Something About a Sheriff (Wild West Book 2) Read online

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  Something About a Sheriff

  Copyright Em Petrova 2017

  Ebook Edition

  Electronic book publication 2017

  All rights reserved. Any violation of this will be prosecuted by the law.

  After moving to small-town Wyoming, Cecily Baker’s day spa is broken into. Which means the sheriff’s on the scene, and he’s dusting for more than prints around her place. When he isn’t piercing her with that deep, intense stare, he’s digging into her past. Turns out she does have a skeleton in her closet—spring break in Vegas left her with a husband she never knew she had.

  Judd Roshannon’s totally over his wife leaving him. He just has trust issues. So when Cecily’s name doesn’t exactly check out, his internal sirens are blaring. Too bad he can’t seem to keep away from the woman with the girl-next-door vibe and the curves that keep his neck snapping. With all the break-ins at her spa, he has a good excuse to keep seeing the sexy woman.

  Their chemistry’s off the chart, and neither one can keep their eyes, hands or mouths to themselves. Cecily’s even bared her soul, but she suspects Judd’s hiding his true self from her.

  Well, of course he’s hiding his true self from her—how can he risk scaring off a woman who means more to him than he’d like to admit?

  Something About a Sheriff

  by

  Em Petrova

  Chapter One

  “Who’s a good dog? Is it Echo?” Judd barely made it through the door before he was bulldozed by his hound. He staggered under the dog’s weight and rubbed his ears. “Did you chew up my boots today? You better not, you little shit.”

  Echo barked in response, which had earned him his name. As a pup, every time Judd would speak to the spotted cattle hound with one blue eye and one brown, Echo would bark in answer.

  Judd crouched to let the dog kiss his chin, Echo’s tongue scraping over the rough growth of hair put there after a long day on the job. Being sheriff in a small town shouldn’t seem as demanding as a big-city lawman, but at the moment, he was keeping the roads hot with petty thefts and drunk drivers.

  He chalked it up to prewinter madness. Cozied up to the Wyoming mountains, Bracken would be snowed in from the outside world more than once this season, and that meant people went stir-crazy. When they felt that tinge in the air that heralded the end of the warm weather, they sowed their wild oats by stealing their neighbor’s ATV or drinking one too many.

  Could be worse—Judd wasn’t borrowing trouble.

  He planted a kiss on Echo’s snout and stood. The dog bounced in circles around his boots all the way to his food bowl in the kitchen. Wrinkling his nose at the dirty dishes he’d left in the sink last night, Judd filled Echo’s food and water dishes and leaned against the counter to watch him crunch the beefy nuggets and lap his water for what seemed like twenty minutes.

  He pulled off his cowboy hat and ran his fingers through his hair. Coming home to a lonely house was bad enough, but he was hungry and tired.

  No way was he doing the dishes or cooking himself a meal after the day he’d had. Running all over the county to catch a bail jumper. Should be his damn cousin Wes’s job, but Wes had bigger, more important cases to look after. Locating a guy on the lam from a misdemeanor wasn’t on his radar these days.

  “Knock-knock!” The chipper voice of his neighbor projected into his house.

  He bit off a groan as he walked to the door with a smile pasted on his face. “Hi, Brooke. Sorry I forgot to tell you I was home and you don’t need to let Echo out.”

  At his name, Echo barked. Tail wagging to see his favorite friend. Brooke lived two houses over and often let Echo out and walked him since Judd had such long, crazy hours.

  The woman also tried to get into his bed at least once a week.

  She smiled at him, eyelashes dipping flirtatiously. Oh yeah, the woman knew what she was doing, right down to the way she stood near Judd. Hip pushed out, her breasts forward, ripe and ready for a man’s touch.

  Except Judd wasn’t buying into that crazy. Not in a million years. He’d been with one blonde already, and she’d dragged him through the wringers—right after leaving him for their joint lawyer and taking half of everything he owned plus a hefty monthly alimony payment.

  Brooke smoothed her blonde locks over her shoulder. “We could go for dinner if you haven’t eaten already. Pizza or Chinese?”

  His stomach turned, and he didn’t know if it was the mention of the foods he ate far too often as a bachelor or the thought of Brooke’s company.

  “Uh, thanks, but I’m eating in tonight.”

  She looked past him to the messy kitchen. He noticed the air wasn’t so fresh coming from that direction.

  “Yeah, I have some cleaning up to do. Then Echo and I are fixing dinner. If you wouldn’t mind stopping by tomorrow afternoon to see if he needs a walk, I’d appreciate it.” He herded Brooke to the front door and held it ready to close behind her.

  Some men would be stirring with desire. She was pretty, thirty-something. Old enough to know better, in his opinion. He wasn’t a man a woman fucked around with.

  She looked up into his eyes, and he braced himself for letting her down easy. He wasn’t a complete asshole, after all.

  “Okay, I’ll do that. If you change your mind about dinner, give me a buzz.” She reached up and moved his hair off his temple with a stroke of soft fingers that made his body crave something more.

  But not with her.

  He rocked backward and gestured toward the door. “Thanks again, Brooke.”

