Distinguished Service & Every Move You Make (Uniformly Hot!)

by Tori Carrington

  “Don’t you mean you’d like to have your wife’s dress?”

  Gawlick scratched his chin, his head bobbing as he laughed. “You didn’t really think I’d spend a dime to remarry that old bag, did you? Hell no. I want the money Jock buried so I can leave the battle-ax and move on.” He clasped his hands behind his back then rocked on his heels. “You know all the wealth you saw when you came out to my estate? Well, it’s hers. From her family.”

  “After thirty years of marriage you’re still entitled to half,” Mariah said.

  “Doesn’t matter. All that money wouldn’t be worth anything to me in what it would cost my reputation.”

  “What? For taking your part of the family money?”

  “No, for taking her part of the family money.”

  Zach stared at the man as if he’d gone insane. “Okay, so let me see if I can get this straight. You arranged to steal Ellie’s wedding dress from an unsuspecting bride in Boston…”

  Gawlick shrugged. “She was done with it. How do you think I found the damn thing? The last proof of its existence was from a wedding over twenty years ago. Again, in Boston. I knew if I waited long enough, searched diligently enough, it would pop up again.”

  “You’ve been waiting for twenty years?” Hughie asked, obviously incredulous. “Damn, man, ain’t no woman worth that much if you can’t stand to live with her.”

  Gawlick’s face contorted. “You haven’t seen the way I’ve grown accustomed to living.”

  “I repeat,” Hughie said, spitting tobacco juice near Gawlick’s shiny Italian shoes. “Ain’t no woman worth that much if you can’t stand to live with her.”

  Gawlick’s jaw tightened. He turned his attention to Zach. “Where’s the dress?”

  “Gone.”

  “What do you mean gone?”

  “Gone, as in taken. Stolen. Pinched.”

  Gawlick looked immediately to his cohort, who shrugged his shoulders and said, “It wasn’t me. If it were, we wouldn’t be way out here in no-man’s-land.”

  Gawlick cursed then paced away and stood with his back to them.

  “Is this guy dangerous?” Mariah asked quietly.

  Zach looked at her, an overwhelming sensation of wanting to protect her hitting him straight in the solar plexus. “I don’t know, Mar.”

  Hughie lowered his voice and pretended an interest in the ground and the spit he was covering with dirt with his boot. “The old man might not be, but I’m not too sure about his friend there.”

  Zach had to admit that Hughie had a point. While Gawlick was short and pudgy and didn’t look capable of lifting a stool in a bar fight much less surviving one, his stooge looked like he ate bar stools for breakfast.

  He slanted a gaze to where Hughie was strapped, a mean-looking firearm gleaming from a shoulder holster. The sight didn’t reassure him since Gawlick’s goon sported an even bigger one. Surprisingly, Mariah wasn’t packing. It was the first time he’d seen her go anywhere without her firearm. And now that she might need it…

  He caught himself up short. What was he thinking about? There was no reason for him to think anyone was going to get hurt.

  Gawlick seemed to regain his bearings and strode quickly back to them.

  “You copied the map, didn’t you?” he said, his face freshly animated. “Let me see it.”

  Zach narrowed his gaze. “We’re going by memory.”

  “My ass,” Gawlick growled. “Search him.”

  The ape stepped up and grabbed Zach by the arms. Zach instantly shrugged him off, his palms itching to clock the guy just for having touched him.

  Mariah stepped up and slipped the map out of Zach’s front pocket. “Here. Enjoy.”

  Hughie nodded. “If you don’t mind, we’ll be leaving now.”

  Gawlick stared at the map as if comparing it to what he knew about the dress.

  Zach couldn’t believe they were actually just going to walk out of there. Since Hughie’s truck was a little farther than Mariah’s truck, they all headed for Mariah’s together, Zach bringing up the rear.

  “Just a minute.”

  Zach grimaced, knowing it was too good to be true.

  “We’re going to need someone to dig this thing up.”

