The Bribe (Calamity Montana)

“I’D SAY NO.” A bribe? What the hell?

Her smile vanished. “I had a feeling you’d say that. Shit.”

“What’s going on”—I looked at her license one more time, just making sure I’d read her name correctly—“Lucy?”

“I swear I can explain everything.”

“I’m waiting.”

Her emerald-green eyes flicked to the clock on the dash. “I’m late. That’s why I was speeding.”

Goddamn, I hated traffic stops. There was always an excuse. As a general rule, I didn’t bother with speeding tickets, leaving traffic for my deputies, but when I’d seen Lucy’s Range Rover racing down First like a rocket, I hadn’t been able to let that slide. It was early August and we had kids on summer break roaming freely.

“Late for what?” I asked.

“I’m supposed to meet my landlord.”

“You’re moving here?”

“Yep. I’m your newest constituent.”

Well, fuck. As the sheriff, I didn’t really need a famous singer in town, drawing attention to the quiet and simple life I worked hard to maintain. But as a man, it was hard not to keep my heart from beating a bit faster.

Lucy Ross.

How could I have missed this earlier? How could I have not seen the resemblance in Yellowstone?

Probably because I’d been too busy keeping my physical reaction in check. That, and the changes she’d made to her appearance were effective.

Her hair was nearly black. The dark strands suited the color of her creamy skin and the dusting of freckles on her nose. Gone was the blonde I’d seen on a tabloid magazine cover when I’d gone to get my hair trimmed at the barber last week. Lucy’s eye color was the real deal, but without the colorful eyeshadow and black liner, their shape seemed different. They were innocent and natural. Mesmerizing.

Seductive.

There was no flash in this version of Lucy. She was simply a raw beauty. Her nose was straight and slightly turned up at the end. Her lips were a soft peach color that matched the natural flush of her cheeks. Hell, even her ears were attractive with tiny points at the tips.

Especially without the enormous earrings she’d made famous as a Nashville country star.

But I couldn’t unsee the semblance now.

This was Lucy Ross without the glitz and glamour.

As a hot-blooded man, I preferred this version. As a sheriff, I was tempted to run her out of town. Having a celebrity here could only mean trouble, especially if the rumors about her were true.

I listened to the radio often while I was in my office doing paperwork or when I was driving around town. I preferred country to the rock and pop music these days, and the stations had been speculating for two weeks about Lucy.

She’s disappeared. Where? No one has a clue.

It must have something to do with her assistant’s death.

Her publicist released a statement today asking for privacy at this time. But no one has seen her.

Where is Lucy Ross?

She’d been hiding out in Wyoming and Montana, busy facing off against a herd of bison and getting lost with her friend in the wilderness. She’d fallen off the mainstream map and landed right in the middle of mine.

“Why are you here?”

“That’s a long story,” she muttered. “Are you going to give me a ticket?”

I handed her back her license. “Depends on this long story.”

“Please, please don’t give me a ticket,” she said. “I just . . . I’m here to disappear. Which, if you take a bribe, will be a lot easier.”

I wasn’t taking a fucking bribe. What kind of man did she think I was? What kind of cop did she think I was? I had morals, for fuck’s sake.

“Please, Duke. I just want to blend in. I’ll be hanging out at my house. You’ll never even know I’m in town. Just don’t give me a speeding ticket.”

Blend in? Ha.

Her appearance, her car, screamed tourist. Lucy would stand out in Calamity like a lightning bolt streaking through a midnight sky.

A car drove past us in the opposite direction and she shielded her face with her hand.

The side of the road wasn’t the place to have a drawn-out conversation about her disappearance. It would only bring more attention to her because my truck, like her Rover, wasn’t exactly subtle.

“Where are you meeting your landlord?” I asked.

“At the house.”

I nodded and pushed off the side of her door. “Lead the way.”

“But . . .” She looked forward, then back at me. Then forward again, down the road like it was to freedom.

If she decided to tear out of here and leave me in her rearview, I wouldn’t stop her.

“What’s it gonna be, Ms. Ross?”

She put both her hands on the wheel and muttered, “Okay.”

I turned and strode to my truck, climbing inside and shutting off the flashing lights. I buckled up and waited. Seconds passed, enough to equal a minute. Then two. For a woman in a hurry, she was taking her sweet time. Finally, her taillight blinked yellow and she eased onto the road.

Following her down the highway was painful. She drove five miles per hour under the speed limit. I rolled my eyes, stifling a string of muttered curses, and called into the station.

“Hey, Carla,” I said when my deputy and lead dispatcher answered.

“Hi, Duke. What’s up?”

“I’m not going to be in for a while, so if you need anything or something comes up, give me a call.”

“Will do.” Had I been there, she would have given me her standard mock salute.

