by Eve Gaddy
“What are those flowers?” she asked, pointing at the lily pads covering the water. “The ones that look like umbrellas? They’re so pretty.”
“The lotus lilies? There’s a legend about them.” He could still hear Murray Rafferty—the local authority on Caddo legends—telling Jed and him the story, in a voice hoarse from cigarettes and age. “They say the wee folk slip out by moonlight and use them for umbrellas. When I was a kid I used to get up in the middle of the night and go down to the lake looking for the wee folk.” He caught her smiling at him and added solemnly, “I never saw them. Can’t tell you how disappointed I was.”
Her lips curved upward and her eyes danced. “I have an idea you weren’t looking for wee folk when you sneaked out at night. But it’s a cute story.”
True, he’d generally been looking for trouble and finding it. He grinned. “Hey, even skeptics don’t mess with the wee folks’ lotus umbrellas.”
She laughed and returned to watching the scenery. “It’s so beautiful out here,” she said wistfully. “And eerie.”
“You ought to see it in the fog. It’s even spookier then.” He remembered Jed used to tease him about his irrational fear of fog, until Will finally let Jed take him out in the boat early one morning. They’d caught a mess of fish while the fog slowly burned off. He’d never been scared of it again. “There’s nothing like dropping a line in during those early hours when nobody else is out. It’s a great feeling. Peaceful.”
“Dropping a line in? I guess that means you’re a big fisherman.”
“No.” He turned the wheel and smiled at her. “I fished some when I was a kid, but not since then. Jed taught me.” Jed had taught him to love the lake, as well. Before that, Will had never been on a large body of water.
“Jed Louis?” she asked, sounding surprised. “That’s right, I keep forgetting Mrs. Granger raised you, Jed, and Emmy Gray Wolf, too, didn’t she? Jed taught you how to fish?”
“Yeah.” He laughed, remembering. “He did a lot of big brother type stuff. He always did take his responsibilities seriously.” Will realized Tessa was staring at him looking surprised. “What, don’t you like Jed?”
“I don’t mind him,” she said hesitantly. “He just hasn’t struck me as the . . . friendly type.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You and Jed have a run-in?”
“You could say that. Your foster brother doesn’t like me much. I had to take him to court to get him to let me dig on his land.” She shook her head. “He wasn’t a bit happy about having people bothering his land, his horses, or anything else of his.”
Will frowned. So Jed had vetoed the archaeological dig. That didn’t look good for him, either. Will wondered if Fielder knew that, then realized he was bound to. The sheriff obviously thought Jed hadn’t cooperated with Tessa because he didn’t want Frannie’s remains found. “You took him to court?”
“I had to. Otherwise he wouldn’t have let me set foot on the land. Gwyn was actually the one who recommended I take legal action.”
“Gwyn? You mean Jed’s wife told you to do that?”
“They weren’t married at the time. I’m sure she wishes she hadn’t now.” She paused a moment. “After all, I am the one who found Mrs. Granger’s remains, and everything has been in such turmoil since. I’m not exactly on close terms with either Jed or his wife,” she said dryly.
“Jed wouldn’t hold your finding Frannie against you.” Unless he was guilty. Will pushed the unwelcome thoughts out of his mind. “At least we know what happened to her now.”
She looked skeptical. “It would be hard for him not to resent me, especially since he’s a suspect in her murder.”
“How do you know he’s a suspect?” Will certainly hadn’t told anyone, but Emmy had known. He’d assumed Jed had told her, though. Unlike most investigators, Fielder hadn’t minded sharing his suspicions with his primary suspect.
“Sheriff Fielder hasn’t been silent about that. Everyone in town knows Jed Louis is a suspect. It can’t be easy for you,” she said sympathetically.
“It isn’t.” Damn it, things just kept looking worse for Jed. “But my job is to find out who killed Frannie. And I intend to do it.”
