Chapter One

Present day

Deputy Sheriff Russell Benjamin Riley pushed back his uniform Stetson. Swearing under his breath at the hot May sun, he positioned three traffic cones in front of what was left of Harry and Margie Schutt’s old Grand Marquis and placed another three in front of Blanca Roman’s upside-down Tahoe. According to his only reliable witness, a young mother out walking her baby, the teenager’s Tahoe had been doing at least fifty down the residential side street when the little octogenarians pulled out in front of her.

Rory Keller, his fellow Verde County deputy, was still interviewing the drivers, neither of whom appeared to be injured and both of whom were firmly convinced the other driver was totally at fault. “I mean, she pulled right out in front of me, man,” the pretty cheerleader insisted, looking over at Margie Schutt, who was sitting under a tree getting a quick exam from Dr. Caroline Briscoe. “And then what does she do? She asks me if her husband’s blood sugar’s all right.”

“Young man, she just came out of nowhere,” Margie Schutt insisted. She turned to her husband. “Harry, have you checked your sugar level?”

Russ leaned over to a guilty-looking Harry Schutt. “Sneak out again?” he asked, his eyes dancing as the old man sputtered protests. “Your daughter’s on her way.”

“Oh, hell,” Mr. Schutt said morosely. “We’re in for it now.”

At that point the Schutt’s daughter drove up, looking put out. She made a beeline for the old couple. “How bad is the old lady’s dementia?” Russ asked Rory as the woman and Doc Briscoe put their heads together.

“Too bad for them to be out on the road,” Rory said. “Although Blanca is partly to blame, too. At least both parties have insurance; from the looks of those vehicles they’re going to need it. So, what’s our hotshot criminal investigator doing out on a car wreck?”

Russ glanced over at Rory, not sure whether he was teasing or not. “No criminals to investigate at the moment, thank God,” he said lightly. “Although Mrs. Schutt does look a little suspicious, now that you mention it.”

Rory grinned and they returned to their work.

As a relative newbie on the force and the nephew of Verde’s iconic Judge ‘Wily’ Riley, Russ was still feeling his way into the small, tight-knit group of men and women charged with keeping Verde County safe. And it hadn’t helped that right after his hiring he’d been given the plum assignment of investigating a series of crimes against the members of his sister’s wounded warriors support group. But he had brought the sick, twisted bastard responsible to justice and earned the other deputies’ respect, and in the last months of working car accidents and answering domestic disturbance calls with them, hopefully he was earning their friendship as well.

The tow truck pulled up about the time Russ and Rory finished taking statements. Blanca’s mother arrived and delivered a blistering lecture while Peggy Schutt exchanged heated words with her parents. “I wonder who has the tougher job, Miz Roman or Peggy Schutt?” Russ laughed as both drivers were chauffeured away.

“Oh, Peggy does,” Rory said as they picked up the traffic cones and stowed them in the trunks of their cruisers. “Those old folks are a handful.”

Russ checked his watch and hid a smile—his twelve-hour shift would be over in thirty minutes—and followed Rory back to the brand-spanking-new justice center on the outskirts of Verde. The one-story gleaming white stone building housed the sheriff’s office, the small crime lab and the county jail. Russ flirted a little with Verna, their white-haired grandmotherly dispatcher, and then sat down at his desk and whipped through his paperwork, a talent that not only served him well as a Verde County deputy but had been invaluable during his years in the US Army Criminal Investigation Command—the CID.

He was in the process of powering down his laptop when the door to the deputies’ communal office opened and Denton Baxter and Hutch Pruett wandered in. They were both hot and dusty and pissed-off looking.

“The next time old man Moses calls in a suspected meth lab on the Wyatt property, just shoot me,” Denton griped as he lowered his huge frame into the chair in front of the desk across from Russ. “Blew a whole damn day out there looking and all we found was an abandoned trailer. Oh, and a pissy bull who really didn’t like us in his pasture.”

