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she knew he
would, if she so much as nodded an affirmation. He’d get in, too.
There were two Brand men in this station, not one alone. Garrett
would back his brother up, right or wrong, the way one Brand always
backed another one up no matter what. And against two determined
Brands, this station full of Texas Rangers wouldn’t stand a
chance.
    She had no right to ask for their help or
their support. Not after what she’d done to them. And letting
herself get dependent on any Brand now—especially Adam—would be a
huge mistake.
    She spoke to Adam, drawing his gaze back to
hers again. “I’ve been looking out for myself for a long time now,
Adam. I’ll be fine.” He didn’t look convinced. She could have
kicked herself for leaning on him, even a little bit. Hell, if she
started looking like a lady in distress, he would get the idea it
was time to mount up and come to the rescue. She knew him too well.
“Besides,” she added in as cool a tone as she could manage, “this
really isn’t your problem.”
    “Or my business, right?” he asked,
interpreting her words just the way she’d wanted him to.
    “You said it. I didn’t.”
    Madden Hawkins took her elbow in a gentle
grip and escorted her into the room. She sat down at the empty
table and glanced toward the door just before it closed. Adam stood
there looking at her, his brows bent. But the frown wasn’t angry.
It was puzzled, curious, searching. And that was not good.

    Adam paced. Garrett caught him on one of his
repetitive trips back and forth across the width of the station’s
makeshift waiting room—a cubicle with three plastic chairs and a
coffeepot—and stopped him by stepping into his path.
    “So, this is…what? Your impression of a
fellow being completely over the woman who jilted him? The one he
claims he doesn’t even like?”
    Adam stopped pacing and looked up at his
brother. “Being over her doesn’t mean I want to see her railroaded
if she’s innocent.”
    “Hell, Adam, I don’t want to see that,
either. But I’m ‘not wanting’ it from a chair by the wall, instead
of wearing a path in the floor. You wanna join me, or would you
rather keep the boys in the other room guessing?”
    Adam glanced through the glass. Several
rangers quickly looked away and made themselves busy, but it was
obvious they’d been watching him. Probably found it interesting
that the brother of a local sheriff was so wrought up about their
number-one suspect in a murder. A big murder. The murder of a Texas
millionaire.
    “Do you think she did it?” Adam asked his
brother, ignoring the speculative eyes in the next room, carefully
avoiding Garrett’s question as well as his implication.
    “Hell, no,” Garrett answered without missing
a beat. Then he frowned. “Do you?”
    Adam didn’t think she’d done it, but he
wasn’t sure if that was because he knew her so well, and knew she
was incapable of murder, or because he was believing what he wanted
to believe. He didn’t quite trust his judgment where Kirsten was
concerned. After all, he’d been pretty damned wrong about her once
before.
    About as wrong as a man could be.
    “Do you?” Garrett persisted.
    “Hell, I don’t know what to think.”
    “Shoot, Adam, you know damn well Kirsten
would never kill anybody.” Garrett sounded as if he was heading
into his big-brother mode. A lecture might follow any minute now.
He’d taken on the role of father figure pretty seriously all those
years ago. On that day that still haunted Adam the way it haunted
them all. The day seventeen-year-old Garrett Brand had to tell his
kid brothers and his baby sister that their mama and daddy wouldn’t
be coming home anymore. He’d done a hell of a job, keeping them
together. Raising them. Running the ranch. A hell of a job. And if
he still saw himself as the Brand patriarch, even now that his
siblings were all grown up, that was fine by Adam.
    But he could do without one of Garrett’s
lectures just now. “Do you