Close To Danger (Westen Series Book 4) Read online

  “Well,” Earl said, wiping his mouth with the napkin, having finished his food, “I guess I’d better mosey over there this morning and check it out before someone else gets hired.”

  Not that anyone else was going to be offered the job.

  “Figured you might.” Wes nodded to the wall where his deputy’s jacket and a winter coat hung. “Ms. Lorna said she expected you for lunch and you’d better be wearing that winter coat when you come in or she’ll be seriously mad.”

  Another grin split Earl’s lips. “Wouldn’t want to make Ms. Lorna mad. She might ban me from eatin’ at the Peaches ‘N Cream. Best food in town. Course I’ll have to shower and shave, too,” he said, rubbing his scraggly graying reddish-brown beard. “That woman expects her customers to be presentable.”

  “That she does.” Wes suspected Lorna Doone had lectured Earl on this subject more than once and had a special rule about his appearance in her café more to get him to pay attention to his own hygiene than any snobbishness. Everyone in town knew that Lorna had a heart of gold and mush beneath her gruff, blunt exterior.

  Earl stood, gathered up his breakfast box, as well as Wes’s, and took them to the trash. Wes could’ve insisted he’d do it himself, but understood it was Earl’s way of helping out with the food and thanking him for the warm spot to sleep last night. As he often did, Wes wondered what had brought Earl to town and what had happened to him in the war to make him so disassociated with society’s norms.

  If it weren’t for Lloyd Justice taking a chance and hiring him when Wes wandered into town six years ago, he figured he might be as lost as Earl. Lord knows he had ghosts enough to haunt him.

  “Tell Deputy Jason thanks for the extra blanket last night,” Earl said as he folded up the blanket he’d been wearing and left it on the chair. He shrugged on the wool pea coat and pulled the thermal gloves out of the pockets, then held his hand out to Wes. “Guess I’ll wander over to the church. Pastor always starts his mornings early.”

  Wes stood and shook the other man’s hand. “You need anything, Earl, you just let me know.”

  “And if I hear anything you need to know, I’ll get in touch.”

  Wes shook his head as he watched the Vet shuffle out the office door onto Main Street. Earl might be homeless, but he managed to keep his eyes and ears open for odd bits of information he might think useful to the sheriff’s office. Just like other residents of Westen, Earl had found a home and meant to help keep it safe, in his own way.

  And while his boss, Sheriff Gage Justice and his new wife, fellow deputy Bobby Roberts-Justice, were on their honeymoon, it was up to Wes to keep Westen safe. The past two weeks since the Christmas wedding of the pair had been mostly uneventful.

  Mostly.

  The only unusual occurrence had been Bobby’s sister, Chloe Roberts, spending the night in his bed. He’d brought her home from the wedding too drunk to take care of herself, let alone drive. It had taken all his willpower to simply strip her out of her bridesmaid dress and ease her beneath the covers. The image of her in her red bra and panties, as well as the silkiness of her skin beneath his fingers, haunted him ever since.

  The office clock chimed nine.

  Time to check in on Chloe.

  Sitting at his desk once more he pulled out the special computer he’d brought with him when he’d left the agency. Opening it, he quickly connected to the dark web, double checked his security settings then opened the tracking program that was monitoring the sexy lawyer’s movements.

  Hell, he knew it was an invasion of her privacy, but when she’d been in Westen for the wedding she’d spent half the time looking over her shoulder. He’d all but forced her to tell him why. Even as she told him she suspected someone was following her, she’ tried to convince herself otherwise. He hadn’t bought her excuses for a moment. Therefore, he was doing his best to protect her from hundreds of miles away. Once Gage and Bobby got back in town this afternoon, he planned to head to Cincinnati and find out who had her spooked.

  He pinged her phone, as expected she was headed to either her office or the court house—her usual haunts. The woman was definitely a creature of habit. Not a good thing when you have a stalker. The alarm on the backdoor chimed, warning that someone was coming inside. Quickly, he closed the laptop and stowed it in his backpack next to his desk just as Gage and Bobby came in from the rear of the station.

