“One?” Her snort of laughter didn’t exactly reassure Evan. “Come on in, Henderson.”
Wondering what in the hell had he gotten himself into, he followed her into a living room so crowded with knickknacks that he kept his elbows jammed tight into his sides for fear of knocking something over. They were all cats, he saw. Ceramic. Cloisonné. Plastic. Wooden. Some even carved out of what looked like dried fruits and vegetables. To his immense relief, the only live feline he spotted was a monster that spread like a white, furry inner tube across most of the sofa. The thing must weigh a good twenty pounds.
The room at the back of the house his hostess showed him to was spotlessly clean. It was also decorated with another menagerie of cat figurines. Evan only hoped the unwinking eyes staring down at him from every horizontal surface didn’t keep him awake all night.
Propping a plump, leopard-covered hip against the doorjamb, Josephine watched while he dumped the saddlebags on a chair and dug out the few toiletries he’d packed for his week at the Bar-H.
“Charlie tells me you come from up around Flagstaff.”
“My family has a spread about ten miles from the city.”
“How big a spread?”
Evan hooked a brow, but answered easily enough. Within minutes, Josephine had extracted his birth date, rank order among his siblings, marital status, length of time in his current job and approximate income.
Seemingly satisfied, she retreated, only to cut him a razor sharp look when he came out of the bathroom some time later, showered and shaved.
“I need to stretch my legs.”
“Well, there’s plenty of room to stretch them around here.” Her crimson-tipped fingers combed the monster’s white fur. “But if your stretching should happen to take you up to Lissa’s trailer…”
“Yes?”
“Just remember she’s got friends here in Paradise. Good friends who don’t want to see her hurt more than she already has been.”
“I don’t plan on hurting her.”
What, exactly, he did plan puzzled the heck out of Evan as he strolled through the balmy night. First, he’d have to admit that he’d inadvertently alerted Hawthorne. Second, he needed to reconcile in his own mind the wounded dove Charlie and Josephine described with the nubile young sex goddess whose manager had scammed millions in her name. And maybe…just maybe…he’d also satisfy this itchy need to understand why she’d hidden out in the back corner of nowhere all these years.
The public was notoriously forgiving. Movie and recording stars got busted every day on charges ranging from paying for sex to murder, as did their counterparts in sports and politics. Most returned to the limelight almost immediately. But not Lissa James. That intrigued Evan almost as much as the memory of the smile he’d teased from her earlier this afternoon.
Following a trail of molten moonlight, he climbed the rocky path that led up to a trailer perched on a rise overlooking Paradise. Giant saguaros dotted the slope, raising their arms to the heavens like ancient Druids offering pagan prayers to the moon.
Light spilled from the trailer’s windows. Light and music, Evan discovered when he was halfway up the slope. He paused, head cocked to catch the faint strains.
Unlike the pounding, rhythmic hymn that had boomed through Lissa’s truck windows this afternoon, this one floated on the moonlight, soft and wrenchingly sad. Evan couldn’t quite make out the lyrics…something about a splinter from the cross, he thought…but there was no mistaking the singer.
He knew nothing about music. Even less about gospel music. For the life of him, he couldn’t say whether Lissa was a soprano or an alto, or even what the difference was. He recognized artistry when he heard it, though. She sang without amplifiers, without backup, without the synthesizers that mixed sounds and poured out electronically enhanced versions, but the soft, silvery notes reached into his soul.
He followed the music up the hill until, suddenly, a snarl cut through it.
Just as suddenly, a dog burst from under the trailer. A very large dog, Evan saw as the dark shadow streaked toward him. Its furious barking brought the trailer door crashing back on its hinges.
Lissa stood framed in the light. “Wolf! What’s got into you now?”
Wolf? Evan didn’t like the sound of that. He liked even less the sight of the shaggy creature’s bared fangs. His every muscle knotting, he tensed for the attack.
“Down, Wolf!”
The animal slowed its charge as Lissa screeched another command.
