Page 74 of Her Guarded Hero

Aurora giggled. At that point she realized that everyone had gathered round. They were either in the chairs on either side of the couch where she and Dalton were sitting, or on the loveseat across from her. Well, except for Brody and her cousins. She didn’t think she’d ever seen her cousins, Rhys and Luke, actually sitting down unless it was in a saddle. Currently, they were leaning over the back of the loveseat tugging at Lindy’s hair, as she sat beside Erwin. Those young men were going to get clocked for sure.

Brody went to the middle of the room and looked up at Hunter and Dex who were still standing in front of the couch. “Please take a seat,” he said pompously.

“Absolutely,” Dex grinned. “I’m sitting next to Aurora.” He plopped next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. Dalton shoved it off. Hunter sat on the other side of Dalton. She looked up at Brody to see what he would do next. It should be interesting.

He pulled out a little notebook.

“I see a few new faces, so I’m going to recap the pertinent details of the case.”

She’d never heard Sheriff Brody sound so official.

“Four months ago, Ned Little was wounded with a sharpened piece of plastic in the Washoe County Detention Facility. The corrections’ officers were unable to determine who killed him. Also residing in the facility was his cousin Ricky Little. When Ned died, Ricky asked for witness protection. It was determined he had no relevant information to provide to prosecutors to the murder of Hal Dockins or any other schemes that Ned Little might have been involved in. However, Ricky insisted that somebody besides his cousin wanted Aurora harmed.”

Dalton sat forward and peered around Aurora, glaring at Dex. “Did you know about this?”

“It was nothing but hearsay that went nowhere,” Dex sighed. “But I have feelers out.”

Brody frowned. “What do you mean you have feelers out?” he demanded. “It was determined by my office and by the Washoe County DA that there was nothing to Ricky Little’s claims.”

“Well obviously someone is still after her, so I would say that you and the DA are wrong, wouldn’t you Brody?” Dalton said sarcastically. He turned back to glare at his friend. “Now tell me what your feelers saying.” he demanded.

“The little shit’s trail, pun intended, was tougher to track because he used false names,” Dex explained. “Some friends have been sending his picture to all of the ranches throughout the Western United States. Whoever Ned was in league with won’t tell us that he worked at their place, but we’re narrowing it down to all the places he has worked. Then we’ll get an idea of the gap and see if we can piece together where he might have been when he met the bad guys.”

Aurora kind of kept up with what Dex was saying…kind of. “Sounds convoluted,” she said to Dex.

“Dex’s theories always are,” Hunter said. “But give him a Rubik’s cube and he can solve it.”

“What I meant was-” Dex started.

“Please don’t explain again, I got the gist of it,” she said she interrupted him.

Her ears might be bleeding if he started talking again. She was pretty sure she understood she understood him.

Brody cleared his throat, clearly not happy that the focus had shifted from him.

“Both the Sacramento and Placerville authorities are on the lookout for the person responsible for tampering with the horse trailer.”

Dalton tapped her on the shoulder and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Which horse died?” he asked.

“Lucky.” She felt the tears coming on, and it wasn’t because of pregnancy hormones. The thought that someone could have purposefully killed that beautiful black mare left her feeling bewildered. How could someone do that?

“We’re going to get them,” Dalton whispered. “I promise you.”

“Damn right we will,” Dex said beside her.

She saw Hunter, on the other side of Dalton, nod his head in agreement.

It was like she’d just been welcomed into another family.

Brody cleared his throat. He was giving them the evil eye, so she tuned into him again.

“As for the black truck that side-swiped you, we have a little bit more information on that. It was stolen from a Marcus Holt who was in Placerville the same day that the horse trailer was tampered with. The Placerville sheriff’s department has had an APB out on the truck since then.”

“Was something abandoned in it’s place?” Hunter asked.

“What do you mean?” Brody gave him a confused look.

“If he didn’t leave something behind when he stole the truck, that means there had to be two people involved, or he took an Uber to the rest stop.”