She waved to Jeb as she pulled out of the parking lot of Heather-Mary-Marie's, and since she didn't want to run the risk of running into Sloan again, she pointed the Bronco in the direction of home. As she drove the Bronco along the familiar road, she replayed the scene with Sloan in her mind.
She hadn't meant to argue with him. It had just happened. Seeing him after all these years, looking into that once-loved face, remembering the betrayal and pain of their parting and to still have her body reacting to his presence the way it had had just been too much for her to handle. She needed to put some distance between them and have some time to come to grips with the shock of seeing him again. She'd known that they would meet again, she just hadn't been prepared for it to happen the first time she ventured out of the house and into town. Nor had she counted on the leap her heart had given at the sight of him, the thrill that had coursed through her. Or the way her pulse had raced and her entire body had surged to life as she had stared at him. She'd been stunned. Aroused. Terrified. Looking at those blunt, hard features, seeing the broad shoulders and the way the black jeans had fit his muscular thighs she'd been eighteen again, and all her hormones had burst into the “Hallelujah Chorus” at the sight of him. You'd think, she thought disgustedly, that at my age, I'd have better control of my emotions—and hormones.
Shelly sighed. It was probably just as well, though, that the first meeting was out of the way. At least she didn't have to dread it anymore. And seeing Cleo again had been wonderful. Meeting Hank O'Hara had been fun. Running into Jeb had been great, too. She frowned, thinking about the things Jeb had said about her brother. Tomorrow night couldn't come soon enough for her, but she realized that Jeb had been right to suggest a more private setting. The more she turned over the conversation in her mind, the more troubled she became. Josh friends with dopers? That didn't sound right. And yet Jeb said that it had happened. The gambling sounded right…but not the huge losses. She caught her breath, suddenly remembering the odd entries in the account books. Maybe the valley gossip wasn't all wrong, maybe Josh had suffered some big losses and turned to this Milo Scott and Ben Williams for financial help. But that didn't sound right. Josh could have come to her. They could have dipped into the principal of the trust funds left them by their parents. She paused. No. Josh wouldn't have come to her—she was his baby sister and his first instinct would have been to protect her from anything unpleasant. And he wouldn't have been happy to reveal a flaw in his own nature to her. He wouldn't have wanted her to think less of him. She snorted. Men!
Reaching the house, she put on the brake and turned off the ignition. She wasn't going to think about Josh's behavior any more today. Once she had talked to Jeb, she'd know more and could make a better assessment about what had really been going on in Josh's life these past few years. And if those events had led to his suicide…or something else…
She shook her head. She was being fanciful again. A rueful smile curved her mouth. As fanciful as Jeb Delaney thinking that Sloan had been jealous at seeing them together. Ha! That'd be the day.
But Sloan was jealous. Fiercely. Savagely. Furiously. Jeb had nailed down his feelings exactly. When he had pushed out of Heather-Mary-Marie's and had seen Shelly standing in Jeb's embrace, Sloan had experienced a primitive emotion that had rocked him to his roots. It had taken every ounce of control he possessed to keep from yanking Shelly away from Jeb and strangling Delaney right then and there. He and Jeb had been friends for a long time, but this afternoon, as he pulled away from the store, Sloan's thoughts were murderous about his friend.
Even now, ten minutes later as he pushed a grocery cart down one of the narrow aisles of MacGuire's, his gut still twisted and his knuckles were white from the furious grip he had on the cart, imagining them around Jeb's neck. Bastard! Coming on to her before she'd been in town a half hour. Who the hell did Delaney think he was? Casanova?
The ridiculousness of the situation struck him and he grinned wryly. Ah, hell. Who was he kidding? He was just being a horny, jealous old goat. Jeb and Shelly had been friends in the old days, so why shouldn't he hug her? Sloan grimaced. God knows he'd had to fight against the powerful urge to pull her into his own arms and kiss her when she'd stood there before him in the shadows of the store. Of course, there wouldn't have been anything remotely friendly about his kiss. And if he hadn't been so eaten up with jealousy, he would have realized immediately that it was only a friendly embrace that the two had been sharing. Shelly had always been warm and generous in her affection, so why wouldn't she have been happy to see Jeb? His problem, and he admitted it, was that the sight of Shelly posing before the mirror in Heather-Mary-Marie's, that T-shirt held against her slender body, had aroused him and aroused emotions he'd thought long dead. And it wasn't like he hadn't expected to see her inside the store. He had.