Hutch plopped his muscular frame down on the other side of Russ. “Not only that, Wily Riley’s going to think twice now before issuing another search warrant out there, unless we get Russ here to ask him for it.” The former Marine sported a sunburn across his freckled nose.

Russ snorted. “Do you really think Uncle Willis would issue a search warrant or anything else as a favor to me?”

The two other deputies looked at each other. “No,” they said in unison as the three of them laughed out loud. “So what’s got you two looking so aggravated?” Hutch said as deputies Jesse Alvarez and Helen Carmichael trudged into the room. “We had a pissy bull.”

“We had a traumatized mutt and a chiweenie with attitude,” Helen said as she sank down into her desk chair. “Jesse chased down the dogs while I tried to keep Wilma Rhodes and Mona Guthrie from killing each other. That damned chiweenie of Mona’s has Wilma’s Poopsie terrified. Killer chased the big lug all the way to Betty Cleburne’s place.”

“A chiweenie named Killer? You have to be kidding,” Russ laughed. He packed up his laptop and ambled into the briefing room. He and the other day-shift officers spent a few minutes touching base with the shift coming on and then he was out the door to the old cruiser that was permanently assigned to him.

He waited until he was out of town to lower his windows and hit the accelerator, the V-8 in the old Crown Vic barely breathing as the speedometer jumped to eighty-five. Sweet-smelling air, perfumed by pasture grass and May wildflowers, filled his lungs. Rolling pastures dotted with cattle and goats and white-tailed deer were interspersed with the rock-strewn rolling hills of the central Texas Hill Country. The winding two-lane farm-to-market and ranch roads were a perfect place for speed, whether it was in the county cruiser or in his pickup or on the Harley, upon which he had made many a weekend ride into Austin or San Antonio or maybe out to Vanderpool and back, to throw back a beer or two and shoot the breeze—and hopefully to hook up with a lady for a night. Oh, yes. There were some lovely ladies here in Texas. And Russ simply could not resist the ladies.

Which was why he was driving a Verde County cruiser down the highway on his way out to Heaven’s Point and not off on temporary duty somewhere in the middle of an Army CID investigation. A lot had changed in the last year, Russ thought ruefully as he took the turnoff onto the smaller road that led into the small lakeside community where he and his sister Holly now resided. Holly had come here first to recover from war wounds and he had more or less washed up here some months later, after having been kicked out of Uncle Sam’s great Army for a reckless and torrid affair. Now that the fog of lust had cleared, even he was taken aback by his own stupidity.

Nikia Owens was the absolute last woman in the world he should have had an affair with—she was not only in his chain of command but married to a jealous master sergeant who had played every card at his disposal to ruin Russ. Through the finagling of one of his father’s lawyer friends, he was cleared of criminal charges, but the Army still felt that they no longer required his services, especially when Russ’s prior reputation as a notorious playboy was taken into account.

Russ smiled to himself. Sure, given the chance to do things over, he would gladly forego the career-ending affair with Nikia. But give up the ladies and settle down? No. Way.

Russ slowed down as he spotted a couple of deer in Jack Briscoe’s south pasture. He’d wondered if his less-than-honorable discharge would keep him from finding work in the civilian sector, but the Verde County sheriff’s department was more than happy to hire him, and for the last eight months he had worked car wrecks and answered domestic disturbance calls and done what little investigative work there was to do.

Russ sped around the curve that would lead into Heaven’s Point and slowed as Lisa Keller’s blue Charger roared out of the parking lot of Angie’s Place. Russ smiled to himself as his thoughts turned to the owner of the little soap shop. Angie Baxter—now there was one fine-looking woman. Long auburn hair pulled up into a sassy ponytail; short, curvy figure with the best boobs he hadn’t seen yet in ages; striking green eyes in a heartbreakingly pretty face that belonged on an old-fashioned cameo; and lips that tempted a man to sin. Angie Baxter definitely had what it took to ring a man’s bells, even if she didn’t seem to be ringing them for anyone at the moment. And she certainly wasn’t willing to ring them for him.

