Sloan didn’t think it was his imagination that Carley seemed smug and pleased about that. She no doubt thought that meant there’d be no Texas Rangers around to interfere with her investigation.

He caught onto her arm to prevent her smug exit. “The mayor and the D.A. don’t think you’re a hundred percent.”

She blinked and took her hands from her pockets. “Excuse me?”

“Neither does Zane. By all rights, you should be in your apartment, recovering.”

Carley threw off his grip. “Is this leading somewhere or are you trying to undermine my authority? Because you’re no longer sheriff of Justice.” She hitched a thumb to her chest. “I am.”

Sloan searched for the correct way to say this and decided there wasn’t one. The only thing he could do was lay it all there, even though he was dead certain it would cause the argument to escalate.

“It’s leading somewhere,” Sloan told her. “Since Zane is busy with the grand jury, someone needs to take over the investigation.”

That got her hands back on her hips. “That’s why I’m here at work, so I can do just that.”

“You’re on the case, Carley.” This was about to get even messier. “But only to assist.”

She shook her head, opened her mouth, closed it and shook her head again. Her confusion and denial morphed into anger. “Assist whom?”

Sloan braced himself for the inevitable fallout. “Me. I’m in charge of the case now. For the remainder of this investigation, I’m your boss.”

Carley figured it was physically impossible, but she thought her blood might be boiling. She certainly felt something fiery-hot racing through every inch of her body.

“My boss?” she repeated. Not easily. She nearly choked on the words.

Sloan nodded. “Zane is leader of the task force for this murder investigation.”

He didn’t need to add more to that. Carley quickly got the picture, and it wasn’t a picture she liked very much at all. It’d been Zane’s call as to whom to put in charge and he’d chosen Sloan.

Not her.

To an outsider, Zane’s decision would seem like nepotism or even cronyism, but Carley knew for a fact that Zane and Sloan were brothers in name only. They hadn’t been real siblings since their father’s arrest sixteen years ago. That arrest had parted them like Moses had the Red Sea, with Zane refusing to get involved in anything but his own sterling career. Sloan, on the other hand, had involved himself to the hilt so he could convince everyone, including his brother, that their father was innocent.

“Zane must really be desperate to ask you for help,” she mumbled.

Sloan stood there in his crisp Ranger outfit: a white western-cut shirt, jeans, hip holster, snakeskin boots and his shiny silver-peso badge. He was studying her and probably trying to interpret her reaction. Carley didn’t have to interpret her reaction to him. She didn’t want him back in Justice and she didn’t want him meddling in her investigation.

Why Sloan McKinney of all people?

Their history wasn’t pleasant—and it wasn’t all limited to her testimony against his father. Seven years ago, he’d beaten her out for the deputy’s job. That still stung, even now. Carley had wanted that job more than she’d wanted her next breath. And why? Because it was a stepping stone to the next rung in her career ladder: being the top honcho—sheriff.

Something that Sloan had accomplished in record time by becoming the youngest one in the entire county.

He hadn’t changed in the handful of years since Carley had last seen him. The same short and efficiently cut dark brown hair. The same sizzling blue eyes.

Bedroom eyes, the girls had called them.

He still had that athletic physique on that six-foot-three-inch body of muscles and, well, good looks. That was his problem, she decided. Sloan McKinney had always been too sexy for his own good. It had opened doors for him. Plenty of them.

“I know you’re upset,” he commented. “But Zane thought that folks around here would be more likely to talk to me than him. Or you.”

Sloan had probably used that leisurely Texas drawl to soothe her, the way he used to soothe horses on his granddaddy’s ranch.

It. Did. Not. Calm. Her.

“Zane and you think folks are more likely to talk to you because you used to be sheriff,” she clarified through clenched teeth.

Sloan gave her a yep-that-about-sums-it-up nod. “And there’s that whole part about Zane knowing that you weren’t medically ready to resume your duties. This is a double murder investigation, Carley. A cold case—and a red-hot one. He needs someone who’s a hundred percent and he’s not convinced that you are.”

She would have argued if at that exact moment the pain hadn’t pinched at her side. Mercy. When was her body going to heal? It’d been nearly a week. She couldn’t take any more time off. Look what these seven days had done. She was no longer in charge of her own investigation.

Sloan was.

Fate was having a really good belly laugh about that. Sloan, her boss. Her working for him.

Because that was practically an unbearable thought and because her blasted side wouldn’t quit pinching, Carley went inside so she could sit down. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to do that right away. Sloan had those bedroom-blue eagle eyes nailed to her. He was observing her every move—and that wasn’t good, because she wasn’t moving so well.

Carley casually strolled inside, plucked the surveillance disk from the machine and tried to be equally casual by continuing to stroll into her office.

“You’re in pain,” Sloan remarked.

She ignored him and eased into the chair behind her desk. “I suppose Zane has already briefed you about the case that you’re now officially in charge of?”

He looked ready to call her on her evasive response, but Sloan finally just lifted his hands, palms up. A gesture of surrender.

Carley hoped there’d be more of those before this conversation was over.

“Zane briefed me, of course,” Sloan verified. “But I’d like to hear what you have to say about it.”

“No, you wouldn’t, but you’re trying to placate me because you know I’m mad enough to want to hit you with this surveillance disk.”

Carley took out her anger on the disk. With far more force than required, she shoved it into the player.

“Zane didn’t tell me about the surveillance camera being vandalized. Or even that it’d been installed,” Sloan explained. “He also didn’t tell me that you were back at your office, trying to work.” His voice was calm enough, but she could see the little embers simmering in his eyes. They weren’t so bedroomy now. “He might have missed something else that I need to know.”

It was immature, but she huffed.

Sloan huffed, too. Then he dragged a scarred wooden chair from the corner, deposited it in front of her desk and sat down. “Get past your hatred for me. I’ll get past what I feel for you. And for the next few minutes remember that you’re the sheriff, I’m your temporary boss and that you’re giving me a situation report to bring me up to speed on this investigation.”

Carley wanted to hang on to her anger and stew in it a little longer, but, by God, he was right. A situation report to a new officer on the scene was standard procedure, and though she didn’t like it, she would not violate procedure because of the likes of Sloan McKinney.

She took a moment to gather her thoughts and so she could come up with the most condensed version of facts. The less face time with Sloan, the better.

“Okay. You win. Here’s the situation report. As you know, sixteen years ago Lou Ann Wallace-Hendricks was murdered. She was strangled with her own designer-brand purse strap. At the time, she was married to one of our present suspects, Leland Hendricks.”

And her briefing came to a halt. Because what she had to say next would only stir up even more bad memories.