The Lawman
Martha Shields
Mills & Boon Silhouette
As a madman held hostages in Mission Creek Memorial Hospital, Officer Jake White descended on the scene, gun drawn and ready to be a hero. But his newest ally turned out to be a greater mystery.Hospital administrator Tabitha Monroe clouded his lucid thoughts on love with her sky-blue eyes and intense drive to save her hospital. Jake fought his desire for the elusive beauty and reminded himself that no one wanted to be a cop's widow. As the dust cleared in their dangerous mission, Jake had a devil of a time walking away, when he was drawn–body and soul–to Tabitha's side…!
Stories of family and romance beneath the Big Sky!
A movement from across the street caught his attention through the window.
The pencil Holt Tanner was holding snapped in two as he watched Molly Brewster skip up the front steps of the library.
She wore a white dress with no sleeves, and as she moved, the waves of her hair—not tied up in a knot today for once—drifted around her bare shoulders. Then, in one moment before she disappeared inside, she looked across the wide street, almost as if she sensed his attention. And maybe she could see Holt sitting there, behind the half-opened blinds of his window, for she suddenly turned and darted inside the library as if the devil himself was after her.
She was bold and saucy one minute. Nervous and skittish the next.
Holt shoved away from his desk, stuffing his little notepad in his pocket. “I’ll be at the library,” he told his dispatcher.
“You might consider wiping the drool off your chin before you go over there,” his dispatcher replied.
The Lawman
Martha Shields
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ALLISON LEIGH
There is a saying that you can never be too rich or too thin. Allison doesn’t believe that, but she does believe that you can never have enough books! When her stories find a way into the hearts—and bookshelves—of others, Allison says she feels she’s done something right. Making her home in Arizona with her husband, she enjoys hearing from her readers at Allison@allisonleigh.com or P.O. Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772.
For my girls
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Panic tasted cold and dark in her mouth as Molly Brewster sat bolt upright. Her heart charged in her chest and she sucked in a harsh breath, willing away a surge of nausea. Something was gouging into her hip and she reached blindly, fingers closing over the weapon. She yanked, pulled it free and stared at it.
How to Take Control of Your Life—and Keep It. The title of the hardcover book stared back at her.
She’d fallen asleep on the couch reading.
Her panic oozed away, leaving her limp. She swung her legs off the couch and huddled forward, pushing the book onto the coffee table. She was trembling and her heart still knocked crazily inside her chest, so loud she fancied she could hear it in her ears.
“It’s Sunday afternoon, Molly,” she whispered. “You’re perfectly safe.”
The knocking grew to a thunderous sound.
The door. Someone was at the door. Pounding louder than her heartbeat, making the door shudder nearly as much as she was.
Shaking her head at her foolishness, Molly pushed off the couch and hurriedly crossed the living room toward the door. The nightmare she’d been having clung to her mind, making her feel more fuzzy than ever, and her hand shook as she grabbed hold of the doorknob.
She no longer lived in fear.
She deliberately yanked open the door, if only to prove to herself that the nightmare was nothing but imaginings. The tall man standing on the other side, though, nearly startled her right out of the few wits she still possessed. Her hand kept a tight, sweaty hold of the doorknob.
Control. She scrambled frantically for the silent mantra. You are in control.
She made herself look at him, gaze skimming up the blue jeans, stuttering over the badge hooked over his belt, traveling over a hard torso clad in a khaki-colored uniform shirt that was probably crisp when he’d put it on, but now looked more than a little wilted because of the heat. Beyond that, to his sharp features, black hair and dark, inscrutable brown eyes, she couldn’t force herself to look. Control only went so far, and the man had made her feel itchy from the first time she’d seen him, even before she’d known what he was.
The doorknob was practically making a permanent imprint on the palm of her hand, but she still couldn’t seem to make herself let go. “Deputy Tanner. What are you d-doing here?”
Holt Tanner slid his dark glasses down a notch, eyeing the woman clinging to her door as if it were a life raft. Approximate height, five-five. Weight about one-fifteen. Age had been listed as twenty-seven, but she looked even younger…regardless, she was too damned young for him.
Annoyed with the thought, Holt pulled off his sunglasses completely and tucked them in his shirt. “I need to ask you some questions, Ms. Brewster.”
There wasn’t one lick of color in her alabaster face. If anything, she looked as if she’d seen a ghost. As they had almost from the moment he’d met Molly Brewster when he’d first moved to Rumor eight months ago, her eyes glanced at him, then away. Just long enough for him to get a gut-tightening sight of those incredibly light blue eyes surrounded by lush black lashes. Just long enough for him to wonder, yet again, what she was hiding.
If there was one thing Deputy Sheriff Holt Tanner knew for certain, it was that he couldn’t afford to trust Molly Brewster. She was secretive, for one thing. And she made him hot, for another. One or the other irritation was bad enough, but the combination of the two was definitely no good for his peace of mind.
To be clichéd about it—been there, done that.
“Regarding?” Her delicate brows arched in query, and the coolness of her voice was completely belied by the fact that she looked as if a sharp word would make her shatter.
“Harriet Martel’s death.”
“I answered all of your questions at the sheriff’s station weeks ago.”
He looked past her into the dim coolness of her living room, noticing the way she shifted when he did so. As if she didn’t want him to see inside. Considering he was a good half foot taller than she was, she could shift all she wanted and he’d still see over her head into the pin-neat home.
There was a flowered couch, an armchair, a coffee table with a book on it, and little else to indicate the type of person dwelling there. “You were very cooperative when you came to the station,” he agreed smoothly. “And you’ve been cooperative since then when we’ve spoken. May I come in?”
Her lips were pale, vulnerably nude and soft looking until they drew up all tight the way they invariably did whenever he was around her. “It’s a, um, a terrible mess.”
He considered telling her that she should never bother lying. She was pretty miserable at it. But he was used to people who didn’t want to talk with a cop no matter what the circumstances. She just didn’t know that he wasn’t one to give up on a case.
No matter what the cost.
“We could always talk down at the station,” he said pointedly. “One way or the other, Ms. Brewster, I do intend to talk with you.”
Her lashes swept down, and it looked to him as if she was conducting a mental struggle. “Have a seat,” she said after a moment, “and I’ll bring out some cold lemonade.”
The concession was better than nothing. But he made no move toward the two iron chairs sitting on her railed porch until she’d carefully closed the front door in his face.
Whistling tunelessly, Holt dropped down onto one of the chairs—the one closest to the front door. He tugged loose the top button on his shirt and dragged the brown tie even looser. Who’d have thought he’d have to leave a lifetime in L.A. for a dinky town in Montana to find out just how miserable August heat could be?
He stretched his legs out in front of him and studied the quiet street on which Molly Brewster, librarian, lived. The town park was only a block away, and in the silent afternoon he could hear the occasional shriek or laugh coming from that direction.
He could feel the minutes ticking by as surely as he could feel the sweat creeping down his neck. He twitched his tie again, stretched out his legs a little more and watched an ugly little spider creep across the whitewashed eave. It, at least, seemed oblivious to the heat that had been making even the most even-keeled people in town cranky.
The creak of the door warned him the moment before Molly stepped out onto the porch, carrying two tall, slender glasses. Lemon slices and ice cubes jostled as she carefully stepped past him to set one of the glasses on the small table separating the chairs. Without looking at him, she sat down, cradling her own glass in both hands.
He looked at her. Feet encased in tidy white tennis shoes placed squarely on the wooden porch; the hem of her lightweight blue sundress tugged down as near to her knees as possible.
Shapely knees.
He stifled a sigh and picked up his glass of lemonade. It was tart and refreshing and he barely kept from guzzling it down because of the damned afternoon heat. Because her knees were smooth and way too beckoning. Because she was a decade younger than he was, and he wasn’t there to notice her damned, pretty knees.
He set the lemonade back on the glass-and-iron table with a tad more force than was wise, and was grateful the glass didn’t just crack right then and there. “You found the body a little more than four weeks ago.”
She was staring fixedly ahead of her, but at least there was more color in her face, so he wasn’t concerned she might keel over in a dead faint. “I found Harriet, Deputy.” Her voice was soft, but held a distinct edge.
“You were friends with her.”
“Most people called her the head librarian, considering the small staff we have, but she was actually the director of the public library. My boss,” Molly corrected. “As you well know. She reported directly to the board of trustees for the library.”
