by Jodi Thomas
When she walked back down the hallway from her room, the bathroom door was closed and she could hear the shower.
He was back. One more thing to worry about. Add that to her list.
She tried not to let thoughts of a nude man in their house concern her, but as soon as Dakota reached the kitchen, Maria whispered, “Did you open the door to see if he has tattoos?”
“No.” Dakota sat down at her now cold, still untouched, breakfast. “And before you start, nothing happened last night.”
Maria was busy wrapping tiny loaves of cinnamon bread. “I know that. I know you. But I can always hope. You haven’t had many dates lately. Maybe even a Hamilton would look good.”
Dakota almost said, Since the accident five years ago. Since the night Mom died and Maria lost her sight.
She’d never forget stepping out of Maria’s hospital room and looking around for her mother, needing her hug, even if she was twenty. That moment, reality hit her like a sledgehammer to the heart: she was alone. There would be no more hugs from Mom. Dakota had walked out of the hospital and sat in the dark parking lot, crying, for hours. Until no more tears came.
She’d never cried again. She worked to take care of Maria and keep things together. There was no time, no thought of dating.
Now, watching Maria, she remained silent. They talked about everything else, but not the accident. Not that day. Mom had flown over to Dallas to ride home with Maria for Christmas. The roads were bad. Maria had worked the late shift at her café and crawled into the back of the car to sleep. Mom was never good driving on snow.
Dakota should have been the one to go, but she’d wanted to relax at home after she got back from college. She’d fallen asleep before dark, before the ice storm moved across the plains.
The phone woke her hours later. The sheriff’s call. He’d been kind and honest, but she knew his call had changed her life forever.
She should have been in the car that day. She would have been the one driving. Maybe somehow she could have avoided the wreck on the icy highway. Then Mom would be alive, Maria would still be running her restaurant in Dallas, and she’d be... Dakota closed her eyes and let out a breath before she let her might have been settle in her thoughts.
She might be graduating from architecture school about now.
Maria broke into Dakota’s dark thoughts. “You need to get out on a date, little sister. Have some fun. Have an adventure. I’m fine here. I’ve got my work and my books. I’m happy.”
Dakota forced her tone to be light. “I’m happy too. And I’m doing fine. I slept with a biker last night, didn’t I? How much more excitement can I take?”
They both laughed as the bathroom door creaked open and steam filled the hallway. The man who stepped out was bare chested, with jeans riding low on his hips. He had a towel wrapped around his neck but his tanned chest and back sparkled with moisture. His hair was slicked back, reminding Dakota of a handsome pirate in one of Maria’s books.
“You mind if I finish dressing in the hallway?” he asked, staring straight at Dakota. “It’s so foggy in there I can’t see a thing.”
She couldn’t turn away, but managed to swallow a few times and whisper, “No tattoos.”
“Darn.” Maria looked disappointed. “I already had that picture in my mind. Since he hangs out around fires, do you see any scars?”
Dakota stared, not really knowing what to expect. She couldn’t have imagined a man who looked as good as the man standing before her. “Yes,” she whispered back, knowing that Blade could hear them. “No tattoos, but a few interesting scars.”
He didn’t react as he scrubbed his hair with the towel, then finger-combed it back into place with one deep plow. He pulled on a white T-shirt and then a collarless sweater of army green. “I left my boots on your porch. Got them covered in another layer of mud when I parked your pickup and jumped the stream to where my bike was. Luckily, last night I’d dropped my saddlebags on the porch when I looked at the house. My clothes and camera survived the night.”
When he looked up at her, Dakota forced her gaze down at her food.
He ignored her as he walked past her stool and took his place at the bar. “All right if I finish breakfast, Chef Maria? Then, if Dakota is still speaking to me, I thought I’d catch a ride into town.”
Another favor?
She nodded, trying to decide what she was so mad about. That he’d spent the night? That he’d hit it off with Maria and not her? That he was good-looking and obviously knew it?
Maybe Maria’s first suggestion was right. They should have killed him the minute they found out a Hamilton was alive. He might not look dangerous, but he looked good enough to drive her crazy.
“Sure, she’ll take you in.” Maria smiled. “I’ll put a few loaves of cinnamon bread in a bag for you. If you want any more breakfast, eat up quick because she’ll be flying out of here any minute. She may be the only one in her office, but she thinks she has to open on time.”
As Maria poured his coffee, he glanced at Dakota and asked, “How does she do that?”
“She’s holding the cup. She feels the weight and the warmth as the cup fills,” Dakota said. “And she’s blind, not deaf. If you want to know something, ask her.” Her words came out hard, cold.
“Sorry,” he said to Maria, ignoring Dakota again. “I’ve never been around anyone blind. You’re a great cook.”
“For a blind person?” Maria added.
“No. For anyone.” Blade might not have experience, but he was a quick learner. “This is the best breakfast I’ve had in years. Most of the time I’m traveling and it’s fast food at an airport or continental breakfast at the hotel.”
“You travel lots?” Dakota asked.
