* *
IMAGES OF DIGGING her husband’s grave tormented Willow as she showered. No matter how hard she scrubbed, she couldn’t erase them.
Leo was dead. Shot. Murdered.
And Sam was missing.
Her little boy’s face materialized, and her chest tightened. Sam liked soccer and climbing trees and chocolate chip cookies. And he had just learned to pedal on his bike with training wheels. Only Leo had run over his bike.
Where was Sam now? Was he cold or hungry?
She rinsed, dried off and looked at the clock. It was after four. Was Sam asleep somewhere, or was he too terrified to sleep? His favorite stuffed dinosaur was still in his room...
She found a robe in the closet and tugged it on, then checked her phone in case she’d missed the kidnapper. But no one had called.
Tears burned the backs of her eyelids. Why hadn’t they phoned?
Nerves on edge, she walked into the kitchen and spotted a bottle of whiskey on the counter. Brett had always liked brown whiskey. In fact, in high school, he’d sneaked some of his father’s to this very cabin and they’d imbibed before they’d made love.
She couldn’t allow herself to think about falling in bed with Brett again.
This was an expensive brand of whiskey, though, much more so than the brand Joe McCullen drank. Of course, Brett had done well on the rodeo circuit.
Both financially and with the women.
An empty glass sat beside the bottle, and she poured herself a finger full, then found Brett sitting in the porch swing with a tumbler of his own.
He looked up at her when she stepped onto the porch, his handsome face strained with the night’s events.
“I should go home,” Willow said from the doorway.
Brett shook his head. “Not tonight. We’ll pick up some of your things tomorrow, but you aren’t staying in that house until this is over and Leo’s killer is dead or in jail.”
“But—”
“No buts, Willow.” He sipped his whiskey. “It’s not safe. Besides, we shouldn’t disturb anything in the house, so when we do call Maddox in, he can process the place for evidence.”
He was right. “I realize this is putting you in a difficult position with Maddox.”
Brett shrugged. “That’s nothing new.”
Willow sank onto the swing beside him. She’d never had siblings although she’d always wanted a sister or a brother, especially when she was growing up. Her mother had died when she was five, and she’d been left with her father who’d turned to drinking to drown his problems. That alcohol had finally killed him two weeks before she’d graduated from high school.
Another reason she’d gravitated toward Brett and it had hurt so much when he’d left town. She had literally been alone.
“I know you’ve had issues, Brett, but your father just died, and you and your brothers should be patching things up.” She took a swallow of her own liquor, grateful for the warmth of the alcohol as it eased her nerves. “Family means everything, Brett. When you don’t have one anymore, you realize how important it is.”
Brett’s gaze latched with hers, but the flirtatious gleam she’d seen years ago and in the tabloids was gone. Instead, a dark intensity made his eyes look almost black.
“I’m sorry you lost yours. I know that last year with your dad was rough.”
It was Willow’s turn to shrug, although it was Brett leaving a second time that had sent her into Leo’s arms. Made her vulnerable to his false charm.
“My family is Sam now. I can’t go on if something happens to him.”
Brett reached out and covered her hand with his. “We will find him, I promise. And I’ll make sure whoever abducted him pays.”
She desperately wanted to believe him.
“There’s something I have to ask you, Willow.”
A knot seized her stomach at his tone. “What?”
“Where were you earlier today?”
Willow tensed. “Why? You don’t think I shot Leo, do you?”
He hesitated, long enough to make her think that he had considered the possibility. That hurt.
“No,” he finally said. “But I have to ask, because the police will.”
Willow sucked in a sharp breath. “I did errands, had to drop off some of my orders. Sam was staying with my neighbor Gina, but apparently Leo picked him up.” That sick feeling hit her again.
“This other woman can corroborate your story?”
Willow pinched her lips together, angry. “Yes, Brett.”
Would she need a more solid alibi to prove that she hadn’t killed her husband?
* * *
THE PAIN IN Willow’s eyes made Brett strengthen his resolve to help her. “Do you have any idea who abducted Sam?”
She shook her head, her hair falling like a curtain around her face. “I didn’t recognize the man’s voice. And he wore a ski mask.”
“You said that Leo didn’t have a bank account? Where did he keep his money?”
Willow traced her finger along the rim of her glass. “He kept cash in a safe when he lived with me. But he cleaned that out when he left.”
“It seems odd that a businessman wouldn’t have had bank accounts, maybe even a financial advisor.”
“I thought so, too, but he just got defensive every time I mentioned it.”
Brett rocked the swing back and forth with his feet. “Where did he go when he moved out?”
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t send child support?”
“No. And I was okay with that. When he left, I was so glad to have him out of my life, out of Sam’s life, that I didn’t want anything from him.”
Brett willed his temper in check. The McCullen men had been raised to protect women, and to honor them. No man ever laid a hand on a woman or child.
“How bad was it?” he asked gruffly.
Willow sighed wearily. “At first it was just arguments. He wanted to control everything, from the money I spent, to how I took care of the house. I stood my ground, and he didn’t like it.”
“Good for you.”
A small smile tilted
