She finally latched onto the notepad and yanked it out. “Yeah, well, you say that, but you must be handy with your tools.”
His eyes glinted even more. “Haven’t had any complaints.”
She blushed even harder. What was wrong with her? Just because it had been a while, she was no shy virgin. “Just give me the address. You could have called me, you know. Saved yourself a trip.”
“I could have.”
She caught her tongue between her teeth, hoping she didn’t look as ridiculously pleased as she felt. She might as well have been back in high school, having the senior quarterback ask her—not Maddie or Greer—to dance.
He pulled out his cell phone and showed her the text message.
Her schoolgirl euphoria ruptured.
The name of the sender was Chelsea.
She wrote down the Montana address, but left off the “XOXO” and the three hearts that followed it. Then she dropped the pencil back into the drawer and slammed it shut a little harder than necessary. “Chelsea is your ex-wife?” She remembered the first day they’d met. When he’d accused her of being sent by someone named Chelsea.
He stuck the phone back into his pocket. “Very ex,” he said as if he knew what she was thinking.
She turned and leaned back against her hands on the drawer. She had to look up a long way to his face. And there seemed like very little space between them. Her heart was suddenly pounding, euphoria sneaking back in. “Are you sure?”
His eyes moved over her face. He slowly lifted his hand and lightly grazed his thumb over her lip. “Positive.”
His head started to inch down to hers. “They have little flecks of yellow.”
He paused. “What has little flecks of yellow?” he whispered back.
Her mouth felt dry and she swallowed. Moistened her lips. “Your eyes.” Maybe that’s why they seemed aqua, rather than merely blue. Laser. Sharp. Blue.
He smiled slightly. “And yours are like chocolate. Dark. Melted. Chocolate. I’ve got a serious thing for dark chocolate.”
She wondered if this was what it felt like to swoon. She heard his name sort of sigh from her lips, even though she hadn’t consciously said a word. She swallowed again, leaning toward him—
“Yoo-hoo!” The back door flew open and Ali’s mother blew in.
Ali jumped back. Grant merely lifted his head a little.
Feeling entirely cheated out of what she was certain would not be a sloppy kiss, she could only stare at her mother. Meredith hadn’t really noticed Ali yet at all, since she was busy making sure that her mother-in-law, who was with her, made it safely up the back step. “What’s going on?”
Meredith turned then, and seemed to notice Grant for the first time. More specifically, she seemed to notice how close he stood to Ali. Toe-to-toe. Her eyes turned even brighter. “Well, isn’t this a nice surprise!” She left Vivian’s side to approach them, extending a slender arm that was weighted down with a dozen delicate bracelets. “Grant. I’m Meredith—”
“I remember.” He shook her hand. “It’s nice to see you.”
“What’s nice to see is a fresh face around here.” Vivian Archer Templeton shut the door with a hand firm enough to guarantee some attention. She was almost as petite as Ali’s mom—who was even shorter than Ali and her sisters—but what Vivian lacked in height, she more than made up for in attitude.
Thanks to several wealthy dead husbands and Pennsylvania steel, she was richer than Midas. Ali and her siblings had never even met their grandmother, until a couple years ago when she showed up in Wyoming out of the clear blue sky intent on ending her estrangement with Ali’s dad and uncle. Now, Vivian had a decent relationship with most everyone—except her sons. Even though she was opinionated, tended to veer between irreverent and arrogant and had a penchant for sticking her eccentric, aristocratic nose in everyone’s business, Ali had become pretty darn fond of her.
Vivian picked her way across the floor as if the worn tiles would damage the soles of her expensive leather boots. She shrugged out of her fur coat and looked up at Grant. “You’re a fine specimen, aren’t you?” Her brown eyes were as bright as buttons and she patted her stylish silver hair. “Too young for me, but—”
“Vivian,” Meredith chided.
Vivian’s smile widened. She held out a beringed hand to Grant.
