Chapter Twenty-Three
“I see Logan’s here,” Emily said as they pulled in behind the barn at Thorpe’s Therapy Horses .
Tucker looked over to see the tall, powerful blacksmith who already felt like family to him because of the change he’d wrought in Tris, as powerful and obvious as what he could do with glowing metal. He was standing next to Emily’s boss, the revered—rightfully—Shane Highwater.
“How long have you known Logan?” he asked as Jeremy scrambled out of the car, followed immediately by Maverick.
But Lobo, he noticed, stayed put and looked at Emily.
She made a hand gesture toward the open car door, and only then did the shepherd follow the other two. Then she looked at him and smiled.
“I first met him when he helped me round up a terrified horse after a traffic accident broke open a horse trailer. I’ve never seen anything like the way he calmed that mare down so fast.”
Tucker nodded. “I’ve seen him work his magic.”
“And on Tris Carhart as well.”
He couldn’t stop the wide smile that always seemed to overtake him when he thought of the change that man had made in his best friend’s sister.
“Yes,” he said. “He’d be my friend for that alone. She deserves to be as happy as she is now.”
Emily gave a nod of agreement, smiling back at him. But as they got out of the car he registered that there seemed to be something else in her expression, something that made him think of someone checking something off on a list. It was an odd impression to have.
“Wonder what he and your boss are talking about?” he asked as they started to head back toward the gathering.
“Maybe they’ve acquired a troublesome horse out at the ranch,” Emily said, grinning now. “Although it’s hard to imagine a horse Sage Highwater couldn’t handle.”
He remembered the name from before, that day when she’d buried him in an avalanche of information about the big names in Last Stand. “That’s his sister, right?”
She nodded, but he noticed now she was watching Lobo. The dog had zeroed in on the chief and was headed that way. When the animal reached him, he sat politely, looking up at his boss’s boss.
“Now that’s well trained,” Tucker said, almost laughing.
“Chance does for dogs what Logan does for horses,” Emily said, grinning again. “And I think Lobo learned from watching all us humans that that is a man to be respected.”
Tucker watched as the chief leaned down and gave the dog a scratch behind one ear.
He said something to the animal that they were too far away to hear, but the dog’s tail swished slightly.
Then he looked up and spotted them and smiled.
He nodded at Emily, and the realization hit him that that respect went both ways.
Everybody deserves respect, son. Until they don’t.
He stopped dead in his tracks as the words played through his mind. He hadn’t heard that voice, had shut it down even in memory, for so long that it was like a hammer blow to hear it now. His stomach churned, and he felt a crazy sort of chill despite the heat of the day.
“Tucker?” He felt a gentle touch on his right arm. “Are you all right?”
He turned his head. Emily was there, looking up at him, with such concern that he couldn’t deny she was really worried. Which in turn told him what he must look like.
“Flashback,” he muttered.
He saw her look from him to her boss and back. “Your father,” she said.
It took him a moment to register he was surprised.
Most people would have assumed any slaps of memory he had were connected to the brutal accident that had ended his rodeo career.
But she had put it together, immediately.
As if she’d been able to follow his thought process, from seeing her boss and the way they acknowledged each other and his subconscious letting a memory of another respected man surface.
No wonder the chief respected her, if she could read people like that. He considered briefly what a talent that must be for a police officer. Admitted it was probably way beyond useful. He just wasn’t sure if he liked her using it on him.
Or maybe it was that her being able to read him made him more than a little bit nervous.
Because it seemed more than clever to him.
It seemed almost…intimate. And he’d get back on the premier bucking bull before he’d let that happen.
Not with a cop. Because he knew too well what caring about a cop would get you.
When he excused himself to go handle something—something that didn’t really need to be done—he knew he was running. It was the only thing he could think to do. He needed to be away from her, to think.
Or maybe to stop thinking, because his stupid imagination kept coming up with things that could never be.
*
“Chief?”
Chief Highwater tipped his hat to the lady he’d been talking to—or rather, who had been talking to him in an apparent nonstop stream—said a courteous “Excuse me,” turned and took a couple of steps toward Emily.
“Thank you,” he muttered, just loud enough for her to hear.
Emily smothered a laugh. “That bad?”
He grimaced. “She was about to launch into politics, and I just ate.”
She glanced past him and saw that the woman in question was some distance away now. “I think you’re safe. She’s got Mr. Diaz cornered now.”
“That ought to do it,” he said, smiling now. “So, did you just come to my rescue, or did you need something?”
“I would have anyway,” she said, “but I did have something I needed to ask you. It’s…sort of work-related, though, so it can wait until you’re back on duty.” She gave him a smile, adding, “That is, if you’re ever off.”
“More than I used to be,” the chief said with a satisfied smile.
“Thanks to Lily,” she said, her smile widening. And she realized that might be the best approach. “I read her article on Tucker Culhane. It was amazing. I had no idea about a lot of it. Like that Jackson risked damaging his own career by insisting Tucker be his only stand-in.”
“Says a lot about Jackson. And their friendship.”
“The part about his father,” she began, then hesitated, not sure how to phrase her question. Then the chief saved her the trouble.
“That was tough,” he said. “I remember my father talking about it, back when it happened.” She hadn’t really thought about that, that Steven Highwater would have been chief back then.
“He was always very aware whenever a cop went down, especially a Texas cop, and he had everybody wear the black bands.”
She knew he meant the black bands that were slipped over badges as a sign of mourning.
Something she fortunately hadn’t had to deal with since she’d come on the job.
For a moment she was distracted by thinking of the times when this man had risked himself for others, when the Last Stand officers could have been wearing that grim black band for him.
But she knew, because she had been told early on, that the chief didn’t like talking about that, so she brought her focus back to what she wanted to know.
“Do you remember anything more about how it happened?” Lily’s article had only said he had died of gunshot wounds incurred in the line of duty.
Chief Highwater gave her a suddenly more intense look before saying, “If I’m remembering right, it was a raid on a drug lab.
He was backing up the detectives, ended up taking down the main dealer, but took a lethal round in the process.
Now, you want to tell me why all the interest?
Other than my wife’s brilliant writing?”
She smiled, although she felt a little uncomfortable.
And as was always the best course with this man, she went with honesty.
“Tucker and I were watching out for Jeremy and the dogs playing upstream,” she said, with a gesture in that direction.
“And we talked about the profile a little.” She hesitated again, then dove in.
“He’s apparently spent all these years since wondering if his mother’s situation had distracted him enough that… ”
“He made a mistake, and that got him killed?” The chief grimaced. He studied her for a long moment before saying, “I can’t say it’s not possible.”
She drew in a long breath. “It’s such a mess. The way his father died, and then his mother completely lost it until he had to cut her out of his life, or she’d drag him down with her. And now he feels guilty about that, thinks if he’d just taken that last phone call from her…”
She saw by the chief’s expression she didn’t have to go on. She couldn’t anyway, because she would never betray that one thing he’d told her that he’d said he never told anyone. That he’d felt he had nothing to lose so if he got killed rodeoing so be it. That sometimes he’d even wished for it.
He hadn’t sounded as if he still felt that way, but she hadn’t been able to get it out of her mind.
“If he’s come through all that to where he is now, he’s a stronger man than I’m guessing he thinks he is,” the chief said finally. “And from what Jackson’s told me, he’s a good man.”
He put a little more emphasis on those last two words than the rest, and Emily wondered if that was aimed at her.
If somehow she’d revealed that Tucker Culhane had her thinking all kinds of crazy things.