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Chapter Four
It didn’t take Bree long to figure out where they were going, and the last of her tension eased away. He was taking her to her favorite place on the planet: the ranch Tanner shared with his brother, Noah, about thirty minutes outside Risk Peak.
She’d stayed here when she’d been on the run, and it was impossible not to fall in love with this place. Horses and quiet and mountains. No people ever around except for Noah, who rarely made his presence known at all.
She and Tanner usually came here on the weekends. He’d taught her how to ride and care for the horses. But they’d never come in the evening.
Her heart clenched a little as he led her around the house. Of all her memories of the twins, waking up and seeing them both outside in Tanner’s big, capable arms as he walked and showed them the horses was forever ingrained in her psyche.
“Hey, what’s that sad look for?”
She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Just... Beth and Christian. I miss them.”
“Have you Skyped this week?” He took her hand, his long fingers stretching securely over hers.
She nodded. “Of course. Melissa and Chris know if they don’t call me as scheduled, I’ll never let them hear the end of it. But it’s just not the same.” She couldn’t help her little sigh. “They’re happy and safe and together as a family, and I want that for them.”
“But you miss them.”
“Crazy, right? They were never mine to begin with.” She’d tried to warn herself of that, but those babies had stolen her heart.
“Not crazy at all. But maybe my surprise will help make it better.” He led her over to his barn.
“Did you guys get a new horse?” Now, that would be a wonderful surprise. Bree loved interacting with all the animals here, since she’d never had any sort of pet growing up.
“Better.” He took her hand and pulled her toward a stall in the far corner.
She rounded the doorway so she could see and couldn’t stop her near squeal of pleasure. “Corfu had her puppies!”
“And one is yours, if you want it.”
“Really?” It was all she could do not to jump up and down and clap her hands. She knew she was acting like an idiot but couldn’t help it.
A puppy.
It wouldn’t be the same as having the twins, but it would be a puppy. And it would be hers.
Tanner took her hand and led her closer to Corfu—a mixed-breed dog who’d just shown up on the ranch a year ago. “They’re nearly a week old already, since Noah didn’t see fit to mention the fact that Corfu had given birth to me until yesterday.”
The four pups were lying snuggled next to Corfu, who lifted her head and sniffed at Bree as Bree crouched beside her.
“Is it okay to pet her?”
Tanner crouched down, too. “Sure. She knows you’re her friend.”
Bree scratched the dog’s head gently, smiling as she leaned into Bree’s fingers.
“They’re so little!” She touched one gently. “Which one is mine?”
“There are three boys and one girl. You’ll have to decide.”
“Boy,” she said instantly. “I want that one. I’ll name him Star.” She pointed to the one in the middle—black, with a large white spot on its head.
Tanner laughed softly and scooped the puppy up. “I’m afraid you’ll have to make a tough decision.”
“Is he already spoken for?” It was ridiculous to be disappointed. Any puppy would be great.
“No, you just can’t have a boy pup and this one. Star is a girl.” He held the pup out to her.
“A girl,” Bree breathed then smiled, taking the tiny pup in her arms. “Of course you’re a girl. You’re a beautiful, sweet girl, and we’ll be best friends.”
They played with the pups a few more minutes before Tanner said they should let Corfu and the babies rest.
“I can’t take her with me tonight?” The thought of having the pup around in her apartment that always seemed too quiet was so appealing.
Tanner slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close as they walked out of the barn and toward his house. “It’ll be another five weeks before she’s weaned. No sleepovers until then.”
Five weeks wasn’t that long. Hell, before a couple of months ago, she’d spent years without talking to anyone or having any human contact. Surely she could survive a little over a month without a dog.
He spun her around to face him as they got to his house. “It’s been harder than you’ve let on, hasn’t it? Being by yourself.”
She shrugged. She didn’t want to be a whiner. “I was by myself for a lot of years, even before my mother died. Seems silly to complain about it now when I’m finally not alone.”
He took a step closer, his hands dropping to her waist. “I know I’m not as cute as those twins, but you really aren’t alone. I’m always here if you need me.” His forehead dropped against hers. “Okay?”
She couldn’t worry about anything when Tanner was this close. All she could do was breathe in the scent of him, woodsy and fresh and undeniably male.
She rose up onto her toes when his lips moved toward hers. Her mind might work like a computer, but her body was all woman when she was around him. She shivered as his thumb brushed over her jaw, then felt like she was melting out of her own skin as he kissed the side of her mouth before running his tongue over her lower lip.
