An unexpected tug in his groin caught Dalton by surprise. His steps faltered before he caught himself.
Not an option, Hale. Not even close to an option.
Unfortunately, the more he tried not to think about Briar Blackwood as a woman, the more of her feminine features he noticed. Like the perfect size of her breasts, neither too large nor too small for her compact frame. Or the flare of her hips and curvy contours of her bottom.
She had a fine face, too—more interesting than conventionally pretty, with lightly tanned skin splashed with small cinnamon freckles and large black-fringed eyes currently the color of antique pewter.
Fire flashed in those gray eyes as she turned to look at him. “Mr. Hale, I don’t know what you think you know about my husband or his murder, but if you think it’s a way to get back at your brother and sister—”
“Don’t call them that.”
Her dark eyebrows notched slightly upward. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. I don’t sugarcoat the truth. You and the chief share a mother. You don’t have to like it. I don’t reckon he likes it much himself, but there you are anyway. And if you’re messing around in my life because you think it’ll piss off your brother, you can just move along and find somebody else to use. I won’t be party to it.”
He wanted to be angry at her for her bluntness, but in truth, he found it something of a relief. Everybody else he knew, friends and colleagues he’d known for years, seemed to walk around on eggshells around him, as if they feared speaking plainly about the train wreck his life had become. He might not like what Briar Blackwood had to say, but at least she was saying it aloud and without apology.
“Understood,” he said with similar bluntness. “But my interest in your husband’s murder has nothing to do with Massey.”
“Then why are you suddenly interested in what happened to Johnny?”
He studied her, wondering if her straightforward style and “call a spade a spade” philosophy extended to her own life. “Why aren’t you more interested, Mrs. Blackwood?”
His question hit the mark. He saw her eyes widen slightly, and her pink lips flattened with annoyance. “What makes you think I’m not?”
“Most people who lose a loved one to murder don’t move on with their lives so easily.”
The fire returned to those gunmetal eyes. “What would you have me do? Bury myself with him? Turn the cabin into a shrine and worship his memory? I have a small son. I have bills to pay and debts to honor. I don’t have time to haunt the police station begging them to solve his case. I was there for the whole thing. I knew how hard they tried to follow leads. But there weren’t any leads to follow. Not here in Ridge County.”
“Where, then, if not here in Ridge County?” he asked softly.
Up flickered those eyes again, changing tone with quicksilver speed. Now they were hard edged and cold as hoarfrost. “What made you come to Maryville at this time of night to ask me questions about my husband? Why tonight, smack in the middle of all this uproar?”
She wasn’t going to tell him what he needed to know, he saw, unless he gave her something in return. The chief was right—she was tougher than she looked. But how much could he tell her without driving her further away?
“I’m investigating the Wayne Cortland crime organization. I assume, as a police officer, you have at least a passing knowledge of the case.”
She nodded quickly. “I do.”
Much of the information he’d gathered over the past few months was highly confidential, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t get far with this woman if he didn’t cough up a little new information. But the newest revelation of his ongoing investigation, the lead that had brought him to Maryville Mercy Hospital in the middle of the night, was something he didn’t think Johnny Blackwood’s widow wanted to hear.
“I’m trying to connect the dots between Cortland and some of the Tennessee groups that may have been working for him.”
“I know. My cousin Blake is part of the Blue Ridge Infantry. Tennessee division.” She spoke in a dry, humorless drawl liberally spiced with disdain. Clearly not a fan of either her cousin or his pretense of patriotism. Good. That made his work here marginally less difficult.
But only marginally.
He paused a moment to size her up again, telling himself it wasn’t an excuse to appreciate once more her tempting curves. But his body’s heated reaction demolished that lie in a few accelerated heartbeats.
He forced his focus back to the problem of her husband’s potential involvement in Cortland’s organization. “How much did you know about your husband’s job?”
She hadn’t been expecting that question, he saw. Her brows furrowed and she cocked her head slightly to one side, countering with a question of her own. “What do you know about my husband’s job?”
“He was a driver with Davenport Trucking.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And because Wayne Cortland was trying to take control of Davenport Trucking through a proxy, you’re wondering if Johnny might have been on Cortland’s payroll.”
“Yes,” he answered, though it wasn’t the entire truth. He hadn’t made the connection between Johnny and Cortland because of Davenport Trucking, but if she bought that reason for his questions, he’d go with it.
“That’s thin gruel,” she said with a shake of her head. “There are dozens of people driving trucks for Davenport Trucking. You have another reason for targeting Johnny.”
“He was murdered.”
“And you think it’s connected to Cortland because...?”
She wasn’t going to be mollified by half truths, he saw with dismay. Not only was she tougher than she looked; she was smarter than he’d reckoned.
Still, he gave it one more shot, not so much out of concern for her feelings as from his own bone-deep weariness of scandal and acts of betrayal. “Can you accept that I have my reasons and I’m not inclined to share them?”
The look she gave him was uncomfortably penetrating. He felt himself closing up in defense, not ready to have her poking around in his brain.
She turned suddenly and started walking away.
“Wait.” He trailed after her.
She stopped and whirled around so quickly he almost barreled into her. “I want the truth. I don’t need you to protect my feelings or try to handle me. If you can’t play fair, you can count me out of your game.”
“It’s not a game.”
“What drew your attention to my late husband? What makes you think he’s connected to Wayne Cortland?”
There was steel in her voice but also a hint of a tremor, as if she knew whatever he had to say would be bad. So she hadn’t been naive about Johnny Blackwood’s personal failings, he thought. It wouldn’t make the truth any less sordid, but she might be less injured by the blow.
“I’ll make it easier for you,” she said quietly, her gaze dropping to the collar of his shirt. “The day Johnny’s body showed up on Smoky Ridge, I’d spoken to a lawyer about filing for divorce.”
The words were spoken flatly, but Dalton didn’t miss the tremble of vulnerability that underlay them. Not a broken heart, he assessed silently, but a deeply shattered pride.
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
She gave an impatient toss of her dark curls. “Just tell me why you think Johnny was involved with Cortland.”
“Because he was involved with Cortland’s secretary,” Dalton answered. “They were having an affair. And she thinks he was