“Yeah.” Marc’s obsidian eyes flickered when they met my gray ones. “Sometimes, that happens.”
I didn’t reply. Barrett had been as serious about me as a heart attack, and I’d been serious about him, yet how had that ended up? Not well.
Marc refilled our glasses.
His face clouded and he said, “I don’t like the idea that Toomey could’ve become Cody’s stepfather.”
“There’s no need to worry about that now,” I reminded him.
“Sure there is. Elena will meet someone else. She could marry someone else. Someone else could still end up raising my son.”
“You think that’s what Elena does in her spare time? Runs through men like a knife through butter?”
Or like Marc himself ran through women?
I didn’t accuse him of that bit of hypocrisy out loud. For one thing, Marc’s social life was none of my beeswax. But he must’ve been thinking something along similar lines.
Into his glass, he mumbled, “Maybe a minister like Toomey would’ve done a better job raising Cody than I could ever do.”
I nodded slowly, seeing the wound in Marc’s heart now—and it was a deep one.
“Toomey might’ve been a great with Cody,” I said. “But you do a great job that’s all your own. No one can replace you, Marc. You’re not just Cody’s father. You’re his dad.”
Marc’s broad chest hitched as he thought about what I’d said—and what I meant.
“Cody makes me want to do the right thing,” he admitted. “You make me want to do the right thing.”
My mouth went dry.
And when Marc looked at me this time, the cabin’s candlelight seemed to shimmer between us.
“Jamie, I know you don’t think I’m serious about you. I know you think I just love the chase, but I—”
“But you have had a lot to drink,” I said, cutting Marc off before he could make any kind of confession. “A lot to drink. After a particularly horrible day.”
Marc shook his head. “I haven’t had a lot to drink.”
“Well, maybe I have.” I polished off the bourbon in my tumbler, set it on the little end table between our chairs. “After all, two’s my limit.”
“That’s your third, babe.”
“I know.”
I grabbed the bottle by the neck, poured one more measure into my glass. But I didn’t sip this one. Without ceremony or any finesse, I knocked it back.
“And that,” I told Marc, “makes my fourth. So, we’ll talk in the morning, all right? Tonight, I think we’d both better get some sleep.”
Marc didn’t reply.
I wished him well and made my way to the log-framed bed. I wasn’t drunk exactly. But I was far from feeling any pain when I slid beneath the quilts.
With so much bourbon onboard, I slept soundly. No nightmares about my inability to save Dustin Toomey’s life caught up with me. No haunting dreams of my failing Barrett disturbed me. And no mind tricks reminded me I’d fallen short of fixing Marc’s world. No, on this night, sleep brought peace.
And that’s the way I needed it.
Chapter 32
Sometime between first light and full-on dawn, I came to my senses, my mouth a little dry from all the liquor I’d imbibed but my head mostly free from the worries that had dogged me the night before. In the sleepy state that isn’t fully awake, the double delight of warmth and safety made me momentarily happy. Eyes closed, I stretched like a cat, pointing my toes and breathing deeply. I rolled over, onto my side, drawn to the source of that heat and comfort. And this time, when I snuggled close to Special Agent Marc Sandoval, it wasn’t for practical purposes such as keeping warm.
Marc had come to bed soon after I had, and he’d kept to his half of the mattress, but he’d apparently draped an arm across my middle as we’d slept. Now, when I moved, that arm tightened. With swift action, Marc drew me against him.
More awake than I was, he whispered into my hair. “Hello, gorgeous.”
“Shh,” I mumbled, curling into his side. “We’re still sleepin’.”
“No, we’re not.”
As if to prove his point, Marc’s mouth grazed the shell of my ear. His lips brushed my throat. And he kissed the pulse point where my heart beat strong.
“You taste good in the morning,” he murmured.
My conscience recommended that I push Marc away, but I didn’t. Not when the scrape of his morning beard sent shock waves through my sleepy brain as he nuzzled my neck. And definitely not when he nibbled the spot where the curve of it met my shoulder.
