McCullen's Secret Son (The Heroes Of Horseshoe Creek Book 2) by Rita Herron Page A

back.
    * * *
    B RETT DROVE BACK to the cabin, anxious to check on Willow. Hopefully the kidnapper would phone today with his demands.
    But if Willow didn’t have the money, what did they want?
    Willow was sitting on the porch, sipping coffee and looking so damn lost and pained that his lungs squeezed for air. He’d do anything to make her happy again.
    But the only way to do that was to put her son back in her arms.
    He parked, then carried the biscuit in one hand as he walked up to the porch.
    He handed her the food. “Any word?”
    She unwrapped the biscuit, although she rewrapped it as if she couldn’t eat. That, and the desolate look in her eyes, told him all he needed to know.
    “I searched Leo’s truck and found a woman’s name scribbled on a slip of paper. Doris Benedict. Do you know her?”
    “No. Who is she?” Willow ran a hand through her hair, the wavy strands tangling as the wind picked them up and whipped them around her face. Winter was blowing in to Pistol Whip with its cold and gusty windstorms.
    “I don’t know,” Brett said. “But maybe she knows something about Leo that can help us.”
    Willow rose from the porch swing, her face even more pale in the early morning light. “I’ll go with you.”
    “Are you sure? We don’t know what we’ll find—what her relationship with Leo was.”
    “I don’t care if they were lovers,” Willow said staunchly. “I was done with Leo a long time ago. But if she can help us find Sam, I have to talk to her.”
    Brett gave a clipped nod. She’d been done with Leo a long time ago—had she
loved
him, though?
    At one time he’d thought she loved
him
. But when he’d left town, she’d completely cut him out of her life.
    She disappeared inside the cabin and returned a moment later with her purse over her shoulder. But she kept her phone clutched in one hand. Her fingers were wrapped so tightly around it that they looked white.
    She didn’t look at him as she started down the steps. “Let’s go.”
    Brett followed her, climbed in the truck and started the engine, the tension between them thick with unanswered questions as he drove toward the woman’s address.
    Doris Benedict lived in Laramie, in a stone duplex on the outskirts of town. Dry scrub brush and weeds choked the tiny yard. No children’s toys outside, so she must not have kids. Although the duplex didn’t look fancy or expensive, a fairly new dark green sedan sat in the drive.
    Brett and Willow walked together to the front door. Willow folded her arms while he buzzed the doorbell. A car engine rumbled from next door while voices from another neighbor herding her kids out to the bus stop echoed in the wind.
    He punched the doorbell again, and a woman’s voice shouted from inside that she was coming. A second later, the door opened, and a young woman with a bad dye job and sparkling earrings that dangled to her shoulders stood on the other side.
    He guessed her age to be about thirty-four, although she had the ruddy skin of a heavy smoker, so she could have been younger.
    Her flirtatious smile flitted over him. “You’re that rodeo star?”
    He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Brett McCullen.”
    When her gaze roved from him to Willow, her ruby-red lips formed a frown. “What do you want?”
    Brett narrowed his eyes at the contempt in her voice.
    “My name is Willow James, um, Willow Howard—”
    “I know who you are.” Doris reached for the door as if to slam it in their faces, but Brett caught it with one hand.
    Willow looked stunned. “How do you know me?”
    Doris removed a cigarette from the pack in the pocket of her too-tight jeans. “Leo married you.”
    Brett frowned. “How do you know Leo, Ms. Benedict?”
    The woman angled her face toward him, her eyes menacing. “He and I dated a while back.”
    “How far back?” Brett asked.
    She lit her cigarette, tilted her head back and inhaled a drag, then glared at Willow. “About five years. I thought we were going to get hitched, but