She zipped up her jacket against the whistling wind as she studied the house in front of her. Sgt. Gowler had been annoyed with her ever since she stopped dating his son, so she was used to it by now. What was one more reprimand?
Discovering that Grant Cooper was living just nineteen-point-six miles outside of her very own hometown was either the height of irony, or the proof that she wasn’t much of a cop, just like Sgt. Gowler seemed to think.
Not that she was here for professional reasons.
Not exactly.
Her bangs blew into her face, obscuring her view, and she shoved her sunglasses up onto the top of her head to keep her hair out of her eyes. She should never have impetuously cut the bangs. It was taking forever for them to grow long enough to stay contained in the bun she had to wear because Gowler was a stickler for regulations.
She’d been out to this abandoned ranch once before. Just over a year ago. Then, it had been at the behest of a single mom at her wit’s end over the wild crowd her fifteen-year-old son had fallen in with. Alongside one of the county’s deputy sheriffs, she’d rounded up Trevor and the rest of the kids, boarded up the broken windows that had allowed them access to the vacant house and hauled the kids back home to their parents.
There were still no animals in the fields. But now the sheets of plywood were gone. All the windows were intact. And though there was no sign of any vehicles, there was a thin stream of smoke coming from the chimney that she hoped meant the man she sought was actually inside.
When she went up the weathered porch steps, they creaked ominously, as if they hadn’t borne the weight of a human being in about half a century. Jabbing her gloved finger against the doorbell didn’t elicit any response, so she tugged off the glove, balled her fingers into a fist and pounded loudly on the door. A shelf of snow slid off the roof, landing with a plop next to her feet.
She wasn’t going to take it as a bad sign. The snow could just have easily landed on her head.
She swiped the pile sideways with her boot until it fell off the side of the small porch, and knocked again, a little more gently this time. Even if he didn’t answer the door, she wasn’t going to give up.
Not now that she’d finally found him.
She glanced at her watch. She couldn’t afford to be too long before she reported in, or Gowler really would have a legitimate reason to be all over her case. But she’d just discovered where Grant Cooper was and she wasn’t taking any chances. She knocked on the door again, then glanced over her shoulder, scanning the landscape around the house. It looked even more desolate than it had when she’d rousted the weed-smoking teenagers.
But then again, it was the middle of January. In the middle of Wyoming.
“Come on.” She lifted her hand to knock again, but the door was yanked open from the inside, startling her enough that she fell back a step.
Annoyed with herself, she stiffened her shoulders and looked up into the face of the man who stood there.
Six feet tall. A lean 170. Dark-haired. Dark-browed, dark-bearded. Her brain automatically categorized the details that she’d only seen in a photo in his DMV record.
When she got to the eyes, though?
She felt her brain short-circuit.
Not blue.
Not green.
Aqua.
Entirely heart-stopping, even though they were glaring at her.
“I can’t believe I finally found you,” she blurted.
His lips thinned. “It’s my only one.” He shoved something into her hands. “Now get off my property.” Before she could blink, he slammed the door shut. Right in her face.
She was too stunned to react.
At first.
But annoyance quickly hit and she pounded on the door again, using the spine of the hardback book he’d pushed into her hand. It served one good purpose at least—it made an effective door-knocker.
It didn’t matter to her if he turned out to be as strange as a three-dollar bill. She wasn’t going to just turn around and leave because he hadn’t greeted her with a big smile and howdy-do.
So she banged with the book and pulled out her badge with her other hand. “Mr. Cooper, open the door,” she said loudly. “I’m not going away until we’ve had a chance to speak.” She banged again. “Open up!”
The door was yanked open again. “If Chelsea sent you—”
Ali did the shoving this time and pushed her badge right in front of his face. “I’m Officer Templeton with the Braden Police Department, here on official business.” She was definitely stretching the truth about that, but oh, well. “I don’t know who Chelsea is, nor do I care, unless she has information about the whereabouts of Daisy Miranda.”
Only because she was watching him closely did she catch the glint of surprise in his otherwise glowering expression.
“Are you Grant Cooper?”
He still looked like he wasn’t going to answer and she wiggled her badge a little, even as she tried to make herself as physically imposing as five foot two could ever be.
“Yes,” he admitted through his teeth.
“Then Daisy is your sister.” The woman might be a rolling stone, never staying in one place for more than three or four months at a time, but she seemed to have tried to always maintain some sort of contact with her brother.
Which was the only reason Ali had found him right here at all. She’d literally followed a postcard to the man.
Nineteen-point-six miles. He’d been practically under her nose all this time.
His expression darkened even more. “My sister’s name is Karen Cooper. Not Daisy Miranda.”
But he’d recognized the name. Ali had seen it in his eyes. She wished they had a photo of Daisy. But she didn’t. Just a general description provided by the people who’d known her during her brief stay in Braden. “Medium height. Slender. Red hair, green eyes? Maybe she married?”
His expression revealed his disbelief. “No way.”
“Does she often use an alias? Are there other names she goes by?”
His lips were pressed together.
She let out a little breath of frustration. “If you think your silence will make me give up, you’re wrong, Mr. Cooper. Regardless of what she’s calling herself these days, I’m looking for her. And I intend to find her.”
“You and about a dozen others. If you’re here because my sister owes somebody money, you’re out of luck. You won’t get it from me.”
“This isn’t about money.”
“I don’t care what it’s about.” He tried closing the door again, only to glare at her even harder when he couldn’t because she’d quickly planted her heavy boot in the doorway.
“So you don’t care about her abandoned baby?” Ordinarily, she would have cringed a little at her own bluntness, but these weren’t ordinary circumstances.
This time she didn’t have to look closely to see the shock that crossed his handsome face. He closed his aqua eyes for a second. Then he frowned and moved away from the doorway. But he didn’t try shutting the door.
It was invitation enough for her and she stepped inside.
The interior of the house was only slightly