Without intending to encourage him, my fingers tangled in his hair. But encourage him, it did. Marc burrowed beneath the covers, nosed his way under my pajama top. He kissed my hot skin. Until his fingertips grazed the underside of my breast.
Excitement surged through me. And so did guilt. I grabbed Marc’s wrist.
“We can’t do this.”
“We can do anything you want,” he whispered.
Marc’s palm cupped mine. He drew my hand down, down, down between us. He pressed my fingertips to a certain part of his anatomy—and my libido came to life while my inhibitions slept on.
Marc drew a shuddering breath as I touched him. Because I couldn’t stop touching him. But when his hand slipped between my knees, hesitation caught up with me again.
“I…I didn’t pack protection,” I told him.
And why would I? I hadn’t been expecting this. Planning this. Wanting this. But Marc had been right about one thing. Despite my relationship with Barrett, I’d gone without sex for a very long time—and I missed it.
My concern about protection prompted Marc to roll away from me. He reached for his bag on the bench beside the bed. He’d shed his T-shirt in the warmth of the night, and even in the blue light before dawn, I could make out the magnificent tattoo inked into his muscled back.
As finely detailed as the work of the best seventeenth-century silversmith, angels’ wings had been etched into Marc’s skin. But these weren’t the wings of some stupid cupid. No, these wings belonged to a fallen angel, and ink fooled the eye into believing these pinions were unfurling for flight.
Marc rolled close to me again, clutching a box of condoms. He ripped the cardboard with his teeth. A shower of little packets rained down on Marc’s bare chest and across the sheets. He grabbed one up. He pressed it into my palm so I could do the honors.
How I wanted.
When I wanted.
And, heaven help me, I wanted. But maybe I didn’t want Marc, I realized. Because, for better or worse, my mind had kept returning to Barrett in the days since I’d left Mississippi. And here he was, in my thoughts again, now. Likewise, Marc’s thinking had turned again and again to Elena—but his hands were another matter.
Marc’s palms traveled the curve of my hips. They dipped into the waistband of my pajama pants. He inched the flannel down.
Of course, sex could come without strings. And consenting adults didn’t need more than attraction between them. But that wasn’t my style and it never had been—especially when I suspected my bedmate and I would both rather be with someone else.
Placing a fingertip to Marc’s lips, I halted him.
“We’re stopping here,” I told him, “before one of us gets seriously hurt.”
Marc’s black eyes flashed. “Hurt? You think I’d hurt you?”
Not intentionally.
But I didn’t voice the thought out loud, because Marc wasn’t ready to hear it.
Instead, I shoved myself onto my elbows and shot him an I-know-what-you’re-not-saying smile. “Come on. I saw your face when Sam told you Elena was involved with Dustin Toomey, and again when you talked to her on the phone last night. You still have feelings for her.”
Marc rolled away again. He sat up at the edge of the bed, keeping his back to me. “I assure you, I don’t.”
Maybe he didn’t.
But he wasn’t confident enough to face me when he made that statement.
; “It’s all right,” I said. “She meant a lot to you at one time. She’s the mother of your child and—”
“She abandoned my child,” Marc snapped. He shot to his feet. He still wouldn’t turn to face me. “With her drug abuse, she almost crippled him for life. She ruined her law career, she practically obliterated mine—”
“Your career was going quite well the last time I looked.”
“Yes,” Marc snapped. “It is. Because I made sure of it. No thanks to Elena.”
He stalked toward the narrow countertop with its Italian coffeemaker, snagged some of the supplies I’d bought at the gas station from the cabinet above it. He slammed a filter into the basket, shook in some coffee grounds straight from the can. He sloshed more water on the floor than he got into the coffeemaker’s reservoir, but I wasn’t about to point it out to him.
“Okay,” I said, scooting back against the log headboard and dragging the bedclothes into my lap. “If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. So you don’t have feelings for her.”
“I don’t,” he agreed.
