“Hold your horses.” Jason shook his head. “Flowers, before you make tracks out of here, you might want to know that I do have a lead you might be interested in.”
“Stop beating around the bush, Jason, and come to the point why you’re here.” Reed’s frown screamed about his inner irritation. He grabbed her hand and gave her a reassuring squeeze.
“You and Henry really did cause quite the stir with the Russians. I was smart to have these two mavericks get you out of Destiny.”
“Jason, I swear if you don’t tell us what you found, I will beat it out of you.” Reed’s impatience seemed to be fueling his growing anger.
Jason’s demeanor turned to a dark challenge. “I’d like you to try. You’d find yourself on the very wrong side of the law, Reed.”
“Damn it,” Nicole snapped. “I’ve had enough of Neanderthals. Sheriff, tell me what you know or I’m hitting the road back to Chicago right now.”
“My deputy brought down a guy who was fucking with your car.”
She frowned. Why would anyone mess with her car? Did Destiny have its own gang problems like back home? “That could be a coincidence, couldn’t it? What would that have to do with Henry anyway?”
Jason shrugged. “Hear me out. I’m sure there’s a connection. The asshole pulled a gun on Charlie.”
Her jaw dropped. Apparently, Destiny was more Wild West than she’d imagined it to be. “Is he okay?”
“Yes, but he’s three days from stepping down to move to California to be closer to his kids. I can’t imagine how I’m going to do my job without him.”
“Jason, can you stay on the topic at hand, please,” Sawyer barked, his agitation obvious.
The sheriff nodded. “Sorry. Interesting thing is that even though Charlie shot him, the creep said a few words before passing out.”
“Oh my God. What happened to him?”
“The dude is alive. More flesh wound than anything, though he bled like a stuck pig. Doc is patching him up at the clinic right now. Says we should be able to talk to him in an hour or so.”
“Well?” Her own impatience with the sheriff was growing just like Reed’s. “What did the man say?”
“Nothing useful, but he did have a thick Russian accent.” Jason smiled. “How would you like to interrogate my prisoner, Flowers?”
Real police work at last. “I would love to, Sheriff.”
Chapter Thirteen
Once again, Nicole found herself in a truck between Reed, who was driving, and Sawyer, who was sitting by the passenger door. Sheriff Wolfe had given Erica a ride back into town, promising to deliver her to Dylan.
Nicole’s whole life seemed to be a long, drawn-out series of mistakes. Was this another one of them?
Reed drove through the cattle guard onto the next dirt road. “Chicago, how about some music for our trip to Destiny?”
“No. The quiet is better. Helps me think.” She turned to Sawyer. “This is still Stone Ranch?”
“It is,” he said. “Emmett, Cody, and Bryant own a lot of acreage, but it would be bad manners to say how many.”
“Seriously?” she asked.
“Yep,” he said. “Let’s just say they have many sections.”
“Sections?”
“You forget that Nicole is a city girl, bro.” Reed tapped the top of the steering wheel with his fingers. “A section is six hundred and forty acres, Chicago. The Stone brothers own nearly two hundred of them. Last time it got appraised at a quarter of a billion dollars, and that’s just the land. Livestock and their other investments put them into Destiny’s billionaire club.”
“Shut up, Reed,” Sawyer barked. “You don’t know that. Emmett, Bryant, and Cody live a simple life. They don’t have a mansion on O’Leary Circle, do they?”
“That doesn’t mean they couldn’t have one,” Reed shot back. “Have you ever wanted to live in a mansion, sweetheart?”