by Trent Evans
Eventually, Amy seemed to relax, and Hunter realized she’d actually fallen asleep. Keenan’s knowing gaze met Hunter’s. “So, what do you think of our ways? Do you think White Valley is the place for you after all?”
Hunter swallowed down a painful lump, thankful his arms were across his lap, hiding the erection tenting his jeans.
“I… think I might be looking into a longer stay.”
Keenan grinned, kissing the top of his wife’s head. “This is only the first taste, my friend. There’s so much more to come.”
Chapter 6
“Where’s your fancy little tablet?” Ford got up to go refill his mug, talking to her over his shoulder. “You want some coffee?”
“Coffee would be great.” Falon tapped her small notebook on her bare knee. “As for the tablet, well, pen and paper never run out of power. I’m not the best typist either.”
“Just the pretty face then. Teleprompter reader.”
“Uh, not exactly. I’m just a producer, remember?”
Ford noted the way she looked at the floor, blushing a little as she said the words. He set the mug down on the desk in front of her. Ghostly steam danced above the chipped rim, White Valley Paradise emblazoned on the side in yellow and red.
She crossed her bare, gleaming legs, the skirt she’d chosen a light denim, a black long-sleeved turtle neck a dark counterpoint to the bright hair pulled back in a single ponytail. Her leather sandal slapped against her heel as she nervously bounced her foot. She’d chosen something a little less all-business today, though by no means plain.
He was fairly certain Falon Moore couldn’t be plain if she tried.
She watched him as she took a sip, wincing a little as the scalding liquid touched lips glossed a faint peach color. He shouldn’t have observed that it rendered the blonde of her hair even lighter, almost a platinum. A good look for her.
Stop.
Ford dropped into his chair, the leather creaking, the pant leg of his uniform catching for a moment on the ragged tear at the front of the bottom cushion. Gray light filtered in through the windows of his office, the cool overcast morning a welcome relief from the heat that seemed to take up permanent residence in White Valley during the summer months.
“Thank you again for agreeing to see me, Sheriff.”
“Why don’t we use Ford?”
“Deal — but only if you call me Falon.” She flashed a quick, uncertain smile.
“Fair enough.” Ford took a drag of the pleasingly hot coffee. A little burnt, but it would do the job. “What can I tell you that your source hasn’t already blabbed to you?”
Falon’s mouth dropped open for a moment, then she took a quick breath. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Ford set his coffee down on his desk blotter. “Let me ask you something, Falon. Do you really think you’re the first reporter to come into town, intent on the big scoop?”
She leveled her gaze at him, apparently finding her bearings once more. Maybe she wasn’t quite as easy to rattle as he’d guessed?
“If I had a source — and I’m not saying I do or don’t — I wouldn’t disclose it to you. Ford.”
“I can’t recall anyone leaving town with a grudge, or under bad circumstances.” Ford picked up his mug again, raising a finger from the handle as he blew on the hot coffee. “We did have Timmy McClatchy. Maybe him? He killed a seventy-eight-year-old retiree in Spokane. Used her own husband’s golf club of all things. Thought it would be a good idea to hide out here in the Valley. Let things cool off. He’ll be in Walla Walla for, oh… forever. Don’t suppose you’d use someone as unreliable as that piece of shit though.”
Falon cleared her throat. “I did some checking on the history of this place. Quite…colorful.”
“It is that — but then when you dig deep enough, go back enough years, what place doesn’t have its skeletons, or its ghost stories?”
“What do you think about the history here?”
“You’re not really here to quiz me on White Valley lore, are you? Because if you are, I’ve got a lot better things to be doing with my time. And you do too.”
Her lips quirked at that, but her gaze remained steady. “You’re right. So tell me about the people here. Why are they so scared of outsiders? What are they hiding?”
“Scared isn’t the word I’d use, but okay, let’s go with it.” Ford leaned over on one elbow, the chair groaning a little. “The people here believe in living life their way, away from the world that tells them what’s right and wrong. Away from a world that wants to impose its social order simply because it can.”
“Is this a commune? A cult?” She scribbled something on her notepad.
“Let me guess. Your source told you about”—Ford held up two fingers, making air quotes— “‘abuse’ or ‘coercion’ or ‘beatings.’ Am I close?”
She set the notebook down on her thigh, color blossoming high in her cheeks. “You have had these questions before then.”
Ford shrugged. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told them. Nothing that happens here isn’t consensual. The people — men and women — come here because they want to. They want what White Valley can give them.”
“And that is?”
“Don’t you already know? Hasn’t your source already told you? And I’m sure you believe everything he says, no matter how fantastical it may sound? Because that would be your story, wouldn’t it?”
The color deepened in her cheeks, her lips drawing to a thin line. “The Washington State Patrol has been contacted about… events here.”
“Not the first time, and won’t be the last either.”
Ford recalled the last time the WSP had investigated in White Valley. The staters had sent a tall, by-the-book whippersnapper straight from the academy. Eager. Earnest. And also the great grandson of one of the founders of White Valley.
Reports had been filed, hoops jumped through — and it had gone away quietly.
