A killer has been hiding for two years.

This Christmas, he’s ready to finish what he started.

He didn’t need her to care, so why did Wyoming loner Will Cooper’s world implode when Gracie Delaney quit helping him solve his estranged wife’s murder? Despite her ties to a rival family, the beautiful coroner had been the stubborn recluse’s one link to humanity—and his last chance to clear the cloud hanging over him. But when Will and Gracie become the killer’s next target, reviving their platonic partnership is the only option. If only Gracie’s lips weren’t so tempting...

Carsons & Delaneys

NICOLE HELM grew up with her nose in a book and the dream of one day becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, she gets to follow that dream—writing down-to-earth contemporary romance and romantic suspense. From farmers to cowboys, Midwest to the West, Nicole writes stories about people finding themselves and finding love in the process. She lives in Missouri with her husband and two sons and dreams of someday owning a barn.

Also by Nicole Helm

Wyoming Cowboy Justice

Wyoming Cowboy Protection

Stone Cold Texas Ranger

Stone Cold Undercover Agent

Stone Cold Christmas Ranger All

I Have

All I Am

Falling for the New Guy

Too Friendly to Date

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Wyoming Christmas Ransom

Nicole Helm

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07959-4

WYOMING CHRISTMAS RANSOM

© 2018 Nicole Helm

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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To my husband, who also almost always answers my

questions with “That wouldn’t happen,” but indulges me

when I say “But could it happen?”

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Gracie Delaney didn’t care for the nickname “Angel of Death,” but in Bent, Wyoming, it was something of the truth. If she came to a person’s door unannounced, they knew what was coming.

The fact that she was young, maybe a little girl-next-door looking, no longer fooled people. As the coroner for Bent County, Gracie’s work was death.

It wasn’t as bad as some people made it out to be. Considering her parents had died in a car crash when she’d been six, and she was the lone survivor of said crash, she’d been intimately acquainted with death her whole life.

Funny, life was a lot harder than death. Death was easy, and it was final. The cause might occasionally be a mystery, but it was a mystery she always solved.

Gracie blew out a breath as she parked her car in Will Cooper’s yard. Life, meanwhile, had a hundred mysteries she couldn’t figure out. Like why two years after she’d informed Will Cooper of his wife’s death, she still came to check in on him routinely.

She’d informed a lot of people of their loved ones’ deaths over the course of two years, and while some reactions stuck with her, maybe a few even haunted her, only Will’s reaction had ever caused her to act outside a professional capacity.

She supposed it was the fact he couldn’t accept his wife had simply skidded off the road and crashed into a tree. He insisted the detectives had missed or overlooked things. He’d become obsessed with proving foul play.

Gracie had felt sorry for him and his inability to accept the truth. So, she’d let him have access to records she shouldn’t have let him have access to. She’d shown him, over and over again, how the only thing that had killed his wife was an icy road and a tree.

Still he pushed into this theory that whoever his wife had been having an affair with had been the one to kill her.

Gracie got out of the truck and stared at the ramshackle cabin Will currently lived in. He still owned the pretty little two-story he and his wife had shared in Bent proper, but rented it out to a family with kids. He claimed it was because up here he could do his metalwork without any neighbor complaint, but Gracie figured it was something more isolating than all that.

He wasn’t a Bent native. He’d moved here after marrying Paula Carson and though he’d lived in town and been building a name for himself with his metalwork, Paula’s death had changed him. He’d isolated himself and since he had no family in Bent, no natives had been too worried about a stranger’s hermit behavior.

Except Gracie. For all intents and purposes, she was his only link to the outside world.

God, she wished she could help him.

“You’re going to,” she said to herself. “Right here. Right now.” She’d been playing into his obsession for too long, and it had to stop. No more looks at old reports. No more trips to that road to study curves and angles. She’d still be his friend, but that was it. Like a drug dealer refusing to continue to deal an addict their drug of choice.

Will was going to have to go cold turkey or solo. Her chest tightened and for the briefest second she considered retracing her steps. He’d go solo. She knew he would, and she didn’t want him to.

She wanted to fix him. To help him. And yes, maybe she was a little inappropriately hung up on the guy, but that only factored into it a little.

She shook that thought away and started for the cabin. No Christmas lights, not a hint that it was December and even rough-and-tumble Bent had brought out its Christmas decor. But not for Will. She wasn’t certain he celebrated anything anymore.

She heard the faint strains of music and bypassed the cabin door, instead walking around the cabin to the back. He had the doors open on his shed, and inside he worked on a metal project.

He’d once had a blacksmith shop down in town, something both local ranchers had used and tourists had gotten a kick out of. But he’d closed it after Paula’s death. In fact, he hadn’t worked for a year after, living off the rent from the house.

Slowly over the past year he’d gotten back into metalwork. Little artistic projects he made custom for ranches, or occasionally sold to the antique store in town.

Gracie had been hopeful it was a sign he’d give up obsessing over the mystery of Paula’s affair and death. Like so many times with him, her hopes had been dashed.

And you are done being a silly, too-hopeful girl.

She nodded to herself as she crossed the yard. He worked, mask over his face, black T-shirt clinging to his chest even with the cold air around them. He was working with some tool that shot a flame out of it in one hand, clamps in another as he heated and twisted metal. Faint lines of grime and sweat streaked across his impressive forearms and his biceps strained against the sleeves of his T-shirt.

She allowed herself a dreamy sigh, because he wouldn’t hear her over the noise of the tools. Because this was it. She was cutting ties. Well, she was cutting off the supply of information. She just had a sinking suspicion that meant he’d cut ties with her, too.

He turned off the blowtorch thing, nudging the mask up on his head to reveal his face. A few trickles of sweat dripped down his square jaw, and she didn’t know why she found that appealing.

“Hey,” he offered. “You bring those pictures?”

