LITMIR.BIZ

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to offer, or do you want to tell me what’s really going on here?”

      Hadley grumbled under her breath as she coaxed her ailing pickup truck all the way into town. She pulled into the lot beside Stu’s garage and gathered up all the items that were still strewn across the seat, replacing them in her purse. Then she went into the small office that her brother used when he was in town working at the garage. Some might have thought it odd that Stu Golightly was a rancher and ran the town’s only auto-body and repair shop. Personally, she considered it a great convenience. And the darned man better not have the nerve to bill her for the repairs, either, since it was his own fault she’d been so preoccupied.

      The tow truck bearing the crumpled old convertible was parked near the closed bay door, and she carefully looked away from the wreckage and went inside.

      It was nearly quitting time, but Riva was still sitting behind the counter painting her fingernails a putrid shade of blue and didn’t even look up until Hadley plopped her keys next to the woman’s splayed fingers.

      Riva popped her gum, her penciled-in eyebrows lifting. She was seventy if she was a day, but that didn’t stop Riva from keeping “fashionable,” as she called it.

      “Guess you had a little problem today,” she observed. “What’d you hit?”

      Hadley told her. “I’m afraid Stu will be busy with that old car there first, though.”

      Riva cackled at that and nodded her bright-pink head. “That he will. Your brother’s gonna wet his pants when he gets a chance to work on a piece of heaven like that. You probably oughta just go talk to your insurance agent about the claim now. Won’t be pretty, I expect.”

      “Actually, we’re handling our own damages,” Hadley said, mentally crossing her fingers that this would still be the case. Unless her stubborn brother made Wood mad enough to rescind the offer.

      Atwood Tolliver. That definitely could not be the name of a car thief, right? It sounded so old-fashioned. So upstanding. And the man himself had seemed so… so—

      “You going to stand there and daydream all day?” Riva’s voice finally penetrated, and Hadley flushed a little, marshaling her thoughts. “Heard that you pulled right in front of him out near Stu’s place.”

      “Nothing like the Lucius grapevine to get the word spread,” Hadley murmured.

      “So why’s he willing to pay his own damages on a car like that?”

      Hadley looked over her shoulder, through the somewhat grimy window to the tow truck outside.

      “Like what? That car’s even older than my pickup.”

      Riva snapped her gum and shook her head. “Honey, it is a mystery to me how you can have a brother who knows cars the way he does, and be as oblivious as you are.” She poked her nail polish brush back into the bottle, drew out a fresh batch of blue and slid it over her half-inch long nails. “That’s a ’68 Shelby GT500 convertible. It won’t be cheap to fix.”

      Hadley looked again out the window. Down the street a ways, Shane’s SUV had pulled to a stop in front of the sheriff’s office. “It’s valuable then?” Her voice sounded too weak for her liking, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. Besides, she’d known Riva since she was barely out of kindergarten.

      “Think they only made 500 or so of them.”

      Oh. Dear. Hadley’s stomach sank. No wonder her brother was leery of Wood. “Shane wanted me to meet him at his office. Guess I’d better go.”

      Riva looked up at her after she just stood there, though. “Might help some if you open the door, child, and actually move your feet in the right direction.”

      Hadley smiled weakly and went back out into the late afternoon. Her boots dragged a little as she passed the tow truck. She eyed the lines of the vehicle. Okay, so it was kind of a sexy old car….

      If it hadn’t been crumpled down by a third of its size, maybe.

      She exhaled and hurried her step, jogging across the street. One of the old-fashioned streetlamps flicked on as she passed it. Another hour or so, and it would be dark outside. She quickened her pace. She still had things to take care of at Tiff’s.

      The bell over Shane’s door jingled when she went inside his office. Carla Chapman, Shane’s secretary-dispatcher-everything-else jerked her head toward Shane’s cubicle behind her. “He’s waiting for you,” she said.

      Great. She loved her brother dearly, but the man had a distinct ability to make her feel as if she were being called down to the principal’s office.

      It was warm inside and she unbuttoned her jacket, sliding it from her shoulders as she entered Shane’s cubicle.

      Wood was not sitting in either of the two chairs situated in front of Shane’s massive metal desk. She dropped her jacket and purse on the desk and leaned toward him. “You locked him up, didn’t you.” Her voice was accusing.

      He pointedly moved her belongings to one side, off his paperwork. “Sit down. You still need to sign the report.”

      “That’s not an answer.”

      He lifted an eyebrow. “He’s in a cell,” he allowed after a moment.

      “Shane!” She sat down, dismayed more than was wise. “For not having his driver’s license? That’s ridiculous. I’m sure he has one, he just didn’t have it with him.”

      “Try bribery, then.”

      “Bri—” Her voice choked. “He did not.”

      Her brother shrugged. “Guess he had no room in his pocket for the license what with all that cash he was carrying,” Shane said dryly. “And you’ve always been a trusting little soul.”

      “Makes me sound like I’m seven instead of twenty-seven.” She took the pen he extended and signed her name at the bottom of the accident report. “You haven’t locked up everyone who forgot their driver’s license at home.”

      “Fortunately today she learned to take her purse or wallet with her when she left the house.” He looked sideways at her purse, assuring her that, yes, he was referring to her.

      Darn his memory, anyway.

      “You’re being unreasonable.”

      He sat back and propped one boot heel over his knee. “Our Mr. Tolliver’s got quite the public defender in you.” The toe of his boot tapped the air twice. “Wonder why?”

      “Look. If Stu… and you… weren’t so determined to hitch me to Wendell Pierce’s wagon, none of this would have happened. That poor man would have driven right through Lucius on his way to, to wherever, and that would be that. He was just an—

      “Innocent bystander,” Shane put in, amused.

      “Yes!”

      He dropped his foot back to the floor and sat forward, arms on the desk. His amusement faded. “Doesn’t work that way, turnip. Until I know that car’s not stolen, he’s not going anywhere.”

      She eyed him, but knew there was no moving Shane when his mind was set. “Dad says that stubbornness is not a blessing.”

      “Dad says a lot of things,” Shane agreed mildly.

      Frustrated, she snatched up her belongings and turned on her heel.

      “Where are you going?”

      “Back to see your poor prisoner!” She strode down the tiled hallway. The Lucius Sheriff Office housed a total of five cells and it was a rare day when even one was called into use. Shane was probably just bored and wanted to test the strength of the iron bars or something.

      She turned the corner and stopped. Her breath sucked back up into her chest and a squiggle of something unfamiliar dipped in her stomach. Wood was

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