Jonathan laughed. “A moose stepped on my cell phone.”
“A moose?” Mary blinked. “They have moose in Tennessee?”
He looked around her office. “You don’t have an appointment with Deke Keener now, do you?”
“No.” Mary gave an unconscious shudder. “Deke’s no longer a client of mine.”
“Good,” said Jonathan. “Then maybe you can take me on as a client.”
“A client?” She frowned up at him, Lily still sandwiched between them. She didn’t like the sound of his voice. “Why do you need an attorney?”
His eyes flashed with bitterness. “Pomeroy’s wonderful game preserve turned out to be a canned hunt. I figured it out two days into it, when the animals started coming. Tame deer, hand-fed boars, a moose that Lily could have ridden. Pomeroy wanted to bring his pals up there so they could sip Scotch while they shot deer in a pen.”
“Oh, no,” said Mary, immediately understanding the reason for his wrath. “What did you do?”
“I put him off for as long as I could—told him the creek had washed the road out, one of the deer had brought in distemper.” Jonathan laughed. “For the first couple of weeks, he bought it.”
“What happened next?”
“The day before Pomeroy and his buddies were scheduled for their first hunt, I rented a livestock trailer and hired three Mexicans off a horse farm in Chattanooga. We got everything with four legs off that property and relocated up in Virginia. Then I came back and snipped all his fences.”
“And Pomeroy found out?”
“Hell, yes, he found out. I told him. I waited until he and his fancy-dan pals drove up the next day. ‘Where’s my game, Walkingstick?’ he asks. You never had any game, I told him. ‘All you had was pets, waiting for slaughter.’ ” Jonathan gave a triumphant smile. “He was pretty pissed when I left. Said he was swearing out a warrant and that I could consider myself a wanted man.”
“So did you come up here to find a lawyer or a safe house?” asked Mary as Lily planted a wet, sloppy kiss on her cheek.
“Actually, I was hoping I might find both.” Dodging Lily, he leaned down and kissed her. Once more she felt the tingle that she’d felt when they first kissed, so many years ago.
“I was wrong, Mary,” he murmured. “You were right. I don’t care what you do for a living—I want you to be with me—with us.”
“What about all my nasty little criminal law habits?” She needed to be sure before she committed to him this time—she couldn’t ride this roller coaster again.
He held her closer. “You never asked me to be something I wasn’t when we lived together in Atlanta. I won’t ask that of you now.”
She laughed. “You must want me to take your case pretty bad.”
“The only thing I want pretty bad, Mary Crow, is you.”
All at once, she knew with certainty that home had never been in Georgia or North Carolina or even at Little Jump Off. Home had always been right here, in the small charmed circle of his arms. Wherever that was, was where she belonged. “Me, too,” she said, glancing at the bear mask that now seemed to grin at her from the corner. “Me, too.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sallie Bissell is a native of Nashville, Tennessee. She currently lives near Asheville, North Carolina, where she’s at work on her next novel. You can visit her on the web at www.salliebissell.com.
Also by Sallie Bissell
IN THE FOREST OF HARM
A DARKER JUSTICE
CALL THE DEVIL BY HIS OLDEST NAME
LEGACY OF MASKS
A Bantam Book
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2005 by Sallie Bissell
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004065647
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Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-553-90250-1
v3.0
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