Copper Lake Encounter

by Marilyn Pappano

  Nev’s eyes grew misty. By the time she’d turned twelve, she’d pretty much accepted that Lima was never going to love her the way she did Marieka. She’d had her father and YaYa, and she’d made that enough. But there were times, oh, when she wished they’d had the kind of relationship Ty and his mother had, the kind of memories he had.

  “She was twenty-six when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She’d gone to the doctor, told him she’d found a lump. He told her she was too young for it to be cancer. She told him her mother had died of ovarian cancer, and he said he’d watch it. Leave the worrying to him.” His voice dropped until she had to strain to hear it. “She died three months later.”

  Nev dabbed at her eyes. Part of her was sorry she’d asked the question. Part of her felt honored that he shared such precious recollections with her.

  He lifted her hand from the table and twined his fingers with hers. “You remind me of her.”

  It was the single most significant thing anyone had ever said to her. It touched her heart, filling it with such warmth, such emotion. She’d dreamed the past ten years of feeling this way about someone. Making this kind of connection. Falling in love.

  Lord, she’d known Ty would be dangerous to her heart. She just hadn’t realized how quickly it would happen.

  Getting even the faintest sound over the lump in her throat took some effort, and she sounded like a strangled frog. “That is... Oh, my.”

  “Yeah,” he said thoughtfully, as if he understood exactly what she was feeling.

  Even the possibility that he felt exactly what she felt made her giddy.

  She was sorry when the waitress chose that moment to deliver their meals, though Ty’s scallops and her own mesquite-grilled shrimp were beautifully prepared, exquisitely presented and incredibly mouthwatering. He let go of her hand—she regretted that, too, though only briefly, since she would be spending the night with him again—and speared a scallop to offer her.

  She let him slip the nugget into her mouth, an intimate act, it seemed, even in a dining room full of people, chewed it slowly and gave her customary too good for words moan.

  “You’re sexier eating than any other woman doing anything else,” he said with a chuckle.

  Her smile was as naughty as she could make it. “Oh, you are so getting lucky tonight, Tyler Gadney.”

  They talked, shared their food, drank their wine. It was easily the best night of Nev’s life, and the dessert—creamy mousse served in a box made of chocolate, complete with lid and bow tilted to one side—tasted as amazing as it looked. She was satisfied, sated, contented as a lazy fat cat, when she glanced into the bar across the room and saw a woman who could pass for Marieka.

  The resemblance was enough to make Nev do a double take. Six foot-plus in heels that displayed muscular calves to their best advantage, passion-red dress that hugged every curve and ended high on the thigh, long spiral curls in rich sable. Nev was pretty sure Marieka had the same weave in her extensive collection.

  As a man with shoulders as wide as a linebacker moved extraordinarily close to the woman, blocking her from view, Nev smiled. Even if she lived the rest of her life in Copper Lake, an idea that felt more right every day, Marieka would never deign to set foot there, not for a wedding, not for the birth of a niece or nephew, not for any reason for the sister she’d never been overly fond of.

  And Nev was okay with that. Truly, honestly okay.

  Ty took a last bite of the chocolate giftie and then laid his fork on the table. “I am so done.”

  She picked up a piece of the box lid, milk chocolate with squiggles of white and dark chocolate, and nibbled delicately before joining him with a great sigh. “Is there a Chantal around here somewhere?”

  “Used to be. She sold out a few months ago and left town. We’re grateful she left all her recipes behind.” He slid his credit card into the folder the waitress had delivered, and she swooped in to take it. “You feel up to a moonlight walk around the square?”

  “Sounds wonderful.” Hold hands with Ty, get a little exercise, work off a few calories and then go home and work off a whole lot more.

  The temperature had dropped noticeably with the sun going down. As they left the restaurant, a gentle breeze carried the scents of flowers, water and a fragrance that Nev identified as simply summer in Georgia. Lazy, hazy, comfortable. Home.

