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Chapter 8
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Carly paused at the door to the sheriff's office and took a deep breath. She hoped that Devlin wasn't inside. It would be much easier if Ben Jackson or one of the other deputies helped her find the reports the ex-sheriff had told her about.
After the emotionally wrenching experience she and Devlin had shared the day before, she'd vowed to keep away from him. It was the only sensible thing to do. She was in Cameron to get to the truth about her brother's death, and Devlin's family was involved somehow. Any good reporter knew better than to become entangled with one of her subjects. And she was a good reporter.
Cool air breathed over her skin as she stepped inside the door. "You must be Ms. Fitzpatrick, the reporter." The friendly voice came from her left. Carly turned and looked at a woman sitting behind a desk. The woman smiled at her. "I'm Marge, the dispatcher. Devlin's in his office." She waved toward the back of the building. "You go right on back."
The door to the office was half-closed, and as Carly raised her hand to knock, she realized her hand was sweating. This is business, she told herself fiercely. This is about Edmund, not you.
Swallowing once, she knocked at the door. Dev's deep voice said, "Come on in.
He was sitting in an old wooden desk chair, his booted feet resting on his desk. When he saw her in the doorway, his feet came crashing down to the floor and he sat up straight in the chair.
He scowled. "I didn't think you'd be here so early."
"Would there be a more convenient time?" She prayed her voice sounded impersonal and businesslike.
"There is no convenient time. You might as well get it over with."
"Thank you for being so gracious about helping me," she said sweetly, her temper stirring.
He gave her a hard look. "I have work to do. Digging out reports from twenty years ago isn't real high on my list of priorities. This is as gracious as you're going to get."
Slipping her backpack off her shoulder, she set it on the floor and let her anger go with a sigh. "I know," she said quietly. "I'm imposing on you. I wouldn't do it if I didn't think it was important."
"Why is something that happened so long ago important for your story?" he asked, some of the hardness fading from his eyes.
Her gaze slipped away from his and she studied the file cabinets. Devlin was too good at reading her expression. She didn't want him to see the truth in her eyes, that there was a reason she was pursuing the story of Edmund Whitmore that had nothing to do with an article for her magazine.
"I like to be thorough. And this story caught my interest."
She could feel his eyes on her back. "The file is there on the top of that cabinet," he said after a while. "I found the year, but I didn't have time to go through all the reports."
"Thank you," she said quickly. "I can go through them myself."
When she picked up the file, she found it was several inches thick. "It looks like you had a lot of crimes in Cameron that year," she said, glancing at him.
"It just looks that way." He leaned back in his chair again. "Every time we go on a call, we have to fill out a report. So if we get a complaint that someone's kid is throwing stones at a neighbor's garage, we have to fill out a form." He sat up straight and looked down at the folder she held. "And that was the year that the Hilberts and my father were having the dispute about the water. I suspect that Bert and his deputy were called out to one ranch or the other a fair number of times."
"Do you want me to take these somewhere else and look through them? I don't want to be in anyone's way."
"No." His face hardened again. "They can't leave the building. You'll have to look at them here."
"Where do you want me to work?"
"You might as well sit on the couch."
As she settled herself on the worn cushions, he swung his chair around to face her. "Were you at the newspaper office again today?"
"Yes. I finished looking at the stories about the water fight between your family and the Hilberts."
"Anything interesting?"
"Pretty much just what you told me—that your father won the court case." She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and forced herself to meet his eyes. "Did you know the Whitmore boy worked for the paper? I found some stories he'd written about the case."
"I didn't know that." Interest flickered in his eyes. "What kinds of stories did he write?"
She let her gaze slide to the folder on her lap, sorry she had brought the subject up. Seeing her brother's name on the stories had been a series of small stabs to her heart. She'd known her brother wanted to be a reporter, but seeing his name in print made his loss so much more vivid. "Stories about the court case, reporting what had happened. There was an interview he'd done with Phil Hilbert, and one with your dad. It was interesting that he was murdered only a few months after he was involved with that case."
"Are you trying to make a connection between his death and that court case?" he demanded.
"Doesn't it seem coincidental to you?"
He watched her for a moment, then ran his fingers through his hair. Her hands tingled as she remembered the springy softness of it, how it had felt against her skin yesterday. Then she looked away.
"I don't know what to think," he finally said. "But it looks like you're determined to find out."
"It's my job," she said quietly. "It's what I do."
"Fine. You go ahead and do your job, and I'll do mine."
He turned back to the desk, but she suspected he wasn't getting much done. His shoulders were too tense, his back too rigid. Almost as if he was waiting, she thought. Waiting for her to find something he'd rather keep hidden.
An hour later she realized she'd found it. Looking up from the report she was reading, she said, "Devlin?"
"What?"
"Why didn't you tell me about the gun?"
He stared at her for a moment, then looked out the window. "I wondered how long it would take you to find that little piece of information."
"You must have known it was in here."
"I figured it was."
"But you let me go through the reports anyway."
When he turned back to her, his eyes were the color of hard steel. "I was twelve years old. I made a mistake and left my father's gun cabinet unlocked. Someone came into the house and stole the Parker shotgun. That's all there is to the story."
