Chapter 6
6
T he clock read four a.m. by the time Chloe parked next to her trailer. Once inside, she pulled out the foldout sofa and threw covers on with Trav’s help despite her protests. He toed out of his boots and then started toward the makeshift bed.
“That’s mine,” she said to him. “You’re sleeping in my bed.”
“I have no intention of putting you out like that,” he argued.
“Annmarie will be up in twenty minutes,” she pointed out. “We don’t need to scare the bejesus out of her. I’ll take the foldout. You.” She pointed toward her room. “My bed.”
Before he could argue, she placed her hands on his shoulders—a big mistake because of the electrical current—and turned him toward her room. “Go.”
The minute he left the room, her cell buzzed. She checked the screen. She didn’t recognize the number. Could it be Mark?
Should she answer?
Better not.
Trav hadn’t supplied the man’s last name and that might be for good reason. He might be keeping his computer guy’s identity a secret.
Walking into her bedroom, she was met with a shirtless Trav. Her stomach fell like she’d taken the first drop on a roller coaster.
“Hey,” she managed to squeak out. “This might be the call you’re waiting for.”
Trav took the phone. Their fingers grazed. More of that inconvenient electricity sizzled.
He glanced at the screen. “Hey, Mark. What did you find?”
Chloe wondered if she should stick around or head for the shower. She decided to stay, half out of curiosity and half because Trav might need to be driven somewhere to retrieve his cell.
A few beats later, Trav said, “The lake?” He made a face that said Mark confirmed, and then they ended the call. She watched as he deleted the call from the record. “Turns out my phone was ditched in the lake half a mile up the road from the bar.”
“Should you go get it?”
“Nah,” he said, handing over the cell. “Sandy is on her way to pick it up. There won’t be anything on it, or the perp wouldn’t have ditched it so close to the crime scene.”
“Which means someone was likely trying to stop you from getting a clear picture of a license plate,” she reasoned.
“You’d make a good deputy.” The fact Trav looked impressed shouldn’t warm her in places she didn’t need to be focused on while he looked this good standing next to her bed.
Chloe turned on her heel. “You can take the first shower.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll just grab a quick nap, and then I’ll take mine.”
The thought of Trav naked in her shower stirred up more of those contraband feelings. Rather than swim in them, she grabbed pajamas and headed toward the shower.
Any bed would feel great tonight, even the foldout. When she finished, Chloe listened at her cracked bedroom door to ensure Trav was out, he was, before checking on the boys and heading to the sofa bed. By the time she pulled the covers up, Annmarie’s alarm clock was going off in the master bedroom.
Chloe figured she had roughly an hour and a half before the boys were up full blast, so she pretended to be asleep when her roommate emerged twenty-five minutes later and stumbled to the coffee machine. Annmarie was dressed and out the door ten minutes later with her to-go mug in hand.
After the events of a couple of hours ago, it was clear someone was targeting her. Or, at the very least, watching her and waiting to strike. As tired as her body might be after the long shift, her mind raced and she couldn’t shut down her thoughts. Sleep was about as close as Christmas to Cinco de Mayo.
A question popped into her thoughts. Had it been Blake Swindell following her home the other night? Would he watch her at the bar? Would he attack a law enforcement officer in order to keep his identity a secret? Or would one of his band members do it for him? Blake’s career had been on the rise until his drug use got out of hand. Shows had been canceled because he couldn’t be found. Then, he’d be photographed drunk with a groupie on each arm.
Trav had been dressed in plain clothes. Whoever had tried to crack his skull open last night might not have been aware they were assaulting a peace officer. They might have assumed he was up to no good.
Why take his cell?
Did they believe there would be incriminating pictures on it?
Then, why toss it half a mile down the road?
Anyone local would have recognized Trav, which led her to believe the perp behind the attack was from somewhere else. Another county? Outside the state?
If Blake had been the one to follow her home the other night, why would he return to the bar and attack someone in the parking lot? Plus, her ex was famous in the country and western scene. Wouldn’t he be recognized if he was in town early for the gig at the rodeo?
The one thing she could count on with Blake was that he made news. If he was known to be in a room, suddenly everyone was paparazzi. Or, worse yet, taking selfies with him in the background. Or with him standing right next to the picture taker.
How she’d fallen for someone like Blake in the first place had her scratching her head to this day. Then again, who didn’t make mistakes at seventeen? She’d been too na?ve to realize she’d been too young to be someone’s groupie.
In the beginning, Blake had treated her like a queen, so it had been easy to fall under his spell. At that time, he’d been reasonably sober when they’d met and not nearly as famous as he would become in the three and a half years they were together. His star had been on the rise, and she’d been too innocent to realize how that might have played out. In many ways, he had been, too. She seriously doubted he’d realized the toll celebrity would take.
It had been his manager, Craig Sheave, who’d been the one to tell her that Blake wasn’t responsible enough to be a father. He’d almost convinced her not to tell Blake about the baby. Almost. A small piece of her had believed—for reasons she couldn’t say now—that Blake would sober up and step up.
