A Wanted Man

“Is this your daughter?”

Gloria took a long moment to study the image, then said, “I think so, yes.”

Harlan nodded. “You say you haven’t seen her in six months, but when’s the last time you spoke to her?”

Gloria returned the photograph. “She called me a few days ago. Just to remind me how much she despises me.”

“She happen to mention she was headed your way?”

“No,” Gloria said.

“Well, we have reason to believe she was, and after last night, she’s in the company of at least one wanted fugitive and may well have participated in a bank robbery and a murder.” He paused, glancing at Callie as if seeking some kind of approval. She wasn’t sure why. He seemed content with running the show. “In light of this,” he said to Gloria, “I’d like your permission to search the premises.”

Before Gloria could answer, a stern baritone boomed. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck, Marshal.”

They all turned to find Jonah Pritchard standing in the doorway, a tall man in blue jeans and a dark flannel shirt. He was close to Nana Jean’s age, but with none of the frailty. In fact, he was as solid as a twenty-year-old and didn’t look even remotely under the weather.

Callie knew she should probably feel something. After all, he was her grandfather, too. But feelings are reserved for those you care about, and she’d have to reach down pretty deep to find anything that resembled an emotional attachment to this man.

“I own this house,” he said to Harlan, “and permission is definitely not granted.”

Harlan stepped toward him now, once again flashing the badge on his hip. “Then I guess you’d be Jonah Pritchard.”

“That’s right,” the old man said.

“Well, I was only asking to be polite, sir, so if you’ll move to one side, we’d like to get started.”

Callie threw him a look.

Say what?

Jonah shook his head. “Without a warrant? If you want to come in, you’ll need a judge’s signature.”

Harlan cocked a brow at him, then turned to Callie and Rusty. “Did you two hear that?”

Callie frowned, not sure what he was getting at. “What?”

“He just asked me if I want to come in. Sounded like an invitation to me.”

Uh-oh, Callie thought. So Harlan was one of those. She was a strong believer in procedure and didn’t appreciate the cowboys who ignored it in hopes of getting a pass from the courts. She should’ve realized he was a “Wyatt Earp” the minute he jumped out of her SUV to confront Landry.

But before she could tell him that neither she nor Rusty were about to play along, Jonah stepped aside, moving out onto the wide front porch. Not to invite them in, but to make room for a couple of burly ranch hands who emerged from the doorway behind him.

He looked pointedly at Harlan. “You take one more step in this direction, I’m within my rights to stop you.”

Callie watched as Harlan studied the two ranch hands. They weren’t carrying weapons, but then they didn’t need to.

Harlan said, “Not like this, you aren’t. The law doesn’t look too kindly on assault against peace officers.”

Jonah shrugged. “It isn’t too thrilled about illegal search and seizure, either. And it won’t keep these boys from putting you three in the hospital.” He gestured to his daughter. “Gloria, get in the house. No reason for you to be here for this.”

In other words, get lost.

Callie could see the resentment in Gloria’s eyes. Resentment that went back many years. But Gloria did as she was told. And without protest.

When she was gone, Jonah said, “There’s no need for this to get ugly, Marshal.”

Now Callie spoke up. “Tell that to Megan, Mr. Pritchard. And to Jim Farber’s family. She and her friends left him in quite a state.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

He gave her a look that said he was offended by the remark, but she sensed he was feigning it. Nothing she said could offend him. The old guy was bulletproof.

“Meg decided a long time ago that she wasn’t interested in associating with this family,” he said. “Not that that’s any of your business.”

Callie knew that his words were meant to cut much deeper than they did, but after thirty-four years she was immune to him. She’d long been aware that Jonah despised her. By his skewed logic, his son wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for her whore of a mother.

The thought of this suddenly brought to surface another part of her life—her years with Harlan—and she wondered for a brief moment if she’d applied her own skewed logic to that situation.

But no. That was different. And she had no desire to wander into any dark alleys right now.

Focus, Callie.

Concentrate on the matter at hand.

“We could clear all this up,” Harlan said to Jonah, “if you’d just let us do our job. If you’ve got nothing to hide, then this conversation is over.”

“It’s already over,” a voice said, and Callie heard the ratchet of a scatter-gun behind them.

She and Harlan and Rusty all turned to find a smiling Landry Bickham holding a pump-action twelve-gauge. He kept it pointed at the ground, but Callie knew he’d use it if the old man gave him the nod.

Her heart started thumping.

This wasn’t the direction she’d wanted this afternoon to go.

Harlan turned back to Jonah. “You’re making a grave mistake, Mr. Pritchard. I could arrest you for obstruction, right now.”

“I suppose you could try,” Jonah said.

They were all silent for a long moment, and Callie could see the fury creeping into Harlan’s gaze. She’d seen that fury before, when she told him she never wanted to lay eyes on him again.