“And now you’re the head librarian.”
At that, she seemed to sigh a little. “The library needs to have someone in charge. Rather like the sheriff’s department, I should think.”
He watched her thumb glide back and forth over the moisture condensing on her glass. Her nails were unpainted, neatly groomed, cut short. If she was the type to chew her nails, she hid it well.
His ex-wife had spent a weekly fortune having her nails kept long and viper-red. He watched Molly’s thumb a moment longer. Her unvarnished, natural-looking fingers were a far cry more feminine than Vanessa’s could ever claim to have been. The thought snuck in, out of place and definitely unwanted.
“Why is it that Sheriff Reingard assigned Harriet’s case to you, anyway?”
It was a fair enough question, though he could have done without the challenging attitude underlying her words. “I was a detective in California before I came to Montana.”
Her expression didn’t change. “What was your crime that you were banished all the way from sunny California to our little town?”
“You think Rumor is a destination for those who are banished? Is that why you’re here from…wherever?”
“Sunday afternoons are generally spent with family and friends around here,” she said after a moment, not addressing his question any more than he’d addressed hers. “At the Calico Diner or the Rooftop Café.”
“Pretty hot afternoon to spend at the Rooftop unless you can get a seat inside.” He picked up his glass and drank down another third. But she was right. Rumor was the kind of place where families spent Sunday afternoons together. They had dinner together either at home or at one of the popular places in town, or they had picnics down at the park.
They weren’t sitting on the porches of librarians conducting a murder investigation. That was definitely more Holt’s type of life. Even Dave Reingard was probably bellying up to a pot roast and garden salad with his wife Dee Dee and their five kids.
“Yet, fortunately for me, you’re home on a Sunday afternoon,” he said blandly. “Family and friends give you the day off today or something?”
Her lips tightened a little and he nearly smiled. He knew for a fact that Ms. Molly Brewster was as standoffish as he was. Maybe more. Yet she’d worked with Harriet Martel as the assistant librarian for all of the eighteen months since she’d moved to Rumor from God-knew-where.
“What did you want to know, Deputy? I’d like to get back to what I was doing before you interrupted me.”
He picked up his lemonade once again, casually swirling the liquid in the glass. He wasn’t surprised that it was homemade. She looked the sort to make homemade lemonade on hot August afternoons. Truth be told, she looked the sort to be rocking babies and baking cookies. But it was her secretive nature that nagged at him. “Which was what?”
“None of your business.”
He smiled faintly. “Is it me you don’t like, or men in general?”
“What did you say your reason was for intruding on my afternoon?”
“Don’t you want Harriet’s murderer to be found, Molly?”
Her face paled a little. She carefully set aside her lemonade. “Of course I do.”
“Then help me.”
“Help you what?” She rose to her feet, hugging her arms around her as if it were cold outside, instead of just shy of Hades. “I’ve already told you everything I know. I went to Harriet’s home that Monday because she hadn’t shown up for work. It was completely unlike her, and though I’d called a few times, she didn’t answer. So I drove over to her house because I was concerned. The door was unlocked and she was…was—”
Seated in a chair, a single .22 caliber GSW to the head. The weapon that fired the shot was on the floor right beside her, intending to look like suicide. Chelsea Kearns, the forensics examiner who’d been called in on the case, had conclusively ruled this out.
“I don’t need you to go over what you found again at Harriet’s home, Molly,” he said quietly.
The relief that crossed her face was nearly painful to see and more in keeping with her quiet blond prettiness than her barely veiled antagonism. “Then, I…I don’t understand what you do want,” she said. “I’ve already told you everything I know.”
“Tell me what you don’t know.”
She looked at him, her eyes shadowed. “Shall I make up things, then? Is that the kind of law enforcement officer you are?”
“No, I don’t want you to make up anything. Look.” He sat forward, resting his wrists on his knees. “Sit down. Relax. Please,” he finally added.
She slowly sat. Tugged her dress down closer to her knees again, as if she knew he had a hard time not looking at them. He could have told her that her smooth, lightly tanned calves and trim ankles, clad in tiny white socks were just as much a distraction, but figured it wouldn’t help the situation. She already looked at him as if he were something to be scraped off her shoe.
“There’s got to be something we’re missing,” he told her. “Harriet obviously had a private life that nobody knew about. She was four months pregnant at the time of her death. She didn’t get that way by Immaculate Conception. And from everything that her sister, Louise Holmes, has told us, it doesn’t seem as if Harriet was likely to have been artificially inseminated.”
Molly’s cheeks went pink, and for a minute he was in danger of losing his train of thought.
“You think the father of her baby killed her?”
Tessa Madison, the clairvoyant who’d been brought in by Harriet’s nephew, Colby, had gotten the sense that Harriet was resisting an abortion. But Holt was more interested in physical evidence than psychic impressions. He didn’t discount them, but a jury wasn’t gonna convict on “feelings.”
He rubbed his forehead, wondering at that moment why the hell he’d ever believed moving to Montana would be a lifesaver. “I think that there was more going on in Harriet’s life than some people knew. Look at the way she had an ex-husband turn up.”
“I read in the papers that Warren Parrish isn’t a suspect, after all. He had an alibi or something, didn’t he?”
Holt had liked Parrish a lot for the crime. But facts were facts and there was no way Parrish could have killed his former wife. “The more I find out about Harriet,” he said, “the more complete a picture I can create of her life. The better I understand Harriet, the better I’ll understand her murder.”
“I can’t think there is anything that would make murder understandable.”
“Understandable. Not condonable.”
“Do you have any other, um, suspects?”
Not one we can find. “I can’t comment on that,” he said.
For the first time, her lips twitched. “How wise of you, considering I’d hotfoot it right to the newspaper office to give them a scoop for the Monday-morning edition. Or worse, I might run immediately over to the Calico and blab your report.”
“The news at eleven has nothing on the speed of the Rumor grapevine.”
Her eyes met his in shared humor for the briefest of moments.
Even then it was too long.
He pulled his small notepad out of his pocket and deliberately thumbed through the pages. The humidity and heat was even having an effect on the thin pages. In some places his ink was smudging.
Harriet’s writing had been smudged during the last moments of her life as she sat at her desk, he reminded himself grimly. She’d used only what she’d had available to her to leave behind three scrawled initials—a novel and her own blood. “Did Harriet keep a journal? A diary?”
“I told you before that I never saw one.”
“Then you can tell me again.”
Her shoulders visibly stiffened. “Why does this feel like an interrogation?”
Holt looked at her. “Trust me, Molly. If I were really interrogating you, you’d know it.”
Her lashes swept down, and color suddenly rode high on her velvety cheeks. “It’s you,” she said suddenly. “I don’t like you.”
He’d been a cop for more than fifteen years, and he had a fair ability to read people. Maybe that’s why he could see that she was more surprised at the soft, fierce words that had escaped her lips than he was at hearing them. And for a moment he let himself focus on Molly Brewster. Not as an irritatingly inconvenient component of his investigation but as the puzzle that she was, all on her own.
Oh, yeah, she was surprised at the words that had popped out from her mouth. She was also bracing herself, as if she expected him to slam her in the hoosegow for speaking her mind.
“It’s good to say what you feel.” He picked up the lemonade and finished it off, wondering why his suspicious nature had taken that moment to step back in favor of wanting to put her at ease. It was just more evidence that when it came to women, his instincts were all messed up.
Her smooth forehead crinkled slightly. “Is it? I suppose you make a habit of doing so.”
Now that was a laugh. “A diary, Molly. Or journal. Think about it. Did Harriet doodle on her desk pad at work?” Tessa had gotten some strong impressions when she’d been near Harriet’s desk at the library. “Did she keep phone messages tucked away in a file? Confide in you over coffee on Monday morning before the library opened? Anything?”
“Harriet drank grapefruit juice in the mornings at the library, not coffee. And you already went over her office for evidence. Between you and the sheriff when he did it, you two practically tore the office apart. I even had to have some screws tightened on her desk because you’d worked the side piece loose.”
He stifled an oath. She was secretive and she didn’t like giving simple, straight answers. Well, hell, no wonder he wanted to take her to bed. She was like every other woman he’d had the misfortune to want. As far as he was concerned, it was like some cosmic joke on him. The only women he was attracted to were the very women he couldn’t afford to trust. The kind that ended up putting him through a wringer before they were through.