  Confusion and disappointment crossed her face as she left.

  Okay, so he was a dick. She was a soft, willing woman. What harm could dinner hurt, besides losing half a night’s sleep from the indigestion the Chinese food would give him? Just because she had blonde hair didn’t mean she was Cassie, and his neighbor seemed genuine enough.

  From the start, he should have known what he was getting into with Cassie. She was a daddy’s-girl-beauty-queen type. She’d put on an act, letting him believe she was a horsewoman and a country girl.

  If designer boots fell into that category, then yes, she was. It hadn’t taken long before he’d seen her true colors, and by then they were hitched. Still, Judd had tried his hardest to make her happy with all the little gifts she needed from him to feel special. The holidays in the islands and special dates to theater performances in Seattle when he could get away from work.

  But she hated him being sheriff, a job that was his life, and after that, everything was downhill.

  He shook himself from his morose musings and looked down at Echo. He didn’t have a single beer in the house, and right now, a cold one would go down just right.

  He took the dog outside in the back yard and let him do his business. Then he rubbed his ears and looked into his eyes. “I’m going down to the Slug and Chug for a few, and then I’ll come back and walk you, okay?”

  Echo barked in answer.

  Judd gave him another kiss—the best he could hope for as far as affection without strings attached. He locked up the house and set out for the barstool that cradled his ass more evenings than he’d care to admit to.

  * * * * *

  Aft
er a long, sweaty day moving and unpacking boxes, Cecily just wanted a damn beer. What did she get? The wrong change.

  Cecily was not impressed with the service at the Slug and Chug in Bracken, Wyoming, a small town that was barely a speck on the map settled between mountain ranges. The bartender may have forgotten to hand her back the other twenty-dollar bill as her change, or maybe she’d pocketed it as a tip.

  Cecily cleared her throat, but the bartender kept talking to a cowboy, elbow planted on the bar as she leaned in to laugh at something he said.

  “Excuse me, you gave me the wrong change.” Cecily kept her voice as pleasant as possible when she was being blatantly ignored by the skinny blonde.

  The bartender swung away from the cowboy to blink at her. “What was that, sugar?”

  “I said you gave me the wrong change.” She held out the bills on her palm. “See? You gave me twenty-eight dollars back and I gave you a fifty.”

  With narrowed eyes, the bartender came to stand in front of her. “You gave me a twenty.”

  Cecily almost rolled her eyes. In her experience, not a lot of people these days knew how to make change without the cash register doing the subtraction for them, and clearly this was one. “If I did give you a twenty, then why did you give me twenty-eight dollars in return and a draft?”

  “She’s got a case, Audrey honey.” The cowboy snickered, which had the bartender flushing crimson. She snagged the money off Cecily’s hand and counted it for herself. Cecily waited patiently, though her throat was parched and she just wanted to get her correct change and find a chair to collapse into. After twelve hours of work to move into her new day spa location, she was dead on her feet.

  But she needed to cool it. She couldn’t make enemies so soon. In this little town, word would travel fast. She had experience with rumors and small populations—this was her second move in two years, thanks to her jackass ex-boyfriend.

  The bartender stared at the cash in her hand and went to open her register drawer. The depths must have held some mystical answers to life’s quandaries, because the woman didn’t look up for a long time. This was getting ridiculous.

  Cecily spoke up, “I gave you a fifty. The sign on the bar says drafts are two bucks. That means I should get forty-eight in change. You only gave me twenty-eight.”

  This time, Cecily barely kept the annoyance from her tone. Simple math should be a skill of all bartenders. But apparently at the old Slug and Chug, the bosses only hired on looks. The brunette was pretty enough—if you liked a vacant expression and nothing between the ears.

  “Just give me another twenty,” Cecily prompted.

  “I’m just fillin’ in for a friend. This isn’t my real job.” With attitude, the woman fingered another bill from the drawer and handed over the correct change. Cecily met her glare with a wide smile and tossed a buck onto the bar top for a tip.

  Here’s a tip—go back to third grade.

  She curled her fingers around the frosty mug and took her draft to a corner near one of the windows. The Slug and Chug was built to look like an old-time saloon with a false front and a wooden interior. The place smelled like hops and fresh wood shavings, and Cecily enjoyed the atmosphere as she sipped.

  She’d moved her day spa from Billings to Jackson Hole after her boyfriend asked her to move in with him. Just when her business started to boom and her spa been named as one of the town’s top places to visit, she discovered her boyfriend had been lying about something rather important.

  Like the fact that he was dating two other women.

  Cecily had promptly packed her stuff and moved out of his place, but they knew the same people, shared the same friends. Soon, living in Jackson Hole had become unbearable and she’d made the choice to make the move.

  Her mind whirled around all the things she’d accomplished today—carting boxes from the downstairs shop area to her upstairs apartment on tiny cramped wooden stairs had gotten her ten-thousand steps today plus change. She was feeling the burn, and hopefully tonight she’d have a more comfortable place to sleep.

  The previous night she’d unrolled a sleeping bag and camped out on the old hardwood. But at five a.m. she’d gotten up to go through her morning meditation and an extended yoga session to work out the kinks from her poor night’s sleep.

