The Sheriff Of Heartbreak County. Kathleen Creighton

his questions was an unpleasant task she’d decided to get over with as quickly as possible. “I got it several years ago. For protection, since I live alone, and I often work late.”

      “Mind if I ask what kind it is?”

      “It’s a Ladysmith,” she replied without hesitation. “Thirty-eight caliber.”

      Again, it wasn’t the answer he’d hoped for. He lifted his eyebrows. “That’s a lot of gun for a woman. Know how to use it?”

      Her lips flirted with a smile that made him aware of how he’d sounded—like a bad John Wayne imitation. “Yes, Sheriff, I do. I practice at a firing range at least once a month.”

      “So you’re a pretty good shot?”

      Watching him, she hitched one shoulder in a wary shrug. “I usually hit what I’m aiming at.”

      “How long’s it been since you went shooting?”

      Behind the ugly glasses he saw her eyes kindle again as she countered softly, “I went this last weekend.”

      Convenient alibi, Roan thought, in case a weapon turns out to have been fired recently.

      “Where’s the gun now? Mind if I take a look at it?” He asked it in a friendly way, smiling. “Take it with me, run a few tests on it?”

      The smile she gave him back was a lot less friendly than his. “Don’t you need a warrant for that?”

      “I do if you make me get one,” Roan said, still showing his teeth, “or, you could agree to give me the gun of your own free will. Save us both some unpleasantness.”

      While he waited for her reply, it struck him that it was an odd sort of conversation to be having with a murder suspect. More like a verbal fencing match than an interrogation—rapid and light in tone, almost playful, but with an underlying tenseness, each of them concentrating with laser-like focus on the other, both of them wary…poised to thrust or parry for real at an instant’s notice.

      Excitement raced through him as she lifted her chin and threw at him in direct challenge, “I could…but you’d have to tell me why you want it.”

      The tension rose again to a screaming pitch while he pondered his options…while he wondered what kind of a lawman he was to be playing this kind of game with a suspect in a murder investigation. Finally, he drawled, “Oh, I think you know why.”

      She sighed and her lips curled, but not with a smile this time. “You think I shot Jason Holbrook with it.”

      “Did you?”

      “No.” It was a quiet but vehement explosion.

      Roan narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t conscious of movement, but the distance between himself and the woman seemed to shrink. “But didn’t you say you got the gun for protection because you work late…protection, I’m assuming, against just the sort of thing that happened to you last night?”

      She stared at him and didn’t answer…didn’t confirm it, or deny it, either. But he could see shadows of what might have been fear or pain, or maybe both, flit across her eyes.

      “So, if you didn’t use the gun last night when Jason attacked you,” he went on, scratching his chin in a puzzled way, “my question would be, why not? It would make sense to me if you had shot him—might even be considered self-defense.” He knew damn well it hadn’t been, but handed it to her like a gift, just to see what she’d do with it.

      Again she didn’t bite, just looked at him with eyes green and deep as the sea and quietly said, “Do I need a lawyer?”

      He folded his arms and gave her an ambiguous little nod. “Not if your gun checks out.”

      She let out a breath, then pushed abruptly away from the sink…stalked across the darkened living room with a long and panther-like stride. And as he picked up his hat and hurriedly followed, Roan was conscious once more of the woman’s unexpected grace. And something else. Something he couldn’t put his finger on, but that stirred up a prickly feeling on the back of his neck. Something about that walk…

      When he caught up with her she was pulling out her purse from underneath a small table beside the front door. His stomach lurched when she opened it and took out a slim, lethal-looking handgun, but she merely handed it over to him, butt first.

      “I’d like it back as soon as possible,” she said, and this time there was no mistaking the flicker of fear in her eyes.

      So…I guess maybe she wasn’t lying when she said she needed this thing for protection, Roan thought as he carefully wrapped the weapon in his handkerchief. The lady was definitely afraid of something—or someone. Not for the first time, he wondered where she’d come from and what she was doing here, a couple of hundred miles from nowhere, and if it was the usual domestic abuse thing she was running from, or something more sinister.

      One thing for sure, he was going to be running a check on Miss Mary Owen the minute he got back to the shop. Maybe he’d call in from his vehicle, get the ball rolling even before that.

      “I guess you’ll be wanting something with my DNA.”

      He looked up and found her gazing at him, head held high and bruised jaw set at a proud angle, eyes fathomless now, behind the glasses. Since he was juggling his hat and the gun, about all Roan could do was nod. He was doing that, getting ready to say the usual things he’d say to a viable suspect he wasn’t quite ready to arrest yet, when he came close to dropping everything in his hands and just about jumped out of his skin.

      Something brushed across the back of his legs.

      He did a clumsy sort of pivot, swearing under his breath, adrenaline hitting him like a blast of buckshot. Then, with an embarrassed snort, he bent and scooped up the big orange tomcat busily doing figure eights around his ankles. “Jeez, cat,” he muttered, “you damn near scared me out of my growth.” The animal’s only reply was a raspy purr as he butted his big head up underneath Roan’s chin hard enough to make him see stars.

      He lifted his eyebrows and shifted his gaze back to Mary Owen. “This monster belong to you?”

      But she seemed to be in some sort of trance, staring at the cat as if it had just sprung full-grown from his chest, like an alien birth. Roan had to repeat her name twice before she twitched her eyes back to his and words came gasping out of her already open mouth.

      “No—I mean, yes—but…he’s Queenie’s—he came with the house. But he’s never let me get near him, much less pick him up. What on earth did you do?”

      “Cats are funny about who they decide to like,” Roan said, and the cat’s purring was so loud and ratchety he had to raise his voice to make himself heard over it. He chuckled as he gave the cat a good scratch along the edge of his jaw and the purring rose to a snarl of pure ecstasy. “He’s sure a big ol’ boy—seems friendly enough now. Here, maybe he’ll—”

      He was about to hand the cat over to her when the beast lunged out of his grasp and, hissing and spitting, vaulted off Mary’s unprepared arms and hit the floor with a heavy thud. From there he surged upward in one fluid leap to the back of the sofa where he crouched, eyes round and glowing, fur rippling, tail twitching, growls coming from low in his chest.

      “Well, now you see what I mean,” Mary said as she gazed dispassionately at the bleeding scratches on her forearm. She reached into the pocket of her smock, pulled out a crumpled tissue, pressed it against the scratches and handed it to him. “That should do it for DNA. If not, you know where to find me.”

      She groped for the doorknob, her jerky movements telling him she didn’t have it together as well as she wanted him to believe. “If there’s nothing else, Sheriff…” She hitched in a breath as she pulled the door open and held it, gazing at him and waiting.

      It was too dark for him to see the color of her eyes, but he’d have bet they’d gone that fiery greeny-gold again.

      Thinking