The case, he coldly reminded himself. Concentrate on the case.
“Other than the morning when you went out to check on her, had you ever been at Harriet’s house before?”
Her lips firmed. He waited, wondering if she’d have the nerve to lie, even though her face plainly showed it when she did. “Yes,” she finally said.
“How many times?”
Her shoulders shifted. “I don’t know.”
“When?”
“Just after I moved here.”
“Why?”
“To go over some details.”
“Personal details?”
“No!” She wouldn’t look at him. “About the job at the library.”
“How did you get the job?”
“Harriet offered it to me.”
“After you’d been banished to Rumor?”
“I wasn’t banished! Rumor is a haven, not a prison.” She’d jumped to her feet again.
A haven from what? “So you applied for the job after you moved here?”
“No.”
“Then how did you get it? Apply by mail, phone, fax, email?”
“I met Harriet at a conference and she offered me the job.”
“Just like that.”
Her teeth were clenched. “Just like that.”
“So, at this conference, did you two hang out together? Hit happy hour with the rest of the ladies?”
“I didn’t hang out with Harriet. And I seriously doubt she ever once went out to a happy hour.”
He sat back, hitching his ankle up to his knee and lazily tapped the notepad on his bent leg. “Why?”
“She wasn’t like that.”
Frankly, based on his brief encounters with Harriet Martel before her death, he had a hard time seeing her as a barfly. She’d been brusque, albeit helpful enough, when he’d gone into the library for some reference material. Not until she’d died and he’d begun investigating her murder had stories of her quiet, kindhearted actions come to light to help counteract the image of the solitary woman. In her mid-forties, Harriet had been strong-willed, opinionated and not immediately personable, though she’d done a lot of kind things for other people.
“How do you know she wasn’t like that?”
“I worked with her!”
“Yes, you did,” he agreed softly. “Yet you expect me to believe that you and the victim didn’t once have any kind of conversation that verged on personal matters. That she never confided in you, that you never overheard her confide in someone else. Come on, Molly, the library isn’t that large. Your office even connected with hers.”
She looked away, her jaw set. But it was too late; he’d already seen the sheen in her eyes that turned them from barely there blue to glistening aquamarine. He pushed to his feet and moved around until he could see her face.
Between him, the two chairs and little table and the rail around the porch, she had no place to go, and he instinctively kept from crowding her any more than necessary. “What are you afraid of, Molly? Do you suspect someone yourself? Just tell me. I’ll protect you.”
Her head suddenly went back, and the part of him inside that hadn’t turned to stone long ago went cold at the expression in her eyes.
“The last thing I need is a cop vowing protection.” Scorn practically dripped from her tense body.
“Are you saying that you do know something? Molly, you can voluntarily help me or not. Either way, I’ll get at the truth. Whatever you’re hiding will come out.”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“That’s no threat.” He lifted his hand, narrowing his eyes a little when she jerked back. He continued the movement, swiping away the spider that was busily spinning a line of web straight toward her shoulder. “I always find my man. Or my woman.”
Her lips parted. “Is that some sort of, of, suggestion that I had something to do with Harriet’s death?” Her voice rose a little.
“You did get a promotion.” He waited a long beat, letting it sink in. “People have killed for less.”
“You’re vile.”
“I’m a deputy sheriff, ma’am,” he said flatly. “And there could well be a murderer right here in Rumor among us. If your sensibilities are offended, that’s just too damn bad. Murder is a vile business.” And if it took manipulating the jumpy, sexy woman into finding the murderer, then that was also too damn bad. There wasn’t much that Holt believed in anymore. But he did believe in justice.
She moved suddenly, brushing past him despite the lack of space. It left him feeling even more scorched than from the afternoon heat. “You are just as hateful as every other cop it’s been my misfortune to know.” She shoved open her door and disappeared inside.
The door slammed shut so hard the glasses on the little table rattled right along with the windows in their panes.
He picked up his glass and sucked down the lone, remaining ice cube as he studied the other glass. The one she’d used. It was still more than half-full.
There was a small, faint pink glisten smudged on the rim of the glass. She’d put gloss on her lips before she’d come out with the lemonade.
How many other cops have you known, Molly Brewster? And why?
He didn’t believe for one minute that she was guilty of murdering her boss, or even conspiring to have her killed. He did know, right down to his bones, though, that she was hiding something.
And he needed to know what it was in case it had some bearing on the investigation.
Right now, the only strong suspects they had were Lenny Hostetler, whose whereabouts where unknown, and the father of Harriet’s baby, whose complete identity was unknown.
Lenny had cause to be angry with Harriet because she’d helped his wife and children escape his abuse, and Darla Hostetler, said now-ex-wife, had strongly confirmed her belief that Lenny was more than capable of murder.
And the father of Harriet’s baby? Who knew what kind of motive he might have had, if any. Maybe Tessa had been right, and the guy wanted Harriet to end the pregnancy. Maybe he’d been so desperate for that to happen that he’d been willing to kill the mother in the process.
Holt sighed and set down his glass. Without second-guessing his reasons, barely touching the rim of Molly’s glass, he scooted it to the edge of the table. Then, with one finger at the bottom edge, and the other on the top rim, he smoothly tipped the lemonade into his empty glass.
In the SUV that served as his patrol vehicle, he grabbed a fresh paper bag from the evidence kit in the back, and bagged the glass right along with the fingerprints on it that Molly Brewster had unwittingly left him.
Chapter Two
It was dark by the time Molly remembered the glasses she’d left on the front porch. She’d been so furious with Holt Tanner and his insane suggestion that she’d had something to do with Harriet’s death that she’d spent the entire afternoon and early evening pummeling the earth in her tiny backyard.
She had the great makings for a garden by the time exhaustion finally forced her to stop. Of course, if Molly’s sister had been around, she’d have wryly pointed out that planting a garden in Montana during the last harsh gasp of summer was probably a fruitless venture.
Rinsing off her gardening tools, Molly stored them in the little storage shed and headed around the side of the house, intending to get the glasses. There were some times that she missed her sister so badly, she ached with it.
If she could only call Christina. Hear her sister’s voice. Molly would feel better about the path she’d chosen.
But she didn’t dare call Christina. Nor could she email her sister, or send a letter, or do anything at all that might possibly provide a trail back to Molly’s location. It was safer for her, and certainly safer for Christina and her family, for things to remain just the way they’d been for the past eighteen months.
Which meant that Molly had nobody with whom she could share her worries. Nobody with whom she could vent her frustrations that she could even find a man in law enforcement remotely attractive. Not after all she’d been through with Rob.
Rounding the corner of the house, Molly went up the porch steps and grabbed the glass from the table. She didn’t want to track mud from her shoes through the living room, so she started back down the porch steps to return to the back of the house and the entrance there that led into a tiny mudroom.
Just as she reached for the wooden screen door, though, she stopped cold. One glass.
She held it up to the light, gingerly peering at the glass as if it had turned into a snake.
The glass wasn’t a snake, though. A certain deputy sheriff was.
No doubt in her mind at all that Holt Tanner had taken the other glass, she snatched open the screen door and grabbed her purse and car keys from where they were sitting on top of the washing machine.
Less than five minutes later, she’d driven up Main Street and pulled into the small parking area near the sheriff’s department. It was after eight o’clock in the evening and there was no earthly reason why she’d know that Holt Tanner would be at the station. But there he was. Just walking out the door, the light from inside shining over his dark hair, making it gleam like onyx.
You are in control. She climbed out of her car, and his head snapped up as if he’d sensed her. Though it was too dark and he was too far away to be sure, she was certain he was looking at her with that narrow-eyed, intense stare of his. Then he started toward her, moving with that curiously loose-limbed grace that seemed odd for someone who was always grim.
He stopped several feet away, his face in shadow. “Ms. Brewster. Something I can do for you this evening?”
Her hands curled. “You can give me back my glass that you stole this afternoon.”
“Harsh words.”
“True words. You had no right to take it. I can only imagine what you thought you would do with it. There are privacy laws in this country, you know.”
He turned on his heel and started for an SUV parked several yards away.
She blinked and hurriedly shut her car door. “Hey. Don’t ignore me!”
He kept right on walking until he reached the vehicle. Then he opened the door and leaned inside.
