“I bet.”
She eyed the gleam in Ethan’s eye and added, “No, not like what you’re thinking. Jordan said she’d spent months out there alone, a long time before Nick ever came, and that Scott never bothered showing himself to her. I guess that aspect is…problematic for her.” She sipped her wine and studied the good-looking man sitting across from her. Out of uniform, with a beer in his hand, he looked the most relaxed she’d ever seen him. Unqualified warmth spread over her. She didn’t think it was the wine, either. Damn it, she didn’t want to be attracted to a cop.
“Are you saying she’s upset because he shows himself to Nick, and now to you, but not her?”
She took another sip of wine to get her mind off the way his lips fit around the mouth of that bottle. “Well, think about it. She felt abandoned when he left for Iraq and didn’t come back. Now, he’s a ghost and doesn’t bother appearing to his own wife.”
“Okay. That’s deep. Sure, take the book. But are you certain of what you saw. I mean…”
She nodded. “Jordan showed me a picture. Scott Phillips was as real as you are right now, walking through the courtyard in the moonlight, smiling, looking―happy. He was so real I thought he was another guest who had checked in while I was at work. And then, poof…gone! Besides, it isn’t just me, Nick’s seen him too.”
“Nick seems pretty rock solid to me. You know he served in the same Guard unit as Scott. Memories of war might be responsible for Nick seeing him. But you?”
“Nick has a theory. And I’ve been thinking about it some. I have my own. That’s why I want to read the book you have. See if it offers any new ideas.”
“What’s the theory?”
“Nick’s idea is that he’s watching over the people he loves and cares about.”
“Sounds reasonable. But you don’t agree.”
“It’s a noble thought, but if that were true, then why did he appear to me? Scott didn’t know me let alone care anything about me. See what I’m saying? Anyway, I think the people who see him are troubled, unhappy for whatever reason, maybe groping their way through life looking for answers they don’t have at the moment, or maybe looking for something they need―like help of some kind.”
“Are you troubled, Hayden?”
She eyed him for a long time. “I thought you were psychic?”
His eyes darkened and became wary. “Who told you that?”
She ignored the question. “You told me yourself how you think I came to be here. I’m running from something, remember?”
“So, I was right?”
“In a manner of speaking. But I’m not running from an ex or an abusive relationship, if that’s what you’re curious about? It’s a tad more complicated than that. And I don’t have a criminal past.”
“You’re an enigma.”
“It’s a female’s prerogative to be mysterious.” She grinned and got up to clear the dishes.
After picking up her plate, he stilled her hand. “You don’t have to do that. You’re a guest, guests don’t do the dishes.”
“I ate like a horse. You cooked. I’ll clean. That’s the way it works.” While she loaded the dishwasher Ethan filled the dog dish with water for the night, let Grisham outside in the small backyard to pee.
With the dog outside, he came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her. “What did you mean earlier when you said I was a contradiction?”
She stopped rinsing dishes, dried her hands on the towel, and turned to face him. “You’re kidding, right? You seem restless, Ethan, like you aren’t completely happy doing what you’re doing. There’s a guitar propped up in your living room.” She cocked her head and purposely studied him. “But something tells me you aren’t interested in pursuing a career as a rock star. You love the guitar as an outlet, for personal enjoyment, for fun. You get a kick out of performing on a lark. Then there’s the fact that you own enough books to fill a small library. You name your dog after an incredibly talented author.”
“So?”
His tone said it all. “Looks like I’m not the only one who has a secret they don’t want to discuss.”
Stunned at how easily she’d read him when no one else had ever gotten close to his furtive hopes, Ethan remarked, “Okay, I’d love to write, make a living at it, you know.”
Her eyes went wide. That’s the last thing she’d expected him to say. “Have you sent in manuscripts?”
He nodded. “All rejected.”
“I read something on the Internet that said Grisham was rejected thirty times.”
