by Kylie Brant
Seeming to come to a decision, the sheriff nodded and looked at Barnes. “Keep tracking down those with violations listed with the Forest Service. Check out those individuals for criminal records. Cait can follow up on the soil samples. With the forestry agencies busy with that fire in the Cascades, we can use Sharper to get her where she needs to go.”
Her satisfaction at the sheriff’s words was more than a little dampened at the thought of spending more time in Sharper’s company. But Cait made sure her reluctance didn’t show in her expression. It had been a long time since a man had been allowed to affect her in any but the most superficial way.
Zach Sharper would be no different.
Chapter 4
Zach managed to refrain from voicing the questions swirling in his head. He may not like playing chauffer for Caitlin Fleming at Sheriff Andrews’s demand, but he told himself it could be worse. He could be forced to spend this much time in the sheriff’s company instead. Or be paired with Deputy Tony Gibbs, a horse’s ass if he’d ever met one. At least Fleming didn’t make him want to punch her.
She did, however, leave him wanting to punch something. It would be a welcome outlet for the simmering tension that increased with every hour spent in her company.
To divert himself from the unwelcome sexual attraction, he seized on the curiosity that revved to life whenever he saw her studying a map from the sheaf in her lap. It wasn’t one of those available from the forest station of nearby wilderness areas. The initials across the top of the first page gave that away. NRCS. What the hell would she be doing with maps from the soil conservation agency?
Because he knew she wouldn’t tell him if he asked—and damned if he’d ask—he kept his mouth shut. Before the end of the day, he’d figure it out on his own.
Pulling off the highway to the access road, he took the quarter mile drive up to the Springs Resort before coming to a stop. “This is it.”
“I may be a while.” She gathered up a bag, smaller than the backpack she’d had the last time they’d been together, and went to open the door.
“Listen . . .Caitlin.”
“It’s Cait.” Her backward glance over her shoulder was half wary, half quizzical.
He had a feeling he was going to regret what he was about to say. “I might be more help if I knew what it was you were looking for.”
“Thanks, but I can’t tell you that.” As if in afterthought, she scooped up the maps she’d been studying earlier and got out of the Trailblazer.
Zach studied her retreating figure through narrowed eyes. She was dressed as casually today as she’d been when he’d taken her to the cave. The difference this time was he was pretty sure she was carrying. His time in the military had taught him to spot weapons wherever they might be hidden on a person. Her gun was at the small of her back, beneath her T-shirt. And no matter how many times he told himself to let it go, he couldn’t quite stop wondering why Caitlin Fleming felt the need to carry a gun to a popular tourist resort.
Almost as much as he wondered how good she was at using it.
With a hissed-out breath, Zach powered down his window and propped an elbow on the sill. He much preferred action to cooling his heels. Pulling out his cell phone, he spent fifteen minutes checking in with the guides he had on various outings—outings he could have been leading himself if he hadn’t received the summons from Andrews last night. Since their reports indicated everything was going fine, he flipped the phone shut and tucked it away again. And checked the entrance of the resort.
No sign of Caitlin. Cait.
Drumming his fingers restlessly on the steering wheel, he scanned the drive in front of the resort. Looked like business could be better. The parking lot to the side was less than half filled with cars bearing out-of-state plates. Tourists usually flocked to this place, looking to escape the tedium of their lives by immersing themselves in the natural beauty of Oregon’s countryside. He could understand the need. There was something healing about spending time in the forests. In the mountains. On the rivers. Something that could always make him forget for a while exactly what had sent him back here.
Zach actually got a fair amount of business from the Springs Resort. The owners allowed him to display his business brochures and recommended his outfit to their guests. After another five minutes crawled by, he gave a mental shrug. As long as he was here, he may as well check at the front desk and see if more brochures were needed. Grateful for the excuse to move, he opened the door and got out, stretching his legs thankfully. Ducking back inside the Trailblazer, he pulled some pamphlets he always carried from the holder on the visor and headed for the front doors.
He nodded at Jim Lancombe, one of the groundskeepers, who was watering the beds and barrels spilling with flowers. The man was kept busy all summer and fall, but come winter he’d occasionally call Zach for some snowshoe hiking in the mountains. He was good company for two reasons. He knew when to keep his mouth shut, and he was as much an expert in the outdoors as Zach was himself.
A blast of air-conditioning hit him as he pushed open the front doors to the rustic log exterior of the resort. He spotted Cait right away, standing off to the side a few yards away from the front desk, talking to Mona Weston, one of the owners. From the expression on Mona’s face, the discussion wasn’t going well.
Though Cait’s voice was pitched low, he could easily overhear Mona’s side of the conversation.
“I just wish you’d wait and talk to my husband when he comes back. I hate to take the chance of my guests being bothered. People come here to get away and relax. They can’t do that with cops tromping around the property.” Seeing Zach, Mona lifted a hand in greeting.
Cait turned, her green gaze pinning him with the accuracy of a laser. “If it would make you feel better, Mr. Sharper can accompany me while I take a look around. I promise none of your guests will even know I’m here.”