Irritation bubbled in her veins and she went right after him. “Deputy, do not ignore me. I won’t have it, I tell you. Unless you’re serious about me being a suspect in Harriet’s death, you have absolutely no right to invade my privacy like you have. You have no possible way of knowing the trouble—” He was inviting. She barely contained the words and stood there, shuddering at her temerity.
He straightened and turned. “Believe me, Ms. Brewster, I wish I could ignore you.” His lips were twisted as if he found something amusing about the situation. “Here.”
He thrust out his hand, and she recoiled, realizing belatedly that he was handing her the paper sack he had in his hand. “What is it?”
“So suspicious,” he murmured. “It’s your glass.”
Feeling like a fool, she snatched the sack from him. The thin paper crinkled under her tight grasp. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black. You give suspicious new meaning.”
“I’m doing my job, Ms. Brewster.”
“Stop calling me that!” Her face flamed. She knew she was acting like an idiot, but there seemed nothing she could do about it. Outrageous words kept coming out of her mouth no matter how badly she wanted to contain them.
“All right. What would you prefer I call you?” He leaned back against the side of his truck and crossed his arms. Leisurely. As if they had all the time in the world.
Now the words stopped up in her throat.
He tilted his head slightly, watching her as if she were some kind of bug stuck on the end of a pin. “Maybe you’d prefer I use your real name,” he suggested softly.
Molly’s fingers tightened spasmodically, and the sack fell from her grasp. She stared as, almost in slow motion, it headed for the pavement. She couldn’t even bring herself to move as glass, definitely not in slow motion, exploded from the bag like a perfectly rounded firework.
She heard a stifled oath, then nearly screamed when hands closed tightly over her hips. “Leave me alone!”
“Be still. You’ve got glass all over your legs.”
He dumped her unceremoniously on the bench seat inside his truck and dropped his hand on her knee. When he leaned toward her, she sucked in a harsh breath and instinctively flattened herself back against the seat as far as she could go.
Holt went completely still. Panic rolled off her in waves strong enough to knock him flat, and a ball of fury formed inside him so rapidly that he felt sick to his stomach. Maybe Molly Brewster was secretive. Maybe she caused him no amount of personal consternation.
But he wanted to put his hands on whoever had hurt her and slowly choke the life out of him.
“I’m reaching for my flashlight,” he said after a moment, when he could be sure his voice would come out without betraying the red haze burning in his head. “So I can see if the glass cut you.” Moving slowly, he took his hand off her knee and stepped back a few inches. “It’s right under the seat.”
Her eyes were filled with shadows and bored into his face.
“Put your right hand down, Molly,” he said softly. “You can’t miss it. You’ll feel it.”
Her hands, clutched together at her waist, separated. She started to reach. Paused.
“It’s one of those long-handled kind. Metal. Makes a good weapon in a pinch.”
Her long lashes flickered. The pearly edge of her teeth caught her upper lip. And slowly, so slowly that he hurt inside from it, she slid her right hand down the seat. A moment later she’d pulled out the foot-long flashlight. She dragged her gaze from his face to study the thing.
God only knew what was running through her mind. He supposed if she felt the need to slam it into him, he might even let her. The way he felt at the realization that someone had hurt her, someone needed to get maimed. “Heavy sucker, isn’t it?”
She hefted it a little higher, pulling it up to her lap, knocking into the steering wheel as she did so. She jerked, and the flashlight rolled from her fingers.
He caught it and flicked it on, casually stepping back even more as he trained the light on her calves and ankles.
Dammit. She had several little pinpricks of blood right above the edge of her folded sock, which no longer looked white as snow as it had that afternoon. “You been out digging ditches?”
“What?” Her voice was barely audible.
“Your shoes and socks are muddy.”
She lifted her hand, touching her forehead with fingers that trembled. “I was, um, d-digging out a garden.”
“There’s a first-aid kit under the seat, too. Did you finish the garden?” He kept his voice low. Easy. She was beginning to relax and he didn’t want to jeopardize that.
“There’s hardly any yard.” She handed him the small white plastic box. “Left, I mean. I dug up so much.”
“You must wield a mean shovel. My grandfather would’ve loved you. Hold this so I can see what I’m doing.”
“You had a grandfather.”
His lips twisted a little as he hunkered down on his heels with the long tweezers from the kit and began fishing for tiny shards of glass. “Most people do,” he said. “Though I’ve been accused a time or two of springing from some sort of pod.” He gingerly plucked a tiny sliver from the taut skin of her slender shin. It was hard not to appreciate the shape of her limbs. They were about as perfect as legs could be.
“He had a place near Billings,” he forced himself to continue. Anything to get her to relax. And knowing that he was doing as much admiring as he was removing slivers of glass wasn’t going to get it. “I spent summers with him.” His grandfather had been an ornery old coot, a farmer of sorts who loved his bottle almost as much as he’d loved his land.
In comparison to Holt’s life in Los Angeles with his mother, who’d either been high on life and whatever man she’d brought home this time or high on something considerably more illegal, summers in Montana with that ornery old man had been as near to heaven as he’d figured he’d ever get.
“He’s the reason I ended up in Montana,” he told Molly. He sat back a bit. “Do you feel any glass in your legs still?”
She rotated her ankles. “I don’t think so. I didn’t to begin with. You, um, you came here from California, you said.”
“Banished was the term you used, I think.”
The flashlight’s beam wavered under her hold when she shifted. He looked up at her as he tore open another antiseptic pad.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s what you thought.”
“It was cruel.” Her voice went even softer. “I’m not usually cruel.”
He dabbed at the cluster of tiny cuts on her leg. They oozed tiny droplets of blood and he tore open several plastic bandages. “Yeah, well, I bring that out in a lot of people.”
“There’s no excuse.”
“Honey, there is always an excuse.” His lips twisted. “And I’ve probably heard ’em all over the years.”
The toe of her shoe lifted slowly while he stuck the bandages in place. “Deputy?”
He looked up as he smoothed down the last bandage. “Yeah?”
“How did you know?”
He glanced down at her feet. They were still again. He wasn’t entirely sure he trusted them to stay that way and he had no particular desire to take a size-six tennis shoe in the face. But take it he would, before he’d lift a hand against her. “About your name?”
She nodded stiffly.
“I wasn’t certain.” He judiciously gave her feet clearance as he began gathering up the stuff from the first-aid kit. “Until now.”
Her lips parted. “You bas—”
“Yeah.” He straightened. “Literally and metaphorically.” Letting her chew on that, he stuck the closed kit in her hands. “Put that back, would you?”
Those impossibly black lashes of hers lowered for a moment as her fingers tightened on the hard, plastic box. He could practically see the urge to heave it at him playing out in her mind.
After a long moment she sighed and slipped the box back under the seat. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not a criminal or anything. And I didn’t hurt Harriet. I’ve never hurt anyone.”
“But you’re running. From someone.”
“I’m not running.” Her throat worked and her voice went hoarse. “I’m living.”
He raked his hands through his hair. What was it about this woman that got so thoroughly under his skin? So rapidly under his skin?
It was a bad sign.
“Molly, whoever it is could be a suspect. You’ve got to realize that.”
“That’s impossible. Nobody knows that I’m here.”
“Family?”
Her eyes suddenly glistened. He harshly reminded himself that women conjured tears at the drop of a hat. She was probably running from whoever had hurt her—a husband, a lover, a father. God only knew. Maybe she was even one of Lenny Hostetler’s conquests. They seemed to be cropping up with amazing regularity considering the guy had seemingly disappeared from the planet. Molly certainly looked Lenny’s type. The little worm of a man unfailingly went for slender blondes.
But that didn’t mean Molly was any more trustworthy than any other woman who’d ever been in his life.
Molly Brewster isn’t in your life.
“My family knows nothing.”
He leaned against the opened door. “Must be pretty bad if you’ve cut your family out of your life, too. Seems that person might have cause to be mad at Harriet for helping you find a new life.”
She stared at him, her expression stony. “Did you take my fingerprints off that glass? Is that why you stole it?”
Obviously, she was recovering from her shock well enough. “Borrowed. I planned to return it.”
“After you’d taken my fingerprints from it, I presume.”
“Yes.”
She looked as if she was struggling with temper. Or tears. Maybe both. “Did you?”
“Get your print? Yes.”
Tears won out. Glistening tears clung to her dark lashes, looking like liquid jewels. “I told you I’ve done nothing wrong!”
