by Meryl Sawyer
“Claire, I was wondering if you wanted to go to Sacred Grounds for coffee?”
The question took her by surprise. Was he asking her out on a date? Of course he was, and he was just a little shy about it. It dawned on her that he must have rushed home after the rodeo and cleaned up—for her.
Her pulse skittered alarmingly. Be honest with yourself, Claire, cautioned an inner voice. She’d returned home, promising herself that she would deal honestly with her problems, not run away from them. If she were dead honest, she had to admit that she wanted to spend time with Zach.
True, she was attracted to him physically. Why bother to deny it? Yet beyond Zach’s virile appeal was something … more. She had never known anyone with his strength of character and determination. He’d made something of himself, and she had to admit she was proud of him.
But she wasn’t ready to be seen with him—yet. She had to deal with her father first, prepare him somehow. He was emotionally vulnerable, she decided, recalling his reaction to the painting. And his heath was fragile.
Then it occurred to her that Zach might be cleverly luring her back to his place or hers for sex. Well, what did she expect? She had wantonly thrust her body against his while they’d been dancing. When the dance was over, she hadn’t been able to let go.
Every time they were together, they came closer to making love. If she was alone with him tonight, she knew exactly what would happen. But he wasn’t asking her to go anywhere that they would be alone. Sacred Grounds was a popular coffee bar. It would be very crowded after the rodeo.
“I can’t go for coffee,” she said quickly, realizing she’d paused too long and an embarrassing silence had developed. “I’ve got to go to the reception.”
He studied her a moment with reproachful eyes that missed nothing. “Is that what you really want to do?”
Of course, it wasn’t. She would love to go to Sacred Grounds and talk to him while sipping a cappuccino. “I promised my father I’d go and give the Fosters his regards,” she said, every word sounding hollow even to her own ears. “It’s the first of their receptions he’s missed.”
They were in the shadows of the portal overhanging the shops, but across the plaza she saw couples she recognized going into the Taos Inn for the party. Most of those people wouldn’t be thrilled to see her with Zach Coulter. They were the establishment—wealthy and accepted. Her father’s friends.
She had no doubt most of them would snub Zach, if she brought him to the reception. An odd thought struck her. The majority of the people the Fosters had invited lived in estates outside the city limits in Zach’s territory. They would gladly let Zach protect their homes, their lives.
But he wasn’t welcome at their parties.
It was an ugly double standard, she thought with disgust. How did it make Zach feel? He didn’t seem to notice or care. She suspected that he’d developed this attitude long ago when his mother had been the subject of scorn and ridicule. Maybe he’d deliberately protected his inner feelings by becoming the town bad boy who always landed in trouble with both feet.
She’d always been accepted because she was Alexander Holt’s daughter. Zach had never had the protection of a respected family. He didn’t need it today, but once, when they’d been younger, he must have been lonely and insecure. Now, though, he was a man, a man accustomed to being alone.
“Please walk me over to the reception,” she said, not wanting to leave him.
He fell in step beside her, matching his long stride to hers. But he didn’t say anything. What was he thinking? Was he angry with her for going to the party instead of accepting his invitation?
“Hello, there,” Angela Whitmore said as she came around the corner nearly colliding with them.
Paul Winfrey was beside her, his arm around Angela’s waist. She glanced at him for a second and knew that Paul had taken the place of Carleton Cole. Claire would have applauded her friend’s choice except Paul was her discovery. She did not want him wasting his valuable painting time on sex.
Paul and Zach exchanged a few words while Claire tried to decide what to do. Paul had not been invited to the party. He was coming as Angela’s guest. The hosts certainly wouldn’t mind if Claire brought someone. If it had been anyone but Zach Coulter, she would have suggested he join them.
By leaving Zach now, when it was obvious that Angela was bringing someone who hadn’t been invited, Claire was rudely snubbing Zach. He’d helped her when she’d needed him, finding the rattlesnake, then taking care of Bam Stegner. How could she be like all those other snobs, accepting Zach’s protection as sheriff—yet cutting him dead socially?
