Read Online A Lawman's Justice (Sweetwater Ranch Book 8) by Delores Fossen - Free Book Online Page B

sent her colliding right into him. They’d had some experience dodging each other, but this time Shelby didn’t
dodge
. She stayed put, melting against Seth while she slid her arm around him.
    She smelled good, like shampoo, soap and mint toothpaste. He’d never considered those scents to be major turn-ons, but like her underwear, they seemed to be now.
    “Don’t tell me this is dangerous,” she argued. “Everything about us right now is dangerous.”
    He couldn’t argue with that. They’d had enough bad news to last a couple lifetimes, and whether he wanted it or not, it felt good to have Shelby in his arms.
    And it felt bad, too.
    Very, very bad.
    That should have been enough for Seth to step back. Especially when Shelby stared up at him. No tears in her pale gray eyes. Just that worried look followed by a different kind of look that he’d come to recognize.
    Oh, man. Not this.
    Not with her wearing only that skimpy robe and smelling fresh from the shower.
    Seth was cursing that look, but he should have been cursing himself. Because he was the one who made things a thousand times worse by taking his grip off her wrist and moving his hand to the back of her neck. Dragging her closer. Until he lowered his head and put his mouth to hers.
    Now he had a different reason to curse himself. Because with just a touch the fire came. Not a little spark, either. This was a full blast of heat that he darn sure didn’t want. Not with Shelby anyway.
    Did that stop him?
    No, and it sure as heck didn’t stop her.
    Shelby did her own share of gripping. Pulling him closer. And deepening the kiss. As if it needed any deepening. It already felt like scalding-hot foreplay and perhaps would have turned into just that.
    If his phone hadn’t rang.
    Seth welcomed the sound as much as he welcomed the long breath that he pulled into his air-starved lungs. However, that welcome feeling didn’t last long when he saw Cooper’s name on the screen.
    “I need good news,” Seth snapped when he answered. News that would put an end to these close quarters with Shelby.
    “I’m sorry,” Cooper said, sounding genuine. And upset. “But there’s been another murder. This time it’s someone Shelby knows.”
    * * *
    S HELBY SPOTTED THE crime scene tape the moment Seth took the turn onto the dirt road that led to her father’s hunting cabin. The very place he’d been murdered twenty-three years ago.
    Now, according to Cooper, another body was inside. Marcel Haggerty, a ranch hand who’d worked for her family for four decades. Someone had murdered him. Sliced him up with a butcher knife.
    “You don’t have to do this,” Seth reminded her again when he pulled to a stop next to a pair of police cruisers and the CSI van. Yet another car was parked next to it.
    So many people.
    So many memories.
    She’d been eight years old when her father’s blood had been found here. Only eight when her world had come crashing down around her. Some of those memories continued to crash right now. It was the same sickening dread that she got every time she laid eyes on the cabin. Her imagination was too good, and Shelby could almost see the nightmarish struggle that had left her father dead.
    “You don’t have to do this,” Seth repeated. This time there was a bite to his voice, probably because he’d seen the color drain from her face.
    “I want to ID the body. I owe Marcel that.”
    “You can’t actually go in the cabin anyway. It’s a crime scene. And you might not be able to see enough to do the ID.”
    Part of her wished that she wouldn’t see
enough
, but Shelby had the sickening feeling that she would see a lot more than she wanted. “I’m doing this,” she insisted.
    Judging from the look Seth gave her, he still didn’t approve, but he didn’t stop her. In fact, he stayed right by her side, giving her the moral support she needed but wasn’t sure she wanted from him. He probably didn’t want to give that moral support, either, but their