With the tremor in her hands only slightly visible, she plucked off a piece of hamburger and lowered her hand beneath the table. He didn’t need to have Poppy sitting on his right foot, tail thumping in anticipation, to know she was slipping the food to the dog.
Her hand didn’t reappear—he suspected she was holding on to Poppy for comfort—but her gaze slowly lifted to his face. She didn’t meet his eyes, but at least she came close. “My parents died when I was eleven, and Gramma took me in. They were both only children, so there are no aunts or uncles or cousins, and my grandfather had already died, so Gramma just sort of focused on getting me grown up. It took...” She drew a deep breath, and her gaze made a fleeting connection with his. “It took longer than she expected.”
Huh, she’d made a joke. He didn’t point it out, didn’t want to make her self-conscious, but he did smile. “You strike me as someone who was probably all grown-up at birth. I suspect, in truth, you were helping raise Jessica.”
“She has a certain enthusiasm for life,” she admitted.
“That must be where you get it from.”
She lifted her hand back to the table and picked up her hamburger, slowly chewing a bite. “What makes you think I even got it?”
“Look at this place.” He tilted his head to indicate the house. “Well, outside more than inside, but you’ve made it gorgeous. My dad would be jealous of your yard, and he’s used to being the king of beautiful yards. You’re a big part of your gramma’s life, and you adopted Poppy because she needed somebody in her life. You love life, too. You just love it more quietly than Jessica and the baby do.”
His words pleased her. That was easy to see in the depths of her eyes. They also made her uncomfortable, easy to see in the sudden awkwardness of her movements. She wasn’t used to compliments. Or having dinner alone with a man in her house. Or letting anyone get close. Or sharing her space with anyone besides the dog—certainly not with someone who really wanted to invade her space.
Wanted to be invited to invade it.
He shifted the conversation to an inane discussion of the weather and the town and bits of information about people she’d come into contact with in the past week. Still, he wondered about her parents—how they died, how traumatic it had been for her, what the eleven years of her life with them had been like. Had she loved them even more dearly than Jessica? Had they spoiled her rotten and doted on her the way little kids should be doted on? Had their deaths devastated her?
But then there was that meltdown last week, and the flat, stiff way she’d said, “Discipline is overrated.”
Though the happy-loving-precious family was a pretty picture, something about it just felt wrong.
And there was a deeply ingrained, vital part of him that needed very much to put things right for everyone. That was why he’d joined the army. That was why he’d become a cop.
It wasn’t why he was so drawn to Mila. Oh, it was part of it. She was vulnerable, and he was protective. But she was more than that, and he felt more than that. He was looking forward to finding out what.
They finished their dinner, sharing bits and pieces with Poppy. When Mila gathered the wrappers and showed her there really was nothing left, the dog slunk into the kitchen and ate the dry food she’d apparently reserved as a last resort. Sam drank iced tea, brewed in a canning jar, and Mila drank iced coffee, brewed in a second glass jar, turned caramel by the cream she stirred in, smelling strong and sweet.
For a while, they just sat, listening to the quiet broken by Poppy’s snores and the occasional car passing outside. Night had fallen, and the only light on in the house was in the kitchen, white rays tinged with yellow that gleamed off the old oak table and gave the dining room a sense of intimacy.
After a time, Mila yawned. She flushed, and one of her quick, barely there smiles flashed. “Sorry. I’m usually up by five.”
“That’s way too early in the morning.”
“What time do you get up?”
He shrugged with a smile. “Five, if I’m going to run. Five forty-five if I’m not. I try to be in the office by seven thirty, but it seems to take me longer with each passing year.”
“You don’t run morning and evening.” She raised one brow to provide the question mark that escaped her voice.
“Oh, no. I only go at night if I’ve missed a couple of mornings. You know, if you slack off one day, it’s harder to get back out the next.”
Scooting her chair back a few inches, she crossed her legs. “I don’t run.”
“No, you just do hard work twelve hours a day in hundred-degree heat.”
“When your work is seasonal, you do it when it comes.”
“So spring’s busy because you’re planting and fertilizing and seeding. Summer’s busy because all your spring work is coming to fruition. In fall, you plant more, seed more, fertilize more, rake and get ready for winter. Then do you get to take winter off?”
“Part of it. Happy Grass lets most of its people go for the coldest months, but we’re still getting ready in November, and we start working on gardens in January or February—planning, layouts, ordering. I do whatever work is needed with the crew, but the gardens and shrubs are my primary job.”
Sam’s arms were resting on the solid tabletop, the left one bent so he could support his head on his palm. He watched the faint shadows shift over her face with her every movement. Watched her mouth form the words that described her job. Watched the slight actions of her hands that indicated she was inclined to talk with them but not this time.
“What?” she prompted, and he realized she’d quit talking a moment ago but he hadn’t quit watching her, and the smile he wore, he was pretty sure, was as goofy as Poppy’s.
“I like listening to you.”
Even in the dim light, he saw the flush return to her cheeks. “I—I don’t usually talk a lot.”