Gracie shook her head. “No, Will. I didn’t.”

He frowned, setting down the tools and pulling the mask completely off his face. “Then why are you here?”

Ouch. She forced herself to smile. “I always come hang out on Friday afternoons.”

“Usually with the thing I asked you for, though.”

“I’m not...” She cleared her throat. “I can’t keep bringing you stuff.”

He frowned, eyebrows drawing together as he stared at her. Not just anger, but confusion, as if it didn’t make any sense to him.

How could it not make sense? “For two years I’ve helped you try to undermine both my investigation and the police’s. I’m...” She swallowed at the nerves flapping around in her chest and throat. “I’m done,” she said, wishing it had come out more forcefully and not so wobbly.

“Done,” he said flatly.

“I’m still your frie—”

“I don’t need a friend. I never did.”

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. “Okay.” She wouldn’t cry in front of him. She couldn’t allow herself to show the hurt. It was so stupid. She’d all but forced her company on him for two years. He might be the obsessive one, but she was pathetic.

She turned, blinking back the tears that burned in her eyes as she forced her lead-like legs to move back toward her car.

“Where are you going?” he called after her.

“Home,” she said, hoping he couldn’t read that squeak in her voice. Oh, who was she kidding? He didn’t care. If it didn’t have to do with the case, he did not care. She’d been a means to an end, and she couldn’t be anymore.

“Why?”

She laughed, surprised at the way bitterness could grow just as large as sadness. “You don’t want a friend, and I can’t keep being your supplier. So.” What else was there to say?

Apparently nothing, because Will didn’t try to stop her after that. She got to her truck, didn’t bother to look back and drove away.

It was time she moved on. Not just for Will, but for herself.

* * *

WILL WATCHED GRACIE get into her truck. He had no idea what had just happened. And damn if it wasn’t at the worst possible time.

After two years of combing through everything, he’d found a secret file on Paula’s computer within an old grocery list. It didn’t name the man she’d had an affair with, but it gave some clues. Will thought maybe a few pictures of the accident might unearth a clue that was connected.

Of course, he had those pictures memorized at this point. He had everything memorized. Losing Gracie’s help didn’t really matter one way or another. Though it was nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of.

Nice to have someone who didn’t look at him like he was crazy, especially on days when he thought he was a little crazy. After all, what man investigated the death of his cheating wife for two years? Especially after every law enforcement agency involved had found no reason to believe foul play was involved.

But he felt it. Knew it. Maybe his marriage had been a mess, but that didn’t mean he could just let it go. Someone had murdered her, he was sure of it. They had to be brought to justice.

Justice would bring him peace. He was sure of that, too.

Regardless of whether or not it was crazy, this was the man he was. Had been for two years, so it didn’t make sense Gracie was quitting out of the blue.

Will cleaned up his tools, frowning at the custom order he was making. It wasn’t turning out how he would have liked. He was going to have to start over, but right now wasn’t the time. He had to work through this thing with Gracie first or his concentration would be shot.

Something had to have happened. Maybe a friend or family member had warned her off him? Gracie was part of the Delaneys, all law enforcement and politicians and upstanding citizens.

Paula, who’d grown up in the Carson clan, had always said that—upstanding citizens—with such disdain because Carsons and Delaneys didn’t seem to have much between them besides disdain and bitterness.

Will hadn’t much cared one way or another about the silly feud so many Bent citizens held such stock in. Land disputes and romantic tragedies that happened over a century ago didn’t really interest him, but he’d sided with the Carsons if asked out of loyalty to Paula.

But Paula was dead, and he wasn’t building any monuments in her honor. Their marriage and relationship had gone sour before her untimely death.

He hated to think that was what drove him—the tangle of screwed-up emotions that came with losing someone you’d once loved and then had grown to hate.

He shook his head. It wasn’t that. It was that he knew something was wrong. For starters, Paula had been on the road to his cabin, a place she never went to even when their marriage hadn’t basically been over. She hadn’t had her purse, and she hadn’t been wearing shoes. Which was the opposite of the nearly anal woman he’d been married to for five years.

Now she’d been gone two, and whoever her lover had been was a mystery no one seemed to care to solve.

Except him. Occasionally Gracie suggested it was some warped sense of pride, needing to know the man his wife had chosen over him, more than it was his concern over her death being wrongful.

Wouldn’t that make this easier?

He just knew Paula too well for her wreck to make sense, and he couldn’t live with himself thinking there might be a murderer out there.

It was likely more emotionally complicated than that, but he chose to focus on the case, on the facts, over those messy emotions that plagued him from where he’d shoved them deep down.

He frowned over at where Gracie’s truck had been parked, trying to go through the whole interaction. He’d been a little curt with her, but she knew how he could get when a project wasn’t going the way he wanted.

The truth was, Gracie was about the only human contact he had on a regular basis these days, and he’d gotten to taking for granted that it would always continue.

She had to be bluffing. She’d be back tomorrow morning with coffee, an apology and those pictures.

He was sure of it. Certain.

Except the next morning came and went, and so did the next, and by the time an entire week had passed without one peep from Gracie, Will was downright pissed. Where did she get off just cutting him off like that? Abandoning him just like...

He grimaced at that thought as he studied the keys hanging from the hook in his kitchen. He needed food and supplies. Usually Gracie brought him everything he needed so he had to go into town only once a month.

Or less.

Truth be told, everything in his life had narrowed, incrementally, over the past two years. Without Gracie to take his mind off it, this past week had been a glaring reminder.

He didn’t like to leave his little mountain. He didn’t like to drive. He didn’t like to face Bent with its people who knew him and his story. Poor widower. The man who couldn’t let the past go.

He didn’t trust that world out there, but if he didn’t get over it, he was going to starve. He grabbed the keys and started for his door.

