The Deputy's Lost and Found / Her Second Chance Cop: The Deputy's Lost and Found / Her Second Chance Cop

Until her hands slipped to his shoulders and pushed, her lips abruptly jerked away from his.

The sudden break jolted him and as he attempted to gather himself together, he wanted to ask her what was wrong, why had she interrupted something so incredible.

But one look at her face answered those questions for him. The two of them had been on the verge of losing control, of making love right here beside the pool. And she wasn’t all that happy about it.

Pushing a tangle of hair from her eyes, she said in a husky voice, “I think we’ve ‘walked’ enough for one night. Don’t you?”

Did she really expect him to answer that? He looked away from her and drew in several long, mind-cleansing breaths. What was happening here? He wasn’t supposed to want Lass this much. He wasn’t supposed to want any woman this much.

Rising from the chair, he reached for her hand. “You’re right, Lass. We’d better go in. Before our walk turns into a run.”

Chapter Seven

He’d been wrong to kiss Lass.

The next morning, as Brady drove south to the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation, that dismal thought continued to swirl through his head. He’d misjudged the whole thing and instead of it being a pleasant little connection of the lips, the kiss had turned out to be a heated embrace that had turned him on his ear and left her strangely quiet for the remainder of the evening.

Now, all he could do was relive the experience over and over in his mind and wonder what it all meant. That the two of them had great chemistry together? There was no doubt about that. But he’d dated attractive women before and some of those occasions had turned into overnight delights. Yet he could easily admit that nothing about those unions had messed with his thinking or left him in such a mental fog. Lass was doing something to him. Something that he didn’t understand or want to acknowledge.

Sighing, he glanced over to the empty seat of the pickup truck outfitted with a two-way radio, weapons and other police equipment. This morning he’d left Hank back in Ruidoso, scouring the more popular restaurants and motels where Lass might be remembered by the staff.

Normally, a case like hers wouldn’t receive this much investigative work from the sheriff’s department. Instead, Lass’s case would have fallen under the health and welfare services. But thankfully Sheriff Hamilton had agreed with Brady that the circumstances surrounding Lass’s amnesia smelled of criminal mischief and needed to be resolved.

Brady had no idea how long Ethan would keep the case open or how much time and manpower he would expend toward it. With county cost a factor, Brady knew the search couldn’t last forever. He couldn’t imagine having to tell Lass the effort to find her home and family had to come to an end. In fact, if it came down to it, Brady would use his own resources to find Lass’s identity.

But he prayed to God before any of that happened, something would turn up. Or even better, Lass would start to remember. Until then, Brady had his work cut out for him. Not only to find Lass’s past, but to also keep his growing attraction for the woman in a proper perspective. And his hands to himself.

Yeah, right, he thought, as he turned down the bumpy dirt road to the Chino homestead. That was like telling himself to quit eating whenever he was hungry.

Johnny Chino was two years older than Brady and had lived with his grandparents, Charlie and Naomi, since he was a tiny infant. His mother had been an unwed teenager, a wild and irresponsible girl who’d been spoiled since her parents were older when she was born. She’d brought much shame on the Chino family. Shortly after Johnny had been born, she’d dumped the baby into her parents’ lap and left for parts unknown. A few years later, they’d gotten word that she’d been killed in an alcohol-related car crash.

Now Johnny’s grandparents were both in their nineties, but were still in good enough health to do for themselves. Even so, Johnny didn’t stray far from the home place and Brady often wondered if they were the reason the man had quit taking on tracking jobs. Rumor had it that he’d quit because of some tragedy that had occurred out in California. But Brady wasn’t one to listen to rumors. Nor was he one to question a friend just to satisfy a curiosity.

When Brady parked the truck in front of the house, two dogs, a red hound and a black collie, barked and ran toward the vehicle. Trusting that the dogs would remember him from his last visit a couple of months ago, he stepped to the ground.

By the time the dogs had surrounded him, a door slammed and he looked up to see Johnny stepping onto the long, wooden porch spanning the front of the small stucco house.

He was a tall, strongly built man, his long black hair pulled into a ponytail. His right cheekbone carried a faint scar, but it was his dark eyes that bore the true marks of his past. He stood where he was and waited for Brady to join him in the shade.

Lifting his hand in greeting, Brady approached the porch. Their tails wagging, the dogs trailed close on his heels.

“They remember you,” Johnny said, nodding toward the dogs.

“Why wouldn’t they?” Brady joked. “I’m pretty unforgettable.”

A quirk of a smile moved a corner of Johnny’s mouth as he motioned to a tattered lawn chair. “Come sit.”

Brady climbed the steps and took a seat. Johnny slouched against the wall of the house and pulled a piece of willow from his pocket and opened his pocket knife.

“How are your grandparents, Johnny?” he asked politely.

“Old. Very old.”

Well, his friend always did have a way of summing up a situation with very few words, Brady thought wryly.

“You probably know why I’m here,” Brady said. In spite of this part of the reservation being remote, he knew that news of any sort traveled quickly from one family to the next. No doubt Johnny had already heard a woman had been found in the mountains.

“Maybe.”

Brady did his best to contain a sigh of impatience. This was one man he couldn’t hurry and if he tried, he’d probably blow the whole reason for the visit.

“The girl doesn’t know who she is,” Brady explained. “And I can’t figure out what happened. At least, I haven’t yet.”

“I’m no lawman.”

“No. But you’d make a good one,” Brady said honestly.

Johnny’s knife blade sliced through the piece of willow and a curl of wood fell to the porch floor.

“I don’t track anymore.”

Brady couldn’t let things die there. Lass and her happiness meant too much to him. “I was hoping you’d break out of retirement for me. Just this one time.”

“The dogs don’t track anymore, either.”

Brady looked around to see both dogs had flopped down in a hole they had scratched near the end of the porch. Their energy level appeared to match Johnny’s.

“Since when have you needed dogs to help you?” Brady asked.

“I don’t track anymore,” he repeated.

Rubbing his hands over his knees, Brady tried to hide his frustration. “Johnny, I thought we were friends. Good friends.”

Johnny’s rough features tightened, but he said nothing.

One minute, then two, then three finally ticked by in pregnant silence. If it had been anyone else besides Johnny, Brady would have set in with a long speech about how they’d stood up for each other in high school, how they’d always had each other’s backs on the football field, and how after Brady’s grandfather had died, they’d camped together on Bonito Lake for a whole week. Because at that time, Johnny had understood how much Brady had needed to be with a friend.

But Brady didn’t remind the other man of their close ties. He knew that Johnny hadn’t forgotten anything.

“This girl,” Johnny said finally, “she means a lot to you?”

Brady let out a long breath. Means a lot? Leave it to his old buddy’s simple question to make Brady really think about what Lass was becoming to him, how important her happiness had come to mean to him. “Yeah. She … well, I like her better than any girl I can ever remember.”

His friend didn’t make an immediate reply to that and while Brady waited, he watched a pair of guinea hens strut across the dusty yard. He tried to imagine Johnny living in Albuquerque or Santa Fe, but that was like picturing a mountain lion in a cage.

“Show me where you found her,” Johnny finally said. “And I’ll try to get the dogs interested.”

More grateful than he ever expected to feel, Brady swallowed a sigh of relief, then rose to his feet and walked over to Johnny.