by Meryl Sawyer
Yeager let out a ragged breath, blowing upward and lifting his hair off his forehead. “It’s linked to the print fraud, I swear.”
Zach knew Yeager saw the print scam as his ticket out of Gallup, but he didn’t agree that it was the motive for murder. He humored Yeager, though. The guy was all right. Without his help last night, Zach might have been forced to call on Ollie Hammond for assistance when a bunch of Texans decided to mix it up with some good old boys from Oklahoma.
“Want a beer?” Zach asked and Yeager nodded.
Zach unlocked the door to his house and the FBI agent followed him in, nodding with approval at the few pieces of Santa Fe style furniture Zach had been able to afford. He knew the room with its wood floors and stone fireplace had a Southwestern look that was definitely masculine.
He handed Yeager a bottle of Red Dog out of the six pack he kept for company. He reached for a Coke for himself, knowing Yeager would never miss even a small detail. By now he must know Zach never drank.
“Yeager, maybe we’re missing the obvious. This is an art colony. Homosexuality is a given. Now we’ve got switch-hitters.” He popped the tab on the can of Coke. “What makes you think Duncan Morrell was leaving his wife for a woman?”
Claire wandered through the crowd in the D. H. Lawrence room of the Taos Inn, sipping champagne. The Fosters really knew how to throw a party, she silently conceded. The best champagne, Cristal, and sinfully delicious chocolate desserts flown in from Paris. The people were another story. They were boring snobs for the most part. Few lived in Taos full-time. Most of them came only for the season.
She kept her eye on Paul and went up to him the second he went to refill Angela’s glass. “I hear you’re staying out at Angela’s.”
Paul’s endearing grin told the whole story. “Staying” did not cover what was going on. “She’s taking care of me.”
“Are you getting any painting done?”
Paul stared into the champagne glass that he was awkwardly holding. For a second she tried to imagine Zach with a champagne flute in his large hand. She almost giggled, but the image of him walking into the night—alone—was too painful.
She should have gone to have coffee with him, or she should have brought him into the party with her. Why did she care what these people thought? She didn’t belong here. These were her father’s friends and wealthy people with second homes who waltzed in and out of town on a whim.
Claire, get a grip, she reminded herself. She owed it to her father to warn him before she went out in public with Zach. The only solution was to go to her father and explain her feelings. He wouldn’t like it, and she doubted he would accept her decision, but at least she would have forewarned him. Going out with Zach was bound to make the town gossips rehash their parents’ love affair.
Paul answered her question, interrupting her thoughts, “I want to live some, have some fun, not paint. Quentin Reynolds came to teach the workshop when I had a year left to serve. I painted before I left prison—when I didn’t have anything better to do.”
Claire mustered an encouraging smile. She understood, but that didn’t mean she liked this. She was off to a successful season, but if she didn’t have more paintings to sell, the gallery would be in trouble again.
“I’ve had so much interest in your work, Paul. There’ve been calls from all the art magazines and dozens of collectors.”
“You’ve been great to me, giving me a chance and all. So I don’t want to lie to you. I’m just not interested in doing any painting right now.”
Stifling a groan, she almost asked what he was interested in, but his gaze swept across the room and came to rest on Angela. Claire had never seen a smile like the one Angela beamed at Paul. Certainly, she never looked that way at one of the studmuffins.
“Don’t worry about it,” Claire said, being as upbeat as she could. “You’ll feel like it again. A man of your talent has more than two paintings in him.”
She was mentally preparing a pep talk for him when Vanessa Trent swished up. The actress was wearing a red sheath with Western detailing, a Hollywood version of a cowgirl.
“Claire, I’ve been looking for you. I just left the sheriff. He tells me that he’s about to arrest someone for Duncan’s murder. Who is it?”
“How would I know?” Why would Zach confide in this woman and not mention anything to her?
“I saw you walking down the street with him a little while ago. I assumed he’d told you.”
“He didn’t say a word about the murder.”
“Really?” Vanessa’s tone implied Claire was lying.