But about halfway through he turned around and headed for his—well, Paula’s—computer. He could stand to go over the secret file one more time.

He pulled up the document he’d found after meticulously going through every file in her computer, no matter how innocuous the title. This particular file was listed as Grocery List 5/16.

The first page was even a list of groceries. He’d bypassed it he didn’t know how many times over the years because it was clearly a grocery list even after a few scrolls. Then he’d decided to not just skim through every file, but to read through every word in case some clue was hidden in the midst of some article about tax law or a random to-do list.

He hadn’t found it in any of her files from her job as a CPA, but he had found something in this grocery list. He’d noticed just last week that the list repeated itself after ten vegetables. Which was weird. Why would a grocery list need to repeat itself?

So he’d scrolled. For ten pages. Just the same ten vegetables repeated, and then there was what he’d been looking for.

They appeared to be emails with the to/from stripped out of them, but Paula had kept the dates and the subject lines. Love letters. Well, more like sex letters if Will was honest with himself.

It had been hard to read them, knowing his wife had received them while they were still trying to work things out. Sickening really, but he’d needed a clue.

He still needed a clue. So he read them again, sick to his stomach and angry all over again. But he did it. Focusing on every detail, every word choice, every mention of meeting.

He jotted down the referenced meetings this time, then cross-referenced with the computer calendar based on the dates of the email.

And that was when he found his pattern.

Chapter Two

Gracie plastered a smile on her face as the party around her was hitting full swing.

Usually a Delaney wouldn’t be caught dead in Rightful Claim, a Carson bar, but the whole town had made an exception to the normal way of town feud bitterness with the engagement party of Gracie’s cousin Laurel to the bar’s proprietor, Grady Carson.

Gracie was happy for Laurel, probably happier than most of the other Delaneys, who thought the Carsons were a vortex of evil, but the happy couldn’t smother her self-absorbed worry over Will.

She hated that she was worried about him when he clearly saw her as nothing, but she didn’t think he’d come off his little mountain, and he had to be running low on food.

It’s none of your business if he starves to death. That’s his own problem.

She wanted to believe that, but whether he cared back or not, Gracie did care about Will. Even if it was one-sided. Even if it was stupid or pathetic, she cared about him.

Gracie made a beeline for the bar. She usually didn’t drink, didn’t like the way it made her feel a little dizzy, a little out of control, but maybe it would shush some of this endless circling her brain was doing.

It’s not your brain. It’s your heart.

Yeah, she really needed to shut that voice up, but before she made it to the crowded bar, she glanced at the door as it opened.

Will stepped in. Underneath a cheerful swath of Christmas lights that looked out of place in this rough-and-tumble, Wild West–themed bar, but also somehow perfect.

For a second she figured she was seeing things she wanted to see, and berated herself for being an idiot. But Will was striding through the room, ignoring any looks or comments, and heading straight for her.

She could only stare for a moment. Will rarely came into town, and when he did it was only to the general store, the gas station or the post office. And he never went anywhere when there might be a crowd.

“Will, what are you—”

“I found something out,” he said resolutely. “I need your help.”

Gracie glanced around the bar. More than a few pairs of eyes were on them. She knew what they all thought, too. Will Cooper was crazy, and silly Gracie Delaney placated him because she didn’t know any better.

Well, she’d figured out how to know better, but she didn’t need to prove it to the group.

“Let’s talk outside,” she whispered, not wanting to draw more attention. She hesitated a second, then brazened through. She linked her arm with his as if they were friends, or more, and headed for the door.

Will came easily, and if she wasn’t totally imagining things, a tremor went through his arm, maybe his whole body.

She didn’t want to feel sorry for him, or be drawn into whatever help he needed, but surely it was important if Will was facing Bent and Rightful Claim and a party.

He pulled his arm from hers after they pushed through the swinging front doors of Rightful Claim. He took a few steps down the boardwalk, raking his hands through his hair, which needed a trim. Even in the warm glow of the town’s twinkle-light-wrapped streetlights, he somehow looked a little wilder, a little more desperate than the last time she’d seen him.

Or that’s what you want, idiot.

“I didn’t know Rightful Claim got so busy,” he offered, and though the sounds of the party drifted out into the cold night, it was mostly quiet out here.

“It’s a party. Laurel and Grady’s engagement party.”

“Oh. Guess that explains your truck being here.” He blew out a breath, looking away from the bar and out at the night sky, which was a sparkling, vast thing. “It’s December,” he said, as if he hadn’t known.

“Yes. Hence the Christmas decorations.”

He looked around. Tinsel-lined candy canes Gracie suspected had been around since before she was born hung off the streetlight poles just as they had when she’d been a kid.

“I’m sorry I’m interrupting. It’s just I found something.”

“Will—” She couldn’t do this. For herself as much as for him.

“I found a pattern, to how they met. Wednesdays. Always at six. I don’t know where, but there has to be something there. Wednesdays.” His gaze fixed on hers in the cheerful Christmas lights.

She’d told him she was done, but here he was, stepping outside his comfort zone and marching into the bar. She was torn between pleasant surprise that he’d braved some of the things he’d been avoiding more and more and being annoyed he thought he could just waltz into her life and demand help.

“Then what?” she asked softly. Because this was what had brought her to that moment last week when she’d cut him off. When she’d cut herself off. She could keep giving him pictures and files and peeks at evidence and what have you, but then what? It was an endless circle, and she couldn’t be a part of it anymore.

She wanted him to break free of it, too, but she had no say over him. She only had say over herself. But maybe... Maybe if he actually stopped to think about the question like she’d had to...

“What happens if we follow the pattern?” she prodded.