“Down, boy! Down!”
To Evan’s profound relief, the dog dropped to its haunches less than a yard away, quivering from its black-gummed muzzle to its bent tail. The fangs stayed bared. The ruff stood straight up. The snarls emanating from deep in its throat put up the hairs on the back of Evan’s neck, as well.
“Who is it? Who’s there?”
Lissa’s sharp cry carried over the rattling growls. Evan wrenched his gaze from the canine to the woman silhouetted in the open door. Her golden hair spilled over her shoulders. The curves outlined through the gauzy material of her skirt spiked a pulse already hammering from the dog’s lunging attack.
“It’s me. Evan.”
She didn’t answer for long, long moments. He figured she was waging a fierce internal debate over whether or not she should let her dog go for his throat.
“What do you want?”
“I came up to apologize…again.”
“Save your apologies, Henderson. They’re not worth diddly.”
“I didn’t call that reporter and tell him you’re in Paradise.”
“Ha!”
“But I might have inadvertently given him a clue to your whereabouts.”
“Inadvertently my big toenail!”
Despite himself, Evan had to grin. Between his brothers and the criminals he’d prosecuted over the years, every four-letter word in the book had been hurled his way at one time or another. But he couldn’t remember anyone ever tossing that one at him. He took a step forward, almost forgetting the snarling animal. The creature instantly reminded him who was in charge.
“Call off your dog, will you? I’d like to…”
“I don’t care what you’d like. I don’t want anything from you, Henderson.”
“I know. You made that clear this afternoon. But I owe you at least an explanation…and the assurance that I’ll rectify my error.”
“It’s too late. The story’s probably already made the evening news. By tomorrow, the vultures will be circling overhead.”
“Maybe not. Let me come up, Lissa. We’ll talk about it.”
He knew just the right chords to strike, she thought with an angry twist to her mouth. Just what drops of hope to sprinkle in her direction. He knew darn well she wouldn’t turn him away if there was a chance she might not have to leave her sanctuary.
Lissa had never thought of herself as a coward. She’d lost her mother to a car accident when she was three, her father to cheap booze and unbearable heartache a year later. She hadn’t cried when he’d left her in the street outside the Baptist Children’s Home, hugging a ragged Pooh Bear and foolishly believing with childish faith his promise that he’d come back for her soon. Nor had she sorrowed all those years at the home. The McNabbs had lavished such love on their charges, she refused to repay them by pining.
Besides, she’d had her music. The barely remembered lullabies her mother had hummed. The joyous hymns the congregation sang at worship on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. The battered old accordion the McNabbs had somehow scraped together enough to buy for her seventh birthday, recognizing they’d taken something of a child prodigy under their wing.
Even when Doc had come along and swept her away from all she knew, Lissa hadn’t been afraid. She’d gone with him without a second thought, eager to share her songs of faith with the world. Eager, too, for the paternal kisses he showered on the all-too-gullible sixteen-year-old.
The turbulent years that followed had opened her eyes considerably
. Toughened her, as well. So much so that she’d endured the shame of her trial without shedding a tear.
But now…
Now she’d found peace. A peace she’d pay just about any price to keep. Including, she admitted on a ragged sigh, opening her door to Evan Henderson.
As she stepped outside to convince Wolf to let him pass, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Henderson constituted far more of a threat to her hard-won tranquillity than any reporter.
Chapter 5
Wolf didn’t take to strangers any more than the other residents of Paradise. After several minutes and a litany of sharp commands, he finally dropped his gums back over his fangs, ceased growling and slunk into the shadows.
Lissa’s uninvited guest uncoiled his muscles and slowly approached. “Nice pet you’ve got there.”
“He’s not mine,” she replied with a snap. “He’s just sort of…taken up temporary residence under the trailer.”
