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“You got it, Goose.” His gaze locked onto her, and it took her a few moments to remember what it felt like to be fully grounded in the moment. To feel Baker’s pulse beneath her hand, his warmth and strength. It was almost enough to bury the shame of the past. Almost.
“Not sure if you know this,” she said, “but most women don’t like nicknames that relate to overly loud pests of the sky.”
“You can’t expect Maverick to fly without his wingman.” He motioned to the shepherd currently serving himself the rest of Baker’s lasagna on his hind legs.
She was going to regret letting him have cheese. “Isn’t Goose the one who dies?”
“Yeah, well. Eventually.” He was trying to backtrack, and Jocelyn was going to let him keep digging that hole just to watch him squirm. It was endearing and human. Like a reward for all of her hard work to break through that tough shell over the past few months. “But they had a good run.”
“If you two are done feeling each other up, we’ve got a problem.” Jones Driscoll rounded into the kitchen, a tablet clutched between both hands. The scar running through his left eyebrow dipped lower as he scanned the screen. “Albuquerque’s bomb squad is in the middle of going through what they can dig out of the landslide and what’s left of your SUV. So far, they’re convinced all three bombs were designed and detonated by the same bomber.”
And just like that, they were thrust back into reality. Jocelyn severed her physical connection from Baker. “I’m wondering if you know whatproblemmeans, Jones?”
“They found a body,” the combat controller said.
Baker cut his attention to Jocelyn, and her entire body lit up at the hundreds of possibilities of who else had gotten caught up in this mess. “There wasn’t anyone else at the scene. We searched the entire compound.”
Jones handed off the tablet. “Then you missed someone.”
Jocelyn scanned through the report, horrified as a positive ID matched the burnt remains photographed at the scene. “Marc De Leon. I don’t understand. He was the bomber. Why would he go back into the house?”
“He didn’t. The coroner is examining the remains as we speak.” Jones swiped the screen to bring their attention to a close-up of the body. “According to her, Marc De Leon was dead at least four hours before the bomb detonated.”
Baker slumped against the counter. “Then who the hell is trying to kill us?”
ITWASN’TPOSSIBLE. He’d been face-to-face with De Leon. He’d talked with the son of a bitch.
But there was no arguing with forensics. Baker had scoured through sixteen bombing reports a dozen times. Didn’t change a damn thing. The man he’d wanted for his sister’s murder was already dead.
He swiped steam from the mirror. No amount of hot water and soap had cleaned the gritty feel of ash and dirt on his skin, but it’d somehow managed to calm him enough to start thinking clearly.
What the hell had he been thinking to sign up for this job? To believe he could make a difference in people’s lives? That he could protect the very town that’d welcome him as one of their own? He didn’t have any prior experience. He’d never been through the police academy or basic training. Hell, he’d had to teach himself how to hold and fire a weapon from the internet, a secret that would die with him. He’d taken the chief of police position mere weeks after Sangre por Sangre had burned everything he’d loved to the ground, and the world had been so black and white. All he’d had was a promise. To protect Alpine Valley when no one else was stepping up to the plate.
But now... He wasn’t the man for this job. And revenge wasn’t enough anymore. Cartel raids, two-faced deputies, dead bodies, bombs going off everywhere he stepped—it combined into an undeniable sense of failure. He hadn’t been able to stop any of it. And now the only light he’d found at the end of the tunnel had been snuffed out. He’d stepped into the middle of a war that had no end. Day after day, Sangre por Sangre and organizations like it were gaining power all across New Mexico—this place he loved more than his childhood home.
Who was he to stand up against a monster like that?
Memories infiltrated the hollowness pressing in on him from every angle. Linley smiling over her shoulder as she took her first ride around the horse ring. He’d never seen her smile like that. Never seen her so damn happy. He’d known then they’d never be able to walk away from the dream they’d built together. That they’d each found what they’d been looking for. In each other, and here, in Alpine Valley.
But it wasn’t enough. Not anymore.
Baker made quick work of drying off and changing into a fresh set of sweats one of Jocelyn’s teammates had lent him. The T-shirt was a bit too big, though, to the point that he looked like a toddler dressing up in his daddy’s clothes. So he tugged it off, mindful of the aches and pains in his torso as he reentered Jocelyn’s bedroom.
The space wasn’t much bigger than a hotel room, and the dim lighting within it failed to compete with a massive bay windows that looked straight over the tail end of Alpine Valley. The sun had crept into the western half of the sky. The landslide was hidden at this angle, saving him a small amount of torment, but sooner or later, he’d have to face his failure.
Fire and Rescue, the bomb squad and his deputies were going through the rubble. Part of him wanted to be there with them, getting his hands dirty, searching for anyone who hadn’t been able to evacuate. But the other part understood the sooner they found the bomber, the sooner this nightmare would end.
“It’s not your fault.” Jocelyn’s voice slipped from the shadows and surrounded him as though she’d physically secured him against her. Warm, soft, accepting. “What happened up on that cliff. Neither of us could’ve stopped it.”
Baker let his gaze settle on the scrap of land that had once held his entire future. “You and I both know we can tell ourselves we aren’t at fault. Doesn’t make it true.”
“That goes both ways, Baker.” She took up position beside him, the backside of her hand brushing against his. “We lie to ourselves just as easily.”
She had a point.
“I don’t know where to go from here.” The longer he stared through the window, the less his eyes picked up the small differences of his property. Until he lost sight of the house altogether. “I was so sure I could protect this town, that I could stop the cartel from doing to someone else what they did to me, but I’m just one man. I’ve got two deputies heading for retirement, one six feet under from collaborating with the cartel, no police station, no dispatcher and a quarter of Alpine Valley under mud, rock and metal.”
His laugh wasn’t meant to cut through the tension cresting along his shoulders. It was a manifestation of the ridiculousness of that statement. He was supposed to be running a bed and breakfast with his sister, corralling horses, leading tour groups and making the stack of recipes he’d grown up on. And now he’d actually partnered with the very people he blamed for adding fuel to the cartel flames.