"You must have felt very guilty."
For a brief second she saw the pain in his eyes, then it was gone. She was very sure he hadn't meant to share that pain with her. "I was a kid. It was a careless, stupid mistake, but kids do stupid things. The sheriff understood that."
"Anyone could have taken it."
"That's exactly what Bert Pickens realized. Anyone could have taken that gun. The case was unlocked for at least a week before the Whitmore kid was shot. And there were a lot of people in and out of the house back in those days."
She set the file of reports on the couch and rose to stand next to him. "I'm sorry," she said softly.
"What for?"
"I've brought back painful memories. I didn't mean to do that."
"I know. You were just doing your job."
Suddenly her job was tearing her in two. She'd never dreamed that Devlin was involved so intimately in her brother's death. Torn, she stood next to him for a moment, then slowly sat back down. "Aren't there times when your job is hard to do?" she whispered.
"No." His eyes were hard as he watched her. "My job is a matter of right and wrong. Period. I don't bring any other agendas to it. If someone breaks a law, he or she gets arrested. I don't lose sleep at night because of it."
"I wish everything was as black and white as that," she murmured.
He spun around in his chair so he was facing her. "What's going on, Carly? You have another reason for coming to Cameron, don't you? Was this story about making Cameron into a tourist destination just a blind for something else?" Suspicion and mistrust filled his eyes.<
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She stared at him, appalled. Had she been so transparent? How had he been able to read her so easily? "No," she finally said. "I stumbled on this story and it caught my interest. That's why I'm following it."
The distrust in his eyes told her that he didn't believe her. She raised her head. She didn't care, she told herself fiercely. She couldn't. At least that would take care of the problem of the attraction that sizzled between them. Now she could pursue the truth about Edmund without being distracted by Devlin McAllister.
Her heart was heavy in her chest as she looked down at the pile of reports on the couch. Her vision blurred, but she blinked until the tears were gone. What was more important, she asked herself. Her brother's death, or this wild and futile attraction for the sheriff of Cameron that threatened to spiral out of control?
"I'll get back to work so I can get out of your way," she whispered, not daring to look up at him. Something ached inside her, but she ignored it. Staying focused on her job had never been a problem before, and it wouldn't be a problem now.
He watched her for a long time. She felt his gaze on her, measuring her, but she wouldn't look up. Finally he turned back to his desk.
She was scribbling in her notebook when he turned around to face her again. She gripped her pen more tightly, but continued to write.
Devlin cleared his throat. "It's late, Carly. You need to go get something to eat."
"I'm not finished." She looked up to find him watching her with unreadable eyes.
"I am. I need to get back to the ranch. You can come back tomorrow."
"All right." She was glad of the excuse to get out of the room, she told herself. Setting the folder back on top of the file cabinet, where she'd found it, she turned to Devlin. "Thank you again for letting me read the reports."
"You're welcome." His eyes were distant, and she couldn't tell what he was thinking. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"I'll be back first thing in the morning."
"Fine."
She slipped out the door of the building in front of Devlin and started walking down the street. She knew he stood watching her. When she finally turned the corner, she drew in a shaky breath.
He might suspect that she had another reason for coming to Cameron, bat he didn't know why she was really there. There was no way he could know. And if her secrets had opened up a chasm between them, it didn't matter. It was a chasm that needed to be there, anyway.
But as she slipped into Heaven on Seventh and waited to be seated, her heart wasn't sure it agreed.
* * *
When Devlin drove through the gates of the Red Rock Ranch that evening, he didn't stop at the house. Instead, he drove up the rutted road that led to the small lake, high on the mountain. The sun was setting behind the mountains, painting the red and pink rocks with glowing color. The sunset touched the lake with fire, and he slid onto a rock next to the shore and stared at the shifting colors in front of him.
His first instinct had been right on the money, he told himself brutally. He should have stayed far away from Carly from the beginning. It was clear that she had another agenda in Cameron, one she wasn't willing to share with him or anyone else. If she had just intended to include the story of the Whitmore boy in her article as background material, surely she'd gotten enough information from the old copies of the Sentinel. There should have been no reason to look at the old reports from his office.
And when he'd challenged her on it, he'd seen the truth of his words in her eyes. He grabbed a rock and hurled it into the water, brooding as he watched the ripples spread out. The proof of her deception had hit him squarely in the gut. As had the ease with which he'd read her.
He'd been spending way too much time with the treacherous Ms. Fitzpatrick, he thought grimly. That was going to change. From now on, he was going to stay as far away from her as possible. The last thing he needed or wanted in his life was a woman who wasn't truthful. One of those in a lifetime had been more than enough. He'd learned his lesson in California, and it wasn't going to happen again.
Devlin sat on the rock until darkness embraced him, staring out over the water. He didn't turn around until all the light had disappeared from the sky. When he stood and climbed back into the Blazer, he didn't allow himself to look at the cliff on the other side of him. He wouldn't be going back to his cave for a long, long time.
