Chapter 2
two
. . .
LANE
“Morning, baby,” a soft voice murmured, accompanied by the sagging of the mattress and a warm body curling up against mine.
I blinked my eyes open, focusing on the ceiling of our bedroom.
Turning toward the woman at my side, I clocked the brown hair fanning out over my arm, which I’d instinctively wrapped around her, the smooth cheek pressed against my bare chest.
“Morning,” I said hoarsely.
Her head turned, and I found myself staring into warm eyes, the shade and a clear amber that was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
Sutton propped her chin on my chest and smiled sleepily. “You’re in bed late.”
“Ah, yeah, overslept,” I said quickly, though I had no idea what time it actually was. “I was up late preparing for testimony.”
Tony Walter had finally pushed too far, strangling his wife damn near to the point of asphyxiation—right in front of me. Though it had taken place when I was off duty, I was still the prosecution’s key witness.
She slapped my stomach playfully. “Well you better get up, or you’ll be late for court.”
With a groan, I rolled over, but toward her, not away, hovering above her and caging her in with my arms beside her head and my knees on either side of her hips. Sutton tipped her head back and laughed, exposing the long column of her throat, which I bent to nip at playfully.
“Chief,” she groaned. “We don’t have time for this.”
I scoffed. “Please, sunny. You know I can make you come in twenty seconds flat.”
“Triple that and then some,” she quipped.
“You wanna test that?” I asked, my mouth hovering right above hers.
Her hands came up to my bare chest, slightly chilled against my perpetually warm skin.
I thought she was going to pull me closer, to wrap those gorgeous legs around my hips and let me bid her good morning properly—especially since she’d just gotten off shift, and I knew orgasms helped her sleep—but she shoved me away.
I landed on my back next to her with an oof.
“Go!” she demanded with a laugh. “You can’t miss this court appearance.”
“Fine, fine!” I grumbled. “I’m up.”
A quick glance at the clock on my nightstand revealed I was going to be late if I didn’t get my ass in gear. I hurried through my shower, didn’t bother shaving, and dressed in my uniform, knowing I’d be heading to the station after my testimony this morning.
Plus, it looked good for the jury. I may have been off duty when the incident occurred, but I was still the sheriff of this county.
Right before leaving, I popped back into the bedroom and pressed a feather-light kiss to Sutton’s forehead, careful not to wake her.
Normally, when she was on shift, I was responsible for getting the kids up and ready for school, but for whatever reason, she’d let me sleep in and handled it herself this morning.
Damn, my wife was a rockstar.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel to the Johnny Cash song on the radio as I drove into town, then two more older hits from my favorite station before I reached the courthouse.
The sun shone brightly, and the sky was my favorite shade of blue. Birds chirped. The trees were starting to show signs of blossoming after a long, brutal winter.
It was a beautiful day, the perfect kind to put a mean bastard behind bars.
Once I was sworn in on the stand, the prosecutor took a moment asking me softball questions to confirm my credentials: I’d been the Owyhee County Sheriff for over fifteen years, had received several commendations for my service to Dusk Valley and the surrounding areas, and had been injured on more than one occasion in the line of duty—including the bullet to the chest that nearly killed me ten years previously.
“You’re a local boy too, aren’t you?”
I pursed my lips. “I’d hardly consider myself a boy, but yes, I was born and raised here.”
“What’s that like, servicing the county where you grew up?”
“It’s an honor.”
“And you take your job seriously, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. The people of this county elected me. The least I can do is ensure their faith wasn’t misplaced.”
“Where were you on the night of January nineteenth?”
“At the Swallow.”
“Any particular reason?”
I chuckled. “Does anyone need a reason to go to the Swallow?”
“I suppose not, but you did have a reason that evening, did you not?”
I nodded. “My sister-in-law, Aspen, had just released another book, so we were out celebrating.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“My brothers, their wives, me, and my wife.”
“You weren’t on duty then.”
“No sir.”
“Can you please explain to the court your first interaction with the defendant that evening?”
“To—” I cut myself off from using his first name, a habit born from years of berating him. “Mr. Walter…greeted us when we walked in the door.”
The prosecutor raised a brow. “Explain.”
“I believe he said something to the effect of, ‘Well if it isn’t Dusk Valley’s first family, coming to ruin everyone’s night.’”
“Was that sort of ‘greeting’”—he hooked his fingers around the word—“normal for the defendant?”
