“Prepared for guests, are you?” she asked tartly.
He grinned at that. “Not the way you seem to be thinking,” he said, catching the fire in her gold eyes. “We cleaned out his rooms when he died. Johnny would make someone a terrific mother, though. He thinks the house should always be well supplied. He lives in the eternal belief that I will one day continue the family line.”
“I see,” she said. “Well, then, I’ll be sure to thank Johnny.”
She walked down the hallway to the master suite; when the door was closed, Sloan saw Longman seated by the fire.
“Don’t let that one go,” Longman said.
“How can I hold on to something I don’t have?” Sloan asked.
Longman looked at him. “When did you stop going after what you wanted?”
“She’s a federal agent,” he said quietly. “Works out of Washington.”
“And you can be a sheriff anywhere.”
“This is my home.”
“Did you intend to stay here forever, then?” Longman asked him. “Home isn’t a place. Home is with the people who make your life.”
Sloan shook his head and walked to the other side of the house, where there were two bedrooms. Cougar was curled up on his bed. He didn’t bother to lift his head when Sloan came in. Apparently, it was one of the sixteen hours of the day the cat considered nap time.
Sloan stripped off his sand-encrusted clothing and stepped into the shower, scrubbing the grit from his hair and skin and simply indulging in the strong spray of water. Then he remembered that Chet was coming by and he emerged, dried and got dressed. The door to the master suite was still closed; he imagined that his federal agent was enjoying the heat and steam, just as he had....
He’d barely returned to the living room when he heard Chet’s car drive in. He opened the door as his young deputy entered the house, carrying a file. “So you found the whole body, huh?” Chet asked, and Sloan realized that as far as Chet knew, he’d spent most of the afternoon at the theater while the medical examiner removed the bones of Sage McCormick.
“Well, we’re assuming.” Of course, there was no proof yet, but the skeleton almost had to be hers....
“I think you can feel pretty sure,” Chet said cheerfully. “DNA testing will prove who she was—that she’s Sage McCormick, your ancestor.”
“Thanks, Chet. Anyone go through this?” Sloan asked, taking the file.
“Yes, sir. So far, they haven’t found the rental car. The bullet was pretty degraded because it went through the hard part of the skull, but it was .45 caliber. It’s a nightmare for the crime-scene guys, since dozens of people go through that tepee every day, so sorting anything out is going to be tough for them. They have some hair and some fibers, but...those could belong to the guides or to a bunch of tourists. No luck tracing anyone who knew anything about the man coming here. He hopes you’re having better luck.”
“Thanks, Chet. I’m going through the books the man bought. Hopefully, that will give us some clue.”
He couldn’t have said exactly why he wasn’t telling his own deputy that he’d been crawling around the mine. He trusted Chet and Betty and his entire department. But just for now, he wanted to investigate on his own. Or with Jane.
Maybe I shouldn’t even be investigating, he told himself.
Chet never knew that Jane was in the house; he was gone before she came out at last in one of his grandfather’s beautiful old Native American robes. It was too big for her but she’d tied it around her waist and she seemed comfortable, walking out in bare feet with her hair slick and clean and clinging to her face and neck. She carried her clothing, neatly folded. “Tell me where your laundry is, and I’ll manage to get the dust out of these before we head back.”
“It’s right off the kitchen.”
“Thanks.” She seemed at ease, but he realized he wasn’t. The thought that wouldn’t leave his mind was that she was naked beneath the robe.
He went into the kitchen and rummaged in the refrigerator. Johnny had left him a meat loaf. There was a bowl of fruit to go with it, and a note about how long to nuke the food. He took it out and put it in the microwave.
Jane reappeared, smiling wryly as she watched him. “Do you like cooking?” she asked.
“I don’t mind it. Problem is, my hours are usually long. Johnny’s a decent cook, as well as the best property manager I’ve ever known. He’d been with my grandfather since I was a teenager, the best friend someone could have. We respect each other, we look after each other. It’s good.”
“It is good,” she agreed. She pointed at the folder he’d set on the counter. “So Chet came by?”
“Yes.”
“This is what Detective Newsome has?”
“Yep. Not much.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be sharing with him?”
“I intend to, as soon as I have something to share. You hungry?”
“Well, crawling around in abandoned mine shafts does whet the appetite,” she told him.
“It’s meat loaf, but don’t be too disheartened—Johnny makes a hell of a meat loaf.”
They ate, and she swore it was the best meat loaf she’d ever tasted. He explained that it was slightly different because of Johnny’s gift with seasoning and because it was made with pork and beefalo. “Emu is popular around here too,” he said. “I don’t think it ever caught on the way people hoped, but we still have some big ranches around here.”
When they’d finished eating, he found himself staring at her. He also saw her staring at him.
Her clothes must be ready by now. They’d eaten, and it had been a long day; he could take her back to town.
But he didn’t offer and she didn’t say she needed to go. Their silence should have grown uncomfortable. It didn’t. He wasn’t sure which of them smiled first, but then they both were and their smiles deepened.
