Angels Fall

by Nora Roberts

  one."

  "You want to ride an antelope?"

  "No." She laughed again, low and easy. "Crossed my thoughts. I want to see an antelope while I'm riding a horse. But I don't know how to ride."

  "Didn't Lo offer to teach you?"

  She slid her hands into her pockets, still watching the herd. "That's not what he wanted me to ride. But I may take him up on it—the horseback riding lesson—when I'm sure he'll behave."

  "You like your men to behave?"

  "Not necessarily," she said absently. "But in his case."

  The alarm bells didn't go off until after he'd turned, planted his hands on the hood on either side of her and caged her in.

  "Brody."

  "'You're not stupid, and you're not slow. Jittery's different. Do you want to tell me you didn't figure this was coming?"

  Her heart kicked, and maybe some of it was fear. But not all of it. "My mind hasn't been focused in this area for a long time. I guess it slipped by me. Mostly slipped by me," she corrected.

  "If you're not interested, you'd better make it clear."

  "Of course I'm interested, it's just—whoa."

  The last word all but squeaked out as he took her arms, lifted her right up to her toes. "You'd better get your breath," he warned. "We're going for a dive.

  She couldn't get her breath, or her brains, or her balance. The dive was steep and sudden so that the air that had been so fresh and cool went pumping hot. His mouth wasn't patient or kind, didn't persuade or seduce. It just took what it wanted. The sensation of being swept up, swept away, swept apart left her giddy and loose.

  Hot, she thought. Hard, she thought. Hungry. She'd nearly forgotten what it was like to have a man hunger for the taste of her, then take his fill.

  Even as she wondered it there d be anything left of her when he was done, her arms locked around his neck. His hands gripped her hips and yanked her roughly against him.

  Her heart pounded against his—beat after hard, fast beat. And she trembled. But her mouth was as avid as his; her arms twined firm around his neck. It wasn't fear he tasted as he ravaged her lips, but shock spearing through a sultry blast of need.

  Because he wanted more, he simply hitched her up by the hips until she sat on the hood of his car. Then he moved in, and took more.

  Maybe she lost her mind, and she'd worry about it later. But for now she gave in to the demands of her body and hooked her legs around his waist.

  "Touch me." She nipped his bottom lip, his tongue. "Touch me somewhere. Anywhere."

  His hands streaked under the soft cotton of her sweater, closed over her breasts. The moan broke from her as her body strained for more. More contact, more sensation, more everything. His hands were rough and hard, like the rest of him, rough and hard and direct. Strong, so that everywhere he touched she felt wonderfully swollen, tenderly bruised.

  Her response, her demands, had the control he hadn't expected to need thinning to its last taut wire. He could see himself taking her right on the hood of the car, just ripping off whatever clothes were in the way and driving into her until this raw, ripe tension was released.

  "Easy." His hands weren't completely steady this time as he took her arms. "Let's ease back a little."

  She could barely hear him over the roaring in her head, so she let that head fall limply to his shoulder. "Okay. Okay. Wow. We can't—we shouldn't—"

  "We did. We damn sure will again, but since we're not sixteen, it won't be in the middle of the road on the hood of a car."

  "No. Right." Is that where they were? She managed to lift her head, focus. "Jesus. We're in the middle of the road. Move. You have to move."

  She leaped down, dragged her hands through her disordered hair, tugged at her sweater, her jacket.

  "You look fine."

  She didn't feel fine. She felt used—but not nearly used enough. "We can't… I'm not ready to… This isn't a good idea."

  "I'm not asking you to marry me and bear my children, Slim. It was a kiss, and a damn good idea. Sleeping together's an even better one."

  She pressed her hands to her temples. "I can't think. My head's going to explode."

  "A few minutes ago, it felt like another part of you was going to explode."

  "Stop. Would you just stop? Look at us, groping each other, talking about sex. A woman's dead."

  "She's going to be dead whether or not we go to bed. It you need a little time to get your head around that, fine. Take a couple days. But if you think, after that, we're not going to have each other, then I was wrong. You are stupid."

  "I'm not stupid."

  "See. I was right." He turned to stroll around the car.

  "Brody. Will you just wait a goddamn minute."

  "For what?"

  She stared at him, big and male and rugged, backed by the towering spread of the dramatic Tetons."I don't know I absolutely don't know."