He looked at it for a second. “Do I kiss it or shake it?”
Vivian let out a sharp peal of laughter. She propped her hand on her slender hip. “Maybe you’re not too young after all.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Meredith said drily, grabbing Vivian’s shoulders and forcibly steering her away from Grant. “She’s more bark than bite, I promise.”
Grant was smiling. “I think that might be a shame.”
Vivian shrugged away from Meredith’s hold. She clasped Ali’s face between her hands. “If you don’t know what to do with him, just tell your old granny, and I’ll fill you in. I haven’t buried four husbands without learning a thing or two.”
Ali laughed wryly. Nobody called Vivian “granny.” Hayley—who’d been the first one to show Vivian any welcome when she’d descended upon Wyoming—occasionally called her “Grandmother.” To everyone else, she was Vivian. Pure, unadulterated Vivian. “I think I can manage,” Ali assured her. And she would have been well on the way to proving it if not for the interruption.
She took Vivian’s hands in hers and squeezed them very gently, because—for all of Vivian’s larger-than-lifeness—she was a little frail. Not necessarily because she was on the high side of her eighties, but because she had an inoperable brain tumor. So far, it was causing only an occasional fainting spell. But they all knew it could cause something much worse. It could happen at any moment. Or it could happen not at all.
Vivian, of course, just took it in stride. She said that the thing had been squatting in her head for more than a few years now, and if the day came when it decided not to squat, well, then she’d finally be able to join “dear Arthur” at last. He’d been the fourth and final of her husbands and to hear her tell it, the only one she’d loved with all her heart.
“What brought you here?”
Vivian lived on the edge of Weaver, in a huge mansion she’d had built. It would have been more fitting for Pittsburgh, where she was from, than anywhere in the state of Wyoming, let alone Weaver.
Meredith unwound her winter scarf from her neck and unfastened her coat. “Vivian insisted.”
And when Vivian insisted, woe to anyone who got in her way.
Ali focused on her grandmother again. “Because?”
“Because I’m on the Valentine’s ball planning committee, and I wanted some fresh input from you young people.”
“Valentine’s Day is under two weeks away,” Ali said warily. “Aren’t the plans already in the works?”
“Yes, but I want to prove a point and there’s no time to waste. Everyone on the committee is entirely stodgy.” Vivian gestured at Meredith. “Including your bohemian mother, who is generally anything but stodgy.” She eyed Ali. “Do you think the usual potluck in the high-school gymnasium is just fine?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Frankly, calling that a ball is a gross reach, if you ask me.”
“We don’t have a budget for anything else,” Meredith reminded her.
“Bah.” Vivian waved her hand and settled her fur on one of the kitchen chairs before perching on the edge of it. “I could take care of that with a snap of my fingers if there wasn’t a certain dunderhead on the town council who has blocked every idea I bring to it.”
“Dunderhead?” Grant asked.
“She means Squire Clay,” Greer told him as she came into the kitchen with Layla to check out the fuss. She kissed Vivian’s delicately lined cheek and then hugged Meredith, who promptly slipped the baby out of Greer’s arms.
Ali couldn’t help but
notice the way Grant’s gaze kept straying to the baby.
“You haven’t been here long enough to know,” Greer went on, “but Squire Clay—”
“Is intensely annoying.”
Greer ignored Vivian. “Owns the largest ranch in the area—the Double C—and now he’s also one of Weaver’s council members.”
“I’m sure he bought the election.” Vivian tapped the table and her rings glinted under the bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling fixture.
“You’re still put out because he beat you for the seat last fall,” Meredith replied calmly.
Grant looked at Ali. “Sounds like your grandmother has the hots for the guy.”
Vivian’s finely penciled eyebrows skyrocketed. “You’re obviously new to the area, so I’ll forgive you for that.”
“Squire’s first wife was our grandfather’s sister,” Greer disclosed.
“Vivian’s first husband,” Ali explained. “Vivian and Squire didn’t get along then, and they don’t get along now.”
