Salvation in the Sheriff's Kiss(60)

Meredith stood and walked to the window, peering down the street to the jailhouse. It was difficult to keep her mind on business today. Her body still sang from the pleasures Hunter took it to last night. It hadn’t been her intent when she’d gone over there. She had simply sought a safe place. Funny that he was the only one she’d thought of to provide that. Maybe even then her heart knew she could trust him.

“Meredith?”

“Hmm?” She turned around, embarrassed to be caught woolgathering. “I’m sorry, Bertram. I guess my mind is on something else today.”

The old lawyer’s gaze drifted to the window, his sharp eyes missing little. “Something or someone?”

She kept her lips pursed and tried not to grin like a fool. They still had much to overcome before there was anything worth celebrating. She needed to remember that and not get ahead of herself.

“Hunter said the new judge is expected to arrive this week?”

Bertram’s expression turned grave. “Yes, I heard the same thing.”

She let out a slow breath. “Bill’s running out of time, isn’t he?”

“I’m afraid so. I expect the trial will begin on Monday.”

Her happiness from last night dimmed. “Maybe that will jolt him into hiring counsel.”

“Don’t hold your breath on that account. I stopped in to see him earlier this morning. He hasn’t budged in that regard.”

“Why is he being so stubborn?”

“I’ve no idea what that fool has up his sleeve.”

Meredith crossed her arms and hugged herself. “You think he’s going to slip away in the night, don’t you?”

Bertram smiled and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Meredith didn’t share Bertram’s optimism, however. “I don’t think Hunter’s willing to let that happen.” He’d had men on watch around the clock since Bill’s incarceration. Maybe if they could expose the Syndicate before the trial began, Bill would stand a better chance of getting off. Otherwise, chances of him getting out of this alive were slim to none.

Time was running out.



“What you doing in here, boy?”

Hunter glanced up from the ledgers he’d splayed across Vernon’s desk. His father stood in the doorway, leaning heavily against his cane.

“Trying to convince myself you’re not the bastard everyone believes you are.” As much sway as Vernon held in Salvation Falls, it was not wrought from respect. He simply bullied people into doing his bidding, supporting his opinions. If they complied, they profited. If they didn’t...well, Abbott Connolly was a cautionary tale.

“Can’t imagine how that gives you the right to rummage through my things. You want to explain that?” His father’s voice held a sharp edge.

“How about you explain to me what these are?” Hunter waved his hands at the hardbound red ledgers resting on top of the desk.

Before striking out on his own, Hunter had helped keep his father’s books. But these weren’t them. These were kept in Vernon’s hand and dated back ten years. Each book serviced one year, the last one dated the year before Abbott Connolly’s trial. None appeared to have a page torn out of them, but all were written in the same undecipherable code as Meredith’s page.

The page he had taken without telling her.

It was the handwriting that had caught his attention. He’d recognize his father’s scratchy penmanship anywhere, but still, he hoped he’d been wrong, that he would find something to refute the growing certainty in his gut.

He’d turned his father’s study inside out, looking in every nook and cranny. It wasn’t until he noticed one of the desk drawers didn’t run as deep as it should that he’d discovered a false bottom, and the stack of ledgers hidden within. Ledgers that had nothing to do with the business of the ranch.

His father was involved with the Syndicate.

Hunter wanted to reject the idea. His father was no saint, of that he had no doubt. He’d spent the better part of his adult life obsessed with a woman he couldn’t have and making everyone else around him miserable in the process. He’d lashed out at Hunter’s mother for not being Vivienne and tried to destroy Abbott for having won her love. But this...this was so much more.

This was a hanging offense.

“Those are none of your business. You walked away from this, remember?”

“I’m not here as your son,” he said. “I’m here as the sheriff. What do these ledgers pertain to?”

Hunter had suspected from his last visit, but he’d dismissed the idea, not wanting to believe it. Now, he had no choice. But nor did he have any solid proof. The ledgers on their own meant nothing and Vernon knew it.