about how she would react to his information, facts that would likely separate them further if he implicated the gun club. Or her son. Well, if that was how it played out he’d take the chance anyway. This was for the raptor.
Besides, Meggie lived her own life now—though he’d observed her hire on as chief, watched her son, Beau, grow from a kid with freckles to a teenager with a bad-boy attitude.
Like you were at that age.
And he had watched Meggie date other men, even get serious about one four years ago.
Not that there hadn’t been women in Ethan’s life. He’d had his share and then some. Except none had ever measured up to dark-haired, blue-eyed, long-legged Chief Meggie.
Meg. That’s the name she used these days. Meg. Hard and headstrong. Huh. Well, she’d always be Meggie to him. Soft and sweet natured. The girl he remembered.
Heart pounding, he parked in front of the rectangular wooden structure that had been the police station for nearly two and half decades. Moments later he pulled open its door to walk into a room that took up most of the front length of the building. LED day lighting presented the brightness of July at noon.
She stood to the right, viewing a county map tacked to the wall with her second-in-command Gilby Pierce and dispatcher/secretary Sally Dunn. All three turned, pinning Ethan like the map they’d been scrutinizing.
Meggie’s eyes went wide, then she caught herself, and a smile Ethan knew was meant for the sake of her companions curved her mouth before she stepped forward.
For five long seconds he couldn’t inhale. Meggie.
“Mr. Red Wolf.”
Mr. Red Wolf. Fine. She wanted to playact, he’d give her one hell of a performance. “Chief McKee.”
Blue uniform crisp, gun slung on her belt, she was all cop in her approach. “Something we can do for you?”
He looked into those beguiling blue eyes. Well now, Meggie-girl. You’re finally looking at me for longer than sixty seconds. How’s it feel?
Hell. He had no delusion that she saw him; it was the probable complaint he’d come about that held her interest.
“There is. An eagle’s been shot on my property, and I’m wondering if it wasn’t for possible profit.”
Those fine, black brows he had traced with his mouth twenty years before arced. “Care to explain?”
“Tail and wing feathers missing. Bird’s over at Kell’s getting its thigh sewn up and its wing bones splinted.”
“It’s alive?”
“Barely.”
She studied him for a moment, assessing his words while he assessed her. Her dark chocolate hair, worn in a neat bob, was shorter than his by several inches. She wore no lipstick, very little rouge, and her gaze was direct in a way it hadn’t been when she was a girl. Regret coursed through him at the sight of the hair-fine lines caging those same eyes. She’d had her share of heartache, he surmised. Hell, maybe she still mourned for her ex—the renowned Dr. Doug Sutcliffe—these six years. Ethan shoved away the notion. Meggie thinking about a man bothered him for reasons he did not want to investigate, especially when she was no longer his. Never had been, Ethan.
“Why don’t you step into my office?” Turning, she led him down a short hallway to a cluttered room with a long wooden desk supporting a computer. Several filing cabinets filled the right wall while the left held another county map, a half-dozen Wanted posters, and a corner window with—irony of ironies—a view of Blue Mountain.
Daily those lake-blue eyes saw the terrain where he lived.
Where she lived a shout away.
Did that ever cross her mind?
“Have a seat.” All business, she shut the door behind them.
Ethan took the only chair free of file folders. Mere feet from his knees, she hiked a slim hip on her desk and crossed her arms. “Where’d you find the bird?”
“Across the water from my place. On the shore,” he added and observed her pinpoint the area in her mind, remembering spots where, as high school sweethearts, they had done their share of kissing.
“Anyone been using the rifle range without your knowledge?” she asked.
“The range doesn’t exist anymore, as you know.” After the town’s rental lease had expired last spring, he’d demolished the target hill and shooting stalls, removed the obstacle course used for the annual Mounted Shoot. He had wanted no part remaining of the thirty-year-old range his grandfather founded. In its place Ethan was creating a healing-horse retreat where troubled kids could find a little peace. Kids like he’d once been.
But his plans were not her affair.
“I’m well aware the range is gone,” Meggie replied. “However, that doesn’t mean people won’t try to use those twenty acres.” A corner of her mouth lifted. “Old habits die hard. I was wondering if some folks still consider the field open for target practice.”
“I’ve posted No Trespassing signs.” He shifted his booted foot several inches from her police-issued shoe. “But you’re right. It doesn’t rule out the mayor’s gun cronies.”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “What are you saying, Ethan?”
An air balloon’s torch whooshed through him. The last time his name crossed her lips…Hell, he couldn’t recall.
“I’m saying I’ve seen hunters on Blue Mountain.” And one of them was your son.
She slipped off the desk, walked around to her chair. “Who?” she asked, her fingers easy on the computer’s keyboard. All police business now.
“Couple kids.”
Her head swung around. “With rifles?”
“Twenty-twos.”
“I need names, Ethan.”
Ethan again. Twice in less than sixty seconds. “Randy Leland, Linc’s boy and the mayor’s grandson—”
“I know the Lelands,” she retorted. Her eyes softened. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap. It’s just…Let’s say it doesn’t surprise me.”
Of course it didn’t. Linc Leland and Jock Ralston—and sometimes her second-in-command Gilby Pierce—had blighted Ethan’s high school years, and Meggie, his noble, valiant Meggie, had tried to install herself as his shield. Until he’d had to physically fight Linc and Jock—and get his nose busted—to prove himself.
He gave her a half beat. “I also saw your son.”
“Beau?” Her pupils pinpricked. “With Randy? When?”
“Last weekend.” Labor Day weekend. “Sunday to be exact. They were popping shots at deadwood on my land.”
She typed in his response. “Did you talk to them?”
He hesitated. Her son hadn’t welcomed Ethan’s intrusion. “I told them to use the range at Livingston or Bozeman, that they were on private property now.” Her son had shrugged and said something about how Old Man O’Conner never gave a rat’s ass before, why should Ethan?
He’d told the boy if he didn’t get his ass off the property right quick, he’d find it hauled down to the chief’s office. Or words to that effect. The kid had laughed.
“Did they leave?” Meggie asked.
“They did.” Just to be sure, he’d followed them until they were in Beau’s Chevy pickup and roaring down the dirt road that wound around the lake and hooked up with the pavement to Sweet Creek’s town proper.
“Was that the only time you saw the kids on your land?”
“Beau was there