He kissed her gently like that until she couldn’t stand it anymore and she threaded her hands into his hair at his nape and pulled him hard against her. She gasped as the pleasure radiated through her, heard him groan and knew he was feeling the same. They both surrendered to the heat between them, lost in sensation.
When they finally broke away, both of them were breathing hard. His forehead fell against hers again. “I think I better get you home.”
She wanted to ask him to stay with her tonight. To take that next step their kisses had been moving them toward for the last few weeks. Every time they were pressed up together, it was abundantly clear he wanted her. If she gave him the go-ahead, would he make that next move? Would he finally give her whatever it was her body needed to ease the restlessness and heat that seemed to thrum through her every time he was around?
If he were just waiting on her, she’d tell him she was ready right now, this very moment. She might not have experienced sex before, but she wasn’t afraid. Not with Tanner. He wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that more than anything else.
But it was more than just her own natural hesitation. Something was holding him back, too. Something she was too bad at interpreting interpersonal cues to figure out. He never made her think it had anything to do with her. But still...
She was missing a lot of the emotional components other women—normal women—weren’t. Women who hadn’t been born with a brain that worked like a computer and sentiment that sometimes didn’t seem to work at all. Women who hadn’t had to shut down emotionally because they’d been tortured. Women who hadn’t been on the run for half their life with no interaction with other people.
All those things left some pretty large gaps in Bree’s emotional development. Maybe subconsciously Tanner was realizing Bree wouldn’t be able to provide all he would need, and he wanted to keep from taking that last physical step that would make it harder for them to break apart if they needed to.
Why else would he be stopping, when his body still pressed up against hers made it clear he wanted her? At least physically.
“Let’s get you home,” he whispered.
The ride back to Risk Peak was mostly in silence, but not uncomfortable. Tanner’s hand never left hers, bringing her fingers up to his lips to kiss every so often.
It just made Bree more confused. The urge to blurt out all her questions was overwhelming, and a few months ago she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself. But she forced herself to remain quiet rather than demand answers for things that didn’t make sense to her.
The fact that there were more kisses after he parked at her apartment on the outskirts of town, and the fact that her body was fairly humming by the time they pulled away from each other, didn’t help with her confusion.
He took the key she offered and unlocked the door, checking her apartment for any threats before letting her inside. He always did that, even though there hadn’t been any sign of trouble since they’d disbanded the Organization almost two months ago. But she didn’t mind him doing it. The fact that he put himself between her and any potential danger made her feel cherished.
He kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Stay.
She screamed at herself to say it. To just tell him outright that she was ready. That she wanted him. Wanted this.
But before she got up the nerve, with one more kiss to her forehead, Tanner was gone.
She sighed and called herself every type of idiot for not voicing her desires. How was it she couldn’t seem to get herself to shut up when she was blurting out something inappropriate for a situation, and now couldn’t seem to force herself to speak up when there was something legitimately good she wanted?
She eventually got ready for bed, but once she was there, she couldn’t sleep. After thirty minutes she gave up even trying. She couldn’t do anything about Tanner, but she could research puppies.
Maybe that would take her mind off everything else.
She went over to her desk, running her fingers across her laptop. Even opening it caused her to tense, but researching something as innocent and fun as this didn’t need to bring back any of the bad memories.
Once she got started, habit took over, and all discomfort from using a computer was left behind. Within an hour she had read multiple articles on canine physical, mental and emotional development. Then she researched and made a list of everything she would need to buy the next time she was in Denver. It was probably a good thing she had five weeks before Star could come home; there were a lot of things a puppy needed. She wouldn’t be caught off guard this time, like she had been when the twins had been thrust into her care.
She was still wide awake when she got to the recommended square footage of outdoor space a dog that size would require. She had a small plot of backyard, which would need a fence. She would have to talk to Dan and Cheryl about that. But more important, would it even be big enough to meet the recommended size? Would she still be allowed to get the dog if it wasn’t?
Knowing her brain would never let her sleep until she knew the exact square footage in her backyard, Bree slipped on a pair of sweatpants with her sleep shirt and some shoes. Grabbing a tape measure and her phone so she could type in the measurements, she headed outside.
She was glad she didn’t have any neighbors around to see her out measuring her yard in the middle of the night. Using the tape measure, she began marking off quadrants, typing them into her phone as she went. She was at the farthest point from the apartment when she took a step backward and tripped over something.
