For Bill, it was the mind-blowing orgasm he’d always read about or watched, but never experienced. Wave after wave of sensation rolled over him, giving him the shudders and quakes long after the actual act of lovemaking was over.
Lying replete in her arms, he shifted slightly, taking his full weight off of her body, but still covering her, unconsciously, righteously claiming her as his own.
Chapter Twenty-Three
She thought, almost helplessly, that her heart might have belonged to Sheriff Bill Ashton from the first moment she’d met him. When she saw the ranch he called home, she realized how far gone she really was.
The long, rutted dirt road leading to the Homestead bounced and battered against the springs of the ‘Cuda, making her glad she hadn’t tried the trip in her tiny sports car.
The drive curving up the hill to the main house captured her imagination. The fields on either side were silvery in the waning moonlight, catching only the best, the brightest strands. As they topped the ridge, the main house and outbuildings loomed before them in star-splashed mystery.
Bill pulled the classic car to a stop in front of the ranch house, sacrificing the car to a night in the open, acutely aware of the riotously stimulating woman sitting next to him on the bench seat. He turned to face her for the second time that night, but this time there was nothing teasing about his gaze or demeanor. Taking Arden to his bed was a serious matter, and just as solemnly approached as it had been earlier in the evening.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Arden knew he was asking far more than his question implied. Was she really ready? Shit no. But when a man as compelling and sexy and downright delectable as Bill Ashton came along, who was she to refuse that impulse, that absolute need, no matter how foolish it may be?
“You know I am.” She stated with a surety that gladdened them both.
He stepped out of the car and walked around to her side, then opened the door while holding out his hand to her, the quintessential Southern gentlemen in California cowboy clothes. She wondered where he’d inherited the combination.
Strolling up the slate-paved walkway, her hand in his, she asked just that.
“Well, the Ashton family came from North Carolina almost a hundred and fifty years ago. My great-something granddaddy, Zachariah Ashton, came west during the gold rush and settled in this area. He raised cattle and had a pretty decent stake when the last of the 49ers rolled through, and their pure lust for gold made him a rich man.”
“How so?” she murmured, caught up in the surroundings and his tale and the pure magic of the night.
“Well,” he drawled, “the 49ers loved gold more than anything else, but everyone needs to eat. Grandpa Zachariah had beef on the hoof within easy driving distance of a large portion of the gold claims. Of course,” he said with a smile, “the fact that he married into one of the best gold mines in the west didn’t hurt matters any.”
“And how did he manage to do that?” Arden asked, interested in his family history, anything about the man.
“You’ll appreciate this, as a woman,” he said, with a grin. “He married for love. No, wait,” he said, turning to her in front of the steps to the house. “It really was love. He found and argued with and courted and finally married Katarina long before he ever discovered she was sitting on one of the richest claims in California.” His gaze turned inward. “It was a match made in heaven and hell, or so the story goes. Since it includes the “hell” part of marriage, I’m inclined to believe the rest of it. But that’s neither here nor there.
“Arden, welcome to the Homestead.” With that, he grasped both of her hands in his and took her mouth in a long, searching kiss that soared exponentially past their earlier embraces.
When their kiss finally ended, they were halfway up the stairs to the front door, greeted by a bevy of pissed-off cats and one very soulful looking dog.
“Shit. I forgot to feed them in the barn before I left. “ Bill looked up at Arden sheepishly. “Give me just a minute?”
At her nod he opened the door, shooing the cats and lone canine into the house. He held the door open for her in, what was by now, characteristic chivalry.
The Homestead was one of those houses that just looked…right. It was clean and lived in and gloriously unfussy. As Bill went to the side porch to feed his menagerie, Arden wandered through the living room, taking in its architectural details and decorations with a woman’s eye.
Rough-hewn barn timbers supported a white stucco ceiling throughout the living area. Family photographs graced the walls, interspersed between display boxes of antique spurs and bridle bits. The furniture was comfortable, overstuffed, and looked like it had been crafted with this particular house in mind.
Café doors swung next to a two-seater breakfast bar that looked into a surprisingly modern kitchen. As she ran her fingers over the silky finish of the enormous slab of wood forming the base of the bar, Arden thought how much this house resembled the one she’d grown up in. Oh, not the actual building itself, but the feeling that this was a home that had been truly loved for generations, and would be well into the future.
She sensed him seconds before he hooked his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder.
“Penny for your thoughts.” He said, inhaling the sweet clean smell of her hair, admiring the delicate curve of her ear.
She leaned back against him, smiling wickedly as he brushed a light kiss across the sensitive skin under her ear. “I was just thinking how this house really seems to be a home. It reminds me of Oklahoma.”
“Do you ever miss it? I’d think that L.A. would be a lot more exciting, a lot more fun.”
“Oh, it’s fun all right, at least it can be. But it’s not home. I’ve never understood how people could move into a suburb so deep in the city that it takes a two-hour drive to see anything but more houses. In Oklahoma you may live in the city, but in just a few minutes, you’re in the middle of the prairie, with cows and horses and possums and skunks. Who could give that up? Who could raise their kids in the middle of an asphalt jungle?”