He swung the boat into a familiar channel, surprised at the memories that flooded back as Frannie’s dock came into view. It looked old and small compared to Beaumarais’s huge dock and boathouse. But someone had kept it up. Jed, he supposed, since he owned the property now, along with his uncle’s old place. It didn’t look shabby, just comfortable.
He could almost see Frannie out there, Emmy beside her jumping and waving, waiting for him and Jed to pull in on those days they’d been running late. The house looked much as it had all those years before, a small white clapboard, homey and unpretentious. Someone had finished enclosing the porch, a project Frannie had started shortly before she disappeared. The porch she’d intended to make Will’s room. He’d been looking forward to a room of his own, something he’d never had before. But Frannie’s disappearance shot that hope all to hell. Along with everything else good in his life.
“Will, is something wrong? Is—are you upset because of what I told you about Jed?”
Pulled from his reverie, he looked at her. “Nothing’s wrong. I needed to know.”
“You looked so sad.”
He glanced at the house, letting the boat idle. “Too many memories.”
Her gaze followed his. “Was that your foster mother’s house?”
“Yeah. I haven’t seen it since I’ve been back.” And he hadn’t thought it would get to him so much. Hadn’t realized that ache he’d felt when he hitched a ride out of town would return so sharply to remind him of what he’d lost. Impatiently, he shook off the unaccustomed melancholy and eased closer to Beaumarais. He wasn’t here to indulge in memories; he was here to find a killer.
“I’m beginning to think you had an ulterior motive when you brought me out here,” Tessa remarked.
He couldn’t help grinning. “You mean other than getting you alone?”
She ignored that comment. “That’s Beaumarais you’re staring at with such ferocity. You’re working, aren’t you?”
“No.” He laughed at her look of disbelief. “Okay, a little. I didn’t think you’d mind. I wanted to see it from the water.” To look at it with a cop’s eyes, instead of through the eyes of a child. Unfortunately, his cop’s vision couldn’t tell him whether Frannie had been killed at the site, or brought there after her death. Sure, someone could have docked a boat long enough to dump the body. But why not out in one of the channels? Or in the middle of the lake, for that matter. Weight it down and watch it sink. That would have been the last of it.
“Damn Fielder,” he muttered, forgetting his audience.
“He and his men certainly made things difficult,” Tessa agreed.
He shot her a sharp glance. “Go ahead and say it. They screwed up royally.”
“Yes, they did. But I imagine you’re as angry about that as I am.”
He shrugged. “Nothing I can do about it now.” Her face looked flushed, he noticed, conscious of the muggy heat and the sun shining brightly overhead. “Let’s find some shade and sit a while.”
“Shade sounds wonderful. I’m thirsty, too.”
“There’s a place just ahead. Why don’t you get us a drink while I anchor?”
Anchoring accomplished, Will popped the top to his soft drink and drank thirstily.
“Tell me about her,” Tessa said, taking off her hat and fanning her face with it.
“Who?” He finished his drink and tossed the can back into the cooler.
“Your foster mother. Unless it bothers you to talk about her.” She moved closer to him, setting her hat on the bench beside her.
Would it? He didn’t know. The day stood clear in his memory, though at the time h
e hadn’t realized the sharp-eyed woman who’d marched into the social services office would change the course of his life. She said her name was Frannie Granger, and she wanted to be his foster mother. She told him this time would be different. Yeah, right, he’d thought. She took him home with her and explained the rules. She wouldn’t tolerate lip, or bad language, or fighting.
He told her to go to hell, and she’d ignored him. So he told her something worse. She said potty language deserved an appropriate job, and made him clean the toilet. She said if he abided by her rules, then he could stay. That she hoped he would, because she wanted him there.
Will didn’t believe her for a minute. But Frannie never gave up on him.
“Frannie was something,” he said after a long moment. “I remember the first time I saw her. I was thirteen and headed to juvie. She said she wanted me to live with her, but I didn’t buy it. I was a foulmouthed little bastard and I told her what to do with her offer. It didn’t faze her a bit.”
