Chapter Fourteen
Cullen sipped his coffee while he stared out Leigh’s kitchen window. It was a good view of the frost-covered pastures, the barn and the horses.
Leigh had set up automatic feed dispensers, probably because of the long hours she often worked, and he’d heard talk that she had part-time help for the chores that came with running a small horse ranch. But for this morning, they had the place to themselves.
That’s why he’d found it damn hard to leave her bed.
However, Cullen had forced himself away from her and into the shower. Then, into the kitchen so he could give her some thinking time. He fully expected when she came to her senses that she’d tell him they’d made a huge mistake by having sex. And maybe they had. But at the moment it felt like something he wanted to continue doing beyond just this time together. First though, they had to find a killer and stop him or her from coming after them again.
He continued to sip coffee, and then saw Leigh. Not in the house but headed toward the pasture. Since she hadn’t come through the kitchen, she’d likely gone out through the patio doors off her bedroom.
Wearing a bulky buckskin work coat, she stopped at the pasture fence, and a bay mare immediately came to her. Leigh ran her hand over the horse and murmured something. Even though Cullen couldn’t hear what she said, he smiled. Obviously, they had common ground when it came to their love of horses.
His smile faded though when he remembered that it wasn’t a good idea for her to be out in the open like that. Not with a killer on the loose. A killer who favored taking shots at them. Cullen grabbed his coat and went to join her.
The sun was out, making everything look as if it’d been doused with diamond dust, but the cold air still had a sting to it. His boots crunched on the ice-crusted grass, and it was that sound that likely alerted her, because with her hand still stroking the mare, Leigh turned to look at him.
“I know,” she said before he could speak. “I shouldn’t be out here. But being around the horses helps me clear my mind.”
He smiled again. Yeah, they had common ground all right.
“This is Buttercup,” Leigh said, introducing him to the mare. “And that’s Smoky and Honey.” She tipped her head to two other horses, who were also heading their way. “If they’d caught a stranger’s scent, they would let me know about it. Like now.” All three horses were snorting and whinnying.
Well, they weren’t as good as guard dogs in sending up an alarm, but it was better than nothing.
Because he wanted the taste of her, Cullen moved closer and brushed his mouth over hers. That also got him some attention from the mare, who gave his arm a nudge. He gave her a quick rub, then lingered a moment longer on the kiss with Leigh.
Leigh eased back, her eyes partly closed and a dreamy look on her face. Obviously, the kiss had been just as potent for her as it was for him. But potency aside, being out here was too dangerous. Cullen hooked his arm around Leigh to lead her back to the house. He considered trying to coax her to bed, but they’d barely made it inside the kitchen when her phone rang.
“It’s Vance,” she said, answering and putting the call on speaker.
Since this almost certainly had something to do with the investigation, Cullen was very interested in what the deputy had to say.
“Just got off the phone with the crime lab,” Vance explained. “It’s not good news. The fingerprint on the SUV is too smudged for them to get a match.”
Leigh didn’t groan, probably because she’d already considered that might be the outcome. She shucked off her coat and put it on the peg by the door. Cullen did the same.
“I want you to put out the word that the print isn’t smudged and that the crime lab believes they’ll be able to get a match from the database,” she told Vance after a short pause. “Tell everyone you know because I want word to get back to the killer. But also alert the lab so they’ve got full security in place in case the killer tries to eliminate the evidence.”
“Will do,” Vance assured her.
Cullen could help with that, too, and he fired off a quick text to Austin. He told Austin that it was good news, that the killer might soon be ID’d. If Austin was guilty and did indeed try to destroy evidence against him, then he’d be caught. That still felt like a heavyweight’s punch, but it was better than having Austin come after Leigh.
“I’ll be in the office soon,” Leigh added to Vance a moment later. She ended the call, but before she could put her phone away, it rang again.
“Cash,” she said, glancing at the screen. The muscles stirred in her jaw. “I’m not going to tell him about Jeb. Not over the phone. I’ll pay him a visit to give him the news.”
That made sense, and her tone let Cullen know that her father’s illness was weighing on her. Despite the rift between them, she almost certainly still loved him.
As she’d done with Vance, Leigh put the call on speaker while she helped herself to a cup of coffee. “Please tell me you found the shooter,” Leigh greeted her brother.
“No,” Cash answered after a huff. “And I’m about to add another complication to your murder investigation.”
“What happened?” Leigh demanded.
“I’d better start with what didn’t happen,” Cash explained. “Kali didn’t have a break-in, and she didn’t run into the woods because she was afraid. During the interview, she broke down and admitted that it was all staged. She claimed she knew Austin was coming over because he’d texted her and said he was. So, she told me that she set up her injury to leave the blood drops, and then she ran and hid so it’d make him sick with worry.”
Leigh groaned and set her coffee aside so she could scrub her hands over her face. “And what about the shooter?”