“We follow the clues and—”

“Then what after that? You find the guy your wife was cheating with? You question him and maybe he even had something to do with it despite all evidence to the contrary. The searching is over, you have your answers, your justice. What then?” Because she’d been foolishly hoping to help him to that what then, but she had a terrible feeling she’d spent the past two years only aiding him in becoming more screwed up, more of a hermit and less of the easy-going Will Cooper she’d known peripherally before Paula’s death.

And because she cared about him, but had zero actual responsibility or hold on him, she had to walk away.

“We’ll have the truth,” Will said, as if she was the one living in a fantasy world. “I’ve been searching for the truth for two years. I don’t know why you’re giving up, but I can’t. I can’t ignore two years’ worth of something telling me this is all wrong.”

“What will you do with whatever truth you’re after?”

He looked at her a bit like she’d struck him. “Hopefully put a murderer in jail.” He shook his head. “Why? Why are you doing this? After all this time, you’re just abandoning me. I don’t get it.”

He actually sounded and looked hurt, instead of just irritated he didn’t have help anymore, so she gave him the truth. “I care about you, Will, and I can’t keep watching you get worse.”

* * *

WILL COULDN’T PROCESS those words, or the soft look in Gracie’s brown eyes. Care. Such a weird word. Such a dangerous thing, to care about someone. You couldn’t control what they’d do with that. Couldn’t predict it. You could feel safe and happy one minute, eviscerated and broken the next.

Care. No. It gave him a full-body chill. “Get worse at what?” he asked, working to pretend the first part of that sentence didn’t exist.

She blew out a breath, lights from the tacky Christmas decorations all around creating a sort of warm yellow glow around her. Occasionally, the few nights he managed to sleep well enough to dream, he’d dream of her, much like this. Something like an angel, down to the glowing.

He wasn’t fanciful enough to believe in things like angels, but he wasn’t so cynical he couldn’t believe that Gracie was part of his life for a reason.

So why was she leaving it?

She blew out a breath. “You said you don’t need a friend, but I’m always here if you decide you do. But I’m done playing detective. It was an accident, Will. An accident.”

“She was not cheating on me accidentally.”

“No.”

“What changed? Something did, because a person doesn’t just walk away after...” It all lodged a little too hard, the words he was saying, a very painful realization he’d come here for the very, very stupid reason of feeling abandoned, and that overly sympathetic look on her face.

He tried to say he had to leave, but he wasn’t sure any words actually came out of his mouth. He was moving too fast away from her and this town and...

This was why he stayed up there. When he came down to town, when people were around, talking about things not related to Paula’s death, all these messy, confusing, complicated and mixed-up emotions boiled up and over. Who wanted to live in the center of all those things? He didn’t understand these people walking through life like it wasn’t a relentless parade of suck.

He didn’t need Gracie to be his friend. He didn’t need anyone to be his friend. He most certainly didn’t need fake Christmas crap surrounding him to the point of suffocation.

Who cared if Gracie had a reason for backing out? It wasn’t the same as learning your wife was cheating on you, or that she was dead. None of this was the same.

But somewhere in the past few years he’d lost how to parse it all. Which meant he’d let this all go—Gracie, her help, anything to do with Bent. He’d figure this all out on his own where he was safe from the way people were complicated, from the way people could betray you.

“Will. Wait.”

But he couldn’t wait. He had to get back to his house, his mountain. Far away from all this.

He turned away from her, hunching against the cold. There were cars everywhere, filling the lot, clogging both sides of the street. He’d had to park two blocks down.

Before turning the corner to where his Jeep was parked, he gave a final glimpse at Gracie standing there in the twinkling lights, hugging herself and looking worried and like a Christmas gift.

He damn well didn’t need her worry. Or care.

He climbed into his Jeep and started the engine. He drove out of Bent, so distracted with the roiling set of emotions inside him it took miles to realize something wasn’t right.

The engine was making a horrible noise, and the steering wheel wasn’t responding the way it normally did. Will frowned. It was pitch-black on this mountain road and not a good place to stop. Even though traffic wasn’t a big concern, 18-wheelers sometimes rumbled by toward Fairmont.

If he stopped—

The thought, the hope he could fix this situation, died in an instant. When his foot tapped the brake, nothing happened. He swallowed at the trickle of fear, pressing his foot down harder. A grinding noise sounded—a terrible one—and the brake barely responded, slowing his progress only a little bit.

Will swore as he continued to stomp his foot on the brake. Horrible noise, a slight decrease in speed, but not enough. Keeping his eyes on the road and one hand gripped to the steering wheel for dear life, he fished his phone out from the messy console.

He waited for a straightaway on the road, searched for anything that might slow his car down without killing him. All there was in the dark night, he knew, were rocks and trees and death. He couldn’t even see the moon, like some kind of terrible omen.

He dialed Gracie’s number, impatiently swearing as it rang over and over again. He remembered the emergency brake, stomped on the lever, but nothing happened.

She didn’t answer.

Stupid to call her instead of 911, and still he gripped his phone with one hand, while desperately trying to take the curves of the dark road ahead of him. Screeching tires, increasing speed as the road dipped, entire car shuddering.

“Gracie,” he shouted into his phone when her voice mail beep sounded. “I need your help.”

But he couldn’t explain beyond that because he had to drop the phone to grip the steering wheel with both hands. Except that didn’t seem to help. His steering had gone the way of the brakes and now he was careening toward another curve, this time with no hope of doing anything but catapulting over the edge and into a grove of trees.

Paula’s trees.

Chapter Three

Gracie chewed her lip as she stared at her phone. Maybe Will had been calling to apologize. Maybe she should have answered.

He was dealing with such complicated emotions and—

Well, no, the problem was he had complex emotions, grief and betrayal, and for two years he’d run away and hermited away from them rather than face them, deal with them, accept them.

And she’d placated and enabled him at every turn. She chewed harder on her lip, staring at the voice mail icon.

