Run Wild (8 page)

“Back out slowly,” he ordered, and at the same time removed her gun from under her sweater.

Natasha spun around, or tried to. Trent grabbed her arm, pulled it up her back, and pushed her against the side of his truck.

“You’re hurting me!” she wailed, twisting against him, but this time couldn’t free herself from his grasp. He had her pinned against the cold metal of the Suburban as if she were a dangerous criminal. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Enough, Natasha.” The sheriff’s voice was unnervingly calm. He pushed against her, his hot, rugged body burning against her backside while the brutally cold metal of his truck froze her front side. “Calm down,” he ordered. “Then you can tell me exactly what you think you were doing.”

“I think I was turning on the headlights,” she said, speaking slowly through her teeth as she kept them pressed together so they wouldn’t chatter, between the cold Suburban, a vicious breeze picking up around them, and his incredibly warm body scorching more than her flesh as he used his body to imprison her. “Then I think I was going to tell you I could change my own tire,” she added.

“Oh really.”

“Yes. Really. Let go of my arm!” If he pulled her wrist much higher up her back he’d break her arm.

Trent released her arm and backed away. But not far enough for her to get around him. Natasha edged away from the cold car and found herself trapped between the driver’s side door, Trent’s muscular body, and the heat rushing toward her from inside his Suburban. He took her arm, although gently this time, leaned into her, and turned on the headlights. Then, keeping his hold on her, he pulled her away from the warmth she was suddenly embracing.

“Look here, Sheriff,” she said, unable to keep her teeth from chattering this time. “I’ve never liked being manhandled and I care for bullies even less.”

“And this is supposed to hurt my feelings?” He sounded pissed.

Natasha glanced up at his face. “For some reason, you’ve concocted this belief in your head that I’m going to be some great help in solving your murder case. You don’t want me as an enemy.”

“I’ve had worse enemies.” He pushed her toward the flat tire.

Natasha maintained her balance, but her fingers burned when she grabbed the cold tools. She was shaking from the cold and nerves. Getting pissed might help warm her up, but it wouldn’t get the tire changed any faster. So she bent down and put muscle into it, using her adrenaline to keep from freezing to death.

Trent remained standing over her, although he did move to allow the passenger headlight to offer its maximum light. Her hand slipped a few times as she struggled to get the tire off, but she managed and finally slipped it off. Trent stepped out of her way so she could roll it to the rear of the truck. He didn’t help her when she rolled the spare tire from the back of the Avalanche and stood silently as she used all her strength to lift it into place, then began putting the lug nuts back on.

Her hands were freezing and burning. She’d broken two fingernails, and her knees hurt from kneeling on the road. There weren’t any records broken, but she finally had the spare on and tools put away. Trent stayed within a foot or two of her the entire time. He didn’t trust her.

“Are you going to give my gun back to me?” she asked.

He still held it in his hand and looked down at it as if considering the idea.

“It’s registered. I’m not breaking any law by having it and, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not be unarmed. After all, there is a murderer loose somewhere in your town.”

Her last comment rubbed a raw nerve. She saw it in his eyes when he shot her a scathing look.

“I know how to use it.”

“That’s what has me worried.” He was reluctant when he handed it to her.

She snorted and walked away from him, opening her driver’s side door and sliding inside the truck, immediately turning on the heat before returning the gun to the glove box.

“What about the deer?”

Trent frowned.

“That’s why I had the blowout. I slammed on the brakes to avoid it and slid the truck sideways. If it weren’t for my GPS warning me I needed to turn and so slowing down, I would have run over it.”

Trent left her for the first time as he walked toward the dead animal. Her headlights were still on and she remained in the truck, wishing the heat would warm her up faster as she watched him stop next to the dead animal and stare down at him. Trent then bent over, gave the creature a closer look before pulling his phone from his belt and placing a call.

“Someone will be out here shortly to get him off the road,” he said when he returned to her. Then taking his time searching her face, before letting his gaze travel down her slowly, he gripped her door and met her gaze. “Did you do it?”

“Do what?”

She watched a twitch play at the corner of his mouth. “Murder Carl Williams.”

“Was that his name?”

“He was twenty-two years old,” Trent offered, looking away from her and staring at the top of the Avalanche. “I met him once or twice. He was a kid, in love with life, psyched that he had a job, and spending most of his paycheck on booze. He chased any lady who would let him. He came from Washington State, and notifying his parents was one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do.”

“It does suck,” she whispered, knowing the pain from having experienced it a couple times herself. “My uncle believes a woman’s touch makes it easier for the next of kin.”

“He passed the buck to you.”

Trent was right, but Natasha still felt defensive. “You don’t know Greg King.”

“No,” he said slowly. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

She frowned. “Oh no. I didn’t kill Carl Williams.”

Trent didn’t wait a heartbeat before asking his next question, as if it wasn’t the answer so much as her answering his questions that mattered to him. “Did Helen tell you how he was killed?”

Natasha had asked Helen not to repeat their conversation and so decided it was only fair she give the waitress the same respect. “She and I agreed we wouldn’t discuss our conversation with anyone.”

Trent nodded. “She’s the one who told me you’d asked about Trinity Ranch.”

Natasha hoped her smile was sincere looking. “That isn’t exactly sharing the details of our conversation.”

His green eyes flared with emotion again, although she wasn’t sure what emotion she saw. It crossed her mind to ask why he suspected her father, but she wasn’t sure the sheriff would be open with her. In a few hours she barely considered herself close enough to him in order to read him accurately. He’d said it was easier to tell if someone was lying in person. But the truth was, it wasn’t possible to know whether someone was lying or not until enough time passed to learn certain characteristics about an individual. Natasha barely knew the sheriff. And all she was sure about at the moment was that Sheriff Oakley was dangerously hot and distracting to a fault.

