Ingrid Weaver - The Angel and the Outlaw

“What?”

“I intend to bring Oliver Sproule to justice myself.”

It took a moment for what he said to sink in. When it did, she surged forward and clasped his leg. She’d been right. She had found an ally. Maybe that’s why she didn’t fear him, and why she found him so…compelling. “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place? We can work together.”

His thigh muscles bunched beneath his jeans. He looked at where she touched him. “No.”

“Why not? I have my brother’s notebook. His last entry showed he was meeting someone at the nightclub who never showed up. Sproule killed him because he was getting too close. The D.A. said I didn’t have enough to prove anything in court but if you and I team up we could find more—”

“No.”

“Mr. Webb, please.” Her grip on his leg tightened. “We both want the same thing.”

“Sweetheart, you have no idea what I want.” He stood, breaking her hold. He shoved his chair backward. “This isn’t some personal vendetta for me. I’m going to see that Sproule ends up behind bars because I have no choice.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to. All you need to do is keep out of my way.”

She got to her feet too quickly. She staggered and grabbed his arm. “We can help each other. I don’t have much money left, but I’ll give you what I can.”

“I don’t want your money.”

She gave his arm a shake. “Adam was my only brother. Seeing his killer punished is all that my father lives for. I can’t quit now. I’ll do anything.”

“Careful what you promise, Hayley.”

“Mr. Webb, please.” She moved her grip to his shoulders, lifting herself on her toes so she could look into his face. “We’re on the same side.”

He regarded her in silence for a minute. A muscle in his cheek twitched as he brought his hand to her hair. He rubbed one mud-encrusted lock between his thumb and fingers until it softened. When he finally spoke, his voice had gentled. “We’re not on the same side, Hayley. We could never be.”

“Why not?”

He brushed her hair behind her ear, then grasped her wrists and pulled her hands from his shoulders. “If it was up to me, I’d let Oliver party on and enjoy his champagne.”

“But he murdered my brother.”

“Yeah.” Cooper let go of her and stepped back. “And your brother was the son of a bitch who put me in prison.”

Hayley flattened her palms against the tiles, dipped her head and let the spray from the shower sluice down the back of her neck. She didn’t know how long she’d been in here. The water was already turning cool. But she was far from feeling clean.

There was a film of grit on the bottom of the tub. Puffs of dirty lather speckled with some kind of flower petals swirled around her ankles. The shampoo bottle she’d emptied bobbed against the drain. It was running slow again. She hoped it wouldn’t back up. She wasn’t any good at fixing things like that and she couldn’t afford to call in a plumber. She shouldn’t have used up all the shampoo, either. The brand she preferred didn’t go on sale very often, but it was the only kind that didn’t leave her hair too brittle to comb.

Oh, God. She dropped her forehead against her arm, feeling an irrational urge to laugh. She was worrying about a clogged drain and the price of shampoo. Well, it was easier than thinking about how she had gotten dirty.

The storm, the mud, the gun…. It all seemed like a bad dream now, as if it had happened to someone else.

She hadn’t held a firearm for years, hadn’t wanted to go near one, but the moment she’d felt the weight of her father’s old Winchester settle into her palms, the lessons had all come back to her.

Keep your eye on your target. Breathe slow and easy. Concentrate and squeeze.

She had never liked hunting. She hadn’t gone since she was thirteen and had thrown up at the sight of her father bringing down a six-point buck. Her squeamishness had disappointed him. Everything about her had been a disappointment to him from the minute she’d been born. It was a mercy neither Adam nor their father had been at Sproule’s to witness her failure…

Oh, God. What was she thinking? Her brother was dead. The stroke her father had suffered at the news of Adam’s death was killing him one day at a time. That’s why they hadn’t been there. That’s why she had.

But even if she had succeeded, if she had pulled the trigger, she would have failed. Her father would have been devastated if she had sunk to the very level of the murderer she wanted to punish. Both he and Adam had devoted their lives to upholding the law. There was no excuse for what she had attempted. She had been crazy to pick up the gun in the first place.

She twisted the knobs to shut off the water, rattled the shower curtain aside and stepped out of the tub. The storm of the night before was over. A bright-pink dawn was breaking beyond the bathroom window. She wove her way through the piles of laundry that littered the floor, chose a towel that didn’t look too bad and began to blot herself dry.

She wasn’t crazy.

It was the world that was insane.

Like their father, Adam Tavistock had been a decorated police officer. He’d been almost twelve years older than Hayley and a larger-than-life hero whom she’d worshipped. Throughout his career he’d epitomized courage, honesty and dedication to his duty. He’d always been the apple of Dad’s eye, a chip off the old block.

But the very system Adam had sworn to uphold had turned a blind eye to justice and let his murderer go free. Oliver Sproule, with his network of theft, fraud and illegal gambling, had a stranglehold on Latchford. His wealth kept him above the law. Everyone knew it. No one wanted to admit it.

Except one man.