“Here. Turn that frown upside down.”

Gracie looked up at Laurel, who had slid a bottle of beer in front of her at her little corner table where she was sitting. By herself.

“Sorry I’m not reveling.”

“Don’t worry. The Carsons are doing enough reveling for all of us,” Laurel said, smiling fondly at the motley crew around them. Delaneys lined the outskirts of the crowd. Most looking a little sour faced, though a few had imbibed enough to mingle with Carsons.

Gracie looked back down at her phone. She should put it away and celebrate her cousin’s engagement. Celebrate the fact the town wasn’t imploding over a Carson and a Delaney getting married.

Yet.

“What’s up, Gracie? It isn’t like you to mope.”

Gracie shook her head, gesturing at the crowd. “It’s so not important. I’ll tell you about it later. Enjoy your night.”

Laurel took a sip from her bottle of beer then glanced around the room, her smile going soft when it landed on her fiancé, Grady Carson. He was laughing with his cousins Noah and Ty behind the bar. They made a handsome, dangerous trio.

Gracie glanced down at her phone again, that obnoxious voice mail icon staring at her.

“So, who’s the guy?”

Gracie’s head jerked to Laurel. “What?”

“I know everyone you know, Gracie,” Laurel said with a smile. “They’re all here. So the only reason you’re staring at your phone and not talking to anyone is...well, a guy.”

Gracie tried to laugh casually, but it came out sounding forced even to her own ears. “There’s no guy.”

“Then what’s with the phone staring?”

“I’m in a deadly battle of Candy Crush.”

Laurel laughed. “Liar.”

“It’s not a guy...per se. I just finally told Will I’d stop...” Gracie shook her head. “This is not engagement party talk.”

Laurel reached across the table and patted Gracie’s arm. Laurel had never been shy about her disapproval of Gracie’s odd relationship with Will. As a sheriff’s deputy, Laurel didn’t take kindly to accusations that the department wasn’t doing its best because the victim had been a Carson, or any of Will’s other accusations over the case.

So, it made Gracie feel silly and small bringing it up, especially at Laurel’s party.

“He’s not my favorite person, but I know you felt a kind of obligation to him, and cutting that off couldn’t have been easy.”

Gracie forced herself to smile. “And something we can discuss tomorrow.”

Laurel nodded. “Fair enough. Just one little piece of advice. Either cut all of it off for good, or accept you’re going to be a part of it. Don’t sit here in a back-and-forth. Make a choice and stick with it. You’ll feel a lot better.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me which choice?”

“You two look far too serious for a party,” Grady said, coming up to them and taking Laurel’s hand in his. “On your feet. You’re going to dance with me.”

“I’m a terrible dancer,” Laurel returned with a laugh, but she let Grady pull her to her feet. She left her beer bottle, grinning as Grady gave her a little spin toward the small throng of people dancing to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”

But Laurel smiled over her shoulder at Gracie. “You pick the one you can live with,” she called over the crowd and the music.

One she could live with. Gracie frowned. That was the worst advice she’d ever been given. She couldn’t live with either possibility. She had told him she couldn’t help him anymore because she was afraid she was making him worse. She meant that choice, but it didn’t make it easy.

She cared about Will. Had even said it to his face and watched him blanch outside this very bar. As if care was some kind of horrible disease she’d foisted upon him.

You decided to cut him off, so cut him off.

She nodded, willing herself to hit the voice mail button, which she did. Then willing herself to hit Delete without listening to a second. For that act, she paused.

She’d cut him off. He didn’t want a friend. He was allergic to emotion and she was no therapist, so she couldn’t possibly fix him. She couldn’t go after him and make things right because he was too closed off, too obsessed, too...

She hit Play, then berated herself. She wasn’t going to listen. She was not going to listen or get dragged into helping him with things that weren’t any good for him.

“Gracie.”

Oh hell, she had to listen.

“I need your help.” Said in a breathless, gritty voice, as if he was straining against something. Some horrible screeching noise went on in the background, so loud she could barely hear his voice over it.

“Laurel,” she yelled, already on her feet, already heading for the door. “Who’s on duty at county?”

* * *

WILL THOUGHT HE heard sirens. Which was weird. He couldn’t hear sirens in his cabin. He couldn’t hear anything except bird song, and the occasional rumble of an engine on Fridays.

Gracie. Always Gracie.

It registered, vague and faint, somewhere in the recesses of his brain, that he was cold. And uncomfortable.

No, not uncomfortable, on fire. Painful fire, frigid cold. It didn’t make any sense and he couldn’t seem to open his eyes.

Well, this was bad.

Something like panic fluttered in his chest, but everything in his body was throbbing with pain. He wasn’t at home in his cabin. He wasn’t on his mountain. He was somewhere... Somewhere.

He couldn’t open his eyes, and he couldn’t move without a fiery agony spreading through his body. Things were digging into him and one arm was at an uncomfortable angle tangled up in something hard.

He could still hear sirens, but it was all so far off he wondered if it had anything to do with him or if it was just all in his head.

Then they stopped. Just stopped.

He was going to die, wasn’t he? Something had gone wrong with his car. He didn’t quite remember what, but everything had gone wrong and he’d crashed and he was going to die.

Just like Paula. Exactly like it.

“Will? Will!”

He must be hallucinating. There’d be no reason Gracie would be out this way. Certainly no reason she’d be his saving grace. Gracie. Grace. He might have laughed if he didn’t think his head would roll right off.

“Will? Oh my—I found him!” she shouted, and he could almost hear her or someone or something next to his ear.

“Will. Oh God. Will. Please.” When she touched him he groaned, because everything hurt, even Gracie’s very welcome touch.

“You’re alive. You’re alive.” She whispered it over and over, her hand still on his chest. He felt the gentle brush of her fingertips across his forehead. Finally a part of his body that didn’t hurt.

