Maverick Sheriff (2 page)

“No need for fast.” Cooper didn’t have a firm time for his mother’s arrival, and nobody in his immediate family was pushing for one. Not even Jewell herself, since she was trying to make travel arrangements not just for Cooper’s twin sisters but also for her stepson.

For support, no doubt.

Good thing, too, since Jewell wasn’t likely to get any support from the now ex-husband and the three sons she’d abandoned.

Including Cooper.

“Besides,” Cooper went on, “Jessa here has plans to have Jewell hauled off to jail as soon as her feet land on Sweetwater Springs’s soil. She’d have me hauled off, too, if she could ever find proof that I stonewalled this investigation and tampered with evidence. Since I didn’t do those things, there’s no proof for her to find.”

“Someone tampered with that crime scene and the box of evidence,” she mumbled.

Yeah. Someone had. Cooper had seen the photos, and someone had tried to do a cleanup. But it sure as heck hadn’t been him. He’d been just a kid at the time of that crime scene.

As for the evidence, well, there was something missing, all right, including the collection log. So they didn’t even know what’d been taken.

Again, not his doing.

“I figure Jewell will go straight to the county sheriff’s office and just turn herself in to the deputy there,” Cooper clarified. At least that was what he was hoping she’d do, so it would prevent Cooper and his family from having to deal with her.

For the time being, anyway.

Jessa nodded, and despite the terror that she was no doubt feeling, he could see her slip into her assistant district attorney mode. “Your mother murdered a man, and even though the body wasn’t found, there’s enough evidence left to confirm it was murder. She has to pay for that.”

Yes, there was enough evidence.
Blood.
Fitting, since that was what had brought him to Jessa today. It could save a life, but with the large quantities found at the crime scene, it meant the loss of life.

In this case, it did indeed mean murder.

That wouldn’t have concerned him so much if the murder charges hadn’t brought Jewell back into their lives. Where the old wounds and memories would rip at his whole family. Especially his father, who could end up being implicated in this old crime, as well. He could thank Jessa for that and her vendetta-like investigation that had brought them to this.

Well, not to the hospital.

No way had she counted on something like this interfering with her plans to arrest a woman for a twenty-three-year-old murder.

“Ironic, huh?” Cooper said, looking at Jessa. “Of all the blood in Texas, your son’s had to match mine?”

“Yes,” Jessa quietly agreed. No more professional facade. “I wish I’d matched, but I didn’t. And there wasn’t time to try to track down his birth parents. Liam needs a transfusion now.” She paused, shook her head. “I’m sorry if this brings back any bad memories for you.”

They weren’t talking about Jewell now but his late son, Cameron. Something Cooper damn sure didn’t want to discuss with Jessa. But he’d never had any luck fighting back those bad memories.

He didn’t have luck with it now, either.

As his blood flowed into the bag, the memories flowed, too. First of the storm nearly two years ago. Such a small, ordinary thing that’d had life-changing consequences. His wife, Molly, had driven Cameron into town for his six-week checkup and his shots. Molly had been dreading those. Cooper, too. He’d planned to meet them at the clinic so they could hold each other’s hands and get through yet something else that was supposed to be routine.

Then the storm got worse.

The floodwaters came.

And in the exact moment that Molly’s car had reached the Stone Creek bridge, it’d washed out.

Taking Cameron and Molly with it.

Cooper squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push away the images. Finally, he gave up and let them bash at him like angry waves, punching into him until he wasn’t sure if it was blood or ice being drawn from him.

He hadn’t been able to say goodbye to his son. Hadn’t been able to bury him. Because his body had never been found.

Unlike Molly’s.

Her lifeless body had been found in the creek. Now she had a grave with an empty space next to it, and there were days, like now, when Cooper had to fight hard not to wish he was in that ground beside her.

“Done,” the nurse said, and Dr. Howland took the blood bags and hurried out. Jessa was right behind him.

