Page 3 of Homicide in Water Creek

He stared her down for a beat, then grasped her finger in his warm fist. “That’s Sheriff King to you. Are you aware you’re assaulting an officer right now?”

Jacks growled. There was nothing to like about this man. Nothing. She took back everything she’d said about his cologne. The problem was, she knew one part of this man was worth liking. She’d touched it once in a moment of weakness, and it was the best five minutes of her life. Thankfully, his mouth would keep that from ever happening again.

Some said Dean King was tall, dark, and, as all the romance novels claimed, devastatingly handsome. Not just handsome. Oh, no, they were always devastatingly handsome. She wasn’t convinced Dean King was any of those things. Okay, maybe the tall part. He was a tall drink of water, without question. He towered over her, but that wasn’t hard with her 5’2” frame.

She could see he wasn’t the least bit dark, unless you counted in character. He might be sun-kissed, but that was about it. As for devastatingly handsome, some of the women in Water Creek had fallen for his charm over the years. He was the definition of rugged. His teenage years working on the ranch as a cowhand chiseled his jaw and roughened his hands. A light scruff lined both sides of that Adonis jaw, just enough to make a girl wonder if he’d leave a whisker burn behind when he finished having his way with her.

His nose was perfect except for a slight bump from a football game during his senior year. The rival team wanted him out of the game, so they broke his nose. Despite that, he threw the winning touchdown with three seconds left in the game.

Under his Stetson was a shock of hair meant for a woman to bury her hands in. The silky-smooth tresses would run through her fingers as she moaned, while his ruby-red lips took what they wanted. His eyes? Well, they made women stupid. The longer you stared, the more a girl wondered if she was the one those ocean-deep eyes might look at forever.

From there, things only got better. His body was muscular, taut, and sleek, giving him more of a Hollywood look than a Wild West look. His attitude, however, was firmly rooted in the Wild West.

She rolled her eyes and swallowed. Good lord, now she sounded like a romance novel. She had a real bone to pick with Harlequin. During her teenage years, she spent hours under the covers reading about sexy cowboys and sexier sheriffs. She expected to be swept off her feet by a man in a Stetson the moment she blew out the candles on her eighteenth birthday cake. Yet here she was, ten years later, still standing on her own two feet. The cowboy sheriff standing before her couldn’t sweep her off her feet if he roped her and dragged her behind his steed.

King rocked back on his heels, a grin on his face. “You can’t stay out of trouble to save your own life, can you?”

Oh, it was going to be like that, was it?

“Always have to be an ass, don’t you, King? I guess I’ll be filing a report on Mr. Harvey for hitting Little Suzie Sweet Pea and breaking her tail when we’re done here. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be out here. You can look forward to that paperwork. Still feeling smug, Oh Great King of Water Creek?”

He slung his arm around her and started down the trail toward the cars. “I’m always here to serve the citizens of Water Creek. I’m happy to take that report, but according to Mr. Harvey, you were taking too long to turn the corner. He said you’d been sitting there, checking your phone for an hour.”

She flicked his arm off her with a flex of her shoulder and walked two steps ahead of him, breaking a sweat to keep up with his long legs and strong, lithe body. “Mr. Harvey was drunk. He couldn’t even speak in a straight line, much less drive in one.”

“It was only three in the afternoon.”

“That’s happy hour for Mr. Harvey.” She waved her hand in the air. “Forget it. My point is, I’m not out here by choice. I’ll show you the body, but then I’m out. I have to get back to the ranch.”

“Bulls to inseminate and sheets to hang on the line?” he asked, and she could actually hear his smirk.

She refused to respond. He knew damn well what kind of ranch she ran, and it had nothing to do with bull insemination. He was trying to rile her up, but she had his number.

Jacks came to a stop and spun around, instantly seized by two strong, warm hands, his cologne almost overpowering the smell of death that hung in the air where they stood.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his hands gentle yet firm on her upper arms.

“I’m fine,” she said, swallowing hard as she stared into his eyes. It was as if he could see her soul, and she didn’t like it. “The body is down there,” she said, her arm pointing to the right without her gaze straying from his.

He blinked, but his gaze didn’t waver either. “I can tell.”

“Don’t you want to go check it out?” she asked, her gaze dropping to his Adam’s apple as it bobbed.

His hands fell to his sides, and he turned, motioning for her to go first. “Lead on.”

She clutched her nose, but he took her hand and lowered it. “Don’t plug your nose. You’ll only make it worse.”

She went hands on hips. “That body smells like I left chicken out on the counter in one hundred-degree heat for two weeks. It’s foul, ripe, and gut-wrenchingly horrible. It climbs into your sinuses and gets stuck there for days. All you smell is a rotting corpse at every meal.”

“If you still smell it after you leave the area, it’s all in your noggin,” he assured her, tapping her temple. “Think of it as your brain playing a practical joke on you. The truth is, it’s far worse to plug your nose and breathe through your mouth. You’ll suck that stench in, and after a few moments, you’ll taste that dead body. You don’t want that rot on your tongue. Leave your nose open, and once we’re done here, you walk into Boone’s and find a strong but safe,” he said, holding up a finger, “solvent. Take a few sniffs, and you’ll be as good as new.”

“Wow, somebody’s an expert,” she groaned. “Any other wisdom you’d like to impart before I show you that rotting corpse? Don’t you want to put Vicks under your nose the way they do in the movies? Carmex? Cotton in your nostrils?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I just explained this, Jacks. Vicks and all that nonsense are pure Hollywood. The whole point of Vicks is to open the nasal passages.” He motioned down the row of cars. “As you learned, you don’t need them wide open when you’re dealing with a dead body. Now, let’s go.”

They walked down the line of cars until she stopped in front of the Porsche. “Here we are, in case you couldn’t tell by the smell.”

She kept her nose turned into her shoulder to block out some of the cloying stench of rot. He snapped on a pair of gloves and lifted the trunk again, shining his flashlight on the body.