Showdown With the Sheriff

Aurora Matson shoved a cookbook into the overstuffed box on the kitchen counter and dusted off her hands. Cleaning out her father's cabin didn't feel right. But neither did the fact that he was dead. A climbing accident, the local sheriff's office had said, but she couldn't get her head around details that were totally uncharacteristic of her dad. he'd always been meticulous when it came to safety. But even that inconsistency in character couldn't change the fact that he was gone and she was alone. Back in Reaper's Point, the exact place she'd sworn she'd never return to. She swallowed against the tightness in her throat and sat down on a stool at the counter. Two weeks. She could do two weeks here. The arrangements would be taken care of by then, the date set for the memorial, his cabin cleared of personal items. And she'd be free to return to Los Angeles and her job as a forensicreconstruction artist, building faces where none exist. The lab had been in the middle of a baffling case when the call about her dad came in. The sooner she returned, the sooner she could help the police catch a sadistic killer who'd murdered two girls. The last of the evening sun dipped behind a bank of ponderosa pine in a burst of coral and deep purple. She'd loved this mountain once. Soaked it into her soul every chance she'd had. Climbing it had been her passion, its pull greater than anything she'd ever experienced. Tears stung the back of her eyelids as she thought of her father. he'd become another victim of Reaper's Point. But at least he'd died doing something he'd loved. The low hum of an engine rumbling down the narrow driveway into the cabin site interrupted her tangled thoughts and kept her from collapsing into a heap on the floor. The decisive tromp of boots against deck board sent a shiver through her. Glancing out the kitchen window she spotted the police vehicle parked in the drive and relaxed. It was a formality. A minor moment in time when her father's personal effects would be returned to her. A moment when it would all become as real as the fingers on her hands or the ache in her heart. She strode to the front door, suddenly hungry for the company of another human being. A voice to fill the haunting stillness that surrounded her like thick fog. Turning the knob, she pulled open the door and stared up at Belle County Sheriff Logan Brewer, his face shielded under the brim of a dovegray Stetson. Her nerves tightened as a flood of memories washed over her, rippling a familiar pool of desire inside her body. "Aurora. Have you got a minute?" Caught between curiosity and dread, she stepped back and let him enter, catching a whiff of his spicy aftershave as it trailed in with him on the early evening air. "Sure. I assume you're here to return my father's things?" He paused in the middle of the living room, filling the area with his presence. She couldn't keep her gaze off the broad expanse of his shoulders inside his uniform or the easy way he took up space as though he owned it. There was no denying he'd grown up and muscled out in all the right places since the summer they'd spent together. She fought to douse the burst of heat flaming inside her, burning her cheeks. He was the same as he'd been all those years ago. The man whose department had stamped Cold Case on her fileand her life. He pulled off his hat and turned toward her. Rory's breath caught as she stared into his dark brown eyes, which were intent and focused on her alone. There was a hard set to his square jaw and she instantly wanted to smooth her hand against his face. "I didn't come to return his things. We found something in his backpack the day we recovered his body." "And?" She tried to repel the images his admission put into her head. "I'd like you to take a look." An ounce of bitterness spilled from inside her andHambright, Jan is the author of 'Showdown With the Sheriff ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373887712 and ISBN 037388771X.