by Maggie Wells
As a member of the law enforcement community, he was so used to viewing lawyers with a jaundiced eye. Marlee had wanted him to come with her to her family’s cabin in hopes of uncovering more of the mystery surrounding her brother’s untimely death. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Were you close with your brother?”
His question seemed to startle her at first, but she recovered with a short laugh. “I keep forgetting you aren’t from around here.”
He kept his gaze on the faded yellow lines dividing the two-lane road. “Are you saying yes or no?”
“It’s a yes,” she said, amusement glinting in her eyes. “We were close.” When he darted a look in her direction, she gave a helpless shrug. “I’m sorry. It’s only... I got that question pretty often in Atlanta, but I never expected to hear it here in Pine Bluff.” She sobered and pointed to a strip of reflectors marking an otherwise-unremarkable lane. “Go left up there.”
He did. The ticktock of the blinker sounded extra loud in the silence of the car.
“We were close,” she said as they started down the winding lane. “All our lives.” Her voice caught on the last word. He peered at her, but she was dry-eyed. She motioned for him to pick up the pace again. “I find in families like ours, the kids either band together or go for one another’s throats.”
“How do you see your family?”
“It’s more about how others see us. Families with money, property and some kind of perceived prestige,” she said bluntly. “There are the expectations that come with those things.”
The road widened as they went around another bend. He nearly swore when the rustic mansion she called a cabin came into view. Letting his foot off the gas, he let the SUV coast into the small gravel parking area. Shifting into Park, he asked, “You think your family’s prestige is only perceived?”
“I think prestige is an external value,” she said without missing a beat.
“Meaning?”
“It’s an arbitrary value placed on someone or something based solely on someone else’s say-so.”
“I wouldn’t say the clout your father wields around here is arbitrary,” he countered.
“No, his is real, but it’s different. It’s power, not prestige,” she asserted. “But my mother? Jeff? Me?” She shook her head. “We don’t have any real power. We have prestige because other people perceive us as having power by proximity.”
“‘Power by proximity,’” he repeated.
“It’s essentially a marketing tactic,” she continued. “I’m not saying I didn’t make the most of it back in high school,” she admitted, “but Jeff and I...we had no illusions about who holds the power.”
He blinked, surprised by her candor. “I see.”
“Anyhow, I’m talking too much. I have no idea why I told you all that. We should go in.”
But rather than bailing out of the car, Marlee gazed pensively through the windshield. Needing to move past the moment, he threw his shoulder against the door as he opened it. She hadn’t stirred by the time he reached the passenger door, so he grabbed the handle and swung it open wide. Marlee’s eyebrows rose, and she blinked those big blue eyes.
He glanced down at the ground to see if he’d parked in a puddle or something. “What?”
“You aren’t going to offer your hand? What if I injure myself stepping down from here? I might twist an ankle on the gravel or something.”
The urge to reach in and haul her out of the truck by her waist was strong, but he restrained himself. She could play semantics with “prestige” and “power,” but he couldn’t gamble his job on the belief that her goading was playful. After all, she’d admitted to using her position as a Masters once upon a time. What if this whole trip out to the lake was nothing more than some kind of trap?
“I’ve got this.”
He followed her up the natural-stone pathway, mentally kicking himself. Jogging a couple steps to match her long, irritated stride, he huffed in frustration—which seemed to be his primary state around this woman. “Listen, you said yourself your father’s power isn’t a matter of perception. Who do you think hired me?”
“My father hired you,” she said without bothering to look at him.
“And he can fire me.”
“I’m not going to get you fired.” She paused and heaved a heavy sigh when they reached the bottom of the porch steps. Then she looked up at him, her expression earnest. “Look, I think I just wanted someone to be here with me, and for some reason, you were the person I thought of.” She bit her lip, then gave a barely there shrug. “Maybe because you’re the sheriff but mostly because I wanted someone...objective to talk things through.”
“Maybe you should try talking to your dad.”
His cautious response seemed to trip some kind of trigger in her. She spun away from him and headed for the door. “My father and I don’t have a relationship conducive to conversation. It’s more along the lines of he gives orders, and I do my best to ignore them until I have no other choice.”
He laughed. “Is that how he got you back here? He made it so you had no other choice?”
“Essentially.” She stooped and flipped back the corner of a welcome mat featuring the Timber Masters logo. “He’s good at getting his way.” Holding a key, she sprang up with a grin and an eye roll. “See? Typical Henry. He simply assumes no one would dare break into his house, and guess what? He’s right most of the time.”
“You’re a grown woman. An attorney.” He heard the click of tumblers in the lock, and the back of his neck itched. He was there with a legitimate invitation, but instinct had him checking over his shoulder anyway. “I understand you’re starting out, fresh from school and all, but surely you could have found some way to keep living life on your own terms.”
She stiffened, then said only, “You’d think, right?”
