But they weren’t cops, and if they got a closer look, they might not like what they saw, especially Martin.
Her eyes were tired and gritty, making it difficult to focus on the screen. She wasn’t accomplishing anything here, and she was sleepy, and Martin was down the hall in her bed, where she should be.
After shutting down the computer, she started to roll back, but her chair wouldn’t budge. “Let me up, Hunter.” She poked the dog with one foot, which stopped his snoring and prompted him to give her a narrow-eyed look. It didn’t make him move. “Come on, Hunter, it’s bedtime. Want to go to bed?”
The mutt yawned, opening his mouth wide enough to accommodate a person’s head, then lumbered to his feet and out of the room. Juliet was smiling as she followed him. A month ago she’d been alone, restless and lonely in Dallas. Now she was living in Colorado with a smelly, none-too-trusting dog and in love with a handsome, mysterious man with a questionable past.
How life had changed.
* * *
Martin and Juliet were talking over the remains of their lunch at the deli Friday afternoon when Eve Redtree joined them. She slid into the empty chair between them and greeted them both with a smile. After a moment’s small talk, she came quickly to the point of her visit. “Have you learned anything from my mother’s papers?”
Juliet gave Martin a look, but left it to him to answer, and he did so carelessly. “No, I’m afraid not.” Only that Olivia had been bailing Hal out of money trouble and that even at a very young age, Roy Jr. had been terrified of his father, but there was no way he was going to discuss those things with their sister. “There were just those calls to Jason Scott in Miami Beach. I don’t suppose you’ve remembered him.”
Eve shook her head. “I asked Hal about him. I told him I was looking through the condolence cards we got after Mom’s death and came across one with his name. Hal didn’t recognize it, either. What is it about the calls that interests you so much?”
“Your mother called him every week—”
“Every Saturday evening,” Juliet clarified.
“For the three months before her death. She made the calls between seven and eight, and they lasted at least an hour.”
“Saturday evening…” Eve looked puzzled, as if trying to remember something. Martin waited silently, giving her time. “When I lived away, Mom and I talked for a couple of hours every week. Usually she called me on Sunday afternoon, but once last spring I called her on a Saturday night because Molly and I had plans for Sunday. Mom was kind of distracted, and after twenty minutes or so, she insisted that she needed to get off the phone. I thought it was odd—I mean, she hadn’t even said hello to Molly. I let her go, then called back a while later so Molly could tell her good-night, but it just went to voice mail for the rest of the evening.”
So Olivia’s weekend conversations with Jason Scott had been important to her, important enough to brush off her daughter and granddaughter. Why?
“Have you been able to locate this Scott person?”
Martin shook his head. “We tried calling the number, but it’s been disconnected. Juliet tried every Jason Scott in the Miami area, but none of them ever lived at his address.”
“Maybe…” Eve’s smile was faint. “Maybe he was a long-distance boyfriend. Maybe they met while he was passing through the state or on one of her business trips. Or maybe…” The smile faded, and she offered the same theory Juliet had come up with last week. “Maybe he’s my brother. Maybe he changed his name.”
Martin gently discouraged her. “If she’d finally located the brother who disappeared twenty years ago, don’t you think she would have told you and Hal?”
“Probably. That was her fondest wish—that Roy Jr. would come back, alive and well. Everyone thought he was probably dead, but she never accepted that. She always believed, always hoped… She always regretted that she hadn’t protected him. She was convinced that someday he would come walking back into her life.” Her smile this time was bittersweet. “It was kind of like living with a ghost. Mom very seldom talked about him, but we always knew he was an important part of our family, even years after he disappeared. When we moved into the house on Poplar, she had a room set aside for him. She called it a guest room but we knew it was really Roy’s room. She bought cards for him on his birthday. We’d be driving along the highway, and she’d say, ‘Cole likes to go camping right up that road,’ or she’d see a leather jacket and say, ‘Cole has a jacket just like that.’ Always in the present tense, as if she knew in her heart that he was still alive. Maybe she did.”
