by Julie Miller
“If you don’t want someone to know your secrets, then you need to stop talking. I heard her lurking outside and thought someone might be listening. That’s not why I kissed you.” When he made a move toward her, she crossed to the coffee table to retrieve the book she’d been reading. “It’s not the only reason I kissed you.”
“Save the sweet talk, Duff.” She hugged the book to her chest, sending a clear message to keep his distance as she carried the book to the table. “And you wonder why I don’t trust men coming on to me. I thought it was okay for me to...”
“I was very okay with it.”
Despite the husky approval in his tone, she plopped the book down in front of her as her humiliation bubbled up into a temper. “I must be really entertaining for you to play with. You’re no better than Silas. I’m just a means to an end. For whatever it is you’re up to.”
“Don’t you dare lump me in with that jackass.” Tom splayed his fingers at his waist, creating a formidable profile. “Yes, I kissed you because I didn’t think you wanted anyone to hear the chat we were having. I was looking out for you.”
“You couldn’t tell me to shut up?”
“And have you argue with me?” He pulled the chain from his pocket and dropped it link by link onto the table. “How did you want to explain this to your aunt?”
“Fine. So I appreciate the save.” Melanie gestured toward the door where her aunt had exited. “But now she thinks you and I are a thing.”
“Is that so bad?” He shrugged, still trying to sell her on his sincerity. “Look, maybe you’re blind, or maybe you’re just ignoring it, but we’ve got some chemistry here. I’m not afraid to have your aunt sharing the news that we’ve got something going on. A rumor like that will help Silas keep his hands off you. It’ll teach Deanna that not every man is into skinny, spoiled children. And it’ll show these rubes around here that you’ve got backup.”
Discouraging Silas from targeting her as a potential mate did have its appeal. And the notion of physical chemistry went a long way to explain these feelings she thought she had for Tom. But there had to be something in this for him. Plus, the fact that he, of all people—after she’d poured out her hurts and suspicions to him—was keeping secrets from her, too, grated against every nerve in her body. She picked up her beer and swallowed a cooling drink. “You think I need backup?”
“Everybody needs someone watching their back. Especially stubborn redheads who keep poking at mysteries no one wants to talk about.” He circled the table, reaching out as if he wanted to touch her. “You’ve officially got me.”
Melanie palmed the center of his chest and kept him at arm’s length. “I suppose you expect me to have your back now, too?”
“I expect you to keep being my friend.” He leaned into her hand, dropping his voice to a drowsy timbre. “But make no mistake, Melanie Fiske—I will be kissing you again. Things were just getting interesting when your aunt walked in.”
Anticipation skittered through her veins at his matter-of-fact promise. Her fingertips curled into the soft cotton of his T-shirt. “Friends don’t kiss each other like that.”
“You don’t want me to kiss you again?”
Her blush betrayed her before she could voice the proper protest. “You know I can’t hide that I like you. Maybe because you’re not one of them.” She looked toward the door and the main house beyond. “Or maybe because you really talk to me and say what you think and...” She snatched away the fingers that were still clinging to the firm muscles of his chest and turned a pleading gaze up to him. “Just don’t lie to me, okay? I want to be able to trust you.”
“You can.” Tom stepped back, his shoulders expanding with a deep breath. He crossed his arm over his chest and trailed his fingers over his healing shoulder. The hesitancy of the man who was normally confident made her think he was reconsidering that assurance. “Look, Doc, there’s something I need to—”
“My name isn’t Doc. I may never be a doctor, so you need to stop calling me that.” She cut him off before he could feed her any more bunk that would make her regret this shaky alliance they were forming. She pulled out a chair to sit. “Let’s just finish our beers.”
“And our conversation.” He pulled out the chair opposite her, swinging it around to straddle it. “You think your father was murdered and the previous sheriff wrote it off as an accident?”
“Maybe. If he even reported it.” Melanie picked up a napkin to wipe away the condensation beading on the outside of her beer bottle, wishing she could clean up this mystery just as easily. “If there’s nothing to hide, why won’t anyone talk about it?”
“Would somebody around here have a motive to kill him?”
“Henry. Most of this land was left to Dad, with a smaller parcel for Henry to farm. When Dad passed, Henry got all of it.”
Tom braced his elbows on the back of the chair and leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in that questioning gaze of his. “Your father didn’t leave the farm to you? Or at least name a trustee until you reached a certain age?”
“There wasn’t any will. There weren’t any papers. None that Henry could find—or so he says. I had some greedy relatives who took everything of value. I didn’t think I was ever going to have anything that was my father’s until I found this.” She pulled the watch from her pocket and handed it to Tom.
He read the engraving before opening the watch and looking inside. “This was your father’s?”
“I found it in a box in Henry and Abby’s attic. I know it’s Dad’s because of the engraving. The picture is my mother. You can’t really tell anymore.”
He studied the smeared portrait before snapping it shut and returning it to her. “Did you ask Henry about it?”
“Not directly. But I’ve asked him more than once if he had anything that belonged to Dad.”
“And?”
“He denied it.” Melanie rubbed her thumb across the engraving with loving reverence before sliding it back into her pocket.