“I’m definitely catching up. There aren’t even that many publishers willing to take a look at an unsolicited manuscript these days. The lousy economy is killing the hopes and dreams of the once-eager writer. And then there’s the possibility that I’m kidding myself. Maybe I’m not that good and don’t have what it takes.”
When Grisham scratched at the back door, Ethan let him back into the kitchen. It was so rare to have someone to talk to about his writing. “You want another glass of wine.” He knew he didn’t want her to leave.
“I better not. I’m driving. And just because you get rejections doesn’t mean you don’t have talent as a writer. You shouldn’t get discouraged. I read somewhere that publishers are so concerned about the profit-loss margin these days they’re passing on perfectly good manuscripts. Advances are drying up to virtually nothing. Unless of course you happen to write about vampires, that’s a really popular subject these days, especially with teenage girls.” She grinned and glanced at her watch. “And I better get going. It’s almost midnight.” She touched both hands to his face. “If you thought you could ply me with alcohol and a good meal and then get lucky tonight, Ethan, you were wrong.”
“I had to try,” he said with amusement as he nibbled her ear.
She let him graze for a bit and then gently reminded him, “Two days ago you thought I was a criminal.”
She let that sink in while she closed up the dishwasher before heading into the living room to pick up her work clothes. “You need to make up your mind just how rotten a person you think I am.”
“I misjudged you. I told you that.”
“You did. And I’m taking your apology under advisement,” she said with mischief in her eyes.
“Ah, I get it now, you’re making me suffer.” He grabbed his keys off the sofa table. “And before you protest, I’m following you home. Once you leave the 101 the road out to the B & B’s dangerous in the dark if you aren’t familiar with it. You know the same road where I plucked you out of the rain. I want to make sure you get back to The Cove safe and sound.”
All at once she grabbed his shirt, brought his head down to her mouth. “Now that gesture, Deputy Dawg, will definitely get you another fiery lip lock.” She covered his mouth. The kiss was all tongues, attack and pursue, plunder and explore, nip and bite. It went on and on until they had to come up for air.
When they finally broke apart, he placed his hand on his heart. “You pack a punch, Hayden-no-middle-initial-Ryan.”
“Damn straight,” she replied as she all but glided to her car.
At five minutes after two in the morning, the music had long stopped drifting out of McCready’s bar a good two hours earlier because the local noise ordinance shut everything down at midnight. That meant most of the neighborhood homes nearby had gone dark as well with their owners tucked into beds fast asleep.
Shadows hung over Smuggler’s Bay as two figures made their way down Ocean Street toward the wooden pier pulling two huge trunks behind them. Once they reached the fifty-foot yacht, Easy Money, the two stepped onto the deck and began to ready the boat for sail. They worked quickly without a word exchanged between them, hoisting the main-sail then maneuvering the craft out of its slot and into the dark waters of the bay.
It seems Kent Springer and Sissy Carr had finally found a way to leave Pelican Pointe in their dust, so to speak.
It was four days before Kent’s trial was scheduled to begin at the Santa C
ruz County courthouse.
Chapter 7 Book 2
Ethan had trouble concentrating on his storyline. No matter how hard he tried to keep his mind in the moment, on his main character, he kept circling back to the real-life mystery that was Hayden Ryan.
If she wasn’t running from an ex, then who had her in their sights and why? he wondered. How long had she been hiding, weeks, months? From what Ethan could tell it hadn’t been that long. Only a few weeks earlier she’d gotten Nevada tags and a new driver’s license. If he wanted, he could start from that point backward, find out more about her, a lot more.
But a background check on the woman he wanted to get into bed seemed like such a dishonest thing to do and just plain―wrong on so many levels.
Ordinarily he wouldn’t have considered Hayden Ryan his type, especially since it was obvious there was a degree of the unknown surrounding her. A cop was usually none too happy with the idea of fuzzy facts; even vague could be annoying, which Hayden definitely was.
