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Todd Weedly
intercepted her between a narrow row of desks.
    “Looks like someone needs a shower,” he drawled, his gaze
raking her from head to foot.
    Shasta pulled to an abrupt stop, somehow managing not to
scowl. The deputy, like Adam, made her skin crawl with his lewd looks and
thinly veiled innuendos. While neither man ever said or did anything blatantly
inappropriate, each time she came within twenty feet of them, she had to fight
to keep from hurling. She needed a shower all right, but it wasn’t because of
her run.
    She pasted on a smile. While she didn’t like Todd,
Dell did. Her brother hired him after all. “Yeah. Went for a run.”
    Todd hitched a hip on a desk, which made his leather gun
holster creak, and nodded, his gaze fastened to her chest. She shifted,
grateful she’d zipped her jacket up to her neck. “Anyway, I gotta go. Dell’s
waiting.”
    The deputy didn’t move one iota while she sidled around him,
careful not to touch his pant leg. She felt his stare on her as she hustled to
her brother’s office.
    Dell saw her approach and his expression darkened. He pushed
to his feet then grabbed his cane, which was never far away, and limped to the
door. Any annoyance Shasta felt toward him dissipated. While her brother might
be the biggest pain on the planet, she never doubted he loved her and worried
about her. After all, he’d taken care of her since she was sixteen…
    He opened the door. “Where the hell have you been? You said
an hour or less .”
    “I know. I’m sorry.” She breezed past him, bussing a kiss to
his whiskered cheek. She then bent over Graham’s wheelchair to do the same with
his clean shaven one.
    Her husband’s powerful arms and shoulders bulged the seams
of his polo shirt. He worked his upper body like a weightlifter to compensate
for his lack of lower body strength. The dash of silver at his temples and his
meticulously trimmed salt and pepper goatee were the only signs he was nearly
thirty years her senior. She gazed into his pale blue eyes. “Shouldn’t you be at
the airport?”
    “Yes, but when Adam called and said he had something
important to tell us, I changed my flight to two-thirty.”
    “So my brother didn’t contact you?”
    His lips lifted in a weary smile. “Not this time.”
    Concern wiggled through her chest. “You feeling okay, honey?
You look tired.”
    He patted her hand. “I’m fine. Got the start of a migraine
is all. But don’t worry,” he added when she opened her mouth. “I took a pain
pill and will sleep on the plane. I’ll be right as rain once I land in Vegas.”
    She bit her lower lip. “Maybe you shouldn’t go.”
    “Nonsense. It’s just a headache.”
    “That can lead to blackouts. Maybe you should—”
    “Shasta. Honey. Enough. All right? I said I was fine.”
    With a huff, she straightened and took her usual position
behind his wheelchair, but Adam jumped to his feet.
    “Here,” he said. “You probably should sit down.”
    Her eyes widened. Adam being chivalrous? Not his standard
MO. But he moved to lean against the wall, his arms and ankles crossed.
Suspicion tap danced across her neck. Adam offers up his chair without casting
even one covert leer her way.
    She tentatively perched her butt on the seat. “What’s going
on?”
    Dell shuffled back behind his desk and sat heavily in his
chair. “Yeah, counselor. Everyone’s here now, so spill whatever this important
news is.”
    Adam uncurled his stance with a cough. “I got a call this
morning and wanted to tell you all myself.”
    Graham scrunched his eyebrows together. “Tell us what?”
    The DA huffed a breath and shoved his hands into his pant
pockets. “Lynch Callan is being released.”
    Shasta felt like she was being held underwater. No sound. No
air. Stars danced in front of her eyes. She knew she needed to breathe, but her
constricted lungs refused to work.
    Lynch Callan—the man serving twenty-five years to life for
trying to kill Dell and Wyatt’s