Zach looked down at her, his expression intent, and she knew that he was waiting for her to invite him along. She tried a smile, hoping to communicate that she liked him. He didn’t return her smile. Instead he waited, watching her.
If she were brave, she’d roll the dice and walk into the party on Zach’s arm. Muffy Foster would call her father the next morning—if one of the other town gossips didn’t beat her to it. Claire didn’t want her father to find out that way.
She needed to think this over carefully. If she entered into any kind of relationship with Zach, she owed it to her father to discuss her feelings with him. He was too emotionally fragile to let some shrew break it to him unexpectedly.
Paul held the door to the Taos Inn open for Angela. “After you.”
It was clear Paul thought Zach was going to the party with her. Zach waited, his eyes on Claire. She gazed down at the tip of her shoe, then forced herself to look directly at him. Was he waiting for the words that would change things between them and set their relationship on a new course? She suspected he was. He’d taken the first step by asking her out tonight.
An uncomfortable silence hung between them, magnified by the sounds from the plaza and the chatter coming from the hotel lobby. Even worse, Paul was holding the door open, expecting them both to follow Angela inside.
“I’ll see you later, Zach.” Claire turned her back on him and walked through the door before he had a chance to say anything—even good-bye.
She rushed into the lobby and immediately encountered friends who inquired about her father. Claire angled her body so she could look out the window as she woodenly mumbled a reply. Zach was walking away, his shoulders squared. Something about his stride reminded her of the day he’d walked out of her father’s bank without getting the money to bury his mother.
He’d been little more than a kid back then, having lost both parents within a year’s time. But no one took pity on the town’s bad boy who couldn’t raise enough money to properly bury his mother.
It was clear that he had loved Sally Coulter—despite her problems. There was a depth to Zach, a capacity to love and understand people that no one gave him credit for having. He’d been a hell-raiser and that’s how the town saw him even now. No one took the time to look beyond his image to discover the real person.
Going door to door, asking for money to bury his mother, promising to do any menial job to pay back people must have taken every ounce of Zach’s pride, but he’d done it. He’d raised a little money, yet not nearly enough. He had been forced to come to the bank and beg her father.
After the accident that had killed both their parents, her father had blasted Jake Coulter. True, he’d been driving the car, but the accident wasn’t his fault. The truck had blown a tire and hit them. To hear her father tell it, Jake was a worthless creep who had all but murdered Amy Holt. Of course, he wasn’t going to help Jake Coulter’s son.
Claire had been in the bank, doing homework at an empty desk when Zach had come. She had wanted to give Zach all the money she had, but her father refused to let her. Zach never heard her arguing with her father, and Zach never looked back to see her watching him as he disappeared into the blizzard.
Claire should have gone after him even though she couldn’t give him enough money to really help. A show of support had been what he needed. But nobody was there for him.<
br />
Not then; not now.
Suddenly, she felt even more depressed than she’d felt that day years ago. And thoroughly disgusted with herself.
Twenty-three
Zach walked away from the Taos Inn, cursing under his breath. Unfuckingbelievable! Claire treated him the way she would one of the low-lifes that hung out at Bam Stegner’s. He was so friggin’ fried that he felt like putting his fist through a brick wall.
Claire wanted him—no denying it. But when it came to being seen in public with him, the princess drew the line. Why did he bother? He had wound up things at the rodeo a few hours ago, then had rushed home to shower and shave, so he could see Claire without looking—and smelling—like five-day-old roadkill. He should have gone to bed. Christ knows, he needed sleep. The last two nights had been hell.
“You’re such a stupid ass,” he muttered to himself. Why had he come to see Claire? Hadn’t he gotten enough of that uppity establishment crap when he’d been a kid? Yeah, right. He thought they couldn’t hurt him. They couldn’t, but … well, Claire could.