Jonah gestured. “You go on, now, try to get your warrant. If the judge says I’ve gotta open up my house, I’ll open up my house. In the meantime, you’re just trespassing, far as I can see.”

For a moment Callie thought Harlan might do something stupid, but he held back. Thank God.

“This isn’t over,” he said quietly.

Jonah’s gaze didn’t waver. “I don’t doubt that for a minute.”

Harlan stared at him a while longer, then his fury seemed to dissipate and he turned, moving back to the cruiser.

Then they were all inside, Callie feeling both frustrated and relieved as she started the engine and watched Jonah and the others go back into the house.

“You think they’re in there?” Harlan asked.

Callie wanted to punch him. “Even if they are, unless Pritchard cooperates, there’s not much we can do about it right now.”

“He’s one nasty piece of work, isn’t he?”

Callie jammed the car in gear. “Pot … meet kettle,” she said.

Then she turned them around and headed down the drive.

Chapter Six

“You know what you are? You’re an idiot. An idiot disguised as a fool.”

Good old Callie. She’d never been one to mince words, and Harlan could see that she hadn’t changed.

Back in the day it had been a trait he’d found endearing. Most of the girls he’d known in college had been hesitant to show their true colors until they had you on the hook. They spent far too much time playing the games they’d learned in high school, and the guys they pursued weren’t much different.

But Callie had always been what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Take it or leave it. And that was a large part of what had made Harlan fall in love with her in the first place.

That and the simple fact that she was the single most intriguing human being he’d ever met. Still was.

They were rolling along the highway now, headed toward town, Harlan once again relegated to the backseat while Callie drove and her partner Rusty rode shotgun.

She said, “You do realize you almost got us killed back there.”

Harlan looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror. “Don’t be so dramatic. Pritchard doesn’t strike me as stupid. And technically, he was right.”

“You think?” Her hands were gripping the steering wheel as if she had hold of his neck and wanted to snap it. “Then what was with all that cowboy nonsense?”

“Just giving the old guy a nudge, see how he reacted.”

Callie shook her head. “You haven’t changed at all, have you, Harlan?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Forget it,” she muttered.

“No, you opened the box, let’s see what’s inside.”

Callie sighed, glancing at Rusty. He had his cell phone clamped to his ear, speaking quietly into it, pretending not to listen to them.

She said to Harlan, “Maybe Jonah wouldn’t have done anything drastic, but there were no guarantees of that. You make stupid moves, you risk people getting hurt. You should know that better than anyone.”

Harlan knew a lot of things. Like the fact that she wasn’t talking about Pritchard at all.

“Look,” he said, “why don’t we save the recriminations for another day? Right now we need to concentrate on searching that house. And we need to do it legally.”

“That could be a problem,” Rusty said, snapping his phone shut. “Sheriff Mercer tells me the judge went out of town for a weekend hunting trip. He’s trying to track down another judge in Sheridan, but it could take a while. Says we might as well grab some chow, then head back to the station house.”

Now it was Harlan’s turn to sigh. Times like these made him wish real life was more like the movies. Everything happened so quickly on the big screen. Getting a warrant took minutes rather than hours, and the bad guy rarely got away.

He kept thinking about that smirk on Billy Boy’s face, and would like to put a fist in it. But as much as he’d like to play the hero and storm Pritchard Ranch, he believed in the letter of the law and knew that such a move was a mistake for a whole variety of reasons.

One thing you quickly learned in law enforcement was the value of patience. No matter what they might say, Justice was neither swift nor blind.

“Maybe the sheriff is right,” he said. “I haven’t had a bite to eat since yesterday afternoon. By all rights I should be famished.”

Callie eyed him skeptically. “You really expect me to sit down and break bread with you?”

“I expect you to be a professional,” he told her. “Is that too much to ask?”

EVERY TOWN HAS ITS cop hangout.

Williamson’s was a place called the Oak Pit Bar & Grill, a name Callie had always found a bit odd, since Wyoming wasn’t known for its overabundance of Quercus imbricaria. But she supposed the Cottonwood Pit didn’t have the same ring.

As far as she knew, however, there were no trees in evidence here, the indoor barbecue fueled by coals rather than wood. The low lighting and pool hall atmosphere were not to her particular taste, but she couldn’t argue with the food they served, and cops all over Williamson County had made the place a regular pit stop.

No pun intended.

Callie didn’t want to be sitting in a booth across from Harlan Cole, but she knew he was right. As cruel as fate might be, she was a professional and needed to act like one.

Truth was, she was more concerned about Rusty than herself. Poor guy was caught in the middle of a rich and heated history that he knew nothing about. And as his training deputy, she owed it to him to maintain her composure.