Carla had never been military, but she’d been saluting me since the day I’d taken over as sheriff. She was the kind who loved orders and followed them to the letter. She loved the law and she was good at enforcing it. But when it came to the gray areas, she had a hard time comprehending a bend to the rules.

It was a good thing Carla hadn’t pulled Lucy over. Not only would Lucy have been issued a ticket and a fine, she would have also been arrested for attempting to bribe an officer.

Then I would have had a hell of a mess on my hands.

The people of Calamity loved their small town. I loved my small town. But we were far removed from city life and anything close to a celebrity. Our gossip centered on who was cheating on who or who’d gotten too drunk at the bar Saturday night.

News of Lucy Ross’s residence would spread like a drought-year forest fire in August, and it wouldn’t stop at the town limits. She’d have everyone in the county knocking on her door and poking around. The local paper would probably run a special feature, photos and all.

So before things got out of hand, Ms. Ross and I were going to have a lengthy conversation about her stay in Calamity.

Lucy’s brake lights flashed and she slowed, her blinker on for a left turn.

Son of a bitch. I should have suspected this was where she was headed. There was only one place that she could have rented down this gravel county road.

Widow Ashleigh’s farmhouse.

One of a few constant thorns in my side.

Ever since the widow had passed five years ago, I’d been dealing with a host of issues on the property. Widow Ashleigh had left her estate to her niece, who lived in Oklahoma. Everything had immediately been sold, and the family who’d bought the farmhouse had been from Texas.

The year they’d moved in, we’d had a miserable winter. Most rural roads, including the gravel one I was driving on now, had drifted shut. The people living in the farmhouse had called the station hourly, for three days, asking when the plow would be out to rescue them. Eventually, the county transportation department had cleared their road, but not before the owners had threatened to sue me, my deputies and basically everyone in Calamity for abandoning them.

I hadn’t been surprised to see the house up for sale that spring.

But much to their dismay, it hadn’t sold. Instead, the property had sat empty for years with little to no care. The neighboring farmer had reported squatters three years ago and I’d been the one to evict them. The year after that I’d gotten a call to come out because every window had been broken by vandals—I suspected the squatters I’d chased out of town had returned. Though I’d never caught them, there’d been rumors of familiar faces passing through. And lately, my trouble with Widow Ashleigh’s place had been from teenagers using the property for keggers.

But about a year ago, the owners—who’d returned to Texas—had finally dropped their price to something reasonable and a local had snatched it off the market.

Kerrigan Hale had made quite the name for herself since she’d moved back to Calamity two years ago. She’d been buying properties around town to flip or lease. She’d even bought a couple of buildings on First Street. Rumor was she’d stretched herself thin, mostly because she bought the places no one else wanted and sank some money into cleaning them up.

I wasn’t sure how much she’d invested in the farmhouse, but it was a hell of a lot nicer than it had been years ago, even when Widow Ashleigh had been alive.

Kerrigan was probably overjoyed to have a tenant. Word around town was that she was asking a steep price in monthly rent. As far as I knew, she’d had some vacation rental interest, but for the most part, the farmhouse had been empty. I doubted she knew her new lessee’s real identity and that Lucy could probably afford twice the rent Kerrigan was charging.

The farmhouse’s white paint glowed under the bright summer sun as it came into view from around a copse of leafy trees. The house was surrounded by a sea of golden wheat fields. I hadn’t been out here in a month or so, and since then, Kerrigan had added a couple of rocking chairs to the wraparound porch. A planter beside the front door was bursting with pink blooms. The kelly-green grass of the sprawling lawn was freshly mowed.

The cloud of dust following Lucy’s car settled as she slowed and pulled into the driveway beside Kerrigan’s car.

I parked behind Lucy, blocking her vehicle in, and stepped out just as she rushed to meet Kerrigan.

“Hi.” She smiled at Kerrigan. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”

“It’s no problem.” Kerrigan pushed up from the steps where she’d been sitting, her hand extended as she walked to meet Lucy. “I’m Kerrigan Hale.”

“Jade Morgan.”

Lucy said the name with such effortless ease no one would question it. There was no hesitancy like there had been with me. Lajade. Christ, I’d fallen for that lie like a rock tossed over a cliff.

As they shook hands, Kerrigan’s gaze darted over Lucy’s shoulder. “Uh, hi, Duke.”

I lifted a hand. “Hey, Kerrigan.”

“I didn’t realize you knew Jade.”

I gave a single nod. “Yep.”

Though Kerrigan had grown up in Calamity, we’d only known one another for a couple years. When I’d moved here to take a deputy job, she’d been in high school and had left shortly after graduation for college. I knew her parents along with the abundance of Hales in town—her aunts, uncles and cousins. As her grandfather loved to boast whenever I saw him at the café drinking coffee, their family had been here since Calamity’s inception.

