“The sheriff will be waiting to talk to you.” He paused. “So, now do you want to tell me how you got that split lip?”
She hadn’t told him. And for the most part, Des didn’t say much on the drive back to the homestead, which was fine with her. She’d given him the general outline of what had happened, but no details. Her morning encounter with Cody was still not something of which she was proud. It had been a situation she had let get out of her control.
Thoughts of Cody and the way he had died kept her busy. She kept trying to come up with scenarios for what could possibly have happened, but for the life of her, she couldn’t come up with one that made sense.
But then, Des also occupied a large part of her mind. She attempted to ignore him by fixing her gaze on the passing landscape, but time and again his nearness drew her thoughts and senses back to him. Despite her attempts to ignore him, it had always been like that. With resignation, she wondered if it always would.
When he finally pulled up to the saddle barn, she breathed a soft sigh of relief.
She didn’t recognize several of the cars and trucks parked there, but she did recognize the sheriff from a picture she had seen in the paper, put there when he had first come to their area nine months earlier. A tall, lanky man in his late thirties, he stood beside one of the trucks, speaking on a cell phone, but as soon as he saw them, he hung up and waited expectantly.
“Have you had any dealings with this sheriff?” Des asked quietly as he cut off the engine.
“No. Any problems we have with the men we try to handle ourselves.” Her hand went to the door handle.
“Wait a minute.” Des leaned over and clasped her wrist, and his arm pressed against the softness of her breasts.
Heat filled her lungs and, uncontrolled, her nipples hardened. No matter what, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from responding to him.
“Listen to me, Kit. The sheriff’s name is Moreno, and his reputation is that he’s ambitious. So I want you to say as little as possible, and when in doubt, let me answer for you.”
“What are you talking about?” She pushed against his arm.
He straightened away, but the severity of his tone didn’t lessen. “Don’t volunteer anything he doesn’t ask. And if I tell you not to answer a certain question, don’t.”
She glanced through the windshield at the sheriff, whose gaze was now trained on her. “He just wants me to tell him what happened.”
“Actually, he wants you to make his job easy by confessing. Right now, you’re the only suspect for Cody Inman’s murder.”
Her mouth dropped. “Suspect? Confess? But that’s ridiculous.”
“It’s also the truth. So just be careful what you say.”
“This is absurd.” Suddenly she felt as if she were suffocating. Cody was dead, and Des was focusing his entire attention on her. It was too much. Her legs were shaking as she climbed out of the truck.
“Ms. Baron.” The sheriff touched the brim of his hat in greeting.
“Sheriff Moreno.” Her nerves were strung tight, but there was no point in taking her mood out on him. It wasn’t his fault. “Sorry to have kept you waiting, but I didn’t realize anything was wrong until Mr. Baron came to get me.”
Des stepped up beside her, and the sheriff’s gaze shifted to him, then back to her again. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see a hint of intimidation enter his expression. After all, Des had an international reputation as a lawyer, and she ran one third of Baron International, specifically the massive ranching division. But the man’s demeanor remained businesslike and aggressive.
“I’ll get right to the point. I understand you were the last person to see Cody Inman alive.”
“No. The person who murdered him was the last person to see him alive.”
“Of course.”
Des was standing so close to her that the warmth from his body filtered through her clothes to her skin. She supposed it was his way of supporting her, but she didn’t need his support, and she certainly didn’t want it—at least, not this kind.
The sheriff once again glanced at Des, then back at her. “Let me put it this way. It looks as if you were the last person to see Cody Inman before he was murdered. In fact, one of your hands—”
“That would be Tio.”
He checked his notes and nodded. “Tio Rodriguez. He indicated that you and Mr. Inman had had a problem this morning.”
She nodded. “In fact, I fired Cody right before I left for my morning ride.” Beside her, she felt Des stiffen.
The sheriff’s brows shot up so high they almost disappeared beneath his hat. “You fired him? Was that because of something work related?”
Slowly, as if it were a perfectly natural gesture, Des reached out, circled her wrist with his long fingers and lightly squeezed. She felt something lurch near her heart. The questioning didn’t bother her. Des, however, did. “No,” she said, impatient to get away from both men. “It was personal.”
“How so?”
“You don’t need to answer that, Kit.”
Des’s sharp tone tightened her nerves, making her response even quicker. “We went out last night and—”
“You and Mr. Inman? Just the two of you?”
“That’s right.”
“And what happened?”
“To put it as simply as possible, Sheriff, Cody wanted our relationship to go farther than I did.”
“Kit—”
“And did you and Mr. Inman fight over this?”
“Kit! Stop answering.”
She glanced at him again. His jaw had tensed, and his eyes had darkened. “I’ve got nothing to hide. Cody and I definitely fought. But did I kill him? No, I did not.”
“I see.”
The sheriff didn’t believe her, she realized with a small shock. On the Double B her word was law, and she wasn’t accustomed to being doubted. Slightly shaken, she scanned the faces of the men who had gathered around him. Several of them looked confused, even skeptical. Great. Just great.
The sheriff nodded toward her lip. “Did you get that injury in the fight?”
“He kissed me.”
“And the kiss split the lip?”
“That’s right. He wasn’t exactly gentle.”
“Uh-huh. Made you mad, did he?”
“He made me very
