Show Me A Hero

The sight of the book sitting on top of his packing crates stopped him.

He picked up the thick novel. Stared for a moment at the slick black cover featuring an embossed outline of a soldier. The author’s name, T. C. Grant, was spelled out in gold and was as prominent as the title—CCT Final Rules.

He turned and threw the book—hard—across the room.

It bounced against the plaster wall, knocked a can of white paint onto its side and fell with a thud to the floor.

He still felt like punching something.

If not for Karen, he never would have written the damn book he’d just thrown. But what was a little signature forgery, which had locked him into writing a fourth CCT Rules book, compared to abandoning her own child?

He raked his fingers through his hair.

“She wouldn’t do that,” he muttered.

But his eyes caught in the old mirror hanging on the wall. And there was uncertainty in his reflection.

Karen would have had to have been desperate to do it. If he hadn’t barred her from his life three years ago, she’d have come to him.

Just like she’d always come to him, expecting him to clean up the latest mess that she’d landed herself in.

Until that last, unforgiveable act, when she’d signed his name on the publishing contract he’d decided against accepting, he’d always been there for her.

She’d been crashing on his couch at the time, pitching the advantages of the contract as heavily as his publisher had been. It was his fault for leaving the unsigned contract right out on his desk where she’d had easy access to it. His fault for not even realizing the contract had disappeared, until he’d received it back, fully executed and with a handwritten note of “glad to see you came to your senses” attached. That’s what he got for having an ex-wife for his publisher. He’d known immediately what Karen had done, then. Signed his name on the dotted line. Same as she’d used to sign their parents’ names on school report cards.

It was easier to write the book than admit what she’d done. Courtesy of his ex-wife, Karen had walked away with a shopping spree for her part in “convincing” him to take the deal he’d admittedly been waffling over. She’d never known that writing the book had taken everything he had left out of him. Because he’d drawn the line with her by then. No more cleaning up. No more paying off. He didn’t want to hear from her. Didn’t want her phone calls. Her text messages. Her emails. Not even the postcards she always mailed from the places she ended up on her never-ending quest to find her “perfect” life.

Didn’t matter how many times Grant told her there was no such thing. His troubled sister was always on the hunt for it.

She’d even come to Wyoming, where she didn’t have any connections at all except for the one that he had.

And now there was a baby. Supposedly hers.

He looked in the mirror.

It wasn’t his reflection he saw, though. It was his sister’s face when he’d told her to stay out of his life for good.

He looked away from the mirror. Sighed deeply.

“Hell, Karen. What have you done?”

Chapter Two

Grant didn’t recognize her at first.

Which wasn’t all that surprising, he supposed.

Instead of the shapeless navy blue police uniform covering her from neck to ankles, she wore a short red dress edged in black, which crossed tightly over her breasts to tie in a bow at her hip, and high-heeled black shoes. Her shapely legs peeked out below the snug hem that reached only a few inches past her butt.

He studied Officer Templeton over the rim of his beer as she made her way between tables, taking orders and picking up empties on her way toward the bar, where he was sitting in front of the taps. She didn’t even glance his way when she got to the end of the bar, delivered her orders to the bartender and picked up a fresh set of drinks.

“Thanks, Marty,” she said as she headed back out to the tables with her heavy tray balanced on one hand.

Grant’s gaze followed the sway of her hips longer than was probably polite before he managed to pull it away.

The bartender was back at the taps, filling more beer mugs. He smiled wryly as he caught Grant’s eyes. “Don’t waste your time on that one,” he advised. “The trips are hard to catch.”

“Trips?”

“There are two more, look just like her. Identical triplets. Except one of them got married a couple weeks ago.”

“I guess at least she got caught.”

Marty grinned. “Yeah, by the richest guy in town. Lincoln Swift. His brother, Jax, owns this place.”

Grant’s interest was piqued a little more. Officer Templeton hadn’t provided that particular piece of information. That her brother-in-law’s brother owned the bar where Karen had worked. Or that she herself worked there, too. Because the police department didn’t pay enough, or because of some other secret she harbored?