“So much so I feel like I don’t have a home, just a place where I change clothes. When I found out about the place across the lake, I took some time off to investigate. I’ve never owned a square inch of land in my life.”
“Are you planning to stay?” Maria asked as she handed Dakota her bag with a tiny loaf of bread.
“No. I’ll sell it. I wouldn’t have any idea how to make a farm work.”
Dakota suddenly saw a light at the end of her dark tunnel. “I could list it and sell it for you. That’s what I do for a living.” All she had to do was put up with him for a few days, sell his place, and she just might make twice the commission she usually did.
“Sounds exciting, Hamilton,” Maria said. “Your job, I mean.”
He turned back to Maria. “It can be, but mostly it’s just paperwork or standing around waiting for something to happen. Not near as exciting as I thought it might be when I signed on.”
They were ignoring her again, Dakota thought. He hadn’t even answered her offer to sell his place.
Dakota thought of asking questions, but right now all she could think of was getting him out of their kitchen. The last thing Maria needed was a friend who’d be around for only a few days. After the accident, all of the friends her sister had had in Dallas melted away like ice cream left on a summer porch.
Maybe she didn’t believe in curses, but still, avoiding any Hamilton seemed to be a rational precaution.
The sheriff’s cruiser pulled up in her yard before she had time to push Blade out the door.
“Morning, ladies,” Sheriff Brigman shouted through the screen door without stepping foot on the porch. “Any chance a guy named Hamilton is here? He couldn’t have gone far. I saw his bike parked on his land.”
Blade hurried outside with the bag of bread in his hand. “I’m just finishing breakfast, Sheriff. What do you need?”
Dakota watched the two men talking but couldn’t make out what they were saying. If Hamilton already knew the sheriff, that could mean bad news. He could have lied about his job. He probably got that killer body in the prison gym. Mayb
e he had to check in with every sheriff in every county he passed through? He probably said he was ATF because that was who arrested him.
Maria had just joined her at the door when Blade picked up his boots and saddlebags off the corner of the porch and waved.
“Thanks,” was all he said before the sheriff backed the car away from the porch with Blade riding shotgun.
“Probably off to fight a forest fire,” Maria reasoned. “What a hero.”
“There’s not five trees standing together for a hundred miles,” Dakota said, pointing out the obvious.
Maria looked surprised. “Now you tell me.”
Both girls laughed.
“I have to go to work.” Dakota grabbed the old briefcase she’d bought at the secondhand store three years ago.
“Me too,” Maria added. “See you before dark, little sister.”
“See you before dark,” Dakota answered.
Halfway to town Dakota was still thinking of how Blade had looked in the hallway with nothing on but his jeans. Surely he could have pulled his shirt on before he stepped out. Then she realized something: he’d been showing off.
And not for Maria, but for her.
He’d probably deny it to his dying breath, but she’d grown up on a farm. She’d seen roosters. Maybe he came not just to look at his place but to con them. He’d said he wasn’t a liar, but probably every liar said that. It would be a waste of time to ask him if he was a serial killer.
She might as well go with believing he was telling the truth for now, but she planned to watch him. Maybe check out his funny biker saddlebags for weapons.
She smiled, planning to hold her cards close to her chest until she figured him out. If he was playing some kind of flirting game, maybe she should warn him that she didn’t know the rules.
He’d winked at her twice. That must mean something.
Maybe he had a twitch?
He’d kept her warm last night, but never touched her.
Or at least she didn’t think he had. Did she want him to? Just the thought made her warm.
Suddenly Dakota felt like she was just out of high school again and trying to figure out how guys think. She glanced in the rearview mirror. Cheeks flushed, eyes wide.
She wasn’t growing older. Not today.
CHAPTER NINE
BLADE HAMILTON DIDN’T KNOW a thing about farming or ranching or barn fires. All the way out to the Collins ranch, the sheriff talked about how he needed an expert fire investigator to have a look at it and it would be a week, maybe more, before he could get a fire marshal to this part of Texas.
Blade hated to bust the sheriff’s bubble, but Sheriff Brigman still didn’t have an expert on the kind of fire he was dealing with. He had studied arson fires and even worked a few bomb sites in the army. So, Blade kept quiet while the sheriff drove and hoped he had enough experience to fake it.
For the past five years he had worked fires set in wooded areas. That was different from this, and the only tool of his trade he had with him was his camera. But he’d known his enemy in the woods of northern Washington and the hills of California. The opponent hadn’t changed, just the location had. Blade began to collect facts about the land, and mentally started a list of questions.
When they turned off under a ten-foot gate with a Bar W brand, Blade had stopped listening to the sheriff and started trying to remember what he’d learned over the past five years. The same rules should apply—well a few of them, anyway. He could help. If the sheriff wanted a special agent helping out, he had one.
The soaked ground had probably kept the whole ranch from being a disaster. Winter grass, if it had been dry, would burn fast and hot. There wouldn’t be much chance of stopping it except at roads or creeks. Barbed wire wouldn’t slow it down. And there probably weren’t enough men in the county to fight it on a dry night.
