The Colton Sheriff

The joke had him smiling a little bit, but it couldn’t penetrate the heavy pall that seemed to weigh over him. They’d met at her office in Roaring Springs, then walked through downtown toward the southern end of the main drag. The upper end was reserved for any number of high-end shops and elite restaurants, but Aisha preferred the hipper and more eclectic choices at the south end. Besides, it was a pretty summer night to walk and she was going to need every step she could find after her enchilada fest wrapped up.

She picked up her margarita and considered a new tack. The lighthearted joking wasn’t working. And she knew that stubborn, settled look on his handsome face. Left to his own devices, he’d brood into his beer for the next two hours.

Which meant fixing his mood called for special measures. Time to activate Officer Do-Right.

“The press showed up today.”

“What? Where?”

“At my office. Some enterprising reporter read the notes of Tuesday evening’s meeting and decided to come grill me on the murders.”

“They had no right to do that to you.” He slammed his beer on the table, his golden-brown eyes narrowing. “No right at all.”

“Which is why I handled it and called for support in the form of the Roaring Springs police.”

“You didn’t call me. You didn’t even tell me.”

“I’m telling you now,” she murmured.

“It’s not the same—”

She lifted a finger, silencing him. “See how it feels?”

Recognition dawned, chasing the lingering anger from those golden depths. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s incredibly not fair. And it’s not what friends do. And for the record, I would have told you but I had a few patient emergencies that kept me occupied with necessary paperwork until about five minutes before you showed up. So.” She took a sip of her margarita, savoring the cold tartness on her tongue. “Your turn. Tell me about the visit from the chief lackey.”

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“What happened? What did they say? Are they going to send the Feds in like you worried about?”

That had become his most recent fear as the situation with the Avalanche Killer spun out. In addition to battling Barton Evigan and the overarching sentiment of the townspeople, Trey was worried about how far the FBI would throw its influence around.

This was his turf. His county and his people to protect. The Feds might want a big score, putting a deranged killer in prison, but she knew that Trey wanted justice for his constituents. He wanted them to feel safe and secure.

Was there anything sexier?

The thought slammed into her, unbidden, and with it Aisha shot a wary glance at her margarita. She’d taken only a few sips and her brain had already shifted to images of Trey in full warrior-protector mode.

It was one of her favorite fantasies and it usually involved the man shirtless, gun in hand, as he patrolled the streets of Roaring Springs like a Wild West sheriff keeping law and order. It was silly and stupid and she felt the blush creeping up her neck at the erotic images that had suddenly taken over her thoughts.

And her body, if the tension curling low in her belly was any indication.

“Aish? You okay?”

“Sure. Fine.”

“You don’t seem fine.”

“It’s the margarita. It’s strong tonight and I didn’t get lunch due to my surprise visitors.”

The diversion had its desired impact, his curiosity over her flushed skin taking a back seat to the press intrusion. “I really am sorry about that.”

“It’s fine. It’s over and I lived to tell the tale.” She reached for her margarita again and took a tentative sip. “Which is more than I can say for the reporters who were chased off with their tails between their legs.”

“You looked positively maniacal when you said that.”

“I feel that way. Their presence disrupted my patients. The people who come to me in their quiet moments of need don’t deserve that.”

“No, they don’t.” Trey agreed.

And there it was, Aisha thought. They might feel the same way about the situation—even be angry about it—but they’d battle it together. “I told. Now it’s your turn. What happened this morning?”

“I don’t appreciate being caught off guard and it was a one hundred percent sneak attack.”

She nodded as she lifted a small fingertip of salt from the rim of her margarita. “It sounded like it from your texts.”

“It wasn’t his presence so much as what he said.”

Aisha wanted to be supportive but the unexpected ambush was one more example of all the ways Trey’s case had gotten out of hand. Did the governor think Trey was hiding something? Or worse, was he convinced the pressure of an in-person visit—from a subordinate, no less—would light a fire under one of the best sheriffs in all the state?

Because if there was ever anyone who had self-motivation down to a T, it was Trey Colton. The man lived and breathed his job and to have a stand-in for the governor just show up... It was insulting.

“You’re getting all flushed again.”

“This time I’m mad.”

“What were you before?”

Caught, Aisha wanted to say. But she bit her tongue at the last minute and pointed toward her drink. “Adjusting to the tequila.”

“Oh.”

He lifted a lone eyebrow at her, wiggling it before picking up his beer again. “We got off on a weird foot tonight.”

“You think?”

“I know. So let’s try again.” He put down his beer. “Aisha. How was your day?”

“Crummy. Yours?”

“The worst,” he said.

“Anything I can do to help?”

She might have left her poker face about three blocks away, but Trey’s wasn’t very visible, either. That same shell-shocked expression she’d seen off and on since he’d picked her up flashed once more, and for the first time Aisha began to worry.

What had happened earlier? Did the governor have information on the killer? Something known only to him?

“Trey. Come on, enough of this. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I think maybe we should get married.”

