by Candace Camp
“It hardened him?”
“I think so. In some ways. I mean, he’s still fun, he’s still charming. Everyone loves Quinn. But he’s not as open, as trusting. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if it was the kind of things he saw as a policeman or—or if something else happened to him. But it’s been since then, I think, that he’s been so casual about dating, no long-term relationships. He wasn’t as much like that when he was younger.” She paused, then added tentatively, “I hope I haven’t done anything to make you like him less. Quinn’s the best. I should learn to keep my mouth shut more.”
“No. You haven’t done anything wrong,” Lisa reassured her with a smile. “I like Quinn. But I’m like him in that I’m not really interested in a long-term relationship, either. I’m going to be here for less than a year, and it’s best if I don’t get involved with anyone seriously.”
“Oh.” Beth looked disappointed, but a moment later, when she learned that Lisa was from Dallas and planning to return there, she launched into a pleasant, bubbly conversation about that city, where she had lived for several years herself.
People had been gradually filling the seats around them as they had talked, and their conversation had grown more and more hushed as a consequence. Beth’s husband had come to sit with them, carrying the baby Joseph, who was less than pleased that his companion, Cory, was seating guests instead of playing with him, and he kept them all occupied for several minutes with his squirming attempts to get back to his uncle.
An older man slid into the seat on the other side of Jackson Prescott, and Beth introduced him to Lisa as their father, Marshall Sutton. Even without the introduction, Lisa felt sure she would have known who he was—though his black hair was liberally streaked with white, he was so much an older version of Quinn’s brother Daniel that he could hardly have been anyone other than the patriarch of the Sutton clan.
A few minutes later, the music started and the wedding began. The wedding did not appear to Lisa to be particularly small, as almost three-fourths of the chapel was filled. The bride, Lisa saw, was a breathtakingly beautiful blond woman, tall and slender with a patrician look. It was a little hard to reconcile her elegant appearance with the fact that Quinn had told Lisa she was a veterinarian.
The ceremony was simple and short, but beautiful as well. Beside Lisa, Beth had tears rolling down her cheeks as the couple said their vows. Quinn, who had come to sit down on the other side of Lisa when his ushering duties were done, took Lisa’s hand in his, his finger intertwining with hers. She glanced at him, but he was not looking at her, only watching his brother and his bride, a faint smile on his lips. Feeling her gaze, he turned to Lisa, and his smile broadened. Leaning close to her, he placed a brief kiss against her temple.
Lisa closed her eyes, her throat suddenly tight, and she grasped his hand a little tighter. It was foolish, she told herself, to feel emotion at the marriage of people who were complete strangers to her, but she could not help it. There was something so beautiful and romantic in the moment that it swept her up in it, and she was glad that she had come, glad to be sitting beside Quinn, his hand warm around hers.
Later, at the reception, she saw that Quinn had been right in saying that the wedding was small, at least in comparison to the huge crowd that spread over the wide front verandah of the house and across the circular drive and lawn, wrapping around the house even to the back, where the swimming pool lay. Tables and chairs had been placed all around the pool, as they had on the front porch and under canopies on the lawn, and water lilies floated in silent elegance on the surface of the water. Brightly striped canopies shaded the food and guests, as well as a band on a raised temporary platform. The food was delicious, catered by the Moonstone Café, and it was there in abundance, as was champagne, bubbling out of a fountain.
Lisa ate and drank champagne and danced, mostly with Quinn, but also at least once with each of his brothers. Even his father took her out on the dance floor one time, expertly guiding her through a country waltz. She met so many people she couldn’t remember all their names, and they all talked to her in that open, friendly way that was so common in the country. She met Daniel’s bride, who, with the flush of happiness in her cheeks, was even prettier close up and far less cool and reserved than her ice-princess beauty made her appear. Antonia introduced her to Rita Delgado, a plump, pretty woman in her thirties who worked at the veterinary clinic with Antonia and was her best friend and matron of honor. Rita in turn introduced her to her cousin, Lena, who, it turned out, was the night dispatcher for the sheriff’s office.