“Why were you heading out to Trinity Ranch?” He changed the subject and pulled her out of her thoughts, which once again were heading in the wrong direction.

She shrugged, then extended her hand toward the heat that now blew out of the vent and warmed her up. “It’s the scene of the crime.”

“And you were going to search for clues in the dark?”

“No. I’m not a trespasser, either.” She stared into those compelling green eyes and didn’t notice his facial expression change. Just to be safe, Natasha didn’t dwell on how many times she’d trespassed while on the clock over the years. “I thought I’d do a drive-by, learn how far out the ranch was, then return to my room and do a search online and learn what I could about the murder that way,” she told him honestly.

“I’ll have all links I know of ready for you to check out tomorrow when we meet.” He looked past her, glancing behind them at the road.

Natasha caught headlights in her rearview mirror. A large vehicle rumbled to a stop behind Trent’s Suburban.

“Don’t leave yet. I’m going to help Ronnie get that buck off the road.” Trent started around her car door but then paused. “Once we have it off the road you can follow me out to Trinity Ranch so you can see where it is. Then you can follow me back to your room.”

Chapter Four

Trent sat in his office the next day, going over notes and documents he had so far on the Carl Williams case. Something told him Natasha would be punctual for their appointment, if not early. Matilda had agreed to let him know if Natasha left the bed-and-breakfast. He hadn’t heard from her all day.

“Sheriff’s office,” he said, glancing at the clock and guessing it was Matilda telling him Natasha had just left, which would get her here about fifteen minutes early. It wouldn’t surprise him. His sexy newcomer to town would try keeping him on his toes, and showing up early was a great tactic to capture someone off guard and, as well, witness them in their own environment and not necessarily prepared for their appointment.

He’d been ready to see her since he woke up this morning. For business reasons, he told himself. Natasha might be hotter than any other lady he’d ever laid eyes on and willful enough to push every button of his she could find, but he was a professional investigator and knew how to keep his mind on work.

“Sheriff, it’s Lana Bishop,” Weaverville’s local veterinarian said when he answered. “Didn’t you tell me that buck was roadkill?”

He shoved a snapshot of Natasha he’d been staring at the last few minutes, which didn’t help his argument to himself that he wasn’t affected by that sexy body of hers, back into the file. He’d found it online this morning, printed it, and included it in his file on her. It was on a Web site he hadn’t run across before this morning and part of an article about a case in Arizona from a couple years ago. She looked as good then as she did now.

“I never said he was roadkill.”

“Okay. Well, good. I must have misunderstood.” Lana Bishop worked a full-time job as their only vet and ran a household with a doting husband and three very active boys. There were times when she probably didn’t remember what day of the week it was. Although a bit absentminded, she was a good veterinarian and a good wife and mother. “I wanted to call you because whoever shot this animal shouldn’t have left him in the road.”

“Shot him?” Trent hadn’t taken time to look and see how the animal had died the night before. Once he had helped Ronnie Powell get the deer in the back of his pickup truck, Trent had hurried back to Natasha. “The animal was shot?”

“Hunting rifle,” Lana concurred. “Maybe someone didn’t realize they’d shot themselves a buck and the poor animal wandered into the road to die. But the bullet didn’t kill him right away. This poor guy bled to death slowly.”

“Damn,” Trent muttered, and stared at his phone when his other line started beeping. “Hold on a second, Lana.”

This time it was Matilda, speaking in hushed tones when she informed Trent the L.A. woman had left the building. It would have been comical if Matilda had laughed at her own joke, but she wasn’t joking, taking her task as the sheriff’s spy very seriously. He thanked her, cutting her off when she started asking questions about the murder and promising to update her when he could but that he had another call now.

“Thanks for holding, Lana,” he said, and began straightening up the Carl Williams file. Trent would pull everything back out again as needed once he started talking with Natasha.

“No problem, Sheriff. I’m sure this murder has you busier than normal. Terrible thing that happened to that young ranch hand.”

“Yes, ma’am.” It was beyond terrible, and he would find the killer no matter who he had to get tough with and interrogate. “Tell me what kind of bullets were used to shoot it. I doubt it will help, but if I can find out who our careless hunter was I’ll give him a good lecture.”

“Good, and thank you. I knew you would see it that way. I’m surprised he wasn’t run over out there on the highway. He was found right before the turnoff to Trinity Ranch?”

“Yup. Right before it.” He hadn’t mentioned who had stopped just short of hitting the buck. It wouldn’t surprise Trent if Lana already knew. She had the public in and out of her office all day long, and if he knew anything about his town it was that his people loved to gossip.

“If Jim or Ethel Burrows had been heading home to their ranch after dark, they could have wiped out one of their cars,” Lana pointed out.

Trent had picked up his pen and began clicking it as he stared at the closed manila folder on his desk. “You’re right. It could have been a lot worse.”

“Oh yeah, those bullets.” There was a shuffling of paperwork on the other end of the line.

Trent glanced up toward the large windows on either side of the door leading into the sheriff’s office. He had a private office off the main lobby but often sat at the dispatcher’s desk to do his work and make phone calls. He liked being able to see out on the street and spotting anyone as they walked up to the entrance to the station. His budget didn’t allow for a full-time dispatcher, which meant he often answered his own 911 calls. His father had done the same, had the station phone transferred to his phone at night, and before 911 was around, their home phone and sheriff’s phone were the same number.

“I can’t think of anyone out that way who can’t shoot a buck,” she said after a moment. “I guess maybe a kid. But the bullet went through this buck’s lung and came out on the other side. By the looks I’d say it was a twenty-four caliber from the size of the bullet hole. But that doesn’t help you know who shot it. Whoever it was, they would have known they didn’t kill it.”