Tangled (Steele Ranch 3)

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It had been a long fucking day. A T-bone accident on the highway had shut the westbound lanes down for two hours. Miraculously, there’d been only minor injuries. Then Mrs. Bickers had called after lunch. I’d lost the coin toss with the other sheriff on duty and had been the one to stop by and check on her stove’s pilot light. The octogenarian had nimble fingers for a woman her age and my butt had been pinched not once, but twice this time. Then there was the domestic violence case on Hawkins Creek Road. Barlow was a quiet town and I liked it that way, content to steer clear of the shit bigger cities dealt with twenty-four hours a day. Today, though, was a reminder that shit went down everywhere, even in rural Montana.

With the sun slowly sinking toward the mountains, I wanted a shower, a beer, perhaps at the same time, then the ball game on TV. With the next few days off, I’d settle for a few beers. That was why, when a car flew by me in the opposite direction, clocked at eighty in a fifty zone, I swore under my breath. I couldn’t let the person go not knowing if they were drunk or not. I couldn’t enjoy the double header wondering if the guy had killed someone. Pulling to the side, I did a U-turn and flipped on the light bar and siren of my sheriff department SUV. I radioed in the call as the car pulled over to the shoulder and came to a stop.

I parked behind it, the SUV angled so I was protected from traffic when I stood by the vehicle, then plugged in the license plate. The small computer display said it was registered to a Christina Johnson, valid tags, address in Missoula. A two-hour drive away, but that was nothing in Montana.

“Evening, ma’am,” I said, as I approached the window. I did an immediate assessment. A woman in her mid-twenties, dark hair. T-shirt and jeans. No scent of alcohol, tobacco or marijuana. Wearing her seatbelt. “Did you know you were going eighty in a fifty?”

“Oh um, hello, officer,” she replied, her voice nervous. “I wasn’t really paying attention to the speed. Sorry.”

Her nerves and her tense response were both completely normal for a traffic stop. But she was sweating, her dark hair damp at her temples, even with the window down. The day had been warm, but the sun was dropping and with it came the glorious cooler summer night. Her knuckles had a death grip on the steering wheel. In my line of work, I’d gotten pretty used to reading people and she was either high on drugs or freaked out.

“Where are you headed tonight?”

“Barlow.”

“License and registration, ma’am,” I said.

She shook, as if taking a second to process what I said. Her purse was slung over her body, caught in the seatbelt. I stepped back, using the car to shield myself as she searched. It was a vulnerable moment for a traffic stop as I had no idea what she was going to pull from her bag. Carrying a concealed weapon was legal in Montana—for those with permits—which made me a tad nervous. I had my weapon at my hip, but I didn’t like surprises.

As she did so, I asked, “What’s your name?”

“Cricket. Cricket Johnson.”

Cricket.

Holy shit. There certainly couldn’t be two Crickets in western Montana, could there? My heart skipped a beat and my cock stirred. On a fucking traffic stop, but still. If this was Cricket, the woman Sutton had been looking for, the one we’d claimed together along with Lee that one wild night last summer…

“Here,” she said, holding her license out. Her fingers shook and I had to wonder once again if she were on something. She reached over to get the registration from the glove box, but I checked out her ID. Christina Johnson.

“Cricket a nickname, Christina Johnson?” I asked once she handed me her registration.

“Oh, um, yes. Sorry, I’m never called Christina.”

I remained silent, waited, forcing her to look up at me. She had long, almost pitch-black hair, windblown and tangled. Her dark eyes were wide and she bit her plump lower lip. Beautiful. She all but vibrated with energy. She didn’t look high, but who was to know these days. The Cricket I remembered hadn’t been the kind of woman to get mixed up in drugs, but it had been a year, and it had only been one night. In my job, I’d seen some crazier shit than that.

“Be right back,” I told her, taking her info with me.

I returned to my state-issued SUV, swiped her license in the computer to get her information. I got on the horn and updated the dispatcher, said the traffic stop was complete. Technically, it wasn’t, but I was going into a gray area here, especially since I was off-duty. I pulled out my cell.

“You’re not going to believe this,” I said, when Sutton answered.

“What? Mrs. Bickers pinch your ass again?” my friend asked.

“I just pulled over a woman who goes by Cricket.”

The line was quiet. “Fuck, seriously?”

I glanced at her ID. “Twenty-five, black hair, dark eyes. A chicken pox scar on the side of her left cheek. Really fucking pretty.”

“That’s her. She also has a scar on the inside of her right knee,” he added.

“The lights were out. I didn’t see shit,” I grumbled.

“You felt a whole hell of a lot.”