Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Only after Valentine Bernard shut her trailer door with a final thunk did Mark back away. He did a slow about-face, purveying the pearly stone path that outlined the row of trailers beyond hers. Shadows crept from every nook and cranny, and Mark suspected that had Reese not escorted the troublemaker away, he might’ve tried to hide in one.
The man had been lying—Mark had a finely tuned nose for such things—and immediately, Mark hopped on his radio and confirmed that young Reese had completed his task without a problem. Then, he thanked him. Reese might be a bearded kid just out of high school who looked a lot older than he was, but he did a solid job working the security gig out here at the fairgrounds.
Once back in his cruiser, a search through official channels brought him an image of the one who’d caused the ruckus here tonight, a man identified as Ulysses Anthony Biggs. While Mr. Biggs had no priors, the guy gave off big-time creep vibes, making Mark wonder what his personal and even professional relationships might look like.
He could be wrong, of course, but his gut told him the guy was every bit the piece of work Mark suspected him to be. Mark couldn’t count the number of times he’d witnessed that frightened nervousness in a woman’s eyes, a nervousness he’d just noticed in Val’s.
As a member of law enforcement, Mark had been involved in too many domestic dispute cases to shake a spoon at. But one thing he knew for sure was if a woman displayed the same level of panic that he’d caught sight of with Val, the man she’d accused should be required to keep his distance.
At the very least.
Technically, since Biggs had used whatever remained of his common sense and vacated the rodeo, Mark couldn’t arrest him unless he did something else suspect. But that didn’t mean he didn’t send the man’s face to his department and to Rusty’s, one town over. Rusty Shackleton, the sheriff from the next town ten miles down the road in Farmington, also happened to be his best friend.
Rusty texted him back.
Rusty : Who’s this loser?
Mark : Right now, a person of interest.
Rusty : What’s his story?
Mark : Nothing on the books, but after meeting him in the flesh I can say he’s a walking red flag.
Rusty : Gotcha. Anything else going on?
Mark hesitated, picturing Val Bernard. The woman was the definition of attractive to him with her long and curly light blonde hair, pert features, and fierce amber eyes. Tonight she’d worn in this glimmering hot pink fabric from head to toe—even her boots had been the same shade of pink. She’d been dazzling, and frankly, she’d more than dazzled him .
A little digging on her, including some video footage that showed her horse had been made up to match her flashy wardrobe choices, showed Val to be a risk-taker with ambition. As a trick rider, she’d also have to be fit as a fiddle and a lover of horses. Two things that ticked off some promising boxes for him.
Not that he should go there. As of this moment, all she was to him was one half of a relatively public squabble that he’d been able to diffuse. Yet he’d definitely felt something while standing right there with her. Something that intrigued him.
Figured that she was the temporary sort. One of those rodeo folk who rode right on through after their performances were over.
Keeping apprised of Biggs’ whereabouts, Mark returned to his normal duties of watching over his beloved hometown. Granted, he hadn’t traveled much outside of the state—hardly at all, in fact—but why should he? Everything he loved was here. His memories. His mother. His little sister.
His father’s grave.
It’d been his dad’s death that had inspired him to become an officer of the law, mostly because that meant following in his footsteps. That hit and run had stolen Sheriff Alec Talbot’s life from him and his family far too early. It’d been that incident that had permanently changed Mark’s path, even if he’d only been eighteen at the time.
He’d been required to step up. To become the man of the house. His mom had been a total wreck of a human, shattered at losing the love of her life and the father of her children. She’d sobbed inconsolably for weeks and weeks. His baby sister Blair had been just as devastated, and as an eight-year-old child, she certainly hadn’t been capable of taking on the responsibility of family leader.
So, Mark had done it.
He’d gone from a carefree teen riding horses and roping calves right here on these very rodeo grounds, to the sole provider for the Talbot family. His dad’s pension and meager life insurance policy had covered things while he attended the Law Enforcement Academy, the same place he’d met and befriended Rusty.
Even now, his mom received payments from his dad’s pension, even if the life insurance had long ago run out. But his dad had been in his forties with fewer years on the job than a traditional retiree, and those payments—while helpful—weren’t enough. They still weren’t.
Because of his family Mark devoted about sixty percent of his time to his sheriff’s duties and the rest to his family. That’d been the case back then and continued to this day. They needed him, and he wasn’t about to let them down.
As dedicated as he’d always be to his mom and sister, he let thoughts of them fade into the background as he sat there in his squad vehicle and played another video of Val performing. It felt all too easy to get caught up in her trick riding competitions, all those sparkly outfits and the expertise it took to perform those stunts on horseback had been something that he’d been impressed by.
Even when he’d been a wet-behind-the-ears rodeo teen himself.
But despite there being other trick riders present in this other much more massive rodeo vid, his gaze stayed exclusively on Val. Trick riders started young, but Val was no newbie. He remembered hearing of her on this circuit a while back. His intel on her showed her to be in competition for over fifteen years now. With her skill level, he believed it.
