Page 45 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

Heat roared between them. Familiar. Dangerous.

Deacon lifted a hand to her jaw, his thumb brushing her cheek in a way that unraveled every defense she had tried to rebuild in the past year.

Then, he kissed her.

It sure as heck wasn’t soft. Wasn’t tentative either. It was a claiming kiss, full of memory and hunger, the kind of kiss that made her forget all the reasons kissing him was a bad idea.

She responded before she could think better of it, her hands sliding up his chest, clutching his shirt.

When he finally pulled back, they were both breathing hard. “You said you didn’t want to kiss me,” he said, his voice gone rough.

Jessa swallowed, heat stirring at the base of her throat. “I lied.”

Deacon’s smile broke slowly, the kind that always hit her low in the stomach. He leaned in, clearly about to kiss her again, when his phone buzzed.

He cursed, checked the screen. And his expression shifted.

“It is Noah,” he said. “He’s on his way here. He says he has security footage he wants me to see.”

Jessa felt her entire body tense. Seeing Noah meant facing the man who had unknowingly fathered her. It meant facing everything she had been avoiding since the truth dropped into her life like a grenade.

But she also wanted to see that footage. Answers were too rare right now to ignore something like that.

Before she could say anything, another knock sounded at the door.

Deputy Kincaid opened it a crack. “Sheriff, Shade, AKA Brett Calder, is here. I placed him in interview room two. He has an attorney, Michael Farrow, with him.”

Deacon nodded. “Thanks. We will be there in a minute.” The deputy left, closing the door again, and Deacon looked at her. “You can observe. Come on.”

Jessa followed him through the quiet hallway, her pulse tapping at her throat. They moved past the administrative desks toward the pair of small interview rooms at the end of the wing. Deacon opened the door to the observation room, and she stepped inside.

Jessa immediately saw Shade through the one-way glass. He sat at the metal table with his lawyer beside him. Shade’s shoulders tense, jaw locked tight, eyes flickering toward the door like a man calculating exits.

“This is harassment,” the lawyer snapped the moment Deacon stepped into interview. “My client has cooperated fully. Dragging him in here is unnecessary.”

Shade huffed under his breath. “I won’t sit around and be accused of whatever crap you intend to say I did.”

Deacon didn’t react. He calmly took his seat, opened the case file, pressed record on the small device at the edge of the table and spoke in his steady, official tone.

“This is Sheriff Deacon Raines conducting an interview with Brett Calder and his counsel on Thursday at nine fifty-nine in the morning. Present in the room are Sheriff Raines, Brett Calder, also known as Shade, and attorney Michael Farrow. Mr. Calder, you have previously been read your rights but I am going to go over them again.”

He read them without a trace of irritation, something Jessa wasn’t sure she could have managed. Something that Shade and his lawyer weren’t managing well either.

When Deacon finished, he lifted his gaze. “All right then. First question. Where have you been this morning?”

Shade shrugged. “Driving. To Crossfire Creek. Alone.”

Jessa’s stomach tightened. No alibi. No witness. Nothing to rule him out as the man who had shot at them.

“Let us talk about Lauren Creed,” Deacon insisted. “Specifically, your blackmailing her.”

Shade’s posture snapped straight. His lawyer sat forward at the same time. “That is a mischaracterization,” the attorney snapped. “My client provided digital security services for Ms. Creed. He was compensated for his expertise.”

“That is one way to put it,” Deacon replied with a whole lot of skepticism in his voice.

Jessa felt heat climb into her throat as she listened, her nails digging into her arms. Because if Shade had blackmailed her mother, then he had motive for murder. And motive for everything that followed.

Deacon held Shade’s stare. “All right, let us hear your version,” he said. “Start talking.”