“I know. And that’s fine. Usually at work, I have so many people talking at me all at the same time that I have to hide in my office with the door locked to get just one moment of silence. But you’re different. I actually want to hear what you have to say.”
She didn’t know how to react to that. She uncrossed her legs. Crossed them back the other way. Rested her hands on the table, loosely clasped. Let them go to brush at her bangs. “I...”
Poppy trotted to her side, and Mila gratefully turned her attention to her, rubbing the spot between her shoulders, and gave up looking for a response. There was something sweet about the image they made, big yellow dog and slender dark-haired woman, but something sad, too: a grown woman needing comfort from a dog.
Somberly he scooted his chair back and stood up. “I should go.”
The look she gave him was tinged with relief, which also made him sad. But there was something more, wistfulness or maybe even regret, and he shared that.
They walked to the front door, the three of them. Realizing the door was going to open at any moment, Poppy lunged forward, the swish of her tail wiping the table there clean. Mila scolded her in a voice that was so sweet of course it negated the words coming out of her mouth while Sam bent to scoop up the fallen items: an ink pen, a spiral notebook, a stack of magazines and a book. The dust jacket was familiar, since the same book sat on his coffee table at home. The Unlucky Ones by Jane Gama.
“I wouldn’t have figured you for crime stories.” Granted, she’d probably bought it before Carlyle’s death, and it had probably sat there waiting its turn to be read. It had that sort of pristine stiffness unread books had.
Was that a shudder ricocheting through her, or merely the strain of holding back her excited dog? “I read everything.”
“I have it at home but haven’t started it yet. Lois said she had to quit halfway through. It gave her nightmares.” He paused. “Have you had any more?”
She shook her head, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
He glanced at the book again, its stark cover declaring it the true story of a girl’s life with serial killer parents. The name was a pseudonym, the author’s real identity well hidden, which had created a buzz regarding its real truth that was, according to Lois, better publicity than the publisher could have paid for. She hadn’t decided for herself before having to give it up.
Shrugging it off, he set the book and everything else back on the table and fixed his gaze on Mila. “Well.”
She was still biting her lip, stirring the need for him to brush his fingertip across it, to ease her teeth apart and then, oh, hell, maybe she could bite his lip.
He was in a damn pitiful state.
“Thank you for dinner.”
“You’re welcome.” He opened the door, and she pulled so hard against Poppy’s force that she would lose her balance and fall on her butt if the dog suddenly relaxed.
“I—I’ll see you...?”
He grinned to ease her uncertainty and to express his own relief. “Absolutely.” Then, because he couldn’t kiss her good-night or squeeze her hand or anything like that, not yet, he did the next best thing. “Sweet dreams, Mila.”
Chapter 6
The storm was violent. The power flickered and went off, but there was no peace in the darkness. He had anticipated this, had lit lanterns all around the barn. The rafters shook under the force of the winds, bits of straw and dust sprinkling onto us from the loft above. My mother, trusting I wouldn’t flee, slowly walked toward the victim, a look of such ecstasy on her face. Her gaze moved over her like a caress. It was the first time I’d ever seen a remotely happy expression on her, and the fact that it was caused by the sight of a bound woman about to die sickened me.
The air crackled around me, and I jerked my head up, looking out the door. The hairs on my arms stood on end, and I swore the hair on my head tried to rise, too. A brilliant light flared outside, followed immediately by a deafening crash that unsteadied me. Sulfur and smoke filled the air, first pungent and fresh, then the wet, bitter smell of flames quickly extinguished. The giant oak tree in the backyard had been struck by lightning. The earth still trembled, little shock waves that kept time with the pounding of my heart.
I didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be—
A scream exploded into the air, pain and anguish and terror. I jerked back around to see that he’d started. He held a knife in his hand, and blood dripped from his fingers. I wouldn’t look at her, couldn’t, or at least I tried not to, but my gaze was drawn to her no matter how I struggled.
Now I lay me...
It was my fault, because I tried to warn her. He knew even from so far away that I had changed the script, that I wasn’t doing my poor-lost-lamb routine, that I was trying to get her to run. What made me think I could change anything? He always knew. He could look at me, he said, and see exactly what I was thinking, feeling, planning, and I believed him.
Please let his hand slip. Instead of just cutting her, let him slice an artery. Let her death be quick and easy. Take his joy from it. Take my pain from it.
It was a prayer, but I didn’t know to whom. God didn’t listen to me the other times. Why should he? If I’m not worth my own father’s attention except when he was mad, why in the world would any god give me his attention?
Another scream ripped through the air, stronger, more desperate, its echo as sharp edged and tormented as the scream itself. It made the air vibrate, made me vibrate, just like when the tree had fallen, life ending in violence, only this time it went on and on inside my head, my chest, my soul, my very being. My throat went hoarse, my mouth dry, and that was when I realized.
The scream was coming from me.
—Excerpt, The Unlucky Ones by Jane Gama
It was lovely to have a plain, ordinary day at work on Tuesday. True, Mila’s workmates were more somber than usual, and she thought everyone felt the same edginess she did each time they arrived at a new job. But the heat was especially overpowering—114 degrees, according to the bank sign when they passed it midafternoon—and the heat index was north of a hundred, too. By the time she got home, she was too wrung out to do anything more than take care of Poppy, eat dinner and write a few pages in her notebook.