“She wasn’t easily shocked.”
“Nope. She was solid. And she’d decided I needed her, and that was that.” He smiled, remembering Frannie’s passion to help. “She was a tiny little thing. My previous foster home—” he hesitated, mentally expunging the worst of it before continuing. “The man was a big sucker, with big fists. I didn’t want to do that again. So I figured she was a woman, she was small. I could get around her easier than someone else.” He shook his head. “Wrong.”
“You loved her.”
He glanced at her and smiled. “Yeah, I did. But that came later. At first, I didn’t like anybody, and I sure as hell didn’t love anyone.”
“What about your parents?”
Why was he spilling his guts to her? He didn’t hide his background, but he didn’t generally talk about it, either. Certainly not to a woman he wanted to sleep with. And he was very, very interested in getting Tessa Lang into his bed. Still, he found he wanted to tell her, some of it anyway.
So he gave her the basic story. “Never knew my old man, and I’m not sure my mother did, either. My mother was a junkie who had a different man every month, sometimes every week. Half the time, she didn’t know I was there, and when she did notice me, it was worse. She split for good when I was eight.” He brushed off the nightmare that had been his life, casually, as if it meant nothing.
Tessa remained quiet for a moment, but her eyes widened then softened in compassion. Seeing that irritated him. He knew better than to tell that story to a woman. He didn’t want, or need, her pity. “Shocked?” he asked mockingly.
“No, just sad. Is that why you told me? Did you mean to shock me?”
He might not have shocked her, but he had surprised himself. He glanced away from her, stared out at the water. “I don’t know why I told you. I don’t, usually.”
She put her hand over his and squeezed. “I’m sorry it happened. But I’m glad you told me.”
His stomach tightened. Looking into those gorgeous blue eyes dark with emotion, it hit him with fatal force why he’d opened up to Tessa. He wasn’t just looking for a good time with her.
He’d fallen for her.
Like a rock slide.
Chapter Seven
THEIR GAZES HELD. His dropped to her mouth, lingered, raised to her eyes again. She felt as if he’d kissed her, yet only their hands touched.
“That part of my life was over a long time ago,” he said after a moment.
“But it still hurts.” Tessa knew about old hurts. She remembered those first years with her parents after her grandmother died. How lonely she’d been, trying to carve a place in two people’s lives, when they’d taken her out of duty, not love. Realizing she and Will still held hands, she tried to withdraw hers.
He simply smiled and kept hold of her, skimming his thumb over her knuckles. “Okay, no more story of my life. It’s your turn. Tell me, what’s a beautiful archaeologist from Georgia, who’s been all over the world, doing in a podunk town in East Texas?”
“Researching Caddo Indian ruins. And you don’t have to do that, you know.”
“What?”
“Tell me I’m beautiful. It’s a nice thing to say, but I don’t like being lied to.”
“Tessa.” He carried her hand to his mouth, dropped a kiss on it, then continued to hold it while his gaze rested on hers. “Why does it bother you when I tell you you’re beautiful?”
Her pulse hammered. She tried to ignore it and failed. “Because I’m not.”
“Have you looked in a mirror lately? Never mind,” he said when she started to speak. “You obviously don’t see what I see when I look at you.”
“Men don’t . . . That is, they never used to . . . Oh, Lord, I wish I’d never started this. Look, I’m just no good at this kind of thing.”
“What kind of thing?”
“Flirting.” She waved her other hand. “Men. Whatever you want to call it. I don’t have a lot of experience with men. Not like that, anyway.”
“A lot, or any?”
Stung, she raised her chin. “I had a relationship in college.” And she didn’t intend to tell him what a disaster that had been. “But since then I’ve been a lot more interested in my work than in men.” Safer that way, she thought. Much safer.
