Will squeezed her shoulder before leaving her to her work.
Skirting the perimeter of the lighted area, Will moved into the shadows of the trees, the sound of his footsteps muffled now by pine straw rather than the shifting sand. Miller, a veteran officer with heavy jowls and deep-set eyes who’d always reminded Will a bit of a bloodhound, was reinforcing that image as he squatted low, seeming to scent the air as his flashlight scanned the ground.
“There’s a path here,” Miller said before Will even had a chance to speak. “A shortcut, I think, to the apartment complex the next street over. The vic’s driver’s license indicated that as her address. Likely she was headed home. Her bad luck some pervert was headed the same direction.”
Maybe, Will thought. Maybe that was just how it happened. Wrong place, wrong time.
Miller looked up, his brown eyes serious in his hound dog face. “She was at the concert in the park tonight. I was doing foot patrol, recognized her. From the library. She was gettin’ pretty cozy with your sister’s ex-fiancé.”
Will rocked back a little, but his tone was even as he nodded. “I’ll send someone over to talk to him.” Because he damn sure couldn’t do it himself. “Thanks.”
Will started to move off, knowing his people would work more comfortably if he wasn’t looking over their shoulders, when Miller called his name.
Will turned, saw that the older man had moved a little off the path, and was shining his light at something on the ground.
“What do you have?”
“There’s a depression here,” Miller said. “The ground’s a little boggier just beneath this tree. Looks like a pretty decent shoe print.”
Will crouched down, examined the imprint in the mud. From the size, he judged it to be a man’s. Relatively fresh. It could be anyone’s, he knew, but it was more to go on than they’d had before.
“Get a mold,” Will said, patting Miller on the shoulder as he stood. “Good eye.”
Unclipping his phone from his belt, Will placed a call to a secondary team of officers, asked them to track down Wesley Beaumont. He might have liked to instruct them to make their questions as uncomfortable for the man as possible, but aside from the fact that Wesley was a lawyer, Will wasn’t the type of cop – or man – to let personal vendettas color the way he did his job.
But if even a hint of evidence linked Beaumont to this crime, Will couldn’t deny that he would thoroughly enjoy tossing the other man’s ass in a cell.
In the meantime, Will thought, as he looked at the shadowed playground, thought of the innocent kids who played here. Of the unspeakable violation that had taken place.
He’d do everything in his power to catch the bastard so that something like this didn’t happen again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
TUCKER was definitely a sprawler, Sarah mused, from her stingy little corner of his bed. And as neither of them was exactly petite, that made for a serious shortage of real estate to work with.
And sweet Jesus, the man was hot. He had the heat producing capacity of your average nuclear reactor. Despite the fan chugging overhead, and the light breeze coming through the window, it was like being wrapped in an electric blanket and then shoved into a sauna.
But when she tried to ease out from beneath the arm he’d thrown across her, with visions of morning coffee – preferably iced – dancing in her head, he hauled her neatly against him.
“Stay,” he mumbled sleepily against her hair. “I like you crowding me in bed.”
“Excuse me, but I’m not the one taking up three quarters of the available space.”
“I’m bigger.” He nuzzled her neck. “In fact, I’m getting bigger as we speak.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “Pervert.” She hit him with her pillow.
“I will be, if you give me half a chance.” He grabbed the pillow, rolled with her until she was pinned beneath his body. As she’d been most of the night. “Look at you.” He pushed her hair away from her face. “All rumpled and flushed and sexy.”
“Meaning I need fluids and a brush. Let me up.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’m planning to make coffee?”
That perked him right up. He tilted his head, considered. “After.”
And slid into her.
The pleasure was nearly shocking, even after the excesses of the past night. Day was still a rosy shimmer on the air, and a bird called outside the window. Their pace was lazy, the mood easy and fun, just as Sunday morning sex should be.
When it was over, he walked his fingers up her damp belly. “Any chance you’d be willing to make breakfast to go with that coffee?”
She fixed a stern look on her face. “Did you just have sex with me to soften me up so I’d cook for you?”
“I had sex with you because I like it. But you should cook for me because you liked it, too.”
Amused, Sarah reached for his discarded T-shirt. “How do you like your eggs?”
HE liked them scrambled, and lots of them. And when Mason wandered down, sleepy-eyed and hopeful, he persuaded Sarah to make his coddled, along with what he termed “toasty bread with cheese.”
“You people are weird,” Tucker said, as he watched Mason break open the lightly cooked yolk. “I think the lack of sunlight in England somehow atrophied your collective taste buds.”
“It’s delicious,” Mason pronounced.
“Who eats grilled cheese for breakfast?”
“Just be glad you didn’t have any kippers.” His brows drew together, then he leaned over, scooped something off of the floor. “Yours?” he murmured, and offered Tucker the shiny pink button.
Tucker narrowed his eyes. Mason smirked, then suddenly frowned with distaste. “Christ, Pettigrew. Did you have to do it on the bloody table? You know,” he expertly pitched his voice so that Sarah could hear from her position at the stove. “I could use some fresh air. I believe I’ll breakfast on the porch.”
