2000 Kisses

by Christina Skye

  As Mae climbed back into her truck and drove off, T.J. slammed the lid on the potato salad and strode into the house.

  Tess was dressed and sitting at the table, nursing another cup of her exotic coffee. “Maria is doing laundry,” she said absently.

  He motioned toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  “Go? Where?”

  “I have business to take care of in town.” Damn. Why couldn’t she just stand up and follow him out to the car with no questions asked? He was in no mood for more talk. Being around Tess left him feeling too edgy.

  “I’ll stay here.”

  “Dammit, you’re coming with me.”

  “It’s not a good idea,” she argued. “I need to—”

  “The point is not negotiable, Duchess.”

  She snapped her head up and glared at him. “You’re not my keeper, McCall.”

  “The hell I’m not,” he countered, struggling to control his voice and his temper. “No matter how you or I feel about it, it’s my job to protect you. I can’t do that if I’m in town and you’re out here.”

  She caught an angry breath. He saw anger fight with uneasiness. The sight stirred a painful wave of protectiveness in him.

  “I’ll bring the car around to the front.”

  A tight smile curved her mouth. “You sheriff; me possible victim?”

  “That’s right,” he snapped. “That’s why you’re here and we’d both better remember that.”

  13

  The instant Tess set foot in the sheriff’s office, routine flew out the window. Heads seemed to turn in their direction more than usual. Cars slowed in passing.

  Then the visitors started arriving. Grady showed up, papers in hand, asking for Tess’s opinion on some layout changes he was considering for the Almost Gazette. She suggested more photos, more interviews, and a relationship column. Grady was planning to add all three by the time he left. After that, Doc Felton dropped in to check on his patient, and the two discussed the merits of French roast versus espresso roast coffee beans, while T.J. pretended not to listen.

  Seated at his desk, he fielded four calls regarding his role in the hostage situation and tried to ignore the curious glances of half a dozen town residents who happened to be walking by the sheriff’s office.

  Tess seemed to be having the time of her life.

  Dressed in her new red boots, a short, flirty skirt, and a brightly embroidered denim shirt, she sat in a wooden desk chair at the window, oblivious of the commotion outside or the fact that she was the cause. She answered every question with energy and enthusiasm. She listened, then made suggestions. Good suggestions, T.J. admitted. But she didn’t understand that she was on display, being carefully measured as a candidate for a relationship with the town sheriff.

  T.J.’s teeth ground at the thought. The last thing he needed was a dozen meddling residents trying to pair him off with a bed partner.

  Even one with such amazing legs as Tess’s.

  “So what do you think?”

  T.J. looked up with a frown. Doc Felton had gone, the high school principal had vanished, and Tess was staring at him expectantly. “About what?”

  Tess shook her head. “You haven’t heard anything I’ve said, McCall.”

  She was right about that, he thought guiltily. The night before had been bad enough, offering him damned little sleep and disturbing dreams that he couldn’t quite remember. Now his frequent glimpses of her legs weren’t helping his concentration, nor was the scent that drifted through the air every time she moved.

  “I heard every word; it’s a fine idea,” he lied.

  “In that case, I’ll be sure to tell Grady that the paper needs a fire-engine-red headline and a weekly safety column written by you.”

  “I didn’t say—” T.J. stabbed a hand through his hair. “Okay, I wasn’t listening.” He blew out a breath. Every time she moved, her denim shirt drifted open, giving him a painful glimpse of her simple white T-shirt. Up to this moment, he’d never found T-shirts arousing. He hadn’t particularly enjoyed the sight of red hair before this either. All that had changed the moment he’d seen Tess fighting heat exhaustion while she tried to fold her map on Main Street.

  She planted her hands on her hips. “If you want to get rid of me, just say so.”

  “I don’t.” T.J. rocked back in his chair with a sigh. “Okay, maybe I do. I’m not used to having an audience while I work. Why don’t you take a walk? You can go to the library and do some of that research you mentioned. I’ll meet you at Mae’s for lunch.”

