Well-manicured, quiet neighborhoods within Holly River boundaries gave way to large lots with small clapboard houses and areas of struggling vegetable growth. Most of the houses looked tired, as if they’d been standing for a century or more. Following Allie’s directions, he turned off the paved road onto a dirt lane and progressed half a mile until he came to a boxy-looking frame house painted a washed-out white. He parked and got out of the car.
“Hi, Sam,” Allie called from the tiny front porch. She shut the door behind her and hurried down two steps and across a dusty patch of dirt that didn’t look like it had supported flowers or even grass for many years.
Sam wasn’t about to draw any conclusions about Allie’s home. After all, she was a waitress and had to get by mostly on tips. And she looked so darn good and seemed so sweet that she could have lived anywhere and he wouldn’t have cared. He’d seen her only in black pants and a white T-shirt with the River Café’s logo on it, an artist’s interpretation of the Wyoga River. He’d thought she was pretty then, but in tight-fitting blue jeans and a pink sweater, she was a knockout.
“You look great,” he said.
She brushed a strand of brown hair from her shoulder and smiled. “You, too.”
“Is Brickstone’s all right with you?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve wanted to go to that place since I got to Holly River.”
Pleased with the choice he’d made, Sam headed toward town. He told Allie about the tourist who’d gotten bit by a cottonmouth and how Sam had driven him to the hospital. Allie confessed to dropping a tray of food this afternoon. He found himself laughing and smiling a lot—and wanting to reach across the console to take her hand.
The restaurant was crowded, mostly with tourists. The few locals who recognized Sam greeted him when he and Allie walked by their tables. Sam figured his date with the River Café waitress would be all over town by Monday morning.
Sam ordered the wine, and they set their menus aside while they enjoyed a first glass. “How long have you been in this part of the state?” Sam asked. “I know you’ve only been at the café for a week or so.”
“That’s about how long I’ve been around. Got the job a few days after moving in.”
“You like it here so far?”
“It’s nice. I’ve only lived in cities, so this is quite a change for me.”
“I guess it seems too quiet for a city girl,” Sam remarked.
“Quiet is what I was looking for,” she said.
“What brought you to the High Country?”
She looked into her glass as if the rich red color held some sort of fascination. “I guess I can tell you,” she finally said.
“Sure you can, if you want to.”
“I was in an abusive relationship in Charlotte, and I had to get out. I’d stayed with this guy for over two years. Kept thinking it would work if I could just figure out what didn’t set him off.” She chuckled, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Problem is, everything set him off, and I got to the point where I knew I’d have to leave or die trying to fix the relationship.”
Sam clenched a fist under the table. His sister had been in a similar situation, and he’d forced her to recognize what a threat her boyfriend had been. Lila had hated him for a while. Like Allie, Lila thought she’d marry the creep and make a decent man of him. But Sam knew it was no use. Now Lila thanked him every time they talked. Sam had no tolerance for men who mistreated women.
“Did the guy try to get you to stay?” Sam asked.
She frowned. “Let’s just say he was very persuasive. I actually left in the middle of the night with nothing but a suitcase and my cat. Bart came running out of the house as I pulled out of the drive. I don’t know if he got in his car to chase me, but I’m glad a cop wasn’t clocking me as I drove away.”
She reached across the table and placed her hand over Sam’s. “I really don’t like to talk about this. I got out in time, so now it’s history and I’m fine. I’m happy to change the subject.”
“Okay. But one last question. Does he know where you are?” Yes, this was his cop’s mind working, but he felt he had to know.
“I don’t see how he could. I’m on the other side of the state, on the outskirts of a small town. I’m using my mother’s maiden name, Shroeder, which I plan to make my own soon. Since Bart never asked many questions about my family, I’m sure he has no idea what my mom’s name was. And everyone at the café just knows me as Allie anyway.” She smiled. “And admit it, Sam, it takes more than a good GPS to find my house.”
He turned his hand over and entwined his fingers with hers. “That’s for sure. You own that place?”
“No. I’m just renting a room. The lady who owns it used to babysit me when I was a child. She’s known my family for years. When I left Charlotte, I called her to see if she had a place I could stay for a while. Luckily she did.”
He squeezed her hand. “And lucky for me.”
She seemed pleased by his statement. “I haven’t accepted any dates since I’ve been here, but you seemed so different. It’s not just that you’re a cop. I mean you can’t tell everything about a person from his job. For heaven’s sake, I work in a restaurant, and I can’t boil water. But I instinctively trusted you from the first time you came in the café.”
She gave him a warm smile. “I guess I shouldn’t have admitted to my lack of cooking skills. That’s not something most country men want to hear.”
He returned the smile. “Ma’am, if you boil water for me, I promise to praise it to the sky.”
He poured an inch more of wine into her glass, liking the way her hazel eyes reflected in the mahogany color and the low restaurant light. Sam used to tease his friends—men and ladies—that he was no choirboy, but heck, that wasn’t true. He’d come from a good Irish Catholic family and he had actually been a choirboy. So yeah, he could be trusted, but once a woman indicated in that special way women had that she was ready for more than a kiss, he was always anxious to please. He would wait for when Allie was ready. She was worth waiting for.
