Trinity Harbor 3 - Along Came Trouble Read Free Page A

enough to make what she’d done forgivable. Maybe he hadn’t needed to know how deeply she regretted having hurt him.
    In the years since, even though they lived within miles of each other for part of the year, she’d done her best to stay out of his path. She’d figured she owed him that much. And if she hadn’t come to that conclusion on her own, King Spencer had made it a point to remind her every time they’d crossed paths. She’d made a powerful enemy there, no doubt about it.
    “Is our breakup the rough spot you’re talking about?” she asked.
    “That was one thing,” he agreed.
    It saddened her that there might have been more, that he’d suffered losses, endured crises, she’d known nothing about. “And the others?”
    “Liz, you’re not here to catch up on old times,” Tucker said with a hint of impatience. “Why are you here, instead of over at Swan Ridge? Where the hel are your clothes? What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into, and last—but hardly least—why aren’t you turning to your husband for help?”
    She shivered again at the cold glint in his eyes and wondered if she’d made a dreadful mistake in coming here. Tucker was, after al , the sheriff.
    His first obligation would be to the law, not to her. But instinct had brought her to Tucker, and desperation would keep her from leaving. She needed help that he could provide…if he would. It al came down to that.
    “I’m afraid Larry can’t help me with this one,” she told him.
    “Why not?”
    She risked a look into those hard, unyielding eyes, praying that Tucker would forgive her for the past, praying even harder that he would help her despite it.
    “Because he’s dead,” she said, then added before she could lose her nerve, “and everyone’s going to think I kil ed him.”
    2
    W el, hel, Tucker thought, as Mary Elizabeth’s explanation hit him in the gut. He should have known she wasn’t here to rekindle an old flame. He had known it. A part of him just hadn’t wanted to believe it. A part of him, overcome with that same old uncontrol able lust, hadn’t given two figs why she was back. He was going to have to try real y, real y hard to ignore that part of him, at least until he knew what the devil was going on.
    If Chandler was dead, why hadn’t he heard about it? Surely it would have been big news. She couldn’t possibly be tel ing him it had just happened, could she?
    “When did he die?” he asked, trying to ignore the fact that tears were wel ing up in her eyes and that she was doing her best to keep them from spil ing down her cheeks. Mary Elizabeth had always hated to let anyone see her cry, especial y him.
    “Sometime yesterday, I think. I’m not sure.”
    He stared at her incredulously. “You don’t know?”
    “I went to Swan Ridge last night about eleven,” she began.
    The news just got worse and worse, Tucker concluded. “Am I hearing you right? It happened here, in Trinity Harbor?” he demanded as the ramifications of that slammed into him. He had a dead politician in his jurisdiction and no one knew about it. Dear God, what had Mary Elizabeth been thinking?
    She nodded at his harsh question. “Yes. I…” She swal owed hard. “I found him. And then I came here.”
    “Damn it, Mary Elizabeth, have you lost your mind?” Tucker exploded before he could stop himself.
    Now the tears were more than she could fight. A steady torrent of them streamed down her cheeks, and Tucker’s heart flipped over. He fought the reaction and stayed right where he was.
    “I didn’t know where else to go, what else to do,” she whispered.
    She sounded more frightened and helpless than she’d ever sounded in her life, at least around him. Bravado had been ingrained in her from the day she’d arrived to live with her grandfather, a little girl who’d just lost her parents and been left with a man who was a virtual stranger.
    “Did you think for one single second about cal ing the police?” he asked,