“Then we’re even.”
“What?”
Mason blew out a frustrated breath. “Last year? I did set out to seduce you. I admit it. I orchestrated the whole thing, and I used your misapprehension to my advantage. But when I kissed you…” He sighed and shook his head. “This is foolish. I’m taking you someplace civilized so we can talk.”
Allie waited a beat. “Where?”
“How the bloody hell should I know? Someplace without alligators.” He squinted, peering around. “Where are we, anyway?”
Allie glanced over his shoulder. There was only the occasional wink of light through the trees, but she could just make out the silent, blackened shell of a building, its crumbling spire stretching toward the sky.
“I know where we are. Put me down.”
“No.”
“Excuse me?” Allie squirmed, trying to slither out of his arms, but he only locked them tighter.
“A little to the left, darling.”
Inflamed, she contemplated biting him in some vulnerable spot, but a lifetime of decorum won out. “You know, there’s this little document called The Declaration of Independence that says my kind doesn’t take orders from your kind anymore.”
“You’re actually using a two hundred year-old political rift to state your position?”
“No, I’m using a two-hundred year-old political rift to change my position. Let go.”
It irritated her to no end that he grinned. “You do realize that you’re adorable.”
“You do realize that you’re about to get your butt whooped if you don’t put me down.”
“Speaking of butts…” his hands tightened. “I, well bugger me!”
Allie suddenly found herself on the ground, though not quite in the way she’d intended. She wasn’t exactly pinned beneath Mason – because he’d twisted as they went down – but wasn’t exactly not. She was sort of wedged between his legs, his arm at an awkward angle beneath her head, like he’d flung it out at the last moment.
“Cripes. Are you all right, darling?”
She ignored that “darling” bit. Her skirt was up around her hips and something sharp dug into her thigh. “I’m fine.”
Mason lifted his torso, but their legs were still tangled together. “I guess we’re even again. What did I trip over?”
“I don’t know.” But Allie lifted her head, and realized they must be in the cemetery behind the church. “If I had to guess, I’d say a grave marker.”
Mason was suddenly scrambling around, trying to get them untangled from one another. She bumped him in the chin when she tried to sit up.
“Ouch. Just let me… the soil seems to be a bit churned up here and… sorry,” he said when she cried out, because he’d lost his traction and somehow slipped on top of her again.
Allie turned her head and spotted a light, bobbing up and down, growing closer by the moment. “Mason.” She tapped him on the shoulder.
“I know. Forgive me, I’m just…” he managed to get to his knees, and offered her a hand. Just as the light grew bright enough to blind them. “What the…?”
And too late, Allie realized what was happening.
Because Will punched Mason in the face.
WILL watched several outraged citizens – most of them named Hawbaker – flutter around the bloodied actor in the backstage dressing room.
“Did you have to hit him in the face?” his little brother complained loudly, moving aside the cold compress to check what was turning into one hell of a shiner. What Allison had started the night before, Will had finished this evening. He tried to make himself feel bad about that, but then he remembered the scene illuminated by his flashlight.
“He had our sister pinned to the ground with her skirt pushed up over her head.” That Allie favored skimpy lace panties in a glaring shade of blue was more than he’d ever wanted to know. “And she was yelling.”
“I was not yelling,” Allie said. “And where my skirt was is none of your business.”
“It is if you’re being attacked!”
She crossed her arms and glared at Will. “I was not being attacked. Which you might have deduced for yourself if you’d taken the time to look before overreacting.”
Figured. One woman’s heroic authority figure was another woman’s annoying older brother.
“You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t sue you for police brutality,” she told him.
“No, that’s what would have happened if I’d popped the last moron you dated.”
“I have no intention of suing anyone,” Mason said from beneath the ice pack just as Allie said “We’re not dating.”
Magnanimously overlooking the fact that Will had just implied he was a moron, the actor muttered “July fourth, seventeen-seventy-six, was a dark, dark day in history.”