  * * *

  SWEAT DRENCHED MARIAH where she sat in the relative shade of the side of her truck, her hands tied behind her back for the second time that day. But unlike earlier, this time Hughie was tied up right alongside her, both of them watching as Zach drove a shovel into the hard Texas earth and tossed it aside, the mound next to his target growing higher while the hole grew deeper.

  She squinted up at the sun. She judged it to be afternoon, but she couldn’t be sure given that she couldn’t see her watch. But the sun was always a good indicator.

  “Hey, Gawlick, even slaves need water,” Hughie called out. “Give the kid something to drink before he shrivels up and blows away with the wind.”

  Gawlick said something to the dark man at his side.

  Zach stood up, his bare chest glistening as he wiped sweat from his brow. He’d taken off his shirt and used it to protect his head against the harsh summer rays, but that left the rest of him at the sun’s ruthless mercy. “There’s some water in the back of the truck. Give it to them,” Zach called out to Gawlick.

  Mariah blinked at him. She and Hughie weren’t in need of water. He was.

  The goon reached into the back of her truck and found the insulated packs. He held out a bottle to Mariah. She glared at him. “What am I supposed to hold it with? My breasts?”

  The stranger’s eyes drifted to the area in question, then he leered at her.

  Hughie chuckled next to her. “I used to wonder where you got that mouth of yours. Then I woke up one day and realized it was me. Not that I figured it out on my own, mind you. It took Miss Winona pointing it out to me. ‘Hughie,’ she said to me, ‘if you had been born with breasts, you’d have been Mariah.’” He shook his head.

  Mariah stared at him. Miss Winona? When had her father spoken to Winona McFarland?

  “Untie his hands,” Mariah said, indicating her father. “You’ve already taken his gun. What are you afraid he’s going to do?”

  She was guessing that the goon wouldn’t think her father capable of tackling a five-year-old. Of course, he had no idea Hughie spent his days on the range.

  “She’s right, you know,” Hughie said to Mariah. “Miss Winona. You’re me all over again, you know?”

  The goon motioned for Hughie to lean forward. He then crouched down to cut the plastic tie he’d fastened around his wrists, then stepped back and handed him the bottle of water. Satisfied that neither of them were going anywhere, the goon walked back to the growing hole and stood holding his gun to his chest while he watched Zach.

  Hughie cracked open the water and started holding it out for her. She shook her head. “You drink some then toss it to Zach.”

  “God, you’re as stubborn as I ever was,” Hughie said. “Drink, girl. Now.”

  Mariah glared at him then took the tiniest sip on record. He forced her to take more by refusing to remove the bottle until she did.

  “Talk about stubborn,” she murmured, absolutely no malice in the response.

  He was right, she realized. All these years she’d been so preoccupied with how unlike her mother she was that she hadn’t noticed she was so much like her father. She looked into his weathered face and knew instantly it was true. The fact made her…happy somehow. Content.

  The truth was, she’d spent so much time counting off who and what she was not, that she hadn’t really paid attention to who and what she was. She focused on the powerful muscles in Zach’s back as he heaved, dug, then heaved again. And it had taken a Yankee to do that for her.

  She’d asked him to teach her
how to be sexy, instead he’d showed her sexy wasn’t just what you wore or how you acted, but was a state of mind. And damned if she didn’t feel sexy.

  She swallowed hard. Or was her new sensuality a direct result of the man himself instead of something he’d awakened in her? She couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that she seemed to hear the very humming of blood through her veins whenever he was around. Aware of every sweet nuance of life and sex…and love.

  She leaned against the side of the truck. Hell of a time to come to that realization. Oh, she’d long suspected that things were more serious for her than she’d ever dared let on. She’d had three whole relationships in her life before meeting Zach. But she’d been so distracted by the fact that her exes soon became engaged to other women that she’d missed all the warning signs. And it could have been that very distraction that had allowed it to happen.

  God, this was so confusing. Everything. From the case of the missing wedding dress to hidden treasure. To a casual agreement with Zach Letterman that had turned into something much more intense.