  Ty took her hand as they crossed River Road, and then they strolled the perimeter of the square, first on the north side and then the east. They didn’t talk. They didn’t need to. Lazy. Comfortable. Home.

  They were back at River Road, waiting to return to Chantal’s parking lot, when a muffled boom sounded to the south. His fingers tightened on hers, a reflex, his cop instincts kicking in, she supposed. A cop’s work is never done.

  “That was a loud backfire.”

  He glanced at her and then looked over his shoulder. “It wasn’t a backfire. Look at the sky back there. Fire.” Grimness radiated from him as sirens wailed to life. “In the area of the Heart of Copper Lake.”

  Nev’s stomach pitched, and for just an instant, she thought it would be a shame to lose such a wonderful dinner. She said a quick prayer that, whatever had happened, no one had been harmed, and then she picked up her pace to match Ty’s subconsciously longer strides.

  They had just reached his truck when his cell phone rang. He looked at the display, his mouth thinning, answered curtly and then listened for a moment before saying, “I’ll be there in two.”

  Murder and mayhem, he’d said earlier. Her teasing comment that she was mayhem didn’t seem funny now.

  “What happened?” she asked as he helped her into the truck.

  For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer, and then his gaze settled on her. “Someone just blew up your car.”

  * * *

  The fire was out, leaving a smoldering lump of rubber, synthetics and metal. Ironically, beyond the fact that it was totaled, there wasn’t a lot of external damage to the car: the back window had blown out, the paint was scorched, one outside mirror dangled while the other lay on the ground a few feet away. Water puddled around everything, droplets on the cars nearby reflecting streetlights.

  Grimly Ty shifted his gaze from the vehicle to Nev. After asking if anyone had been hurt—the answer was no—she’d been silent except for a small, squeaky ohh when the firefighters had finally cleared the area and let them and the police approach.

  Kiki joined them, hands on her hips. “I’m not even gonna bother hunting down a notebook. I’ve run out of questions to ask you.”

  They watched the firefighters roll up their hoses and gather their gear. One truck would stay at the scene for a while as an added precaution, but the others were returning to their firehouses on the east and west sides of town. The motel guests were gathered at the far end of the lot, impatiently waiting to return to their rooms, and gawkers lined the police barriers. Big excitement for a small town.

  “I wish you’d taken my advice last night and gone home,” Kiki said, turning her gaze back to Nev.

  “And what if this nutcase followed her?” Ty demanded sharply.

  Kiki shrugged. “At least it would be out of my jurisdiction. Someone else’s responsibility.”

  “Keeping her safe is my responsibility, and I don’t give a damn about jurisdiction.”

  “You’re not doing a very good job of it, are you?”

  Ty jerked his head around to respond, but Nev’s fingers tightening around his stopped him.

  “Why would somebody blow up my car?” she asked, sounding dazed and frightened but mostly bewildered. “How did he do it?”

  Kiki continued to glare at Ty while replying. “According to the fire marshal, he stuck a rag in the gas tank and set it on fire. He was long gone before the fumes exploded. No one saw anything, heard anything, kn
ows anything.”

  No one knew anything. Except that in the middle of a peaceful August evening, a car just blew up.

  Ty dragged his hand over his head as he looked around for the hundredth time. There was little damage to the surrounding vehicles—a couple of cracked windows, some blistering from the heat—and none to the motel. Nev’s car had definitely been the bastard’s target, and he’d succeeded in destroying it.

  Why? What had she done to deserve this kind of threat? Who could hate her so much?

  “Vandalism, a break-in, assault and now arson. He’s escalating.”

  Kiki had a talent for stating the obvious. The vandalism didn’t count; that had been misguided kids. But the break-in, the threats scrawled on the walls, the knife and the message it had pinned to the pillow, the mugging and now this—all designed to scare Nev away.

  Please, God, designed only to scare her.

  Go home. You don’t belong here. Get out or...

  Maybe Kiki was right. Maybe Nev should return to Atlanta. Maybe she would be safer there.