Marlee gave the knob a twist and peered inside, but Ben saw the flash of raw vulnerability streak across her beautiful face. If he drew attention to it, she’d cover it up, so he remained silent as he took in the details of the setting. The trim around the windows had been painted fairly recently. He’d bet the cream-colored enamel hadn’t had a full year of weathering. The oak-and-glass door swung on well-oiled hinges. Marlee groped for the light switch, then gasped as the dim interior of the house went from murky and dark to high definition.
Her hand flew to her mouth, and there was no way he could refrain from placing a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Easy. You don’t have to go in there.”
She turned away from the entry and stalked across the porch. Bracing both hands on the rough-hewn rail, she let her head fall forward as she drew in shuddering breaths.
Ben hung back, giving the interior of the cabin a quick once-over while he had the chance. High-end appliances. The main room was clearly styled to appeal to an outdoorsman but in a tasteful way. No tacky fake fish or mass-produced man cave gewgaws. It was filled with warm neutral colors, textured fabrics thrown about on soft leather furniture and a big, sturdy coffee table with an array of hunting and fishing books and magazines. But where it should have felt homey and comfortable, it fell shy of the mark. Deliberately casual, Ben decided. He would say one thing for Henry Masters—he took good care of his property. Too bad he seemed to be so careless of his kin.
Without a word, he moved to stand next to her. When she shot him a look from under lowered lashes, he leaned in and planted his hands on the rail, mirroring her stance. It was a tactic used in negotiations. And mating rituals. Ben didn’t allow himself to dwell on which he thought he was doing. He couldn’t, not when the woman beside him was staring intently out at the lake, blinking back tears.
“I’m sorry. The memories must be—”
Marlee twisted to face him, her piercing stare locking on his profile and stopping his attempt at establishing empathy dead in its tracks.
“You d
on’t get it. There are no memories in there. It’s been gutted.” Her voice was low and quavering, but he didn’t have to be a shrink to recognize the source. She wasn’t sad—she was angry.
“Excuse me?”
“The whole place. It’s totally different. Hell, some of the walls are even gone.” A fat tear trickled past her lashes, and she swiped at it with the inside of her wrist. “It’s, uh...a whole new house. Like it never happened.”
Two more tears followed, and Ben had to tighten his grip on the railing to keep from reaching for her, pulling her into his arms and kissing them away. He looked her in the eye, forcing himself to dig his fingers into the rail and keep his voice even as he replied, “But it did happen.”
“Yes.”
Her voice broke on the single syllable, and she gazed out at the lake again. He followed her lead. Minutes passed with nothing but the sound of birdcalls and buzzing bees. He heard her draw in a deep breath. The air around them shifted, and Ben could have sworn he felt the planks beneath his feet move too.
“Maybe a complete overhaul was the point of the renovation.”
She rolled her shoulders back and looked him in the eye. “My brother didn’t kill himself.”
She spoke with such quiet conviction, he wanted to believe her, but the evidence—
Marlee interrupted the thought. “He didn’t. Except I have no way to prove it.”
Straightening away from the rail, he settled his hands on his hips. “There’s not one shred of evidence in either case pointing to anything else.”
Marlee crossed her arms over her chest, tipped her chin up a notch and stared him down. “He didn’t do it.”
“Marlee—”
“I know!” she snapped. Forcing herself to settle, she gestured to the lake. “Something about the sale of this property stinks,” she continued. He opened his mouth, but she raised a hand to stop him. “Name. Duty. Legacy,” she said, counting each word off on her fingers, then holding them high for him to see. “Henry Masters doesn’t give up what’s his. Certainly not property the family has owned for generations.”
Ben nodded, encouraging her to get it all out, even though he believed her suppositions to be wildly baseless. She obviously needed to talk her theories through with someone. Might as well be him.
“The timber around Sawtooth Lake seeded the Timber Masters empire. My great-great-great-grandfather learned the logging trade here on this land as a way of earning his way out of debt.” Her chin thrust out, she shifted her gaze to the lake again, blinking furiously. Setting her jaw, she shook her head in sad dismissal. “You see? There was no piece of property in the world that meant as much to my father as these acres. I can’t imagine him allowing them to be sold.”
“But he did sell them,” Ben reminded her gently.
She shook her head again, but this time, her confusion was written all over her beautiful face. “My brother was the one who wanted to sell.”
He scowled as he mulled the information over. “Even so, wouldn’t your father have had to sign the papers?”
Marlee shrugged. “My father did sign the papers but not until after Jeff died.”
“Why then?”
“‘Why then?’ is the big question.”
“Maybe he wanted to follow through on one of your brother’s plans?”
“If my father had one ounce of sentimentality, I’d say maybe, but he doesn’t. It would take a lot more than some construction costs and lost rents for my father to agree to selling this particular property. There was something else going on, and I’m determined to get to the bottom of it.”
“And you want my help,” he concluded flatly.
“I need your help,” she corrected.
Ben blinked, surprised by the blunt admission. Marlee Masters struck him as the sort of woman who prided herself on not needing anyone—which made her request almost irresistible. But not completely. He’d been run out of Atlanta and lost the job he’d once loved. Pine Bluff was supposed to be a respite. A place where he could rest, recuperate and figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life after his twenty-year plan had been blown to bits. If he crossed swords with Henry Masters, where would he go from there?
