Page 76 of Deputy Brand Gets Her Man
“Now listen to this,” she said, and held the phone out again.
“I saw the guy who threw the brick through the drug store window tonight. It was that blond-haired Brand, the country singer’s brother.”
He blinked. “But Willow, I didn’t?—”
“It’s the same voice,” she said. “The same person is IDing you for stuff you didn’t do. We need to figure out why, and then we’ll know who. So I got to thinking about the will and how you said someone’s contesting it. I thought it might give us a possible motive.”
He blinked at her. She said, “What?”
“You didn’t ask if I did it.”
“Well, duh. I knew that.”
It took him a minute to process the words. “You didn’t think, even for a minute, that I might’ve?—”
“No! Jeez, Jeremiah. No.”
“Well, why not?”
She gazed into his eyes so long it was uncomfortable, and then it wasn’t. It was some kind of connection. “Because you’re a good person. You’re a good person, you saved the puppy, you’re kind to orphaned children, you sprung me from the hospital, you saved my uncle’s life.” She put a hand to his cheek and said, “How the heck can you not realize that you are good?”
He couldn’t answer. His mind was busy allowing the notion to settle in. What if she was right? What if he was actually one of the good guys?
“What if you didn’t get a nickel from your old man?” She had stopped dancing. They stood in the middle of the dance floor. The glass front walls were open out to the patio, with its party lights and water feature. She was looking up at him, and everything in his body wanted to kiss her right there in front of the entire town.
Her cousins would have him lynched by morning, his own brother leading the pack.
“What would you be, if you could be anything you wanted, Gringo Sombrero?”
The words that floated to mind were, I’d be your man, Willow Brand. But he didn’t say it out loud. So instead he said, “I’m writing, some.” And he watched her face.
“Writing?”
“That’s what the journal was for. I mean, I was raised by a drug lord from his prison cell with a cast of criminal caregivers. It feels like a novel.”
She opened her mouth, closed it again. “A novel?”
He shrugged. “Although lately, I’ve been feeling a children’s book coming on. Frank and Beans.”
A smile took charge of her face. “Jeremiah, that’s amazing. I had no idea.”
He shrugged. “He’s dog-sitting tonight, did I tell you?”
“Frankie is?”
He nodded. “The girls went to live with their father. But Frankie says his grandparents are too frail to manage such a big fella. ‘Bout broke my heart. Poor kid.”
He glanced down at her to see her eyes bigger and browner than he probably ever had, gazing up at him. Her mouth was open just a little. Then she whispered, “There you are,” and she laid her head on his chest. “Oh my God, there you are Jeremiah Thorne.”
Chapter Thirteen
They danced twice more, and then they had tacos together. She wanted to tell him there was no gold, that the treasure was something even better. A sister!
But she’d promised Juanita and she couldn’t break her word. She’d tell him tomorrow, after she’d spoken to Elena, just like she’d said she would.
After eating their fill, they danced again.
From behind the bar, Lily watched over her like a guardian angel, with the pale hair and blue eyes to prove it. Ethan was downstairs in the basement recording studio, playing with some tracks, thank goodness. Uncle Garrett had settled up and left the place, probably doing rounds about town like she usually did.