  “First you drag me into town; then you tell me to get lost.”

  “I brought you into town so I could keep you in sight. That doesn’t mean I have to keep you on a short leash,” he shot back.

  She paced along the far wall, where a picture of the governor hung beside a framed copy of the first Almost Gazette and a series of black and white photographs that were a gift from Doc Felton. Tess stood motionless before the last of the pictures, her fingers rising to trace the framed image.

  “Tess?”

  She pulled her hand away abruptly and murmured something T.J. couldn’t make out. She turned, looking dazed and pale.

  He’d seen that look before and chalking it up to imagination again would be a stretch.

  “Doc Felton took those pictures right after he arrived in Almost,” T.J. said carefully, hoping she was just preoccupied with the photo.

  “This one,” she said stiffly. “Where was it taken?”

  T.J. studied the rugged landscape. “The ruins? They’re about twenty miles north, up on the mesa. It’s deserted country up there, even today.”

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “Almost too beautiful. But the walls have crumbled and the roofs are gone.” She said it as if she knew how the ruins had looked before and was surprised to find them changed.

  Now his imagination was going into overdrive.

  “Seven or eight hundred years of hard weather and neglect will do that.”

  She didn’t move, didn’t speak.

  T.J. silently crossed the room to stand behind her, his shadow falling across the old photograph of the ruins.

  Tess raised her hand as if to touch the grainy image again, then moved away stiffly. A shiver seemed to run through her as she bumped into T.J.

  He caught her arm and steadied her. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” she said sharply, playing restlessly with her collar. “I thought I recognized the place, but I was wrong.”

  “I’d be real surprised if you’d seen those ruins before. They’re on private property, not state lands, and not many people know the way up there.” He kept talking—anything to chase that vacant look from her eyes. “Not that these are the only ruins around here. Most of the canyons to the north have scattered signs of early habitation. In the thirteenth century this area must have been a regular melting pot.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Anasazi, Salado, Mogollon—they were spread throughout the Four Corners region. Then the Athabaskan peoples moved in, possibly from the Great Plains. You’ll know them better as Navajo and Apache.” He nodded at the old photo. “When you see a place like this, there are half-a-dozen possibilities for who built it. Experts tend to argue about things like that for years,” he added dryly. “Only Miguel might know, and he’s not talking.”

  “Miguel,” Tess repeated with a frown. “The man who was out in the storm with us last night?”

  “You remember now?”

  “Only bits and pieces. The rain, the wind, the drums …”

  Light played over the row of old photos as T.J. stared at her. “There were no drums. You must have heard the thunder.”

  “Thunder. Of course.” Her frown deepened as she turned away from the image of old ruins on a high mesa. “It’s still rather a blur.”

  “Tess, are you—”

  “I’m fine, McCall. My memory is just a little sketchy,” she said. “I think I’ll take your suggestion and h
ead to the library. After that, I’ll go see Mae at the café.”

  T.J. studied her face, relieved to see color washing back into her cheeks. “I’ll meet you there in about two hours.” T.J. eyed the paperwork on his desk with distaste. He had three theft investigations pending and he had to hire a new dispatcher. The last one quit after budget restraints had required a cut in pay. The truth was that he’d rather be anywhere but behind his desk today. “Have a nice walk,” he said, knowing the buck stopped with him and as long as Tess was around he would have to catch up on paperwork when he could. “Just try not to cause too much trouble.”

  “Me?” she said with a grin. “In this sleepy little town?”

  T.J. watched her walk toward the door, amazed that she really didn’t know how she stirred people up. She didn’t realize that her enthusiasm for new ideas was contagious. “Duchess,” he muttered as she stepped into the sunlight, “you’re a regular lightning rod for trouble.”

  As he watched her cross the street, he realized he already missed the sound of her low, husky laughter. He didn’t want to consider why she bothered him so much or how he already knew every nuance of the complicated perfume she wore.