He told himself that he couldn’t quit thinking about her because she’d suffered a run-in with some idiot today. Some idiot flashing around a paper contract that was likely as not bogus, no less. That she deserved some extra concern and looking after. That was all.
But even after watching all these past reels of Val, even after this particular rodeo concluded its live events for the night, his thoughts returned to her over and over. Although it wasn’t strictly necessary to contact someone after an incident anytime law enforcement was called, he made a note of her cellphone number and permanent address.
Just in case.
Interesting that she lived right outside Billings making her home base less than two hours away. He’d keep a lookout for her, maybe stop by her trailer and ask where she’d be heading off to next. Maybe even ask her if she minded staying in touch with him.
Only so he could keep the creepy Biggs guy at bay, of course. Mark didn’t want her to ever have to see that man’s weak-chinned mug again. His fretfulness for her stemmed from legitimate and professional place. He was simply being thorough.
Or at least, that was what he tried to convince himself.
In truth, Mark hadn’t felt drawn to a woman like this in an extremely long while. Years and years. Maybe even a decade or so.
But then, romance had been off-limits to him ever since he picked up his father’s mantle. He couldn’t in good faith take on his sheriff job, continue to provide and spend all his downtime with his mom and checking up on his little sister, and have a life outside of that. Given the limit to the hours in a day, it just wasn’t possible.
Men like him had destinies and responsibilities that prevented that sort of existence.
Yet even as he nodded to himself at all these highly correct determinations, Mark found his finger gliding across his phone and bringing up another video that featured the amazing feats of Ms. Valentine Bernard. She had such style and grace as she flew across those fairgrounds, and she never once balked at the stunts that required her to get dirty or muss herself up. Not even the ones that looked awfully hazardous. Especially not those.
She wasn’t afraid of giving it all, then.
He admired that. He admired it even as the thought of her getting injured in any way made his stomach churn. But she was a stranger he couldn’t have. He couldn’t have anyone. Much less a woman who was literally unavailable as she lived on the road all the time.
And that wasn’t even bringing up the complex innerworkings of whatever had been going on between her and weak-chin guy. Biggs. Whatever.
Regardless, as he thought of the man bullying that fearless blonde beauty, Mark’s hackles rose. It’d never cease to infuriate him when a man had such a pathetic amount of confidence that he thought it appropriate to belittle a woman. Particularly one he was supposed to care about.
What kind of decent human being did that?
His hands twitched into fists at the notion of it.
Thinking back on their altercation, Mark half regretted not pummeling the guy. Of course, he would’ve needed an actual, verifiable cause to get away with that. An identifiable reason preferably accompanied by a witness. But Biggs hadn’t done quite enough to justify Mark’s personal brand of justice.
Too bad.
But what was he thinking? One of the chief things Mark had always been known for was his cool head. He could face down the worst of the worst criminals without batting an eye and figure out a method to arrest such people with a minimum amount of fuss.
When he’d first started in law enforcement, his boss had called it compartmentalization. Mark always separated out his emotions from the job, a quality his boss at the time had said was one of his best qualifications for law enforcement.
So, why had that ability suddenly evaporated from his repertoire after a single meeting with one Valentine Bernard?
Dragging the cowboy hat many Montana law enforcement officers donned off his scalp, he drove his fingers through his closely shorn hair. In an attempt to behave like a proper role model for his underlings, Mark had kept it cut military short since taking on such a senior position. But he did occasionally miss how good it felt to have some actual tresses to push his hand through.
Closing out all the open tabs on his phone, he slid his cell into his pocket and did his best to shove Val or any other woman out of his head. He couldn’t and wouldn’t pursue her. It wouldn’t be appropriate, for one thing, and he didn’t have time, for another.
Also, what kind of example would he be setting for his other officers? Hitting on a woman he was supposed to help? That’d make him the lowest of the low. And he had no desire to be considered on the same level as Biggs or his ilk.
Mark inhaled deeply, swallowed, and continued his patrol through the quiet neighborhoods of Rocky Ridge, thankful that things at the rodeo hadn’t escalated into anything too perilous. He’d be on duty tonight until midnight, and although this small town had a low crime rate, sometimes horrible things still occurred. Frequently petty theft or family disputes.
Therefore, he pressed on, eyes peeled and seeking anything out of the ordinary. Just last week, he’d helped to catch a six-year-old who’d in all his youthful wisdom had decided he needed to run away from home. Why? Because his parents had taken away his screen privileges.
Man, these were different times than what he’d been brought up in, and that was despite Mark only being thirty-five years old. Losing a parent so young had made him feel a lot older. Like he’d aged a couple of decades in a single week.
While mourning his father, he basically had.
He motored his vehicle along the handful of more questionable places in town where buildings beside one another backed up to dumpsters or rows of trash cans created havens for the more nefarious. Not that the town had many. It had his frequent flyers like every other community. And now, he found no evidence of anything distressing.
So, he finished out his shift, content to watch his quiet little town stay as quiet as it usually did.