He’d made something of himself, and he was damn proud of it. Yet Claire had the ability to make him feel like a worthless teenager with a drunk for a mother and a father … and a father who would rather waste his life waiting for Amy Holt than try to make something of himself.
Why couldn’t he just let Claire go? Cursing himself under his breath, he decided this had to be some kind of sick obsession. Concentrate on solving the murder, he told himself. Avoid Claire Holt entirely.
“Sheriff! Oh, Sheriff!”
Vanessa Trent was sashaying up the side street toward the plaza. Her blond hair fluttered as she tried to hurry yet still look sexy. The fire-engine red sheath she wore kept her from walking very fast. The mile-high heels didn’t help either—especially on cobblestones laid down centuries ago.
Aw, hell. Just what he didn’t need. He stood on the corner and waited until the actress came to a breathless stop beside him.
“I want to thank you for sending that to-die-for FBI agent to check my security,” she told him, sweeping her long lashes up, then slowly, slowly down.
“Glad to help,” he said. He was all kinds of pissed, and the last thing he wanted to do was to play games with Vanessa.
“Have you been able to find Duncan’s killer?” she asked, moving so close her breasts brushed his arm.
He could see the actress was more interested in coming on to him than in Morrell’s killer. She was one of those women who automatically assumed her pretty face and sexy body would get her whatever she wanted. Whoever she wanted. He wasn’t interested in her—and he never would be.
“We’re closing in on the killer.” Zach believed Stacy Hopkin’s information would crack the case.
“Really?” she said with one of those dramatic wide-eyed poses intended for a camera. “How exciting. Will you be making an arrest soon?”
“Hard to say.”
“Could you double check my security?” She lowered those spidery-looking lashes and tilted her head to one side. “I was a close friend of Duncan’s. The killer could be after me, too.”
Hell, that was a stretch of anyone’s imagination. Was she really so self-absorbed? “You lost a lot of money investing with Morrell, didn’t you?”
She pulled back, a genuine look of shock replaced her sultry expression. “I bought several of Nevada’s prints from Duncan. I did not lose any money—not one cent.”
Lowell Hopkins had refused to buy the lithos from the actress. Then she’d tried to sell them to Claire, who’d also declined to sell them for Vanessa. How long was Vanessa going to go on kidding herself? Morrell had taken her to the cleaners the way he had so many others.
“Were you involved with him?” he asked, wondering if she could be the mystery woman Duncan was leaving his wife for.
“Of course, not. Everyone knows I’m going with Treveyan Farrell, the producer of my show.”
Everyone did not have this fascinating tidbit of information, but then, Vanessa Trent saw herself as the center of the universe. Undoubtedly, she thought she was too special for Morrell to have conned. Zach stepped off the curb. “I’ll drop by sometime to double-check your security,” he said to pacify her.
He drove around to the back of The Rising Sun Gallery where Claire’s car was parked beneath a cottonwood. Lobo stuck his head out the window the second Zach drove into the lot. His fangs were bared, but when he saw Zach, the dog wagged his tail.
“Miss me?” Zach said to Lobo when he’d gotten out of the Bronco and had gone over to Claire’s car.
Both dogs were wagging their tails, but only Lucy was trying to lick him. Lobo had never been much of a licker, but he was wagging his tail harder than he usually did.
Zach reached his hand inside and unlocked the door. “Come on, boy. We’re outta’ here. Bam won’t bother Claire. She’s on her own now. She doesn’t need us.”
Lobo jumped out the second Zach opened the door. He had to grab Lucy’s collar, or she would have leaped out, too. He hustled back to his car, telling himself that he was finished with Claire Holt.
His father had been forced to meet Amy Holt on the sly because she was married. Okay, that was their problem, not his. There was no reason Claire couldn’t be seen with him. Except Alexander Holt.
He opened the back door of the Bronco for Lobo, but the dog didn’t hop in the way be usually did. The dog was still by Claire’s Jeep, gazing up at Lucy.
“Lobo! Come here.”