Punchy from a tiring ‘business trip’ to the Middle East and leading with his mouth, he had mistaken her for her son Wade’s girlfriend at the last Heaven’s Point Fourth of July picnic, and if the cold shoulder she had given him ever since was anything to go by she had not been amused. Which was certainly a shame—Angie would be a great candidate for one of his notorious little flings. But the mistake wasn’t completely his fault, Russ thought as he zipped past the shop, recently repainted an eye-popping pink. Not only was Angie exceptionally pretty, she didn’t look anywhere near old enough to have a son in college. Russ wondered idly if the products she made were just that good, or if Angie was one of those lucky women who simply did not look their age.

Russ put his musings about Angie Baxter aside and pulled into Heaven’s Point, a tiny subdivision on the western shores of Lake Templeton. The long shadows cast by the almost-setting sun and the faint sound of the water gave the hodge-podge little lake community an almost magical quality as Russ slowed down for the inevitable golf cart chugging down the street, the ponytailed tween piloting the vehicle probably headed toward the beach. Instead of turning onto the street that would lead to his parents’ cabin, the place he now called home, he followed the girl to the small private beach park next to Holly’s fiancé’s house.

Heaven’s Point had been an important part of Russ’s life for as long as he could remember and he had spent many a happy hour on this beach. Lately the beach had become part of his rounds as a deputy and it had been all he could do not to laugh out loud as he routed out underage drinkers and sent randy teenagers home. Russ soaked up a little of the soothing magic of the beach and was about to go grab a fishing pole and head out to his sister’s dock when his cell phone rang. Turning his head away from the lake breeze, he smiled when he saw the name and number of the caller. “Yo, Kevin, what’s up?” he asked his favorite cousin in San Antonio.

“Russ, my man. Am I hearing those pretty waves slapping the shore of my favorite beach in the world?” Kevin Harrington asked. “Or is that the sound of wine flowing into a tall stemmed glass in the Verde Country Club?”

“Wiseass,” Russ laughed. “As it so happens, I am out on the beach and I’ll bet you and your pretty little Porsche are stuck somewhere in traffic trying to get back to your McMansion.”

Kevin made a buzzer sound with his tongue. “Actually, I’m on my way to the country club—the real one—to watch Granddad receive yet another civic award to add to his star-studded collection. Bo-ring but at least the food will be good.”

“And Tess will have a good time.” Kevin’s wife and fellow attorney at their grandfather’s firm loved nothing more than a night on the town.

“Actually, Tess begged off. Poor woman’s at home worshipping at the porcelain god.”

“Again? Yow, Kevin. Tina’s not even out of diapers and K.J. just started kindergarten.”

Kevin let out something between a snicker and a snort. “Well, this one is kind of a souvenir from that cruise we went on a couple months back. Tess is giving me the evil eye but the rest of the family is over the moon. To hear Granddad tell it, Tess and I are going to singlehandedly save the law firm and the family from extinction.” Kevin waited a beat. “What? No sarcastic comment from the family rebel, the one who needs to give up his womanizing and settle down?”

“Why bother with the nasty comments if neither Dad nor Granddad can hear me? No, if I want to say something snide I’ll say it to their faces,” Russ said.

“Wish they gave you the same courtesy,” Kevin said. “Granddad and Uncle Ben and I went out for lunch today and your ears should have been stinging all afternoon. It was roast Russ with a side of baked potato. And I’m not telling you this to piss you off,” he added quickly when Russ started to sputter. “It’s just that they ended up having a big argument over it right in the middle of the restaurant and I’m afraid you can expect a call from one or both of them in the next few days.”

“Damn it, why can’t they just let me live life like I want to?” Russ said tiredly.

