"I don't, thank you very much." She lifted the comforter off the floor and set it on the couch.
He wiped the sweat from his brow. He was hot from running, and she was only making matters worse. "I saw the light in the window, and I thought you were up. I wanted to let you know I'd be in the backyard looking over my fence. I didn't want you to think I was a prowler."
"Is that your property back there? Why can't you check the fence from your own side, or was this a big excuse to see what I was doing here?"
"See what you were doing? First of all, I was jogging past Maple Lane, and it was an impulsive idea, automatic even. I used to look in on Brianna, and I thought I would check on her house. I didn't know you were here. And secondly, you're not that interesting."
"Fine." Kat fisted her hips, putting tension on her pajama top. The middle button unfastened, creating a wide gap that exposed her flesh. She quickly hunched inward and crossed her arms, her face registering a brilliant pink.
Chance tried, unsuccessfully, to choke down a chuckle.
She reached for the comforter and pressed it to her chest. "Okay, that's it. Go see to your precious fence."
Shaking his head, he reached for the doorknob and muttered under his breath, "Nope. Nothing like Brianna."
"What did you say?"
"I said . . ." He faced her, ready to spit out an insult, but he looked into her eyes and read the pain behind the anger. His growing contempt melted away. "Look," he said, softening the pitch of his voice, "why don't we call a truce."
"What for?"
Because of the snappish way she'd answered him, it was all he could do to stand still, instead of taking this petulant woman across his knee or better yet into his arms. She was so feisty, but she was also so sexy and irresistible in her slinky little pajama set. Her large features, spread evenly across her face, reminded him of the beautiful Julia Roberts.
He took a step back. He couldn't believe he had thoughts like this, especially about Kat Summers. He glanced at the ceiling in a heaven-help-me prayer and blew out an exasperated breath. "Don't you agree we've been at each other's throats ever since you rolled into this town? Brianna was a friend of mine, and I really don't want to fight with her sister. I don't think she would have liked that."
Kat traced the floor with her gaze and seemed deep in thought, making him feel as if he were on trial by the toughest judge. "I do have some questions for you." Her voice had lost its edge.
"Fire away."
"At least let me put on some clothes before we talk." She draped herself with the comforter and sauntered off, the material trailing her like a wedding veil.
Chance couldn't believe he was actually making progress with the woman.
He spread the curtains a tad to check on Zeke and found the dog lying in the grass under a low-hanging maple branch, his eager eyes fixed on the door.
Now that Brianna was gone, Chance found it somewhat difficult to be in her house. He glanced around, looking for any evidence of her, first in the kitchen where he noticed the phone off the hook. Across the room he observed what was left of Kat's dinner—remnants of a frozen meal, an empty wineglass, and a bag of chips—not Brianna's style, not even the wine.
Closer to him on the end table was an opened prescription bottle. He couldn't resist picking it up.
As he was examining the label, Kat appeared in the doorway in jeans and a long-sleeved maroon sweatshirt with "Loggins Realty" inscribed in white letters above her left breast. Her hair was swept back in a ponytail away from a face with no trace of makeup. In one day she'd transformed herself from a hot-shot city woman to a country girl. He liked what he saw.
She walked toward him in purposeful strides. In one fluid motion she snatched the bottle out of his hands.
"You know, alcohol and pills don't mix."
"It's none of your business."
He nodded toward the phone. "Is there someone you'd rather not talk to? An old flame or a man you've got on the string?"
She hung up the receiver and marched back to Chance. "That, too, is none of your business. I thought we were having a truce."
He flipped his palms in the air and leaned back. "Guilty as charged." He expected her to throw him out, but instead she asked him to sit down.
He moved to one end of the couch, assuming she would sit next to him in a friendly gesture, but she dragged a wooden chair from the table and sat opposite him with the round braided rug between them, a hostile position in his view, her arms high across her chest.
"What did you want to ask me?" His eyes were drawn to her bare feet with toenails lightly polished in pink, but her exaggerated cough snapped his attention upward.
