It was fairly straightforward. Conor had come out to fix the fence per Griffin’s orders. He’d caught sight of Lily’s dress on the rocks and rushed to the body. He hadn’t tried to move her but he’d picked up her hand to check for a pulse. The tattoo, as I’d suspected, had given her identity away. From there, he’d climbed down and called Griffin.
“Thank you, Conor.” I gave him a sad smile. “I’ll probably have a few follow-up questions for you.”
“Okay.” A tear streaked down his cheek. “We went to high school together. Lily and me. We dated our junior year. Broke up but she was always . . .”
The tears came faster.
Finding a dead body was never easy. Finding someone you loved . . . this would haunt him. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.” His chin quivered. “Wish she had talked to me. Wish I had talked to her.”
“This isn’t your fault.” Griffin’s tall body dropped beside mine. “You head on out with Jim, okay?”
“What about the fencing truck?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Conor shoved to his feet, his balance unsteady.
Griffin stood and clamped a hand around Conor’s arm, escorting him to where Jim was waiting.
I followed at a distance, watching as Griffin hugged the kid and helped him into the passenger seat of a white truck. The door was marked with an E and underscored with a U-shaped bar beneath—the Eden ranch emblem.
Griffin spoke to Jim for a moment before the older man nodded, then went to the driver’s side.
“Will he stay with Conor?” I asked Griffin as Jim and Conor pulled away, rolling down a two-tire track.
“He will.”
“I need to keep this quiet for a little bit so I can ensure we have the right identity, then notify next of kin.”
“Lily’s mom is a nurse at the nursing home. Allen can get you her information.”
“What if it’s not Lily?”
“It’s her, Winslow. We know our own people.”
As in, I wasn’t one of them. Ouch.
A new trail of dust followed a vehicle down the main gravel road. Hopefully it was the medical examiner.
“This is your property, correct?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Is this road ever closed? With a gate at night or something?”
“No.” He shook his head. “The property on the other side of the road used to belong to another ranch, but I bought it two years ago. This is all Eden property now. There’s no reason to gate it off other than to segment pastures for cattle.”
“Do you ever have people drive out here?”
“Not really. It’s private property.” He fisted his hands on his hips. “Why?”
“Have you seen any strange vehicles coming and going this week?”
“This is a huge ranch. It’s impossible to keep track of traffic.” His jaw clenched. “Why are you asking?”
I looked up and down the gravel road. There wasn’t a vehicle in sight that might have belonged to the girl. She’d been barefoot. Where were her shoes?
“I’m simply asking questions.” That’s why I was here.
“That girl jumped to her death. Her mother is probably worried sick about her. How about you stop asking questions and start providing answers?”
“How about I leave the ranching to you? And you leave investigations to me? I’m just doing my job.”
He scoffed. “You want to do your job, go tell Lily’s mother. Anything else is a waste of fucking time.”
Without another word, he stormed away, marching to his truck. He left me standing in a field, watching his taillights disappear.
“That went well,” I muttered. “Shit.”
I tipped my head to the sky.
Maybe this wasn’t how the previous chief would have handled it. Maybe he would have taken one look at that poor girl and known it was suicide. But . . .
“I’m the chief now.” And we’d do things my way.
Whether Griffin Eden liked it or not.
Chapter Four
Griffin
The ice-cold beer bottle had barely skimmed my lips when the doorbell rang.
“Christ,” I grumbled. “Now what?”
It had been a hell of a long day and I wasn’t in the mood for visitors. But it was probably an employee—the members of my family didn’t know how to ring doorbells—so ignoring my guest wasn’t an option.
With my beer bottle in hand, I padded down the hallway to the door in my bare feet. If I was lucky, a rare occurrence, I wouldn’t have to put my boots back on for whatever this visit entailed.
There were times when it would be nice to put some space between home and work. To live off the ranch where I wasn’t as easily accessible—to the staff or my family. But there wasn’t a place on earth I’d rather be than on this ranch. Even when people showed up at my doorstep unannounced.
I pulled the door open, expecting, well . . . anyone else besides Winslow.
Her eyes, the color of ripe blueberries, seemed bluer in the fading evening light. One look at her beautiful face, and for a moment, I forgot to breathe.
“Hi,” she said.
I tipped the bottle to my lips. Then I chugged.
Drinking seemed necessary around this woman.
Probably not a brilliant decision considering alcohol was the reason I’d gotten into this mess with her in the first place, but one look at those eyes and that silky hair and my cock twitched beneath my jeans.
Why the fuck couldn’t I control myself around her?
Her pretty gaze narrowed as I gulped half my beer. “Thirsty?”
I forced the bottle away from my lips. “Something like that.”
There was no need to ask her how she knew where I lived. Not only could she look it up in her database at the station, but anyone in Quincy could give her directions. Hell, three minutes on Main and she’d likely bump into a relative. Finding an Eden in this town was about as easy as looking for leaves on a tree in June.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“You never answered my questions on Wednesday.”
Wednesday. A day I would like to forget. I’d been in a shit mood for the past two days. I’d barked at everyone the way I’d barked at her at the scene. In my defense, that had been the second time I’d found a dead woman on my property.
“So you came to my house?”
“Would you have come down to the station if I’d asked?”
“No.”
“That’s what I figured.” She raised her chin, her feet planted firm. Winn wasn’t going to leave until I talked to her, and this time, I couldn’t exactly walk away.
I sighed and stood aside, jerking my chin for her to come inside.
She stepped past me and her sweet citrus scent wrapped around me like a vine.
My body reacted instantly, tightening in all the wrong places. I took another pull from my beer. The only rational explanation for this infuriating desire had to be lust. I’d gone too long without sex, and now I was acting like a randy teenager.
Lust. Definitely lust.
And those freckles on her nose. Goddamn it, they did it for me.