There had been something to the investigation though — even if the WSP report said otherwise — but the White Valley Sheriff’s Department had taken care of it. The town sorted out its own problems, its own way. It had worked for almost a hundred years, and it would work for a hundred more.
If Ford had anything to say about it anyway.
“So, you’re not denying that women are subjected to corporal punishment?”
“I’m neither confirming nor denying anything. What goes on between a man and a woman here in White Valley is between them, not the Sheriff’s department.”
“What about public nudity? Exhibitionism? Sadomasochistic activity?” She leaned forward in her seat, lowering her voice. “Look, Ford. I can work with you here. Help me out. If you can give me something, then I can give you something.”
“Your source?”
“I don’t know that I’ve told you I have a source.”
“What then?”
She thinks she has you. Poor deluded girl.
“I’ve got a lot of… leeway in how I write a story. You’d be surprised what gets included in a piece when a reporter has had a cooperative source, or a good experience in general. Sure, they’ll all deny such a thing, citing journalistic integrity, objectivity, whatever.” She waved her hand. “It’s all bullshit. If the reporter likes a subject, or finds them sympathetic — that’s going to come through. It just will.”
Ford tapped a finger on his chin. “So let me see if I understand correctly. You’ll agree to go easy on us — on me — in this story of yours, if I cooperate. Sounds a little bit like extortion to me, Falon.”
“It might sound like that to you, but it isn’t.” She brushed a strand of hair from her eyes, Ford catching the telltale trembling of her fingers.
“Scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours then?” Ford shook his head, chuckling. “How often it comes down to just such a thing.”
“Something like that.” She fixed him with her gaze once more. “I don’t want to… cause trouble here. I definitely shouldn’t adm
it this — but I do like you. And I like this town. It’s a beautiful place.”
Ford grunted. “Come back in January, when it’s fifteen below zero and the wind is howling down the canyon, the snow like a power washer against your face. You might change your mind.”
“I don’t intend on returning, Ford. Unless I need to. Come Friday, I’m heading back home.” She wrote something in her notebook. “That is unless I have to come back.”
“Understood.” Ford sighed. “Let’s hear them then.”
“Do you deny any of the things that I’ve previously noted take place here in White Valley?”
“I do not. But again, what people choose to do is their own business.”
Falon flipped over several pages of her notebook, her finger tracing several lines. “In public? Nude women on a sidewalk like — and I quote — ‘pieces of meat displayed at the market.’ Do you deny that?”
“I’m sure you’d be surprised to note that a review of White Valley town ordinances will show a distinct absence of any that specifically bar, or even address, public nudity.”
She tilted her head to the side as she looked down at her notepad, scribbling once more. “So… is this a nudist’s colony? Is it that simple?”
“Is anything that simple, Falon?”
“I wouldn’t have a job if it was,” she murmured, her smile showing a wisdom — and weariness — beyond her years.
“And neither would I.”
“I have just one more question for you.” Falon closed her notebook, lacing her fingers together over one knee. “If you were to learn of anything…illegal that was occurring here in White Valley, you’d have to investigate, right?”
He tapped the star pinned above his shirt pocket. “You guessed it.”
“No matter who it was? No matter what it involved?”
“Yes.”
Where was she going with this? For the first time, she had him on his heels. She knew something he didn’t, and he wasn’t sure she was going to tell him what it was. At least, not yet.
“Even if this… illegality had to do with the — I don’t know what you call it — lifestyle here?”
“Of course. If you have something to tell me, I’m all ears.”
For a long moment, those pale blue eyes regarded him as she sat motionless in her seat, as an owl might observe its prey before swooping down from above. Then she grinned, shaking her head.
“You’re a tough interview, Mr. Sheriff. That’s all I’ve got.”
She stood, slinging her purse over one shoulder, the snug turtle-neck clinging to her body, rendering its curves in devastating detail. “Walk me out?”
Ford grabbed his coat from the rack behind his chair. “Of course. Protect and serve, right?”
That smile flashed again, making him catch his breath a moment as he basked in its beauty. He made the mistake of watching the roll and swing of her rounded hips as he followed her out to the street.
Young producer or not, this woman was dangerous — to more than just this town’s secrets.
She walked to her car, a rented Ford Taurus with Oregon plates, and unlocked it. Draping an arm across the top of her open door, she laid her chin on her hand, blinking up at him. “What are the chances I’ll be seeing that truck of yours in my rear view mirror as I leave town Friday?”
It was Ford’s turn to grin. “You’re a smart girl, Falon Moore.”
* * *
It wasn’t the first time she’d encountered a wily — and impossible to pin down — cop. The problem with Ford Mathis wasn’t that he was smart, resourceful, and saw through all her tricks. It wasn’t that he ignored her bullshit.
The problem was that the tall drink of water made her want to kneel at his feet and beg for his attention. Or his whip.
Jesus Christ, what’s gotten into you?
Falon pushed her laptop closed, the single lamp at her bedside suddenly too dim to illuminate the quiet motel room. She scrubbed her eyes with her palms, then fished her notebook out of her purse, reviewing her notes again.