He'd barely sat down when she blurted, "You were sleeping with her, weren't you."
Her accusation was a slap in the face. "Where did that come from?"
"Just answer me."
"Not until you tell me where you got that idea."
"From Bertie."
"Bertie? What exactly did she say to you?"
"She said Brianna was spending time with you at your ranch."
"And you naturally assumed I was sleeping with her."
"Well, were you?"
Her belligerent tone irked him. He hated being grilled. It reminded him of his past, and he reacted to it with a stone-cold stare. "Brianna and I were friends, and I take offense at your implication." He stood and walked toward the door.
She sprang from her chair. "Sorry if I offended you."
He looked at her straight on. "Are you?"
"I'm just looking for answers," Kat said. "I don't know why Brianna took her life. Yes, she had problems, tons of them. Considering her roots, she had a right to every one of them. But I can't believe she would do such a thing unless something happened that knocked her for a loop. She was always very fragile. My theory is she was involved with someone she really cared about. Maybe she'd even fallen in love with him. He strung her along, and then he dumped her. To me that would explain why she was so distraught."
"And you thought that someone was me."
"You're the last man she spent time with."
"Then you're not a very good judge of character, and did you ever stop to think she might have had other male friends?" With a hand on the doorknob, he said, "You can rest assured, Ms. Summers. I wasn't sleeping with your sister." On his way out he slammed the door.
CHAPTER 7
Kat couldn't decide whether the chill in the house stemmed from lack of heat or from Chance Eliason's ice-cold presence. Whatever the cause the house needed a good warming. She switched on the heater.
She went into the bedroom and peeled back the curtain, just wide enough to see Chance raking his hair and stalking the fence line like a bull wanting to bust out of a corral. His face was hidden from her, but she suspected he was cursing.
She left him wiggling one of the fence posts and went into the kitchen to make peanut butter toast for breakfast. In the cupboard she searched for a jar of instant coffee but found only boxes of herbal tea. There were jars of dried herbs, vitamin bottles, and a container of protein powder. This amazed her. Brianna had never delved into health foods. As far as Kat could remember, Brianna had always had dreadful eating habits, same as Kat.
While standing in the kitchen and eating her toast, she could feel the tension from outside seeping through the walls. She couldn't relax until she heard Chance whistle for Zeke and saw him jog away from the house.
She didn't care if Chance was upset with her for questioning him. She had a right to ask about the relationship he had with Brianna, had a right to make sense of Brianna's death. Couldn't he understand her motivation? With no suicide note to go by, Kat was determined to find someone in this town who could provide her with answers.
When Chance was inside the house with her, she'd had a difficult time focusing. In such a small space the man's presence was powerful, almost suffocating. Projecting herself with force, bordering on anger, had been the only way she felt she could match his power.
His power was intoxicating indeed, and regrettably she was attracted to it. His looks didn't help matters either. His features weren't symmetrical; his nose angled to the right, one side of his mouth tipped upward, but in total he was very attractive. Dark hair on his arms and legs dusted Mediterranean skin. His sweat-soaked shirt had clung to a broad chest. He wasn't overly muscled, but his hard, powerful thighs hadn't escaped her attention. But neither had the ease with which his demeanor changed from warmth to ice.
From her experience in the business world, men like Chance wouldn't gravitate to a place like Rosswood. That in itself made her wonder what his background was and what he was really doing here.
Brianna's phone startled her out of her thoughts. Considering the strange call she'd had in the middle of the night, she hesitated before picking up. A man introduced himself as Tim Holmes of Holmes Auto Repair. Lenny Faulkes, the postman, had told him about Kat's ad, and he wanted to come by to look at Brianna's car.
"How did you know I was here?"
"Everyone in town knows you're at Brianna's house."
Small town gossip. Kat arranged to see him in an hour, giving her enough time to clean up.