  Then there was her father…

  She looked at Hughie Clayborn, who appeared to be holding up better than she was. He sat up straight, his eyes alert, undoubtedly formulating a plan to get them out of the mess they were in.

  He was a loyal man. A handsome one. And she’d been so very selfish to ignore that he might want to move on after her mother’s death. Find someone else to love. Perhaps even marry.

  The thought took her breath away.

  Wasn’t anything in her life the way it had been a week ago?

  Heave, dig…heave, dig. Mariah concentrated on the simple action, wishing she could take turns with Zach.

  Then the shovel hit something obviously metallic, and even the wind seemed to stop blowing.

  * * *

  EVERY MUSCLE in Zach’s back was jarred from the impact of his shovel hitting something hard and yielding.

  “Get it out, get it out!” Gawlick yelled, leaping from his car where he’d been sitting with the air-conditioning on. He ran to the side of the site. “It’s the treasure.”

  Zach grimaced, the thought of handing his ex-client a grain of dirt disgusting to him. “It’s a rock.”

  Gawlick stared at him then motioned to the other guy positioned somewhere behind Zach. He felt the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his neck. “Get it out.”

  Anger filled Zach to overflowing as he stood still, staring at Gawlick and the goon’s reflection in his sunglasses. He’d been prepared for just this moment. He moved the shovel over a couple of inches and overturned a shoebox-sized rock that he’d dug around instead of uncovering the metal he’d hit.

  “A rock,” Gawlick said numbly.

  Zach wanted to hit him in the head with the shovel, only he was a millimeter too far away. Probably by design.

  “Drop it.”

  Zach stiffened, recognizing Hughie’s voice, then a telltale metallic click.

  “Next time you take a man’s gun from him, you might want to check to make sure he doesn’t have another one.”

  Zach slightly turned his head. Mariah was struggling to her feet with her hands still bound behind her back. “Stay where you are, Mar.”

  She glared at him. He could see how much it was eating away at her not being able to help.

  The gunman behind him moved, looking at Mar, as well.

  Zach swung around hard with the shovel, catching him on the hand, whacking it and the gun he held away just as he squeezed the trigger. A shot spit up dirt a couple of feet to Zach’s left. Zach dropped the shovel then caught the guy in the mouth with what had to be the sucker punch of a lifetime. The goon stumbled backward, forcing Hughie to move.

  “Whoa there, bud. You don’t want to fall on me.”

  And he did fall, straight to his knees.

  Zach climbed out of the hole and advanced on the man, pulling him to his feet by the front of his shirt. He jerked him closer so he wouldn’t have to speak in more than a whisper. “Touch my girl again and you’ll regret the day you were born.”

  * * *

  A HALF HOUR LATER Mariah sat brushing the last of the dirt off the oblong metal container that looked like a regular run-of-the-mill toolbox.

  The instant Zach and her father had turned the tables on Gawlick and his hired muscle, everything had changed. Instead of her and Hughie being tied up, the other guys were. She eyed where the sun was beginning to edge around her truck to where they sat. Gawlick moved his legs as if he’d been burned by the sunlight slanting against his legs.

  “Well, don’t just sit there,” Hughie said from behind her. “Open the damn thing.”

  She did. With a swift flick of her hand, she released the two rusty latches and popped open the lid. Beside her, Zach went still and she could hear her father drawing a deep breath behind her.

  Sitting at the bottom of the box was a handful of pictures and a small velvet bag. Mariah reached for the pictures. Zach picked up the bag.

  “This must be Ellie,” she whispered, very gently handling the sepia shots of a woman in various poses. There were maybe ten of them all told, none larger than the palm of her hand. But it was the last one that captured her attention. While Ellie had been pretty in all the pictures, in this one she stood smiling up at a man. Jock? She turned the photo over to find the back blank, no indication of who the man was. She stared at the couple again. It had to be Jock. The way Ellie was looking at him, it couldn’t be anyone else.