Besides, she was hungry. Thanks to Nana Jean’s torturous attempt at matchmaking this afternoon, she hadn’t had a chance to eat before she’d been called back to the office.

So here they were, the three of them sitting there awkwardly as they waited on their food, poor Rusty trying to make small talk with two people who clearly had other matters on their minds.

“How long you been with the Marshals Service?” he asked Harlan.

Harlan pulled his gaze away from the sports report on a nearby flatscreen. “Close to ten years.”

“You trained at Glynco, right? Out in Georgia?”

“That’s right.”

Rusty leaned back, took a sip of the ice tea he’d ordered. “I did my basic at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy in Douglas, but for a while there I had my eye on Glynco and the Marshals Service. Recruiter approached me while I was still in college.” He looked at Callie. “Same with you, right? You almost went federal.”

Callie stiffened slightly. “Yes.”

“So what changed your mind?”

“Circumstances,” she said tersely, but didn’t feel like elaborating. Those circumstances were sitting across the table from her.

Rusty gave her room to continue, but when he realized she was finished, he said to Harlan, “So anyway, I decided I’d rather stay local. No chance of being transferred across country, and I like Wyoming. Good place to raise a family. You got family?”

“Brother in California. That’s about it.”

“Have you always been in Colorado Springs, or do they move you around a lot?”

“I’ve bounced around a little, but Colorado seems to be the best fit. Been there five years.”

“They keep you busy, I guess. Transporting prisoners—that must be pretty interesting sometimes.”

“It has its moments,” Harlan said. “Especially when one of them smacks you in the head with your own weapon.”

Rusty smiled. “At least you’ve got a sense of humor about it.”

“One of my trainers at Glynco always said, you don’t find a reason to laugh, you might as well hang it up.”

“Amen,” Rusty murmured.

Callie was thinking that she could use a reason to laugh right now, when someone called out to Rusty—one of the fake-boobed, underdressed cop groupies who rolled in every evening looking for attention. She was standing near an available pool table, gesturing to him with the cue stick in her hand.

Rusty gave her a wave, then turned to Callie. “Citizen needs assistance,” he said. “Call me when the food comes.”

Callie rolled her eyes. She could just imagine the kind of assistance the girl needed, but this was Rusty’s chance to escape the torture and she couldn’t blame him. He quickly slipped out of the booth and left them alone.

Harlan watched him go. “I used to be that young once.”

Callie scoffed. “You’re what—thirty-five? Not exactly Jonah Pritchard territory.”

“It’ll happen soon enough. Goes by fast, doesn’t it? The past ten years are barely a blip on the radar.”

Callie had to admit he was right. She sometimes felt as if she had stepped onto a bullet train, the past decade an indistinct blur of joys and heartbreaks and not much in between.

She found herself thinking about the heartbreak that had torn them apart, when Harlan glanced at her left hand and asked, “You never got married?”

She stiffened again. Why was he asking her that? What difference did it make?

“Cops and marriage don’t mix,” she said.

He nodded. “I found that out the hard way.”

She felt a small stab of disappointment. She shouldn’t have cared, but for some reason she did. “You were married?”

“Thirteen months,” he said. “Lucky number.”

“When was this?”

“About a year after you and I split. But I don’t know what I was thinking. I knew it was a mistake before it even happened.”

“Why?”

His gaze locked on hers, those blue eyes enough to make any woman’s legs tremble. Even one who hated his guts.

“Because she wasn’t you,” he said.

HE DIDN’T KNOW WHY he’d said it.

The words came out impulsively, a surprise even to him. He could just as easily have told her that he and his ex simply hadn’t been in love. But he didn’t often think about his marriage, and until this moment he’d never realized that Callie was the reason it had been doomed from the start.

Because she wasn’t you.

The minute he said it he was plagued by regret, inwardly cursing himself for being so impulsive. He knew how Callie felt about him and she wasn’t likely to be receptive to such a statement.

It was no real shock when she sat up slightly, looking as if he’d slapped her across the face.

“What did you just say?”

“Forget it,” he told her. “That just slipped out. Don’t pay any attention to—”

“You say something like that and you think I’m suddenly going to fall all over you? ‘Oh, Harlan, it’s so good to see you after all these years. Oh, Harlan, I never should’ve—’”

“Stop,” he said. “This isn’t funny.”

Callie paused, studying him soberly. “What you did hurt me, Harlan.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Didn’t you? These past ten years may have gone by fast, but they don’t change the fact that you’re the reason Treacher is dead.”

So there it was. The thing that had been simmering between them ever since he’d walked into that conference room. They’d both known it was there, but neither of them had been willing to say it out loud. Until now.

She still blamed him for the accident.

He and Treacher and Callie had been inseparable in college. The Three Amigos, everyone called them—a study group that had morphed into a solid, unwavering friendship. And for Harlan and Callie, it became something much deeper.

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