He looked her way, his gaze veiled. “Please. The cuffs were weak.”
The sheriff motioned for a couple of deputies in the bullpen. “You know what I think?”
“I don’t care,” Raine replied lazily, when the tension from him was anything but calm.
Mariana looked back and forth between them, trying to reconcile her brain with her gut. A lot of the evening didn’t make sense, but why would Raine kidnap her?
The door opened, and two deputies walked in.
The sheriff remained in place. “I think you kidnapped Miss Lopez and then pretended to rescue her. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Raine snorted. “It’s Dr. Lopez, and I didn’t rescue her. She rescued herself and then a farmer older than this building rescued us both and drove us to town. Tell me, Sheriff. If I went to all the trouble to kidnap Mariana, why the hell would I just let her go?”
It was a good question. Mariana slowly turned her attention to the sheriff.
The sheriff stared at Raine. “Well, now. He did rescue you, Dr. Lopez, and now you have a shared experience. Has he offered to protect you yet?”
She shifted uneasily on the seat. “No.” Well, not really. Raine had said that he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her. That was kind of an offer of protection. This didn’t make any sense. Raine Maxwell was the hot alpha guy of all time. Even when they’d just walked through the bullpen, the two female officers had sighed. Loudly.
The sheriff scoffed. “I can see your mind working fast. Some of the most prolific serial killers in this world have been good-looking men.”
It was true, and it was slightly disconcerting that the lawman had read her so correctly. She turned back to him. Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as she’d thought, which made him lazy and bad at his job. “Raine didn’t carry me into that barn.” She knew his scent, which she wasn’t going to admit. Plus, if she’d been over his shoulder from the car to the barn, she would’ve known it was him. She couldn’t explain how.
“So his partner did,” the sheriff said. “Who’s your partner, Maxwell? Give it up now, and I’ll make sure the judge goes lightly on you.”
Raine’s jaw clenched. “I work alone, buddy. Always have and always will.” He turned that glittering green gaze on Mariana. “I didn’t kidnap you, and I think you know that. I’m not a game player, and I would never stretch anything out this long. You know that, too.”
Everything she knew about him proved that to be true. Although how well did she know him? He’d never really contributed in the group sessions, and she’d only just learned that he came from Montana. Also, he could’ve kidnapped her before now if he’d wanted. Even so, she had to be smart. “Have you ever been to Dallas?”
“No,” he said before turning to the sheriff. “I’ve had enough of this. Take down the report and then do your job.” He stood up and set a hand beneath Mariana’s arm to help her up.
The sheriff stood. “Oh. I wasn’t clear. You’re under arrest for the kidnapping and false imprisonment of Miss Mariana Lopez.” He smiled. “Excuse me. Dr. Mariana Lopez.”
* * * *
Raine’s head was about to blow off his shoulders. His temper had fully spiked, and he calculated how quickly he could decapitate the sheriff and both deputies. Oh, he wouldn’t do it, but it eased his anger to at least contemplate the matter. “I have lawyers who will descend on this town like buzzards on a body, Sheriff. You don’t have probable cause to arrest me, and if you do, I’ll take everything you have.” Where the hell was he going to find lawyers around here?
The sheriff paused. “I have enough on you with just the broken cuffs.”
Raine forced a smile, acutely aware of the threats in front and behind of Mariana. He had to get her out of there so he could breathe again. “No, you don’t. In addition, I have three cousins who work for national news organizations, and I’ll have them writing stories about small town corruption and your office within ten minutes. Try me. The campaign for your office will be over before one person goes to the voting booth.”
As a bluff, it wasn’t his best. By the paling of the sheriff’s plump face, he didn’t realize that.
The sheriff looked at Mariana, calculation in his eyes. “If you make a report against Mr. Maxwell, I’ll have probable cause to keep him for seventy-two hours. If there’s even a chance he kidnapped you, don’t you want him contained here so you’re safe?”
The woman waffled. Based on the indecision on her face, she really didn’t know what to believe, and Raine couldn’t exactly blame her.
He sighed. “Mariana? I did not kidnap you. Truth be told, I’m fucking embarrassed I was darted and kidnapped with a hood over my head, and if there was a way out of this without telling that truth, I’d find it. You obviously are in danger, and there are questions with no answers that I really need to find.”
She frowned, turning more fully toward him. “Like why my stalker would dart you.”
“Yeah. More importantly, why were we both dumped in a barn hours from here?” It didn’t make any sense that her stalker would want Raine anywhere around. He was the biggest threat, and he should’ve been taken out while incapacitated.
She rubbed a dot of mud off her chin. “I was thinking about that. If this guy is really nuts, he might want to hurt you in front of me, thinking there was something between us.” She chewed on her bottom lip, obviously having been running through scenarios all night in her head. “If he hired somebody to kidnap us, he might’ve been on the way to the barn, reassured that we were both tied up. Maybe he was slowed down by the storm.”
The sheriff slammed his fist on his desk, causing her to jump. “That’s ridiculous. Mariana. You have to know how nutty that sounds,” he snapped.
A low growl rumbled up Raine’s chest, and he ruthlessly swallowed it down. That was the first time the sheriff had referred to her by her first name, and now he sounded concerned instead of condescending. Mariana faltered, looking between them again. Raine ground his palm in his left eye to ward off a looming headache. “I did not engineer this kidnapping.”
“I disagree,” the sheriff countered.
“Yeah. Want me to arrest him?” the first deputy said.
Mariana partially turned to see him clearly as Raine did the same. “Wait a minute. Johnny?” She whirled to face the sheriff. “You hired your son as a deputy after he failed to attend anger management sessions?”
The man was a moron. Raine shook his head. Johnny was a jerk who’d only attended one session, and he’d hit on Mariana and pissed Raine off within minutes. The kid hadn’t come back.
The sheriff stood taller and sucked in his gut. “The judge dismissed all charges, and Deputy Baker here passed all of the requirements. He’s a good deputy, but if you want somebody else to arrest Maxwell, that’s no problem.”
Mariana stood to her full and still small height. “I seriously doubt your abilities now, Sheriff. I will not file any sort of report against Mr. Maxwell, and if you arrest him, I will testify on his behalf that I said so to you. He didn’t want to file a report because of the corruption here, and I disagreed. It appears that he was correct and I was wrong.”