Page 3 of Smoke

"I know you do."

The answer landed differently than an argument would have. I left before the conversation could find somewhere more dangerous to go.

Dad's house sat near the western edge of Salvation, where the properties spread farther apart and scrub crept close to the road. Returning after so long should have felt comforting, but the familiar adobe walls and shaded porch seemed smaller than I remembered.

A dark gray truck sat farther down the road near the next property. There was nothing inherently suspicious about a truck in Salvation. Half the town drove one, and I probably wouldn't have thought twice about it if Smoke hadn't spent the morning forcing danger into practical terms. I slowed as I turned into the drive, parked and looked back once before getting out.

The truck stayed where it was while I went inside, where the house smelled faintly of furniture polish and the cinnamon gum Dad had chewed for as long as I could remember. I locked the front door behind me, dropped my suitcase near the stairs and headed toward the kitchen for water.

The damage around the back door stopped me. A strip of pale wood showed through the painted frame beside the lock, freshly exposed where something had splintered it. The door itself was shut, but the metal around the latch carried bright new scrape marks. Dad was meticulous about repairs and hated paying someone else to do anything he could manage himself. If that damage had been there before the shooting, he would have fixed it. Someone had tried to get into the house, and I backed away without touching anything and pulled out my phone. The sensible call was the sheriff's department, except Dad was the sheriff and I had spent the morning hearing exactly how non-existent the law was around here these days.

Smoke's number was still in my contacts. I'd never deleted it. I'd come up with many reasons why over the past few years. None of them were convincing.

A motorcycle engine reached the house before I made the call. I went to the front window and watched Smoke pull into the drive. By the time I opened the door, he was already coming up the porch steps.

"Did you follow me?"

"No. Gage clocked a gray truck sitting down the road and called it in." I looked past him and found the road empty; the truck was gone. Smoke's attention moved from my face into the house. "What happened?"

"Back door."

He stepped inside, and I pointed toward the kitchen. The moment he saw the damaged frame, the faint humor disappeared from his expression and his shoulders tightened. His hand went beneath his cut as he looked toward the rear of the house.

"Stay here while I clear it."

I could have argued from habit, but there was fresh damage around my father's lock and the truck that had been watching the house had disappeared as soon as Smoke arrived.

For the first time since coming back to Salvation, I understood that Dad's shooting and my return were no longer separate problems. Whoever wanted Sheriff Warren White silent already knew his daughter was home.

CHAPTER 2

SMOKE

The damage to Warren White's back door wasn't dramatic, but it didn't need to be. Somebody had worked something narrow into the frame beside the lock and put enough pressure on it to splinter the wood without forcing the door. There was no broken glass, no mess inside and nothing to suggest an opportunistic burglary. Whoever had been there wanted quiet access and had been willing to walk away when getting inside meant making noise and drawing attention to themselves.

That bothered me more than a kicked-in door would have.

I cleared the house once, then checked the upstairs windows and side entrance again because the first attempt at a door didn't mean there hadn't been another. Nothing else looked disturbed. Warren's office was locked, the windows were intact and there were no fresh marks around the side door.

Beth stayed in the kitchen while I checked the house. She listened when I told her to stay back, which had probably cost her more than she would admit, but she knew that this was not a time to argue about what I was asking her to do.

When I came downstairs, she was watching me with the expression she used to wear when she'd decided I was doing something excessive but hadn't yet decided whether the argument was worth the trouble. Time hadn't erased my ability to read that face apparently.

I called Gage. The gray truck had left as soon as I arrived. Havoc had picked it up briefly on the east side of town but lost it once the road opened beyond Salvation, and the rear plate had been deliberately obscured. Shade had already taken over Warren's hospital watch, which meant the old bastard wasn't exposed while I dealt with this.

Beth listened without interrupting until I told Gage she wouldn't be staying at her father's house. Once I ended the call, she gave me a long look. "You might want to include me in that decision."

There were a dozen answers I could have given, most guaranteed to start the kind of fight we didn't need. In the last year of our marriage, I had been too quick to assume that if my reasoning was sound, Beth should simply understand it. I'd confused being right about a threat with being right about how to handle her. I wasn't interested in repeating that mistake within hours of seeing her again.

"Someone tried to get into this house, a truck was watching when you arrived, and it disappeared as soon as I showed up. I don't know if the same assholes who shot Warren knew you were coming back, but I'm not betting your safety on them being stupid."

She looked toward the damaged door again, considering the problem instead of focusing on the fact that I was the one presenting it. "I can get a hotel."

"You can, but if they know who you are, a hotel doesn't buy much. My place is easier to secure, and nobody gets close without the club knowing."

The words changed the air between us because my place had once been ours. We bought the house two years into the marriage, after deciding the rental near the garage wasn't enough for two people. Beth chose the kitchen tile. I built shelves in the spare room after six months of listening to her complain about storage. We fought there, fucked there, spent Sundays doing nothing there and eventually stood in the living room while she told me she couldn't keep being married to me.

It was mine now only because she hadn't wanted it in the divorce.