“So anything besides the snake scare happen today?” she asked him. “You and the chief solve any big crimes?”
Sam chuckled. “We don’t have too many big crimes in Holly River. Right now we’re trying to locate a dozen hoses and pole sprinklers stolen from the hardware store.” Carter had given the okay to mention the stolen items, or Sam would have been more vague. Maybe someone would provide a clue, Carter reasoned, and besides, Carl Harker had told everyone anyway.
“This may not sound like Charlotte-level crime, but here it’s a big deal. The guy who owns the store said the total value of the items taken is over three hundred dollars.” He paused, thinking about the hours Carter had put in today looking for the missing goods. “It’s not the money. It’s the violation that really counts.”
“Of course. Where are you looking?”
“Outlying farms,” Sam said, pleased that she showed an interest in his job. “We’ve been in a drought, so watering systems are needed almost countywide. Carter has a list of people he suspects, and if one of them suddenly has a bumper crop, he’ll probably find his thief.”
“Seems to me that farming would be difficult in the mountains,” Allie said.
“Why? Because of the uneven land?”
She nodded.
“I need to take you to our vineyard. When you see what those guys did with their terraced land, you probably will change your opinion of mountain farming. The valleys around here are rich with minerals. As a matter of fact, the River Café buys its produce locally. It’s some of the best around.”
She gave him a subtle smile. “I’d like to see it—the vineyard I mean. Did you have a day in mind?”
This date was going well. Now Sam had a second date to look forward to, and he sure as heck planned on getting a good-night kiss.
Sam coll
ected that kiss in his car when he brought Allie home. He might have tried for a second one, but a woman waited by the door of the house. Allie got out of his car and practically ran to the porch. Sam figured the woman was the family friend Allie had spoken of, the one who owned the house. He rolled down his window to listen to the exchange between the women. Everything seemed normal until he heard the older woman say, “I know that man. He’s a Holly River cop, isn’t he?”
Sam tried to identify her, but she ducked inside the door out of the glare of the porch light. He wasn’t sure if she was glad Allie was dating a cop, but he figured she was. A cop was certainly a better choice than the guy Allie had left behind.
* * *
SUNDAY MORNING CARTER SHOWERED, shaved and slipped into a pair of worn jeans and a T-shirt. He had his coffee on his front porch, listening to the sounds of the creek running along the edge of his property. He’d searched long and hard for this perfect piece of property just outside Holly River. He and Lainey went over several house plans until they decided on a three-bedroom, two-bath log home model.
Lainey had just announced she was pregnant for the third time when ground was broken for the new house. And then, two months later, after the sturdy framing had been accomplished, disaster struck again. Carter could almost never sit outside his house in the shade of the great old oak trees and not remember the day Lainey called him at work and said she was having some pain and driving herself to the hospital.
Five years earlier...
CARTER BROUGHT LAINEY home from the hospital after learning that her third pregnancy had resulted in another miscarriage. The car they were riding in was deathly quiet, neither of them speaking. When they pulled into the parking lot of their apartment, Carter took Lainey’s hand. “We’ll try again,” he said. “Next time...”
Lainey looked at him with devastatingly sad eyes. “There won’t be a next time, Carter.”
“You don’t want to try again? The fourth time may be...”
“No, Carter, I don’t,” she interrupted. “I can’t do this again. It’s too hard. It’s hopeless.”
“You don’t know that,” he argued. “Lots of women have several miscarriages before they carry to term.”
“We’ve failed,” she said. “It’s not working for us. I want to start over.” She let several tense moments pass before saying, “Away from Holly River.”
“Okay, we’ll move. Maybe a new environment will make a difference.”
“No, Carter. I’m sorry this is such bad timing, but I’m leaving. I’m leaving Holly River, and I’m leaving you. If I don’t, the heartbreak will kill me.”
Soon after, Carter changed the plans for his house. He eliminated the third bedroom since there would be no children. In a way, he understood what Lainey had tried to tell him. Like her, he couldn’t go through this again. He enlarged the master bedroom and added a garage. And now he had a 1,500-square-foot home with four huge rooms, two nice bathrooms, a double garage and one lonely man rattling around inside.
The house, with its wide front porch, sloping burnt-orange roof and sturdy chimney, was as cold and empty as a greenhouse when the plants had all died. His mother and sister, Ava, had bought furniture, and curtains and bedding—all the things he’d imagined Lainey buying. They’d tried to make the house welcoming and comfortable. To Carter, it was a place to live.
Carter remembered his father putting his arm around his shoulders at the only show of affection Raymond had ever given him. The day Carter moved into the house, Raymond came to him, leaned in close and said in a voice almost cool and certainly collected, “I’m sorry, son. This has been a really tough break.” Carter had clenched his fists to keep from striking his father’s face. Raymond Cahill had fathered three children. Carter had failed three times. Oh, it was a “tough break,” all right. And then Raymond had walked to his car while the rest of the family tried to make the housewarming a celebration.
