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he reasoned, amiable but serious, “I would hate to have to run one of my own deputies in for drunk-and-disorderly and creating a public nuisance, but I’ll do it, by God, I’ll throw you straight into the hoosegow if you keep this up.”

      At the periphery of his vision, Hutch saw Amy Jo and the rest of the Brylee contingent quietly gather their purses and other assorted gear and trail out of the tavern. Probably a wise decision, given the incendiary mood McQuillan was creating.

      “Arrest me?” the deputy bellowed. Treat never had known when to keep his mouth shut, which was part of his problem. “I’m the victim here! I was assaulted!”

      “We’ll discuss that,” Boone assured him, “but not until you calm down.”

      “I’d have knocked you on your ass, too, McQuillan,” a male voice contributed from somewhere in the dwindling crowd. “You can’t expect any different when you grab on to a woman in a goddamn cowboy bar!”

      “Harley,” Boone said, recognizing the speaker immediately, and without looking away from McQuillan’s bloody, temper-twisted face, “shut up.”

      Hutch, looking on, privately agreed with Harley. Manhandling a lady was asking for trouble pretty much anywhere, but square in the middle of cowboy-central, it was close to suicidal.

      Just the same, he positioned himself at Boone’s left side, not quite in his space but close enough to jump in if the shit hit the fan.

      Boone slanted a brief glance in his direction. “You involved in this?” he asked.

      Hutch folded his arms, rocked back slightly on his heels. “Now Boone, I am downright insulted by that question. I just happened to be here, that’s all.”

      Boone’s expression remained skeptical, but only mildly so. He sighed heavily. “Come on, Treat,” he said to his disgruntled deputy. “I’ll give you a lift over to the hospital, get them to check you out, and take you home. No way you’re in any condition to drive.”

      Treat was all bristled up, like a little rooster with his feathers brushed in the wrong direction. “I’d rather walk,” he replied coldly. Boone might have been McQuillan’s boss, but he was also the man who’d trounced him at the polls last Election Day and he clearly wasn’t over the disappointment. McQuillan had wanted to be sheriff from the time he was little, never mind that he was constitutionally unsuited for the job.

      “Whatever you say, Treat,” Boone responded. “But leave your rig right where it’s parked until morning.”

      “I’ll be filing charges against Walker Parrish as soon as the courthouse opens,” McQuillan maintained, but he was on the move as he spoke, headed for the doors.

      The onlookers finally lost all interest and dispersed, going back to their pool playing and their beer drinking and their armchair quarterbacking.

      Boone turned to Hutch. “What happened here?” he asked.

      The incident, though it had already drifted into the annals of history, still chapped Hutch’s hide a little. He wasn’t in love with Brylee Parrish, but standing around watching while some drunken bastard strong-armed her into something she didn’t want to do went against his grain in about a million ways.

      Hutch told Boone the story, leaving out the part about how he’d meant to go after McQuillan himself but Walker had stepped in and thrown a punch of his own.

      “Well,” Boone said on a long breath, “that’s fine. That’s just fine. Because if McQuillan doesn’t cool off overnight—and experience tells me that won’t happen—I’ll probably have to charge Walker with assault.”

      “Come on,” Hutch protested. “I told you what happened—McQuillan brought that haymaker on himself.”

      Boone was on his way toward the exit and Hutch, tired of the bar, tired of just about everything, followed. “Walker had the right to defend his sister,” the sheriff allowed quietly, over one shoulder, “but he took it too far. He’s half again McQuillan’s size and whatever my personal opinion of old Treat might be, he is a sworn officer of the court. Landing a punch in the middle of his face, though a sore temptation at times, I admit, is a little worse in the eyes of the law than if Walker had decked, say, for instance—you.”

      They were in the parking lot by then. The lights on top of Boone’s squad car still splashed blue and white over everything around them in dizzying swirls.

      “He’s welcome to try,” Hutch said, hackles rising again. Did everybody, even his best friend, think he had a fat lip and a shiner coming to him just because he hadn’t gone through with the wedding?

      Boone opened his cruiser door, leaned in and shut off the lights, which was a relief to Hutch, who was starting to get a headache. “Go home, Hutch,” Boone said. “I’ve got one loose cannon on my hands in Treat McQuillan and I don’t need another one.”

      “I’m not breaking any laws,” Hutch pointed out, putting an edge to the words. There it was again, somebody telling him where to go, what to do. Damn it, the last time he looked, he’d still lived in a free country.

      “True,” Boone agreed. “But if Walker hadn’t gotten to McQuillan first, you’d have clocked him yourself, and don’t try to claim otherwise, because I know you, Hutch. You’ve got pissed-off written all over you, and if you hang around town on the lookout for trouble, you’re bound to find some.” The sheriff sighed again. “It’s my job to keep the peace and I mean to do it.”

      Hutch’s strongest instinct was to dig in his heels and stand up for his rights, even if Boone was making a convoluted kind of sense. And it still stung a little, remembering how Walker had gotten in his way back there when McQuillan crossed the line with Brylee. He felt thwarted and primed for action at the same time—not a promising combination.

      Before he could say anything more, though, Boone changed the subject in midstream by announcing, “My boys are coming for a visit. Spending the Fourth of July weekend with me.”

      Hutch went still. Grinned. “That’s good,” he said, pleased. Then, after a pause, “Isn’t it?”

      “Hell, no, it isn’t good,” Boone answered, looking distracted and miserable. “That trailer of mine isn’t fit for human habitation. I wouldn’t know what to feed them, or what time they ought to go to bed, or how much television they should be allowed to watch—”

      Hutch laughed, and it was a welcome tension-breaker. The muscles in his neck and shoulders relaxed with a swiftness that almost made him feel as though he’d just downed a double-shot of straight whiskey.

      “Then maybe you ought to clean the place up a little,” he suggested. “As for bedtime and TV, well, it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure those things out. These are kids we’re talking about here, Boone, not some alien species nobody knows anything about.”

      Boone ground some gravel under the toe of his right boot. “That’s easy enough for you to say, old buddy, since you don’t have to do a damn thing except share your infinite wisdom with regard to parenting.”

      Hutch slapped Boone’s shoulder. “What if I told you, old buddy, that if you can take a day or two off from sheriffing, I’ll come over and help you dig out?”

      Boone narrowed his eyes. “You’d do that?”

      Hutch pretended injury. “You doubt me? You, who was almost the best man at my almost wedding?”

      Boone eased up a little himself, even chuckled, albeit hoarsely. “I’ll have to deal with McQuillan, one way or the other, but I can take tomorrow off and part of the next day, too.”

      “Fine,” Hutch said. “Give me a call when you’re ready to start and I’ll be at your place with a couple of machetes and some dynamite.”

      Boone laughed, this time for real. “Machetes and dynamite?” he echoed, taking mock

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