Page 14 of Naughty by Nature

Cheyenne looked at Sheridan, a frown on her face. “Maybe I can have Brock go get her. She can stay at the ranch.”

“Mama,” Grace cried.

Sheridan glanced in the rearview at her daughter. “We can go get the dog. It’s not that far out of our way.”

Actually, it was. Almost completely in the opposite direction from Sheridan’s place. “You don’t want a random dog running around your house.”

He shrugged. “She’ll have to get along with Beowulf, which might be interesting. If they have issues, I can kennel Wulf.”

Cheyenne was torn. It was going to be traumatic enough taking the girls from their homes and everything they were used to. If they had to lose the dog too, or God forbid something happened to her, it would be unrecoverable.

“If you’re sure you don’t mind,” she agreed eventually. “It would definitely ease ours.”

Sheridan turned the truck in the direction of her house. Cheyenne felt like a leech, making him work so hard for them. The man was already bending over backwards for them as it was.

When they turned onto their road a strange, white truck with blacked-out windows passed them. Cheyenne strained forward, trying to see inside but the glass was just too dark. Sheridan grabbed a pen from his pocket and leaned forward enough to write the license plate down on the pad on the dash.

“I don’t recognize the truck and it looks like you don’t either.”

Cheyenne shook her head. “No, I don’t. Not unless one of my father’s hands got a new vehicle.”

They accelerated toward her house. As Sheridan pulled into her drive he held out a restraining hand. “Why don’t you wait here just a minute? Let me check out the house.”

Cheyenne didn’t like it but she nodded. Sheridan parked the vehicle in front of her house, opened the door and slid out of the cab. She watched him tighten the Stetson on his head as he walked toward her front porch, looking down in front of him. When he paused to look down at the ground, then removed his cell phone to take a picture of something on the ground, she leaned forward in her seat to see what he was doing.

“What did he find?” Carolyn asked.

“I’m not sure,” she whispered.

She watched him move around in front of the house looking at things, and once again she was struck by how much he was putting himself out for them. This wasn’t his fight.

Maybe it was just because of the nature of his job. He’d been hired to protect the county, and she was part of that county.

Damn.

As he neared the side of the house her gut clenched. She didn’t want to lose sight of him.

When he did disappear, they all leaned forward to see better.

“What’s taking him so long?” Savannah asked, her voice low and tight.

“He should have been back by now,” Carolyn agreed in a whisper, like she knew.

Cheyenne was just about to climb out of the truck to go looking for him when he reappeared, waving her out of the truck. Happiness filled her. He hadn’t been hurt.

There was a deep frown on his face, though.

“You girls stay here.”

They moaned almost in unison but she closed the door on them and crossed the dry yard to the sheriff.

The frown on his face scared her. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s no one out here now, but somebody was definitely peepin’ in your windows. The grass and flowers are trampled pretty well, almost like he wanted you to know he’d been here. But none of the doors are jimmied or anything. Daisy is fine in her kennel and your horses and chickens seem fine.”

Cheyenne moved to where she could see the damage for herself. It actually wasn’t as visible to her. His sharp cop eyes had spotted things she probably wouldn’t have under normal circumstances. Yes, there was a stalk of iris leaning crookedly beneath one window, and there was a compressed area near the spigot. The ground there was always a little mushy from the condensation on the pipe, but she could definitely see boot prints in the thicker grass.

A chill went through her in spite of the hot sun beating down. Sheridan had told her about Wade but seeing the evidence here, with her own eyes was very different. Fear tightened her fists and made her body shudder. The last time Wade had compromised her in this way she’d been beaten and raped, and left for dead in the front yard of their house.

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