  He was almost relieved when four drunken college students from Tucson began a raucous, off-key serenade in the holding cell they’d occupied since instigating a bar fight the night before. At least now he had something else to think about besides Tess.

  When he returned from quieting the minibrawl, he found Miguel sitting in the chair beside his desk. His black clothes seemed to glow, backlit by the sun streaming through the doorway.

  “There is trouble in the high desert,” the old man said without preamble.

  The nerves tightened at the back of T.J.’s neck. No one knew the canyons and wind-blown mesas better than this old man, and T.J. never questioned his observations. “You found something up there?”

  “First I found prints made by men in cars and on motorbikes.” His lip curved in disdain for the noisy, smoke-spewing vehicles that destroyed the delicate balance of the desert beneath their big, clumsy tires. “At first I could find only their tracks. Then I saw this.” The old man tossed a photograph onto the desk. The photo captured the profile of a dead coyote, its body distended and rigid, its eyes blank.

  This animal would never sing again, T.J. thought as he held up the photo for a closer look. “No bullet wounds. No knife marks. What do you think happened, Miguel? Rabies?”

  The old man shook his head. “This coyote did not die a natural death. There were too many man-tracks nearby. It was poisoned with something that kills quickly.”

  “Any evidence of that?”

  Miguel shrugged. “I think you should not doubt me.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “At the base of the Needle.”

  T.J. frowned. The Needle was a local landmark whose red sandstone columns rose above a tangle of box canyons long held in reverence by the Apaches. Now it was part of state trust land in a terrain rugged enough that few travelers knew of its existence, other than the occasional group of scientists who climbed the steep slopes in search of a new species of plant life, new evidence of ancient tribal migrations, or proof of whatever theory happened to be the current rage.

  Some old-time residents avoided the place and whispered that a band of lost Apache warriors still survived in that desolate canyon-cut back country, hidden and undetected even to this day. T.J. bought into that possibility about as much as he did the legends about Sasquatch and the Loch Ness monster. But the Needle was a lonely and unforgiving place, and he supposed odd things might happen there.

  “That’s pretty barren country, Miguel. Any idea who would be hunting coyotes up there?”

  The fine lines at Miguel’s mouth deepened. “Perhaps men who hunt pots from the old ruins. I come across them now and again. When they ask me many questions about the old places, I shrug and say I have no English. If they lose their way and die of thirst, it is no worry of mine,” he said, fingering the silver of his belt buckle.

  T.J. sat motionless, staring at the image of the dead coyote. Was this animal the victim of an illegal pot hunter or a hiker in search of a few days of adventure in the desert? Tension knotted his shoulders at the evidence of more pointless violence against an animal that had been despised and hunted wholesale for decades.

  As scavengers, coyotes were not protected by game laws and hatred ran high in ranchers convinced that the predator decimated their livestock population. Shooting was the knee-jerk response, followed closely by dropping poisoned bait. Most hunters considered the act to be a requisite part of manhood. But there were strict rules about what kind of poison could be used, and this looked like nothing T.J. had seen before.

  He decided that a visit to the Needle was in order as soon as he could manage it. “I’ll look into this, Miguel. I don’t like what I’m seeing here.”

  Miguel nodded slowly. “Nor should you. Men who hunt the coyote hunt something in themselves. The shadows and trickery of the coyote howl in all of us, but we would do best to understand, not kill them.”

  T.J. felt the skin at his neck tighten at those words. As a boy, he’d stared into the eyes of a coyote and felt he was looking into darkness that had no end. Yet there had also been intelligence in those pale gold eyes and something almost familiar. Perhaps that sensation threatened some men far more than they liked to admit.

  Miguel fingered the canvas bag on his shoulder. “Such an act comes from the hand of someone with fear and uncertainty, someone who doubts his own heart.”

  “I’ll need something more concrete to go on than that.”

  “And I will find it. Whoever did this will pay, most certainly.” The old man spoke in whispery tones that carried a strange strength. He opened his pack and pulled out a paper bag. “These are herbs for your woman with the red hair.”