Kevin was quiet for a moment. “I think they’re worried, frankly. Especially now that an affair has cost you your Army career. Russ, however misguided their pressure on you, they do love you. And besides, there is something to be said for having a warm and loving woman in your arms every night.”

“A good bit of the time I have that,” Russ laughed. “Just not the same one every night.”

“And on that note I think I’ll go. Just wanted you to know what direction the wind is blowing,” Kevin said. They said their good-byes and Russ shook his head as he crawled back in the cruiser. Would it never end? The constant pressure to settle down and produce the perfect two-point-three Harrington heirs? Damn it, he wasn’t husband material and they didn’t need him for that. Kevin had done all those things and seemed to be enjoying the lifestyle thoroughly. Why couldn’t his father and his grandfather be satisfied?

Russ parked the cruiser in his driveway, went inside and poured his big tomcat Louie a bowl of cat food then snagged a beer on his way to the bedroom. He had pulled off his Sam Browne and had his uniform shirt halfway unbuttoned when his phone rang with the theme song from the old “Andy Griffith” show—it was the sheriff’s office. “Deputy Riley. What’s up?”

Russ was surprised to hear Sheriff Waller on the other end of the connection. “Sorry to call you when you’re off duty,” he said. “But there has been some kind of incident at Angie Baxter’s little soap shop over there close to you and every one of the on-duty deputies is tied up. Could you possibly get over there and see what’s going on? Verna said Miz Baxter sounded a little rattled and that Rory’s wife wanted her to report something.”

“I’m on it, sir,” Russ said, all thoughts of an evening of fishing forgotten as he re-buttoned his shirt and strapped his Sam Browne back around his hips. So Angie Baxter needed a deputy sheriff and it was going to be him. A part of him was not exactly looking forward meeting with the still-miffed little woman, and Russ wondered what kind of reception he would get from her. But hey, Angie Baxter was a beautiful woman; wasn’t the playboy side of him always up to the challenge?

*****

Angie Baxter stood at her work counter with her crinkle cutter and with careful, methodical precision cut a block of yesterday’s newly made soap into smaller, decorative bars. The top note of citrus blended with mint and sandalwood into a fresh, crisp but warm scent that filled the large workroom and imbued Angie’s skin and hair with its evocative fragrance.

Normally Angie reveled in her delicate perfumes but today she may as well have been in a feedlot for all the pleasure she took in the delightful aroma. Ever since this morning when she found the basket with the hateful message inside, she had been on autopilot. Her thoughts swirled around the basket of soaps and lotions—one of the baskets of soaps and lotions she put together and sold—with a picture of her and Wade taken at the last Fourth of July picnic. Wade was smiling at someone across the park the way he always did, but Angie had no idea from the photo what expression she might have been wearing—her face had been blacked out and “Angie must pay” was scrawled across the bottom of the photograph.

All day she tried to tell herself it was just a prank, someone trying to get her goat, but then her best friend Lisa Keller came by the shop, took one look at the picture, and went ballistic.

“Angie, are you kidding? With the history you have with that crazy Baxter bunch? You pick up that phone right now and call this in or I’ll call Rory myself.” For once her tall, redheaded friend was not smiling. “I’m serious, Angie. This constitutes a terroristic threat and yes, it’s against the law. You have to at least get it on record.” So Angie dutifully called the Verde County dispatcher and was standing here cutting and trimming bars of soap and waiting for Rory or one of his fellow deputies instead of sitting out on the Heaven’s Point beach watching the sun go down.

Why now? she thought as she looked down at her trembling fingers. It had been eleven years since hers and Wade’s testimony sent Buck Baxter to prison, eleven years since she sought and won custody of Wade and incurred the wrath of the entire Baxter clan.

Wade was grown now and Molly and the rest of the Baxters had finally put aside most of their hostility, and she had finally put her days as an overworked and underpaid hairdresser behind her and opened Angie’s Place. She was finally living the life she had dreamed of since she walked by her first cosmetics counter at the age of six.