Slamming the door to his truck, he wrenched the key in the ignition and started the engine with a roar. Maybe if he made enough noise, if he drove fast enough down the dangerous road, he'd be able to rid his memory of the last time he'd driven down this road.
But as he returned to the house, he realized that the faint smell of Carly still lingered in the truck, reminding him of the passion they'd shared. Her scent wouldn't let him forget how much he'd wanted her, and how much he'd been willing to give her.
Cursing himself for a fool, he flew over the rocks in the road, grimly steering the truck along the rutted path. But her ghost stayed with him all evening, taunting him with her smile and tormenting him with her touch. She even followed him into sleep, flitting close to him in his dreams but staying just out of reach.
* * *
The next morning, he gave Ben instructions to allow Carly to look at the reports in his office, then he slipped out of the building. He'd make sure he stayed away until she was finished with the papers in the folder. To sit and watch her, knowing that he'd allowed himself to be suckered again by a woman who wasn't telling him the truth, would simply be too painful. And it wasn't as if he didn't have plenty of work to do to keep him busy.
He'd do the work of ten men if it would keep his mind off Carly.
Late that afternoon, as he was talking to one of his neighbors, his radio crackled to life. Reaching into the Blazer, he picked up the hand set and said, "Go ahead, Marge."
"Is that you, Dev?" Marge's voice was filled with relief.
"You got me."
"Where are you?"
There was an urgency in her voice that made him tighten his hand on the radio. "I'm out at the Webber's place. Why?"
"There's been an accident." He heard her swallow. "Thank God you're close. That reporter, Ms. Fitzpatrick, just called in. I couldn't make out all of what she said, but it sounded like her car went off the road, maybe rolled over. There was a lot of static on her phone. I think she's about halfway between town and the Hilbert's place."
"I'll get right on it." His heart pounding, he said a curt goodbye to the man he'd been talking to, then hurried into his truck and slammed the door. A moment later he was speeding down the gravel driveway, his truck skidding as he pushed on the gas pedal.
When he reached the main road, he hesitated only a moment before turning right, praying he'd turned the right way. Ripping on the siren and the lights on the top of his car, he pressed the accelerator to the floor. His blood pounded in his head, echoing her name, and a heavy weight of fear sat on his chest. As the truck screamed down the asphalt, he gripped the steering wheel tightly, his eyes scanning the road for signs of Carly's car.
He'd almost passed the tight curve when he saw a flash of red in the ditch. Stomping on the brakes, he brought the truck to a shuddering halt and was out of the Blazer almost before it had stopped moving. As he ran toward her Jeep, tilted on its side next to a large clump of mesquite, he shouted, "Carly? Can you hear me?"
"Dev?"
Her voice was shaky, but he closed his eyes and muttered a prayer of thanks. "I'm here, Carly. Hold on and I'll get you out of that car."
Only the mesquite bush had prevented the Jeep from rolling completely onto its side. The passenger door was high in the air, and Devlin swung himself up on the running board to look inside.
"My God, Carly! How badly are you hurt?"
She lay sprawled across the driver's seat, blood covering the left side of her face. She'd managed to unhook her seat belt, and had apparently been trying to climb up and out of the passenger side door.
She gave him a weak smile. "I think it loo
ks a lot worse than it really is. Blood can be so messy."
"Can you move?" He yanked open the door and leaned closer to her, forcing himself not to touch her yet. "Do I need to get the evacuation helicopter in here?"
She struggled to sit up. "Don't be silly. I just need some help getting out of the car. The door on my side seems to be jammed."
He looked at the blood on her face and her shirt, noticed the sheet-white pallor of her face and the way her hands were trembling. "I'm not sure you should be moved."
She scowled at him and pushed herself toward the door. "Don't go all squeamish on me. I've been moving ever since the damned car skidded off the road. I just haven't been able reach the door."
The smell of gasoline drifted past him, and he knew he couldn't wait any longer to get her out of the car. Balancing himself on the edge of the seat, he leaned forward until he grasped her hand. Her fingers curled around him, holding him tightly, as if she never wanted to let go.
Refusing to let his mind wander in that direction, he shifted his grip so he could reach down with his other hand and circle her waist. "I'm going to ease you toward me. Tell me if I'm hurting you."
"I'm fine," she muttered, but he watched even more color leach out of her face.
When she reached the door, he swung her into his arms, then jumped down from the running board of the Jeep. Holding her gently, trying not to jostle her, he carried her back to his car, where he laid her on the back seat.
"Where are you hurt?" he said, resisting the impulse to run his hands over her.
"I bumped my head when the car tipped over." She touched a spot underneath her hair and winced. "And my side hurts." Her hand fluttered over her left side. "Probably bruised a few ribs. I'll be fine in a couple of days."
"Are you sure that's all? Your arms and legs are all right? Your back and neck don't hurt?"
"That's it. I'm pretty tough. I don't break easily."
He could believe that, he thought, rocking back on his heels as he watched her. She had to be in pain and shaken up, but she was determined not to give in to it. A reluctant stab of admiration went through him. Carly was a strong woman.
COWBOY WITH A BADGE Page 11