“You think Henry knows where the will is? Or was? If someone is hiding a secret, it’s probably been destroyed by now.”
“Maybe it’s hidden inside that closet.”
He nodded at the possibility. “Anybody else with a motive to kill your dad?”
“Dad was a pretty quiet guy, but I think he was well liked. From an eleven-year-old’s perspective, I thought he was perfect.” She remembered the loss she and Tom shared and felt her heart squeeze with compassion. “You probably felt the same way about your mom. When you lose someone you love too soon, it’s hard to remember any faults they might have had.”
Tom nodded. “Mom was a beautiful, strong-willed woman. She had to be to raise all of us and be married to a cop. I suppose she could have rubbed somebody’s feathers the wrong way. Broken another soldier’s heart over in the UK before she married Dad and emigrated to the US. But you’re right. Everybody I knew loved her.”
“Your father is a cop?” He’d told her that the Kansas City police had arrested the men responsible for his mother’s murder, but he’d never mentioned his father worked for KCPD. “Did he help with the investigation? He probably wasn’t allowed to, I suppose. The son of a cop, hmm? I suppose that’s why you’re so good at asking all these questions.”
Tom picked up his bottle, shifting in his seat before downing almost half of his beer. “Have you ever seen anything illegal go on around here?”
Another question. Maybe it was his way of deflecting any topic that got too close to that pain deep inside him. Melanie took another drink, trying not to think about tasting the beer on Tom’s tongue when he’d kissed her. Answering his question seemed a lot easier than forgetting that kiss or ignoring the urge to comfort him.
“Firsthand? Fights like that one you got into that first day. No one ever presses charges. We have an occasional shoplifter. If th
e person returns the item, they let him go. If not, that’s one crime Sheriff Cobb is willing to handle.” She added, “We get the occasional hunter or fisherman who’s on the property without a permit. But Silas turns them over to the Conservation Department.”
“I don’t mind the odd jobs I do around here. But patrolling the grounds around the farm and lake every night feels an awful lot like I’m part of a private security firm. Only, instead of working in a war zone, we’re protecting citizens in our own backyard.”
Melanie couldn’t argue with that assessment. “Things are different than they were fourteen years ago. Having so many people around that no one seems to care when one of them goes missing? Not to begrudge you your job, but who hires ex-military for farmwork and tourism? Sometimes I think Henry’s running some kind of militia group and he keeps me around because he’s planning a war and he’ll need a medic.”
“A lot of money goes through this place,” Tom suggested. “The Fiske Family Farm is more like Fiske City. Houses, cross streets, businesses, boat ramps and fishing docks? About the only thing you don’t have here is a motel for guests.”
Melanie pushed aside the basket of cookies and pulled the bridle chain closer to her. She pulled the watch and mysterious black ring out of her pocket, too, and made a small pile of clues that made no sense. “I’d leave tomorrow if I could. But I’m afraid I’ll never find out the truth if I do.”
Tom set his beer on the place mat in front of him and reached clear across the table to pick up the black metal ring. “What are you doing with a gas block?”
Melanie watched him turn the object over in his hand. “You know what that is?”
“It’s part of a gun. Looks like a .750 ml gas block. For an AR-15 or some type of automatic rifle. It channels the gas from discharging the weapon back into the barrel of the gun to power the loading mechanism.” He held it up between his thumb and forefinger and looked at her through the center hole. “Where’s the rest of the rifle?”
Melanie snatched it from his fingers, preferring her speculation that it was a link from a chain to his certainty that it had come off a rifle. “I found it. Just this.”
“Where? Can you show me?”
Soldier Tom was back, the intensity of his reaction to the object frightening her just a bit. “Why do you care?”
“If I’m going to do a decent job with security, I need to know who all owns a gun on this farm. I need to know who has the skills to take one apart and put it back together. I especially need to know if there’s somebody out there in the woods running around with a customized assault rifle.”
“Customized assault rifle?” Now he was really scaring her. Silas had been wearing a gun like that when she’d seen him at the main house an hour ago. “It was on the Edwina. In a storage well. I didn’t find any gun with it. Although...”
“What?” He was on his feet, striding around the table.
“Someone repaired the storage wells. The rest of the boat is falling apart, but the seals were watertight. Like someone was using them.”
He pulled her to her feet. “I want to see that boat.”
His suspicion blended with hers. “I can take you there tomorrow.”
“Make it later tonight, when I head out for my security rounds.” He brushed her hair off her forehead and tucked it behind her ear, easing the order into a request. “If you don’t mind a late-night walk through the woods.”
“I’ll show you a shortcut,” she offered. “Do you think it has something to do with my father?”
He shook his head. “That gas block is brand-new. It’s the rest of the rifle that worries me, not knowing where it is or who owns it. I don’t like surprises. It makes me think that I’m not the only thing out there in those woods at night who could kill someone.”
Chapter Eight
Duff snapped the last picture of the Edwina’s storage wells with his phone. Since he was out of cell range here by Lake Hanover’s northern shore, he’d transfer the photos over to his handler, Missouri Bureau of Investigation agent Matt Benton, when he met with him at the edge of the property later tonight.