Allie scowled at him, but since she’d also jumped to Mason’s defense, Will figured she could handle whatever that was all about without him punching the man again.
“I suppose I would have hit me, too,” Mason said. “Though probably not with such unerring aim. And why is this compress green?” He pulled back a little to peer at the pack through his swollen lid.
“Parsley,” Branson told him. “It’s an anti-inflammatory and an anesthetic. Josie mixed up a batch of it for me to use on Tommy.”
“It works,” Tommy interjected from his position in the doorway, indicating his own eyes. And indeed the kid’s face did look better than when he’d seen him in the store that afternoon.
But thinking about how he’d come by those injuries made Will’s blood pressure spike. He’d done everything by the book, lined up all his evidentiary ducks in a row, to get charges of aggravated assault and battery brought against the thug who’d jumped Tommy. But the Assistant Solicitor assigned to the case had been hesitant about pushing for the aggravated charge, because Tommy said Jimmy and his pal hadn’t made any slurs about his perceived sexual orientation either before or during the attack.
So Jimmy had been arraigned on a lesser charge. Which was bad enough, but then the little punk had posted bail immediately. In cash. Given the fact that he couldn’t claim any steady employment that Will was aware of, all the Benjamins he’d been flashing around had Will’s somethin’ ain’t right meter pinned. He was going to have to start paying real close attention to that guy.
“Do you think it’s too late to write a black eye into the script?” Bran drew Will’s attention back to the current situation. “Maybe something about luggage falling from an overhead compartment…”
“How mercenary of you,” Allie said.
“Hey, I’ve already got one actor on the injured list.” He nodded toward Tommy. “I’m running out of options, here.”
“No, he’s right,” Mason said. “The show must go on.” He replaced the compress with just the right amount of stiff upper lip to have Will giving him the fish eye again. He still wasn’t sure he trusted this guy.
Rainey – her hair sprayed gray and pulled back into a bun – hurried in, carefully holding a carryout cup from The Dust Jacket. “Sorry that took so long,” she said. “It took me an age to find the right tin. Oh, and here are your keys back.”
“Thanks, Rainey.” Allie took the keys and the cup, the latter of which she thrust unceremoniously toward Mason. “Drink that.”
He peered at it, suspicious. “What is it?”
“It’s tea. It should help with the pain.”
“Not that I don’t believe tea is the cure for most of life’s ills,” the Brit told her, “but why does this smell like piss?”
“It’s one of Josie’s old herbal remedies,” Bran told Mason. “I’m not sure exactly what’s in it, but it really does help take the pain away.”
Mason sipped it, and winced. “Likely because one’s slipped into some kind of toxic coma.”
“Branson?” Will waited until his brother’s blue eyes met his, then tilted his head toward the door.
Bran sighed, then nodded. “Hey Tommy, Rainey? How about we
go out and finish running through that last scene in Act One.”
No dummies, the two of them looked at each other, knowing that they’d been dismissed. They were also clearly trying to figure out an excuse to linger so that they didn’t miss anything.
But when Will cleared his throat, Tommy shrugged and grabbed Rainey’s hand. “Let’s go.”
Rainey looked back over her shoulder with a little finger wave for Mason. Tommy rolled his eyes and tugged her from the room.
Bran snapped off a salute before shutting the door behind him.
Hands stuffed in his pockets, Will turned to frown at the two numbnuts that were left. “I need to ask what you saw at the cemetery.”
“Before or after you blackened my eye?” Mason said and Allie said “Mostly, I saw my skirt, being as it was over my head.”
“Don’t be cute.” Will pointed an admonitory finger at her. “We got a nine-one-one call about a possible disturbance behind First Baptist. I happened to be close by so I went over to check it out. Imagine my surprise and horror at finding my sister struggling with some guy on the ground.”
“Oh.” Allie bit her lip.
“Yes, oh.”