As soon as he'd spotted the Bronco parked in the lot, he'd known whose vehicle it was. And had he continued on his original errand to the grocery store? Oh, no. He'd had to swerve into the lot and go looking for trouble. He snorted. And couldn't he have just said a friendly hello and left it at that? Not on your life! No, he'd had to go all stiff-necked over her brother. As much as he loathed the man, would it really have hurt him to say that he was sorry that Josh was dead? Probably not. God. Sometimes he could be such an asshole. You'd think he'd learn.
Muttering to himself he guided the metal grocery cart toward the meat counter. Pandora had let it be known this morning that she wasn't eating dry dog food another day. She was a predator, and she wanted meat. Raw. And lots of it.
Sloan bought a pound of calf's liver and the smallest beef heart he could find. He had a freezer full of meat from the steer he'd had butchered last fall, and even though he had doled them out judiciously, the organ meats had disappeared from Pandora's bowl months ago. Today's purchases would hold her for a while, and he'd be able to eat his own meals without having to endure her outraged stare. He'd planned to buy several other items, but the mood for shopping had left him the moment he'd spied Shelly's Bronco. He did take time to grab some milk and cottage cheese and some lettuce and onions before he headed to the checkout counter.
“Hi, Sloan. Didn't realize that you were in town. The big city finally got you down, and you had to come back to God's country, right?”
Sloan smiled at Debbie Smith, manning her familiar post at MacGuire's register. Well into her sixties, with her steel gray hair, pale blue eyes, pink, plump cheeks, and round little body, she looked like a Disney version of a grandmother. She had been at MacGuire's for as long as Sloan could remember and had started work behind the meat counter when the place had been nothing more than a tiny butcher shop tucked into the corner of Joe's Market, the oldest grocery store in the valley. As MacGuire's had grown and prospered, so had Debbie. She'd met her husband, Tom, at the store forty years ago; he'd been hired to stock shelves when the market expanded into its own tiny building, adding a few fresh vegetables, milk, and camping supplies to the meat counter. Those days were gone; MacGuire's was now a full-fledged grocery store, and Tom presently supervised the meat department and Debbie ran the freezer section and manned one of the three checkout counters whenever necessary or she felt the need to gossip. She could have retired long ago, but as she said often enough, “I like people. I like seeing what's going on in town. And if I retired, I'd be down here visiting with everyone anyway. This way, I get to visit, and I get paid for it, too!”
Glancing down at the liver and heart in Sloan's basket, she snorted. “You spoil that dog, you know that, don't you?”
Sloan grinned. One of the blessings and curses of the valley was that everyone really did know your business. “I know,” he said easily. “Sometimes I wonder who owns who.”
“If you'd get yourself a wife and some kids, that question would be settled right quick,” Debbie said as she rang up his order. “Your folks would love some grandkids, and with five kids, you'd think that one of you would have found the time to produce at least one member of the next generati
on.”
“Yeah, well, you'd better talk to the others, because I tried marriage once, remember?” he muttered. With anyone else, he would have remained silent and simply frozen them with an icy stare, but Debbie treated everyone under the age of fifty as if they were one of her children—or grandchildren. Even as he wished she'd mind her own business, Sloan knew that her motives were kind.
Aware that she had strayed into painful territory, Debbie looked stricken. “Oh, Sloan, I am sorry. Me and my big mouth. I keep forgetting.” But she couldn't leave it alone either. Her eyes on the task of bagging his groceries, she murmured, “Of course, it's been four years now. Time for you to move on. Tall, handsome fellow like you, shouldn't have any trouble finding a nice girl.”
“Debbie, I haven't been interested in ‘nice’ girls since I turned sixteen. What makes you think I'm going to change now?”