The “tough break” had nearly broken the man who’d lost everything. Carter decided he would never marry again either. He had two reasons for reaching this decision. One, he knew he could never survive such losses a second time. And while he wasn’t the type to anticipate tragedy in his life, he figured it could happen. It had happened once...
And two, going back three generations, the men in the Cahill family had basically been heartless and didn’t seem capable of empathizing with anyone’s grief or loss. In fact, some of the Cahill ancestors had actually benefited from other people’s misfortunes. Great-grandfather Vernon Cahill had wrested the land for the paper mill from a grieving family. Carter’s grandfather had employed men at less than the minimum wage and scoffed at the idea of unions that might have improved their lives. Raymond had allowed Warren Jefferson to work in the boiler room, where asbestos poisoning eventually killed him.
Carter had been thrilled when Lainey announced each of her pregnancies. He put the fear of the “Cahill curse” from his mind. Each time he believed in the future, and each time he’d been forced to accept failure. So now Carter was resigned to not having children, to not loving so completely ever again. He spent his days in the town he loved, doing work he thought mattered. Some people believed he was too fair, too lenient with folks who broke the law. Maybe he was, but he had a lot of bad karma to make up for.
Finished with his coffee, Carter stood and went into the house for the keys to the patrol car. He was early, but he’d stop at High Mountain Rafting and see if Jace was around before going to the Hummingbird Inn to pick up Miranda.
Miranda...another victim of Cahill greed. And the one woman in the whole darn county who could make him want to feel again. But he wouldn’t. The cost was too great. But he would do one more good deed for someone who had suffered at the hands of the Cahill family. Maybe he could save Lawton, and to Miranda, it might begin to make up for what she lost.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“YOU LISTEN TO Becky, Emily,” Miranda said, with her hand under Emily’s chin and her eyes locked on her little girl’s soft blue ones.
“I will, Mom,” Emily said.
“We’ll be fine, Mrs. Larson,” Becky said. “I’ve brought some art projects from the college. When you get back, we’ll have some beautiful things to show you.”
Thank goodness for Becky, Miranda thought. The girl was solid and sweet, and focused on her education. Miranda supposed she’d become an overly protective mother, but, like many parents who’d chosen divorce, she suffered from enormous guilt when it came to Em. Emily loved her father. She was only just now coming to a nine-year-old’s terms with her parents’ splitting up.
A car coming up the gravel drive to the main house alerted Miranda to Carter’s arrival. She checked her appearance, satisfied with the jeans and plaid shirt she was wearing. “I’ve got to go. There are sandwiches in the fridge and chips in the cupboard. You two have fun.”
They were already doing exactly that when Miranda left the cottage and headed toward the main house. Seeing the patrol car ahead, Miranda hurried her pace so Carter wouldn’t have to wait long for her. She’d just reached the corner of the inn when she heard voices—Carter’s and Lucy Dillingham’s. She stopped and listened.
“So nice to see you, Chief Cahill,” Lucy said. “What brings you out this way?”
“I’ve come to see one of your guests, Mrs. Dillingham.”
“Can’t imagine who would need our police chief,” the woman said. “The Wyndemeres are off hiking, and the Rolston family went to Tweetsie Railroad for the day. That leaves only...” She drew in a quick breath. “You’re here to see Miranda Jeffer...I mean Larson, aren’t you? Is there trouble I should know about?”
Miranda’s stomach clinched. How would Carter answer such a blunt question?
“No, ma’am. I’m just taking Mrs. Larson out for some sightseeing. We went to high school together, and I figured she’d enjoy seeing some of the changes around here.”
“Lawton served his time, Mrs. Dillingham,” Carter said. “So far he’s been a model citizen. I don’t think you need to worry that he’ll cause trouble for you.”
Miranda said a silent prayer of thanks to Carter.
“I don’t personally know those boys,” Mrs. Dillingham said. “But of course I’ve heard things. You can’t live in a small town without hearing things.”
“I understand, but you’re fine here in Holly River. You have a competent police department that keeps you safe.”
After a pause Carter said, “I’ll just go to the cottage if there’s nothing else.”
“Enjoy your day, Chief,” Lucy said. “Miranda seems like a sweet enough girl. But just be aware. You know what they say about blood being thicker than water.”
“I do. You have a nice day, too.”
Miranda backed up a few steps in case Lucy followed Carter around the side of house. She didn’t, and Miranda quickly caught up to Carter. “That old hen!” she said in a hoarse whisper.
“Don’t worry about her,” Carter said. “If you started fretting over everyone in Holly River who had a strong opinion on a subject, you’d have little time for anything else.”
They got in Carter’s car, and he pulled into the road and headed toward Liggett Mountain.
“Does Lawton know we’re coming?” he asked.
“They don’t have a phone in the cabin,” Miranda explained. “And Lawton doesn’t have a cell phone.” She reminded herself to arrange for him to have one. “I did call Dale and told him I was coming out. He was out somewhere, but he assured me that Law was at home when he left. And since he doesn’t have transportation, I assume he’s still there.”
High Country Cop Page 8