  "Then let's get back. I want a beer.

  "I don't sleep with every man I'm attracted to."

  Now he leaned on the open car door. "According to you, you haven't slept with anybody in two years."

  "That's right. If you think you're going to take advantage of my… dry spell—"

  "Bet your skinny ass I am." And he grinned as he slid into the car.

  She marched her skinny ass to the passenger door and huffed her way inside. "This is a ridiculous conversation.

  "So shut up."

  "I don't even know why I like you," she muttered. "Maybe I don't. I may have responded to you the way I did because it's been a long time since I had any… intimate personal contact."

  "Why don't you just say you haven't gotten laid?"

  "Obviously, I don't have your elegance with words. But my point is, just because I responded doesn't mean I'm going to let you dump me into bed."

  "I don't plan to knock you on the head with my club and drag you off by the hair into my cave."

  "Wouldn't surprise me." She fumbled out the shield of her sunglasses. "And while I'm grateful to you for believing me, for supporting me, I—"

  He braked so hard she jerked against the seat belt. "One has nothing to do with the other." His voice was dangerously cold. "Don't go there."

  "I…" She closed her mouth, took a breath when he began to drive around. " That was insulting, you're right. It was insulting to both of us. I told you I couldn't think. My body's all churned up. and my brain's inside out. I'm pissed off, I'm scared, and I'm horny. And I'm getting a headache."

  "Take a couple of aspirin, lie down. And let me know when horny leads the pack."

  Reece stared at the mountains. "This has been the strangest couple of days."

  "Tell me about it."

  "I want to talk to the sheriff. You could just drop me off there."

  "Go home, take the aspirin, call him."

  "I need to talk to him face-to-face. Drop me off." she repeated as they crossed the line into Angel's Fist. "Go have your beer." When Brody didn't respond, she shifted in her seat to face him. "I'm not asking you to go with me. I don't want you to. If Sheriff Mardson doesn't think I can stand up for myself, he has less reason to believe me."

  "Suit yourself."

  "I'm trying to."

  When he pulled over in front of the sheriff's office, he sent her a curious look. "What's for dinner tomorrow?"

  "What?"

  "You're feeding me."

  "Oh. I forgot. I don't know. I'll think of something."

  "That sounds delicious. Go on, get this done. Then get some sleep. You look ready to drop."

  "Please, no more flattery. You'll turn my head." She waited one beat, two, then grabbed her pack from the floor and fumbled for the door.

  "Problem?"

  "No. Well, I thought you'd kiss me goodbye."

  His lips twitched as he cocked an eyebrow. "'Gee. Slim, are we going steady?"

  "You're such an asshole." But a laugh tickled her throat as she shoved open the door. "And when you ask me to go steady, make sure to bring a rin
g." She stuck her head in the door. "And tulips—they're my favorite." Then slammed it.

  The baffled amusement carried her to the sheriff's door. Nerves didn't start to bump until she'd opened it, stepped inside.

  It smelled of stale coffee and wet dog. She noted the location of the first on a short counter on the left side of the room where a nearly empty pot of what looked like black mud steamed away. And the source of the second lay snoring on the floor beside the two face-to-face metal desks where, she assumed, the deputies worked.

  Only one was occupied. Mop of dark hair, little goatee, cheerful hazel eyes, slight, youthful build. Denny Darwin, Reece remembered, who liked his eggs over hard and his bacon next to burnt.

  He glanced up as the door opened, flushed a little. The way his fingers hurriedly tapped keys on the computer led her to believe whatever he'd been doing on it wasn't official business.

  "Hey. Ms. Gilmore."

  "Reece." He wasn't that much younger than she was, she thought. Twenty-five, maybe, and with a fresh open face despite the goatee. "I was hoping to speak to the sheriff if he's in."

  "Sure, he's back in his office. Just go ahead."

  "Thanks. Nice dog." She paused, took a closer look. "I've seen that dog. It's the one who likes to swim in the lake."

  "That'd be Moses. Abby Mardson's dog. Sheriff's middle girl?"

  "Yes, of course. She tosses a ball in the lake for him so he can dive in and get it."

  "He likes to keep us company when the kids're in school. Stayed over some today."

  Moses rolled one eye open, gave Reece the once-over out of a brown furry face and stirred enough to thump his huge, hairy tail.