Still gazing into her eyes, he ran his thumb over the pulse at her wrist. It beat fast and even more erratically than a moment earlier, to her irritation.
“Was it serious?” he asked.
“I was serious. He wasn’t.” That summed it up perfectly, though the whole story was sordid and humiliating to her even years later. “Oh, God, I can’t believe I’m telling you all this. Is this how you get suspects to talk to you?”
“By asking?” he said with a grin, leaning closer.
“By listening.” She stared at him, her eyes widening when she realized his intention. “Will—”
He cupped her face in his hands and looked deep into her eyes. “Tessa,” he murmured, and kissed her.
The man knew how to kiss, she gave him that. His lips were firm, yet soft and warm. He took his time, gently rubbing his lips over hers before dipping his tongue into her mouth, sweeping it leisurely, tantalizing her with promise. She sighed and gave into the urge to put herself into the hands of a master. It was only a kiss. She couldn’t get into trouble with a kiss.
Could she?
Oh, yes, she could.
Why not just enjoy it? Quit analyzing things to death and for once go with her feelings. So she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, meeting his tongue with hers and melting even closer to him. She wasn’t prepared for the instant torrent of heat exploding between them. His lips cruised down her neck and she moaned, her breath coming in gasps. He said something, maybe her name, then covered her mouth again. Her fingers curled into the soft silky hair at the back of his neck as she poured herself into the kiss. She tingled, vibrated, every nerve ending alert and ready for his touch.
He cupped her breast and rubbed her nipple with his palm. She flattened her own palm against his chest, felt the warmth beneath his T-shirt and wanted desperately to run her hands over his bare chest. She arched into his hand, wanting more, silently asking for it. He hesitated and, afraid he’d stop, she pulled her mouth from his and whispered, “Yes.”
His hand slid under her shirt, slipped inside her bra. Her nipple tightened almost painfully. She gave a strangled groan and kissed him, their tongues tangling, their breathing labored.
Moments later he was half reclining on the bench seat, while she, barely conscious of their cramped position, lay stretched out on top of him. Their gazes locked, his legs tightened on either side of hers and his hands pressed her inexorably closer. She could barely breathe, but she could feel, every rock-solid inch of him hard and fully aroused against her.
Her head descended to kiss that de
licious mouth of his when the harsh sound of a horn split the air. Startled, she looked up to see a boat passing by, its passengers laughing and waving at them.
Oh, my God, what was she doing? Her face flaming, she scrambled up, trying to get away. “I don’t . . . I can’t . . . Oh, I can’t believe . . .”
Releasing her, he smiled. A wicked, charming smile that made her insides flutter. “Relax. I’d like nothing better than to make love to you right now, but this isn’t exactly the place I had in mind.”
She put a hand to her forehead, aghast at her reaction. “I don’t do this. I don’t have sex with men I barely know.” And she’d never, ever burst into flame when a man touched her before. It wasn’t possible. Maybe she had a fever.
A corner of his mouth lifted. “We didn’t have sex.”
But she would have. It blew her mind to realize she’d have let him make love to her right there in the boat in the middle of the lake where any passerby could have seen what was going on. Let him, hell! She’d practically ripped off his clothes! She’d only known him a matter of days. How could she respond to him so strongly?
“Tessa,” he said, sounding amused. “Don’t get so bent out of shape. It was only a kiss.”
Maybe for him. It had been a hell of a lot more than that to her. She struggled for breath. “I’m not like this.”
“Like what?” He straightened in his seat, that gorgeous mouth of his smiling provocatively. “Passionate? Beautiful? Sexy?”
She gave a strangled laugh. “Hardly. I’m dull and boring and—“
He grasped her shoulders and kissed her, quick and hard. “I don’t know who did such a number on you, but you need to let it go. You’re a beautiful, intelligent woman. I’m attracted to you. And you’re attracted to me. Sooner or later, we’ll end up in bed. Why is that a problem?”