She was a few years younger than I was, which to most of the nosy women in town meant the two of us were eligible for matchmaking. We’d gone on one blind date, and though Kerrigan was a nice woman with long, chestnut hair and pretty brown eyes, the two of us had zero chemistry.

Lucy, on the other hand . . . there’d been an instant spark.

Too bad it was all based on bullshit.

“Let me show you the house.” Kerrigan turned and started up the stairs, returning to business. “Can I help you bring anything inside?”

“Oh, no. Thanks,” Lucy said. “I’ll get it later. I don’t have much.”

I swallowed a snarky retort, following them up the porch steps. Lucy didn’t have much because Jade Morgan was a whole two weeks old.

“This porch is beautiful,” Lucy said, her eyes roaming over the smooth, chocolate deck boards.

“Thanks.” Kerrigan beamed as she unlocked the front door. “I stained it myself.”

We stepped inside the entryway and I had to remind myself where we were standing. I hadn’t been inside Widow Ashleigh’s place for months, and Kerrigan’s updates had transformed the entrance from old and run-down to classic and stylish.

If the rest of the house was like this, no wonder she was asking for so much in rent.

“Like I told you over the phone, the lease includes the house plus twenty acres,” Kerrigan told Lucy. “The house sits on the front of the property. The boundary line runs along the road so everything behind the house is yours to use. The neighbors all have good fences so it’s easy to see where the property lines run. There is a barn out back if you need it, but I’ll warn you I haven’t spent any time in there, so it’s a mess.”

“No problem. I don’t need a barn for anything,” Lucy said, following Kerrigan deeper into the house. She cast a glance over her shoulder and if she was surprised that I was following, she didn’t let it show.

“This is it.” Kerrigan waved a hand toward the living room.

“It’s beautiful.” Lucy’s smile widened, her gaze bouncing from ceiling to floor to fireplace to window.

There was a hint of paint in the air, mixed with the fresh scent of furniture polish and glass cleaner.

“Looks good, Kerrigan,” I said.

“I’m happy with how it turned out.” She waved for us to follow. “Let me show you the kitchen.”

Kerrigan had done a lot of the work here herself, much like she had with her other properties in town. We shared a mutual friend, Kase, who owned a construction company in Calamity, and he assisted in the larger tasks that Kerrigan couldn’t tackle alone. But for the most part, she was a one-woman show.

Some people in town didn’t like how she was renovating some of the historical homes, this one included. But I disagreed, admiring her for taking risks.

Lucy didn’t say much as she walked through the living room. Her attention seemed fixed on the large window that overlooked the front of the house, past the porch and to the driveway. When Widow Ashleigh had lived here, that window had been three. Now, the single, sparkling glass pane allowed sunlight to bathe the room. With the mountain view in the distance, it was hard to tear your eyes away.

She was so fixated on the picture outside, she nearly tripped over the corner of a rug.

“Careful.” I caught her elbow in my grip, holding her steady before she could fall. A jolt of electricity shot up my hand from her smooth skin.

A red flush bloomed in her cheeks as she muttered, “Thank you,” then chased after Kerrigan, this time watching where she put her feet.

Chemistry. We had it in spades.

Damn.

I gave her a head start, taking a moment to suck in a breath, then followed, finding Kerrigan and Lucy standing beside the table in the dining room off the kitchen.

Because it was an older house, none of the rooms were enormous and the spaces were all segregated by walls. Open concept hadn’t been an architectural trend when this place had been built seventy or eighty years ago. Every room had at least two doorways, all adorned with ornate trim that had been painted a stark white. The crown molding had been painted to match while the walls had all been coated in a bright cream.

“Are these original?” Lucy asked, pointing to the hardwood floors.

Kerrigan nodded. “They are. I was able to restore them down here, but unfortunately, upstairs they were in bad shape, so you’ve got carpet in the bedrooms.”

“I don’t mind carpet.” Lucy ran a hand over the back of a chair, then retreated into the kitchen.

The cabinets and appliances were new. They brightened the small space and made it seem more modern than the other rooms. It was large enough for a square island. Whereas the countertops around the room were granite, the island was topped with a butcher block.

Lucy opened the rear door, taking in the small patio out back.

“Should we go upstairs?” Kerrigan asked Lucy.

I stayed in the kitchen, not needing to see the bedrooms. It was going to be hard enough to mentally erase the smiling, fun, witty Jade and replace her with the scheming, famous, I’ll-bribe-my-way-out-of-a-speeding-ticket Lucy. The last thing I needed was a mental image of her anywhere near a bed. Because whether I called her Jade or Lucy, that woman was sexy as hell.