Before Claire could say anything, the actress spotted Max Bassinger and Seth Ramsey coming into the party together. She swanned across the room, hips swaying, and sidled up to Max. Remembering Zach’s warning about Seth, Claire went to say good-bye to the Fosters. She’d been here long enough.
“Claire,” Seth grabbed her arm, intercepting her before she reached the hosts. “How’s your father?”
“Fine.” The word came out like a curse. She couldn’t help blistering him with her drop-dead glare.
“Look, Claire. I’m sorry I accidentally left you at The Hideaway.”
“Accidentally?” She bit out the word, stunned he would say anything so stupid. She turned away from him, fearful of what she might say. She couldn’t imagine any gentleman not caring more about what happened to his date. Her father might be impressed by Seth’s pedigree and Harvard education, but she wasn’t. He was a Class-A heel.
“Come on, Claire. Give me another chance.”
She faced him again, barely resisting the urge to toss her champagne in his face. “I wouldn’t have another thing to do with you if you were the last man in the universe. What you did was inexcusable.”
“Coulter told you, didn’t he? He hates me because I’m everything he’s not. I knew he’d use this against me.”
Claire bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep herself from blurting out something that would indicate Zach hadn’t told her anything.
“Honest-to-Pete, I thought half a Roofie would relax you, Claire. You’re always so uptight. How did I know you’d get sick?”
She turned away, passing her half-full champagne glass to a waiter for a refill to hide her stunned expression. Seth had put the pill in her drink. Hundreds of times, she’d mulled over the events of that fateful evening, suspecting everyone from Bam Stegner to Nevada. Why hadn’t Zach told her? Oh, he’d warned her to stay away from Seth, but she deserved more than a simple warning.
“What do you mean, you didn’t know I would become ill?” She turned back to Seth, a full glass of champagne in her hand. “Roofies have been all over the news. They call it the date-rape drug.”
“It’s just a sedative. I was careful. I cut it in half. You didn’t even get a full dose.” The pathetic whine in his voice was doubly insulting. Was he so conceited that he honestly expected her to forgive him?
“You could see I was out of it, yet you left me.” She knew her voice was rising with every word, but she couldn’t help herself.
Seth quickly looked around as heads turned in their direction. He lowered his voice, so only she could hear. “I thought—I mean, I assumed a friend had given you a ride home.”
“Seth Ramsey, you are nothing but a sniveling wimp and a liar.” She grabbed his belt and yanked his pants back, then she dumped the champagne into his underwear.
Twenty-four
Claire was inside her car before she realized Lobo wasn’t beside Lucy. The retriever whined, a forlorn expression on her face. Zach must have taken Lobo. The wolf-dog would never go with anyone else.
She gave Lucy a quick pat. “Don’t worry. You’ll see Lobo soon. We’re going out there.”
She was driving far too fast, the accelerator floored. Just wait until she saw Zach. Not only had he failed to tell her an arrest was imminent, he’d deliberately kept quiet about Seth. True, he’d warned her to stay away from the creep, but he hadn’t told her Seth had been th
e one to put the Roofie in her drink.
She braked hard, almost missing the turn leading down a dark road toward the Kit Carson National Forest. She’d never been to Zach’s house, but she had a good idea of where it was. She checked the names on a couple of mailboxes and didn’t find Zach’s. Near the end of the road, she spotted a longhorn’s skull bleached white by time and the elements. Across the forehead in black letters was Z. COULTER.
She drove down a narrow drive flanked on one side by sapling aspens interspersed between towering pines and firs. On the other side of the dirt road, the full moon revealed a meadow of wildflowers that swayed as a gusty summer breeze funneled down the mountain ridges. Ahead was a small ranch house with a light glowing from a window.
“I don’t know if he’s home or not,” she told Lucy. “He might have one light on a timer. It’s darker than blazes out here.”
As she pulled up, her headlights caught the silhouette of a man sitting on the porch, staring out across the meadow at Taos Mountain. Why was Zach alone in the dark, she wondered. She got out of the car and Lucy hopped out behind her. Lobo dashed up to greet them, tail wagging, but Zach didn’t look her way.
