Chapter 13

13

Gunnar had a massive headache and was beyond angry. At Daniel. He did not know what game that man was playing right now. Everyone was still on edge.

Things had just gotten even tenser since the shooting. Daniel wasn't helping in that regard. Everyone was pissed at him, still.

Over Heather.

That woman had shaken all of Major Crimes to the damned core. Destroyed the fabric of who the unit even thought they were somehow. Gunnar was still trying to figure it all out. She'd only worked for the unit for seven weeks or so. Yet she had changed everything.

Gunnar and Jake had finally gotten Daniel to relent—the suspension was at least paid now. Daniel hadn't wanted it to be. He'd said he wanted it to be obvious that there was a distance between Major Crimes and Heather.

That appearances mattered. That he was doing it for the benefit of Major Crimes.

Well, screw that, in Gunnar's opinion. Heather needed, deserved, to know that Major Crimes had her back right now. That woman had been fighting the TSP for four years. Mostly alone, with just the baby sister who had nearly died to help her. It still infuriated Gunnar to even imagine how Heather would have felt. Abandoned, betrayed, terrified by the very ones who should have had her back. Alone.

What Steve Wilson had done to Heather was beyond unforgivable.

Heather deserved to know that the men who she worked with now understood that. Would never do anything to hurt her. That they trusted and respected her. And would have her back, no matter what.

Including that ass Daniel. She deserved to know Daniel was behind her more than any of the rest of them.

Jake was back from paternity leave fully now. He'd cut it short.

To help. Even though he hadn't worked with Heather that often. His wife, Shelby, had been threatened, terrorized, and harassed by members of the TSP for years too. With just Zoey to help her.

It was no wonder Jake was pissed.

Jake was going to be the one digging into what had happened with Heather and the superiors at the IA who should have helped her.

But no one was going to know that.

As far as on paper showed, the investigation into the attacks on Heather wasn't even going to be assigned to Finley Creek or Wichita Falls.

Investigators from the third largest branch of the TSP out of Fort Worth were being assigned. It was anyone's guess what would happen.

But Major Crimes was running their own shadow investigation.

On the governor's orders.

Gunnar was going to help however he could.

He slung his bag over his shoulder and headed into the inn. He had been there before. He'd walked in—and there, one Powell Melissa Barratt had been in the dining room. There to visit with her brother, who had been buying property in Wyoming to add to his holdings.

Gunnar had been up there to work. He hadn't even intended to stay the night. But Mother Nature had had other plans for Wyoming. His flight home had been canceled.

He'd somehow ended up curled around the woman he wanted more than anything in the world.

For one beautiful night.

Gunnar stepped inside the inn. His eyes immediately scanned the lobby.

And met dark ones. In a beautiful face.

A shocked face.

He just stopped walking, not believing what he was seeing.

Powell Melissa Barratt was staring at him now. All three of her brothers behind her.