Bill knew she was serious, and closed his eyes against a little grimace of pain. Why couldn’t Caitlin have shared the same love of the land? And wasn’t it just his dumb luck that the woman he’d found it in was smart and sexy and lived 400 miles away?
He slowly turned her around to face him. “Some people like the city. We just aren’t them. I guess I can’t call you L.A. woman anymore, can I?”
She carefully shook her head, marveling at the emotion swirling in the depths of those amazing eyes. “Your wife left you for the city, didn’t she?”
Her simple question went straight to his heart, and he wondered how someone who’d only known him a short while could read him so easily. Then he realized it was the same for her. They were set on the same frequency, and tuned into each other with an ease that was almost eerie. He looked down into her expressive, changeable eyes, and nodded, wondering where this path would take them.
At his nod Arden leaned forward, putting her arms around him, her head resting on his shoulder. “Tom left me for a lifestyle he couldn’t give up. I thank myself for that each and every day. When I was with him, I wasn’t as much as I was by myself. Does that make any sense?”
She could feel his nod against her hair, feel the brief, fleeting tightening of his embrace, then she looked up.
“We’re going to be something together, but I guess you know that, don’t you?”
He smiled, his teeth flashing in the shadows of the living room as he pulled away from her just enough to look her up and down.
She held out her hand. “Then why don’t you show me?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Bill dropped Arden off at the Maple Street Inn a few minutes before seven, on his way to an early Sunday morning at the office.
Apparently Mindy Turner was up with the roosters, because she greeted Arden at the door with an pushily inquisitive smile and a basketful of questio
ns on how she’d enjoyed the Fair and her evening with the Sheriff.
Arden tried waving her off, claiming exhaustion, but nothing would stop Mindy’s inexorable advance. By the time she had been escorted to the stairs, Arden had heard the complete clothesline-gossip version of Bill Ashton’s life in Mariposa which included how he was quite a catch since his wife had dumped him rather than move to the foothills. How his ranch was one of the biggest in the county and he’d left his marriage and Los Angeles to carry on the family tradition. And lastly, how the Sheriff hadn’t shown interest in any of the local girls in years, and wasn’t Arden just the lucky one?
Arden wavered between admiration at Mindy’s apparently endless commentary and pure fatigue. It was that pure, luscious fatigue that comes from a long night of good, hard lovemaking. She let Mindy’s voice skip across her mind like a stone on a calm lake as scenes from last night played through her mind.
Sex on the side of a mountain, for God’s sakes! Who would have thought they would click so hard, so fast once the wheels had begun to turn? What they’d shared had been more than sex, and both of them knew it. It was a very scary concept and not one Arden wanted to dwell on right this moment.
She reached her room, Mindy in tow. Turning to the garrulous innkeeper, she excused herself, then slipped through her door, plopping down on the sumptuous softness of the bed. She was sore in places she’d forgotten about, and a few that could have only come from their mountainside escapade. Either way, it was a good soreness, the soreness that came from being thoroughly, completely loved.
A satisfied smile curving her lips, she stretched out, wondering if Bill was a little sore and tired himself. She drifted off with that smile still on her face and erotic memories floating through her mind.
* * * *
“Well, Agent Drebin’s profile was dead-on, at least in my limited profiling experience. Your subject is highly functional otherwise he couldn’t have kept these abductions a secret for this long. I’d also have to agree that he lives alone. Aside from that, I don’t know what I can offer on him.
“Kimmie Ross and your other victims, however, I can help with. I’ve looked at both the crime report and Agent Drebin’s profile in making this determination, as well as speaking to Ms. Ross’ parents.” Dr. Porter pushed a small brown leatherette notebook across the table.
“These are my notes on the crime scenes and from those conversations. Usually I wouldn’t turn those over, but I wanted you to see the thought process behind my perceptions, especially since you’ve been trained in this science as well. These,” he held out a small sheaf of paper, “are what I think you’ve got going on here.”
The Sheriff carefully placed the papers in front of him, then folded his hands over them and looked at Adam. “Give me the verbal version, please. I’ll read these later. I want your thoughts, your first impressions right now.”
“Very well. Down and dirty…you were right. This definitely looks like Stockholm Syndrome on the surface, but it’s got a different feel once you go deeper. Kim Ross was an independent, opinionated young lady. From what I saw on her autopsy report, she apparently tolerated her incarceration quite well before her final struggle with her abductor. I obviously can’t tell much about the women who went before as there’s simply not enough physical evidence.
“Once I learned Ms. Ross’ personal background and got with Josie on the religious implications,” he paused, nodding across the table at Josie, “I came to the following conclusion regarding your victims. These women suffered from a modified version of Stockholm Syndrome, assuming a pseudo-identity that captives under Stockholm never suffer. We can surmise, from the physical evidence, that each was held about a year. That is an extraordinarily long time to be held captive. Your victims were cut off from everything familiar, then treated well, until their allotted time ran out.
