Too Sexy for his Stetson Read Free Page B

his back.
    Ka–chink.
    The sound had a way of grabbing a man’s attention. He froze for a second. But this guy had more grit than some. He walked to the driver’s side of the vehicle before turning to face her and tipped his Stetson back.
    “Not hardly.” He smiled and slowly swiped his forearm across his brow then reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “I thought I’d offer you a ride into town so you could get busy writing up your report.” He offered his hand. “Blade Beringer at your service, Ma’am. Lieutenant Deputy Sheriff Beringer.”
    As in her new boss and field training supervisor.
    Wilcox, you are so screwed.

CHAPTER TWO
    “S hit,” Brandy mumbled as she jerked the clip from her Remington.
    At least Beringer had the grace not to laugh when she climbed into his car and slammed her butt onto the passenger seat.
    With her arms crossed over her chest, she tried to ignore the man who could make or break her career and who would, over the next five freaking–long months, be her boss and field training officer. He could have identified himself rather than letting her prove she was greener than the Coeur d’Alene forest and about as smart as a pile of Idaho granite. The first thing she should have done when encountering a B and E was ask for the suspect’s ID.
    And double shit, because now that she knew he wasn’t some perverted felon— damn, he was hot . All that lean, mean muscle and charisma stoked fire in the pit of her stomach.
    She gritted her teeth. Determined not to steal a glance at his profile, she reminded herself there was no room in her life for distractions. Not now, not when she could almost taste the elusive tang of revenge. She had to stay focused. And a guy like the sexy man in the Stetson next to her could wreak havoc with a woman’s concentration.
    “Sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to see how you handled yourself. Should have identified myself sooner, but you kind of came on like gangbusters.”
    “You led me on.”
    “Innovative technique you employed for detaining a suspect.”
    “Yeah, well, I didn’t let the suspect get away, did I?”
    “What red–blooded male would have wanted to get away?”
    “Implying?”
    He raised his hands in defense. “Implying that whatever gets the job done… More power to you and all the redneck women of the world.”
    His smile said he was impressed. But for all she knew, he could be a chauvinistic jerk. And she wasn’t looking forward to his sharing the details of her attempted arrest with the entire Little Chute County Sheriff’s Department.
    In an attempt to sound professional and change the subject, she asked, “So, Lieutenant, how much do you know about the Neo Nazi Freedom Fighters?”
    “Looks like they keep life interesting around here.”
    “They’ve been hanging around northern Idaho for decades. In recent years, they’ve been fairly low–key. But a couple of months ago, they started making noises. Friday, they hassled a group of hikers near that cabin—the one you were breaking into .”
    “I was checking out the scene of the incident. Who knows what I may have found if I hadn’t been detained.”
    “You wouldn’t have been detained if you had identified yourself.”
    “Touche.” He slanted the Stetson over his forehead and focused on navigating hairpin curves and pigtail switchbacks that took them back into Little Chute Valley. As they neared town, rental cabins and resorts dotted the outer fringe of the vacation haven that sprawled miles across the base of Black Mountain’s thickly wooded slopes.
    By the time they reached the sheriff’s department, an A–frame log building that hunkered on the foot of the mountain, the late afternoon sun had ramped the day’s high temperature to ninety–nine point five parched degrees.
    They exited the vehicle, and Brandy strode next to the lieutenant, her mouth dry, her chest tight, trying to second–guess him. Would he expound on her attempted arrest