“Say something, Will. If you’re awake. If you can hear me. Say something. Please.”

He heard footsteps and a murmur of someone else, but Gracie was talking to him and her fingers were on his face. She sounded desperate and afraid, and he didn’t want that for her. No.

He tried to open his eyes again, and this time they went a little. Everything was dark though there was some kind of light, but he couldn’t see right. He could tell that. Nothing was right.

His Jeep had malfunctioned. He’d crashed. And he couldn’t believe that was an accident.

His vision cleared a little, and he could just barely make out Gracie’s face hovering above him. The world around them was dark but some light swathed her face, and he could see every feature.

He had the oddest urge to reach out and touch her face. Touch her hair. Anything to assure himself she was real and here, and that all that worry and fear on her face was for him. Him.

I care about you, Will.

Turns out even half-dead after a car accident those words could still haunt and chill him.

“Will, an ambulance is on the way. Don’t try to move. But, can you talk? Say something?” She leaned closer, the wisps of her hair sliding across his cheek, which felt like it had been ripped off.

“Say something to me, please,” she whispered, and he thought he saw a few tears slide down her cheeks.

Say something. He had to say something. Make all this stop. She could cry when he was full dead instead of just half.

“Believe me now?” he rasped.

A pained expression crossed her face and she looked up, her face turning into a flashing red light.

“The ambulance is here,” she said quietly. “I’m going to go flag them down. Don’t—”

But he gripped her arm with the one hand that was functioning and didn’t feel like it was being stabbed by a machete. “Don’t go.” He had the panicked thought that if she left he would die, and he found he wasn’t quite interested in that prospect.

“I’ll get them.”

Will didn’t know whose voice that was. He only knew it was male and Will didn’t particularly care for it. Had she been on a date?

But he didn’t have time to dwell on that uncomfortable thought as footsteps and voices surrounded them. Then he was being touched and prodded and moved, and he tried to bite back groans of pain, but he couldn’t manage it.

Then he was on a stretcher, being moved and jerked into an ambulance.

“Gracie.”

“I’m here,” she said, and though he couldn’t see her with the paramedics looming over him, a slim, cool hand slid into his.

More voices, more movement, a door slam. And through it all, Gracie’s hand held his. Like she’d been doing for the past two years. The only person he’d come to rely on.

“What happened?” she asked gently as a paramedic shined a light into one eye and then the other.

“The brakes and steering went out.”

The paramedic worked on him, but Will couldn’t seem to force himself to let go of Gracie’s hand.

“It wasn’t any accident, Gracie. It wasn’t.”

She didn’t say anything to that so he attempted to squeeze her hand, even though it hurt like hell.

“Gracie?”

“Deputy Mosely is looking at your car. There’ll be an investigation.”

Will snorted, then swallowed down a gasp of pain. “Yeah, I know how those go.” He could feel her sigh of a breath against his temple. She moved so he could look at her while the paramedic did something awful to his arm that wasn’t holding on to Gracie.

Her big brown eyes were filled with tears and worry, and he wanted to look away from that kind of emotion, but God, it hurt too bad to even close his eyes.

She touched his forehead again, a gentle glide of her fingertips. “Rest. Let’s get you better, and then we’ll figure out what’s going on.”

“You don’t believe me,” he said flatly.

“I don’t know what to believe,” she returned on a pained whisper.

But it wasn’t him. Never him.

Chapter Four

“There’s evidence of tampering.”

Gracie looked up at Laurel, who stood in the waiting room at the hospital, dressed in her detective khakis and county sheriff’s department polo, looking serious and stern.

Believe me now? Will’s words kept looping around in her head whether she was dozing or awake while she waited to hear the extent of Will’s injuries. Which they wouldn’t tell her because she was no one to Will.

“Can you find out how he’s doing?”

Laurel smiled thinly. “You know I can’t. They’re not going to tell you anything, either. Why don’t you go home? Get some rest. Come back later.”

Gracie shook her head, linking her hands in an effort to keep her composure. If she dug her fingernails into the tops of her hands she could focus on the pinch instead of the guilt swamping her.

She’d been this close to deleting his message unheard, and she just... He would have died. He would have died. He’d be dead if she had done that. “What kind of tampering was it?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, either.” Laurel was firm, but apologetic. If Gracie didn’t know Laurel as well as she did she might have tried to beg, wheedle or manipulate, but Laurel wouldn’t budge. She took her badge more seriously than she took just about everything.

“He’s in danger,” Gracie said flatly.

“I think that’s a safe assumption.”

Gracie met Laurel’s gaze. “You know what this means.”

Laurel sighed. “Not necessarily. If it has something to do with Paula Cooper’s crash... It’s been years. There was no tampering done to her car back then. There’s no evidence this connects at all.”

“Yet.”

Laurel sighed again and slid into the seat next to Gracie. “I’m going to look into it. If I find a link, I’ll investigate it, but you both need to understand this is for the police to figure out.”

Gracie knew Laurel was right, but she also knew Will had come to Rightful Claim, told her he’d figured out a pattern and then his car had been tampered with. Those couldn’t be coincidences.

Laurel would be thorough, Gracie had no doubt. Even if Laurel wasn’t getting married to a Carson, Gracie knew her cousin too well to ever think she’d not follow a lead just because the deceased was a Carson. If there was some connection, Laurel would find it.

Eventually. But Will was in a hospital room with who knew what kind of injuries and Gracie knew she didn’t have time for eventually.

“Gracie.” Laurel’s voice took on a sterner tone. “Promise me you two will let the police handle this.”

Gracie didn’t want to lie to her cousin, but she also didn’t know how she could possibly agree.

“Ms. Delaney?”