“But,” Mason squinted at Will with his good eye. “How could someone have noticed our presence, placed the call and summoned you within such a short time frame? We couldn’t have been on the ground more than thirty seconds after I tripped. And prior to that…” He glanced at Allie and cleared his throat.
“Prior to that we were… kissing,” Allie admitted glumly. “And there might have been a few cross words mixed in. But I hardly think it qualifies as a disturbance.”
Will pushed the image that had just flashed like a tawdry neon sign right back out of his head. “Did either of you see anyone else at any time? Maybe pass someone along the path?”
“I don’t think so.” Allie glanced at Mason, who shook his head. “What’s this about?”
“I’ll get to that. Allie, did you by chance lose any personal items tonight?”
“Personal items?” She looked puzzled. “Like… Oh! My shoes. I totally forgot. Did you find them?”
He had. “I’ll return them to you later. How about your hair? It’s a little,” he gestured around his head to indicate that hers was mussed. “Did you maybe have it tied back or something before…” he glared at Mason “you rolled around in the dirt?”
“I tripped,” Mason said before she could answer, looking back at Will just as testily as Will looked at him.
“Is it possible you lost a hair tie? A black ribbon?” he asked his sister again.
She shook her head, and Will frowned at Mason’s hair. “I guess it’s not yours, is it, Fabio?”
The Brit merely gave him a look out of his good eye. “No.”
“Will,” Allie said, exasperated. “What is this about?”
That was the question. “A grave seems to have been…disturbed,” he said, for lack of a better description. “I’ve got a team there gathering evidence, and I wanted to separate what you and Mason here might have left behind when you tripped over the scene.”
“Oh no.” Allie said. “Sounds to me like you’ve got some teenagers acting up again.”
“Possibly.” The cemetery, being one of the oldest in the area and connected to a church that had famously been destroyed by a lightning strike back in the thirties, was a hotbed for paranormal lore and legend. Consequently, it had also become a magnet for thrill seekers and tourists alike. Usually it was the old mausoleum that attracted daredevils and vandals, but since his department had padlocked the doors, things had been relatively quiet.
Looked like the respite was over.
“The soil,” Mason said, pulling the compress away from his eye again. “Where I tripped over the marker. It was all turned over. Like someone had been digging.”
Indeed they had. “As it turns out,” he told the other man “it was lucky you fell when you did. A few more feet and the Hawbaker you were rolling around with would have been dearly departed Cousin Eugene.”
CHAPTER SIX
“SO,” said a voice from behind her. “How was your weekend?”
Allie paused in the act of stowing her purse in the desk drawer, glancing over her shoulder at the statuesque redhead lounging in the office doorway. “Fine. Busy.” She shut the drawer. “How was yours?”
“Oh, you know.” Sarah blew over the top of her coffee. “About the same.”
They stared at each other across the room for the space of several heartbeats.
Allie finally sighed. “Bran or Rainey? No, don’t tell me.” She held up a hand. “Rainey. I guess I should feel fortunate she didn’t post it on Twitter.”
Abandoning nonchalance, Sarah came in and shut the door. “You know I didn’t know he was coming, right?”
“I gathered. Mason told me he told Tucker, who, I’m subsequently gathering, neglected to tell you.”
“For which he has been duly punished. Now.” She shoved aside some paperwork, perched on the edge of the desk. Tell me all. Do not spare a single detail.”
“You mean Rainey left something out?”
“Allie.”
“Okay, fine.” She dropped down into the chair and began ticking items off on her fingers. “Storm, power outage, tree blocking the road, awkward Hey, fancy meeting you here encounter in the loft of your guest cottage – and before you get any ideas, I kicked him in the balls and blacked his eye. While stark naked. And shrieking like a boo hag. Romantic, it was not.”
Sarah blinked. “Wait, you gave him that shiner?”
“Well, partially. Then Will sort of made it worse.” Allie chewed her lip, and told herself she didn’t care. But curiosity got the better of her. “Did it look really bad when you got home last night?”
