step with Quinn, as the combat veteran jogged out of the darkness.

      “Where’s your blade?” Quinn asked.

      “Trying out the new prosthetic.” Boomer’s breath came out heavy, but steady. How long had he been at it that morning? “The leg’s got fu—freaking sensors and shi—things. Real Six Million Dollar Man stuff.”

      “What’s with the language? You sound like a Disney cartoon. I’m a Marine, man. Cuss words don’t make me blush.”

      The eastern sky eased toward gray, exposing a far-off bank of clouds thick with rain. Boomer grunted, picking up the pace as they passed the big house. “Pepita is saving for a new saddle. She gets paid for extra jobs around the ranch, plus a dollar for every swear word.”

      Quinn huffed out a laugh, though it lacked about as much substance as the thin mountain air.

      “What’s so fucking funny?”

      “Oooh,