“Very.”
“Was that the extent of your interaction that evening?”
“No,” I replied. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.
“What happened the next time?”
The key with witness testimony was to be as precise as possible…
normally. In this instance, however, Trey had located security footage that was able to corroborate my version of events.
Instead, I gave broad strokes. Tony’s wife (soon to be ex, marking this as his second divorce), Angela, sat in the gallery, and I didn’t want to cause her more stress than she’d already endured.
“Shortly after midnight, my family and I exited the bar.”
“Awfully early,” the prosecutor commented.
“We’ve all got kids,” I explained. He nodded for me to continue.
“I was at the back of the group, and as my siblings peeled off toward their vehicles, I heard a disturbance coming from the side of the building. They were almost out of reach of the streetlamps.”
“They?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Walter.”
“And how did you find them?”
“Mr. Walter had his hands wrapped around Mrs. Walter’s neck.”
As succinctly as possible, I replayed what I’d seen. Mrs. Walter’s purple face, eyes nearly bugging out of her head. The deep gouges on Tony’s hands and forearms from her fighting him, clawing for her life.
“How did you intervene?”
“I came up behind him and gripped the back of his neck, triggering one of his pressure points, until he lost consciousness and let his wife go.”
“And then did you haul him to the station?”
“No. I was off duty, so I called it in. A few of my deputies came out to arrest him and bring him down to the department for processing.”
The prosecutor nodded, then looked at the judge. “Nothing further, your honor.”
The judge turned to the defense table. “Your witness.”
The prick representing Tony rose to his feet, hands stuffed in his pockets as he approached the well of the court, that central area between the judge’s bench and the attorneys’ tables, attention on me.
“Are you sure my client intended to harm his wife? Are you positive you didn’t just walk in on some sort of…foreplay?”
That’s how they wanted to play this? Fucking disgusting.
“I’m positive this wasn’t some sort of foreplay.” I spat the word.
“How can you be so sure?”
“I’ve been a cop for over twenty years. And married for nearly ten. I think I know the difference between assault and foreplay.”
Fuck this guy, making me bring my marriage into open court.
“Different people have different tastes, right?”
“Yes,” I gritted out, “but as I stated before, Mr. Walter had wounds on his hands and forearms, and skin scrapings were taken from under Mrs. Walter’s nails. She was fighting back. Fighting for her life.”
The defense attorney raised his hands in surrender, recognizing I wouldn’t budge on this point. “Nothing further, your honor.”
I sighed in relief, though I would’ve gotten deep satisfaction out of wiping the floor with him had he tried to further press the issue.
“You may step down, Sheriff.”
“Thank you, your honor.”
Several hours later, I was at my desk in my office at the department, buried under a mountain of month-end reports, when my personal phone buzzed. My wife’s name appeared on the screen.
“Hi, baby,” I said.
“Hi,” Sutton replied, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “I need a favor.”
“Anything.”
“I forgot Lily has a dentist appointment in Boise today after dance, and Noah needs to be picked up from hockey practice. I’m not sure I’ll make it back in time.”
“It’s not a favor if you need me to pick up our son, sunny.”
Sutton had grown up in a house where her parents were firm in their gender roles. My in-laws were nice people, but their views of husbandly and wifely duties were grossly outdated.
“I just know how busy you are.”
“I’m never too busy for my family, sunny. You know that.”
“Thanks, baby,” she said. “See you at dinner then.”
“See you later. Drive safe. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
There wasn’t anything cuter in the world than my pipsqueak of a son—okay, he was only seven, but still—on a pair of ice skates.
I stood at the glass watching him and his little teammates run drills, though most of them did a lot more falling than skating as they slalomed through the tiny orange cones.
Noah made me proud, though. I mean, I would’ve been proud of him regardless, but he was the only kid out there that didn’t fall once.
An elbow nudged me, and I looked over to see Lee, one of my deputies who had a kid my son’s age, had appeared at my side.
“He’s good,” he said, jutting his chin out at my boy. “Think he’ll buck family tradition and keep playing instead of going out for football or baseball?”
Lee had known my family for a long time, having grown up in Dusk Valley as well, and had played both sports with myself and a range of my brothers.
I shrugged. “Too early to tell.”
Noah could do whatever he wanted, in my opinion. Neither Sutton nor I cared what either of the kids did as long as they were happy, healthy, and staying out of trouble.