The dogs nuzzled each other, then Lobo led the retriever toward the moonlit meadow. Before Claire could stop them, they were loping across the grass, heading toward a stream.
“Zach,” she called, bounding up the steps to the porch. “Why didn’t you tell me Seth had put the Roofie in my drink?”
She sounded like a shrew, but she couldn’t help it. All this time, she’d been thinking the pill had been put in her drink as part of a plan to frame her for Duncan’s murder. She’d spent sleepless nights wondering and worrying. If she hadn’t found out on her own, just how long would Zach have let her agonize?
Zach slowly turned to face her. He’d taken off his shirt and slacks and was now wearing jeans he’d owned for at least a decade. His good boots were off, and his bare feet were propped up on the rail in front of him. The dim light filtering through the window from inside the house highlighted one side of his face, leaving the other in a shadow. His contemptuous expression would have made most people cower, but she wasn’t leaving until she had some answers.
“How’d you find out? Don’t tell me the wuss admitted it.”
The sarcasm and latent anger in his voice was even more frightening than the cold glint in his eyes. Still, she refused to allow him to put the fear of God in her. She stood squarely before him, her back to the railing where his bare feet were resting.
“Seth confessed because he thought you had already told me,” she informed him. “Why didn’t you tell me? You should have.”
“This is a murder investigation.” He all but snarled as he spoke. “Until the killer is caught, the details are confidential.”
“You had no trouble bragging to Vanessa Trent that you were about to make an arrest in the case.”
He jerked his feet off the rail and was towering over her—all six-four-plus of him—before she could even think to move aside. “What in hell are you talking about?”
She tilted her head back to look him in the eye, resenting once again the way he used his size and height to intimidate her. “Vanessa said you personally told her an arrest was imminent.”
“That’s crap. I said we’re closing in on the killer—nothing more. Vanessa just toots her horn to get attention.”
“Well, I don’t know why you couldn’t have told me.”
“Because you didn’t bother to ask. If you had, I would have told you what I told the blond bimbo. We have some promising leads. We’re working on it.”
She tried for a stern come-back, but it was hard because his arguments made perfect sense. He shouldn’t be discussing the details of the case with anyone. And he had warned her to stay away from Seth.
She couldn’t meet his hostile gaze any longer. Force of habit caused her to look down at her shoes. Instead she found herself staring at the most impressive set of pecs she’d ever seen. Tanned and clearly defined. And shadowed by dark hair that formed an arrow where it met the open button at the top of his jeans.
“Is there anything else you’ve conveniently forgotten to tell me that I should know? You’ve probably found the bearded man, which means I have an alibi and can stop losing sleep over it. Come on, Zach, tell me. You owe me that much.”
Sparks flickered in the depths of his eyes, coloring them a deeper, more intense blue. For a second she thought she’d gone too far. He put his hands on the railing, placing one arm on each side of her, then he leaned down so they were nose to nose. “Claire, get one thing straight. I don’t owe you a damn thing.”
There was such unchecked fury in his voice that she was stunned. Leaving him so abruptly in front of the Taos Inn had been an unforgivable thing to do. She was thoroughly ashamed of herself, and she would be the first to admit it, but he apparently had taken it more seriously than she’d anticipated. She should apologize—somehow—but she knew he’d never admit that she’d hurt his feelings.
And she had no idea how to say she was sorry to Zach Coulter. Why not? It was the decent thing to do, yet the words wouldn’t come.
“You’re right. You do not owe me a thing. I’ll just get Lucy and go.”
Zach didn’t move. She was trapped between his rock-hard body and his arms on either side of her. His mouth was a grim line of bitterness that matched his sullen expression.
“Is that all you came for, Claire, to chew me out?”
She knew exactly what he was suggesting. Sex. He had a one track mind. She had no doubt he was capable of some frighteningly primitive sexual acts. Women like Vanessa Trent would be willing to oblige him. Claire had been tempted herself, but now she knew better.