“Your mother called your brother Cole?” Juliet asked.
At Eve’s nod, Martin gave a shake of his head. That explained Olivia’s dying word easily enough. It had had nothing to do with strip mining, after all. Just a mother’s dying wish for her son.
“I doubt that Jason Scott has any connection to your brother,” Martin said quietly. “If he did, don’t you think he would have contacted someone when the calls from Olivia suddenly stopped?”
“Probably. It would be nice to know who he was, though, and why she talked to him every week but never mentioned him to us.” Eve gave a sigh, then made a move as if to stand. “I wanted to tell you that I need Mom’s stuff back before tomorrow afternoon. Hal needs some papers regarding the house for the insurance company, and he’s coming over tomorrow to pick them up.”
“No problem,” Juliet answered. “We’ll pack everything up and bring it by your house this evening.”
“I appreciate it. I wish I could have—”
“What the hell’s going on here?”
Speak of the devil, Martin thought as Hal Stuart advanced on them. The man looked seriously annoyed with his sister and way beyond that with him and Juliet.
“What are you doing, Eve?”
She gave her brother a cool glance that should have put him in his place. “Talking to friends. What are you doing?”
“I came in to get some lunch and find you—” Breaking off, he turned his gaze on first Martin, then Juliet. “I thought I warned you two to mind your own business. I won’t tolerate your interference in my family business. If Chief Sanderson can’t make you back off and leave us alone, then maybe Judge Walters can. Eve, come with me.”
She refused to be hurried away. Instead, she shrugged free of his hand, stood up and gave them a warm smile. “Juliet, Martin, it was nice seeing you.” As they walked away, the warmth left her voice. “You may be my older brother, Hal, but you do not run my life. Don’t you ever interfere…”
Her voice trailed away, and a moment later, the door swung shut behind them. Martin looked at Juliet. “She may be only half his size, but I’d put my money on her any day.”
“I hope we haven’t caused any trouble for her.”
“She’ll deal with him.” Thinking of Hal’s last comment to them, he said, “I hope we haven’t caused trouble for you. If he goes to the chief again—”
“What can they do?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Fire you?”
“Then maybe you and I can go into business together. Smith and Crandall, Private Investigators.”
Or Smith and Smith. Or Whoever-the-hell-he-was and Whoever-the-hell-she-would-be-if-she-married-him. He didn’t allow himself to dwell on such a possibility, though. Instead, he shook his head. “No P.I. work. Not for you. It’s too dangerous.”
“But it’s not dangerous for you?”
“I’m better equipped to deal with it. I’m a man. I’m able to take care of myself.”
“‘I’m a man.’ Now there’s a chauvinistic answer if ever I’ve heard one. News flash, Mr. Smith—women are quite capable, too.”
“I’m not talking about women. I’m talking about you. Every other woman in the world can go out and risk her life every day if it’s what she wants, but you… I want you safe.” It wasn’t what he wanted to say, didn’t come close to touching on how he really felt, but it was the most he could offer. He could tell her that he wanted her,
that he wanted her to always be safe, maybe even that he needed her, but he couldn’t tell her that he loved her. Not yet. Not until he knew everything he’d forgotten. Not until he knew he was a man deserving of her love.
Maybe never.
Juliet stood up, slung her purse over her shoulder, then fluttered her eyelashes. “My goodness gracious, it’s time for me to go back to work, but I surely do hate to walk those mean old streets all by my helpless, feminine self. I would feel so much safer with a big, strong man like you by my side to protect me from whatever evil might await.”
He grinned. “You’re a smart ass, Juliet.”
“Thank you.” She led the way out, then walked beside him on a leisurely stroll back to the police department. “After we return Olivia’s papers to Eve, want to find out what Maxwell Brown is up to this evening?”
“I’d rather stay home and spend a little quiet time with you and Hunter.”
