he couldn’t hear.
He made his way to Blake and opened the door. “You busy this afternoon?”
Blake glanced down at her watch. “Why?”
He waited for her to step outside and let the door close behind him. “I’d appreciate it if you can fill me in on what’s going on with my brother,” he told Blake.
She waved goodbye to his mother through the glass storm door. “Look, I appreciate what you did with Megan, but I don’t want to get involved with you or whatever it is you have going on.”
“Whoa.” He breathed out, unsure why she had been so abrupt. “I just thought—”
She raised her hand. “No, stop. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I’m not upset with you. It’s just my mother.” She motioned toward her house.
She had every right to be upset after what she had walked into. It would have taken more than a little fried chicken to talk him down if he’d walked into a scene with someone holding a hacksaw over his daughter’s head. Unlike her, he didn’t know if he could have held back from shooting.
His gaze drifted to the utility belt at her waist. “Lots of calls coming in?” he asked as they walked across the lawn toward her house.
She slipped out her cell phone and glanced down at it. “To be honest, no. But I should be on patrol.”
“What time do you get off?”
“Not for a few more hours.”
“Well, if you aren’t busy, I would really appreciate you running to Robert’s with me.”
She looked up at him, her blue eyes reflecting the color of the sky.
“I would hate to be walking into a mess up there.” He silently hoped she would say yes, and it wasn’t just because he wanted her to tell him about Robert. It had to do with the desire that seemed to rise in him every time he caught a glimpse of her.
“You heading up there now?” she asked him.
He nodded.
She nibbled her lip again, making him wonder if he made her as uncomfortable as she made him. “I did want to talk to Robert, make sure everything had smoothed out. You could ride with me, but you know—”
“I’ll follow you up there.” He motioned toward his truck. “I’d hate to get you in trouble. We have to follow protocol.”
There was a hint of a smile as she looked at him. “You say that, but we both know you’ve always been the kind who likes to make his own rules.”
* * *
ROBERT’S HOUSE SAT off a dirt road, shrouded by trees and brush. On the neighboring property, old cars and trailers in varying stages of rust were parked in a haphazard pattern. Between the rusting carcasses were piles of downed trees and garbage. A few of the detritus hills were covered with tarps whose prime of life had passed years ago and now were nothing more than weathered strings broken up by little squares of blue.
He’d always hated this place, the world his brother called home. The drive that led to Robert’s house was a steady climb, and Blake was taking it at a crawl in her patrol unit, twisting and turning as she attempted to miss the washed-out ruts in the dirt. This wasn’t the kind of place in which one wanted to find oneself stranded. Everything about the deep woods spoke of danger, from the road all the way down to the twisted faces that peered out from the windows of the derelict homes they passed.
Rising from the brush was a building, still covered in Tyvek plastic wrap, as if any day the construction company would come back and finish siding the house they had built—only it had been years since they’d been there. The roof sagged in the middle from too many heavy snows and too little care.
His brother had always cared more about what was in the earth than what was on top of it, and it had even been that way with his wife, Tiffany. The poor woman had more than her fair share to deal with when it came to Robert. Then again, Jeremy wasn’t in a spot to judge anyone else’s relationship. For years, everyone had told him how great his marriage was, yet behind closed doors it was a different story—late-night fights about his schedule, the stress that came with being in law enforcement and the money. In the end, there was never enough money, time or even love.
Blake pulled to a stop and got out, waiting for him.
He parked next to her and met her at her car. “So, fill me in. What kind of trouble has my brother been getting himself into now?”
Robert had always fallen in and out of the bottle and usually directly into the hands of the law, leaving Jeremy to clean up his mess. The last time he’d talked to Robert they’d had one hell of a beer-fueled fight, ending with Robert on the ground and him promising to never lift another finger to save his brother’s lousy carcass. Yet here he was again.
“I was called here a few weeks ago, but it wasn’t for Tiffany, as your mother assumed.” Blake leaned against her patrol car, the round curve of her hips on full display. “This time, Robert was having an altercation with his neighbor, Todd O’Brien.” She pointed in the direction of the property that was full of rusted-out shells of cars.
“This happen before?”
She nodded and gave a slight shrug. “You know how it is—most people out here live with a militia-like mentality. It’s all about the guns, the freedom of speech and action. Out here the law is more of a recommendation than a reality. When something needs to be handled, vigilante justice reigns.”
It was funny. No matter where you were in Montana—whether in the city of Missoula or the hillsides on the outskirts of Silver Bow County—some of the same problems arose. Usually they centered on two things: guns and liquor. Sometimes he couldn’t help feeling like he lived in the Wild West.
Jeremy looked up at his brother’s house. The lights were off, and the doors were closed. Leaves littered the front porch. “You think Robert said something, and it set this O’Brien off?”
“We couldn’t make much of the situation. Neither wanted to press charges, but we left them both with a warning that they needed to bring the conflict down and keep it under control.” She sighed. “Without one of them wanting to press charges, there wasn’t much we could do. Your brother was pretty upset about the guns, though, wanted us to at least write O’Brien a ticket for a noise disturbance, but we hadn’t heard any of it.”
Jeremy nodded. “My brother has a way of pissing people off and getting in trouble. You out here often?” Somehow it felt like a poorly timed come-on.
She nodded, with a faint smile like she had heard it, too, but was letting it go. “Your brother has some issues...but I always said you can’t judge someone by their family.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You think?”
“I’m nothing like my mother—at least I hope not.” She laughed. “And from what your mother’s told me, I assume you’re nothing like your brother.”
There was something in her voice that made it clear she didn’t necessarily like Robert. But did that mean she liked him? He shook the thought from his head. He couldn’t read anything into this.
She
