Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) Read Online Free

a Las Vegas weekend
junket. Living in Goldstone, where everybody was running away from
something, had obviously pushed her round the bend. She wanted him
to follow her husband?
    “I’m making you bacon and eggs the way you
like them,” she singsonged, and now he could smell the irresistible
aroma of frying bacon.
    Crazy, but cunning. Like most women, she
played on a man’s weaknesses. Breakfast was the only worthwhile
meal of the day. It was one thing when a wife or lover played you,
but being played by your sister? That was downright pathetic.
    Still, no sense in wasting a perfectly good
breakfast.
    Fifteen minutes later, showered and shaved,
Brax pepper-and-salted his eggs. “How do you expect me to follow
him if he’s already left?”
    “You’re a cop, you know what to do. Besides,
I’ve got an idea where he went.”
    He stopped, his fork halfway to his mouth.
“Where?”
    “The Chicken Coop.”
    An immediate surge of relief spread through
his chest. She hadn’t mentioned Simone Chandler. He finished his
forkful of eggs before answering. “So now you’ve started worrying
when your husband goes out to the local farmer to buy fresh eggs or
poultry?”
    Maggie rolled her eyes. “It’s the brothel.
Just outside of town. And he sure as hell isn’t buying eggs
there.”
    “A whorehouse named The Chicken Coop? You’ve
gotta be kidding.”
    She shrugged and tucked into her crispy
bacon. “All the good ranch names were taken.”
    For the first time since he’d arrived, Brax
really looked at his sister. He should have done it before, but
sometimes even a sheriff is a coward, and he hadn’t wanted to see
too much. She was older than him by four years, but today, it could
have been eight. The flesh of her once-rounded face had drooped,
thin lines radiating out from her eyes and her lips. Deep grooves
etched her face, following the line of her nose. She’d visited
Cottonmouth a little over a year ago, and those lines hadn’t been
there then. Maggie’s strain was having a physical effect, and it
was dereliction of brotherly duty that he hadn’t paid more
attention to the altered tone of her emails over the last few
months.
    “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on,
Maggie.” Brax steeled himself for another awkward conversation like
the one with Carl.
    “He’s having an affair, and I’m sure he’s
going to leave me. He’s been sneaking money out of the bank account
and hiding the statements, and he won’t let me into his office
anymore, and we’re either fighting or not talking at all, and I go
crazy whenever he leaves the house because I’m sure he won’t be
back and he’ll just leave me a note or worse, send me a
sayonara-baby email.” Finally she took a breath and swiped at a
tear that slipped down her cheek.
    Oh man.
    His ex-wife had been a crier. Brax had never
felt so helpless as when she’d had one of her crying jags, mostly
because he didn’t understand them and he had a gut-gripping sense
that they had more to do with her own past than anything he’d done.
His tactic then had been retreat and regroup. Bad choice, but he
still hadn’t learned a better way. All he could do now for Maggie
was pat her hand.
    Which brought on a full-fledged watering
pot.
    He patted harder and decided his course of
action. Maggie had invited him here for his detective skills. So
he’d detect. “Buck up, kiddo. I’ll help you figure it out. How much
money are we talking?”
    Everything always started and ended with
money, and damn Carl for taking even a micron of the little savings
Brax assumed they had. Carl hadn’t worked in the entire time Brax
had known him, and whenever the subject came up, Maggie always
claimed he did this and that , which sure as hell didn’t
sound like much of a profession. But then, in Goldstone, the
prevailing occupation was none .
    Over the years, he’d gleaned enough through
his sister’s emails and phone calls, not to mention his mother’s
frantic late-night calls after