Pages all about Sam and confusion and new feelings and old feelings.
Lord, she wished she really had begun life the same day Mila Ramirez sprang into being. Without all the family baggage dragging her down, she could have made friends, had a first crush, a first date, a first kiss, all well before the age of twenty-six. But she hadn’t. And all those wonderful, lovely firsts were still out there, waiting to happen.
Wednesday morning a storm blew through, springing up out of nowhere as Oklahoma storms often did, a few cracks of thunder, a few flashes of lightning and a deluge of rain before moving on as quickly as it had formed. The pavement steamed, and the air hung heavier than it had before.
It seemed appropriate, since they were turning in to the Carlyle driveway.
After shutting off the engine, Ruben sat there a moment. They all looked at the house, no different than it had been the dozens of other times they’d seen it but seeming somehow so. There was actually one difference, Mila noted: a for-sale sign planted near the front curb.
She swallowed hard before reaching outside the window to grab the door handle. It creaked open, helped along with a kick on the lower panel. No one said anything as they got out, gathered their equipment and scattered to their tasks.
Mila was on her way to the backyard—unwillingly, though she didn’t voice it to Ruben or the others or even herself—when a car door sounded behind her. They rarely ran into anyone in this neighborhood. Either both spouses worked to pay for the big houses or one worked while the other did whatever people with money did to fill their time.
It wasn’t a resident. The shield and decals on the white pickup made that clear. She didn’t overtly react as she watched Sam cross the grass to her, but everything inside her was dancing with delight. Trepidation. A lot of worry. But still a whole lot of delight.
“Please don’t tell me there’s a body I haven’t yet found.” Inwardly she winced at her comment. It had just come out of its own accord, something she was totally unaccustomed to. She always considered her words before uttering them. It had often meant the difference between annoyance and anger. Anger and rage. Rage and violence.
But in the past week she had been so sociable that her control had slipped. It was freeing, giving her a sense of normalcy she’d never felt. It also tightened her chest and the nerves in her stomach and sent a vaguely queasy sensation bouncing through her. Her parents were dead. Her secrets weren’t.
“No body, please, God. I just wanted to make sure this wasn’t any more difficult than it had to be for you.”
She blinked, sweat burning her eyes, and automatically swiped her sleeve across her face. “You took time to come here...so I wouldn’t have to go into the backyard alone?” The idea puzzled and pleased and touched her, making her next breath hard to come by, making her feel...unworthy. If he only knew...
It was hard to tell whether the flush darkening his cheeks came from the heat or was fueled by self-consciousness. “We aim to protect and serve.”
“I—” So much for speaking without thinking. She couldn’t find the words to say how much she appreciated this gesture. It was the nicest thing anyone other than Gramma had ever done for her.
She swallowed hard and continued to the gate. The code remained the same, five digits and a pound sign, and when she walked into the yard, it looked the same, too. She followed the path to the back of the house and stopped abruptly, her gaze jerking to the patio and the pool. The water was still, blue and beckoning. Everything glistened with raindrops that hadn’t been enough to feed the thirsty soil but had given it a clean shine, and the view was peaceful, beautiful, inviting.
If a person didn’t know that one of the lounge chairs was missing. That a violent act had taken place there exactly one week ago. That the faint stain on the stone was blood. She wondered how porous the stone was, whether that slab would have to be dug up and replaced or if the stain could be sanded out.
Pointless thoughts considering that a man had died.
But sometimes pointless thoughts were the only safe ones to have.
She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until Sam touched her shoulder and it whooshed out. Goose bumps rose on her arms as her wide-eyed gaze jerked to him.
“Sorry,” she said at the same time he said, “I didn’t mean—”
The deep breath that filled her lungs was sweet with flowers and sunshine and rain, and it steadied her almost as much as Sam’s presence did. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “It’s just a little eerie.”
“I know. The family went straight to her mother’s house in New York. That’s where he’ll be buried this week. His boss hired a real estate agent, and they’ll get everything packed up and shipped east.”
“I don’t blame her for not wanting to be here again.” She didn’t believe that souls ripped violently and unexpectedly from their lives haunted places, but she did think they left parts of themselves behind—not good or bad, necessarily, just an essence or imprint of the life they’d lost.
“I know. But someone else will come along and look at it and see a great house, a lot of room, a view, a pool and a garden, and they won’t care that a man died here. If they do, it’ll just be to negotiate a few thousand off the price for the ick factor.”
“That’s a good thing, though.” Mila set down her trug, pulled on gloves and got the shears. “If nobody was willing to live in a place where someone had been killed, think of all the abandoned houses that would accumulate over time.”
When he didn’t respond, she looked at him and saw his gaze was on the shears she held. The weapon used on Carlyle, a knife, wasn’t part of her tools, but she had multiple pairs of shears. She’d seen the ones sticking in Mr. Greeley’s chest, and they were closer to kitchen scissors than garden shears. Still, she held hers out. “Do you want to look at them?”
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