  Then she’d hit the floor running and had managed to unpack most of the boxes. A lot of the time had been devoted to stocking the shelves with all the jams and jellies for sale. She’d spent hours affixing the tiny handwritten price stickers to each herbal remedy for sore muscles or organic hair conditioners just so, and after lining the bottles up with the labels all facing forward, she was satisfied.

  “Draft.” The deep voice at the bar drew Cecily’s head up and she found herself staring at a set of broad shoulders—and a tall cowboy to match.

  Helllllooo, Bracken.

  With his white hat dipped low, she could see the longer hair on his nape. Strong thighs and a backside that filled out a pair of Wranglers like one of those hot rodeo guys she watched on TV completed the picture.

  The bartender went goo-goo-eyed for the newcomer and she poured him a draft without giving him the wrong change. He didn’t turn so Cecily could see if his face matched the rest of his good looks as he settled on a barstool.

  Another guy at the bar engaged him in conversation, but Cecily didn’t eavesdrop. Her momma had taught her better.

  Her mind returned to all the things she still needed to unpack. Tomorrow the moving company would deliver her massage table and her spa chairs, as well as some hairdressing equipment. She was a one-woman operation, doing hair, makeup, nails, massages, facials and waxing services. She was able to keep the overhead low if she did everything herself. But if business picked up, she’d hire some help.

  She expected the winters to be better since Bracken was a skiing town, and there would be plenty of ski bunnies wanting her spa services.

  The chair across the table from her scraped as someone pulled it out. A denim-clad behind smacked into the seat, and she looked up at the man who’d just joined her without asking.

  Dark hair, dark eyes. Good-looking in a way that was a bit more polished than she preferred, like one of those cowboys who shopped at Nordstrom’s instead of the local outfitter.

  Not that she was interested.

  “Howdy, sweet thing. What’s your name?”

  “Cecily.”

  The guy looked over her head toward the bar. Cecily resisted the urge to turn around and see who he was looking at.

  “Haven’t seen you in town before. You the one who just moved into the shop on the corner?”

  She nodded, realizing the few people in the Slug and Chug had quieted to listen to their conversation. Apparently, their mommas hadn’t taught them as well.

  The man across from her looked to the bar again. She turned now, shot a glance at the man at the bar, but he kept sipping on his beer, back to her.

  “My name’s Jake. Want to have a twirl around the dance floor? Jukebox has all the newest country ballads.” He extended a hand.

  She stared at it for a moment. Not a callus in sight—he definitely wasn’t a cowboy.

  Not that she was choosy, but most cowboys weren’t interested in a girl like her—a Vegan with a hand in holistic approaches. Frankly, her ex hadn’t been into her either, and he’d been a district manager of a grocery chain.

  She tapped a foot under the table as she decided how to respond to Jake. She should have used some of her own healing methods before leaving her shop—her legs and feet were protesting so loudly, there was no way she could take a twirl even if she wanted to. She shook her head. “No thanks. I’m tuckered out.”

  Jake narrowed his eyes at her. “You sure about that?”

  She blinked at the new force of his tone. “Um, yes. Thank you anyway. I’ve had a long day.”

  He pushed out of his chair to stand and hovered over her. The scent of alcohol hit her. “C’mon. This’ll be our song.”

  Before
she understood what was happening, he’d plucked her from her seat and wrapped an arm around her middle. He hauled her to the small area cleared of tables where a jukebox played at the side. The country twang of a ballad did nothing to soothe her, not when she didn’t feel like dancing and had been dragged here against her will.

  Jake crushed her against his body, and she shoved away. He yanked her right back. She felt like a Slinky, which wasn’t good. Didn’t those always get tangled loops?

  Suddenly, a hand came down on Jake’s shoulder. He flinched at the strength of those long, tapered fingers spattered with dark hair on the knuckles. “Lady doesn’t look like she wants to dance.”

  “Bug off, Roshannon.” Jake pulled her near again, and she was helpless against his strength, drawn like a rag doll to a possessive child.

  “I said this lady doesn’t want to dance.” Roshannon braced his legs wide in a stance that rang with a battle cry he never issued from his lips. Cecily threw him a pleading look over Jake’s meaty shoulder.

  Roshannon’s eyes, steely gray and sparking with anger, bored into hers. He caught Jake’s shoulder again and this time spun him. Jake had no choice but to let her go, and she stumbled a few steps away while the men faced each other.

  “What’s your problem, Roshannon? Think you own this town, don’t ya?”

  “No, but I own part of this bar. And if you ever want to pass through those doors again, you’ll do as I say and leave.”

  Jake glared, mouth twisted and fists clenched. Cecily took another step backward. If they started throwing punches, she was making a run for it—she wasn’t that thirsty.

  Roshannon sent her a piercing look. “Go out to my sheriff’s cruiser and wait for me.”

  Cecily blinked. Was she being arrested for starting a bar fight?

  “Now,” Roshannon barked at her as Jake cocked his fist.

  His authority and harsh command left her no choice.