  "We've usually got some soup bones over at Joanie's. Just let me know it Moses wants one."

  "Appreciate that."

  "Nice meeting you, Moses."

  She walked through the outer office in the direction Denny had gestured. There was another desk for Dispatch, empty and quiet now, just before the hallway.

  Down one end of the hall were two open cells, currently unoccupied, and down the other a door marked STORAGE, another marked LAVATORY. Across from the storeroom, Rick Mardson's office door stood open.

  He sat behind an oak desk that looked as if it had been through several wars. He faced the door, with the window behind him high enough so that it gave him privacy while it let in light. Besides the expected computer and phone system, the desk held a couple of picture frames, file folders and a bright red mug as a nesting pot for various pens and pencils.

  On the old coatrack in the corner hung his hat and a faded brown barn jacket. Movie posters cheered up the industrial beige walls with images of John Wayne, Clint Lastwood, Paul Newman in their cowboy best.

  He rose as she hesitated at the doorway. "Come on in, Reece. I just called your place again.

  "I should get an answering machine. Have you got a minute'"

  '"Sure. Have a seat. Want some of the nastiest coffee in Wyoming?"

  "I'll skip it, but thanks. I wondered if you had any news?"

  "Well, on the good news front, everyone in Angel's Fist's accounted for. Same for any visitors we've had in and around last few days. No missing persons in the area matching the description of the woman you reported."

  "No one's realized she's gone yet. It's only been a day." "That may be, and I'll check on that periodically."

  "You think I imagined it."

  He walked over to the door, shut it, then came back to sit on the edge of his desk. There was nothing in his face but kindness and patience. "I can only tell you what I know. Right now, I know every female in my town is accounted for, and the visitors who're here, or were here as of yesterday, are alive and well. And I know, because part of my job is to check these things out, that you had a bad time a couple years back."

  "That doesn't have any bearing on this."

  "Maybe it does. Now I want you to take some time and think it all through. It could be you saw a couple of people, just as you said, having an argument. Maybe things even got physical. But you were some ways off, Reece, even with the field glasses. I want you to think if it's possible both those people walked away."

  "She was dead."

  "Now, seeing as you were across the river, up on the trail, you couldn't take her pulse, could you?"

  "No, but—"

  "I went over your statement a couple of times. You took off running, got Brody, went back. Got about thirty minutes there. Isn't it possible that woman got up and walked off? Maybe still mad, maybe with a few bruises, but alive and healthy?"

  The glass wasn't half empty or half full. Reece thought. It was just a damn glass, and she'd seen it for herself. "She was dead. If she walked off, how do you explain the fact there were no tracks? No sign anyone had been there?"

  He didn't speak for a moment, and when he did that same endless patience was in his tone. It was beginning to crawl up her spine like spiders. "You're not from around here, and it was your first time on the trail. You were shocked and upset. It's a long river, Reece. Easy for you to mistake the spot when you got back with Brody. Hell, it could've been a half a mile on up."

  "I couldn't have been that far off."

  '"Well, I've looked the best I can, but it's a lot of ground to cover. I went ahead and contacted the closest hospitals. No woman was admitted or treated who matched your description with trauma to the neck or the head. I'll follow up on that again tomorrow."

  She got to her feet. "You don't think I saw a thing."

  "You're wrong. I think you saw something that scared and upset you. But I can't find a single thing to support you witnessed a homicide. My advice is to let me follow through on this, and you've got my word I will. And you put it aside for now. I'm about to head on home, see my wife and kids. I'll give you a lift."

  "I'd rather walk, clear my head." She stepped to the door, turned. "That woman was dead, Sheriff. That's not something I can just put aside."

  When she left, Mardson blew out a breath, shook his head. He'd do all he could do, he thought, and that was all that could be asked of a man.

  Now he was going to take his dog and go home, and have dinner with his wife and kids.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  BRODY GOT HIS beer and tossed a frozen pizza in the oven. When he punched the button on his answering machine, it spit out a message from his agent. The book scheduled for early fall had snagged a very decent book-club deal. Which might call for a second beer with dinner.

  Maybe, with a part of his take from it, he'd splurge on a new TV. Plasma. He could hang it over the fireplace. Could you hang plasma screens over a fireplace? Or would the heat screw it up?