* * *

As proposals went, it was clumsy and stupid and just all-around bad. He wasn’t the smoothest guy on the planet, but he usually had more common sense than blurting out whatever was lodged in his head, drilling at his brain matter like a jackhammer.

The only problem was, he’d thought of little else since the governor’s lackey left his office. The gym hadn’t helped. Three hours of paperwork hadn’t helped. And a jaunt swiping left through his online dating app hadn’t helped, either.

All he could think about was asking Aisha to be his fiancée. Or his pretend fiancée, if there actually were such a thing.

Was there?

He knew things like that existed in wacky sex comedies and rom coms, but he had yet to meet anyone in real life who’d felt compelled to enter into a fake engagement to solve a problem. You didn’t solve problems by getting married. Or pretending to get married. Or asking someone to pretend to get married.

Only he did.

Or he would if Aisha said yes.

Having his best friend on his arm would solve a ton of problems and would at least smooth out one area of his life for the next few months. Because he was doing a piss-poor job of managing Barton Evigan’s full-on attack, finding a serial killer and identifying four dead women discovered in his county. The last two were going to take as long as they’d bloody well take, but the first...

Steve had given him an answer to that one.

“What did you just say?”

“I need you to marry me.” Even as mixed up as his day was, Trey knew that wasn’t quite the proper framing. “Hold on. Let me start again.”

When she didn’t say a word, only continued to stare at him across the table, Trey figured he’d better do some tap dancing. Fast.

“The governor’s assistant made several good observations today. One of which was that I had an extra vulnerability to Evigan because I wasn’t a married man.”

“Our governor actually has people on his staff who go around giving out advice like this?” she asked, before adding. “Presumably well-paid people.”

“Apparently so.”

“And somewhere between this morning’s meeting and a round of enchiladas you thought it was a good idea?”

“It’s not a bad one.”

“Trey!” she scolded. “These are our lives we’re talking about. Not some dopey play.”

“I know.”

“So what has you convinced this is even worth discussing?”

“I need something, Aish. Something to get this problem with Evigan to go away. And I’ve thought about it. We don’t have to be truly engaged. We’d just tell people we are. We’ve known each other forever. Hell, we know more about each other than most people who are actually married do.”

The curious flush he’d seen earlier on her face had faded, replaced with something that looked a lot like anger. Or no, he amended. Disappointment.

Did she think he was a coward, afraid of running against Evigan on his own merits?

Whatever the look, it vanished before Trey could call her on it and she’d already pressed on, ramping up speed with each word. “Just because we know each other well doesn’t mean people will suddenly believe we’re getting married. We’re not even dating.”

“What would you call this? Tonight?” He glanced around, the two of them sitting at their table like at least five other couples in his direct line of sight right there in the dining room.

“Thursday night dinner at Maggie’s.”

“But it could be a date. No one looking at us would think otherwise.” He continued to push, curious to see that her initial shock had worn off.

Was his argument working?

Because for reasons that didn’t make a single lick of sense, now that he had it in his head to propose to Aisha—even as a temporary solution—he wasn’t backing down.

“Even if I buy that, and I’m not saying I do—” she held up a hand to stop him from interrupting “—no one will believe we’re engaged. What would your family say? Your sister, who actually is engaged and who knows what that state looks like. Your extended family. Your deputies. They’ve seen you at work every night for the past six months. How did we magically begin a courtship that’s ready for marriage?”

“You’re at the office helping me a lot. They’ll think something blossomed that way.”

“Blossomed?” It was her turn to lift an eyebrow, one she used on him like a deadly weapon. “What actually happened to you today? Because if you don’t come clean soon, I’m calling Daria to ask her if you were hit in the head.”

“I wasn’t hit in the head. I’m fine.”

Only he wasn’t, which was the weirdest thing. And, oddly enough, he felt like he’d been hit in the head. Hard. To the point the world looked entirely different from when he’d woken up that morning.

“Trey. What you’re talking about is insanity. We’re friends. We spend a lot of time together. How is anyone going to believe we suddenly fell in love and decided on a spring wedding?”

She was right. Empirically, Trey knew that. So why did the image of her in an ivory gown, clad over that slim, graceful frame, suddenly fill his thoughts and tighten his body painfully under the table? He hadn’t looked at her in that way for years.

By design. Aisha Allen was a beautiful woman, one who’d grown even more so as she’d aged into herself. She was warm and competent and caring. She ran an amazing psychology practice and she was bright and confident in her work and in her life. And she was gorgeous. He’d figured that out when they were fourteen and had gone diving in the local watering hole. She’d let down her hair, curls springing around her face before coming to rest on her shoulders, and he’d been hooked.

It was that day he’d had thoughts about his best friend that he had no idea what to do with. Over twenty years later, he still didn’t know what to do with them so he’d buried them. And he’d left them buried so they couldn’t come out and ruin the very best thing in his life.

He’d missed her every single day she’d been away in New York. All that distance had nearly killed him, even as he’d known it was the best thing for her. More than that, it had been the right thing. She’d needed to go away and find herself. Find a world bigger than Roaring Springs, so when she came back she’d know she was home.