But he couldn’t deny he liked her feisty side, throw in the long legs, the deep green shade of her eyes and the way she responded to his kiss and he could damn sure overlook the secrecy―at least until he couldn’t.
He’d have to see what he could do about breaking through that reserved demeanor. Okay, so that side of her was an intriguing challenge. And it had been a long damn time since he’d had a challenge quite so gorgeous.
Momentarily at an impasse, he got up from his laptop to go to the kitchen, poured his umpteenth cup of coffee of the morning, strolled back to his computer and attempted once again to string two sentences together that made some sense. When his phone rang he grumpily got up to answer it. He hoped to hell it wasn’t work.
It was Markus Cody, his father. He greeted him the way he always did using his Native tongue. “Haku, kʰoko.”
“Haku, kwop, is this a bad time?”
“Never a bad time for you. What’s up?”
“Brent’s got a missing three-year-old girl out at Wilder Ranch State Park. Seems her parents got there early this morning to set up for a picnic, a birthday party for one of their other kids. Parents got distracted, spent a good forty-five minutes looking around for the tyke until they decided she was nowhere to be found. I thought if you weren’t busy, you could lend a hand. Between the both of us…”
Ethan had worked with his father many times in the past but usually the elder man kept him out of the limelight, knowing how his son felt about bringing attention to himself. Ethan wanted no part of even the slightest hint of media attention in that regard, at least, not for his psychic ability.
If he ever got lucky and managed to get a publisher interested in giving him a book deal, he didn’t want them getting wind that he was somehow different. He’d rather people knew him as a published author rather than a whack-job psychic, which is what he believed most people considered his father, or anyone else for that matter, who claimed to have a second sense about things.
What most people didn’t know though, that as good as Markus Cody was at what he did, Ethan had always been better. “Sounds like she simply wandered off. That area’s got plenty of things that would attract a small kid.” At that point, he wasn’t getting a vibe of any kind that she’d been abducted, but you never knew.
“That’s what we’re thinking. Brent’s in the process of setting up a perimeter and a grid search.”
“I’ll meet you at the entrance.” He glanced at his watch, assuring his dad, “I’ll be there in less than thirty minutes.” When he disconnected, he shut down his laptop, grabbed his jacket and keys and was out the door like a shot.
By the time Ethan pulled up in his truck to the entrance of Wilder Ranch there wasn’t an available place to park. News vans with their satellite dishes already lined Highway 1, along with plenty of other cars belonging to the usual weekend park goers. He’d always thought the cars looked out of place here next to the rugged, rock-jutted coastline.
“Damn it,” he muttered to himself as he double-parked next to one of the other deputies. He didn’t want to end up playing traffic cop today. But just when that thought took hold, he realized that wasn’t why he was here. He began to think in terms of what the little girl might be up against out in the elements.
The morning wasn’t that cold, but for a child, alone, it had to be intimidating in unfamiliar surroundings.
Although the cliffs here were anything but steep, the landscape offered a ton of naturally occurring bridges, tunnels, coves and caves at beach level that might attract a small child. Maneuvering from one cave to the next, Ethan knew high tide could get you trapped or God forbid, swept out to sea.
Missing children and water were never a good mix.
But his senses told him, that had not happened to the little girl. At least, not yet.
Because Wilder Ranch State Park had once been a thriving ranch and dairy farm, it was a popular destination for field trips during the school year which made it one of the kid-friendliest parks around, a reason it attracted so many families on Saturdays and Sundays. The place was like a natural outdoor Disneyland. But instead of automated rides there were seven thousand acres of trees to climb, trails to hike, historic buildings to explore. The area was home to all manner of birds like snowy plovers, pelicans, and pigeons as well as countless small animals like cottontail that might attract a young child’s attention.
As he looked around assessing the situation, it appeared to be a madhouse. Even though the fog had not yet completely lifted and the morning still cast gray skies overhead, the park had already gotten crowded. Everywhere he looked there were families with young children and parents unloading strollers, bikes and picnic gear for the day.