Cursing, she slid back, turning on the flashlight on her phone so she could see what had tripped her. She didn’t remember there being any logs or large rocks in her yard. Although they weren’t necessarily bad—a dog might like them.
But when she shone the light, she realized it wasn’t a log at all. She’d tripped over a person. She couldn’t see the face of the person passed out facedown, but it looked like a man by the size of him.
“Hey, are you okay?” she said. She poked his shoulder when he didn’t respond. “Excuse me. Wake up.”
When he didn’t move at all, fear began to crawl along her belly. She reached over to take the guy’s pulse.
His skin was cold to the touch, and there was definitely no pulse to be found.
She hadn’t just tripped over a person. She’d tripped over a body.
Chapter Five
Tanner groped for the phone, his mind becoming instantly alert as it rang on his bedside table. After ten years in law enforcement, he’d gotten used to having it go off at any and all hours of the day or night.
But when he saw it was Bree, his heart began to gallop. She wouldn’t call at four o’clock in the morning without reason.
“Bree, what’s wrong?”
Her breath sawing in and out didn’t ease his fear in any way. He was already getting out of bed and putting on his clothes. “Bree? Talk to me, freckles.”
“Tanner? There’s a...body.”
He cursed as he zipped and buttoned his jeans. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“No. I’m not hurt.”
He pulled on a shirt and began buttoning it. “But someone was inside your apartment?”
“No, I found the body outside.”
He had no idea why she would’ve found a body outside in the middle of the night. Maybe someone was drunk and passed out on her lawn. Maybe it wasn’t a body at all.
“Are you inside? Safe?”
“Y-yes.” The barely whispered word didn’t reassure him.
“Just stay where you are, okay? Don’t move. I’m at my place in town. I’ll be to you in less than five minutes.”
He hated to hang up but had to so he could call the station and get Ronnie Kitchens, the deputy on duty tonight, out to the scene. Tanner would meet them there. He was pulling up to Bree’s place by the time he got off the phone with Ronnie.
Weapon drawn, he approached her front door, keeping an eye out all around him.
He knocked. “Bree, open up, sweetheart. It’s me.” He kept his eyes pinned out in the darkness, looking for any sign of movement.
The door creaked open just slightly. “Tanner?”
He hated to hear the fear in her voice, so much more noticeable because it had been conspicuously absent for the last month. “Yeah, freckles. Let me in, okay?”
The door opened wider, and he stepped inside, holstering his weapon and pulling her against him in a one-armed hug. “Are you all right?” He looked around the room. Nothing seemed out of place or destroyed.
“Yes, i-it’s out back. Outside. I tripped over it.” A shudder racked her small frame.
“I want you to stay here. Ronnie will be here in just a minute, and we’re going to check it out.” He led her to the kitchen table and helped her sit in a chair. “Why were you outside in the middle of the night?”
“I was measuring the yard to see if it was regulation size for a dog.”
Even with the gravity of the situation, Tanner almost smiled. Measuring a yard in the middle of the night for her new puppy? That totally made sense in a Bree world.
“Sweetheart, not that I doubt you, but are you sure it was a body?”
“Yes. I tried to get him to move before I called you. In case it was someone who’d fallen asleep or something.”
That didn’t sound good.
“Okay.” He rubbed his hand soothingly over her hair. “Stay here. I’m going to check it out.”
The lights from Ronnie’s squad car were reflecting in the windows, so Tanner went outside to meet him.
“We definitely have a body?” Ronnie asked as he exited his car, a little slower than he’d once been after narrowly escaping a body bag himself a few weeks ago.
“Bree says it’s out back. I haven’t confirmed. Said she tripped over it when she was measuring the yard for her new dog.”
Ronnie stopped and stared at him. “Do I even want to ask why she would be doing that in the middle of the night?”
Tanner shrugged. “It’s Bree. Once she gets her brain set on something, there’s no way around it.”
The whole town was getting used to that response. Ronnie was no exception. “Let’s go check it out.”
They grabbed high-powered flashlights from the squad car and moved quickly to the back of the house, firearms once again drawn. Bree’s patch of land wasn’t that large, and it didn’t take them long to realize Bree hadn’t been mistaken.
There was very definitely a dead body.
Ronnie muttered a curse and kept him covered with his weapon as Tanner rushed over. As soon as he touched the cold skin of the male body lying on his stomach, Tanner knew there was no way the guy was alive. But he checked the pulse anyway.