Tonight it was easy to leave him. His unbridled anger constantly flashed in his eyes and etched every word like acid. This was a man she did not know and did not care to know. An instinct for self-preservation told her to leave immediately.
“Lucy,” she called over her shoulder. “We’re going.”
The blasted retriever was nowhere in sight. She didn’t have to turn around to know Zach hadn’t moved. She could feel the heat of his body all around her. The fine hair on her arms reacted to his nearness, and there was an unmistakable weightlessness in her chest.
“Lu-cy! Lu-cy!” she yelled over her shoulder.
“Stop squawking, Claire. You’ll bring down the mountain lions.”
She swung around to face him again and found his eyes level with hers. The tension between them was so electric she almost expected sparks. They glared at each other, their breathing harsh in the still night air.
Silently challenging her, he leaned imperceptibly closer, his hands flexing on the rail beside her. His eyes glittered in the moonlight, the cobalt blue reduced to a thin hoop around his pupil. He brushed his body against hers. “This is what you came for, isn’t it, Claire?”
His blatantly sexual gesture disgusted her. This man would never balk at anything others might consider crude or raunchy. “Let … me … go.”
“No.” His jaw flexed with anger. “I’m sick of playing cat and mouse with you. You want to get laid, but you can’t stand to be seen with me, right? Right. So, this is how it’s going to be. We’ll do what our parents did. We’ll screw each other’s brains out every chance we get—and keep it secret.”
Rage engulfed her, white-hot and fierce. Without thinking she lashed out, ramming one clenched fist into his stomach. It was rock hard, causing a jolt of pain to shoot up her arm, but she caught him by surprise and he jerked back. She bolted across the porch and down the steps, her feet thudding on the wooden planks. Making a split-second decision, she sprinted toward the meadow to get Lucy. Once she had her dog, she was never going near Zach Coulter again.
“Lu-cy! Come here!”
The retriever dashed out of the woods, Lobo at her side. Claire rushed across the tall grass, waiting to grab Lucy’s collar. She heard Zach thundering up behind her, running full speed. She veered
left, instinctively racing back through the meadow to her car. He was gaining on her, so she cut left and charged toward the stream.
Dumb move! She was getting farther and farther away from her car. She pivoted, looking over her shoulder, and saw he was nearly upon her. She reversed directions, but he was as agile as a cheetah and just as fast. He was so close now that she could practically feel his breath on the back of her neck.
Her heart pounding in her throat and her breath coming in ragged pants, she changed course again, but he’d cut her off, blocking her way. She tried to dodge him, ducking to the right. Her foot caught on a rock and she pitched forward.
Zach lunged for her, attempting to break her fall. He managed to grab her, both arms circling her, but he was off-balance. They tumbled to the grass, Zach taking the brunt of the fall, landing on his back.
For a moment she was so winded that all she could do was gasp for air, filling her lungs with the sweet scent of clover and the fresh smell of soap on his skin. Her senses were pummeled with myriad impressions. A star-filled sky. Tall meadow grass. Two dogs watching them curiously, obviously thinking this was some kind of game.
Then she realized her face was against his bare chest, and she felt the rapid thud of his heart beneath her ear. For a moment she was too stunned to react, then it dawned on her that she was intimately sprawled across his body, his arms locked around her.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his breath warm against the top of her head.
“I’m fine,” she whispered, holding herself rigid.
Instinctively she clung to him, not moving, but totally aware of every inch of his body where it touched hers. She was nestled between his legs. The fall had bunched her skirt up around her thighs, but she could still tell she had an awesomely aroused male beneath her.
The physical contact set off a chain reaction. Her stomach tumbled into one long free fall while her pulse beat in her temples so loudly she couldn’t think. Deep muscles quivered, carrying a clear physical message to every part of her body.
She tried to resist; she honestly did. But a raw, primal need she’d denied too long overwhelmed her. She allowed her body to soften and mold itself against his. She nuzzled his bare chest, where the crinkly hair tickled her nose. Before she knew it, she was kissing his chest, tasting him.