Last night the rain had given him hell, but it had stopped the fire on the Bar W from spreading.
“Who am I kidding?” Sheriff Brigman asked, pulling Blade back into the conversation. “No one will come out this far because a few barns burned down. I’d never get a fire marshal or the ATF agent here. Not unless we find a body in the ashes. If I hadn’t remembered meeting you, I’d be on my own. It’s lucky you’re here, Hamilton.”
“You might want to ask the Davis women about that.” Blade wished he’d been awake enough last night to remember one thing, but he was dead on his feet when he got to the barn and found Dakota sleeping in that old chair. “They mentioned Hamiltons tend to kill Davises, so they weren’t too happy when I showed up. Every now and then the youngest one looks at me like she’s checking to see if there’s a weapon in my hand.”
The sheriff laughed. “From what I heard, bullets flew in both directions back during the feud. Like most good Western stories, it started with stolen cattle and ended with a woman. Legend goes that the last man to die in the bloody battle that night killed himself. Walked right straight into Indigo Lake until the water covered his head. Only I’ve heard whispers of an even darker ending. No one really knows. There was not one man named Davis or Hamilton left alive to tell the story, and the women told them more to frighten the next generation than to be passing along history.”
Blade swore he felt his blood chill. What could be darker? One of his relatives, maybe even one on the staircase wall, had committed suicide? Blade decided he didn’t want to know the darker ending if suicide was the good choice.
He took a deep breath and thought of Dakota. She was the other half of the feud. Maybe, if she was still speaking to him later, he’d ask her about her family stories. Even in her very proper, very boring clothes, he saw the flash of a fighter in those dark eyes of hers and in the crimson glints in her hair. Maria had mentioned they’d come from strong warriors on both their Irish and Apache sides. Stubborn. Independent. Deadly.
Her hair, he almost said aloud. He remembered the smell of her hair when her head had rolled against his jaw as he carried her. It smelled of soap and rain and something else. She must have braided it as she studied. A loose braid, thick and dark with no clip or string tying off the end. The opposite of the tight bun she was wearing at breakfast.
Blade forced his mind back to the problem at hand. “You’re right. A fire marshal is not likely to come out, but I’m happy to help if I can. Why not? A good mystery while I’m on vacation will hold my interest.”
The sheriff was silent for a moment. “Thanks. I’ve got a few of the volunteer fire department standing guard at each barn. I told them to keep an eye out for any embers starting up again, but what I wanted them there for, in truth, was to make sure no one steps near. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a clue.”
“I’ll help if I can, but not as an official. Just doing you a favor.”
“That mean you’re not charging and I don’t have to fill out paperwork?”
“Right.”
“Good. The county doesn’t have any money to pay you, anyway.”
They drove a few miles before the sheriff asked, “You sleep last night in that old house on your land?”
“Nope.” Blade smiled, thinking of adding that he’d slept with Dakota, but in a small town, that might not go over well. “I slept in the Davis barn. They loaned me their pickup so I could get my bike out of the mud. After I take a look at the burn site, I thought I’d ask you for a favor. You know where I can rent a truck? If you’d give me a ride there, I’d have wheels again.”
“You’re staying around?” The sheriff sounded surprised.
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “For a few weeks, anyway.”
“I would have guessed you’d be out of here as fast as possible. The only way you’ll make money on that haunted house is to charge for tours on Halloween.”
Blade didn’t argue. “If I run now, the locals will think I’m afraid of an
old curse on that land.”
“Some folks think ghosts haunt your land. You might want to keep an eye out. A few people around here think the accident that caused Maria’s blindness and killed her mother was linked to the curse. It happened where cars turn off the highway toward your place. Her car rolled to within a few feet of where your land starts. Indigo Lake holds the bones of many a story.” The sheriff pulled up to the first barn and the conversation turned to fire.
Blade was surprised how informed the sheriff was about burn sites, and within a few minutes they were agreeing on possibilities as they approached the first barn. The frame was still standing against the cloudy sky like a smoldering border around a disaster.
“We’re lucky both barns that burned were hay barns. The other ones on the property have expensive equipment in them.”
After they’d circled several times, Blade said, “If I was guessing, I’d say, from the burn patterns, that the fire started in the dead center of the barn and spread out.”
Brigman didn’t argue. He simply nodded.
Finding the cause would be a process of elimination like any crime scene. They’d rule out one reason after another for the burn until only one scenario made sense. Lightning might be a possibility, but lightning hitting two barns on a ranch that hadn’t had a lightning strike do damage in ten years was not likely.
Blade walked the perimeter of both barns, reading the story of how the fire happened. He talked with the tired firemen standing guard. What did they see? Any people around when they arrived? Any cars or trucks leaving the place that might have passed them when they were heading to the fire? What did the fire look like, smell like? What color was the smoke? How did the blaze react to water?
He asked the same questions of each man at the scene while he took pictures of tire tracks in the mud. There were too many footprints to tell which had come first. Plus whoever set the fires probably did so before the heavy rain started. Their tracks would have been washed away.