“Awful.”
“I’m going to hell for deriving the tiniest bit of satisfaction from that, aren’t I?”
Allie’s cell phone rang before Sarah could reply. “Sorry, I better get that. It might be Dad’s nurse. Hello?”
The voice on the other end had Allie freezing in place.
Her face must have conveyed her shock, because Sarah sat up straight. What happened? she mouthed, but Allie could only shake her head. “Why?” she heard herself asking, followed by “I appreciate the offer, but I’m afraid today isn’t good for me. No, tomorrow isn’t going to work either. No. No. Thank you, but no. Goodbye, Wesley. Well,” she said as she hung up. “I guess that’s what I get for not checking caller ID.”
“Wesley.” Venom practically dripped from Sarah’s mouth as it formed Allie’s ex-fiancé’s name. “What did that little worm want?”
“To take me to lunch.”
“Why?”
“He said he wanted to catch up. See how I was doing. I told him no,” Allie reminded her friend when she saw the look on Sarah’s face.
“A lot more politely than warranted, if you ask me.”
Allie suppressed a spurt of irritation. She knew her friend meant well. But, much like Allie’s brothers, she tended to be overprotective. Granted, Allie had gone through a patch after her broken engagement where she was certainly… fragile. But she’d come a long way since then. It would be nice if the people closest to her noticed.
A knock on the office door brought a halt to the conversation. “Sarah?” Rainey poked her dark head around the corner. “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a woman here wanting to talk to you about yarn or something?”
“Oh, the cozy mysteries group. Thanks, Rainey. I’ll be right there.”
“The what?” Allie said after Rainey departed.
“I’ll explain later.” Sarah slid from her perch on the desk. “And don’t think you’ve escaped. Interrogation will resume shortly.”
“Good thing we’re all out of rubber hoses.”
“I’ll send Rainey down to the hardware store right away.”
When Sarah was gone, Allie leaned back in the chair, her breath easing between her lips in a hiss. She wondered what Wesley wa
s up to. Granted, she’d done her best to keep things as amicable as possible after their breakup – in a town the size of Sweetwater, bumping into one another was inevitable. But they certainly weren’t on bosom enough terms that he should be calling her up to say let’s do lunch.
Evicting thoughts of Wesley from her head, Allie pushed away from the desk, rolling the chair closer to the window.
Then a little closer. Closer. With one finger, she lifted a slat of the wooden blinds. From this vantage point, she could just make out the porch of Sarah’s little cottage. No movement.
Of course there was no movement. Mason was probably still asleep.
“Pathetic,” she said out loud. Though whether she was referring to herself or to Mason, she really couldn’t say.
“TELL me again,” Mason said, “why it was necessary for me to accompany you to the veterinarian at…” he peered blearily at the dashboard clock “nine o’clock in the morning?”
“Simple,” Tucker said, his elbow perched on the open window. The air streaming in smelled faintly of fish and decaying vegetation, indicating their proximity to the river. “You put me in a position of withholding information from Sarah. Sarah was displeased with said withholding. She retaliated by ‘asking’ me to take her damn cat to the vet for his shots and grooming, whatever the hell that entails, knowing that what is normally a fat, lazy and complacent blob with fur turns into the Demon Beast from Hell when he sees the carrier. I thought it only appropriate you should share in the joy.”
Mason turned around in his seat, surveying the Demon Beast with a jaundiced eye. The Beast eyed him back through the metal grating of its carrier, equally displeased. He’d already acquired a nasty set of scratches on his arm trying to help Tucker corral the animal. Two days in Sweetwater, and he was beginning to look like he’d been hit by a bus while running from a pack of rabid dogs. Given the fact that he’d been clouted on the head, sustaining a concussion during his last visit, perhaps the universe was trying to give him a hint.
“I’m a fool,” he muttered, turning back around.
Admit One (Sweetwater Book 2) Page 4