The nurse eased the needle from his arm and positioned a bandage over the puncture before she attempted to help Cooper to his feet. But he waved her off. He’d never gotten dizzy after a donation, and the only thing he wanted to do was get the heck out of there.

Of course, that meant making plans to face Jewell, her stepson and Cooper’s fraternal twin sisters, whom Jewell had taken with her when she left the ranch. Funny that seeing his estranged mother now seemed a better option than staying here with these memories eating away at him.

Cooper pulled down his shirtsleeve and went out the door, only to find Jessa there, pacing and looking ready to explode.

“Dr. Howland said I had to wait here,” she blurted out.

Man, her voice was trembling all over, and for a moment he considered offering her a shoulder, but then he thought better of it. With their bad feelings for each other, even a genuine shoulder offer would seem hollow.

“Once your boy gets the blood, he should be all right,” Cooper told her. It wasn’t much of a reassurance. Heck, it might not even be true, but it was something he would have wanted her to say to him if their situations had been reversed.

“I can’t do this.” She was past the frantic stage now, and the tears came.

Oh, mercy.

He really didn’t want to deal with this, and looked around for someone to take over comfort duty. Of course, there was no one else. Any other day, there would have been all sorts of people milling around. But apparently the fates had it in for Jessa and him today.

“Where’s your son?” Cooper asked, hoping that by talking she wouldn’t shatter into a million little pieces. It’d worked in the collection room when she had slipped into her district attorney mode for a couple of seconds.

She pointed to the room behind her. Surgery. Well, that explained why Jessa hadn’t been allowed in.

“How strong’s your stomach?” he asked.

Jessa blinked, clearly not expecting him to ask that. “At the moment not very strong, but if you’re asking if I want to see my son in surgery, I do.”

He was afraid she’d say that, but since he had already walked out on this limb, Cooper kept right on walking. He led her farther down the hall and into a room with a set of stairs.

“There’s an observation deck,” he explained. “They bring in medical students sometimes.”

And sometimes he’d used it to check on the status of a perp or a victim who’d been injured. Cooper had stood right in that very spot to watch Doc Howland dig a bullet from his brother’s chest. That had turned out all right.

Maybe the same would happen today.

Maybe.

Jessa hurried to the glass, her breath instantly fogging it. Her son was indeed on the table, though Cooper couldn’t see much of him because of the green sea of scrubs surrounding him. Cooper’s blood was there, already flowing into the boy.

Man, he looked so little.

Hardly more than a baby.

“The surgeon seems to be finishing up,” Cooper told her. “Everything looks good.”

Well, the machines were all beeping and doing the right thing. That had to be good. Ditto for the fact that no one appeared to be in panic mode. Except for Jessa, that was. Even Dr. Howland was standing near the surgeon, just calmly watching.

“I can never thank you enough,” she repeated.

And just like that, she came at him, and despite how he felt about the woman, it was the terrified mother whom he put his arms around.

“You don’t have to thank me.” Cooper tried to ease her away, but she stayed put. Pressed against him.

This wasn’t a man-woman thing, but maybe because he was so raw from the memories, he got another punch of feelings that he didn’t want to have. Jessa was attractive, and his stupid body didn’t let him overlook that. When Cooper felt that too-familiar curl of heat go through him, he untangled himself from her and stepped back.

Way back.

Getting involved with a convicted felon would cause him less trouble than getting involved with this woman.

Jessa didn’t seem shocked that he’d pushed her away. Only a little embarrassed that she’d sought out comfort from him in the first place. She snapped back to the window, her gaze fastened to her son.

“What are the odds that you’d be here right when Liam needed you?” he heard her say.

A different kind of uneasy feeling went through him.

Yeah, what were the odds?

Cooper tried to stop any crazy thoughts from flying through his head, but he failed at that, too. He was failing at a lot of things today.

“How old did you say your son is?” he asked.

“Two.”

“And his birthday?”

The sharp look Jessa gave him made him wish he’d used a little more tact in asking that question. A stupid question. Because her son had nothing to do with Cameron.

“March 3,” she finally said.

