No Ordinary Sheriff

“How do you know that?”

“Janey told me.” She smiled. “I asked where her good-looking friend from the wedding had got to.”

She’d been interested in him. She’d been too young, though. She wasn’t too young now. She was beautiful, with a woman’s body and knowing gaze.

He was interested, all right.

He tucked his gun back into his waistband and she put hers away in her purse.

Cash leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. “You wanna tell me why you’re really here?”

She raised one blond eyebrow.

He waited her out.

“Fine. I’ll tell you the truth, but first I need a coffee.”

She brushed past him and that great-smelling perfume followed her out of the room. So did Cash, like a bird dog on the trail.

Vanilla. She smelled like sugar cookies.

Cash’s hand touched that stuffed animal on the stair rail again and his gaze fell on the sway of Shannon’s hips. She had great hips.

Downstairs, she turned on lights as she went.

She took her time making a pot of coffee, not once looking at him.

He sat at the table in silence, enjoying the elegance and efficiency of her movements. A couple of minutes later she put coffee mugs on the table, along with the box of donuts, and sat across from him. She pulled something out of her back pocket—a black leather badge holder like his—and slid it over to him. He opened it. DEA. Special Agent Wilson.

Stunned, his gaze flew to hers.

“Janey never said you were a cop.” It put her off-limits. Damn.

Unlike his father, he didn’t fool around with co-workers, even if she didn’t work in Ordinary. He didn’t want to have anything to do with female cops. His dad had screwed everything with breasts, no matter her age or her occupation, from female cops to hookers.

He’d cost one cop her job. It had been the end of his career, too.

“Why didn’t you just tell me you were DEA?”

“Because I didn’t want anyone here to know.”

She bit into a donut and a dot of jelly ended up on her lower lip. He tried not to imagine himself licking it off.

“What’s the case? You’ve got to be here for a reason.”

“I’m on vacation.”

He ignored that. “Is it centered in Ordinary?”

She sighed and nodded. “I think it might originate with the bikers in the next county, though. I’m here to see what I can learn.”

“About what?”

“Someone in the area is cooking crystal meth.”

“How do you know? I haven’t heard a thing about it.”

“It’s happening.”

“Why are you so sure it’s here?”

“My brother visited last weekend and stayed with Janey.”

“Tom? The one who lost his family to a drunk driver?”

She nodded.

“I met him. Nice guy, but messed up. No wonder. What about him?”

“He brought meth home with him. Said he got it in Ordinary.”

Cash’s mind raced. Where in Ordinary? From whom?

“So the DEA sent you here to investigate? Why didn’t they contact me?”

“A cop in Billings called your office and was told there were definitely no drugs here and that you wouldn’t investigate.”

“I didn’t talk to anyone. Must have been my deputy.” Wade should have brought that info to him, but his deputy was still fairly new. There were a lot of things Cash still had to explain to him. “I’ll call the DEA and let them know I’ll cooperate.”

She raised a staying hand. “I’m not here officially.”

“What?”

“I really am supposed to be on vacation, but I can’t let this go.”

“Why not? You have no jurisdiction here.”

She put her donut down on a paper napkin, carefully, and he had the sense that she was trying to hold herself together. “It’s important to me. Tom overdosed.” She looked like she might break down but then sucked it up. As he’d thought upstairs, she was tough. Strong.

“He’s in a coma,” she said.

“Is he going to live?”

“I don’t know.” She wrapped her hands around her mug.

“You need to take a giant step away from this.”

She shook her head. Those full lips thinned to a determined line, her chin took on a mulish jut and those pretty green eyes suddenly became cop eyes—hard-edged and suspicious.