“But you’re scared to death I’m going to run the print. What’ll I find when I do?”
Her gaze sought his. She leaned forward, her hands digging into the seat beside her legs. “You haven’t done that yet?”
“No. Not yet.”
“If you try, I’ll…I’ll sue you!”
“Will you?”
Her gaze flickered, and he nearly smiled. Except there was little satisfaction in manipulating this particular situation. His only justification was that there was a murderer out there, and Holt wanted him caught. If it took a little manipulation of this woman, then so be it. “I won’t run them if you help me.”
“That’s blackmail. Or extortion or something! I should have known not to expect better.”
“That’s cooperation,” he countered smoothly. “I help you, you help me. In the end we both win, don’t we?”
“I don’t like you.”
“You don’t have to. All you have to do is help me.”
“What if I go to the sheriff and complain about this?”
“Knock yourself out.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Want me to dial for you?”
She practically recoiled from the phone. “I don’t want to talk to the sheriff!”
He pocketed the phone. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”
“You’re hateful.”
“And you’re my only real link to Harriet Martel.”
“You’re overestimating my knowledge of her.”
“It’s a possibility,” he conceded. “Though a damned slim one in my opinion. You worked at least forty hours a week for more than a year and a half with her. As far as I’m concerned that means you were as close to her as anyone else I’ve been able to find. Now, do we have a deal or not?”
“I don’t seem to have much of a choice.”
“Is that a yes?”
She looked away and seemed to be watching the darkened town park across the way. Either that, or the library, which was also across the street.
“I don’t like your tactics, Deputy. Why should I trust you to hold up your end of this? For all I know, you’re already running my fingerprint against every data bank into which the sheriff’s department is linked.”
“I don’t lie.” Not exactly.
“Nor do I.”
“You’re lying about your identity.”
“That’s survival,” she said flatly.
He’d figured as much, given the sum of her reactions since they’d met. “I’ll return your print when I finish my investigation. That’s the best I can do.”
“Maybe I’ll just leave town.” Her voice shook, the bravado thin.
“If you do, then I’ll list you as an official suspect, hunt you down and drag your sweet butt right back here to Rumor. And your days of privacy and assumed identity are over.”
“You wouldn’t. You’re supposed to be looking for Harriet’s killer, not wasting time with innocent citizens like me!”
“Exactly. I don’t care whether you like my tactics or not, Molly. I want her killer found.”
She was shaking, and her face was pale as moonlight. But her eyes, even in the shadowy night, nearly shot sparks at him as she slid off the high seat. “Fine,” she whispered stiffly. Then she turned on her heel and walked back to her little car.
Holt watched her fumble with the door handle, then climb behind the wheel and, after a couple tries before the engine caught, drive out of the small parking lot.
He’d won.
Except there was no feeling of victory inside him at all.
Chapter Three
Molly unlocked the main doors of the library and went inside, flicking on the overhead lights as she went. She refused to look over her shoulder at the building across the street that housed the city offices, including the sheriff’s department and the mayor’s office.
You are in control.
She snorted softly as she pushed aside a book cart that one of the volunteers had left sitting in the aisle between the circulation desk and the administrative offices behind it. “Control? What a joke.”
She slapped the light switch on the wall just inside the main office and stared at Harriet’s office. There was a large, ancient desk that took up most of the space. Edwardian, Harriet had once told Molly. But pretty much ruined for its antique value when some owner along the way had added the “custom” sidepiece to use as a typewriter return. Harriet had purchased it secondhand for a song. It was big and it was ugly. And without Harriet behind it, it looked sad. It was also still piled with work that Harriet had never had a chance to attend to.
Several boxes of old-looking, dusty books were stacked on the floor against the wall. And a small stack of hardcover books sat on the sidepiece of her desk right next to the typewriter that looked to be as old as Molly was. The library did possess a computer system. There was a terminal at the circulation desk, one in the reference section and one in Molly’s office that also tied into an international interlibrary system. But Harriet had flatly refused to have one in her office despite the convenience it offered.
“I loathe the things. Making people smarter on one hand and dumber than dirt on the other.”
Molly smiled sadly, easily imagining Harriet’s brusque tones. “You saved my life once already, Harriet,” she whispered to the empty office. “Tell me what to do now.”
Only silence greeted her.
Sighing again, Molly went to the smaller office next door and tucked away her purse in the bottom drawer of her desk. She flipped open her calendar, glancing over the activities scheduled for the day. Her attention was barely on it, though. Not when she half expected Holt Tanner to come striding through the library doors at any moment.
When he hadn’t done so by closing time that evening, Molly’s tension had reached new heights.
“Could we have a little quiet here?” Her voice was sharper than she intended, and the group of teenagers sitting around one of the study tables looked up at her in shock. D. J. Reingard stopped tapping his oversize pencil against the table and frowned a little. “Sorry, Ms. Brewster. We’re just finishing the plans for the fund-raisers.”
Molly knew that. She pressed her fingertips to the cool wooden table, silently cursing her bad mood on Holt Tanner. “I’m sorry, D.J. You guys are fine. I guess the heat is getting to me.”
D.J. looked at her even more oddly, as it was cool as a spring evening inside the new library facility. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him that the newest deputy his father, the sheriff of Rumor, had hired was driving her right around the bend. “So, what did you all decide on? A rummage sale or a bake sale?”
The group of teens was conducting a summer project to help raise funds to reestablish a bookmobile program that would help serve the children and families in some of the more remote ranching areas around Rumor. Molly was all for the program and, with Harriet’s blessing, had been working with this particular group of honor students for the better part of the year. So far they’d raised thousands of dollars through a Halloween carnival, holiday crafts and baked goods, Christmas wreaths and a half dozen other, smaller projects.
“Both,” Becky Reed answered with a grin. She was a petite redhead with a spray of freckles across her nose and a crush for D.J. the size of Montana. D.J., however, seemed to only have eyes for one of the other girls in the group—a statuesque sixteen-going-on-thirty blonde named Tiffany.
“We want to do it in two weeks,” D.J. said, pulling his brilliant blue gaze from Tiffany to focus on Molly. “We can still use the parking lot here at the library, right?”
Molly nodded. “Are you sure you’ll be able to gather up enough donations in that short amount of time, though? School will be starting right after that, too.”
The kids—ten in all—around the table nodded. D.J. grinned, and Molly could easily see why Becky was smitten. He was seventeen, smart, athletic, blond and about as good-looking as a male could be.
Rob had been blond and blue-eyed, too. As handsome as a movie star, and as cold as the dark side of the moon.
She pushed aside the unwelcome thought. Ever since Harriet’s death, Molly’s memories of Rob had been stirred up. Nightmares in which Rob was the killer and Molly the victim, sleepless nights, near panic attacks. She was almost as much a wreck as she had been when she’d first escaped to Rumor.
She realized the kids were all chattering, and forced herself to focus.
“My mom has been nagging us to clean out the attic and the garage,” D.J. was saying. “There’s enough junk there to supply five rummage sales.” He rolled his eyes and grinned. “It’s a win-win situation. Mom gets off our case about the stuff, and we get a few more bucks for the bookmobile project.”
“I’ll bet we can get Libby Adler to donate some brownies or cookies or something, too.”
“Jessup,” Becky corrected the other girl who’d spoken. “She and Marcus Jessup got married during the Crazy Moon Festival, remember? In a double-wedding ceremony with Nick Sullivan and Callie Griffin.”
“Nick Sullivan is a hunk.” Tiffany spoke up for the first time. “But that Mr. Jessup is totally creepy if you ask me. I bet Libby Adler married him just ’cause of his oodles of money. It definitely wasn’t for his looks. Those scars on his face? Totally scary.”
Becky’s eyes narrowed. “I cannot believe even you are so stupid, Tiffany. I swear, you may be on the honor roll, but you don’t have the sense God gave a stump.”
Tiffany looked bored, but Becky wasn’t done. And frankly, Molly could hardly blame her. Tiffany was a constant trial with her snooty ways.
“Mr. Jessup’s first family died in a fire,” Becky was saying scathingly. “That’s how he got those minor scars. When he was trying to save them.”
Tiffany smirked. “Shows what you know, Becky Reed. I heard he was suspected of killing his first wife.”