“Aw, come on. If he does something exciting, I’ll ravish you when we get home.”
“If we stay home, I’ll do something exciting. I’ll ravish you.”
She walked a block in silence, then settled her blue gaze on him. “You think I’m getting carried away, but I’m not. It’s just that you’re the most fun I’ve ever had. In Dallas, my idea of daring was downloading a file that might possibly have a virus in it. It was leaving the house without my umbrella when the forecast called for rain or making eye contact with a stranger. Last night was exciting. It was a totally new experience, and it was fun.”
“It would have stopped being fun real quick if they had caught us out there at the trucking company.”
“I know. They would have called the sheriff—”
“Only if everything going on out there is on the up-and-up. If it’s not, if they’re involved in something illegal and they suspected that we’d seen something, they would have killed us.” Saying it aloud made him realize how incredibly stupid he had been to take her along when he’d left the car last night. He should have ordered her to wait, and if she had refused—when she had refused—he should have forgotten about Brown and driven her back to her house.
For a moment she looked subdued and chastened, and he thought he’d made his point. Then she grinned. “But they didn’t catch us, and they didn’t kill us, and that’s a success in anybody’s book. So let’s do it again. Let’s tempt fate.”
“No. The only thing you’re going to tempt is me. If I have to spend all my free time making love to you to keep you out of trouble, well, I guess I can make the sacrifice.”
She stopped, only a few yards from the doors of the police station, and faced him. “That’s so generous of you.”
Before he could agree, the glass door swung open and Hal Stuart came out, scowling as if he had a grudge against the world. His expression turned scornful and smug when he saw them. “The chief’s looking for you, Ms. Crandall,” he said as he walked past.
“Hey, Mr. Stuart?” As he turned, she raised one hand, obviously intending to give him further cause for anger, but Martin grabbed her hand and forced it to her side. Instead, she offered her sweetest smile. “So nice to see you again.”
Shaking his head in disgust, Hal walked away.
“Oh, Juliet, what am I going to do with you?”
She shifted the smile to him, and its innocence stirred the ever-present ache inside him. “You can have your way with me. Tonight. After we return Olivia’s papers to Eve. After we see what Maxwell’s doing.”
He gave her a long up-and-down look and brought to life the same sort of ache in her. He saw it in the sudden softening of her eyes, the relaxing of her mouth, the purely sensual look that claimed her. “I reserve the right to try to change your mind about that last.”
With a brush of her gentle fingers across his cheek, she walked to the door, then looked back. “I reserve the right to let you.”
Chapter Ten
Being called on the chief’s carpet wasn’t so bad, as Juliet related it that evening to Martin. He’d told her about Hal’s complaint, and she had explained very calmly that she’d simply been having a conversation with Eve—a conversation initiated by the other woman, no less. She’d played innocent for all she was worth, and the chief had sent her away with a request to please not further antagonize the councilman.
“I keep forgetting that Hal’s a public official,” she remarked as she placed the lid on one of Olivia’s repacked boxes and taped it in place. “The next time he takes that attitude with me, I’m going to remind him that I’m part of the public he’s sworn to serve. By the next time he comes up for reelection, I’ll be registered to vote, and I’ll vote against him.”
“You probably don’t live in his district.”
“Then I’ll campaign against him.”
“He’s been a good friend to the department. He was instrumental in getting the money that allowed them to upgrade the computers that required them to hire a computer expert. You owe your job to him.”
“A fact he no doubt gravely regrets. He’s an idiot.” She taped the last box, then looked at the stacks. “All those papers, and nothing helpful. Do you suppose Eve would let us take a look around Olivia’s house?”
“We’re not asking, and we’re not breaking in, either.”
“But there could be something there—something Eve and Hal and the police missed, something hidden.”
“Something everybody else in the world missed that you and I could waltz in in the middle of the night and find on our first look through?”