The one-person bathroom was just large enough for her to circle around in. The portable heater took up half the space. It took Kat a full minute to regulate the water temperature. She slipped out of her clothes and squeezed into the metal shower stall. The hot water trickled over her body, providing her with more warmth than she'd experienced since her arrival in Rosswood. By the time she'd washed and conditioned her hair with Brianna's coconut-scented hair products, the water was lukewarm. She rinsed as quickly as possible before she was totally immersed in the cold.
She dried herself with a clean towel she'd found under the sink, dressed in a hurry, and blow-dried her hair. Out of habit she applied makeup, although she wondered why she even bothered to look good in a place like Rosswood.
Five minutes before the hour was up, there was a knock on the door. A sandy-haired man with sideburns, about her age, no taller than her five foot ten, gave her a nod. When he smiled, the cleft in his chin rose, and his eyes drooped downward. He wiped his palm on his greasy coveralls and extended it to Kat. "I called about the car."
She shook his trembling hand, but he snatched it away with an apologetic smile. "Nervous condition. Worse in the morning." With a curious look he stepped to the side and peered into the house.
"You said your name's Holmes. Are you related to the sheriff?"
"He's my dad. Best damn law enforcement officer in the county."
"I talked to him when I was here before. He helped me with the arrangements for my sister."
"I sure was sorry to hear about what happened to her."
Kat preferred to move the conversation along. "Why don't we look at the car?" She grabbed her jacket, and he made way for her to walk ahead of him. "You can go in and check it out if you want. I'd rather not go inside. I assume you know the history of it."
"Everyone in town knows about it, but I really don't need to check it over. I just want it for the parts. That's what your ad said, didn't it? I can buy it for the parts? I've got my tow truck here with me."
They both glanced at the truck with the black cab and "Holmes Towing" painted on the side in bold white script.
"I can haul it right away once we settle on a price. How much are you asking?"
Surprised anyone would call this quickly, Kat hadn't even thought that far ahead. "Gosh, I don't know. It's not much of a car. I don't even know if it runs." Wishing it out of her sight once and for all, her sales acumen disappeared like smoke. "You name a price."
"You don't have anything in mind?"
"Not really," she said. "What do you think it's worth?"
The way he stared at the car, not moving an inch to examine it, Kat figured he was more spooked by its history than he let on. Afraid she wouldn't be able to unload it, she said, "I'll give it to you free and clear. I just want it gone."
He raised his brows but didn't seem overly thrilled or surprised. "Okay, then. I'll have to ask you to move your car."
"Of course." She wrestled her keys from her jacket pocket, backed the SUV out, and parked in front of the house.
He maneuvered his truck into place, and she stood on the grass and watched him hook up the old Ford. When Kat came to Rosswood to see about Brianna, the sheriff had given her its contents: her keys, papers in the glove compartment, mittens, a stuffed dog she had in the back window, and other miscellaneous items. Kat worked the car keys off the ring that had a metal medallion engraved with the letter B.
He yanked the driver's door open and fished around inside. He brought Kat a red wool stocking cap, and his hand shook worse than before. "I found this in the back seat."
Kat clutched the hat to her body. "You should see about that."
"See about what?"
"The shaking."
"It's nothing." He slowly backed away from her and got in the cab of his truck.
"What about the title?"
"You can bring it around when you want," he shouted to her as he revved up the engine. As he inched down the driveway, Brianna's car, in protest, creaked and groaned like a beleaguered cow.
"Wait." Kat caught up with him before he made the turn onto the road. "Did you know Brianna? You didn't call my cell phone. You called Brianna's number."
"Sure, lady, I knew Brianna. Everyone knew Brianna." He stepped on the gas and sped up without so much as a wave or a thank-you.
Kat was too thrilled to be rid of the car to dwell on Tim Holmes's rude departure. The best thing about a small town like Rosswood was that word traveled fast, and the ad at the post office had paid off. One burden was lifted.
