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brother be so sure
of her when even he had his doubts? “You’d still best get yourself
a lawyer,” Garrett went on. “Once they confirm that Joseph left
everything to you in his will, it’s gonna be—”
    Kirsten exhaled in a burst, a sarcastic kind
of sound. “He’d rather burn in hell than see me with his precious
money. Trust me, I won’t be named in my husband’s will.”
    Garrett frowned and sent Adam a questioning
look.
    Adam shrugged and tried not to let his shock
show on his face. He didn’t like the way her declaration had made
his stomach clench up tight. The way his brain had whispered what
his foolish heart hadn’t wanted to believe two years ago. That
Kirsten would never marry for money. That if she married old Joseph
Cowan it had to be because she loved him.
    Maybe that love had gone bad, but if the cash
hadn’t been her motive, then what else was there?
    And why the hell did it feel as if she’d just
stabbed him in the back all over again, only with a blade made of
ice this time, instead of the red-hot steel she’d skewered him with
before?
    “Why wouldn’t your husband name you as his
heir?” Garrett was asking. “You were his wife. He had no
children.”
    “Not for lack of trying,” she said, a slight
curl marring the perfection of her tinted upper lip. A brief lapse.
Then she wore the glass face again. The one that told Adam nothing.
He glanced down. Her fingers were claws now, nails gripping her
thighs like talons gripping meat. She was holding on as if for dear
life.
    Tough to care when her words hit Adam like a
two-by-four in the softest part of his belly. One more blow to the
midsection and he would be reeling.
    She’s been married to the man for over two
years. Did I really think they never had sex? That the old geezer
never laid his cold, arthritic hands on her?
    Kirsten pressed her lips tight, as if to keep
herself from saying any more. Her gaze slid to Adam’s; then she
turned away.
    “It doesn’t matter why. I won’t inherit a
thing, and therefore….” her head came up slowly. “Therefore…I had
no motive. They aren’t going to arrest me without a motive, are
they, Garrett?”
    Garrett didn’t answer. “You ready to go to El
Paso now? They want you to make a statement, maybe answer a few
questions.”
    She looked scared for just a second. A slight
widening in those eyes that had, until now, been like sheets of
brown ice. Her hands unfolded, trembled visibly against the
leggings, their skin nearly as pale as the white they lay upon. But
a second later she pressed her palms together and stilled her
features. “I suppose now is as good a time as any.”

    Kirsten wanted to know why Adam was coming
along to El Paso. But she didn’t ask. She didn’t see Lash Monroe
anywhere, so she assumed the deputy was unavailable and Adam was
filling in. But in that case, Adam should be back at the office,
manning the phones and holding down the fort, shouldn’t he?
    Right. As if any calls were likely to come
in. In a town as small as Quinn, Garrett could probably work once a
week and keep up with the load. And the rest of the county was even
quieter. Most of the time.
    No one spoke in the giant-sized pickup.
Garrett drove, his ten-gallon hat shading his eyes from the
brilliant sun. She’d been relegated to the center spot, and Adam
was wedged in beside her, his smaller, sexier Stetson hat shadowing
his face so she couldn’t see his eyes. Couldn’t tell what he might
be thinking or feeling. He was touching her. Not liking it, she
imagined, but touching her. His thigh pressed up against hers, and
she could feel the warmth seeping from the flesh under his black
trousers to the flesh under her white leggings.
    She’d missed that kind of warmth for a long
time. Then she’d stopped missing it. It was something she’d learned
to do without. Which, she supposed, would come in real handy should
she wind up spending the rest of her life in some prison cell.
    That wouldn’t happen,