Still, he couldn’t help wondering what roiled beneath the surface in his new hometown. Here was Marlee Masters herself, giving him an engraved invitation to poke around. “Fine. I’m in. Where do we start?”
Chapter Nine
Marlee gave him a moment to ruminate on whatever it was holding him back, then she placed a hand on his arm to pull him back into the conversation. This time, he was the one to drag both their gazes down to the fingers curled around his bicep.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“You’re welcome.”
When she didn’t withdraw her hand, Ben’s heart gave a hard thud. A bad thud. The kind of thud that said, “This way lies danger.” Forcing himself to take a step back, he tried not to let the regret he felt when her touch slid away take hold. He couldn’t afford to get tangled up with a woman like Marlee Masters.
He cleared his throat. “Listen, uh, I came here to do a job, and I think it’s best if I do that job without complications.”
The stiff declaration actually startled a laugh out of her. “Are you kidding? You think you can move to a town this small, declare yourself the law and expect to live your life without anyone trying to complicate it?” She scoffed. “You must be a city guy. Small towns don’t work the same way.”
“You’re right. I am a city guy. But I don’t care how it works because this may not be a long-term solution for me.”
He stopped speaking abruptly. His eyes widened. Whatever he meant, it was a revelation. And one she should probably get a handle on. Trying for cool and unruffled, she forced the corners of her mouth up. This time, she bent over farther, letting her forearms rest atop the smooth wood of the rail, and she squinted at the late-afternoon sun glinting off the water.
“Not a long-term solution,” she repeated. “Interesting. I don’t suppose you mentioned the bit about Pine Bluff being a pit stop in your job interview?”
“I never said it was a pit stop,” he countered.
“But you’re not here for the long-term, are you?”
“I want something more permanent but...maybe not here. Are you staying?”
She’d touched a nerve with the sheriff, but she didn’t feel obliged to answer his question. Instead, she parried. “How does a big-time federal agent end up getting himself banished to the backwoods anyway?”
“I wasn’t banished. I applied for the job.”
His attempt to play semantics with her were of no consequence. “You applied and bamboozled my father with your big shotery, I bet.”
Her phrasing broke some of the tension. Ben let out a short bark of laughter then bent down to mimic her position. “I’m not sure exactly what big shotery involves, but I can tell you I’ve never bamboozled anyone.”
She’d buy that. This guy was textbook cop. All rugged self-assurance with a side of truth and justice for all thrown in. She smirked at the large man folded nearly in half beside her. She recognized the move for what it was. They’d learned about the psychology behind body language in law school too. No matter how good he looked doing it, no amount of mirroring would make her trust him. Yet. Besides, he was the one on the defensive, and she was the one who had put him there. She needed to move past how insanely attractive she found him and go in for the kill.
“Who did you have to fool to get the job?”
“I wasn’t fooling anyone, and from what I hear, the hiring committee was unanimous in its decision.”
“The hiring committee comprised of my father and...” She made a circular motion, encouraging him to expound.
“Your father, Wendell Wingate and the county prosecutor, Duane Wade,” he said helpfully. “Who, I can a
ssure you, did not live up to the expectations the name might inspire.”
The last part threw her off. “What expectations were those?”
He raised a hand to indicate someone who only came up to his shoulder in height. “Little guy. Bet he doesn’t break five-ten on a good day.”
“Yes, I’ve met Duane, but what does his height have to do with anything? He’s a heck of a prosecutor.”
“You don’t know who Dwyane Wade is? The NBA player?” he prompted.
Tickled by his obvious impatience, she widened her eyes. “Oh, you mean basketball?” When he snorted a laugh, she chuckled along with him. “Did you actually think you were going to have some all-star athlete interview you to be sheriff in Podunk, Georgia?”
He shrugged. “A guy can hope.”
They laughed together, but her laughter quickly faded when the dusk-to-dawn porch light came on. Marlee groaned when she saw they’d left the door to the house wide-open and the lights on. Wouldn’t her father love to find his newly renovated lake house infested with mosquitoes?
“Coming out here was a bad idea,” she admitted, then pushed from the rail. She stalked over to the door to switch off the lights and lock the place up again. Once she placed the key back under the mat, she brushed her hands together, dusting off the notion of returning to the scene of the...scene.
They walked back to his SUV side by side. She could feel the warmth radiating from him. The fine hairs on her arms stood on end as they navigated the uneven foot path, but still, they didn’t touch. When they reached the passenger side of the car, he reached for the door handle and swung it open wide. She stepped around him to enter but drew up short when he thrust out his hand.
She blushed as she placed the tips of her fingers in his open palm. “Why, thank you, kind sir,” she cooed as she stepped up into the cab. He closed his fingers, gripping hers firmly, and Marlee sobered as she tried to get a read on his expression. “What?”
