her slender form off the couch. From above, he could hear Eli moving around upstairs. Doing his homework, hopefully. “When you said you wanted to cook today, I didn’t think you meant making homemade pasta.”
“What other kind of pasta is there?” She patted his cheek and reached for her crutches.
He followed her slow progress back into the kitchen. He wasn’t used to seeing his mother have to struggle; he didn’t like it. But he knew she didn’t want him constantly helping her, either, considering they’d already had a few skirmishes on that score since his and Eli’s arrival a few days earlier. “Why didn’t you tell me Sarah Clay would be Eli’s teacher?”
Balancing herself, she sat down on the high stool that Max had put in the kitchen for her. She gave him a sidelong look. “I didn’t think about it. I assumed that you knew. Is there something wrong with her? She’s a fine teacher.”
He shook his head. He was hardly going to tell his mother about it.
She sighed and set down her long wooden spoon. “What happened with your father and the Clays was a very long time ago. The only one it still bothers seems to be you.”
What happened with Max and Sarah was a long time ago, too, yet it still felt like yesterday. “Last I heard, she was studying finance. Didn’t expect to find her here teaching third grade.”
“I like her.” Genna pointed the spoon. “Hand me the strainer.”
He shook his head and drained the pasta himself. “You’re supposed to be resting, Ma, not cooking up a storm like this.”
“Consider it good planning. We’ll have leftovers for a week.”
He heard the crackle of his radio and went out to get it. He listened to the dispatch, answered, and stuck his head back in the kitchen. “Gotta go. You okay with Eli?”
She waved her wooden spoon. “Of course. Be careful, now.”
He yelled up the stairs for Eli to mind his grandmother, and hustled out to the SUV.
The drive to the Double-C Ranch wasn’t an unfamiliar one, though it had been a helluva long time since Max had made it. The ranch was the largest and most successful spread in the vicinity. It was owned by the Clays, though as far as Max knew, Sawyer—the sheriff—had never taken an active part in running it. That was the job of Matthew Clay.
Sarah’s father.
He turned in through the gate and a short while later stopped in the curved drive behind Sawyer’s cruiser. He could count on his hands the number of times he’d been to the Double-C. The last time, he’d been barely fifteen and his father had been caught red-handed stealing Double-C cattle.
It was still burned in his memory.
He climbed out of his truck, nodding at Sawyer, who was leaning against one of the stone columns on the front porch. “Matthew,” he greeted the second man.
Sarah’s father ambled down the steps, sticking his hand out. “Max. Good to see you again.”
Max returned the greeting, looking past the man to his new boss. “What’s up?”
“Thought it best to discuss things away from the station.”
Max looked from Sawyer to his brother.
“He’s aware of the situation,” the older man said. “Let’s walk.”
“You’re surprised,” Matthew observed as they headed away from the house, cutting across the drive toward a sweeping, open area unoccupied by anything but a stand of mighty trees.
Max didn’t like feeling out of control. Sawyer might be the sheriff, but the investigation was Max’s. “It was my understanding that nobody but my superior and the sheriff knew what I was really doing here.”
“Matt’s noticed another discrepancy among his trucking records,” Sawyer told him. “This time on a shipment of stock heading to Minnesota.”
“How recent?”
“Couple weeks.” Matt settled his cowboy hat deeper over his forehead. “When I talked to Sawyer about it, he admitted the other thing that’s been going on.” His face was grim. “Bad business. Kind of thing I don’t want to see going on in Weaver.”
“Drug trafficking shouldn’t be going on anywhere,” Max said flatly. For five years, he’d been serving on a special task force investigating distribution cells that were cropping up in small towns. The less traditional locations were highly difficult to pinpoint.
“You’re right about that,” Sawyer agreed. “Seems as if Weaver is just one more small town to become involved lately.” He tilted his head back, studying the sun that hung low on the horizon. It wasn’t quite evening yet, but the temperature was already dropping. “Much as I hate to admit it, we need help. That’s why I didn’t oppose your assignment here.”
It wasn’t exactly news to Max since he’d have done just about anything to get out of this particular assignment. But he was here now. He’d do his job.
He was a special agent with the DEA and it was one thing that he was usually pretty good at.
“I’m going to need the details about your discrepancies,” he told Matthew.
The other man pulled an envelope out of his down vest and handed it over. “Copies and my notes.”
Max didn’t bother opening it now. He shoved it into his own pocket. “Anything else?”
“Matthew!”
All three men turned at the hail from the house.
“Supper’s on!”
For a moment, Max thought the woman on the porch was Sarah. She bore an uncanny resemblance. But when she turned and went back inside, he didn’t see that waist-length braid.
“Care to stay?” Matt offered. “My wife, Jaimie, is a pretty fine cook.”
“Another reason why I’m out here,” Sawyer admitted. “Bec—my wife—is in Boston on some medical symposium all this week. Been getting tired of my own cooking.”
“Appreciate the offer,” Max said. “But I need to get back to town.”
“At least come in and say hello or Jaimie’ll bug me from now until spring. Everyone in the county wants to greet the new deputy.”
“Sure, until they start remembering the days when I lived here,” Max countered. His father, Tony, might have been the criminal, but Max hadn’t exactly been an altar boy. Getting friendly with the folks of Weaver was not in his plan. He was just there to do a job.
In that way, at least, he could make one thing right with the Clay family.
But after that, he and Eli would be gone.
Still, Max could read Sawyer’s expression well enough. The steely-eyed sheriff expected Max to act neighborly.
“I’d