  “You’re in early,” he said, raising to shake hands with his boss and hug his fellow deputy. “Thought you’d come in later today.”

  “Someone doesn’t think Westen can keep standing if he’s not checking in at the office,” Bobby teased, slipping her arms around her new husband with a grin. “It took all my efforts to keep him from calling you daily for updates while we were on our honeymoon.”

  “And she got quite creative in her efforts,” Gage said with a lift of his brows.

  “Gage!” Bobby smacked her husband playfully in the chest, her face turning beat red.

  At the same time Wes held up his hands, shaking his head. “TMI, boss.”

  Gage laughed, hugged his wife before heading to his desk. “So how were things here while we were gone?”

  “Other than bringing Earl in from the cold to sleep last night, the only real problem has been your ex-wife over at the courthouse jail,” Wes said, leaning back in his chair. “Seems she’s a vegan and refused to eat anything made with animal products.”

  All humor left Gage’s face. “Bet that went over well with the jailhouse staff.”

  As part of the county sheriff’s department, the officers who ran the jail were under Gage’s supervision as much as the deputies and office support staff in both places. Since the sheriff had been out of town, guarding the woman who’d tried to kill Bobby the day before their wedding had fallen onto Wes’s shoulders for the past two weeks.

  Wes shrugged. “Let’s just say we had a little talk. Even so, she went a few days before she realized this is a small town and you eat what you get or you don’t eat.”

  “Has she gotten a lawyer yet?” Bobby asked.

  “Well, that’s a whole new problem,” Wes said, picking up a pen and clicking it a few times.

  Gage ran a hand over his face. “Do I want to know?”

  “So far she’s refused the county public defender. Which after talking to Wayne Downing is probably a good thing, since the man has no desire to represent the woman who tried to kill the town’s favorite deputy.” He grinned over at Bobby.

  She shook her head and asked, “So, Maura hasn’t been arraigned?”

  “Oh, she was arraigned. Judge Rawlins made sure it was within forty-eight hours.” Wes paused and grinned at his boss. “Just about the time your plane took off for the Cayman islands. He wanted to be sure you wouldn’t be anywhere near in case she managed to make bail.”

  “Since she’s still locked up, I take it she didn’t?” Gage asked.

  “Seems Maura’s little shenanigans last spring where she screwed the DEA, literally, hid evidence from her boss the State Attorney General and was partially responsible for nearly blowing up Westen—”

  “Not to mention nearly killing Gage at the time,” Bobby added, her voice dripping with anger.

  Wes nodded, “That, too. She lost quite a few friends. No one wanted to help bail her out. She has no money and no house or property to put down as collateral with the usual bail bondsmen.”

  “What about her sister in New York?” Gage asked.

  “I guess the sister was tired of her mooching off her, and refused to help, too.”

  A sputter came out of Bobby. Wes and Gage exchanged a what-the-hell look before both focused on the little brunette, who was trying—not too successfully—to hide a grin.

  “What was that?” Gage asked.

  She made the sound again, a mixture of a snort and a giggle. Then she gave up and laughed. “I know it’s wrong of me, but can we just say that karma is a bitch and right now she’s kicking your ex’s butt? And I’m not the least bit
sorry I find it very, very funny.”

  Wes shrugged at his boss, who was grinning from ear-to-ear. “She has a point.”

  That sent Bobby into more laughter, which quickly turned to tears. Gage shot to his feet, crossed the room and gathered his wife in his arms. Over her head he shook his head at Wes.

  Discreetly he turned back to his computer and opened up the daily log to update Earl’s stay in the jail last night, but mostly to give the pair a chance to calm down. Between the stress over the wedding, the crazy Gage’s ex had dumped on the pair, the threat to Bobby’s sister the day before the wedding, and now a new baby on the way, if anyone deserved to cry it was his friends. Which made his decision about Chloe much easier.