  But why? Who wanted her out of Copper Lake? She’d come there a total stranger. Who could have fixated on her so quickly?

  Looked at another way, who wanted her back in Atlanta? Could it be someone who lived there, who wanted her nearby, who couldn’t deal with even her temporary absence from home? Someone who couldn’t deal with competition for her attention?

  He scanned the faces along the perimeter: a few folks who lived nearby, the rest mostly young, wandered over from Sno-Cap and the hot rod shop next door or caught in the traffic backup by the barricade. He could name the majority of them, and most of the rest were vaguely familiar. No stranger who seemed unduly interested in the action. No one who stood out at all.

  Kiki’s voice sounded faintly as he continued to study the scene around them, and Nev’s softer, sweeter voice responded, back and forth. The suspect had timed his attack for sunset, those few minutes when everything turned dusky, when streetlights were on but everything had a blur of transition to it. He’d picked an easy method, the simplest and probably the safest for setting a car on fire. Anyone who’d watched television knew how effective a burning wick in the gas tank was. The damage would likely be relatively contained, depending on how much gas was in the tank. There was always a chance of a fireball, but it wasn’t likely. With a long enough wick, as Kiki had said, he had the chance to be long gone before the fireworks went off.

  But would that have satisfied him? Would he have walked away without seeing Nev’s response?

  Ty made a mental note to double-check any security feeds Kiki got from the area. Maybe they’d catch a look at the guy on his way into or out of the motel lot.

  “You may as well go home,” Kiki said, nudging him with her shoulder. “I’m gonna wait for the wrecker to pick up the car and take it to the PD garage. Freak—” She glanced at Nev and amended her next words. “Robinson will think Christmas has come early.”

  She was striding off before her words registered. Ty cleared his mind and managed a faint smile before he looked down at Nev. “You ready to get out of here?”

  “Please.”

  With her hand in his, he headed for his pickup, parked in the middle of Carolina Avenue. He’d made a U-turn and was heading north on River Road when Nev sighed. “Maybe I should go back to Atlanta.”

  It warmed him deep inside that she didn’t automatically refer to the city as home. Her home was with him, and he was pretty sure she knew it, too.

  “How does that make sense?”

  Her glance was surprised. “Someone obviously doesn’t want me in Copper Lake.”

  “Or someone wants you back in Atlanta. We don’t know if he’s trying to run you away from here or drive you back there.”

  “Oh. I hadn’t thought... Wonderful. So I may not be safe either place.”

  Great, Gadney. Give her another reason to be afraid. “We don’t know. We just don’t know enough.” Feeling impotent and not liking it, he forced himself to draw back emotionally. Forget about the guy who wanted to spend the rest of his life with Nev. He needed to be the detective he’d trained to be. “Is there anyone back there? An ex-boyfriend? A wanna-be boyfriend? Anyone who’s asked you out that you turned down?”

  She shook her head. “I hate to break this to you, but I’m not a heartbreaker. Guys aren’t lined up waiting for the chance to spend time with me. I date, but the last time was a while ago.”

  “Guys in Atlanta are blind and stupid. Who broke it off?”

  “He did. I see him around town, and we speak. He’s gone out with several other women since me. Trust me, he’s not missing me.”

  “What about an ex-boyfriend’s current or former girlfriend? Maybe someone who’s jealous, who blames you for breaking up her relationship or thinks she can’t measure up to you.”

  Her laughter surprised him, a light, genuinely amused response to a difficult subject. “You’re so sweet. I don’t think anyone has ever thought I could make someone jealous.”

  She really believed that, but he knew better. He knew what guys liked. He’d seen the looks she got when they were out. He’d seen the way Kiki had looked—

  A chill passed through him, and his fingers tightened on the wheel. Kiki, who’d gone out of her way to meet Nev soon after her arrival in town. Who wasn’t above intimidation to get her way. Who was tall, lean and strong enough to knock just about anyone to the ground.