  “She’s not my woman,” T.J. said firmly.

  Miguel’s face was as rough as the scoured granite walls that rose to form the Needle. T.J. had the odd feeling that the old man’s gaze was probing deep into his heart.

  “You both have much to learn and not a great deal of time to do it.” His eyes narrowed. “But time is not always what it seems.” He placed the bag next to the photo on T.J.’s desk. “She should take this three times each day. It will be bitter, of course, but good things often are at first.” He turned, his eyes focused on the street. “Now I must go.”

  Tess pushed open the door to the deserted café, blinking as she stepped out of the streaming late morning sunlight into shadows. A frail woman with blue-gray hair looked up from a copy of the Almost Gazette. “If you’re looking for lunch, I’m afraid we don’t start serving for another hour.”

  “Actually, I’m looking for Mae.”

  “She’s right through those doors. Last I saw, she was wrestling with a box of frozen turkey fillets.” Her head tilted. “You must be that woman who was snuggling with the sheriff outside the jail last night.”

  Tess felt her face fill with heat. “Sheriff McCall and I were just talking. It was nothing personal.” Tess delivered the lie with a big smile, hoping to make it slightly more believable.

  The waitress’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Sure looked personal to me.” Somewhere beyond the doorway to the kitchen came a bang of metal pots followed by indistinct muttering. “Lavinia, where’s my Phillips head screwdriver? The fuses back here are acting up again.”

  “Right here, Mae.” The woman shoved a tool into Tess’s hands and gestured past the cash register. “Just head on back there.” She studied Tess long and hard. “Sure do like your hair. Haven’t hardly seen that color before.”

  Tess made her way back into the kitchen, where Mae was digging in a metal toolbox.

  Tess held out the screwdriver. “I think you wanted this.”

  “You’re a lifesaver. Glad you could drop by.” Mae closed her toolbox. “Problem with the fuses again. The last electrician from Tucson said we’d have to rewire the whole bl
asted building. Needless to say, I had a different perspective on the problem. So we tinker along together, the wiring and me. Have a seat.” She pointed to a hand-carved pine chair beside the narrow window. “How about you wash up and try your hand on that pie dough in front of you?”

  She disappeared into the back room before Tess could protest. Pie dough? Tess didn’t have a clue where to start. She could assess markets and develop new media campaigns, but making pastry had always terrified her.

  “Don’t worry, it won’t bite you.” Mae’s voice drifted into the room. “The trick is not to work the dough too long. Otherwise it gets tough. Go on, give it a whirl.”

  Tess stared at the bowl. There was a mound of white flour and what appeared to be chunks of cold butter. “How do I—”

  “Just dig in with a fork. Better yet, use two. Cut the butter twenty or thirty times until you have something that looks like cornmeal.”

  Tess made a swift, tentative movement. Nothing happened. Gritting her teeth, she tried again and this time she saw the butter and flour crumble together.

  Five. Six. Seven. She was actually making dough. Amazing. Her mother would faint if she knew. And Andrew would tease her for at least a year.

  “How are you doing out there? No blood in sight, I hope.”

  “It’s working. It’s actually working.”

  “Of course it is.” Metal clanged. Mae reappeared with a layer of fine dust covering her head and shoulders. “One of these days I’ll have that storeroom cleaned properly. At least my tinkering should hold off the electrician for a little while longer.” She glanced down at Tess’s bowl. “Not bad. We’ll give it about a tablespoon of ice water, gather it into a ball, and then it goes into the refrigerator. Keeping it chilled makes all the difference.” Tess watched her deftly add a small amount of water, stir the dough, and nod. “Just slip it over once, easy does it. When the butter melts in the oven, it leaves behind all those wonderful little holes and makes a perfect pastry.” She covered the bowl, then whisked it away to a huge industrial refrigerator. “Nice work. Any time you need a new job, just let me know.”