Cold Case Murder Mystery (Hudson Sibling Solutions #7)

Chapter Three

Brooke was still in the kitchen. She didn’t know what to do with the fact she’d just met a member of Zeke’s family.

She’d known he had siblings. He’d never named them, and hadn’t spoken much about them, but every once in a while he’d let it slip that he had a brother—older—and a sister—younger. And Brooke had foolishly filed every little detail away and still remembered them, apparently.

Now she’d met the sister. Carlyle. A pretty, wild thing who didn’t look too much like Zeke. Nor did she act like Zeke, who was all still gruffness. Even when she’d seen behind that steely guard of his, there hadn’t been a lot of . . . untamed in Zeke Daniels.

Well . . . except possibly in one place that it would really not do her to think about at the moment.

She heard a strange noise and looked up to see a large dog trotting inside, Zeke behind it. But she didn’t look at Zeke, because the dog came right up to her and pressed its enormous head against her leg, pushing his head under her hand.

Demanding to be petted.

Charmed, and almost immediately in love, Brooke did just that. Slid her hand down its silky head. “Well, hello. What’s your name?”

“Consider him your loaner guard dog.”

Brooke blinked at Zeke. She’d figured this was his dog. “What?”

“Carlyle and her . . . Well, you’ve met Cash Hudson. They train dogs together. She left this one for you.”

“My rental doesn’t allow pets.”

“Guess you’ll have to stay here then.”

She sighed, trying not to let the frustration win. She had to be reasonable. “Zeke, I’m not staying here.”

“You were scared. You called me because you’re scared.”

“Yes, but . . .”

What was the but? She didn’t know. She just . . . had made a mistake, clearly. Letting fear and instinct lead her to the wrong decision. Because she should have known, even with the past firmly in the past, he would take over. He would be high-handed and too . . . him.

“So, it’s me and the dog protecting you and you stay here, or we tell the detectives. Your job or your pride. I’ll let you pick.”

Had he always been so unreasonable?

Yes.

She kept petting the dog in an effort to keep herself calm. It didn’t work. “I’m not your responsibility, and in fact, when I was even a little bit of your responsibility, you didn’t handle that very well.”

His expression didn’t change. Because he was expressionless. Blank. Yes, she remembered that quite well—especially at the end.

“No, I didn’t.”

That admission felt . . . heavy. Shifted too many things inside her, made her heart pick up a little. Especially the way he just looked at her, those serious, intent dark eyes. Four years and the way it had ended should have dulled whatever impact those eyes could have.

But they didn’t. She felt too warm and could remember all too well the way . . .

No, Brooke, you are not letting yourself remember that.

“How about this? We’ll sit down. Eat a little dinner. You make a list of people who might have some inclination of where you’re leaning with your findings. Then I’ll work on finding out if any of them have a silver sedan that matches the one following you.”

“And what will I do while you work on that?”

“Whatever you need to. You have your computer in that giant purse, right?”

She wrinkled her nose and held it a little closer. “Yes.”

“So, work. That’s what you’d be doing back at your rental, isn’t it?”

She hated that he knew that about her. Even if it was just an educated guess.

“Sit. Make a list.”

He rummaged through a drawer and then handed her a pen and a pad of paper. “I’ll put together something for us to eat.”

He used to do that. He wasn’t as good a cook as she was, but he was adept enough in the kitchen. He’d always been closed-lipped about his background, but as they’d gotten closer, things had slipped out.

Abusive father. Moved a lot. Mother murdered. She didn’t know at exactly what age he’d been when that had happened, but she knew he’d been a teenager and had only been kept on the straight and narrow—ish—by his older brother. Then Zeke had enlisted the moment he’d been able. He’d done a stint in the army for a few years before he’d moved over to North Star.

Did he remember the things about her past that she’d told him? Things she’d never told anyone outside of the people who’d known against her will.

It all made her feel tired and sad, so she sat at his kitchen table and focused on petting the dog. “What’s his name?”

“Her name. Viola.”

She smiled at the dog’s warm brown eyes. “Viola. Named after a pretty flower, and you’re a pretty thing, aren’t you?”

she cooed at the dog. Then worked on her list while Zeke did the domestic work of throwing together a meal.

He put a bowl of pasta in front of her after a while and then plopped a plastic canister of Parmesan cheese next to her. “And before you say it, I know the fresh stuff is better, but this keeps longer so it wins for a single guy.”

Their gazes caught across the table.

He’d just made it clear he remembered her pasta cheese preferences, all these years later. And her foolish heart fluttered at the thought. Just as bad, he’d also made it clear he was single. Like that was relevant, when it was decidedly not.

She looked down at the list she’d made. Slid it over the table to him. “It’s short.”

“Then it’ll be quick and easy.”

He looked over it then crossed off the first person on the list. “I know Hart doesn’t have a silver sedan.”

Detective Thomas Hart was the lead detective on the case, along with his partner, Laurel Delaney-Carson. Brooke liked them both, and knew they weren’t the ones behind whoever was following her, but she didn’t say that. She let Zeke draw his own conclusions.

