Page 4 of Deputy Brand Gets Her Man
Cat finally arrived. Jeremiah said, “You go first, young—what’s your name?”
“Frankie Miller.” He thrust out a hand.
“Jeremiah,” he said, shaking that scrawny little hand. It felt like it’d break if he squeezed it too hard. “Go ahead, Frankie. Place your order.”
“I need enough tacos for me, Grandma, Grandpa, Sadie and Sally.” He put his little hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out three crumpled singles and a fistful of change.
Cat sneaked a sad look Jeremiah’s way. He shook his head and pointed to his chest, mouthing, “I got it.” Then aloud, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Isn’t today’s special first-timers eat free?”
“Right! Cat said. “You can pocket that cash, kid, you lucked out today. I’ll go put that order in.”
“I’m ready to cash out when you come back, Cat,” Jeremiah said. Then he turned around and leaned back against the bar, watching the people come and go.
So far, coming here to the town of Quinn in Quinn County, Texas had panned out better than he could’ve hoped. He’d found his brother from another mother, Ethan, who’d accepted him unquestioningly. Insane. The guy was hitting it big in country music. He ought to be more careful. He hadn’t even run a background check on him, far as he knew, just took everything Jeremiah said at face value.
He’d told the truth. Not all of it, but he hadn’t pretended to be anything other than what he was. An ex-con raised by crooks. Ethan seemed to like him for some reason.
Beside him, the kid had turned his stool around and was leaning back against the bar, just like Jeremiah was.
His lips pulled at the corners. “So you live with your grandma? Huh?”
“Yeah. My mom died and my dad’s in jail.”
That poked him in the heart. He’d could’ve said the very same thing at Frankie’s age.
“You guys live here in the Bend?” Jeremiah asked.
“Nah, back in Quinn.” The kid spun the stool around again when Cat returned with two large bags of tacos and fixings and handed them over. He smiled, slid off his stool, and all but ran for the door, yelling, “Nice to meet ‘cha, Jeremiah,” like an afterthought just before he went out. He got into a car with an old fellow behind the wheel Jeremiah guessed must be his grandfather.
Since nothing more interesting than what had already occurred was likely to happen at Two Lilies that night, Jeremiah paid for his drinks and the kid’s tacos, and drove his Jeep back to Quinn, where he was shacking up at the bunkhouse on the Texas Brand. His newfound brother’s adopted family were kind, welcoming, and trusting. If he were anyone else, he could’ve robbed them blind. And if they were anyone else, he might have.
But they were his brother’s family. If they had their way, they’d be his family, too. He didn’t want a family, though. He’d never really had one, never really wanted one. It wasn’t like he’d spent nights lying awake in his room in his father’s mansion, staring at the ceiling through tears, aching for a normal life, for his mom to be alive and beautiful and happy, not broken, devastated, and lost like she’d been when she’d left him there and driven away into oblivion.
It wasn’t like that at all.
Willow Brand liked him. Maybe she wanted him, too. Sure seemed that way before she’d left the bathroom. The way she’d run her hands over his face while trimming his beard. The way she’d run her eyes over it afterward. The totally turned on and slightly panicked look in them.
Hell, it had turned him on, too. Nothing wrong with that, as long as he got what he needed from her.
His old man had hidden eight pounds of solid gold somewhere in Quinn, Texas before he’d gone to prison for the rest of his days. He’d mentioned it a few times, written about it in the diary he’d kept his first year in prison. It had been sent along with the old man’s other possessions to Jeremiah, the listed next of kin, when he’d died. But there’d been zero elaboration. No details.
At today’s prices, eight pounds of gold would be worth way over half a million dollars. And Jeremiah was damn well going to find it.
The smoking hot Willow Brand just might have the connections to help him.
Chapter Two
Willow had a flat tire and she was not in a good mood. She’d had her ass grabbed twice tonight, and she’d been called Pocohontas by a rhinestone cowboy from Jersey. Being in uniform, she couldn’t even throw a drink in his face about it.
“It’s because of what happened with the Barker boys the other day, that’s what,” she muttered, although that theory made very little sense. “I looked like a helpless female, bein’ saved by a gallant white boy. Everybody saw it. It’s prob’ly all over town.”
She opened the hatch of her black and white Quinn County Sheriff’s Department SUV and rolled the spare tire out onto the pavement. It bounced as she rolled it around to the side and then went back for the jack whose handle doubled as a lug-wrench, and quickly bent to loosen the nuts. She had to stomp on the handle to loosen the most stubborn one.
Headlights picked her out on the roadside. They weren’t the first, just the first to slow down and pull over.
Since civilization was ten miles away in either direction, she unhooked the strap on her gun belt, and rose with the jack-handle. Then she saw that it was Jeremiah Thorne’s russet orange Jeep. He’d pulled over behind her, and left his four-ways on, like a law-abiding citizen would do.
She refocused on her work, not trusting herself with a word, a smile, or a welcome. By the time he came up to her, she was jacking the car up off the ground.