He glanced over his shoulder again. It was easy to follow Officer Templeton’s progress around the dimly lit room. For one, the dress was like a bright red beacon. Then there was her hair. She didn’t have it twisted back in a god-awful tight bun tonight; instead, it reached beyond her shoulders, a streaky mass of brown and blond waves that bounced as she walked.

Seymour would have taken one look at Officer Templeton and said she was sex on a stick.

If Seymour wasn’t six feet under.

Grant looked back into his beer. He didn’t want to think about Seymour Reid any more than he wanted to speculate about his sister and her baby. But Seymour had been on his mind ever since he’d gotten the invitation in the mail that afternoon.

It was for a ceremony a month from now, when Claudia, Seymour’s widow, would accept the Distinguished Service Cross for her deceased husband. She’d included a handwritten note for Grant, imploring him to attend. Grant had been Seymour’s best friend. He was godfather to their two children. Wouldn’t he please, please come to North Carolina, where the ceremony was being held?

He dug his fingertips into his pounding temples. Unlike Grant, who’d been a combat controller with the US Air Force, Seymour had been army all the way. A Green Beret. He’d been a few years older than Grant, a hothead with the need to be a hero running in his veins. Grant had been attached to Sey’s unit for more than half the time he’d served. When he’d gotten out of the air force nearly six years ago because he’d thought it would save his marriage, Seymour had warned him it wouldn’t. At the time, Grant had warned Seymour that his marriage wouldn’t survive him staying in.

But it turned out Seymour had been right.

As usual.

Grant and Chelsea had been divorced within a year.

At Seymour’s funeral last year, Claudia’s wedding ring had been firmly in place on her finger.

“Getcha another, bud?”

He realized Marty had spoken and looked at his now-empty mug. He hadn’t even realized he’d finished the beer.

Which was a pretty good reason not to have another. “No thanks.” He tossed enough cash on the bar to cover the drink and a tip, then pushed out of his seat and grabbed his coat from the empty bar stool next to him.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Officer Templeton bending over slightly as she cleared a table. How anyone as short as her could have legs that went on forever was beyond him. His ex-wife was nearly as tall as he was and her legs hadn’t seemed that long.

He was almost to the door when the pretty police officer straightened and her gaze collided with his.

She looked surprised for about half a second, then dumped her round tray into the hands of one of her customers and started toward him, not stopping until she was two feet away. She propped her hands on her slender hips and gave him a steady look. “There are at least ten bars in this town. Yet you pick Magic Jax.”

“So?”

She shrugged. “Don’t expect me to believe it’s coincidental. You wanted to see the place where Daisy worked.”

“Karen. And interesting that you didn’t mention you work here, too.”

“It’s temporary.” Her dark eyes continued to boldly meet his. “Are you going to ask when you can meet your niece?”

He grimaced. “You don’t know that she’s my niece. You only think she is.”

“Little lady, are we gonna get our cocktails anytime soon, or—”

She looked at the old guy wearing a ten-gallon hat who’d just interrupted them. “Squire Clay, I’ve warned you before. If you call me ‘little lady’ again, I’m not gonna let you off for speeding the next time I stop you.”

The auburn-haired woman with Ten Gallon hid a snicker.

“You want your drinks right this second, go on over and get ’em from Marty,” she told him.

Ten Gallon looked a little abashed. “Sorry, Ali,” he muttered.

Seeming satisfied, Officer Templeton looked back at Grant. “It’s a pretty good hunch,” she continued as if there’d been no interruption at all. “If you’re willing to provide a DNA sample, we could know for sure.”

His DNA wouldn’t prove squat, though he had no intention of telling her that. Particularly now that they’d become the focus of everyone inside the bar. The town had a whopping population of 5,000. Maybe. It was small, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a chance he’d be recognized. And the last thing he wanted was a rabid CCT Rules fan showing up on his doorstep.

He’d had too much of that already. It was one of the reasons he’d taken refuge at the ranch that his biological grandparents had once owned. He’d picked it up for a song when it was auctioned off years ago, but he hadn’t seriously entertained doing much of anything with it—especially living there himself.