Gail’s expression was confused. “Zach? You know this . . . Ms. Fleming?”
Well, hell. Zach gave a moment’s thought to turning and walking out the door again. Easier that way to mind his own business. But from the look on Cait’s face, he could tell that wasn’t going to be an option.
He made his way over to the women. Mona was dressed much the same as Cait, in jeans and a T-shirt, but she had nearly twenty years on the younger woman, most of them spent outdoors. She was a good six inches shorter than Cait, with a strong, capable build that came as much from her work around this place as being the mother of three rambunctious boys.
“Mona,” he said by way of greeting. “Gil not around?”
“He went to Eugene for copper tubing. We’re having trouble with the hot water in some of the rooms.”
“Always something.” He flicked a glance at Cait. “Ms. Fleming’s business won’t take long. I can stick with her, if that makes you feel any better.”
The woman sent one last uncertain glance toward Cait before saying, “Well, I don’t know what Gil would think of me letting a stranger wander around the springs with the guests, but I guess it’s okay if you stay with her.”
Something lightened inside him when he registered Cait’s expression. Although arranged into a bland polite mask, he was willing to bet that beneath it she was seething. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t bother anyone.”
“Mona.” The desk clerk trying to get the older woman’s attention grew more insistent, and she threw a glance over her shoulder.
“I’ll hold you to that, Zach.” Her attention returned to them, and she noticed the brochures he was holding. “Oh, I can use some of those. We’re down to our last few.” She sent him a genuine smile as he handed the pamphlets over. “We always get rave reviews from the guests who sign on for one of your tours.”
“And I appreciate you steering them my way. You go on and take care of things at the desk.” He nodded toward the college-age girl who looked to be getting more frantic by the moment. “We’ll be all right.”
“Thanks, Zach.” Mona hurried away to h
andle whatever crisis her employee was dealing with, and he turned to Cait, correctly interpreting the killer expression in her eyes.
“Not exactly a trusting soul, is she?”
He turned and headed for the doors, and she matched him, stride for stride. “Maybe not. Or could be she just knows trouble when she sees it.”
“What trouble are you referring to?” Far from the temper Zach had bet she’d been feeling earlier, Cait’s voice was curious. “Me? Or the case?”
A wise man knew when a question was loaded. That one was about as innocent as a minefield. Expertly, he skirted it. “Well, discovering seven human skeletons is hardly the norm around here.” He headed back toward the Trailblazer. He’d have to park it in the lot before they headed out toward the springs. “No one wants to look out his window and wonder if his neighbor is the one guilty of murdering people and stashing them in a cave.”
“No one said anything about murder.” Her objection sounded automatic as she got in the vehicle and he pulled around to the parking lot.
“You don’t say much,” he agreed, wondering why he found that so irritating. Normally he considered that a bonus in a woman. It was vexing to recognize that he had a healthy share of interest in what she wasn’t saying. Only natural, seeing as he was the one who’d found the bodies.
It’d taken Mona’s statement to tip him off that Cait was interested in the hot springs. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why.
“The sheriff’s office is keeping this whole thing pretty quiet.” Unless one counted Tony Gibbs blowing off at Ketchers over beer and pool every night. Zach knew better than to believe everything he’d heard the deputy had been saying, but he couldn’t help but think Andrews would have a fit if she knew she had a leak in her department.
He pulled into an empty space in the lot and turned off the ignition. “The fact is, this place has been crawling with media since those bones were pulled out of the cave. Andrews isn’t giving them much, so they come sniffing around McKenzie Bridge, Blue River, and every other nearby town in search of gossip. There’s always plenty of speculation in the absence of facts. I’d think she’d want to lay some of it to rest by releasing more information.”
There was a slight frown on Cait’s face, but she said only, “Sheriff Andrews is handling the press. She’s probably waiting to establish more details before deciding what information to release to the public.”
And what not to release. Zach knew how the game was played. He got out of the Trailblazer and slammed the door closed. Waited for Cait to do the same before using the remote lock. They’d keep something back, maybe something only the killer would know. Play a cat and mouse game with the suspect until they painted him or her into a corner.
It had nothing to do with him. Nothing to do with his business in Eugene. Unless he counted the fact that he was forced to spend way too much time away from it doing Andrews’s bidding.
And more time than was wise in Cait Fleming’s company.
He nodded at the couple headed toward their car, parked close to the Trailblazer. The woman gave her male companion a sharp elbow jab when he stared at Cait so long he nearly ran into the bumper of a car. Slanting a look at the female by his side, Zach found her with her head down, studying the soil maps again, seemingly oblivious.
Everything inside him jeered at the thought. There was no way a woman who looked like her, one who’d made a career posing for the cameras, was unaware of the effect she had on people. Men especially. When folks around here got a load of her, the bones found in Castle Rock weren’t going to be the only source of gossip circulating in the area. And since he was going to be glued to her side for the duration, that meant that he’d get dragged into the talk, just by default.
The thought brought a scowl to his face. Like he’d said before. She was trouble. “Springs are this way.” He paused impatiently as she veered in his direction to join him.