“I guess I should ask if you’re in a relationship,” she said.
“Pretty obvious, I think. You see me living here alone.”
“Ah, but I saw the way Alice looked at you today. And then I noticed that Valerie got that touch of awe in her eyes. Of course, you came to her rescue when she discovered the skull, so...”
“I guess I’ve missed those looks.”
She glanced down and her lashes swept her cheeks for a moment. Then she raised her eyes again. “You didn’t ask me if I’m in a relationship.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Is that because you don’t care?”
“It’s because I don’t believe you’d be here now, speaking to me like this, if you were,” he told her.
“That’s a compliment,” she said.
“And it’s true, although I’m sure you’ve noticed that many people look at you with appreciation,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with appreciation, of course—unless it turns obnoxious.”
“True.”
“Hmm. I’m going to suggest you were involved not too long ago.”
“It’s been a while now. Since I joined the Krewe,” she said.
“He was intimidated?”
“He was. And you?”
It was such an easy conversation. With every word he felt her voice as if it were a caress. He thought she could arouse him to a greater hunger with words than another woman, naked and twisting and writhing before him.
“It ended when I left Texas.”
“She wouldn’t move.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask her to. I was coming home to take care of someone who was dying. There are different kinds of intimacy. I guess we didn’t have enough of the right kind.”
Jane nodded, gazing down at her hands. When she looked up, her smile was slightly crooked, incredibly sensual, and her eyes were like the golden fire of a sunrise.
>
“Well, I suppose one of us should make the first move....”
7
In a thousand years, Jane would never have thought that becoming intimate with someone she’d known a matter of days could be so effortless and natural.
Yes, one of them had needed to make a move, but ever since they’d sat down together, they’d both been making moves. And after she spoke, he stood, and she must have stood, as well, because she was suddenly in his arms.
She wondered just when she’d known that she had desperately wanted that moment to come, and she wondered what made one person so desirable to another. Was it the unique, underlying scent of each human being? The way a mind worked, the sound of a voice, the way one person could reach out to someone else...?
Then all thought left her mind. She felt his fierce heat as he drew her close and as his lips touched hers. For a moment, that first kiss was almost frantic, as if they both feared they had seconds and nothing more, and every taste and sensation had to be seized.
And then it eased into something that was slow and seductive, the feel of his mouth, his tongue a harbinger of everything about him that suddenly seemed necessary for life itself.
When they broke apart, his lips were mere inches from hers, and he whispered softly, “Not that this isn’t my house, and not that I have a multitude of neighbors close by, but...”
She smiled, and she was almost afraid it was a stupid smile, she felt so deliciously giddy. Then he gathered her up into his arms, and that was easy and natural, too, although he paused and said softly, “May I? Agents of the law can be very finicky when a threat is perceived.”
She slipped her arms around his neck. “I’d thought about doing the same to you. I mean, after all, I am a federal agent.”
“But this is a local situation,” he told her.
“Yes, but you did invite me in,” she reminded him.
“Because of your artistry.”
“I hope it’s up to par.”
He carried her down the hall. “Agent Everett, the second I saw you, I became aware that you certainly surpassed par.”
“Thank you,” she said. “And I do admit, we feds never like to appear as if we can’t handle a situation, but I’m not sure that if we’d reversed this, I wouldn’t have dropped you.”
“Sometimes things just work out the way they should,” he said.
They’d reached the bedroom. It was dark inside, the only light coming from the hallway and the rooms beyond. He didn’t turn on a lamp, nor did he pause to close the drapes; through the window they could see the dark, moon-draped hills beyond, majestic in the purple shades of the desert.
Cloaked by the shadows that surrounded them, he eased them down onto the bed. Their mouths fused together again, as he opened the belt of the robe she wore. She was instantly aroused by his touch. He rose, removing his holster and the Colt he’d chosen for his work weapon, laying them on the table by the bed. She felt his hands brush her midriff and her breasts as the hot, wet fever of their kiss deepened. She tugged at his shirt, pulling it from the waistband of his jeans. Breaking apart only momentarily, he all but ripped the shirt over his head before joining her again and the feel of his bare flesh against hers was so arousing she was almost embarrassed. Following her career or her “calling” into the Krewe had been all-consuming for many of the past months. But none of her previous relationships over the years had ever had this depth. Sloan knew her, as no one she’d met before had; he knew that she saw and felt and accepted a world that existed on the fringes of their own, and he was the same. These were the wonderful reasons in her mind that gave everything about this moment a heightened intensity, and then there were the simple physical reasons, which were like the staggering heat and brilliance of the desert sun.