As they padded up the staircase, I wandered back to the living room and stood in front of the picture window. This house wasn’t flashy or expensive. It was a nice home, perfect for a couple or even a small family. Every room was furnished with quality, affordable pieces, nothing elegant or expensive.

Would someone like Lucy Ross, whose car cost more than most homes in Calamity, actually be comfortable here? I wasn’t sure how long she’d agreed to rent the farmhouse, but I was giving her until winter. Then I suspected she’d be more than willing to retreat to her glamorous life.

“The kitchen has all the standard items but if you need anything else, just let me know,” Kerrigan said as the pair came down the stairs. “Same goes with the furniture.”

“It’s all perfect.” Lucy smiled as they reached the last stair. “Thank you.”

“You’re from Maine?” Kerrigan asked.

“Yes, from Portland.” Such effortless lies.

“That’s quite the move.”

“It is.” Lucy laughed. “But I’m lucky that my job is so flexible. I’ve always wanted to see Montana and I thought, why not just move?”

My teeth gritted together, my jaw tightening with every lie. What a goddamn disappointment. I’d been so intrigued by her in Yellowstone. Instantly, she’d put me under her spell. Now she was doing the same to Kerrigan.

Fuck, I was an idiot. Gullible wasn’t something I’d been much lately and it tasted awfully sour. But I was still very much intrigued, by the woman and definitely by her story. Lucy Ross—Jade Morgan—was a mystery I was going to solve.

“How are you liking Calamity?” Kerrigan asked.

“It’s charming. The reason I’m late was because I got caught up exploring.”

“Welcome. I grew up here and moved away after college, but there’s no place like Calamity.”

“I think I’ll be happy here.” She cast me a nervous glance, covering it quickly when she faced Kerrigan. “I appreciate all your work getting this ready for me.”

“I’ve never had anyone rent a place via a FaceTime tour, so I’m happy you like it.”

“Thanks for accommodating me and all of my, um, odd requests.”

“No problem.” Kerrigan smiled. “It was actually easier this way. Less paperwork.”

Meaning Lucy was probably renting this place in cash.

“Okay, so you have the keys and my number,” Kerrigan said. “Please let me know if you need anything at all.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m sure I’ll see you around town. It’s impossible to hide in Calamity.”

The color drained from Lucy’s face as she laughed, attempting to cover it up.

“See ya, Duke.” Kerrigan waved and walked to the front door.

“Bye.”

I waited until the sound of her car’s engine drifted into the distance before I spoke. “All right, Jade. Time for that long story.”

“One hundred thousand dollars,” she blurted.

“Excuse me?”

“I, uh . . . I need something to drink.” She spun away from me and walked through the house. I followed her to the kitchen, where she searched the cupboards for glasses, finding them after three failed attempts.

“Would you like some water?” she asked.

“No.”

She went to the sink, giving me her back as she filled her glass, then guzzled it down. Even after the water, she didn’t turn but kept her eyes on the small window overlooking the property.

She was stalling.

Fine by me. I was a patient man.

Finally, she let out a sigh and turned. Her top lip was wet and had we not been separated by the island, I might have forgotten all about her fake name, crossed the room and kissed Jade Morgan.

Something I should have done at the trailhead when I’d been happily ignorant.

I’d almost kissed her. I’d been seconds away from taking her face in my hands and tasting those peach lips. But then I’d walked away. I’d come to my senses. Jade Morgan was a stranger. And I doubted she’d want a man she’d met hours earlier to kiss her senseless, then disappear from her life.

None of those facts made her lips any less appealing now.

“I’m not going to explain why I’m here.” She held up her chin. “That’s my business.”

“Sorry, Ms. Ross. That’s not how it works in Calamity. You’re in my town, which makes it my business.”

“Are you going to give me a speeding ticket? Or arrest me for giving you a false name while I was hiking in the middle of nowhere?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Then let me help you make your decision. I’ll pay you one hundred thousand dollars, cash, if you forget the speeding ticket and forget you ever learned my name. I need a place to lie low, and I’d like that to be Calamity.”

I narrowed my eyes.

That determined green stare, that insolent chin, didn’t waver.

Christ, she was serious. She really did want to bribe me into keeping her secret.

Well, I didn’t need her money. I sure as fuck wouldn’t take a penny, because that wasn’t the type of man I was. But I did want to know more about why Lucy Ross was in my town.

Maybe the easiest way to do that was tell her a lie of my own.

“Done,” I lied. “I’ll take the bribe. But I want to know your story.”

“It’s not up for discussion.”

“Then forget the deal.” I spun for the door.

“Wait.” She grumbled something under her breath. “Okay. But I don’t feel like talking about it today.”

“Not today.” I hid a triumphant grin. “But soon, Ms. Ross. Very, very soon.”