At the time, he’d just taken perverse pleasure in being able to buy up the place where he’d never been welcomed while they’d been alive.

Now, it was in such bad disrepair that to stay there even temporarily, he’d been forced to make it habitable.

He wondered if Karen had stayed there, unbeknownst to him. If she was responsible for any of the graffiti or the holes in the walls.

He pushed away the thought and focused on the officer. “Ali. What’s it short for?”

She hesitated, obviously caught off guard. “Alicia, but nobody ever calls me that.” He’d been edging closer to the door, but she’d edged right along with him. “So, about that—”

Her first name hadn’t been on the business card she’d left for him. “Ali fits you better than Alicia.”

She gave him a look from beneath her just-from-bed sexy bangs. “Stop changing the subject, Mr. Cooper.”

“Start talking about something else, then. Better yet—” he gestured toward the bar and Marty “—start doing the job for Jaxie that you conveniently didn’t mention before.”

“I told you. It’s temporary.”

“I don’t care if it is or isn’t. But it makes me wonder what other details you’ve left out.”

She looked annoyed. “Mr. Cooper—”

“G’night, Officer Ali.” He pushed open the door and headed out into the night.

* * *

Ali stifled a curse as she watched Grant Cooper flip up the collar of his coat before he strode across the street.

Then the door to Magic Jax swung closed, cutting off the sight of him as well as the flow of cold air.

That didn’t stop her from feeling shivery, though.

“Ali, all your orders are backing up.”

She smiled at the other cocktail waitress working that night. It wasn’t Charlene’s fault that Ali was more interested in chasing after Grant Cooper for information about his sister than she was delivering drinks. “Sorry about that, Charlene.” She couldn’t push Grant out of her mind, but she could at least do what she was being paid to do. She hurried over to the bar and began loading up a tray. “Marty, you work most nights, right?”

The bartender didn’t stop polishing glasses with his towel. “Most.”

“Has he been in here before? Grant Cooper?”

“That’s the guy you were just talking to?” Marty shrugged. “He’s been in a couple times.”

“Recently?”

“Yeah, I guess. The last few weeks, anyway.”

“He ask any questions?”

Marty smiled wryly. “Yeah, what’ve we got on tap.”

“About something other than beer?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Why? What’s the story?”

“No story. I was just curious.”

“You’re never just curious, little... Ali,” Squire interjected, stopping next to the bar and handing her a twenty. Not too long ago, she’d learned that the prosperous rancher from Weaver was sort of her relative. “Gloria and I are headin’ out now.”

Ali held up the twenty-dollar bill between two fingers. “What’s this?”

“Bribery. For next time you pull me over for speeding.”

“I’ve got a better idea, Squire.” She plucked the hat off his gray head and tucked the twenty into the hatband. “Just stop speeding.”

He guffawed and clapped her on the back with one of his big, rough hands. “You’re a good girl, Ali, even if you got that uppity shrew for a granny. Ya oughta be finding a husband like that sis of yours has now.”

She shook her head. “Nobody left who’s worth marrying, Squire, since you’ve been hitched to Gloria all these years.”

Standing near the doorway, Gloria sniffed loudly. “You’re welcome to the old coot, Ali,” she called. “You just say the word.”

“Eh, she needs a young buck like that fella she was just talkin’ to.” Squire winked at her as he headed toward his wife and the exit. “Someone who can keep up with her.”

Ali chuckled as was expected of her, and picked up the heavy tray.

But the truth was, she was thirty years old. She’d been dating since she was sixteen, and in all that time, she’d never met a man she’d been inclined to marry. And even though there’d been all sorts of inclinations circling inside her since she’d met Grant Cooper, none of them were in the “proper” realm of marriage.

As for her thoughts of Grant inhabiting an improper realm? Now that was a whole different kettle of fish.

But it was a lot more important to get Grant Cooper on board when it came to finding his sister than it was to think about properly improper-ing him.

She finished delivering the drinks and returned to load up her tray again.

“You going to work again tomorrow night?” Marty had pulled out the schedule and set it next to the drink station.