“How big a place is this?”
“Gil and Mona have over forty-five acres of gardens.” Once she’d reached his side he started walking rapidly again, waving an arm toward the grounds Jim kept in showcase condition. “I think there’s five or six miles of walking trails.”
“And the Willamette National Forest all around us.” The roar of the McKenzie River grew louder as they walked, though there were only glimpses of it through the heavily wooded area on its banks. “Nice place to get away.”
“They do all right.” He’d take the solitude of Whispering Pines any day over a place like this filled with desperate tourists fleeing the city. But for those who didn’t have access to their own piece of heaven on earth, this resort was a nice little slice of it.
“There are rooms in the main lodge, a few cabins and cottages, and sites for RVs and tents.”
Unerringly he headed into the forest toward the springs. And despite his better judgment, fell into tour-guide mode. “There are more hot springs in Oregon than any other state in the country. It sits on the Ring of Fire, a volcanic belt that circles the Pacific Ocean.”
“Which also gave birth to the Cascade Mountains.”
He shouldn’t be surprised. She had her head buried in a map most of the time they were together. “There’s superheated igneous rock and molten magma beneath the surface here. We still have a few active volcanoes. With all the rainfall we get, all it takes is a basalt fissure to release thermal flows into a natural hot tub. Belknap is a good example, but I prefer the less-developed springs myself.”
“Because there’s fewer people around,” she guessed shrewdly.
He skirted a hollowed-out rotted log. “People are overrated.”
“And yet important in a business that demands customers to survive.”
“A necessary evil.” He stopped for a moment to allow the garter snake in his path to finish its journey to the jumble of rocks at the base of a white pine before continuing on. “We sell river and hiking sporting equipment, too, so we’re not all about the tours. But they allow me to do what I love most, so it’s a trade off.” And times spent with days full of chattering tourists made his solitary hours on the river or in the Willamette all the more precious.
Falling into silence, he led the way through the forest surely. It wasn’t particularly dense in this area. Zach knew Mona and Gil kept the underbrush trimmed to allow their guests freedom to wander. And the path to the hot springs was a well-worn one. He could easily head back to the vehicle and let Cait do her thing. The fact was, that action held no particular temptation. The curiosity he felt about her purpose here was unusual enough to have well-worn defenses slamming into place. He didn’t want to wonder about her. He didn’t want to think about her, period.
But that didn’t make it any easier to banish the questions that swarmed his mind like pesky flies. He just couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the contrast of her former and current occupations. His natural cynicism reminded him that for many, their careers were often owed to who they knew and who they blew.
Unfortunately, that particular visual image of Caitlin Fleming wasn’t one easily banished from his mind.
With a muttered curse, he stepped aside and waved an impatient hand. “There are the hot springs up ahead. Looks like you won’t be alone.” There was a solitary occupant in the pine tub, a man in his midthirties. Unlike some of the more rustic settings for springs in the area, this one had a dress code, so the guy probably wasn’t nude.
Cait brushed by him and stepped down the rocky incline leading to the springs while he took up position leaning against a towering pine. He observed the exact moment the guy in the tub noticed he had company. And he’d have to be blind to miss the immediate interest in the man’s expression when he caught a look at the woman approaching him.
“Down, cheesedick,” Zach muttered. But the guy was too far away to hear him, which was probably a lucky thing. Because he had no business warning men away from Caitlin Fleming. The woman was probably better versed than most in how to get rid of unwanted male attention. If
it was unwanted.
Zach’s gaze shifted from the guy in the tub back to her. Cait had reached the bottom of the slope and was scanning the ground. She appeared to be looking for something. But even he was surprised when she dropped to her hands and knees, seeming to examine the water’s edge where it lapped up against the rocks.
“Did you lose something?”
The pine tub constructed for tourists intent on soaking in the springs was several yards upstream. The man inside it seemed to have lost interest in the sulfuric water in light of the newcomer. He’d risen and was peering over the side at Cait, placing his back to Zach.
“I can help you look, if you want.”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Cait’s voice was businesslike. She’d gotten to her feet again and was walking slowly around the area, still studying the ground intently.
“Water’s great. There’s plenty of room if you want to join me.”
Zach smirked. As pick-up lines went, it was fairly transparent. And it didn’t even warrant a response from Cait. She was on all fours again, this time with her pack beside her. Pushing away from his stance against the tree, he took a few steps closer to see what she was up to. But the next few moments provided no real answers. Why would she be collecting soil samples from the area?
Cheesedick was getting out of the tub now and making his way carefully over the rocks to join Cait, still talking. “Whatsa matter, don’t have a suit? I won’t tell. There’s just the two of us, anyway. I promise, if you come in for a soak, it’ll be a whole lot more fun than—what’re you doing there, anyway?”
“Please stay back.” The authority in her tone had the man pausing, and Zach’s gaze narrowed consideringly. He watched as she swiftly scooped up dirt with what looked like a tiny trowel and placed it in plastic containers, carefully labeling each.
“You’re much too beautiful to be messing in the dirt. Why don’t you come on over here and mess with me instead?”