  Kiki, who’d told Frank’s vet, Stephen, that one person in a relationship couldn’t just walk away from the other. That breaking up had to be a mutual decision. That she was going to get Ty past his commitment issues.

  God help him, was he really considering his ex-girlfriend and fellow detective as a suspect?

  He turned onto Tillman Avenue and then Easy Street, and then into his driveway and shut off the engine before he admitted it: he was.

  “What are you thinking, looking so serious?”

  Nev’s touch was gentle, but there was strength in it. I am strong, she’d said, and he believed it. Maybe not physically, but in all the ways that counted. The ways his mother and grandmother had been strong.

  “I was thinking about showing you my thinking spot. You up to it?”

  “Sure.”

  They got out of the truck, met at the front, and he took her hand before heading off around the side of the house. He had a lot of favorite spots in and around Copper Lake, but there was no place better than this one for late-night contemplation. It was on his property just barely, if at all, hidden in the shadows of pines and among azalea bushes grown wild, some taller than him.

  The only thing the clearing held was two chairs, Adirondacks that had been white once, though only flakes remained, and a lot of peace and quiet. If he listened hard, he might hear traffic on the streets, a television turned too loud or one of the neighborhood dogs barking, but mostly it was just the sounds that belonged. Tree frogs. Whippoorwills. Wind murmuring in the trees. Tiny rodent feet skittering over the thick bed of brown pine straw.

  Nev sat in one chair, and he sat in the other, his legs stretched out, his feet almost touching hers. She didn’t flinch at sitting on the old silvered wood, didn’t worry about dirtying her dress, didn’t seem at all concerned with the possibility of bugs, snakes or other night creatures. Resting her hands on the chair arms, she tilted her head back and sighed. “This is nice. I bet it’s beautiful when all these azaleas are in bloom.”

  “You can see for yourself next spring.”

  She didn’t appear surprised by his response. He wasn’t, either. Whether here or in Atlanta or someplace totally different, some part of him accepted on faith that they would be together for many springs to come.

  Ty wanted to just sit there, enjoy the quiet and watch her, but that would have to wait. A lot of things would have to wait until they i
dentified the threat against her and stopped it. “What’s changed in your life in the past few weeks?”

  Her answer didn’t come quickly; she gave it serious thought before shaking her head. “Nothing besides coming here.”

  “No new clients? No new friends?” When she responded negatively, he asked, “What about online? Anyone seem particularly interested in you? Or anyone who’s been around that dropped out of sight?”

  “No one.” Her shoulders lifted in a shrug, moonlight filtering through the trees to spill on the pale background of her dress. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, but I just live a normal life, Ty. Things like this don’t happen to me.”

  She crossed her legs, and he allowed himself to be distracted for one sweet moment. High heels did wonderful things for a woman’s leg, but when she had incredible legs to start, they were the frosting on a very sexy cake.

  Focus. Easier said than done.

  “So you came to town Saturday and met me. Sunday you went to church and had dinner with Granddad and me and spent the afternoon at my house. Monday you ran into me downtown, snagged Daisy in her getaway attempt, met Sophy and had dinner with me.”

  That sweet, airy laugh of hers drifted on the warm night air. “Gee, I’m starting to see a pattern.”

  The only change in her life: Copper Lake in general, him in particular.

  When he didn’t respond, her amusement faded. “You don’t think— Someone doesn’t want me seeing you? Someone doesn’t like the idea of us togeth—” She broke off, her mouth thinning. After a couple of short, shallow breaths, she flatly said, “The first time I met Kiki, I wasn’t convinced that she was as done with the relationship as you were. She asked a lot of questions, asked about you specifically. The way her mood changed while we were talking, I thought at the time she’d summed me up and found me seriously lacking.”

  Ty was sure she had. Kiki had that kind of blind confidence. She’d had a hard time accepting that he no longer wanted to be with her. The possibility of him being attracted to someone totally her opposite wouldn’t have occurred to her.