When he caught sight of his father, a neatly dressed man of sixty-five in a buckskin jacket with a pale-blue chambray shirt tucked into laundered black jeans, he ambled up to him, slapped him on the back.
The white-haired man with his long hair tied back into a ponytail, turned to greet his son.
“Haku, kwop. Thanks for coming,” Markus Cody said before adding, “Brent’s dealing with a pair of anxious parents.”
“Haku, kʰoko,” Ethan replied, greeting his father. He sent a look toward Brent strutting around in his sheriff’s uniform. The brothers traded glances.
Brent stared at Ethan, disappointed to see that he’d worn his civilian clothes, an old denim jacket, a pair of well-worn jeans, and a white Tee, rather than his official uniform. Well aware Ethan often used any excuse to shed his uniform whenever possible for civvies, Brent sent him a knowing look. Because he also knew technically, his brother was still off-duty, doing this out of the goodness of his heart.
Ethan met his brother’s stare. After all, they were as different as day is from night. And it wasn’t just the five-year difference in their ages. Ethan, at thirty-three, was a bookworm, always had been except for a couple of years in high school when the baseball coach had made the mistake of thinking he had the same athletic ability as his older brother and drafted him into trying his luck at pitcher.
Back in his high school days, Brent had possessed a ninety-five-mile per hour fastball. He’d even gotten a baseball scholarship to UNLV. But instead of pursuing a baseball career, Brent had done a fifteen year stint in the army. He had intended to make it a career but with the Iraq war, Brent had completed three tours and called it quits for some reason. Back then when he’d announced to the family that he was leaving the army, no one had been more surprised than Ethan.
Ethan had always suspected that his older brother considered him somewhat of a slacker, particularly during his bartender/band days. Not that Brent had ever voiced anything but mutual respect for his younger brother, especially when it came to Ethan’s special ability, which Brent didn’t seem to have inherited. He had always gotten a vibe from Brent, that his older brother harbored a certain amount of ill will toward him for not following in his footsteps into the military, a career that did not appeal to Ethan on any level.
Whe
n Ethan caught his father eyeing him, he gave his dad a little head nod and said, “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
By the look on Brent’s face, he suspected his father had called him before letting Brent in on the decision until well after the call.
“Dad’s not getting anything, Ethan,” Brent announced quietly. “I’ve got distraught parents, a park full of families. So far going trail to trail has given us jack squat, same with searching the buildings. We’ve got nothing. Deputies covered the strawberry fields, questioned the workers, no one’s seen her.”
“Show me where the girl was last.”
Brent thumbed the air and pointed behind him. “This way.”
It didn’t take long to navigate the well-worn path to the picnic area. He saw a frantic couple run up to Brent. But it was the man who spoke. “We can’t just sit here. Allison’s been gone more than an hour now. She’ll be getting hungry soon.”
Then the anxious mother, wringing her hands, added, “She’s so little. Please, you have to find her. What if…what if… someone’s grabbed her? There are people running all over this place. She could be halfway to San Francisco by now.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt, we can’t issue an AMBER Alert unless we confirm she’s actually been abducted but if we don’t find her within the next hour…” Brent ran his hands through his hair. “Look, I know you’re both worried sick but I have deputies spread out all over these grounds. Just sit tight for, let’s say, another hour. Give me an hour. If we haven’t found her by then, say ten-thirty, I’ll organize an official volunteer search and rescue…put out the AMBER Alert.”
Ethan closed his mind to the conversation and studied his immediate surroundings. Drawn to an area of meadow some forty yards beyond the picnic tables, he left his father and brother and began to trek east along the path. The ground cover here was sparse but once you reached the meadow, tall grass, easily over three feet high, could hide a small child from view especially from the picnic grounds.
Pelican Pointe Boxed Set Books 1 - 3 (A Pelican Pointe Novel) Page 41