The idea was laughable. To think they’d shared something special. To believe Blake would be able to slay his demons for the good of their child.
And then Craig had delivered the blow that had crushed her. Blake had a serious girlfriend on the road. Chloe remembered when Blake had talked her into moving into his Austin loft apartment and setting up a “real” home, as he’d called it. Turns out, he’d just been trying to have his cake and eat it, too. In Austin, he’d had Chloe play house with him when he was in the studio making music. On the road, he’d had Tracy to keep him warm, and who knew how many others were invited into the bedroom.
Between the two of them, Craig had been quick to point out, along with an apology, that Blake would have chosen Tracy any day of the week. Blake had confided to Craig that Tracy was his muse. There wasn’t a chance in hell Blake would give her up.
And then Craig had asked Chloe if she could live with that.
What kind of question was that?
Not one that mattered. Blake had freaked out about the baby when she’d delivered the news. He’d asked her to “take care” of it and then had thrown a wad of hundred-dollar bills at her like she could be bought off to make the problem go away. The problem being their son.
Chloe flexed and released her hands a couple of times as a way to hit the reset button on her increased stress levels. It didn’t work this time.
No. Blake wouldn’t come to town early. There was no way he’d had a change of heart and wanted to see his son after all these years. Even so, she picked up her cell to perform a search to see if he’d gone into rehab anytime in the last year. Wasn’t part of the program making amends with anyone you’d wronged?
Typing his name caused her body to tense. She held her breath as the page loaded.
Travis blinked his eyes open, threw off the covers, and sat up. His head pounded. His body was sore. His mood soured as he recalled the event from last night.
Fighting off the urge to vomit, he sat on the edge of the bed, clasped his hands behind his head, and leaned forward.
The room stopped spinning long enough for him to gain control of his stomach. Emptying the contents on Chloe’s floor wasn’t a good way to thank her for her hospitality.
Mark would have the contents of Travis’s phone downloaded and ready for review. The task would have been completed hours ago, but there wasn’t a rush. Travis knew, based on instinct and experience, that the attacker had meant to stop him from taking a picture rather than delete one. Taking and tossing the cell half a mile away from the bar had probably been meant to distract Travis. The attacker might not have been aware Travis was the acting sheriff.
Rather than make any other assumptions before breakfast and possibly be wrong, Travis inhaled the smell of coffee to get his legs moving. First, a shower.
The bathroom was next door. A towel and washcloth sat on the counter, along with a throwaway toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste like the ones he received at the dentist. After sipping water from the spigot, he took a cold shower and then brushed his teeth. It was amazing how much more human he felt as he dried off.
His backpack with overnight supplies was in his vehicle. The one that was parked at the bar. Travis bit back a curse. Throwing on bloody clothes that needed to be tagged as evidence wasn’t an appealing idea.
A soft knock at the door caught him off guard.
“It’s Chloe,” the singsong voice said. “I have clean clothes from the last time Kade slept over if you want to change.”
Relief washed over him that the clothes belonged to her brother and not an ex-lover. The fact shouldn’t be as important as it was. He had no right to care.
He wrapped the towel around his midsection and tucked in the edge before opening the door. The flush to her cheeks had him almost believing the attraction was mutual, but she was probably just embarrassed to see her brother’s friend in her bathroom half-naked.
“These should fit,” she said, handing over the offerings before glancing down the hall. “It’s probably best if the boys see you with clothes on even though they’re probably too young to know the difference.”
“You never know what their brains are recording,” Travis said, taking the folded clothes. “You’re right to protect what they see and hear.” Again, it struck him just how thoughtful Chloe was when it came to her son and Miguel. Witnessing good parenting gave him hope in the world. Jails weren’t filled with folks who grew up in a safe, loving household. “Thanks for these.”
Chloe’s smile filled his heart with light. Full, pink lips made him want to close the distance between them and—
“Coffee’s ready. I’ll throw some toast in and scramble a couple of eggs,” she said, cutting into his thoughts.
“Don’t go to any trouble,” he said, forcing his gaze away from the small mole on the right side of her mouth.
“It’s the least I can do.”
With that, she disappeared down the hallway. Travis gave himself a mental headshake, refocusing on getting dressed so he could borrow her phone again and make progress on this investigation. Chloe had been onto something when she feared someone had followed her the other night. Then, there was the confirmation from the lab that she’d been drugged.
Kade’s clothes fit decently enough. His friend was roughly an inch taller, but Travis filled out the clothes, and the pants length didn’t make much difference. He’d tucked his department-issued Glock underneath the passenger seat last night since Chloe had young ones in the house, and Travis couldn’t risk the little boys getting hold of a dangerous weapon. His shoulder holster sat empty next to the bed.
He decided to move it, thinking his personal belongings looked a little too right in Chloe’s bedroom. Her spring flower and citrus scent had been all over the pillow and sheets last night. They’d broken through the headache and almost made him believe he’d slept in a garden. Except that it wasn’t spring. And her bed was off-limits, save for last night.
Period.