The flash might have given away his location to anyone passing by, but that was the beauty of volunteering for Silas’s night patrol. There were no passersby. Everyone on the farm had either turned in for the evening, or they’d gone into Falls City to spend their paycheck at one of the two bars in town.
A ripple of awareness pricked the short hairs at the nape of his neck. He was alone, right? He checked the tree line twenty yards away, and the wind-whipped surface of the lake beyond the weathered dock, to ensure no one was watching this detour from his usual route around the perimeter of the property. Judging by the fast-moving clouds blocking the moon overhead, a squall line was moving in—and any evidence he might be able to retrieve from the wreck Melanie had shown him last night would be washed away.
The electricity he felt must be a by-product of the coming storm. Still, it wouldn’t do him any good to stop here longer than was necessary. Dismissing that sense of being watched, Duff pulled out a handful of swabs and plastic bags he’d filched from Melanie’s infirmary and wiped the interior of each storage well. The chances of picking up trace amounts of gunpowder, metal fragments or packing residue that could prove weapons had once been stashed here were remote. But if there was any chance he could prove guns had been here, he was going to take it.
What other reason could there be to upgrade the storage bins on the beached boat? The dock wasn’t one used by tourists coming in to fish, so there’d be little or no traffic in the area, making the Edwina a perfect place to hide the guns until it came time to ship them. The old gravel road leading to the lake was rutted and overgrown, but a truck with four-wheel drive—or an ATV like the one he was riding tonight—could get through to haul contraband. Maybe he’d just missed a delivery.
Or maybe Melanie’s interest in her father’s death had prompted Henry or Silas to move their stash before she discovered it. That meant locating other places to hide the weapons—like behind the locked door in the attic that Melanie had mentioned. Since he hadn’t wormed his way into Fiske’s inner circle yet, getting a look inside the main house would be a challenge. Maybe Melanie could get him in. Or maybe she’d be willing to go back up into the attic and get a picture of whatever was behind that door for him.
If he could bring himself to risk both her safety and revealing his identity.
As Duff sealed the swabs in plastic, his thoughts strayed to the farm’s resident medic. It hadn’t been an easy task to seduce Melanie over to his side. But he’d been more intrigued by the challenge of getting to know her than he’d been interested in any woman for a long time. She had a sense of humor he appreciated, a sharp brain inside her head, that amazing red hair and sweet, soft lips that seemed eager to be tutored by the right man.
He wanted to be that man. His body was warming up right now in anticipation of taking up where that kiss had left off, and the temperature had nothing to do with the heat brewing that storm overhead.
But that woman had a burr in her britches. She didn’t trust anyone, and that stuck in his craw because he was the kind of guy a woman should believe in. She had that whole hang-up about men lying to her, and the fact he was in the middle of a colossal lie with this undercover assignment meant that whatever trust she was beginning to feel would fly out the window if she found out he was really Tom Watson, KCPD detective, and not Duff Maynard, ex-army sergeant.
That was the problem he should be stewing about, not whether or not he could make an opportunity to teach her a few more lessons in intimacy and seduction. She’d turned the tables on him last night, transforming a kiss meant to silence her into a real gut kick of desire. Audience or not, he’d wanted to pull her against him and plunder her willing mouth beneath his. For a few seconds, he’d forgotten that his interest in her was supposed to
be an act. Hell, he’d damn near confessed that he was a cop when she’d made not lying part of the deal to keep her talking about everything she’d observed over the past few months. Melanie had been hurting, and he’d hurt for her. He understood her relentless need to find closure for her father’s death—be it confirmation that it was an unfortunate accident or proof of something more sinister.
He wanted to do something to help her. Launch an official investigation. Hold her if she needed another cry. Stand between her and anyone who dared to upset her. He wanted to strip off the emotional armor she wore like a Kevlar vest and show her just how brave and beautiful she really was.
A gust of wind reminded him that he was here to do a job, not to do Melanie Fiske. As much as his gut was telling him the woman needed help in her quest to expose the truth about her father’s death, he had to ignore this unexpected attraction and ease his conscience by reminding himself that she’d needed someone to listen to her last night, and he had. He couldn’t risk another mistake like the one he’d made with Shayla by moving this relationship into something real. Listening would have to be enough.
Duff jumped off the boat before glancing up at the lightning flashing through the clouds. Why did he feel Mother Nature was trying to warn him about something? He packed the swabs inside the saddlebag on the back of the ATV and paused for one more look around. He even took a couple of steps out onto the dock that rocked on the murky waves to make sure there wasn’t someone on a boat in the cove.
Duff strode back to the ATV and climbed on. If there was someone out there watching him, he could explain his detour with the excuse that he’d heard or seen something and wanted to check it out. But spending too much time in any one place when he had miles to patrol would be harder to justify. The first drop of rain hit his cheek as he started the engine. He paused long enough to pull the green camo poncho from his saddlebag on over his head, checked to make sure he still had easy access to his gun beneath the poncho, then shifted into gear and rode into the woods, trying to beat the storm.