Cameron had been born on February 27 of that same year. So it was close, but not the same.

Not that it would have mattered if it had been.

His son had washed away in the flood. His son, with the same rare type of blood as Cooper had.

And Jessa’s adopted son.

Less than six percent of world’s population had that blood type, and no one else in the county that he knew about. Even his brothers had dodged the rare-blood-type bullet that Cooper had managed to get from a bad combination of Jewell’s B-negative and his father’s A-positive blood.

Cameron, however, had inherited it.

That uneasy feeling got worse.

Cooper couldn’t stop himself. He moved to the glass, stepping all the way to the side until he could get a look at the little boy.

There was an oxygen mask on his face, but it didn’t conceal his forehead. Or his hair.

Oh, mercy.

The uneasy feeling slammed into him like a Mack truck.

That was the shape of Cooper’s forehead. The color of his hair.

And even though it didn’t make sense, Cooper had to wonder if he might be looking at the son he’d thought he had lost.

God, was that Cameron?

Chapter Two

Jessa didn’t know what had caused that bleached-out look to appear on Cooper’s face, and she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer. Something about this just wasn’t right.

But then, how could it be?

Cooper had saved her son, and yet she and the sheriff were basically enemies. On opposite sides of the law, and it didn’t help that he was the top lawman who ran this town. Heck, one of his brothers was the deputy and another was a Texas Ranger, making this a situation of her against an entire family of testosterone-heavy, badge-wearing cowboys.

Even now, with her mind a tornado of emotions, that bothered her.

Cooper and his brothers could be manipulating evidence, and no telling what else to shelter their father from the fallout of a crime their mother had committed. Jessa was actually thankful for that aggravating reminder.

Because it was better than thinking about what was going on below them in surgery.

It broke her heart for her baby to be here on that operating table. Maybe in pain. And with no certain outcome. Yes, the doctor had said he’d be okay. Cooper had said it, too. But Jessa wouldn’t believe it until she could hold Liam in her arms again.

The tears came again, though she tried her best to blink them back. They tumbled down her cheeks, and this time Cooper didn’t move to pull her into his arms.

Good thing, too.

Everything inside her was tangled into one giant, raw nerve, and she didn’t need to be leaning on this man.

“Will you call his birth parents and let them know what happened?” Cooper asked.

“No.” It took her a moment to pull herself out of her thoughts and fears to answer him. “It was a private adoption. The records are sealed.” She paused, noted his weird expression again. “Why do you ask?”

He lifted his shoulder in what was probably meant to be a casual shrug, but that wasn’t a casual look in his eyes. “I just wondered what would happen if he needed more blood. They won’t let me donate any more for a while.”

Sweet heaven. She hadn’t considered that. Cooper and she were at odds, but his blood had saved her baby’s life. And she might have to ask him to do it again.

But what if he couldn’t?

Since she suddenly felt as if her legs might give way, Jessa groped behind her to locate one of the metal chairs and dropped down into it. “Liam has to be all right. He’s all I have.”

“Yeah.” And with just that one word, she heard the old scars that had created this dark and brooding lawman. “There are other donors out there with my blood type. None in this area, but Dr. Howland’s probably already put out the call to make sure he has enough blood on hand.”

That helped. Well, as much as a basic reassurance could help. The only thing that would truly get her through this was having her baby well.

“Keep talking,” Cooper insisted. “They’re doing all they can do for your boy, and for his sake, you can’t fall apart.”

He was right, but Jessa thought she would explode if the surgery didn’t end now. God, how did other mothers handle this? It seemed impossible.

Cooper buttoned the cuff on his dark blue shirt and eased down next to her.

Not directly next to her, though.

He put his cocoa-brown Stetson in the seat between them. Only then did she realize she’d never seen him without the hat that was nearly the same color as his hair. The Stetson had seemed like part of his cowboy-cop uniform—like his boots, badge and jeans.

Yet another thing that was off.

He had on the other
uniform
items, but without that Stetson on his head, he no longer looked like the formidable lawman she’d been battling for weeks.