Lena beamed and patted her on the arm. “I’ve been dying to meet you. You’re the one doesn’t speak Spanish, right? Everybody else got to see you that day but me.”
“Oh, no,” Lisa groaned. “Did he tell everyone about that?”
“Who?”
“Quinn.”
“It wasn’t Quinn. I heard it from my mother. Mama’s a cousin to Benny Hernandez’s grandmother, and it was her who told my mother.”
“Nothing’s a secret in this town,” said Quinn’s low voice in her ear.
Lisa whirled to find Quinn standing behind her, a beer in his hand and a smile on his face. He slipped his arm around her from behind, fitting his body to hers. She could feel his heat and the thump of his heart in his chest, and where his arm wrapped around her, her flesh tingled with awareness and desire.
“Yeah,” Lena agreed. “Everything gets out sooner or later. Especially to me.”
“Oh. I see. Yes, I am the one who doesn’t know Spanish.”
“She’s never even made tamales at Christmas, Lena,” Quinn offered.
From the horrified look on the dispatcher’s face, Lisa presumed that this must amount to heresy.
“Verdad? No. You must do something about that. Come to our house on Christmas Eve this year and we’ll show you. My abuelita gets the whole family in there working, and we make enough to feed half the town.”
“That’s true,” Quinn agreed. “She always brings me a bunch of ’em.” He grinned and shot a significant look at Lena. “Otherwise I might have to find a new night dispatcher.”
“Oh, you…” Lena dismissed this threat with the contempt it deserved. “I mean it, Quinn, you bring this girl over to the house this year. We might even let you help.”
Lisa smiled and agreed, warmed by their friendliness. Maybe there were benefits to living in a little town, she thought.
“Care for another dance?” Quinn murmured, his breath tickling her ear and sending shivers through her.
Lisa nodded, leaning into him, and with a wave of the hand to Lena and Rita, he led her away to the driveway, where the bandstand had been set up and couples were dancing. The music was slow and dreamy, and Lisa melted into Quinn’s arms. He was a good dancer, and though she had not known any country-western dances before today, she was rapidly learning them under his tutelage. But this dance, as slow and languid as summer heat, required no steps, only the sway and turn of two bodies matched together. His arm was around her, his hand cupped around her hipbone on the opposite side, and Lisa found her head resting naturally against his chest. She closed her eyes, letting the music take her.
When the dance ended, she heard Quinn’s long exhalation of breath, felt it beneath her cheek. Reluctantly she stepped back, looking up at him. Quinn’s mahogany eyes were filled with heat, and color lay along the ridges of his cheekbones.
“Come on,” he said, a trifle hoarsely, linking his hand with hers and turning away. Lisa went along with him as he strolled across the yard to the side door. He opened the door and stepped into the kitchen, a hive of activity under the direction of Elizabeth Morgan.
Nodding toward Elizabeth, he sidestepped two workers and took Lisa through the dining room and into the entry hall. The inside of the house was almost empty except for the workers in the kitchen.
“What are we doing?” Lisa asked as Quinn walked around the stairs and down the hall.
“This.” Quinn stopp
ed beside a door tucked underneath the stairs and opened it.
Lisa looked inside. It was a narrow room with a ceiling that rose as the stairs went up. There was an old easy chair to one side of the door.
“This is where I used to hide out,” Quinn explained. “I don’t know why, but it was always sort of my room. I put the chair in here and a lock on the door, and I’d come in here and read or talk on the phone.”
“It’s cute,” Lisa said, stepping inside. “Like a little playhouse.”
Quinn followed her, pulling the string that turned on the overhead bulb. “I was just thinking out there how much I wanted to be alone with you, so…”
He closed the door behind them and slid the bar lock in place.
“Oh, really?” Lisa raised her eyebrows in what she hoped was a cool questioning, but her heart immediately started to hammer and anticipation rose within her.