“You're right about that! But since nice girls are out of the question, what's stopping you from finding yourself a bad one then? There's bound to be a half dozen floozies in town who would swoon if you gave them a chance to climb your bones. At least then you'd have some other female company besides that little rat of a dog.”
“ ‘Climb my bones’?” Sloan asked with mock incredulity. “Mrs. Smith, you have shocked me. Does Mr. Smith know that you pass out that sort of advice to young innocent men like myself?”
“Innocent?” Debbie snorted. “Go on, get out of here—and give Pandora a kiss for me.”
Sloan grinned at her and hefted his bag of groceries and walked out to the Suburban. His cabin at Hobb's Flat was ten miles away—six of it gravel and most of it snake-backed, but he'd driven it so often, he didn't have to concentrate on the road. He allowed himself to think about this afternoon…and the meeting with Shelly.
He'd envisioned seeing her again often enough. And he'd thought after having caught that glimpse of her in the car at Inspiration Point that night that he would be prepared for a face-to-face meeting. He smiled mirthlessly. But he hadn't been. He'd been blindsided at the emotional tangle she had aroused within him. He had been convinced that when they met again, that he'd be very cool and collected, that all he would feel for her would be contempt and something very close to hatred. Certainly he had never expected that he'd be glad to see her. He shook his head, as he turned off the main road and began to drive up the narrow lane to the cabin. He supposed that was what astounded him the most, the knowledge that for one split second he'd been deliriously, hell, ecstatically happy to see Shelly Granger.
The lust hadn't surprised him. In fact it would have surprised him if he hadn't reacted physically to her in some way. With everything else that had gone wrong between them, the sex had always been good. He grimaced. OK. Admit it, the best he'd ever had.
Pushing into the cabin, he avoided stepping on Pandora as she danced around his feet. Busy trying not to break a leg as Pandora scampered in and out of his legs as he tried to walk to the kitchen, he put thoughts of Shelly out of his mind.
There was a chill in the air, the hint of a storm, and after putting the groceries away and feeding a demanding Pandora half a slice of raw liver, Sloan made himself a small fire in the living room. It started to rain, and he stood staring bleakly out of the window, his thoughts straying toward Shelly.
An insistent pawing on his leg and a soft whine made him look down. Pandora, always sensitive to his moods, stared back, her little black eyes fixed on him. He smiled and picked her up.
“What's the matter, liver-breath?” he asked as he ruffled her ears. “Am I not paying enough attention to you?”
Pandora gave him a warm, wet kiss on the nose. Sloan blinked as he was enveloped in the odor of raw liver. “Whew! Haven't you heard of breath mints?” he scolded as he put her down. Pandora regarded him a moment, then, as if deciding she had lavished enough attention on him, she trotted over to the couch and jumped up onto her blanket and proceeded to make herself a nest. Curled up and comfy, she gave a contented sigh and made Sloan smile. It occurred to him, as he joined Pandora on the couch and propped his feet up on the low redwood table in front of it, that maybe Debbie was right. One thing was sure: Something was very wrong in his life when his only female companion was a dog who gave him liver-scented kisses.
Chapter Six
It was still raining on Wednesday night when Jeb came to dinner. Not a true rain, but a continuation of the misty drizzle that seemed to be the norm for most of the storms this year. Already there was talk of how dry the rainy season had been so far, and worries about the cost of hay and alfalfa had begun to creep into conversations around the valley. As for the feed in the hills, well, there wasn't much of that either and several ranchers had already driven their herds of cattle down to the valley floor—weeks, even months ahead of time.
Shelly had shooed Maria out of the kitchen as soon as she'd come home from shopping in town this morning. She had spent most of the day humming to herself as she had bustled about baking and cooking. She enjoyed cooking, but being single and living alone, it was something that she didn't do often, so she pulled out all the stops.
Working backward, she had started with baking a pecan pie, using a generous amount of the pecans she had sent along home in her Christmas package last year. It was a tradition, and the five pounds of shelled pecans were carefully doled out during the year in pies and cakes and cookies baked by Maria. Just as walnuts were plentiful in California, pecans were plentiful in the South and so walnut pies were common on the West Coast, pies made with pecans rare, while pecan pies held sway in the South. Jeb would, Shelly thought, appreciate the difference.