So she’d stay forever.

He’d dated while she was gone and in the time since and he hoped she did the same. As he’d reminded himself earlier, it was the one area they sort of had an undiscussed truce not to mention. But since they didn’t mention those things, he felt he had carte blanche to push his agenda.

Aisha was the key to putting Barton Evigan out of his mind for the next few months. An engagement was the ammunition he needed to squelch the man’s shot at winning the election. And it was the path to changing perceptions of Sheriff Trey Colton in Bradford County.

And if he had to keep those thoughts hidden—the ones about his lingering attraction that gripped his insides with a tight, unrelenting fist—then he’d do it.

He’d been doing it for as long as he could remember and he was good at it. A world champion grave digger of emotions. He’d kept his feelings buried this long, and he could do it longer. As long as he needed to, in fact.

Reelection was only three months away.

How hard would it be?

* * *

Aisha had finished her plate of enchiladas and her second margarita and she was still as heartsick as the moment Trey had laid his idiotic notion of a fake engagement on her. Only now she could add indigestion into the mix.

A fake engagement? Had she somehow woken up in a Sunday afternoon couch movie? Because who suggested those things? Certainly not by-the-book Trey Colton.

Never him.

Which made the fact she was actually considering his cockamamie suggestion scary as hell.

And wildly exhilarating.

Engaged to Trey? It was like every fantasy she’d ever had, coming true over chips and salsa. She’d sat there, staring at him, and he’d popped out with that proposal. Or sort of one. Which still had her blood pumping and her brain a bit fuzzy two hours later.

What was in that margarita?

Only as they walked back up through town, meandering their way toward their cars still parked at her office, she had to admit to herself that her fantasy had holes. Big ones.

For starters, they weren’t in love. Or he wasn’t. Her long-suppressed feelings weren’t the basis for a successful engagement. Or fake engagement. A faux-gagement? Continuing down this path was only going to lead to heartbreak.

But it would help him.

That acknowledgment had swirled in her mind since his proposal and it was the one piece in of all this she couldn’t effectively fight. It was actually the only thing.

What would her mother think? Or Tanisha? Or Trey’s family. It was all well and good to say the two of them knew the lay of the land, but if they went around telling everyone the situation was fake, somehow the news would leak back to Evigan and all their maneuvering would be lost. Which meant the only alternative was lying to their loved ones.

Her mother wouldn’t understand. LaShanna Allen was so supportive over so many things, but when it came to Trey Colton she had a blind spot. Her mother had never made it a secret that she wanted Aisha to end up with Trey and no amount of protests that the two of them weren’t meant to be together had deterred LaShanna. Telling her mother she was engaged to Trey would start a veritable storm of emotion the woman might not recover from. And when the inevitable breakup came—hello, because it was all fake!—Lord deliver her from the wrath.

Aisha was still so deep in her thoughts she barely registered Trey’s motions until he was on top of her. His arms wrapped around her and he half walked beside her, the move looking for all the world like two lovers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other as they walked. It was only when he shoved her into the alcove doorway of a small wine bar that was still in high swing for an August evening that she realized he wasn’t testing out his fiancée theory.

“Trey?” She tried to protest but he kept moving, pushing her through the door and into the bar. The lighting was subdued but the energy was high, happy conversations echoing all around them.

“Give me a minute,” Trey ordered. “Stay right here.”

She did as he asked, still stunned at the abrupt duck into the bar. Even more stunned by the warmth in Trey’s arms as they came around her like tight bands. Her eyes had barely adjusted to the dim lighting when he strode back in the door. “What’s going on?”

“I thought I saw something.”

Willing the lingering imprint of his hands against her skin from her mind, Aisha asked, “What sort of something?”

“A guy in a car. I noticed him earlier when I went out for a sandwich at lunch and then saw him again when we came out of Maggie’s. It was weird.”

“Do you think he’s following you?”

“I don’t know. It’s no crime to sit in a car on the street.”

“Maybe not, but it’s also not a crime to trust your gut.” Aisha wanted to get out there and see for herself, but something held her back. “You didn’t need to shove me in here to go check it out. You could have whispered to me what was going on.”

“I had no idea what he’d do.”

“Exactly. You’re not in uniform right now. Your gun’s locked safely away. How did you think you were going to protect yourself?”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I’m a trained law officer.”

“And I’m a trained psychologist. Someone aiming to do you harm will find a way.”

And there—right there—was the heart of the matter. Although she trusted Trey’s skills implicitly, the events of the past few months had worried her like no other time since he’d gone into law enforcement. The man put himself in peril every day and now he’d likely caught the eye of a cold-blooded madman. If the Avalanche Killer had grown even more dangerous—and she knew from the photos he had—the risk to Trey had only grown. Standing in the way of an escalating serial killer? One whose need to kill had grown and expanded?

It was lethal work.

Work made even harder by the fact that the killer had honed his skills over many years. He no doubt was eating up the news coverage reporting daily on his crimes. And it was Trey Colton who represented capture if he found a way to end the Avalanche Killer’s ride to fame and glory.

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