She sighed. The thought of spending another five hours wearing high heels held no appeal whatsoever, particularly after spending eight hours on her feet doing traffic duty, which was Gowler’s latest punishment for her. But she still needed to get her truck out of the shop. “Yeah. And probably the night after that, if I can.”

Marty scribbled on the schedule with his pencil. “You got it, little lady.”

She made a face and tossed a lemon curl at him. “Very funny.”

“I thought so.” He grinned. “So what is behind your curiosity with that guy, Grant? Been a while since you dumped Keith Gowler. You finally looking for some fresh flesh?”

“Don’t be gross, Marty.” She preferred not to think that she’d dumped Keith since they’d only dated a few weeks, but it was true she’d been the one to put the brakes on dating him. “Grant might be a link to Layla.”

Looking surprised, Marty stopped what he was doing. Most everyone in town, and particularly those who worked at the bar, knew a baby had been abandoned on the Swift brothers’ doorstep last month. “He’s the baby’s father?”

“Uncle. He’s Daisy Miranda’s brother.”

He propped his elbows on the bar. “No kidding. First time he came in, he told me he was staying at the old Carmody place outside of town.”

“I know that now, so don’t rub it in, okay?” Ali had been to New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho and California—all on her own time and Linc’s pennies—following the circuitous trail that Daisy Miranda had left in her wake after quitting her job at Magic Jax. What Ali had learned along the way was that there had been only two consistent things about Daisy. One—her inconsistency. And two—her habit of sending postcards to a man named Grant Cooper that were routinely marked “return to sender.” But one of those postcards had gone against that trend. It had been returned to the post office right here in Braden with a label on it containing a forwarding address for a desolate ranch located nineteen-point-six miles outside of town.

“Did you ever meet the Carmodys?” Marty pulled a tray of clean glasses from the dishwasher and started emptying it. “Roger and Helen?”

Ali shook her head. “I don’t recall, but I suppose our paths would have probably crossed somewhere along the way. Can’t really live in Braden all your life and not have run into everyone else.” She nabbed one of the glasses, filled it with water and gulped it down. She hadn’t had time to eat between her shift at the police department and when she’d gone on duty at Magic Jax, and her stomach was growling in the worst way. “I assume you did.” Since he knew their names and all.

“They went to the same church as my grandma. Helen died way before he did.” He made a face. “I think they were as uptight as my grandma, too.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about that. But I do know the bank took back Roger Carmody’s property about ten years ago and he was forced to move away. I did not know, until just this week, however, that it had been bought at auction by none other than Grant Cooper, who turns out to be the brother of Daisy Miranda. He never lived there, though. Until now. He’s got his work cut out for him. Leaving it vacant all those years was just an invitation for vandals.” She set her glass in the rack of dirty dishes. “He’s here and claiming he doesn’t know anything about his sister’s whereabouts or her baby.”

“You don’t believe him?”

Did she? Ali picked up her loaded tray again. “I think it’s a lot of coincidences.”

“In other words, you don’t believe him.”

There was something about Grant Cooper that made her instinctively want to believe him.

Or maybe it was just those darned aqua eyes.

“It’s too soon to tell, Marty. It’s just too soon to tell.”

* * *

Eighteen hours later, Ali was working her way along Central Avenue, trying to pretend her feet hadn’t turned into blocks of ice despite her boots as she monitored the frost-rimmed parking meters lining the four blocks of the downtown area. Since it had been snowing steadily since that morning, she didn’t feel particularly inclined to punish the folks who didn’t want to keep running out to feed coins into the meters every ninety minutes. But she also knew if she didn’t write at least a few parking tickets, Gowler would accuse her of being soft. And being “soft” wasn’t going to earn her an opportunity to move up the ranks—assuming he ever forgave her for dumping his son.

So she kept tramping up and down the snowy street looking for the worst of the offenders. She pulled out her pad and halfheartedly wrote out a couple citations, tucking them beneath windshield wipers before shoving her cold hands back into her gloves.

When she reached the edge of the business district, she crossed the quiet street and started making her way back down the other side. For every two meters with time on the clock, there were two more that had expired. She tucked her nose farther into the knit scarf wound around her neck and kept walking.