“Yeah, really,” Quinn replied, taking a step closer and gazing down into her eyes. “The whole time we were dancing, this is all I could think about.”
His arms went around her, lifting her up into him, and he bent his head to kiss her. Heat flared between them, swift and fiery, as if a match had been set to kerosene. Lisa wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him. He kissed her deeply, his tongue sliding into her mouth, hungry and demanding. She met it eagerly, her own tongue twining around his in a passionate dance. She, too, had been daydreaming about this moment.
Quinn’s arms loosened around her, but only so that his hands were free to move over her. She had abandoned the jacket of her dress some time earlier in the heat of the dancing, and now his hands slid over her bare back, slipping beneath the tangle of straps that crisscrossed it. His fingers were rough against her satiny skin, and the contrast stirred them both. His other hand roamed downward to her hips, curving over them, fingers digging into her buttocks.
Scrunching up the material of her skirt in his hands, he reached at last the bare flesh of her thigh. Lisa trembled at his touch, a hot ache blossoming in her abdomen. She wanted more than this, so much more that it was almost frightening. Her breasts were full and sweetly aching, longing for his touch, her nipples hardening. She moved against him, unconsciously rubbing her body against him, and he shuddered, a low moan escaping his throat.
He tore his lips from her mouth, raining kisses over her face and down her throat. His arm went around her back, supporting her, as Lisa leaned back. His other hand came up to cup her breast, exploring its softness through the material of her dress. He felt the thrust of her nipple against the cloth, and he cursed under his breath, frustrated by the barrier that kept what he wanted from him. He wanted to rip the cloth away, to taste her flesh, to take the hot, hard bud of her nipple into his mouth. Instead his hand slid down and up under the hem of her dress, gliding caressingly up her bare thigh, drawn as if by a magnet to the heat centered between her legs.
His fingers touched the silk of her panties, wet now with the moisture of her passion. Lisa moaned, her breath coming in hard, fast pants. Gently he explored her, teasing and caressing, as his mouth returned to take hers hungrily. He was hard and pulsing, almost desperate to take her.
There was the sound of footsteps on the tile entryway, followed by feet running lightly up the steps above their heads. Then there was the sound of a woman’s voice calling Antonia’s name, followed by more steps on the stairs.
Quinn pulled away from Lisa with a muffled oath. “Damn it! We can’t do this here. I didn’t mean to—I just couldn’t bear it any longer. I had to sneak a kiss.”
He turned away, running his hands back through his hair and struggling for control. Lisa hastily pulled down her rucked-up skirt and took a step backward, too.
“I guess we can’t leave until the bride and groom do,” Quinn mused gloomily.
“Probably not,” Lisa agreed a little breathlessly. “I mean, your being family.”
“Damn family,” Quinn added ungraciously.
They waited for a few more minutes, letting their blood cool and smoothing their hair and clothes. Finally, Quinn unlocked the door and peeked outside, then opened it wider and stepped out into the hall. Lisa followed on his heels as he went down the hall and out the back door into the pool area. It was filled with people, and Lisa hoped they didn’t look too obvious. Carefully walking apart, they strolled around the pool and the house to the punch table, hoping that a cool drink might quench some of the heat lingering inside them.
It seemed to take forever for the bride to emerge from the house, having changed into a different, more casual dress. More time passed while she threw her bouquet and the newly married couple said goodbye to their family and friends and drove off. Lisa smiled until her mouth ached and avoided looking at Quinn. The moment of decision would be coming soon, she knew, and she didn’t know what to do. What she wanted, with a deep, physical ache, was to go home with Quinn and take him up to her bed. But now that she was more or less in control of her senses again, she did not think that that would be a prudent thing to do.
Their having spent an afternoon together did not change any of the factors that made a relationship between them an unwise thing. He was still the sheriff; she was still leaving in less than a year; he specialized in short, casual relationships; and she was not a casual sort of person. They were anything but an ideal match. Besides, she simply did not fall into bed easily with any man. She never had. Of course, she had to admit to herself, she had never wanted so badly to fall into bed with any other man she had dated.