  Zach emptied the contents of the small velvet bag into his open hand. But it wasn’t the items Mariah was so much interested in as the man himself. Was the way Ellie had looked at Jock the way she looked at Zach? Oh, sure, she had pictures of herself. The odd shot over the years at school graduations and birthday parties. A few of her with her former boyfriends. But in none of them had she looked particularly happy. She appeared more interested in figuring out a way to either duck the camera or break it altogether.

  She carefully put the photos back into the box.

  “What’s in the bag?” Hughie asked, supporting his weight with his hands on his knees as he peered over Zach’s shoulder.

  “Wedding rings.”

  Mariah gazed at the two perfect pieces of gold shining in his palm and reached out a shaky hand to touch them. They seemed a richer shade of gold than she’d ever seen. Thick and unpolished and the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. She picked up the larger of the two bands. Inscribed inside was “Ellie-7-2-1899.” She tilted the other where it still rested in Zach’s hand. It read “Jock,” with the same date.

  She rocked back on her heels, staring out at the vast land surrounding them.

  “Jock’s Treasure,” Zach murmured.

  Jock’s Treasure hadn’t been bars of gold, or bags of diamonds, or deeds to land. Jock’s true treasure had been Ellie.

  * * *

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Mariah whispered.

  It was near dusk, usually her favorite time of the day, when the sky turned into a living copy of the watercolors displayed in the window of the store next to the P.I. office. Tonight the sky was especially beautiful with smears of purple and orange tingeing the wispy clouds on the horizon.

  She stood in the gravel driveway of the ranch house watching as Zach closed the bed of her truck. They’d returned there shortly after they’d retrieved Jock’s Treasure and the county sheriff had arrived on the scene to take over custody of Denton Gawlick and his hired help. The metal box was in the kitchen, her father looking for false bottoms and secret compartments, unconvinced that a story that had survived for so many years had yielded nothing but a couple of unused wedding bands and a handful of old photographs.

  Zach slid his hands into his jeans pockets. “I thought you and I might go for a ride.”

  Mariah raised he
r brows. “A ride? Haven’t we done enough traveling already today?”

  She stepped toward the truck bed and he sidestepped her, preventing her from seeing what he’d been doing inside. “Nope.” He gestured toward the house with a nod of his head. “I figure I couldn’t wait until Hughie, um, went to bed.”

  She frowned. “Hughie hasn’t been going to bed for at least the past couple of nights. Hughie has been sneaking out to meet Miss Winona.”

  Zach’s brows rose high on his forehead. “How did you find out?”

  “You mean you knew?”

  “Yeah. I ran into him that first morning outside your room. I thought he was just getting up and that there was going to be hell to pay, but it turned out he was just getting in.”

  Mariah silently considered him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought you said you knew.”

  “Yeah. I figured it out. This morning.”

  “Oh.” He took one hand out of his pocket and rubbed the back of his neck. “I promised I wouldn’t say anything to you, or to anyone else for that matter.”

  “Don’t you think I had a right to know?”

  “I think it was important that I honor my word.”

  Honor his word. Mariah’s heart beat loudly in her chest.

  “So what do you say? Are you up for a ride?”

  Mariah swallowed thickly and faced the horizon. Any excuse to stay outside and watch the remainder of the sunset was a good one. That this was Zach’s last night in Hoffland, that she would be driving him to Hobby first thing in the morning…well, she refused to think about that for fear she might cry.

  Her. Mariah Clayborn. Cry. But she wouldn’t just cry. The emotion dammed up in her chest felt suspiciously like a deluge just waiting to happen whenever she thought of Zach’s leaving. She had a feeling if she gave herself up to tears she’d end up bawling.

  She blinked and looked over her shoulder toward the house.

  “Hughie already knows about my plans.”

  “Oh? Seems like you and Hughie are sharing an awful lot lately.”

  Zach grinned. “Does that bother you?”

  “No.” Yes.