  He’d been torn between telling Gage and Bobby about the apparent stalker Chloe had or just quietly investigating into it himself. They had enough on their plates. Besides, at the moment he didn’t know more than she’d felt someone watching her and was getting phone calls that hung up.

  Speaking of phones, he pulled out his smart phone and hit the app that let him clone other people’s phones—another gift he’d kept when he left the agency. A quick tap on Chloe’s phone and he had her text message history—most of them were benign or business oriented. In the two weeks she’d been home, he’d only seen one or two that might be questionable. When he’d tried to trace them, they came up as burner phones, which engaged his danger radar. One of the texts was from that number.

  If you’re going to run away from me, you might want to ditch the heels next time.

  Now danger was clanging in his head like a five-alarm-fire bell.

  Shit. Someone was definitely stalking the sexy lawyer, and here he was nearly three hours away. Once again, his eyes fell on the pair across the room. Bobby had calmed down and was sitting in her chair once more. Gage was talking quietly to her and she laughed, wiping at the tears with a tissue.

  Yeah. He was going to have to go take care of this on his own.

  Schooling his features to show no emotion, even though his blood boiled with anger that someone was threatening Chloe, he leaned around his desk to get Gage’s attention. “So, boss, any chance I can take a few days off?”

  Gage walked back to his own desk, flipped open his scheduling book—a leftover relic from when his father was sheriff—studied it a moment, then gave a shrug. “Don’t see why not. We’re back to full force now, with Bobby and me back. Any particular reason you want off?”

  “Just got a family thing I need to take care of.” Which was true. Only it wasn’t his family thing, it was theirs. “Need to go out of town for it, though.”

  “Tomorrow be okay or you need to leave today?” Gage’s brows rose in question, which didn’t surprise Wes. It’s not like he’d ever shared anything about his past or family—or lack thereof—with his friends.

  Wes checked his watch. Nearly ten. With the snow from the storm a few days back still on the roads, the usual three-hour drive from Westen to Cincinnati could be more like four, which would put him at Chloe’s office sometime this afternoon if he left now, giving him the element of surprise, both for Chloe and whoever was watching her.

  “All the reports are filed. Nothing really going on. No major problems. If you could spare me today, I’d like to get on top of this ASAP,” he said, trying to act as calm as possible, even with the implied threat in the text still rattling around in his brain. He shut down his computer and pocketed his phone.

  “Guess you’ve kept things pretty much in order while we were gone. You deserve the time. Get on out of here.”

  Shoving himself out of his chair, he grabbed his backpack.

  “I hope everything’s okay,” Bobby said from her desk as he pulled on his jacket and Sheriff’s Department ball cap. He paused and looked at her. She was one of the bravest women he’d ever had the pleasure of working with and counted her a friend. If her sister was in trouble, he was going to be sure she was safe.

  “I hope so, too. I’ll know better once I get there.”

  “Where’s your family at?” she asked.

  “South,” was all he said and headed out of the office.

  Time to go solve the problem of Chloe Roberts.

  * * * * *

  “I’ve never heard Wes talk about his family,” Bobby said as she stood at the window watching their friend hop in his truck and head down Main Street.

  Gage looked up from his computer, his brows drawn down. “Can’t say as I even knew he had family. He listed my dad as his person to notify in case of emergency until Dad passed away.”

  “Who did he list after that?” she asked, coming to prop one hip on the corner of her husband’s desk.

  “Me.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Why?”

  “He doesn’t talk about family. Doesn’t list any family for us to get in touch with if he’s ever hurt. And yet, all of a sudden he has a family emergency he has to go deal with.”

  Gage leaned back in his office chair, elbows on the arm rests, his fingers linked together in front of him. “When you put it like that, it does sound fishy.”

  “What do we really know about him?”

  “Before he died, Dad gave me a brief run-down on all the deputies. When it came to Wes, the information was a bit sketchy.”

  “Sketchy?” It wasn’t like Gage to be vague.

  “Dad said Wes wandered into Westen one day and took up residence in the corner booth over at the Peaches ’N Cream. After a few days of him coming in, ordering nothing but coffee and spending the day watching the street, Lorna decided to get involved.”