Temporary equated to just over a year now, but Lissa made no claims to ownership of the half-wild animal. In retrospect, she probably shouldn’t have fed him that night he’d knocked over her garbage can. The crash had scared the dickens out of her, but when she’d kneeled on her bed to peep through the blinds, one glimpse of the raider’s mangy fur and washboard ribs had wrung her heart. She’d climbed out of bed and emptied the fridge of leftovers. Cracking open the trailer door, she’d tossed them outside.
The animal had returned two nights later, skittering away when Lissa put out more food and a bowl of water, then wolfing down both with a voraciousness that eventually earned him his name. She couldn’t begin to guess where he’d come from, or what his ancestry was. His short, pointed ears and long muzzle hinted at German shepherd but his mottled brown/black coat was too long and shaggy to qualify for that breed. Lean and rangy as a coyote, he looked like he’d survived months, if not years, in the desert.
Over the ensuing months, Lissa and the dog formed a loose partnership. Very loose. Wary and skittish, he allowed Lissa to feed him and talk to him occasionally. In return, he slept under the trailer and provided a strangely reassuring presence during the long, empty nights. Not that she’d needed reassurance here in Paradise.
Until lately.
Her mouth tight, she remembered the prickly sensation that she was being watched in LaGrange earlier this afternoon. Remembered, too, Wolf’s furious, unexplained barking last week.
Now two strangers had arrived in Paradise on the same day. First Henderson, then the reporter. According to Charlie, the reporter had left with a flea in his ear. The next step, she decided, was to get rid of Henderson.
Nerves jangling, Lissa climbed the two front steps of the trailer. Her uninvited guest followed her inside. His broad-shouldered presence filled the tiny eating space she jokingly called a dining room. He’d showered and shaved she saw…and was immediately, intensely irritated with herself for noticing.
She closed the front door with a snap to capture what remained of the butane-cooled inside air. When she turned, her stomach lurched. Henderson’s glance had fallen on the hand-scribed music score sheets scattered across the table that served as dinette, desk and stand for her electric keyboard.
His glance lifted to her, curiosity rampant in his blue eyes. “I know now you’re a singer, but I didn’t realize you also compose. Did you write the hymn I heard you singing before Wolf launched his attack?”
“No.”
It wasn’t a lie…exactly. She hadn’t composed that hymn. She was still in the process of composing it. Snatching up the score sheets, Lissa slapped them face down on the table.
No one knew about the songs of faith she wrote and sold under a pseudonym. After all, what gospel singer wanted to record a piece written by someone who’d shamed herself and her music? Gospel had become a multimillion-dollar business, and vocalists chose the material they recorded with great care.
The lead titles on Southern Gospel Singing’s Top Eighty Chart grossed almost as much for their artists as a platinum hit grossed for many of today’s top rock groups. Legendary greats like bass vocalist J. D. Sumner, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for recording a double low C on two separate occasions, had started small and made music history. Vocal groups such as the Jordanaires, the Blackwood Brothers, and the Stamps Quartet, who’d toured with Elvis Presley, had helped found the Gospel Music Association and turned the genre into the booming industry it was today.
Now hundreds of radio and TV stations across the country played the unique combination of pop and religion. Thousands of vocalists poured their hearts and souls into songs of faith. Despite that, gospel singing still remained a relatively tight community. One that guarded its ranks jealously. Lissa should know.
Her crystal clear vocalizing and joyous renditions of the old hymns had rocketed her to the top of that close-knit community while she was still in her early teens. She’d left it at Doc’s insistence to make the crossover into country. Now she was back, composing the music she loved under an assumed name. She didn’t need a nosy lawyer poking into her business…and destroying her fragile peace.
“The song was beautiful,” he said, not the least put off by her curt response. “What’s it called?”
She hadn’t got around to a title yet. Annoyed but now stuck with her semitruth, she grabbed one out of the air.
“‘One-Way Ticket to Paradise.’”
His mouth lifted. “Appropriate.”
Bird feathers and brimstone! There it was again. The lazy, crooked smile that invited her to join in the fun and laugh with him. Lissa refused to acknowledge the answering quiver deep in her belly.