Dead.
“We need to get the crime lab out here. Definitely dead—for a while, it feels like.” Tanner stood, backing away from the body to try to keep the scene as pristine as possible.
“Natural causes?” Ronnie asked.
Tanner shone his light on the back of the guy’s shirt. It was covered with blood. “Nope. Nothing natural about this.”
* * *
TANNER STAYED OUTSIDE as forensics made their way onto the scene and began processing, using the floodlights they brought. It didn’t take long to realize the guy not only hadn’t died of natural causes, he’d been murdered. The multiple stab wounds covering his back were testament to that.
Tanner kept Bree inside the house. She was curious, but coming face-to-face with this sort of violence under the glaring lights wasn’t something he’d suggest for anyone. Not to mention it was now an active crime scene that shouldn’t be contaminated.
It wasn’t long before he was having to give that excuse to more than just Bree. The lights had woken folks up, and before long there were curious bystanders from all over town stopping by. It wasn’t every day someone was murdered in Risk Peak.
Ronnie was doing his best to shoo them along, thankfully having set up the crime scene tape far enough back to keep this from becoming an online media sensation.
“Captain Dempsey.” Owen, one of the crime lab techs, jogged over to him. “We’ve done all our preliminary processing and are ready to turn the body over.”
Time to find out if they had a dead local on their hands. Tanner prayed he wouldn’t be making a dreaded trip to the house of someone he knew to tell them a loved one had been killed.
He and Ronnie both joined the two techs as they reached down and rolled over the body. Ronnie let out a relieved breath. “That’s nobody from Risk Peak, right? Thank God.”
Relief flooded Tanner, too. “Yeah, I think you’re right. I don’t recognize—”
Tanner stopped. Because he did recognize the dead man, although it wasn’t someone from here. He let out a blistering curse.
“What?” Ronnie asked. “Is it someone we know?”
Tanner crouched down beside the body. “Someone I know. Joshua Newkirk. He was arrested four years ago, and then he got out on early release six months ago. He’s from farther north in Grand County. Raped a woman there. I was part of the team who arrested him.”
And now, four years later, he was out and might have been on his way to attack Bree. The MO was similar. Newkirk had broken into the other woman’s house while she was alone.
Tanner stood back up. “Damn it, I told the parole board he should be kept in prison. That the risk of repeat offense was too high.”
Just like he’d said about Owen Duquette earlier today. Different parole board, same situation. It was hard to keep the community safe if they were going to continue letting offenders back onto the streets so soon.
Ronnie stepped back so the crime lab could continue their job. “Well, he won’t be attacking any more women now, that’s for sure.”
Tanner shook his head. “I can’t even pretend I’m going to lose sleep over Newkirk’s death.” Damn well not, since they’d found the man on Bree’s lawn.
“That didn’t give someone the right to kill him.” Ronnie shook his head.
Tanner scrubbed a hand over his face. “No, of course not. We’ll bring that person to justice. But damn it, Ronnie, the guy was twenty feet from Bree’s door.”
Owen the crime tech looked up. “I don’t think this guy was planning to attack the lady who lives here.”
Tanner focused in on Owen. “Why?”
“I don’t know if this is going to make it better or worse, but this guy wasn’t killed here. There would’ve been a crap ton of blood.”
Ronnie raised an eyebrow. “Crap ton? That a clinical term?”
“I’m just saying that if this guy was stabbed here, there would be blood pooling around him.”
Tanner looked around. He didn’t see any blood, either. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“One option is that guy could’ve been stabbed closer to town and just made it this far before giving up the ghost, pardon the pun. We’ll look for blood traces and see if we can follow it anywhere. Might get lucky and lead us to the actual murder scene.”
“That would be highly useful. But there’s another option?” Tanner asked.
Owen’s brows furrowed. “Well, the body could’ve been placed here. Unless we find some sort of blood trace leading from somewhere, then I would assume that the body was dumped here by the killer.”
Damn it, that was almost as bad as thinking a rapist had been on his way to Bree’s house. “Why would someone dump a body here?” Tanner barked. “Specifically at this apartment?”
Owen shrugged. “That I can’t tell you. Maybe because it’s pretty far at the edge of town and this just happened to be a convenient place, but...” He trailed off.
He wasn’t going to like what Owen was going to say, but the younger man still needed to say it. “You can tell me, Owen. I’m not going to kill the messenger.”