“In the morning, I’ll take you to your car. You can do everything you normally do in a day. I’ll just be . . . watching. See if we can find that sedan, get a plate, an ID on the driver.”

She frowned at that. “What are you going to do? Pull them over?”

“No. We’ll play it by ear.”

She rolled her eyes. We, her butt. Much as she hated to admit it though, she felt more at ease here than she had at the diner or her rental. She could have all sorts of issues with Zeke’s heavy-handed overbearing male nonsense, and her reaction to Zeke as a man she’d once known intimately, but she knew he’d keep her safe. Regardless of how he felt about her. Or how she felt about him.

She sighed and then, when they were done eating, she cleaned up. An old habit from living in the same North Star places. Because those who cooked, didn’t clean and vice versa.

“I’ll show you your room,”

he said once they were finished.

An awkward silence settled over them. She nodded, grabbed her tote bag and followed him up stairs that had clearly been recently fixed. The hallway was a bit of a disaster, but he led her to a pretty room. Sparse, certainly. It could do with some . . . softer touches, but the bed looked big and comfortable, and the window gave the same view as the one down in the kitchen.

“Just one night,”

she said firmly. Because she was determined. Determined. She could butt heads with him and win. She would. And she could do it on her own. After they figured out the silver sedan.

She turned to face him in the doorway, ignored the way his gaze still hit her bloodstream like heat and want. But she did not want him.

She would not.

“Good night, Zeke.”

“Night, Brooke,”

he returned. But he didn’t move to walk away.

So she closed the door carefully in his face. Because she was not going down that old road ever again.

If she knew even in her head it sounded like she was protesting way too much, she ignored it.

Zeke took the dog out for one last bathroom run once he was sure Brooke was settled in her room. He didn’t worry that she’d run—that wasn’t Brooke. What he did worry about was . . . everything else.

Someone being after her.

Her being in his house looking the same as she had four years ago when he’d realized he’d needed to purposefully end things before he accidentally hurt her was . . .

Well, it messed with his head was what it did. Because he didn’t like people in his space. Didn’t even like Walker and Mary coming over with their baby. Or Carlyle and Cash coming over with Izzy, Cash’s thirteen-year-old. Or, the worst, all of them coming over and acting like a big happy family.

It felt too much like some old dream of a future he’d never really believed in. Functional relationships and people who were good parents to their kids. Family. Walker and Carlyle had somehow found themselves those sitcom happy endings—not without some pain and danger along the way—but they’d gotten it all the same.

Zeke didn’t really know what was worse. Thinking he didn’t get to have it, or thinking he was lucky to be part of it regardless of his romantic status.

But he did know what was worse in this moment. Brooke in his house, and the feeling she was what had always been missing. Her smile and blue eyes and floral scent.

When that was ridiculous. Maybe he’d loved her way back then, not that he’d have ever admitted it to himself or to her in the moment. Sure, maybe looking back now, he could admit it.

But he’d loved his plans, his revenge, his danger more.

And now you don’t have any of those things.

Yeah, it didn’t do to think about that at all. He should think about her case. Her safety.

It seemed whoever was behind those bones didn’t like anyone snooping around in them. That meant anyone could be following her. Her sending things off to a lab in Cheyenne had left a lot of things open for leaks, for coming back to hurt her.

She needed her own lab. She couldn’t trust the bureaucracy of government officials. Hell, that was the whole reason North Star existed.

Had existed. He didn’t know how many years it would take him to accept that they were really done. Retired. He’d had enough of his own personal danger since then not to dwell much on it.

Until the past few months.

Now he had a new purpose. Because maybe Brooke Campbell couldn’t ever mean anything to him, but he wasn’t about to let anything happen to her.

He watched the dog frolic in the yard under a moonlit sky. After a while, he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He dialed an old number.

“Zeke, if you’re calling to drag me into another dangerous mission, count me out. We’ve got a new foster kid, and Shay somehow corralled me into keeping chickens.”

Zeke smiled in spite of himself here alone in the dark. “Nothing dangerous. Nothing that requires your time,”

he said to his old boss. It was hard to imagine the tough and certain Granger MacMillan, once the head of North Star—the secretive group that had eradicated the Sons of the Badlands gang from everywhere they’d had power—cavorting with chickens and a bunch of foster kids out on his ranch in Montana, with his equally tough and perhaps even scarier wife.

But that’s what the end of North Star had given Granger and Shay. Love and family. Just like Zeke’s siblings had found.

He didn’t like to dwell on it.

“Well, I know you didn’t call to have a heart-to-heart,”

Granger replied.

Zeke snorted. “No. Just a question. What would I need to set up a makeshift forensic lab on my property?”

Granger was quiet for a minute before making a contemplative noise. “I can send you some things. Might take a few days, but I’ve still got all the old connections.”

“That’d be great. Thanks.”

“Say hi to Brooke for me,”

Granger said then laughed. Far too hard. Far too long.

Zeke clicked End on his phone.

But Granger’s laughter seemed to echo in his head for a long time after.