“You said you wanted to apologize and explain. Why don’t we skip the apologies and go straight to the explanation?”
“Fine.”
Uninvited, he made himself at home in the only armchair the trailer boasted. Her lips tightening, Lissa took the dilapidated sofa. A crocheted throw covered most of its nauseous yellow plaid, but the lumpy couch still topped her list of items needing replacement as soon as she paid off the last of her debts.
“Well?” she asked frostily.
“I asked my assistant to run a check on you.”
A slow hiss escaped her lips.
“I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew you,” Evan admitted with a shrug. “You stirred my curiosity this afternoon.”
She stirred a lot more than that, he confessed silently. From the first moment she’d swung those long legs out of the truck to check his ID, she’d triggered a chain reaction. In the space of a single afternoon, he’d run the gamut from interest to intrigue to an annoying, itchy attraction that just wouldn’t quit.
Take right now, for instance. Evan had to fight to keep her swish of honey-colored hair and hostile brown eyes from completely derailing his thoughts. Not to mention the delectable curves buried under yards of gauzy skirt. With considerable effort, he yanked himself back to the business at hand.
“Unfortunately, the routine query my assistant ran tripped a flag.”
“What kind of a flag?”
“A buddy of our friend, Hawthorne, put a special tag on your IRS file.”
Dismay battled with anger on her expressive face. “But my tax records are supposed to be blocked! The court ordered the IRS to shield them when one of the men Doc scammed came after me with a—”
She broke off, biting down on her lower lip.
The unfinished sentence tied Evan in knots. Like most of the professionals dedicated to preserving law and order, he sympathized with victims denied justice by legal technicalities or slick, high-priced defense attorneys. Too often for his peace of mind, these dissatisfied victims attempted to extract a personal revenge when the system failed them. The thought of one of those angry defendants coming after Lissa with a knife or a gun put a kink in his gut.
“According to Hawthorne, your records are still blocked. But my assistant’s query gave your last known location as Paradise, Arizona. That alerted Hawthorne’s pal, who call
ed him and put him on your trail.”
“Thanks a lot.” The sharp-edged scorn in her voice could have cut glass. “The next time I come across a stranded hitchhiker, I’ll leave him to broil in the desert sun.”
“Under any other circumstances,” Evan said wryly, “that’s exactly what I’d advise you to do.”
Not that she’d follow any advice he offered. If half what he remembered from Missy Marie’s sensational trial was true, she was at worst a conniving scam artist, at best a gullible twit.
But Lissa James…
According to the residents of Paradise, a vulnerable heart beat in that luscious body. If the Widow Jenks was right, Lissa could no more drive by a stranded motorist than she could run a scam.
“Between us, Charlie and I threw Hawthorne off the scent. I don’t think he’ll be back.”
Particularly if the reporter found himself facing possible criminal charges. Evan wouldn’t bat an eye at holding that threat over Hawthorne’s head to keep him away from Lissa.
“Charlie told me how you threatened the guy,” she acknowledged grudgingly.
Frowning, she pleated the filmy material of her skirt between two fingers. When her eyes lifted to his, suspicion and anger still lingered in their depths.
“Why didn’t you tell him about me?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“The past few years have taught me not to trust the obvious.”
As a prosecuting attorney, Evan would have to agree she’d learned a valuable lesson. Yet a part of him regretted she’d had to learn it the hard way.
“I owed you, Lissa. I’m not the kind of man to repay a kindness with betrayal.”
The look she gave him suggested that she knew a few who would. Her absent manager headed the list, no doubt. Evan made a mental note to request the background file on her case when he got back to San Diego. He wanted to find out more about the man who’d left her holding the bag. Find out, too, why the heck he hadn’t been brought to justice along with Lissa.
“Were you watching me in LaGrange?”
The terse question jerked him out of his thoughts. “What?”
The Harder They Fall (Intimate Moments) Page 5