The pie baked and cooling on the long counter, the big prawns she had found in MacGuire's earlier in the day were cooked in a spicy court bouillon, then peeled and cleaned and put in the refrigerator to chill. She chose to make tiny cheese puffs for hors d'oeuvres, and once they were out of the way, she mixed up the remoulade sauce she would serve with the shrimp for an appetizer and then set about cooking the main course: chicken jambalaya. The scents in the kitchen were delectable, and Shelly had no doubt she'd gained three pounds just sniffing the fragrant air. The old-fashioned soaked salad she'd planned to serve was quickly mixed and set in the refrigerator to, well, soak. Fresh steamed broccoli and, she made a face, store-bought rolls would round out the meal. She'd have liked to have made some New Orleans French bread, but by three o'clock that afternoon, she was glad she had given in to practicality and bought commercial dinner rolls that morning. Now for the table.
She glanced into the walnut-paneled formal dining room and wrinkled her nose. It was handsome and grand and too big, too opulent for what she wanted. She decided that the oak table in the kitchen alcove would be just fine and would certainly make her serving task easier. Besides, she doubted Jeb would care where he ate as long as he ate. Some gaily patterned yellow-and-green place mats, matching napkins in brass holders, crystal goblets, and a dainty arrangement of daffodils from the garden completed her efforts. Now for a long shower and some comfortable clothes, she thought, as she climbed the stairs to her room.
At 6:30 P.M. almost on the dot, Shelly heard the sound of a vehicle in the driveway, and a moment later she opened the door to her guest. She smiled at Jeb, recognizing the St.
Galen's version of dress-up: Western-style jacket, a freshly ironed plaid shirt, clean jeans, and polished boots. Except for the loafers on her feet, she wasn't dressed all that differently, having chosen to wear a pair of hunter green corduroy jeans and a loose-fitting yellow sweater.
A big grin on his dark face, Jeb swept off the inevitable Western hat and thrust the two bottles of wine he held in his other hand at her. “Didn't know which kind to bring,” he said as he stepped inside the house, “so I brought both.”
Shelly glanced at the labels, her brows rising. “Impressive. When did you become a wine connoisseur?”
He chuckled. “I just went into a liquor store today in Ukiah and told the fellow behind the counter to give me a bottle of his most expe
nsive white and do the same with the red.” They both laughed, and the evening was off to a good start.
As the evening progressed, it was clear Jeb enjoyed every bit of her culinary efforts. Watching the amount of food he put away, from the miraculously disappeared cheese puffs to the dessert, she wondered seriously if one pecan pie would be enough. It was. Pushing back from the table, the few crumbs on his plate all that remained of his third piece of pie, Jeb gave a blissful sigh.
“If those paintings of yours ever stop selling, kiddo, you could get a job as a chef in a flash.” He smiled at her where she sat across from him in the small kitchen alcove. “You could put me down as a reference.”
Without comment she got up and poured them both another cup of coffee before settling once again at the table. Almost by tacit agreement they had spent the evening catching up with each other. She'd told him about her life in New Orleans, of her successful career as a landscape artist, and some of her plans for the future. He'd talked about happenings in the valley, filling in the pieces that Nick and Maria hadn't been able to. What they hadn't talked about was Josh.
Sipping her coffee, she gazed at him. “OK, I've fed you, and we've caught up on events here and in New Orleans. I think it's time that you sing for your supper and tell me what you know…and suspect, about Josh's death.”
Jeb grimaced. “I'd kinda hoped to avoid that subject, but I'll play fair—or as fair as I can.” He hesitated, looking down at his cup of coffee, the light overhead glinting on the silver strands that were mixed in with the black hair. Those silver hairs came as a shock to Shelly, as did the realization that Jeb was forty-five years old and no longer the cocky young deputy that she remembered so well. None of them, she admitted, were getting any younger—hopefully, they were wiser.
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