His touch, his kiss, lips, tongue, flesh—all moved against her. She stroked the breadth of his back, fingers playing his spine. She felt him trying to kick off his shoes and she laughed, playing with his buckle while he removed the shoes and socks. Then he slipped the robe from her shoulders, impatiently pushing all remnants of clothing to the floor. They were locked together in a tangle of limbs, and again, she felt erotically bathed by his caress and the heat and fire of his lips. Her breasts were warmed by that fire. So were her midriff, hips, thighs and intimate areas, and she responded with a passion and abandon she hadn’t known she possessed. She twisted in his arms and rolled on top of him, returning the intimacy of his touch. They laughed and teased and whispered, and then words were gone in a flurry of hunger; she was aware of the thundering of her heart, the rush of her breath and the feel of him, moving into her at last, moving with an urgency that appeased and spurred the desperate need that rocked through her.
Each thrust took her higher, each brought another burst of sensation that wiped away the rest of the world. The climax swept through her like lightning in the desert beyond, and she felt the fierce and shuddering movement of his body as he joined her. Then he lay beside her in the shadows, and again, the sound of their breathing, the beating of their hearts, seemed like a rhythmic chorus. They lay with their bodies damp, still entwined, wordless for several minutes. The silence between them in the aftermath was comfortable. For her, making love had never before seemed so miraculous, and maybe it had been new and unique because the intimacy she’d felt with him was deeper than she’d felt with a man before. He knew and understood what she was, what made her different from others, and it didn’t stop him from wanting her.
He rose up on an elbow, smiling down at her, and teased, “You are an artist, Agent Everett—a true artist.”
“Aw, thanks, Sheriff. You’re not bad yourself, you know.”
She touched his cheek in the darkness, marveling at the shape of his face. He could have been a poster boy for the perfect Western hero, the lawman who was tall and strong and relaxed in his own masculinity.
She almost drew away in that moment, reminding herself that she wasn’t here forever. It was one thing to accept the stunning attraction between them and another to feel it shattering her insides; after all, they led separate lives.
He laughed at her remark. “I try, ma’am, I try.”
He pulled her close. She wasn’t sure why until he murmured, “Are you going to stay?”
She turned into him, her fingers on his chest. “I’d love to stay. I just think it would be a mistake.” She saw the confusion in his frown and added quickly, “What I mean is that I think it would be a mistake for me not to be at the theater. There’s...there’s so much going on there.”
He nodded, smoothing back a section of her hair. “We’ve found Sage,” he said. “And she found someone she could reach. I wonder if she just wanted it known that she was still here, in Lily, that she didn’t run out on her husband and child.”
“Maybe. And I’m surprised you were afraid to find out it was her. Isn’t it better knowing that she was taken from her family, that she hadn’t left them on purpose?”
He smiled at that. “I suppose I can look at it that way. I never wanted to believe she’d been murdered. It was easier to tell myself that she was a free spirit who couldn’t stay. But I am glad she’s been found, that we can give her a service and bury her properly.”
“You’ve never seen her?” Jane asked him curiously. “With your abilities, I would’ve thought that maybe she’d come to you.”
He shook his head. “She’s never come to me. Even though she’s an ancestor of mine and a bona fide legend around here... She did, however, come to you.”
“Maybe that’s the reason—the family connection. Could be that you’re just too close to her. Perhaps the love we have for family extends through the generations and she’s been afraid of hurting you.”
“Maybe.”
“Someone obviously found her before she led me to the bones,” Jane said. “Whoever it was put her skull on display.�
�
“And was it a prank—or a warning? And does it have anything to do with the murder victims out in the desert today?”
“Well,” Jane began.
He placed a finger on her lips. “That was, for the moment, a rhetorical question. If I’m going to bring you back to the theater tonight...”
“Oh!” Jane said, and started to rise.
He pulled her back down. “If I’m going to bring you back tonight,” he said, straddling her, “we haven’t got much time.”
She laughed and they made love again. It wasn’t until they were in the car and on their way back to town that they returned their attention to the questions at hand.
“Maybe all these things are separate situations.” Jane turned to Sloan as he drove. “Sage appeared to me because she wanted the truth known. She wanted her body found. Someone—maybe a cast member who wanted to torment Henri Coque—uncovered the stash of bones in the floor and put the head on the wig stand. Completely unrelated, there’s something going on in the desert. Jay Berman didn’t come out here just to enjoy the sights. He had a purpose that was illegal, and whoever his partners were, he double-crossed them. And perhaps his death was meant as a lesson to others—thus the ‘execution,’ and the old corpse dug up to point the way. Do you know who that corpse might be?”
“Who knows? Maybe Red Marston. He disappeared when Sage did. Maybe one of the stagecoach guards or the driver. I haven’t heard about any graves being disturbed, so it’s most likely someone who’d been buried out in the desert. Especially when you think about the mummified state of the remains. Sand will do that.” He shrugged. “The point is, someone’s been in the old mine shaft.”
“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Sage made such a strong appearance to me because we’re supposed to know something we don’t.”
He glanced over at her. “You still going to dress up as Sage tomorrow?”
“I guess. You’re going to dress up as Trey Hardy, right?”
Krewe of Hunters, Volume 3: The Night Is WatchingThe Night Is AliveThe Night Is Forever Page 14