She ignored his skeptical question. “If Jason Scott were a gentleman friend, wouldn’t she have told someone? Maybe not her children—though I can’t imagine either of them begrudging her a relationship with a man twenty years after their father’s death—but her friends? I mean, women confide in people. Who did Olivia confide in?”
“Maybe there was nothing to confide. Jason Scott may not mean anything. The person she was calling could have been someone who lived in his house—an old friend or a long-lost relative.”
His explanation was entirely too reasonable and made her frown as she picked up the top box. They loaded everything in the car, then drove past Hal’s condo on the way so she could reassure herself that they weren’t likely to meet him while at his sister’s. One run-in with him was enough for one day. After picking up fried chicken in a box, they returned home for a quiet dinner with Hunter, who drooled but didn’t beg. She rewarded him with the meat stripped from a piece or two.
After disposing of the bones where the dog couldn’t reach them, Martin suggested, “How about a bath?”
Juliet blinked. Her fantasy yesterday about joining him in the shower had ended so delightfully that the mere implication of naked and wet was enough to make her hot. Before she could agree, though, he grinned and gestured to the dog. “For him. See if we can make him smell a little better. What do you say, Hunter? A bath, and then a walk so you can drip-dry outside.”
They coaxed the dog into the bathroom and the tub. As the water began rising around him, he tried once to escape, then resigned himself to the indignity. After wetting him down, Juliet squirted a dollop of her own shampoo over his fur, then began lathering it. It was an herbal blend that smelled of jasmine blooms in the summer, and she loved it.
“No self-respecting male dog should smell like that,” Martin complained. “When he goes out, every poodle in the neighborhood’s going to come sniffing around.”
“You wouldn’t have a prissy little poodle, would you, Hunter?”
“He’ll probably take after his mother—”
“Owner.”
“And show a decided preference for strays.”
She gave him a chiding look before opening the drain and turning on the handheld shower massager. With a long-suffering look on his scarred face, Hunter let her rinse away the suds, then, the minute she turned her back to reach for a towel, he bolted. Dripping water, he wrenched free of Martin’s hold on his collar, forced his way between them and hit the h
all at a run.
“Well.” Martin’s voice was low, carefully level and undeniably amused. “I guess he’d had enough of that.”
Her dress was wet in great splotches from neck to hem, and his clothing was also damp. Water soaked the rug and puddled on the floor in the hall. No doubt as soon as the mutt had been sure he was free, he’d given a good, hard shake and splashed water on everything in sight. He’d made a mess, and she couldn’t find it in herself to care.
Martin stood up and offered her a hand. His gaze was dark and intimate, his voice husky, when he spoke. “We could forget that walk. He’s probably already shaken himself mostly dry, and you…” He turned her to face the mirror. The bodice of her dress had taken the brunt of the contact with Hunter, and the thin cotton was soaked, molding to her breasts like tissue. Not even the flowery print material could hide the swelling of her nipples.
He buried his face in her hair and was sliding his hands up her bare arms when, with a low bark, Hunter commanded their attention. He stood in the doorway, his curling tail dripping over his back, his leash dangling from his mouth. Maintaining a hold on the nylon, he barked again, then took a few steps toward the door.
“Someone used to walk him,” Juliet murmured as she leaned back against Martin’s chest. “That’s kind of a chore. Why would someone go to that much trouble, then mistreat and abandon him?”
“Maybe the person who walked him lost him, and whoever found him mistreated him.”
There was another bark, followed by a peek around the door frame. His look was so serious, his big brown eyes solemn and accusing. Even though she hadn’t promised the walk, Juliet felt guilty. “All right, Hunter. I’ll change clothes.”
Five minutes later they were walking down the sidewalk, the dog’s leash secured around her wrist, her hand clasped in Martin’s. If the dog noticed that he was wet in the cool night air, he didn’t care. He was too busy sniffing, exploring the limits of the leash and testing his strength against hers.
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