As to the dirty, musty garage, apart from burning it to the ground, she could do nothing about it except close the door and hide the hollow shell. She yanked on the rope to drag the door downward, but it caught at the halfway point. She yanked it again. It wouldn't budge. The metal arm was warped, and there was no way anyone could force the door to the ground short of hammering the arm straight. She tried tugging again, but the door snagged in the same old spot. Odd.
Everything about Brianna's death was odd. One day she was happy. The next day she killed herself in a garage with a door that wouldn't even close.
Kat shook her head in frustration. Enough of this. She came to Rosswood to take care of loose ends and get out, and that was exactly what she intended to do.
Inside the bedroom she opened the door to the closet and wasn't prepared for the wrench in her gut at the sight of Brianna's clothes: jeans, flannel shirts, some dress slacks, a blouse or two, and other odds and ends. Clothes were never as important to Brianna as they were to Kat. A small chest of drawers, snug in the corner, held Brianna's lighter garments.
Kat scanned the top shelf of the closet for clean sheets but found only an extra blanket draped over a cardboard box. A laptop lay next to it. She'd examine that later.
She gathered the dirty sheets. A portable washer/dryer was wedged into the kitchen corner originally intended for a table. She hooked the appliance up to the sink and stuffed it full with one sheet.
About a year after Brianna had moved into the cottage, she'd complained to Kat about how much she despised using the Laundromat. Although Kat had balked at the idea, she'd purchased the appliance and at great expense had it delivered to Rosswood. She was glad to have it now.
After she'd given Brianna a hefty down payment for the house and sprung for the washer/dryer, Kat had refused to offer any more monetary help. When Brianna died, she was a month behind on her mortgage. Could money issues have contributed to her downward spiral? Kat wished she knew.
She slipped on one of Brianna's flannel shirts, opened the windows that weren't stuck shut, and dumped the spoiled food from the refrigerator into the garbage can by the garage. After the fridge was scrubbed clean, she stood back and admired her work. Not bad for a person who hated to scrub anything beyond her toes. The hou
se certainly smelled fresher.
She made up the bed with the newly cleaned sheets, knowing later her back would be grateful for it. She sat on the comforter to calculate how much more had to be done before she could leave Rosswood. The rest of the house needed cleaning. A fresh coat of paint would brighten the interior. Painting the exterior would definitely raise the value. She'd have to hire someone to do the work, but that could be done before she left, and she wouldn't have to be present.
And then there was the chore of going through Brianna's clothes and personal items, deciding what to keep and what to give to the thrift shop. However unpleasant a task that might be, she could possibly be out of Rosswood within a week. But for one day, she'd done enough. She longed for some fresh air.
On the closet floor she found a pair of sturdy walking shoes. It gave her a squeamish feeling wearing Brianna's shirt and shoes, but she hadn't packed well for a week in the country, not with her high-heeled boots and her flimsy leather jacket. She searched everywhere but couldn't locate a parka or other warm coat. The flannel shirt would have to do.
Outside, a light, crisp breeze fluttered the leaves that remained on the maple limbs. A robin flew up to one of the branches. Beyond the tree's reach, the sun warmed Kat's face.
She walked at a brisk pace down Maple Lane past the church parking lot. As she approached the main road, a gray-haired lady eyed Kat from her front porch with neither a nod nor a wave. At the junction a Jeep drove by Kat, and the driver did a double take. Along Randall Road a truck slowed, and a bearded man in a ball cap offered her a ride, which she politely refused.
The walk into town was only a mile long, but by the time she hit Central Street, her feet hurt in the shoes that were a size too small and narrower than her own. She spotted the beauty shop with an interest in getting a foot soak and a pedicure. But this was Rosswood, not Seattle. Still, she might get lucky.
As she stopped to cross the street, an older couple stared at her, and she recalled what Tim Holmes had said: everybody in town knew Brianna. They probably recognized Brianna's clothes. Passing the general store, she saw Hank craning his neck to get a better look at her. She quickly ducked into the Honey Comb Beauty Salon.
Rose from the Grave Page 4