Once Broken (Dove Creek Chronicles) Read Free Page B

walked toward the house like the man indicated with the double barrel of the shotgun. While I couldn’t blame him for getting up in arms over finding a woman in his pasture with a hunting bow, I sure hated having a gun pointed at my back.
    By the time we stepped into the radius of fluorescent light given off by the utility fixture near the house, the deputy’s patrol car was parked directly behind my jeep. He looked less than pleased as he approached us with his hand on his sidearm.
    “Evening, sir.” It was probably too casual a greeting for the situation, but I was nothing if not polite.
    “Ma’am, place the bow on the ground in front of you,” he ordered.
    I did as I was told. Slowly. I shucked the quiver that was strapped to my back and put it down, too, just for good measure.
    “You can put the shotgun away, too, Mr. Winslow.” The deputy looked back at me as the farmer obliged. “Care to explain yourself, ma’am?”
    I nodded. “It was a hog . . . Nearly ran me off the road.” I put on a nervous face in an attempt to be convincing. “Thought I’d just go ahead and shoot it, but I lost it. I’m awfully sorry about all this . . . I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”
    I sincerely hoped that my story flew, such as it was.
    “Well, ma’am, I’m gonna hafta take you in to the county for aggravated trespassing regardless. Please turn around.”
    Trying for wide-eyed ignorance, I blinked like a deer in headlights. “Am I under arrest?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    The deputy read my rights and handcuffed me like a common criminal. Of course, in his mind, that‘s exactly what I was. He picked up my bow and quiver, and ushered me to the patrol car.
    “Do you have identification with you Miss . . .?” He asked as he put me in the backseat of the car.
    “Missus.” I corrected him. My name was still my married name. “Remington Hart. My ID is in the glove compartment of my jeep.” I told him all of that as politely as I could manage.
    The deputy went and ducked into the passenger side and retrieved my driver’s license, then came back and settled into his place behind the wheel.
    “That’s a helluva name for a lady, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”
    My father named me. He had been dead set on my big brother being John Junior, but my mother had other ideas. So, he insisted that he get to name his second son whatever he wanted. Mom agreed with little reserve, not knowing his designs on naming a child after his favorite gun maker. Needless to say, I came into this world quite without the necessary tools to be classified as a son. The name my dad had chosen seemed fitting nonetheless, so there I was: Remington Jean.
    I suppose my mother should count her lucky stars that my father didn’t name my brothers, or they might’ve been dubbed Sig and Colt. 
    “Yeah, it is. You could say that my daddy’s into guns.” I offered a little grin, despite the situation. The deputy just gave me a sidelong look as he typed something into the keyboard mounted to his dash.
    “What’s your maiden name, ma’am?”
    “McCoy.”
    “Well I’ll be damned. You one of the McCoy kids from around here?”
    “Yeah, Dove Creek.”
    The deputy seemed to warm up to me a little more. I was thanking my lucky stars that when my father had still lived here, he didn’t know a stranger. Stuck handcuffed in the back of a patrol car, though, I was getting impatient. I still wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, and I wanted to find out.
    “So one of you defends the law and one of you breaks it, huh?” He laughed at his own joke. I didn’t share his amusement.
    “Where’d your daddy end up, anyway? Heard he took off outta state to open a new shop.”
    “He’s up in Alaska now. Says he likes the peace and quiet.” Well, it wasn’t a complete fabrication. He really does live in Alaska.
    “I can imagine.”
    The deputy nodded at something on his screen, then shifted in his seat to look at me.
    “Everything checks out