“You only dump a body in someone’s yard if you want it to be found. Otherwise, there’s ten thousand acres of national forests all around us. Why not drag it in there and leave it? Could be years before anyone found him.”
“So it was some sort of message to her?” Ronnie asked. “Does she have any connection to Joshua Newkirk?”
Tanner shook his head. “I’ve got no reason to think so, but I’ll ask.”
“For what it’s worth—” Owen crouched down next to the body again “—it’s a lot more likely that this has nothing to do with her. Somebody could’ve killed Newkirk and just decided to dump the body here before going any farther. Like I said, her apartment is on the edge of town, so dumping it here, in the dark, makes sense. I’ll know more in a few hours.”
Tanner and Ronnie stepped back farther so he could go to work. Ronnie slapped Tanner on the shoulder. “We’ll get answers.”
Tanner nodded. “I’ll ask Bree if she knew Newkirk.”
He turned back toward the house and found Bree standing in her back door, fully dressed but still with a blanket wrapped around her as if to ward off a chill. And who could blame her? There was a dead rapist a couple dozen feet from her house.
Tanner walked up to Bree. God, he hated that pinched look that was back on her features. It had been there so much when he’d first met her but had been gone for a while.
He wanted it gone again.
“Was it someone from around here? Someone we know?” she asked.
Tanner wrapped his arms around her. “No, freckles. Not anyone from around here.” He could feel some of the tension leak out of her. “Do you know someone named Joshua Newkirk?”
She pulled back so she could look him in the eye. “No. Should I?”
He believed her. She had no reason to lie about it, and he didn’t think Bree was very good at lying anyway.
“That’s the dead guy’s name. I was able to ID him pretty quickly because I arrested him a few years ago. Evidently, he’s made a few enemies since getting out of prison six months ago.”
And while Tanner was grateful a rapist hadn’t been on his way up to Bree’s back door, he didn’t like how any of this was feeling to him.
He prayed Owen’s last statement would be correct, and that Bree’s yard had just been a convenience. That it was just a coincidence that the body had been placed here.
Tanner wasn’t prone to believing in coincidences. Anger and frustration pooled inside him. She’d been through enough. He’d brought her to Risk Peak to keep her safe, and now this. The worst could’ve happened, and he wouldn’t have been able to prevent it.
He felt her small hands close over his fists.
“I’m okay. Whatever’s going on in that head of yours didn’t happen. You’ll figure out what’s going on and put a stop to it. Give yourself time.”
The trust in her eyes gutted him. He stroked his knuckles down her cheek. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, to assure her of, but the phone rang in his pocket. He grabbed it and saw it was Sheriff Duggan, his boss.
Bree waved at him to get it and turned and walked toward her bedroom.
“Sheriff Duggan.”
“I hear there’s a body in Bree Daniels’s yard.”
Tanner wasn’t surprised word had already reached her. Grand County wasn’t big enough that a murder wouldn’t be a big deal. “Yes, there sure is. I’ll do you one better. The body is Joshua Newkirk.”
“The convicted rapist?” She let out a curse. “And he was killed in Miss Daniels’s backyard?”
Tanner filled in his boss on all the details, including the lack of blood on scene.
“Tanner, I need you to be straight with me,” the sheriff said after he’d finished. “It’s no secret you’re involved with Bree. Do I need to pull you off this case? I’m worried you can’t stay neutral.”
“The guy is dead. I’m not sure my neutrality makes any difference.”
“You still have a killer to find, and it’s no secret you weren’t a fan of Newkirk’s.”
Tanner swallowed a curse. “I hope nobody was a fan of Newkirk’s. Just because I’m not sad he’s dead doesn’t mean I won’t bring down his killer.”
Sheriff Duggan was quiet for a moment. One of the things Tanner appreciated the most about the woman he’d worked for for over ten years was that she thought things through before she spoke.
But when she did speak this time, it wasn’t something he wanted to hear.
“I’m going to send Richard Whitaker out there. And before you start arguing with me, because I know you will, this is not a punishment or because I don’t trust you. He’s fresh eyes, and he doesn’t have a history with either Bree or Newkirk.”
Tanner knew this was what was best, but it still rankled. Not to mention nobody got along well with Richard Whitaker. The guy was a grade-A jerk.
“You know I don’t like it, but I’m not going to fight you on it.”
“Good. Because someone has been murdered. And whether we liked the dead guy or not, our job is to find out who did it.”