That there was something seriously fucked up here in White Valley was now beyond doubt. The Sheriff’s obfuscation was as transparent as it was effective. She hadn’t yet figured out why a small-town law man would be covering for what looked to her to be heavy duty shit. Highly illegal shit.
Still, something wasn’t sitting right with her. It had started the day she’d met him up on that wind-swept turn-out, as she stood there in silence watching him adorably trying to get a signal on his phone. She’d had a chance to get a good look at him in those few moments, and the memory of that tight ass in those tan uniform pants, the broad, muscled back, and the way the wind caught his hair at the back of his neck, his locks growing a little longer than she’d have expected from a by-the-book lawman. She couldn’t help but wonder what that ass of his would feel like in her hands as she squeezed it, kneeling down and taking him deep in her mouth. She knew his cock would be incredible.
There was no way it wouldn’t be on such a beautiful — if gruff — man.
You should’ve brought your vibrator. At least that way you’d start thinking straight.
Falon sighed, pushing her laptop off her legs and slipping off the edge of the mattress, the thin carpet cold against her toes, the air conditioning doing more than an adequate job in cooling the air into something between refrigerated and arctic. She hurried over to the unit, switching it off, rubbing her arms with her hands, her nipples standing up hard from the cold.
Sure, it’s just the cold.
“Stop, Falon,” she said, pacing at the foot of the bed. “You need to think this out.”
Something was missing, a big piece of the puzzle. Her source had laid it all out for her, in sometimes over the top detail. She’d even considered taking some of it to her editor to get another take on it. Some of the information was almost… fantastical.
And straight out of your fantasies, you slut.
So, maybe some of what she’d learned was like a plot from a smut novel. The kind she liked, with darkness, uncompromising men — and heroines forced to bend to their will.
“This is not a fucking romance novel, you trick. This is real life!”
It was stupid to be talking to herself like this, but it helped lessen the tension she’d felt since she’d left the interview with Mathis. She knew he was probably already tailing her — and would likely tail her until she left White Valley in her rear view mirror.
What Mathis didn’t know though was that Falon had no intention of being run out of this town. Not until she found what she knew was there, just under the surface. In her experience, things were usually even more fucked up than her sources even let on. She wasn’t sure how this could get much worse than what she’d already been told, but her instinct told her it was.
That same instinct also told her something else. She was in danger here.
But the question was: who was more of a threat to her? Was it what she couldn’t see — yet? Or was it the one thing she could see, the one thing her instinct fairly screamed was a bad idea. A very bad idea, indeed.
Bad idea or not though, she wasn’t sure she was prepared to resist the challenge — and the attraction — she felt from Sheriff Ford Mathis.
She sat back down on her bed, holding her head in her hands.
“Oh you’re in such deep shit, Falon.”
Chapter 7
Hunter nursed his beer, the liquid still cold against his lips while he stood on Von’s sun-drenched deck. A clear glass table and two plastic chairs were the only things the men shared the outdoor space with. Troy leaned an elbow on the railing, looking out across the view of the river the house was blessed with. Situated at the western terminus of the city limits of White Valley, the house had been built on a rise, affording it a panoramic view both up into the western part of the canyon where it winded deeper into the Cascades and all the way down across the entire town, looking toward the confluence of the White River and the mighty Columbia many miles t
o the east.
“Can you fucking believe this place?” Troy asked with a slow shake of his head. “I’d kill for a view like this.”
“Or the one Keenan’s got.”
“He’s a good man,” Troy said, with a shrug. “But shit, he lives too far up in BFE for me.”
“How’d he afford to build something like that out there?” Hunter didn’t even want to think about the cost and labor for such a job.
“Helps that the dude is loaded — and he is. Keenan might be the richest man in this little town. And that’s saying something too. You’d be amazed at the money around here. Also helps to know a contractor who’ll get you a killer price, if you know what I mean.”
“Von?”
Troy nodded. “Dude’s got his hands in all kinds of things. Nice guy to have on your side.”
“What do you mean?”
The breeze picked up, ruffling Troy’s black hair. He flicked it out of his eyes, sipping his beer again. “I’m just saying the guy can open doors in this town. A lot of them. Pay attention, learn, experience — and you might just find what you’re looking for.”
“Wish I knew what that was. What if it’s… not here?”
Troy turned, leaning a hip against the railing, arms clasped over his chest, tapping the neck of his beer against a shoulder. “Maybe it’s always been right in front of your face — but you just couldn’t see it?”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Time to change the subject.
“Where is Von, anyway?”
“He’ll be along,” a familiar female voice said behind them as the slider glass door whisked open.
Troy set his beer down on the railing and extended his arms, smiling, his dark sunglasses catching the sun, making it glint off the lenses. “Come here, little girl.”
“Lacey?” Hunter hoped his mouth wasn’t hanging open.
Lacey, looking as beautiful as she ever had, was dressed in a dark patterned Kimono style robe, the color of which matched the perfect jet of her long hair. The breeze caught her locks, fanning some of them across her face. She drew the tresses away with slender fingers as she dashed to her husband, her generous breasts bouncing in the loose confines of the silk fabric.