“What my granddaughter is being too polite to say is that I snubbed my husband’s half sister ages and ages ago, because she was born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
Ali jerked a little at the phrase. Not because it was news to her, but because Mrs. Gunderson had used it that very morning, too. Even if the women were from different locales, it just seemed proof that they were from the same era.
“But the only reason we don’t get along now is because that old coot refuses to let an old woman apologize.” Vivian pointed at Meredith. “He’s no different than Carter and David.”
“Don’t blame me for that,” Meredith said mildly. “Carter was your son before he was my husband.” She jiggled Layla on her hip and smiled wryly at Grant. “Aren’t you glad you brought it up?”
Grant’s lips tilted in a smile. He looked at Ali. “Did I?”
“No, you did not.”
“Tell me.” Vivian looked Grant up and down. “Would you like celebrating Valentine’s Day by sitting in some school building eating God knows what?”
“Can’t say I’ve celebrated a lot of Valentine’s Days. And as long as the food doesn’t come out of a government-issue pouch, I’m pretty good with it.”
“That’s not the answer I was looking for,” Vivian said drily.
“Then you shouldn’t have asked the question,” Ali pointed out. She took Grant’s arm and didn’t have to work hard at all to steer him out of the crowded kitchen.
“Hey, I was gonna invite him for dinner,” Greer called after them. Laughter was in her voice. “We’re not eating out of pouches.”
It was immediately apparent to Ali why Maddie hadn’t also joined the fray in the kitchen. She was sitting on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table. Sound asleep.
Ali rubbed her palm over the staircase’s newel post. “You are welcome to stay for dinner,” she told Grant softly. It seemed more than apparent that First Monday was once again derailed.
He shook his head, looking wry. “I mean this with the most respect, Officer Ali, but there’s a little too much estrogen in there for comfort.”
She grinned. “For me, too. But they are my family. Warts and all.”
He glanced toward Maddie. “The three of you really are peas in a pod.” Then he looked back at Ali and she shivered when his gaze seemed to drop momentarily to her mouth. “Rain check?”
She nodded. “Sure.”
He smiled faintly as he grazed his thumb across her lower lip again. Then he plucked his coat from the back of a chair and quietly went out the front door.
Ali’s knees had dissolved, and she sat down on the bottom step of the staircase.
“Alicia likes a bo-oy,” Greer sang again from the kitchen doorway.
Ali propped her elbows on her knees and stared at the front door. “Yeah,” she said on a sigh that was too dreamy for comfort. “Does she ever.”
Chapter Nine
Looking into the Montana address Karen Cooper had given Grant’s ex-wife to wire her money turned up nothing.
Ali sat at the desk she’d been assigned and stared blindly at the wall in front of her. Every single time they had a possible lead on Grant’s sister, it ended up going nowhere.
Gowler dropped a file folder on her desk. “Get over to Braden Drugs. Manager reported a shoplifter. When you get back, type up these reports.”
The folder was thick, meaning she’d be typing for some time—which was not her forte. But she wasn’t going to complain since at least she got to deal with an actual complaint first. “Yessir.” She grabbed her jacket and the keys to her unit before heading toward the door.
“Templeton!”
She paused.
“Take Timmy with you.”
Great. She looked across the room at the other officer, who’d looked up from the book he was reading at the sound of his name. “Let’s roll, Timmy.”
His face turned red, but he grabbed his coat and they went out the back to where the department’s vehicles were all parked. Ali drove, wishing there was something she could do to make Timmy relax around her.
“Timmy, you’ve got a sister, right? Still lives in town here? Single?”
He gave her a quick look. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Tracie. Yeah.”
“Tracie got a boyfriend?”
He made a face. “Yeah. He’s a jerk.”
Keith Gowler wasn’t a jerk. Just a sloppy kisser. Which might well be one of those beauty-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder things. “They serious?”