“It’s not only understandable that they would associate themselves with their abductor, it’s to be expected. Just look at the example of Patty Hearst and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Granted, the Symbionese Liberation Army tortured her, but in that time she developed three distinct personalities. That was under direct threat of life. It doesn’t seem like your victims suffered a threat, beyond their obvious incarceration, that is.” Porter finished succinctly, looking dapper and rested, every inch the prosperous physician.
“Okay,” the Sheriff answered slowly, “I can buy that, it fits pretty well with what I thought. I know profiling isn’t your gig, but would you mind making a hypothesis on the bullet hole in their heads? We think they were all strangled. It fits his MO. Why kill someone twice?”
“I can answer that,” Josie piped in from the other side of the conference room table. “Or at least I think I can.” She smiled wanly, stress lines beginning to show around her eyes and mouth.
“But, it’s Wiccan lesson time again, so just hang tight, okay? There are seven centers of power in the body with the sixth being the Psychic Center. It is located in the center of the forehead and functions as both a receptor and a transmitter. It’s also known by other names, most importantly the Third Eye and the Purity Center for anyone who had done research into this subject, or even seen some of the late night psychic infomercials. The sixth center is a very active psychic center and an exit point for the astral body.
“Okay so far?” At their nods she continued. “I think he may have shot them there, and only there, to keep them from ascending to the next plane. To trap them in their worldly bodies and deny them entry to The Summerland, which is the Wiccan version of Heaven or the Happy Hunting Ground. Such a violent blocking of The Summerland or any existential plane of existence is fundamentally against the Wiccan rede, but then again, so is killing people.
“It even begins to make a kind of perverted sense since the bodies and the crime scenes contain elements of both altars and sacrificial sites. In my humble opinion, he’s split and doesn’t seem to know what he’s looking for, or he knows what he wants and can’t find it. Either way, he’s dangerous as hell. I’m afraid your lady friend’s sister may be the next one we find. Unfortunately, he knows we’ve found his worship site. He’ll move now, keep it private.”
Adam interrupted smoothly. “Did I understand Josie correctly—is there another victim?”
“Jesus doc, don’t you watch the news or read the paper? A woman disappeared from a roadside rest station three months ago and no one’s seen hide nor hair of her since. Ordinarily it would just be a missing person’s case, but she left half a million bucks in the front seat of her car. That qualifies as a little bit out of the ordinary, if you know what I mean. Then her sister shows up, loaded for bear, manages to get herself shot, and finds a link to our bad guy in the damn car. The car, might I say, that our eagle-eyed crime lab looked over with a fine-toothed comb.” The edge that entered the Sheriff’s voice was unintentional, but it was there, and rapier sharp.
“Luckily the goddamned blood-sucking press hasn’t figured out the witchcraft end of this little scenario, but I don’t expect that to last much longer. Someone will open their big mouth around the wrong set of ears and it’ll be splashed all over the Sacramento Bee or the San Francisco Chronicle just in time for the morning edition.” Bill leaned back in the creaky oak chair. “And now, to top it off, we need to move the command center out of here, school starts Tuesday. We were okay as long as we were out of sight, but I can’t really think of anyplace else in town that can hold this investigation, and hold it quietly. The whole situation sucks, across the board.”
Porter looked at the Sheriff, amusement dancing through his eyes and in his voice. “I’ll bet you were the terror of the L.A.P.D. Remind me not to make you angry. You’d be a worthwhile, if formidable, opponent.”
Bill found nothing wrong with that assessment, and it served to throttle back his temper a few notches. He grinned at the doctor with a smile that seemed to say, ‘no fear, it’s just between us boys.’
Josie, however, was looking at the doctor with cauti
ous eyes. Something about his tone, his intonation, went beyond mere macho male bonding. Did the Sheriff threaten him? After all, Bill Ashton was a good-looking, intelligent man, attractive enough and smart enough to make him number two on the short list of eligible bachelors in the county. She watched for a moment longer, but saw nothing but two handsome men looking at each other with shit-eating grins on their faces.
* * * *
It didn’t take long for the news of impending romance between the Sheriff and Arden Jones to pass through town. It relegated the continuing talk of murder to a distant second in the Sugar Pine, and was passed around with the collection plate at St. Gregory’s Sunday mass.
It was scattered like so many seeds around the circle of men camped in their permanent positions on the porch in front of the Feed Store, their brittle bones creaking as they passed secrets faster and more accurately than old women in a quilting circle.
* * * *
Bill showed up at Arden’s door at precisely three o’clock, feeling used up and just a little awkward. He knew his presence was grist for the rumor mill, but he really didn’t give a damn. After his meeting with Josie and Adam, he’d put in almost four hours of case review, looking for something, anything they might have missed.
He had nothing to show for that time but grainy eyes and a headache that had promised to become debilitating if he didn’t take a break. Right now he couldn’t think of anything better than seeing Arden, doing something nice for himself for a change.
Waking up to find Arden snuggled against him this morning had put everything into perspective. He had looked down at her while she slept, noting the way sleep had smoothed out the stress lines that bracketed her mouth too often these days, noticing how she’d filled out a little, but still had the look of an athlete. Then she’d opened her eyes and a rumpled, sleepy smile crossed her face like a slow wave and he’d felt his heart turn over in his chest.
The Summerland Page 17