But he still wouldn’t face me.
“Great. Now try looking at me when you say that.”
Marc rounded on me then, anger and embarrassment pulsating from him like a neutron star.
“Why don’t you just tell me to go to hell, Jamie, and be done with it? That’s what you’re really saying, isn’t it?”
“Telling you to go to hell would just be overkill. Because I think you’re already there.”
A thousand feelings chased across Marc’s face.
He couldn’t voice any of them.
Leaving the coffeemaker to hiss and sputter, Marc stormed into the cabin’s tiny bathroom. He banged the door closed behind him. And with a sigh, I got up and got dressed.
The java that Sam’s fancy maker put out wasn’t half bad, despite Marc’s heavy-handed prep work. He found me sipping a cup of the stuff on the front porch, taking in the early morning’s chill. Marc didn’t say anything to me at first. He just leaned a shoulder against a porch post and looked out over the sea of grasses where the rising sun was rapidly burning away last night’s mist. But Marc’s mere presence was enough of a peace sign for me.
I said, “Douglas and Ingram will touch down soon.”
Marc nodded. “They’ll want to see where Toomey died.”
“They’ll also want to see where he lived.”
“You don’t think he lived at the shelter?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Apparently, he didn’t even sink money into a cellphone. But what if he rented a house or an apartment nearby? That could be where Elena’s hiding.”
Marc rolled that over in his mind. “So, she called him last night to, what, ask him to bring home milk?”
“For Lucy’s daughter’s cereal, or to feed all the kittens in the barn out back? I know it’s a reach, but—”
“I’ll drive,” Marc said.
And he did.
We started our search at the church. Someone there would surely know where Toomey had hung his hat on a regular basis. Except when Marc and I arrived, we found the gravel parking lot chock-full of vehicles. At first, I thought maybe the community had come together for a hastily arranged memorial service. Because somehow, I’d forgotten that today was Sunday.
The day of the week came crashing back to me, however, as Marc and I set foot in the corridor joining the old steepled building to the newer addition. The throaty call of a pipe organ vibrated through me as the glass doors of the foyer whispered closed behind us. And ahead of us, behind the doors of the sanctuary, voices rose, joining together in the Common Doxology.
“Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below…”
Marc poked his head around the corner that likely led to the church office.
Of course, it was empty at this point in time.
“Praise Him above, ye heavenly host…”
The song swelled as one of the doors to the sanctuary swung open. The white-haired woman Ribisi had kicked like crazy slipped through it. Seeing us startled her. She jumped as if she’d been touched by a live wire, and I couldn’t blame her. But as the congregation sang the Doxology’s final verse and moved into their deep and harmonious amen, the lady’s face lit up with recognition.
“How are you?” She hurried to us, moving somewhat stiffly, and took hold of my hands. “How are you both? You left last night before I could ask.”
“You were busy,” I said with a smile, “making sure Pastor Toomey’s men had a place to sleep.”
“Those poor men. Poor Pastor Toomey.” Her face clouded. Then she shook herself and said, “I’m Carol. I’m the church secretary. Were you close friends of Pastor’s?”
Marc opened his mouth, ready to be more candid than wise.
But I cut him off at the pass.
“Actually, we came looking for Elena Preble,” I said. “Do you know her?”
Carol gave my hands a squeeze. “We’d all hoped to attend a wedding soon, you know? And Elena’s darling boy admired Pastor so.”
Even over the closing prayer echoing on the sanctuary’s sound system, I could hear Marc’s molars grind.
“We ought to check on her,” I said. “Does she live nearby?”
“Oh, no. And she must be devastated.” Carol let go of me to extend a hand to Marc. “You’d know how to talk to her about it kindly. You’re a policeman, aren’t you?”
“Federal agent, ma’am.”
Marc could barely get the words past his locked jaw.
“Then you probably know she’s not from around here. But neither was Pastor Toomey.”
“Did he rent a place nearby?” I asked. “An apartment, maybe?”