Molly had heard enough. “Tiffany—”
“That’s enough,” D.J. cut in. “Mr. Jessup has donated a lot to this town. My dad says he provided the new computer system at the sheriff’s department and didn’t even want anyone to know about it. And it’s true what Bec said about him trying to save ’em.”
Tiffany’s bright blue eyes suddenly flooded with tears and she looked imploringly at D.J. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and wrapped her long fingers around his arm. “You’re right, of course, D.J.”
Most of the kids around the table looked uncomfortable. Molly caught Becky rolling her eyes the moment before she shoved back from the table. “Are we done here?” the girl asked tartly.
Whether the rest of the group figured they were or not, Molly stepped in and made sure of it as she reminded them of their next meeting and told them where they could begin storing items collected for the sale.
Then, with a cacophony of chair legs scraping against the hard floor, the group left en masse, a hoard of basically good kids dressed in everything from blue jeans to bikini tops and shorts dragging purses, backpacks, skateboards and computerized games along with them.
“I’d heard you were working with a group of kids from the high school.”
Molly whirled at the deep voice that came from behind her. “Don’t sneak up behind me.” Her voice was sharp. Shaking.
“Came right through the main doors, Molly.”
Holt walked over to the long, rectangular table and picked up one of the chairs that had been left haphazardly scattered and placed it back at the table. She watched him, torn between suspicion and irritation and something else she didn’t even want to put a name to. She knew what it was to fear a man. She didn’t fear Holt, though.
Not…exactly.
Molly began straightening the rest of the chairs surrounding the table and collecting up the various magazines and books that had been left on top of it. Familiar tasks. Soothing tasks.
Tasks that didn’t occupy her thoughts anywhere near enough to distract her from the deputy.
She kept stealing looks at him from the corner of her eye. He wasn’t wearing his typical uniform today. In fact, he wore a suit. Nothing flashy for the solemn deputy. Medium gray suit. Blinding-white shirt. The tie was a surprise, though.
“Surfboards?” The observation popped out of her mouth. He hadn’t dragged it loose at the collar the way he had his tie yesterday when he’d invaded her Sunday afternoon.
He glanced down, flipping the tie slightly between his long fingers. The pattern in the swirling gray-and-black silk was actually stylized waves complete with surfer and surfboards, something she’d only been able to pick out as she’d rounded the end of the table near where he stood.
“My partner’s wife back in L.A. had a weird sense of humor,” he said with a crooked smile, and Molly felt her nerves tighten oddly.
She turned and shoved her armful of books and magazines onto the book cart. She didn’t want to notice that his smile, faint though it was, made the intimidating man seem momentarily approachable. Human.
He gave no explanation for the reason for his suit, she noticed. Not that she expected one. Not that she wanted one. He was forcing her into helping him with his case, whether she could really be helpful or not.
She didn’t care what the man had been doing all day. She really and truly did not. “I’m surprised you weren’t here snooping the moment the doors opened this morning.” She wanted to kick herself. She began pushing the cart toward periodicals, simply to get away from the deputy and the appalling lack of sense she seemed to have around him.
“I had to be in Whitehorn for a case.”
Harriet’s? She wanted to ask, but by firmly tucking her tongue between her teeth managed to refrain. She began shelving the magazines, annoyed that he’d followed her right between the high shelves. It was dark and dim and he seemed to suck all the air right out of the area.
Okay, it wasn’t dark. It wasn’t dim, she silently acknowledged as she crouched down to reach the bottom shelf. But he still made the area seem that way. Too close. Way too close.
She shot to her feet and pushed the cart rapidly down the row. The front wheel—the one that shimmied a little—squealed loudly. “You know where Harriet’s office is, Deputy,” she said, speaking over the noise. “There’s no point following me back here. Harriet didn’t shelve materials herself. I doubt she hid any secrets of her life back here.”
She clipped the corner of the next shelf with the wheel of her book cart.
“Think maybe you need a license to drive this thing.”
He was standing right behind her, his hands nudging hers away from the push bar of the cart.
She jumped away, then flushed like the ninny she obviously was. “I—” don’t know what to say.
His dark eyes watched her. Waited.
She pressed her lips together and slid between the book cart and the shelving, moving ahead of it, and grabbed up a handful of magazines. It was fortunate that she could nearly do this particular task in her sleep.
He followed along, the book cart moving slowly behind her. Of course the wheel behaved for him.
They went up one row. Down another. From periodicals to nonfiction. From there to fiction.
If she thought waiting for his arrival had been nerve-racking, it was nearly torturous having him close on her heels, his thoughts kept close to himself, well hidden by those unreadable brown eyes.
She wondered for a moment if she’d lose her job if word got out at the way she ran, screaming madly, from the library one hot summer day. Shaking off the absurdity, she turned to the cart only to stop short in surprise.
“You’re finished.”
She looked from the empty book cart that separated them to his face. “Well, this particular task is completed, at least.”
“Molly.”
She jerked, whirling around to see one of the volunteers standing behind her with a frankly curious gaze that took in both Molly and the deputy. She needed to get a grip. “Yes, Mrs. English?”
“It’s five,” the elderly woman said gently. “I wanted to let you know I was leaving.”
Five? Molly managed a smile and thanked the woman as she left. Then she looked over her shoulder at Holt. Just as quickly she looked away. The man was too disturbing by far. “I’ve got to close up. I hadn’t realized it was so late.” She began rolling the book cart to its proper place.
“What’s the rush? You’re often here after five.”
She shoved the cart into its spot beneath a counter. “How did you know that? Spying on me?”
“This place is across from the sheriff’s department.” His voice was mild. “My desk is next to the window in the front. Simple observation makes you paranoid?”
Rob had kept track of every single thing she’d done, every single person with whom she’d had contact. She’d had no privacy, and he’d made darned sure that she knew it.
“I have plans this evening.” She had to step around him to go to her office.
He followed. “You haven’t moved your stuff into Harriet’s office.”
She leaned over to retrieve her purse from the bottom drawer in the desk. “Is there some law against that?”
“What’s with the defensiveness?”
Courtesy of her foot, the drawer shut a little harder than necessary. She straightened, hugging her purse to her. “Nothing.” Just because she’d been told more than once by the trustees that she needed to switch offices in order to make room for a new assistant librarian really was no reason to take it out on the deputy. Even if she did consider him quite responsible for making her a nervous wreck. “I’d think you’d be glad, considering everything, that Harriet’s office is still just the way she left it. Ought to ease your search for clues into her private life.”
“Her office isn’t the connection I need. It’s you. Thought we’d established that.”
“Well,” she grabbed her keys and walked past him, snapping off lights as she made her way to the entrance, “you’re just going to have to wait now. Because I’ll be busy all evening.”
He caught hold of the entrance door before she could open it. “Doing what?”
She looked above her head at his hand, the large square palm, the long, blunt-edged fingers, and swallowed down a jolt. It was just a hand. A man’s hand.
A cop’s hand.
“I have, a, uh, a reading group I meet with on Monday evenings.” It was more or less the truth and was certainly all she intended to divulge to this particular man.
“Are there a lot of reading groups?”
“A few.” She tugged at the door and relaxed some when he moved his hand, allowing her to open it. “I think it was kind of a new concept here in Rumor, but they’re getting more popular.” She waited for him to move out of the way before locking it up.
“Did Harriet meet with any groups?” He easily kept up with her as she hurried to her car.
“Not really. And none of the groups include any men yet, so if that’s where your thoughts are heading, don’t bother.” She tossed her purse across the seat and sat down, wincing a little at the hot, vinyl interior. She cranked down her window, trying not to look at the deputy.
He was standing beside the car, his expression as serious as it always was. She really didn’t want to notice the way his finely woven trousers tightened across his hips because of the hand he’d shoved in one pocket, or the way his silly tie lay against a chest that looked hard even through the severely white shirt he wore. So, of course, that was exactly what she noticed. That, and the way his eyes didn’t look quite so densely brown because the sunlight—still bright and hot even at that hour—was shining almost directly in his face.
His thick, spiky lashes were narrowed around that gleam of coffee-brown that seemed focused directly on her.
“Are you always so intense?” Her face flamed and she cursed her wayward tongue.
He closed his hands over the door, seeming oblivious to the hot metal, and leaned down a little so he could look into the car. “When I’m after something I want.”
His hair truly was black, she thought faintly. There wasn’t the least bit of gold, nor red, nor brown in the thick shock of it that looked in danger of tumbling over his forehead if not for the way it was brushed severely back from his hard face.