The dog ambled over to the Bronco, looking over his shoulder the whole way. He jumped into the back like an old man suffering with arthritis. Great! Just what he needed. His dog was crazy about Claire’s lame retriever.
Lobo was still hanging out the window, looking back at town when Zach rounded the bend to the small house he’d purchased on the edge of the Kit Carson National Forest. Like his office, the house had a panoramic view of Taos Mountain. Groves of aspens and pines flanked the house, and a meadow of wildflowers and clover cut a wide swath down to a stream that meandered across his property.
The house wasn’t much, as houses went, but it was all his. He had a studio out back where he puttered in his off hours. He hadn’t been out there in weeks, and he really missed it. Maybe tomorrow.
As he pulled up, he saw Brad Yeager’s BUCAR, government-issue Ford, parked in the driveway. Yeager had made himself at home. He was sitting in one of the two bent willow chairs on the porch facing the mountain. His feet were up on the railing, his heels hitched over the hand-hewn oak bar.
“What’s happening?” Zach called as he hopped out of the Bronco and held the door for Lobo.
“I have a little information for you. I tried to catch you before you left the rodeo arena, but you were outta’ there like you had a hot date.”
“Don’t I wish,” Zach said as he dropped into the chair beside the agent.
Yeager rocked back, balancing on the two rear legs of the chair. “Not much on Max Bassinger except he’s richer than Midas and a switch-hitter who leans toward men. He reminds me of an old Elvis song about a ‘burnin’ burnin’ hunk a love.’ Bassinger fits the description, right?”
Zach tried to laugh at his friend’s joke, but it was hard. After the scene with Claire, it was difficult to laugh at anything. “What about Vanessa?”
“The boob-tube queen—no pun intended—is flat broke.” Yeager stopped to laugh at his own joke. Zach tried to chuckle, but he was still so pissed at Claire that he sounded like he was choking on a piece of meat. “Vanessa tried all year to raise money to form her own production company. She wants to get into the movies, but Hollywood doesn’t think she’s a good enough actress to carry a film.”
“That must be why she invested in Morrell’s print scam. He touted it as a double-your-money overnight deal.”
“She’d been living with the producer of her show, but he moved in with one of those blondes from a beach show.”
“Hold it,” Zach said. “Vanessa just told me t
hat she was living with that guy.”
“She’s lying. He moved out months ago.”
“Why would she lie about it?” Zach wondered out loud.
“Because she’s in love with herself. Her ego won’t let her admit the guy dumped her,” Yeager said. “I could tell that when I checked her security.”
“True, but is she lying about other things?”
“I’d say her career has plateaued, but she’s determined to get to the next level. Too bad she has a solid alibi. She missed her flight and pitched a fit because the plane left without her. She had to buy a coach ticket on one of those cattle cars that fly into Albuquerque. She arrived the following morning—after Morrell was murdered.”
“Did you check to be sure she actually came in on that flight?”
“No, but I can. I doubt she would lie about it. Vanessa Trent is not the kind of woman who gets on a plane without passengers recognizing her.”
“All we’d have to do is call one male passenger to verify her story. It’s probably not worth the effort. I think Stacy Hopkins is the key.”
He had given Yeager a rundown of what Stacy had told him before they went to talk to Bassinger. Zach had taken care to omit any mention of the bearded man, Paul Winfrey.
He hadn’t mentioned Claire’s fling with a man who also had a beard, not wanting anyone to think Paul had been the man in that room with Claire. Even though he was furious with Claire, he knew she hadn’t killed Duncan Morrell. Why drag her name into this?
“Here’s my theory,” Zach said, his eyes on Yeager to gauge his reaction. “Someone was looking for Stacy or Duncan Morrell. They opened the door and saw them buck naked together and went ballistic. The killer had a gun and a pillow of some sort in the car. He went to get it.”
Yeager nodded enthusiastically. “If Stacy hadn’t left when she did, she might have been killed, too.”
“Exactly. This isn’t about money. It’s a crime of passion. Mark my words.”