Both her and Laurel turned to the nurse, who smiled kindly. Melina knew both of them because their work often brought them to the hospital and since Melina had been Gracie’s babysitter once upon a time. “Not you, Deputy. Gracie, Mr. Cooper is able to see visitors now, and he’s asked for you, if you’d like to go back.”

Gracie hopped to her feet, but so did Laurel.

“I’ll need to speak with Mr. Cooper.”

Melina nodded. “That’ll be fine, but he specifically asked for Gracie. Room 203.”

Laurel started striding that way, but Gracie hurried in front of her. “Laurel, listen, I need you to do me a favor.”

“I’m here in a professional capacity.”

“Please, let me go alone.”

“Gracie.”

“Please, just... Just give me a few minutes alone. I’m not asking you not to question him, I’m just asking that you let me... Look...” She swallowed at the emotion clogging her throat. “Maybe you don’t understand why, but I feel responsible. At least partially. If I’d handled this even remotely differently—”

“You don’t know what would have happened.”

“Maybe not, but... As my best friend and my cousin and just the best human being I know, please give me five minutes alone with him. Personal minutes.”

Laurel sighed heavily. “Five minutes. And I’m right outside the door.”

Gracie gave Laurel an impulsive hug. “Thank you.” Five minutes wasn’t enough really. She’d probably cry when she saw him again. After all, she’d cried in that ambulance. Hopefully Will didn’t remember that.

Still, she’d need those few minutes to try to work through all this...stuff. Guilt. Worry. The desperate need to fix what she’d almost irreparably broken.

She and Laurel walked silently to the room number Melina had given them. Laurel gave a little nod and leaned against the wall next to the door. She glanced at her watch meaningfully.

Five minutes. Gracie blew out a breath and knocked on the door before pushing the door open. It was a small room, but the blinds were open to the bright sunshine outside.

Will sat in his bed and slowly turned to look at her as she closed the door behind her. One arm was in a cast, and his face was a maze of bandages. There was a hospital sheet over the bottom half of his body so she couldn’t see what kind of damage had been done down there.

He was beat-up and clearly a mess, and still he loomed too large in that bed. Like it didn’t matter he’d been pulverized by metal and concrete, he could take it. She almost believed it when he simply sat there and stared at her.

“Hi,” she offered from where she stood rooted by the door.

“Hey,” he returned, and his voice didn’t sound like him at all. She couldn’t read his expression, either. Maybe it was just pain.

She walked haltingly to his bedside knowing she had to say whatever it was she was going to say before her five minutes were up and Laurel came in to question him.

He frowned at her as she came to stand beside his bed. “You... You’ve been here the whole time?”

It was then she realized what he was looking so quizzically at. The dried blood on her sleeve she’d gotten from touching him out there on that frigid roadside.

When she looked back at his face, he was staring hard at hers.

“You haven’t slept,” he said, as though that were some great surprise.

“I was waiting to hear... I didn’t know how bad off you were. You passed out in the ambulance.”

“I don’t... I don’t remember that. The ambulance.”

“What do you remember?”

“Your voice.”

Gracie inhaled and then forgot to exhale. It didn’t mean anything that she was the thing he remembered. It didn’t mean he cared or this mattered, and as guilty as she felt about almost letting him die, she couldn’t let herself get wrapped up in thinking there was some change here. He was still Will, and she was just...his supplier.

“Gracie.” His non-cast arm moved and before she realized what he was doing, he’d taken her hand in his. There was a bandage on top of his hand, and still he gripped her tight. She stared at it.

“Gracie, look at me.”

She forced herself to take her gaze off his much bigger, and far more battered, hand squeezing hers.

His blue gaze was earnest and desperate. A look she recognized, and one that made her heart pinch. Because before last night she would have felt sorry for him, wondered if he needed therapy.

Today, she knew that desperation wasn’t out of place, and that maybe, just maybe, Will’s obsession with the case wasn’t wrong or sad or an attempt not to deal with the complicated feelings about his wife’s infidelity or death.

“You have to get me out of here,” he said, his gaze never leaving hers. “As soon as possible.”

* * *

WILL HURT JUST about everywhere and he knew pretty soon a nurse would come in and pump him full of all sorts of crap.

He preferred the pain. The pain kept him centered, and it reminded him of one simple truth.

He’d been right. All along, he’d been right. Whoever Paula had been having an affair with—whether they’d been involved in her death or not—needed to keep it a secret. He didn’t know how someone had figured out Will had a clue, but clearly someone had.

Still, Gracie wasn’t saying anything. Her hand was limp in his, but she leaned closer. She was a mess. Maybe not physically abused like he currently was, but exhaustion was etched across her sweet face. She had his blood on her shirt and a rip in her jeans. He wondered if it had come from kneeling next to him on the rough asphalt.

He didn’t remember much of anything. Not the crash itself, not the ambulance ride, but he remembered those few seconds of in between where he’d been lying there on fire and freezing at the same time and Gracie suddenly being next to him.

“Will,” she whispered. “Laurel is right outside.”

He blinked. Then nodded. “We’ll discuss it later then.”

“There isn’t anything to discuss. You have to stay in the hospital till a doctor clears you.”

But she still whispered, as if she was afraid her cop cousin was listening. It gave him some hope he could convince her, but it’d have to wait. He was just afraid he didn’t have much time.

He was hurt, which meant he couldn’t fight anyone off. He probably shouldn’t drive with his arm in a cast, and hell, he didn’t have a car anymore anyway. He’d decided his only chance of survival had been to jump out of the car.

Had he jumped out? He couldn’t actually remember it. But they hadn’t found him in his car, so he had to have done it.

He lifted his nonbroken arm and pressed fingers to his temple, trying to concentrate on the here and now instead of all the fuzziness around the accident.

Here. Now. He needed help, and Gracie was the only one he could trust. He looked up at her. “You do believe me now, don’t you?”