So why had the past, if it was indeed the past, come back to haunt her now?

Angie put down her crinkle cutter and trimming knife when she heard the quiet purr of a police cruiser. She wiped her hands on her apron and blotted the perspiration off her forehead and went through her well-stocked little shop to unlock the front door.

“Oh, hell,” she murmured as she spotted Russ Riley emerging from the cruiser. Just what she needed—to have to deal with her hunky new neighbor from four houses down. If the rumors were correct, he had canoodled his way right out of Uncle Sam’s Army and was now making the rounds of the beds of Verde County.

Suddenly conscious of her day-old makeup and rumpled work clothes, she narrowed her eyes as Russ grabbed an electronic tablet from the seat beside him and strode up the steps. His uniform Stetson rode low on his forehead, and his muscular legs and world-class backside—the legs and backside she had admired more than once as he jogged by practically naked nearly every dang day—were tightly encased in his brown uniform pants and non-regulation black Western boots.

Although not overly tall, he walked with grace and ease and with the self-confidence of a much larger man, his broad shoulders riding above a muscular chest and washboard abs that were evident even in his uniform shirt. Bright blue eyes snapping with mischief stared out of a face that was rugged and squared off and maybe not quite as ridiculously handsome as she had first thought, but it was arresting in the lively play of expressions that danced across it. Thankfully his normally cocky, sexy grin was nowhere in evidence as he offered his hand.

“Good to see you again, Ms. Baxter,” he said as Angie shook his calloused fingers, his touch warm and firm and all too brief. “What seems to be the trouble?”

Angie felt herself strangely reluctant to release his hand. “I need to show you something,” she said as she motioned him through the small retail area and into her workroom, leading him through the workbenches and shelves stacked high with containers of lye, oils, and bottled perfume to an old kitchen table where the hated basket sat. “I found it on the steps this morning and tried all day to tell myself it’s nothing, but I can’t make myself believe that. And then Lisa saw it and said I had to call it in.” She pointed to the basket and the picture. “The basket is one of mine and the picture was tucked inside.”

Russ snapped on a pair of bright blue neoprene gloves then held up the picture and whistled under his breath. “I would say that your good buddy Lisa was right to have you report this.” He looked closely at the picture again. “Looks like the Heaven’s Point beach. Any idea when it was taken?”

“The Fourth of July picnic,” Angie said. She leaned in and pointed at someone in the background. “There’s Jason, your sister Emily’s fiancé,” she said. “That’s the only occasion that he and I have been together on that beach. And I remember wearing that outfit to the picnic.”

Russ looked down at the picture of her in the flattering pink shorts and T-shirt and Angie swore he was stifling a smile. “Do you remember who took this picture?”

Angie shook her head. “I wasn’t even aware it had been taken until this morning.” She turned anxious eyes on Russ. “Do you think it could be just a prank? Somebody out to scare me?”

Russ put the picture back down on the counter and turned to the basket. “Interesting that they should send their threat in one of your gift baskets,” he said. “Any idea how they got hold of one?”

“They could have gotten it anywhere,” Angie said. “I only sell about ten percent of my merchandise out of here. Most of my business is Internet sales and I also have soaps and baskets in gift shops in nearly every small town for about a hundred miles. I make up this particular basket for a chain of stores in Bandera, Marble Falls, Leander, and Fredericksburg. This could have been purchased at any one of those stores.” She reached out to touch the basket but Russ gently took her hand to stop her. “Oh. Fingerprints.”

“I don’t know if we can lift any but I want to try.” Without removing his gloves, he powered up his tablet. “Let me get some of this down. Full name.”

“Angela O’Brien Baxter.”

Russ entered her name and asked her for her exact house number. “Date of birth?”

“August fourteenth, nineteen eighty-one.” Russ’s eyes widened. “I’m thirty-four,” she added a little defensively.