She needed therapy. That’s all there was to it. She absolutely, positively could not be physically attracted to this man. She could not be wondering if he brought that single-minded focus into matters of the personal kind.
The intimate kind.
She hadn’t felt a flicker of desire for anyone in so long that she wasn’t even sure that’s what she was feeling now. Only the curling in her stomach as she dragged her gaze from the very masculine hands not ten inches from her shoulder made a mockery of that particular notion.
“And you want Harriet’s killer,” she finished. It took two tries before she managed to fit her key in the ignition.
He was silent so long that she turned to look at him. Only to find that intense gaze focused on her face once more.
Her mouth ran dry and she swallowed. Reminded herself harshly that this man, Deputy Holt Tanner, represented everything that she’d left. No, that she’d been forced to flee.
“Yeah. I want her killer.” His lips twisted. “I want…a lot of things. But that’ll do for now.” He straightened and thumped the door with his palm before finally removing his hands. “Have fun with your reading group. I’ll be by the library first thing tomorrow.”
Then he was stepping away from the car, sliding off his jacket and hitching it over his shoulder with his thumb as he walked away.
She closed her eyes for a moment, willing her heart to stop racing, her stomach to stop jumping. When she opened them again, the deputy was no longer in sight.
She told herself she was glad.
Chapter Four
Holt saw Molly’s car on the side of the highway and immediately slowed, pulling up behind her.
It was nearly midnight. He’d followed her when she’d left the library. He hadn’t expected to make a second trip into Whitehorn that day, but that’s where she headed, so that’s where he’d followed. As far as he was concerned, the second trip was a lot more worthwhile than the wild-goose chase that Dave Reingard had sent him on for the first one.
Once Molly reached her destination that evening, for three hours he’d sat in his dust-covered truck far enough away to avoid suspicion outside a large house that he happened to know was a domestic-abuse shelter. He grimly speculated over what Molly was doing inside.
Reading group?
He’d doubted it.
Once he’d seen her leave—she’d stood in the front and chatted for a solid twenty minutes with two other women before driving away—he’d left his truck and walked over to the shelter where he’d had a brief chat with the director of the facility.
Angel Ramirez had been annoyingly closemouthed. The only useful thing she had imparted was her comment that there were some volunteers—women who’d escaped their lives of abuse—who met with the current residents in group sessions to help reinforce their belief in a life other than what they’d been enduring.
Afterward he’d pulled into a coffee shop and stared into a cup of coffee, his twisted mind easily conjuring images of the kinds of horrors that those “volunteers” had probably endured.
That Molly had endured.
There was a time when Holt would have gone into a bar and tossed back a shot or two of whiskey to dull the images. But not anymore. He’d given up drinking around the same time he’d given up a lot of other things.
When he finally hit the road, he sure as hell hadn’t expected to come across Molly’s car on the highway, long after she’d already departed Whitehorn.
She should have been home, safe and sound in bed.
The relief he felt when his headlights illuminated the shape of her sitting behind the wheel was all out of proportion. Yeah, it was late. And yeah, she was a good fifteen miles outside of Rumor. He would be concerned about the safety of any woman stopped alone like this on the side of a highway.
The rationalizations were sound, the relief inside him way beyond rationalizing.
He left the engine and the lights going, and walked up the side of the road, giving her plenty of time to see him.
Her window was rolled down, and he could see her fingers flexing around the steering wheel. Her face was a wash of ivory, her hair a gleam of moonlight as she turned to look at him when he stopped beside the car.
“Having problems?”
At least she wasn’t startled by him. Nor did she look exactly thrilled to see him.
“The engine quit.”
“Have you called a tow?”
The glance she cast him was brief. “Yes, Deputy, I called a tow. I stuck my head out the window and yelled at the very top of my voice. I’m sure someone heard and will be along shortly.”
“You don’t have a cell phone.”
“No.”
“Nearly everyone has a cell phone these days.”
“I don’t. Nobody needs to call me.”
“And there is nobody you need to call.”
“Assistant librarians don’t earn enough money to spend it on unnecessary luxuries.”
“You’re head librarian now. And what about emergencies like this?”
“I could have walked.”
“In the middle of the night? Fifteen miles?”
“If I had to.”
She might, at that, he thought, and refrained from giving her the lecture about safety that automatically sprang to mind. “Pop the hood.”
“Why?”
He shoved his fingers through his hair. The woman could give lessons in being suspicious. Not that he was one to talk. “To see if we can’t get this bucket of bolts going again.”
“My car is not a bucket of bolts.” Her voice was defensive. Nevertheless, he heard the distinctive pop of the hood release when she pulled it.
He bent over a little, looking past her into the car at the dash.
She stiffened like a shot. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure your gas gauge isn’t reading empty.”
“I’m not that foolish.”
But she might have been that distracted. Along with Angel Ramirez’s other miserly details, she had told him the group session that night had been particularly grueling.
He headed back to his truck. The opening of her car door was easily audible over the engine he’d left running.
“You’re not l-leaving?”
“No.” He pulled open his door and retrieved his flashlight. He flicked it on. “Remember this?”
The light from his headlights easily illuminated her face, along with the tangle of emotions that crossed it. Relief. Despair.
God. Of all the women for him to jones over, she had to be the most unsuitable.
He walked back to her car and lifted the hood.
She followed, and even though she kept a good distance between them, he was still damnably aware of her. The way she sucked in the corner of her lower lip as she’d look at him when she thought he was unaware. The way a few strands of hair had worked loose of the knot at the back of her head to cling to the delicate line of her jaw, the paleness of her neck.
He glared at the engine, wanting to ask her about the shelter, knowing she’d have a fit if she knew he’d followed her. As if her car had heard his thoughts, the narrow brace slipped and the hood crashed down on his shoulder.
He swore under his breath while Molly jumped back with a gasp. She hurriedly reached out, her hands knocking into his as they both reached for the brace to lift the hood off him.
He heard the way she sucked in her breath, and wanted to swear at the way she yanked her hand back. He was no prize, he’d be the first to admit it. But he wasn’t used to women being afraid of him. Not unless they were walking on the wrong side of the law.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. But hold this,” he muttered, and pushed the flashlight into her hands. “So I can see what I’m doing,” he added pointedly.
She made a soft huff and redirected the beam from his eyes to the engine.
He stared hard, waiting until the spots in front of his eyes disappeared, then began checking hoses and belts. He found the problem quickly enough. “You need a new fan belt. For that matter, you ought to have the whole thing tuned up.”
“Do-re-mi,” she murmured.
He caught himself from smiling as he lowered the hood. “Lock it up. I’ll drive you back to town.”
“You can’t fix it?”
He didn’t know whether to be flattered that she’d thought he might be able to or amused that she seemed peeved that he couldn’t. “Yeah, I could. With the right parts.” He took the flashlight from her and turned it off. “I’m not carrying even the wrong parts.”
“Only flashlights and first-aid kits.”
And evidence-collection kits, he thought. One that contained the print he’d lifted from her drinking glass. There was a part of him that wanted to run that print no matter what so-called agreement he’d struck with the woman.
There was a part of him that wanted to forget he’d ever taken the damned thing in the first place.
“Do you need help with anything?” He glanced at the lumps sitting on the passenger seat.
“No.” Her voice was sharp. Defensive. If he’d been back in L.A., he’d have wondered just what was in that briefcase and enormous purse that would cause a driver to be so antsy with a cop. But he wasn’t in Los Angeles anymore. And thank God for it.
He was standing on the side of a deserted highway in the middle of the night with a woman he wanted but couldn’t trust, even if he could get past her thick defenses.
“Suit yourself.” Leaving her to deal with her car, he went back to his truck and radioed in for a tow. Then he sat there, wrist propped over his steering wheel, as he watched her through the windshield.
The soft-sided briefcase she hefted over one shoulder looked heavy enough to knock her over, and he muttered an oath and shoved open the door and strode over to her.
“Don’t argue. There are some things you’re just going to have to put up with when it comes to me,” he said flatly as he slid the strap from her shoulder and took it. “What’s in here? Bricks?”
She pulled the second bag out of the car and slammed the door shut. “Books. For the reading group, remember? I told you I could manage it.”
The reading group story again. Right. Angel Ramirez hadn’t said squat about a reading group. “So you did. Am I complaining about it?”