She finally wrapped her fingers around his, just a slight pressure. “Of course I do. How could I not?” She swallowed, and she lifted her free hand as if to touch him.

He found himself intensely wishing she would, but instead she dropped the hand. “I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“You don’t know how close I was to not listening to your message,” she said, her voice still a whisper though he didn’t think it was about not being heard this time. She looked miserable and devastated. “I was going to delete it. I was cutting you off and it haunts me. If I’d deleted it—”

He hated that look of anguish and guilt on her face. He’d never understood why she’d taken so much of him on her shoulders, and he’d never spent much time trying to figure it out. But she’d been helping him for two years, the only actual person who’d stayed a part of his life after Paula’s death. She shouldn’t feel guilty about anything when she’d been the only one who’d stuck. This girl who had no connection to him prior to telling him his wife had died.

“You would have been right to delete it,” Will said firmly. He didn’t need her guilt. He needed her help. “I get lost in it all and I don’t see beyond it, but you do. You have a life and people who care about you and I know I sound crazy half the time. How could you be as invested in it as me? She wasn’t your wife or even anyone you knew.”

She studied his face as if she was searching for some particular emotion, but he didn’t know what she was looking for, what she wanted. So, he needed to bring the conversation back to where it belonged.

“I need to prove that I’m right. If someone killed her they should pay. There should be some justice.”

“You’re right. Someone tried to kill you. You should have justice, too. And I’m going to help you find it.” She held his gaze, bent over him like this, hand still in his. “I promise you, no matter what happens, I’m going to help you find the truth.” Her dark eyes blazed with that promise. She had such a certainty about her, such an earnestness. He’d never known anyone quite like her. Dedicated and sweet. She cared about people enough to act on it, enough to help.

He didn’t understand her at all, and still she stood over him in this obnoxious hospital bed, her light brown hair glowing near to red in the sunlight streaming through his window. Something fluttered low in his gut, a kind of awareness that prickled over his skin.

He’d noticed before, once or twice, a moment drawn out too long. Noticed the shape of her mouth, or...other parts of her. Exactly like this, a kind of faraway thing that was easy to put out of his mind. They’d always been working on the case. Pictures of Paula’s accident or reports about it or... It had always been easy to shift away from that awareness.

Maybe it was the drugs they’d pumped him full of that made it harder to shift now.

But a knock sounded on the door and Gracie all but jumped away from him as if they’d been, well, anything other than just staring at each other holding hands.

Laurel Delaney stepped into the room looking very official. Will scowled.

“Mr. Cooper, I need to ask you a few questions.”

“About whoever tried to kill me because I got too close to finding the truth?”

He’d give Deputy Delaney credit—she didn’t flinch nor did she dig her heels in. She kept that calm, equitable expression on her face and nodded. “There was some evidence of someone tampering with your car. Well, what was left of it.”

“Am I supposed to be surprised?”

“Do you have any ideas who might have wanted to cause you harm, Mr. Cooper?”

“Oh, just the man who was having an affair with my wife and probably caused her car accident in almost the exact same place.”

“Your late wife had no evidence of car tampering. It’s also been two years. What would cause someone to come after you now?”

“I found a connection. A clue. It’s why I found Gracie at your party. I told her that I had found something, right there in Rightful Claim. Then we talked outside. Anyone could have heard me and gotten to my car.”

“So, your theory is we’re all living amongst a killer and have been for two years?”

“Yeah, it is.”

Laurel pressed her lips together, clearly irritated with his steadfast determination. Still, when she spoke, her voice was even and controlled. “Do you have any evidence? Anything that might be able to help us solve this?”

“There was a piece of paper. In my clothes. I’d written it down.” He glanced from Deputy Delaney to Gracie. “Did they find it?”

The women exchanged a glance and Laurel pulled a small notebook from her breast pocket. She scribbled a few things on it. “I’m going to see if we can find a piece of paper. What kind of information does it have on it?”

“Dates. A few phrases I thought might hint at where they were meeting. I have the information on her computer, though.” He glanced at Gracie and, without him even having to ask, she nodded.

“I’ll run over and get you some of your things,” she said.

“You need some sleep,” Laurel interrupted.

Gracie opened her mouth, likely to argue, but as much as Will didn’t want to agree with Laurel Delaney, she was right. “You’ve been here all night. You need to sleep.”

“I haven’t had parents for twenty years. I know how to take care of myself, thank you very much.”

“Gracie—”

She held up her hand at Laurel and Laurel stopped. “Neither of you are in charge of me. Now, I will run over to Will’s to grab his computer. Is there anything else you’d like while I’m there?”

Since he’d never once heard Gracie use that firm, don’t-you-dare-argue tone, he decided it was best to heed its icy warning. “No, ma’am.”

“That’s settled then. I’ll be back.” She turned on a heel and headed for the door, and even though he wanted to say more, he didn’t. Because Deputy Delaney was still there, staring at him with that inscrutable cop face.

He knew she didn’t believe him. He’d never expected her to, but there being evidence of tampering in his car meant she was going to have to investigate this. She was probably going to get in his way or get him killed in all reality. Because she didn’t believe enough of his story to not be a speed bump rather than offer any actual help.

“She has nothing to do with this,” Laurel said, nodding to where Gracie had disappeared.

“Excuse me?”

“She has nothing to do with this. If you’re in danger, by allowing her to help you, you’re putting her in danger. Is that what you want?” He glanced at the door, then back at Laurel.

The thought of Gracie in danger made his stomach turn, because he’d certainly never considered that. But the thought of trying to solve this without her had a flutter of panic settling into his gut. He tried not to let either emotion show on his face. Deputy Delaney didn’t need any extra ammunition. “You really think I could stop her?”

Laurel’s mouth curved briefly. “You could at least try.”

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