Free Two Cowboys in Her Crosshairs [Hellfire Ranch] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Jennifer August Page A

before I made it to my car.” She headed for her vehicle, opened the back door, and leaned inside.
    Hudson whistled softly. “Damn, she’s got a great ass.”
    Jake shoved him, but he didn’t hide a grin. “Yeah, she does.”
    The SUV door thudded shut, and she loped back to the porch and took the porch stairs at a rapid clip.
    “Let’s go inside,” she said, looking around. Her eyes were once more calculating. “It sounds like the local grapevine is too good. Don’t want news of this ending up in the evening paper.”
    Hudson opened the door and ushered them inside. He winked as he cut in front of Jake. “We don’t have an evening paper. Just Earl’s weekly rag that details all sorts of fun and insipid details of Freedom’s fine citizens.”
    Jake locked the door and followed them into the dining room. He leaned against the doorjamb and watched Olivia open the shoe box and lift out a bundle. Hudson pulled out a wooden chair and dropped down.
    Paper crackled in the silence as she unwrapped the statue. She set four large pieces on the table and looked at him. “This is what Shag was killed for. The question is, why?”
    Hudson leaned forward and peered at it from all sides then sat back and tipped his chair on two legs. “It’s broken. Doesn’t look like anything special to me.”
    Acid coated the back of Jake’s throat. He moved toward the table and stopped a foot shy.
    The statue pieces sat innocuously where she’d set them. The thing was covered in gritty sand and looked like it’d been made years ago.
    Perhaps even a thousand years ago.
    Olivia looked at him. “Jake?”
    He scrubbed a palm over his face and blew out a sharp breath. “You don’t know where he got it?”
    “No.”
    She tipped her head. “But you do, don’t you?”
    Jake avoided her searing gaze. “Not exactly.”
    Hudson’s chair thumped to the floor. “Then what, exactly?”
    “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “It looks familiar, but I’m just not positive. Could be because it’s trashed.” He looked at her. “I don’t suppose you’d leave it here and let me do some research on it?”
    She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”
    Hudson’s big hand covered hers. “You can trust him, Olivia. He might be an ass at times, but no matter what, Jake can always be counted on.”
    Jake crossed his arms and waited for her answer.
    The grandfather clock ticked loudly in the silence.
    “All right. I’ll leave it overnight. Where do you think you know it from?”
    Jake shook his head. He wasn’t quite ready to spill the beans on a secret that had haunted him for three years.
    A secret that may have cost his men their lives.

Chapter Five
     
    Hudson followed Olivia back into town and wondered at the strained relationship she had with Jake. She pulled into the motel and skirted around to the back. He pulled into a space next to her and cranked down the window of his beat-up green truck. “You hungry?” He was anxious to have some time alone with her and pick her brain.
    After the first week he’d returned home, Jake refused to talk about what happened in Afghanistan. Hudson was hoping this dark-haired, sloe-eyed beauty would offer up some tidbits.
    His friend had come back from the war a changed, almost-broken man.
    And every year on the anniversary of that last day in Afghanistan, Jake fell a little deeper into the bottle. Spent a lot more time alone and refused to talk to anyone.
    Even him.
    Olivia locked her car and strolled over. Her gait was long and loose-limbed like a young gazelle.
    She gripped the side mirror. “We just ate. Besides, I was just going to order room service later.”
    Hudson rolled his eyes. “Good Lord, darlin’, don’t do that. Whitcombe will send you stale crackers with moldy cheese and call it Roquefort. He’ll charge you an assload for it, too.”
    She smiled and looked younger than she had all day. “What if I like Roquefort?”
    He pretended to shudder. “Come on over to the Tin Star.”