“I—” She looked up at him, her expression guarded. “I’m sorry. I thought you were.”
“I wasn’t.” He headed toward his truck. When she stayed right where she was, he looked back at her. Standing beside her twenty-year-old car, clutching her enormous carpetbag of a purse to her with both hands, the faint night breeze barely enough to stir the hem of her floaty pink dress about her shapely knees.
She’d spent her entire Monday evening with a group of women living at a shelter. She still had a small plastic strip on her shin that he figured he recognized.
He let out a long breath. “Come on, Molly,” he said quietly. “Stop expecting the worst. Everything is going to be fine.”
Her fine eyebrows drew together. “With my car, you mean.”
“Yeah. Right.”
She hesitated a moment longer, then walked to his truck. She stowed her purse on the floor by her feet and carefully nudged aside the jacket of his suit as if she might catch something from it.
She didn’t speak until the lights of Rumor were visible through the windshield. “Thank you for stopping.”
“All part of being a public servant.”
She made a noncommittal sound that grated on his nerves. He took the exit down to Main Street. “Your car will be towed sometime tonight.”
“Oh, but—”
“I called it in already.”
Her lips started to tighten up.
“I know you’re perfectly capable of doing it yourself.”
She absorbed that, and slowly lost the tight-lipped expression. “As long as I didn’t spend the night sitting on the side of the highway, trying to decide the best course of action,” she finally admitted. “What were you doing out there, anyway? Surely you weren’t still on duty. Not after having been in Whitehorn all afternoon like you said. You haven’t even changed out of your suit. Your jacket is probably unforgivably wrinkled from lying on the seat in a heap the way it is.”
He was saved from coming up with an answer when he pulled up in front of her house. “Here you go. Will you need a ride to work in the morning? I could send around a car—”
“No!” She hurriedly gathered up her purse. “Of course I don’t need a ride. It’s just a few blocks around the park. A nice walk, in fact. I do wish the heat would let up, though. I keep telling myself that in a month, when the weather has really turned, I’ll be wishing for a little heat.”
She was speaking fast. Too fast. Making him wonder what had set her into this latest panic. He got out to carry in that enormous bag of books of hers. “Sure it’s a nice walk as long as you don’t have to cart this thing back to the library.”
Her expression lightened a little. If he wasn’t mistaken, she almost smiled. Which, of course, there in the middle of the godforsaken ninety-degree night made him determined to see just what that might look like. A real smile on Molly Brewster’s face when she looked at him.
Knowing he was probably one of the last people on earth to be able to succeed at that annoyed him no end.
She was fumbling a little with her keys. “Fortunately, the books are mine,” she assured as she finally pushed open the front door. “They get to stay here. Um, thank you, again, Deputy. For the ride, and all.”
Once again she stood squarely in the doorway. Not budging an inch, telling him absolutely that she was not going to invite him in. Not for coffee. Not for discussion about Harriet. Not for…anything.
“We never did get around to talking much about Harriet.”
“Well, it’s a little late tonight, and you warned me earlier today that you’d be by the library in the morning. Call me selfish, Deputy, but I’m thinking rather longingly of my bed.”
She wasn’t the only one. The thought darkened his mood even more.
He deliberately reached past her to dump the heavy briefcase just inside the front door. “D’ya ever let anyone in your house, Molly? Let down that guard of yours enough to let someone in?”
She went still. “Is that pertinent to your investigation?”
He pushed his hands into his pockets where they couldn’t do any damage to either of their peace of mind. “No.”
“Then it’s really none of your business.”
He’d expected no other answer. Didn’t have to mean he liked it, though. Or had to acknowledge the least bit of sting. “Be available to help me tomorrow. I want to go through Harriet’s office again. Her desk, her files. Everything.” He turned to go.
“Deputy, wait.” She caught his arm, her touch too light to have the impact it did. “You’ve, um, you have a tear in your shirt. It must have happened when the hood of my car hit you.” She slipped under his arm, and he felt her fingers probing his shoulder. “There’s blood, too. Why didn’t you say something?”
“I wasn’t thinking about my shoulder.”
“I think the tear is right there at the seam. It should be easy to fix. But you should soak it right away to get the stain out.”
He was too old to get turned on by a woman just from a fleeting, simple touch. Had his partner still been alive to witness the way Holt nearly scrambled off the porch away from the blonde, he’d have laughed himself into a coma.
As it was, Molly was staring at him with dismay. “I’m sorry. Is it painful?”
He felt like choking. “Excuse me?”
“Your shoulder. You jumped when I touched the spot where you were bleeding. I thought—”
“It’s fine.” He cleared his throat. “Fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Her lashes drifted down, then up again. “Well, it was my car that did it. The least I can do is fix your shirt.”
“Don’t sweat it, Molly. It’s just a shirt. I’ve got a closetful of them.”
“Of silk shirts?” Her eyebrows rose. “They must be paying cops better than I remember. Come on, Deputy. I’d rather fix your shirt than have to buy you a new one. I’m on a budget, remember?”
Her lips weren’t drawn up all tight and prudish now. She wasn’t avoiding looking at him. She looked a little ornery and a lot determined.
“How would you know anything about what a cop earns?”
“I…don’t. I just assumed.”
“You shouldn’t lie, Molly,” he told her flatly. “Your face gives you away every single time.”
Now, he could add stony to the list of expressions on her face. “I’m really quite weary already with your accusations, Deputy. Liar. Killer.”
“I know you didn’t kill Harriet.” He knew he sounded impatient, and he really didn’t want to scare this woman, when it was so obvious that she shrank into herself whenever he raised his voice the least little bit. But some things a man couldn’t help. His voice got a little louder when he was pissed, annoyed and aroused.
Only question was, which of the two of them he was more annoyed with—her or him.
Probably him. For having the disgustingly bad judgment to get the least bit involved with this woman.
A witness, for God’s sake.
A woman ten years his junior.
A woman with lies that sat badly on her soft, pink lips and painful secrets that lurked in her pale, pale blue eyes.
He deliberately, carefully, kept his tone low. “I also know you’re hiding a past that may be relevant.” And if the woman would just open up to him a little bit about it, maybe he’d be able to help them both.
“We’ve played this song before, I believe. And we were talking about your shirt, anyway.”
“Forget about it.”
“I always pay my debts.”
He dragged the shirt over his head, not even bothering with the buttons, except the top two, and tossed it to her.
She gaped at him. But she caught the shirt as it fluttered toward her.
“You wanna sew the shirt, fine,” he said, his voice hard. “Sew your little heart out. While you’re doing it, you might try thinking about the debt that you may owe Harriet. Maybe then something will come to you that will help me find the person who did kill her.”
He turned and walked back to his truck, the vision of her slender fingers tangled in his shirt burning into his mind.
Chapter Five
“Sue, are you sure that report on the treads hasn’t come back from the Feds yet?”
“Good morning to you, too.” Sue Gerhardt was the dispatcher and, Holt knew, the glue that held the small department together. “And, no, it hasn’t. I called the FBI folks yesterday afternoon to follow up on it, too.”
Here was a woman who was completely aboveboard. Helpful. Intelligent. “Anyone ever tell you you’re the perfect woman, Sue?”
“Sure, my husband. How do you think he’s managed to keep me for forty years?”
Holt smiled and headed for the coffeepot, giving a brief wave to Dave through his boss’s glass-windowed office as he went. Dave nodded, his attention obviously taken with the phone call he was on.
“Anything interesting come in overnight?”
“Other than a call from a shelter in Whitehorn that some deputy from down here had been there last night nosing around, asking questions? Not a thing.” Sue’s sixty-two-year-old eyes were sharp. “Don’t suppose you want to share, do you?”
“Sue, I’d share my heart with you if I still had one.” He headed over to his desk by the window that overlooked the library.
Sue laughed. “Yeah, you’re a heartless California boy, all right. I’m onto you, Holt Tanner. Big bad cop, my big toe. Did your little foray into Whitehorn have anything to do with the rumor going around that Harriet had helped some woman escape an abusive husband?”
Not in the way Sue might think, Holt thought. He’d been there because of Molly. But Sue didn’t know that. She was thinking about Lenny. Lenny Hostetler had been plenty angry with Harriet Martel for helping his wife and kids escape their life with him. Maybe even angry enough to cause her harm. But so far they hadn’t been able to locate the guy.
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