“Every week. He told me about you and your brothers and sisters, about your house, your ranch...”
“And my mother.” He could tell from her expression that Dixon Malone had told her a lot about his family, especially Charlotte.
She nodded. “You must have known that they argued a lot.”
He really had little memory of his mother and Dixon. “I was probably busy protecting myself from my older brother and had more things to worry about than my mother and your father.”
“CJ terrorized you?” she asked.
“He terrorized everyone,” Brand said with a laugh. “We all learned to disappear when he was around or suffer the consequences. What made it worse was that our mother always believed him because he was the oldest. Her favorite.”
“I can’t imagine having siblings. I always thought it would be fun.”
He scoffed at that. “Ryder’s great, and my sisters are, too. CJ...?” He shook his head. “There was always a lot of drama in our house, which is why I spent as little time as possible there.” He took a bite, thinking how much he was enjoying lunch—and Birdie.
They ate in a companionable silence for a few minutes. As different as they were, he was surprised they did have a lot in common. They were about the same age, had grown up with a distant mother and had lost their fathers at a young age. Except, he reminded himself with a jolt, his father was alive. For a while, he’d forgotten about the DNA test, the secret it exposed, and what he’d done with a copy of it.
When the café door opened, neither of them noticed the deputy walk in until he approached their table, another officer behind him.
“Brand Stafford? I’m going to need you to come with me,” Deputy Dodson said.
“What’s this about?” he asked in surprise.
“It’s about you and what you were doing this morning when a student went missing.”
“Who went missing? I don’t know anything about—” He never got to finish what he was saying.
The deputy grabbed his arm and hauled him up from the table even as the other deputy said, “Dodson, the sheriff said not to—”
“Watch it!” Brand said as his chair tipped over backward and hit the floor with a bang. He lost his balance, shoving the deputy as he struggled to get his feet under him, only to have the law officer throw him face down on the table. Dishes went everywhere, his plate sliding off and breaking on the floor, as the deputy pulled back his arms and slapped cuffs on him.
“You’re under arrest for assaulting a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest, as well as kidnapping,” the deputy said.
“Kidnapping?” Brand cried.
The second deputy let out a groan as Deputy Dodson said, “Let’s go,” and dragged Brand toward the front door.
The last thing Brand saw as he was being perp-walked out of the café was Birdie Malone’s face. Her expression said it all. What kind of family had her father married into? One that had gotten him killed.
BIRDIE SAT IN the café for a long time, staring after the patrol SUV that had taken Brand Stafford away. The café staff had cleaned up the mess.
“We’ll bill Stafford Ranch for your meals and the broken dishes,” the waitress told her. “You have any idea what that was about?”
“No.” For a while, she and Brand had been bonding. She had let herself get seduced into thinking they were on the same side. That had things been different, they could have been friends. “I’ll pay for my own meal.”
She was nothing like Brand Stafford, she told herself. Were the whole bunch of the Staffords criminals? She warned herself not to trust any of them. Earlier, she’d let her defenses down. She should have known better.
How could she have thought that Charlotte had killed Dixon Malone and dumped his body into that nearby abandoned well and forget that Brand was her son? Not that he’d been the one who’d helped his mother get rid of the body. He’d been too young. But someone in this county knew what she’d done, because they’d helped her cover it up.
She reminded herself that her father had liked Brand when he was a boy. Had she let that color the way she saw the cowboy rancher? Clearly, she couldn’t trust her own instincts since she’d found herself enjoying his company—before the law had come to arrest him. What had the deputy said they wanted him for? Kidnapping? Seriously?
With a start, Birdie recalled the deputy saying that whatever Brand was wanted for had happened this morning. Maybe her instincts about him weren’t wrong; maybe he wasn’t like his family after all, because there was no way he did anything this morning since she’d been with him.
She paid her bill and left the café. They wanted to question him in regard to a missing person? A student, no less! It had to be more than just questioning. The deputy had taken him out of the café in cuffs, arresting him for assault of an officer and resisting arrest.
She didn’t think either charge would stick, especially after she told them where Brand Stafford had been all morning. She could save him. Then maybe he’d help her find out the truth about her father’s killer—and accomplice.
THE SHERIFF COULDN’T believe the mess he had back at the department.
“You need to cool down,” Stuart told Brand as he ordered Dodson to take off the cuffs. “You’re just being held for questioning,” he said as he steered him into the cell, then closed and locked the door.
“You can’t hold me without charging and booking me,” Brand said.
“You really want me to charge you with assaulting Deputy Dodson and resisting arrest?”
“You know both those charges are bogus. I want to call a lawyer.”
“Not necessary. I’ve already spoken to your mother. She’s waiting in my office right now with her lawyer.”
“You called my mother?” Brand demanded. “Why would you do that? I’m thirty-two, almost thirty-three years old!”
“I called her because I was looking for you and because I also need to speak with her. Once you calm down, I’ll have you brought up so we can talk.”
“How about telling me what’s going on?” he called after him as Stuart walked away.
“Chill. I’ll be back once I talk to your mother.”
When he reached his office, Charlotte Stafford was pacing back and forth in the small space in front of his desk. Her attorney, Ian Drake, was sitting in one of the plastic chairs off to one side of Stuart’s desk.