As Mason strolled off with his plate, Tucker looked back at Sarah.
Her hair was bundled on top of her head, with fiery curls spilling haphazardly this way and that. Her skin was milk pale, her long hands efficient as she wiped down the yellowed enamel of his vintage appliance.
Bright, he thought. Yes, she was bright. A spot of color and movement in his otherwise dull kitchen.
She’d changed out of his shirt, to Tucker’s disappointment. When she’d gone home to fetch the eggs and the coffee beans and, well, pretty much everything else to make breakfast, she’d come back dressed in a vivid green tank and tan shorts.
Not that he didn’t appreciate the way her curves were packed into the snug-fitting top. But seeing her in his shirt had aroused a… sense of possessiveness in him. His. His shirt. His stove.
His woman.
He pushed back from the table. “You don’t have to do that,” he said as he came up behind her.
“Already finished.” She gave the stovetop one final swipe, then tossed the damp sponge into the sink. “I do hope you’re not planning to get rid of this thing when you remodel. It cooks like a dream. I…oh.”
When she turned, he caged her against the counter. “You put your clothes on.”
“Generally speaking, people do.”
“I like you the other way.”
“Well, that might present a problem when I head out to the nursery today.”
“Nursery?” He pleased himself by nibbling up the long line of her neck.
“You know, plants and flowers and mulch and… get a hold of yourself, Pettigrew.”
“I’d rather get a hold of you.”
She laughed, darted a nervous glance at the porch, then slapped away his roving hands. “Down boy. I have to get going if I want to beat the crowd.”
Realizing he wasn’t going to get any farther, Tucker pressed a kiss to her shoulder and backed off. “This nursery. Do they sell pots?”
“You mean for flowers?”
“No, to piss in.”
; “Very funny. Of course they have pots. Why?”
He thought of the yellow flowers he’d seen at the bank. “I might want to do some of those,” he gestured vaguely “bloomy things you mentioned.”
She bit her cheek. “Bloomy things?”
“How the hell do I know what they’re called?”
“Hibiscus.” Then the amusement in her eyes turned greedy. “Although you get enough sun, just there, at the bottom of the steps that you might be able to do a nice dwarf citrus. Wouldn’t that be fun? Maybe offset those with beds of lantana along either side of the walk. They bloom like champs, and Lord knows it would be an improvement over that patchy grass that’s there now. Granted, it’s not the optimal time to plant, but as long as you’re conscientious about watering –”
“Sarah.” He held up his hands. “I said a couple pots. Not botanical gardens.”
“Relax.” She patted his cheek. “This’ll be fun.”
“FYI,” Tucker complained as he pulled his truck out of the nursery lot. “Dropping a hundred dollars on plants is not my idea of fun.”
“Ninety-seven. Anyway, at least forty of that was on pots.” Sarah turned to admire the sea of colorful blooms in the bed of his truck. “And just look how pretty they look back there.”
He scowled into the rearview mirror. “A pickup truck is supposed to be tough and manly. Not pretty.”
“There’s no reason it can’t be both. You’re tough and manly, but your work, what comes from you, is pretty in its way.”
His brows slammed together. “I don’t write… flowery.”
“Actually, I was talking about your carpentry. The chairs you built for the back porch are gorgeous. But.” Since he’d brought it up. “Prose doesn’t have to be flowery or inflated to be graceful. And graceful by definition is pleasing and attractive in form. If you follow that logic, it’s not unreasonable to say your writing is pretty.”
“Hmm.”
Trying not to be disappointed that he continued to keep that door closed, Sarah looked out her window. “It’s a beautiful day.” Puffy white clouds dotted the sky like a herd of fat sheep, oblivious to the lazy breeze that couldn’t muster up enough energy to stir them.
“Hot,” was Tucker’s opinion.
“Yes, but the humidity isn’t bad. We won’t… hey!” She yanked the water bottle which had been resting in the cup holder between them back out of his hands. “You can’t drink that.”
“Why the hell not? You have two of them.”
“It’s sugar water. Sam at the nursery mixes it up special for me for transplanting. It helps prevent root shock.”
“Jesus,” Tucker muttered under his breath.
“You just wait until you have great big pots of bloomy things, bucko, and then we’ll see how ridiculous you think I am.”
“Bucko?”
He grinned, his elbow resting in his open window, the breeze pouring through ruffling his hair.
“Excuse me. I meant to say you belly-crawling Yankee bastard.”
She felt his laugh straight down to her toes.
“There’s a car in your lot.”
“What?”
Tucker gestured toward the Jeep that was parked beside Sarah’s little compact. “Well, they’re just going to have to be disappointed, because we’re closed. I’ll just… oh.” Her heart simply sang when she saw the familiar figure studying the garden. “Daddy. It’s my father. Pull in, Tucker. He wasn’t supposed to be here again until Thanksgiving.”
SARAH was out of the truck and running before he’d even shifted into park.
Tucker watched her fling herself into the arms of a tall, spare man with graying dark hair and a baked-in tan. Her garden bloomed around them, a surplus of life forming a poignant frame. When he laughed, gathering her close in a way that was endemic of parental pride, it made Tucker feel utterly alone.