“Templeton!”

She stiffened at the sound of her name and looked toward the source. Sgt. Gowler was standing on the sidewalk in front of the library. She stomped her feet in place on the sidewalk. “Yes, sir?”

“Know for a fact that meter you just passed is expired.”

“By only a few minutes.”

“Expired is expired.”

She swallowed her retort and pulled her citation book out of her pocket again. “Yes, sir.”

It was obvious that he intended to stand there and wait to make sure she did her duty. She turned back to the last vehicle and peeled off her thick glove again so she could write out the parking ticket. “Parking shmarking,” she muttered under her breath.

If she had more than a few bucks in change to spare, she’d have carried it around in her pockets just to feed the dang meters herself. She tore the ticket off her pad and brushed the mound of snow off the windshield, then lifted the wiper enough to stick the ticket underneath it.

From the corner of her eye, she saw her boss go back inside the library.

Grumbling under her breath, she moved to the next expired meter next to a badly rusted truck. Her fingers were numb as she quickly marked the form and wrote in the license plate number. She yanked off the form and hurriedly shoved it under the wiper blade.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

She jerked up her head, looking toward the library again. But instead of Sgt. Gowler, this time it was Grant Cooper who’d come out onto the sidewalk.

He wore a dark jacket, unzipped, as if he was impervious to the weather that was currently making her long for life in the tropics. He had no scarf. Wore no gloves. Within seconds, his dark hair was dusted with snow. “I had ninety minutes on that thing,” he said, pointing a long finger at the meter. “I haven’t been in the library that long.”

“The meters don’t lie.” She blew on her fingers, warming them a little before stuffing them back inside her glove. She wanted to tell him that if it was up to her, the meters wouldn’t even exist on that street. They hadn’t been updated in the past generation and the town had an old repair guy on standby just to keep them in operation. But she also didn’t want her sergeant coming out again and seeing her flagrantly disregarding his instructions, either.

“Looks like you had a productive visit.” She gestured at the stack of books he was carrying. The book he’d pushed into her hands when she’d shown up at his door wasn’t far from her mind, though she’d paid no attention whatsoever to it at the time. “You must be a big reader.”

He showed her one cover. “Plumbing for Dummies. Not exactly pleasure reading.”

“Ah.” She couldn’t help a surprised laugh, as she shifted from one frozen stump to the other. “I actually need a copy of that one myself. My sisters and I own an old Victorian that we’re restoring.”

“Because you don’t have enough to do, slinging drinks and doling out parking tickets?” He moved past her and tugged the ticket free. “How much is this gonna cost me?”

She started to point at the street sign nearby that warned of the fine for parking violations, only to realize that the surface of it was obscured by icy snow. “Fifty bucks. If you don’t pay it by the date indicated on the ticket, the fine doubles. And it gets worse from there.” Considering the state of his ranch house and the state of the vehicle, she hoped he got the message. Even if it was outrageously high, paying the parking fine on time was the simplest way to avoid owing even more money.

“Nice payback, Officer.” The truck door screeched when he yanked it open and he tossed the ticket and his stack of books inside on the bench seat that was covered with a worn woven blanket. Maybe to keep his admittedly fine tushy warm or, if he was like Ali with her truck, to hide the rips and stains in the upholstery.

“Payback! For what?”

“Not cooperating as much as you wanted.” He climbed into the truck and yanked the door closed with another protesting screech of metal.

She rapped her gloved knuckles on the window.

He looked as annoyed as she felt, but he rolled down the window a few inches. His aqua eyes skated over her face. “Now what?”

“If I wanted payback,” she said evenly, “I would also write you up for the broken taillight and the expired tags on this heap of rust. Instead, I’ll just offer a friendly warning to get them taken care of as soon as possible.”

“Or?”

“Or the next patrolman who gets stuck on traffic duty might not be so easygoing about it and you’ll end up owing even more money that it doesn’t look much like you can afford.” She stepped back from the truck and smiled tightly. “Drive safe, now. I don’t know what sort of conditions you were used to before coming to Wyoming, but the roads are treacherous in this kind of weather.”