“I hope not,” he muttered.
“She teaches over at the elementary school?”
“Yeah.” His face was like a beet. “Why?”
“No reason.” She smiled at him, wondering how on earth she could maneuver a “meet cute” between an elementary-school teacher and a defense lawyer. “Just making conversation.” She turned into the parking lot of the small strip mall where the drugstore was located. The drugstore was at one end. Hardware store at the other. A dress shop and a bakery in between. Timmy called in their location and they went inside.
The girl at the counter jerked her head toward the back. “Manager’s got him back in the office.”
“Thanks.” Ali led the way to the rear of the store. She knocked once on the closed door and then opened it.
The sight of the teenage boy sprawled in a chair made her cluck her tongue. “Trevor Oakes.” She hadn’t had an encounter with the kid since she’d rousted him out of Grant’s vacant ranch house last year. “What’s the deal?”
The store manager—a teenager only a few years older than Trevor—gestured at the array of products sitting on his desk. “He was shoveling all of this into his coat pockets. That’s what the deal is.”
Ali studied the items. Nothing there that he could cook with. Which was a relief. She didn’t want to have to call in Trevor’s poor mom to tell her that her son had graduated to making meth. “Nothing you can huff or puff here, Trev.” She picked up a candy bar from among the other innocuous items. Visually, he didn’t appear to be stoned, but that meant nothing. “Or do you just have the munchies?”
He made a face, crossing his arms. He clearly had no intention of answering.
“All right.” She looked at Timmy. “Bag up the evidence, Officer. Let’s take him in and process him.”
To Timmy’s credit, he didn’t argue, even though they typically dealt with juvenile shoplifters at the scene. They rarely brought them in, even if charges were ultimately filed.
She gestured at Trevor. “Get up. Face the wall. Hands behind your back.”
Finally, there was a hint of nervousness in his eyes. He did what she said and she cuffed him. “That your coat on the chair?”
He grunted an answer.
She gave him a look. “What’s that?”
His jaw flexed. “Ye
s.”
“Better.” She tossed the coat over his shoulders. “You can come in and sign the complaint anytime this afternoon,” she told the manager, who was watching with round eyes and slack jaw.
Then she walked Trevor, cuffed for all of Braden Drugs to see, out of the store. She put him in the back of the SUV behind the grill and as she waited for Timmy to catch up, she saw Grant walking out of the hardware store. He had a large bag propped on his shoulder.
Timmy still hadn’t come out of the drugstore, but she drove across the parking lot, right in Grant’s path.
Her heart wriggled around in her chest a little when he stopped and smiled at her.
She rolled down her window. She saw that he was carrying cement. “Looks like you’re moving on from kitchen cabinetry.”
“Yup. Spent the morning hunting down water lines. Now I get to repair the mess I made and put down tile again.” He angled his head, looking at the occupant in her backseat. “Exciting day for Braden’s finest?”
“Something like that.” She couldn’t seem to get the smile off her face. “No more cold showers?”
He stared into her eyes. His were slightly amused...and entirely mesmerizing. “Not without reason, anyway.”
Every day since they’d had the snowstorm had been just a little warmer than the day before. And right then, it felt like the middle of a long hot summer to Ali.
She rolled down the passenger window, letting more winter air in to cool her cheeks. “I checked out the address you gave me.” Better to stick to that, than let her imagination run amok. “Turned out to be a boardinghouse owned by a woman named Honey Holmes.” The name clearly meant nothing to Grant. “She rented a room to your sister for a couple weeks. But she cleared out after only one. The owner didn’t have any idea where she was heading.” She left out the part that Daisy—which was the name she’d rented the room under—had also left without paying the second week’s rent. “Ms. Holmes did confirm that your sister was pregnant at the time. To use Honey’s words, ‘not quite ready to pop but getting there.’” She’d also called Daisy a tramp, but Ali figured she didn’t need to share that detail.
Show Me a Hero Page 11