“You’re not from around here, either,” Carol cooed. “There’s nothing like that to be found. Not since the men came to build the pipeline.”
“So, Pastor Toomey stayed here at the church,” I pressed. “He lived with the men he helped.”
“No, no.” Carol’s smile was ice-cream sweet. “He felt doing so would take a bed away from someone who needed it more than he did. He felt blessed to be able to put together enough money to rent a room from Don and Sheree Strathmeyer.”
At that moment, the doors to the sanctuary flew wide, marking the end of the service. A river of congregants surged into the corridor, all talking at once. Carol practically had to shout over the commotion to answer my next question.
“Sorry! I can’t point out the Strathmeyers to you today,” she bellowed. “They didn’t come to church this morning. I’m sure they’re just too sad!”
But Carol was also sure Don and Sheree wouldn’t object to her handing out their address. I urged her to scribble a rudimentary map on the back of a service program. Even with Carol’s help, it took Marc and me the better part of an hour to find the place—and I didn’t like what we saw when we got there.
Chapter 33
The red metal roof of the Strathmeyer farmhouse rose above a fold in the land like a small boat’s sail over the waves of the sea.
The couple’s property was a pretty place with a wide turnaround between the house itself and an iconic red barn. Beside it, chickens scratched happily in the dust and the silver flanges of a tall windmill spun briskly in the morning breeze. As our SUV rumbled down the farm’s dirt lane, I half-expected a dog to come running to bark at our tires, just to complete the picture, but none appeared.
A pair of split-rail fence posts decorated the house end of the drive and announced we’d reached the homestead proper. As we drove between them, a lamp flipped on in the house’s front window. Lacy curtains obscured the parlor behind it, so I had no idea if anyone watched our approach, and that prompted Marc and me to be extremely cautious as we got out of our SUV.
In this stretch of countryside, only visitors and traveling salesmen would knock on the front door, but since we were at least one of those things, that’s what Marc and I did. No one answered, however, and no silhouettes moved past the grapevine
wreath hanging on the door’s beautifully frosted inset.
“Let’s check the back,” I said.
There, Marc and I found a different story. The chickens had moved into the backyard to watch us warily as we rounded the house. A white pickup truck and a green minivan sat on a little patch of gravel just beyond a pretty brick patio crowded with a six-person dining set.
I crossed to the van, laid a hand on its hood.
“Cold,” I said.
Marc checked out the truck.
“Likewise.”
This meant the Strathmeyers hadn’t driven either vehicle anywhere lately, but there was nothing necessarily exciting in that detail. The couple could’ve slept in after a long night of upset. Hearing about the attack at their church and their tenant’s messy death would be enough to keep anyone walking the floors late at night.
A coconut-fiber welcome mat greeted us at the back door. It had been swept as clean as a whistle, but a pair of muddy, broken-down cowboy boots slouched at the edge of it. I rapped on the Plexiglas pane of the storm door. When I got no response, I applied my thumb to the bell. Its ringing didn’t raise anyone, either.
“I don’t like this,” Marc growled.
Neither did I.
The house was too quiet, too still. I didn’t hear the homey sounds people invariably make late on a Sunday morning. The TV didn’t prattle on unattended, and the dishwasher didn’t swish, fully loaded after breakfast. All in all, the setup felt too much like Burt and Elena Preble’s home. And I hated how that had turned out.
I used the cuff of my jacket to cover my hand as I gripped the doorknob and gave it a twist. No one had drilled the Strathmeyers’ deadbolt, but no one had secured it, either. The knob turned, the pretty paneled door opened, and I led the way into the couple’s kitchen so Marc wouldn’t have to give warning as a federal agent.
A round table stood in the middle of the kitchen, ringed by straight-back chairs. Its cheery blue tablecloth was littered with junk mail, pizza boxes, and empty beer bottles. On the stovetop, ridges of cornbread crumbs clung to a seasoned iron skillet as if hungry hands had scooped up the bread by the fistful.
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