Grief shot out its capricious hand, and gave his heart one violent squeeze.
Breathing deep until the pain eased back, he sat uncertain and slightly embarrassed in the cab of the truck.
Did he go over there, introduce himself? Did he give them space?
Space was the option he would have liked. He didn’t do particularly well with fathers, not having had one of his own. Not to say he hadn’t had male role models. His mom had eventually had friends, and dates – a couple of whom had taken him to ballgames and such. There’d been teachers he’d admired, and old Mister Saul, the handyman in their building, who’d first shown Tucker how to swing a hammer.
But that didn’t make it any easier to walk up to the father of the woman he was sleeping with, say how do you do.
He hadn’t had to face that kind of thing since high school, when he’d taken Maria Tedesco to prom.
But he wasn’t eighteen any longer. He was a full grown man whose mother – as he’d been reminded often – had raised him to be polite. Maybe it didn’t always work out that way, but surely he could handle his lover’s father.
If sweat beaded on his forehead when he climbed out, he told himself it was the heat.
“What are you doing here?” he heard Sarah say. “Not that I’m not thrilled to see you, but it’s still a few months shy of November.”
“A man needs a reason to visit his little girl?”
Little girl, Tucker thought, closely followed by Shit. He hoped the man didn’t own a shotgun.
“He does when he leaves his business during the middle of his busiest season,” Sarah continued.
“Sandy’s minding the bait shop, and her son’s taking the charters I had booked. Boy knows the waters, and he’s not an idiot. He can handle it.”
Sarah opened her mouth, but then she caught sight of Tucker over her father’s shoulder. That the smile she gave him was both easy and natural made his stomach jump even more in response.
“Tucker, I’d like you to meet my father, John Barnwell. Daddy, this is Tucker Pettigrew.”
“Sir.” Tucker offered his hand.
And oh yeah, there was that Dirty Harry look that must come automatically the moment a man was presented with a bouncing baby girl. Lines fanned out into his weather-scored face from eyes as cool and green as lake water.
“Heard about you.”
Tucker wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or alarmed.
“From whom?” Sarah demanded. Then her eyes narrowed, much as her father’s had done. “Noah. That little rat.”
“Now Sarah –”
Disgust chased accusation across her face. “For men who’re supposed to be taciturn, you two gossip like little old women in a beauty shop. And, I’d like to point out, I’m old enough to make my own decisions. Did you seriously drive all the way up here because I’m having an adult relationship with a man?”
“I didn’t come here to talk about that. I don’t want to know about that.” He shot Tucker one quick look that seared his skin. “I came because I wanted to see for myself what the Hawbaker boy is doing about your trouble.”
“My… I swear I’m going to kill Noah dead. It was a couple of mean pranks, Daddy, and nothing for you to worry about.”
John stuffed his hands into his pockets. As another taciturn man, Tucker recognized it as a sign that he didn’t agree, and was frustrated with being forced to debate the issue.
“I’ll decide what I worry about when it comes to my daughter.”
“Daddy –”
John held up a hand. “We’ll talk about it inside, out of this heat.”
She sighed. “Okay. I’m sorry I haven’t offered you something cold to drink. Tucker, would it be okay if we take a rain check on planting those flowers? You’ll need to water them until I can get to them.”
“No problem.” They obviously were about to have a private family conversation. He tried not to look too relieved to be off the hook. “I’ll just unload your mulch for you before I go.”
“Hold on there.” John eyed him up and down. “You’re involved with my daughter, aren’t you?”
Whatever he
said, it was bound to be the wrong thing. “That’s a fair description.”
“Then you’ll come along. I’ve got some things to say.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
AS Sarah poured iced tea into vintage cobalt drinking glasses, she eyed the men who sat across from each other at her tiny kitchen table.
They looked like two big, slightly ill-mannered dogs that had been shoved into the same cage, and were keeping a cautious eye out in case the other decided to bite. It was both amusing and ridiculous.
Because it made her feel affectionate, Sarah hid her smile as she handed each of them a glass.
“Thank you,” Tucker said while her father muttered “Obliged.”
John looked at the pieces of fruit and herb floating in his beverage. “What’s in here this time?”
“Raspberry and mint. The mint’s fresh from the garden.”
“Good,” he pronounced after taking a cautious sip. “You always did have a hand for this kind of thing. Fancyin’ up water with slices of lemon and sticking little sprigs of green stuff on the side of the spaghetti.”
She’d learned presentation from dining with Allie. “I seem to recall that both you and Noah objected to my dandelion garnish.”
John winced, then included Tucker in the story. “Pulled up some weeds and stuck them on a perfectly good chocolate cake.”
“Sounds like her obsession with putting flowers everywhere is long standing.”
“Well, her mother had a green thumb. Used to grow tomatoes as big as baseballs.”
“Daddy.” Because it touched her to hear the wistful pride in his voice, she stretched her hand across the round white tabletop to cover his. “I’m so happy to see you. But why are you here?”
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