  Bobby snorted. “It took her more than a day to do that? What was she? Ill?”

  “No. Actually, Lorna is probably the second-best judge of character I’ve ever met.”

  “And who would be the first? You?” she couldn’t resist teasing.

  “No, my father. Lorna gave Wes space to get relaxed for a few days then chummed up to him with a pot of coffee and a slice of pie.”

  Bobby smiled. “Not many people can resist that combo.”

  Gage grinned back. “Nope, not even someone as taciturn as Wes. Anyways after they talked she got concerned and called Dad. When she told him Wes was looking for a private cabin off the beaten path and that he had a look about him that worried her, Dad decided to have a chat with him.”

  “A look that worried Lorna? What did she mean?”

  “Dad told me she believed Wes might be looking at a place to hurt himself.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Dad said he was in a dark place. He’d seen lots of men like that after the Vietnam War, so had Lorna. Dad chatted with him, offered him a job as a deputy. Wes was dubious about taking it. Said he just wanted to find a place to be alone.”

  “So how did he end up joining the Sheriff’s Department?”

  “Harriet.”

  “Doc Clint’s office nurse? That Harriett?” This time Bobby really couldn’t hide her surprise.

  “Is there another Harriett in Westen?”

  Bobby chose to ignore the no-duh sound of his comment. “What did she say that convinced him to take the job?”

  “Dad never was sure. He said she drove Wes out to look at a hunting cabin up along the Mohican River area. Next thing Dad knew, Wes was at his desk asking if the deputy job was still available.”

  “So, we know he probably served in either Iraq or Afghanistan at some point, because your dad and Lorna believed he was post military. He also has some explosive experience or was around explosions. He knew C-4 was used to blow up the Meth lab last spring. He probably suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder—”

  “How do you get that he has PTSD?” Gage interrupted.

  “I didn’t say he definitely had it, just that he probably did.” She held up her hand when Gage started to interrupt again. “Given that Lorna and your dad were concerned he wanted the cabin to hurt himself, they must’ve recognized some symptoms in him.”

  Gage nodded. “I see your point.
”

  “We know he’s a loner and keeps secrets well,” Bobby continue, suddenly warming to solving the puzzle of Wes Strong. “And we know he’s loyal and good in an emergency.”

  “Oh? How did you come up with those facts?”

  “The night you got trapped in that tunnel leading out of the Meth lab? He worked just as hard to help get Cleetus to safety and then get you out of that tunnel.” She swallowed hard and blinked at the tears suddenly filling her eyes. One of the other deputies, Cleetus Junkins had been injured by the same madman who’d nearly succeeded in killing Gage. “You wouldn’t be here…”

  Gage pulled her onto his lap, holding her head against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her as she gave into the emotions that were so near the surface these days, thanks to her pregnancy.

  “But I am here. Safe. With you and our baby,” he whispered against the top of her head.

  He held her close a few minutes. When she had herself pulled together and the water faucet in her eyes shut down, she leaned back and stroked her hand down his face. “I’m just thankful Wes and everyone else was there fighting to save you. No matter what’s in his past, I trust the man. Guess that makes me a pretty good judge of his character, too.”

  “That you are,” Gage said, before claiming her lips in a soft, quick kiss. “But, you have to admit I am a pretty good judge myself,” he said with a wicked grin. “I knew you were the perfect woman for me.”

  “Really?” She leaned back in his arms and gave him a doubtful look. “Was that before you arrested me and threw me into jail?”

  Gage laughed and she relaxed against him, glad the sad moment had flittered away.

  “Is there some other reason you’re wondering about Wes’s past or is he just a puzzle you’re trying to solve?” he asked after a few minutes.

  “You know me so well. I do love a good mystery. But yes, I have a more personal interest in Wes.”

  “Really? Would it have to do with your sister, Chloe?”

  Bobby leaned back in his arms once more to study her husband’s eyes. “You saw them at the reception, too?”