Cooper Webb. She understood why she hadn’t recognized him immediately. They had never actually been introduced. Fifteen years ago, he’d been a senior at Latchford High when she had been in her freshman year. Yet it hadn’t been only the age difference that had separated them. Cooper had been in with the tough crowd, the boys who hung around under the bleachers and shared cigarettes while they bragged about their cars and their girls. Like many of his friends, he had dropped out before he could graduate. She hadn’t seen him since.

If Hayley’s mother had been alive then, she probably would have warned her about boys like Cooper. Boys with ice-blue eyes and coal-black hair and that rebel glint in their smiles.

Except for his eyes, Cooper had changed. His smile had distilled to a sardonic twist of his lips. His features had been honed to uncompromising maleness. He no longer had the naughty charm of a teenage bad boy; he had the allure of a dangerous man.

Allure? That was too tame a word. His long, hard body, the lines beside his mouth and the cleft in his chin, the unruly black hair that curled at the nape of his neck, even that awful tattoo…the whole package practically oozed testosterone.

Hayley had been at rock bottom last night, yet she hadn’t been so far gone that she’d been oblivious to his appeal. It had been a normal physical reaction. No female, no matter how stressed out, could have failed to notice Cooper Webb.

But his physical appearance alone wasn’t what had made such an impact on her. It was the contradictions in his manner that had struck her the most. He had looked hard, yet his touch had been tender; he’d spoken bluntly yet his actions had been tinged with…chivalry.

She shook her head. He was an ex-con who was a bartender at a place she had never worked up the nerve to enter. Who knew what else he did to earn his income? Although her gut feeling told her he wasn’t as bad as he seemed, she had to be realistic. There was a possibility he might still be involved in crime to some extent.

A knight in shining armor he wasn’t. More like a lone wolf in a Metallica T-shirt.

And she wasn’t exactly fair-damsel material.

Hayley wiped the fog from the mirror over the sink with her forearm and stared at her reflection. The mud was gone, but she was still a mess. Not sleeping or eating regularly tended to do that. Over the past seven months she had thrown all her energy into proving Oliver guilty and praying her father lived long enough to see it. Her life had become a blur of vigils at the courthouse and visits to the nursing home. It was no mystery why the verdict had made her go off the deep end.

Cooper had seemed to understand. He hadn’t condemned her. He had regarded her attempt on Oliver’s life as an inconvenience rather than a sin.

She didn’t know how she felt about that. Sure, it was nice not to be judged—Lord knew, she’d been judged all her life and found wanting—but what kind of person could be so casual about something so wrong?

Then again, what did she know about ex-cons? Even less than she knew about the boys who hung around under the bleachers and smoked.

It had still been dark when Cooper had brought her home. The two-story Victorian where she had grown up was at the opposite end of town from his bar, on a street of large houses canopied by hundred-year-old maple trees. It was a safe, well-established neighborhood, yet Cooper had waited at the curb until she’d retrieved her spare key from the planter on the veranda and unlocked the front door. Even after she’d closed it behind her, she had heard the sound of his pickup idling in front of the house. It wasn’t until she had turned on the foyer light that she’d heard him drive away.

Considering the tense way their conversation had ended, she had planned to call a taxi, but he’d driven her home anyway. It was the same kind of concern he’d shown earlier, only he had denied it was concern.

He’d called her brother a son of a bitch and yet he claimed he wanted to bring Adam’s murderer to justice.

Why?

She tossed aside the towel, picked up a comb and started on her hair.

He’d said he had no choice. It didn’t make sense. He’d implied he was being forced to take her side even as he’d insisted that could never happen. He’d told her to back off and trust him to get Oliver.

She had been too shaken to argue last night. He must have taken her silence for agreement.

She was going to have to set the record straight.

“Sorry, ma’am. We don’t open until noon. It’s only eleven.”

“Yes, I know. I’m looking for someone. He said he works here.”

At the sound of the woman’s voice, Cooper snapped up his head to look across the room. Through the forest of upended chair legs he saw Pete Wyzowski, the Long Shot’s manager/bouncer, standing at the front entrance. Whoever he was talking to was hidden behind his bulk and the half-open door. He had one foot wedged firmly behind it. Since the door was constructed of oak planks over steel and Pete had a build like a bulldozer, no one smaller than a line-backer could hope to force their way inside.

“Come back in an hour,” Pete said.

“Please, it’s extremely important. He’s a bartender here.”

“A bartender?”

“His name is Cooper Webb.”

Pete placed one hand on the door frame to bar the narrow gap he’d allowed and twisted to look at Cooper. “A bartender?” he repeated. He lifted his eyebrows.

Cooper tossed his pen on the stack of credit-card receipts he’d been going through and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had hoped to have this paperwork done an hour ago. He hated paperwork. He stunk at math. If his schedule hadn’t been so tight, he might have welcomed the interruption.

“If he isn’t here yet, just tell me when you expect him.”