Quinn was different. The feelings he aroused in her were incendiary. But that, she knew, did not mean that it was necessarily right for her to give in to those feelings.
She was still pondering the problem when Quinn came up to her and slipped his hand around her arm. “I think we can finally leave.”
It still took several minutes of goodbyes to Quinn’s family and other wedding guests before they were able to walk down the long driveway to where Quinn’s white pickup was parked. They got in and turned around, setting off down the road to the highway, along with a number of other guests. Neither of them spoke much. Lisa glanced at Quinn a time or two, wondering what he was thinking. She wondered if he was as unsure as she about what was going to happen when they reached her apartment.
She could resolve the issue, of course, by simply not inviting him in, but that would be rude and he would probably take it to mean she didn’t like him, which was obviously not the case. Or she could invite him in and then discuss the issue with him, but the problem with that was that when she was around Quinn, discussion was likely to slide right into passion in no time at all. Of course, she could also toss aside all her usual prudence and foresight and practicality and just let what would happen, happen. The thought made her a little uneasy, but it was also very enticing.
They drove through the little town of Angel Eye and took the highway toward Hammond. Just past Angel Eye, Quinn’s cell phone began to ring. Cursing, he dug it out of the cup-holder where he had placed it and answered with a terse, “Yeah?”
He listened without saying anything for some time, then asked a few quick questions, ending with, “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Quinn hung up and looked over at Lisa. “That was Ruben. I—I’m sorry. I have to go somewhere.”
“Okay.” Worry stirred in Lisa at his expression. “What is it? Is something the matter?”
“Red Klingman just found a dead body on his ranch.”
Chapter 6
For a long moment, Lisa could do nothing but stare at Quinn. “What? Who?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know anything more than that. Ruben called me as soon as he heard. He’s already sent a patrol car out to secure the scene, and he’s called the coroner.” He paused, then said, “It’s off this highway a little ways. It’d be faster if I stopped on the way instead of taking you home first. Would you mind?”
“No. It’s all right.”
“I hate to ask you, but…well, I’m the only one h
ere who’s actually been on a homicide scene before. Phil’s an okay kid, but if it turns out to be murder, I want to make sure that the crime scene isn’t contaminated.”
“Homicide? Here? You really think it is?”
He shrugged. “If it is, it’s the first one since I’ve been sheriff. But I don’t have any way of knowing yet. It could have been an accident or a suicide, too.”
The thought of any sort of death on this lovely day was hard to accept, but homicide seemed almost beyond the realm of possibility. In Angel Eye? It was just a small, sleepy, quaintly named town, like hundreds of other little towns in Texas. It seemed absurd that something as grim as homicide could happen here.
Lisa wrapped her arms around herself, feeling suddenly chilled despite the pleasant October warmth of the day.
Quinn turned off the highway onto a smaller road, and after a few minutes, he made yet another turn onto a hard-packed dirt road. He followed this for a few minutes, rattling across a cattle guard, then driving slowly and looking searchingly out the window. Finally he saw what he was looking for: the tracks of a truck leaving the road and striking out along what seemed little more than a narrow trail.
Eventually they could see a dark green pickup truck ahead of them, parked in the middle of an empty field. Ominously, two or three big black birds circled in the air a short distance from the truck. A middle-aged man in a cowboy hat was sitting on the back of the truck bed, his legs dangling off the end. He cradled a shotgun in the crook of one arm.
Lisa sucked in a sharp breath. Beside her Quinn stiffened a little, but he said only. “It’s okay. I know Red.”
He stopped the car some distance from the truck, and Lisa noticed that he reached down underneath the seat and pulled out a handgun, which he checked and stuck in his belt at the small of his back. The man jumped off the back of the truck and started toward them, carrying the shotgun pointing unthreateningly down at the ground.