Russ entered the date and then had Angie describe exactly where she had found the basket and picture. “Okay, we need to talk about who might be responsible for this,” Russ said. “Do you know of anyone who might bear you this kind of ill will?”

Angie thought a minute. The Baxters had borne her plenty of ill will in the past, but now? If she mentioned them to Russ he would have to at least talk to them and probably damage their fragile truce. “Honestly, Mr. Riley, I don’t know of anyone.”

Russ’s blue eyes were piercing. “Make it Russ. And are you absolutely sure about that? What about your ex-husband?”

“If you’ll make it Angie. And it couldn’t be him,” Angie said. “The bastard’s in the pen and will be for at least another nine years.”

“What about his family? Friends?”

Angie shrugged. “I don’t think so.” Or at least they didn’t act like it any more.

Russ asked her a few more questions and gathered up the basket and the defaced picture. “I’ll have these dusted for fingerprints, but since you and everybody else in the world has handled the basket I don’t think the chance of finding anything significant is particularly high. Picture might be another story. Can I take your prints so we can eliminate them right away?”

“Sure,” Angie said. Russ used his tablet to make quick work of getting her prints. He was easy and relaxed, not saying a thing that could be interpreted as flirtatious in any way, but he still managed to convey his appreciation of her as a woman by the look in his eyes and the teasing inflection of his voice. His fingers were warm and caressing as they gently pressed hers into the tablet. And his smile was temptation personified as he wished her a good evening and promised to return in the morning for a follow-up.

Damn him anyway, Angie thought irritably as she watched him get in the cruiser. He was cute and sexy and damned if she wasn’t attracted—very attracted—to the man. And considering that he was the new playboy of Verde County, he was absolutely the last man she wanted to feel that way about.

*****

Racy, Pistol, and Eagle Boy sat at the old farmhouse kitchen table and smiled as they consumed a plate of chicken-fried steak. “I wonder how Angie felt after finding her little delivery this morning,” Eagle Boy laughed.

“Scared to death, I hope,” Racy said. “But not as scared as she’s going to be when the real deliveries start. Tell me again why we didn’t sign the note. She doesn’t know Buck’s nicknames for us.”

“She might know mine,” Pistol said. “Besides, we don’t want to anything to alert the authorities that there are three of us working together. At least not at first.”

“We need to keep them off our tails long enough to put Angie out of business,” Eagle Boy said.

Racy sniffed back tears. “Damn her hide, anyway. It’s her fault Buck got sent up. She and that brat of hers.”

“Wasn’t Wade’s fault,” Pistol said quickly. Eagle Boy and Racy’s heads popped up and they glowered across the table. “Even if Wade did testify, Angie put him up to it. And now she has to pay for what she did.”

Racy turned confused eyes on Eagle Boy and Pistol. “I don’t understand why we don’t just kill her.”

“I could do it and never get caught,” Eagle Boy added quietly.

“No, that wouldn’t do at all,” Pistol snapped with a quick shake of the head. “A moment or two of fear and then sweet oblivion? Too easy, way too easy.” Pistol leaned forward, eyes glittering. “With the exception of Wade, Angie loves that damned business of hers more than anything else in the world. She’s dreamed about having it since she was a kid and busted her ass for years to get it going. So we take it away from her. She loses it, delivery by delivery, until she has nothing left. Just like Buck has nothing left.” Pistol picked up three soda straws—one short and two long. Arranging the straws so that the ends could not be seen, Pistol offered the straws to Eagle Boy and Racy. “Pick one and we’ll see who gets to make the next delivery.”

Eagle Boy and Racy both picked a straw. “Long,” Eagle Boy said. “Guess it won’t be me.”

“Long,” Racy said. “Not me, either.”

“Then I guess Angie gets the next delivery from me.” Pistol looked at the other two, suddenly solemn. “We need to do this for Buck. Before it’s too late.”