Page 17 of River Justice

“Did you follow me here?” she asked and pretended to be touched by that.

“I was hungry, and today is the pulled pork sandwich special, my favorite.”

“Really? Today’s special is my favorite, too. It amazes me how much you and I have in common.”

Brand shook his head, even though he thought he should try to mend some fences since they’d probably be running into each other again, as small as Powder Crossing was. “I feel as if we got off on the wrong foot,” he said and flashed her a lopsided grin one girl had told him was killer. “Let me buy you lunch.” He motioned to the waitress that he’d take the special.

“I can buy my own lunch,” she said, openly studying him. “Seriously, what are you really doing here?”

“I told you. I was hungry, and I love their pulled pork.”

“Uh-huh.” She cocked her head at him. “You’re not sure what to make of me, are you?” Her laugh was light and breezy like the summer day. She sat back and crossed her arms. “Why don’t you just come out and ask. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

He thought about that for a moment. He realized he wanted to know a whole lot more about Birdie Malone, but at the same time, all his instincts told him to keep his distance for obvious reasons. “I’m sorry about your father.”

That seemed to surprise her. She uncrossed her arms and looked serious. “Do you remember him?”

He shook his head. “Not really. I was five when my mother married him. She had five kids in seven years and was busy running a ranch. We were raised by housekeeper-nanny types who came and went. Mostly went, because my mother didn’t have much patience with the staff. I hardly saw my mother, let alone her husband.” He stopped, realizing how much he’d told her. Birdie already had good reason to believe that Charlotte Stafford was a murderer. Now he’d also insinuated that she was a bad mother. “I shouldn’t have said that. Mother...”

“It’s all right,” she said. “My mother didn’t win any awards either, and she only had me to contend with. Fortunately, I had my father and his mother, my grandmother, my nana.”

Their pulled pork sandwiches arrived, and seeing what she’d ordered made him smile. Not that he wanted to believe they had anything in common—other than their parents. “So, have you been in town for a while?”

“For a while,” she said between bites. He watched her eat a fry before she said, “I’m sorry you didn’t get to know my father. He was a good, kind, loving man. Go ahead and say it. Everyone does. Yes, he left my mother, but he always came back to see me. He loved me,” she said simply. “He promised he would come for me soon the last time I saw him. He never broke a promise. That’s how I knew that something awful had happened to him.”

“You still saw him when he was married to my mother?”

“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.

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