It could have been minutes or hours when a sound pierced her consciousness. Devlin must have heard it, too, because he tensed and lifted his head. After a long moment he relaxed. "Just a cat," he murmured, but as he looked down at her she watched the heat fade from his eyes, replaced by a careful coolness. "This can't be comfortable for you," he said, his voice a low nimble, and he stepped back until they were no longer touching.
The sudden chill made her shiver. And the coolness in his eyes made her want to run and hide. Instead she straightened her spine and raised her chin. "Thank you again for sharing dinner with me, Sheriff. And thanks for walking me home. I'll see you around."
As she tried to brush past him, he reached out and took her hand. "I'm sorry, Carly," he said, his voice so low it was almost a whisper. "I had no business kissing you like that."
"And I had no business kissing you back. So we're even." She was proud of the fact that her voice didn't quaver. "From now on it's strictly business, right. Sheriff?"
"Right."
For a moment the heat flared in his eyes again, and she couldn't stop the answering surge inside herself. But now that he wasn't touching her, now that the fog of desire was clearing from her brain, she was appalled at what had happened. She had been wrapped around him on the front porch, in plain view of anyone in Cameron. She had been kissing Devlin McAllister, and in a few more minutes it would have gone far beyond kissing.
She mentally thanked whatever cat had made the noise that stopped them. Because she hadn't come here to kiss Devlin McAllister. She'd come to Cameron to make his family pay for what they had done.
* * *
Chapter 4
«^»
Carly watched as Devlin bent to retrieve his hat, brushed it against his leg then set it on his head. Once again the brim shadowed his eyes, hiding their expression.
She didn't need to see his eyes. The way they'd cooled, the way the silver had turned to stone a few moments earlier, was imprinted on her memory. He wasn't eager to get involved, either. And she was glad, she told herself firmly. It would make everything less complicated. Any involvement between her and Devlin McAllister was doomed to failure anyway, as soon as he found out why she was really in Cameron.
"Good night, Devlin," she said, her voice firm. "Thanks again for the tour."
Beneath the brim of the hat she saw his mouth curl into a mocking smile. "You're welcome, Slick, I was worried there for a moment. I thought the reporter was taking a break and letting the real woman out. I see I was wrong."
"I was afraid the sheriff was taking a break, too. I'm glad that we're both back on track," she answered. She was proud of the coolness in her voice, the lack of emotion.
"Right." He touched his hat and turned away. His broad shoulders blocked out the porch light for a moment, making the night as dark as the emptiness inside her. For a second she yearned to call him back, tell him she hadn't made a mistake. That she'd wanted to kiss him, wanted to do a lot more than that.
Instead she drew herself up straight and watched him disappear into the darkness. When he was out of sight, she sank down onto the porch swing and pushed it into motion. As she swayed back and forth, she thought about Devlin and the McAllisters, about the sister he adored who was now running the ranch, about the father who'd died.
It didn't matter that she wanted Devlin McAllister. She wouldn't allow it to matter. She couldn't turn back now. Even though Devlin's father was dead, she had to know the truth. Her brother's death had cast a shadow over her entire life, and now she needed to be free of that shadow. The only way to do that was to find the truth, to confront it once and for all. She owed it to Edmund, who had died far too young, murdered in cold blood. She owed it to her mother, whose life had changed forever on the night Edmund died and who had died without knowing the truth. And she owed it to herself.
By the time she rose from the swing, the moon had risen and climbed halfway up the sky. Stiff and cold, she walked into the house and up the stairs to her room. When she slipped between the sheets of her bed, she tried to hold onto a faint memory of her brother and nourish it with her plan for justice.
But instead, as she fell asleep, it was Devlin McAllister's face that haunted her dreams.
The next morning Carly slipped into Heaven on Seventh for breakfast and told herself not to look over at the corner booth. She did anyway, and it took only a glance to see that Devlin wasn't there. Six or seven deputies sat around the table, but instead of Devlin, the one she remembered as Ben was in Devlin's seat
Was Devlin sick? Had he had an accident last night? She didn't realize she was staring at the table of deputies until Phyllis walked over with a pot of coffee and poured her a cup.
"Today is Dev's day off," she said, setting the pot of coffee on the table and whipping out her order pad. "That's why Ben's in charge." She grinned when Carly jerked her head around to stare at the waitress. "I could see the questions on your face. You being a reporter and all, I figured you were wondering."
Carly swallowed once and nodded, embarrassed to be caught staring. "I want to get a feel for how Cameron works," she said lightly. "How many days off a week do the deputies get?"
"They all work five-day weeks. Dev usually does, too, unless one of the boys is out sick. Then he picks up the slack."
"What does the sheriff do with his time off?" She tried to keep her voice casual and light, playing the reporter who's merely curious. But she hungered to know more about the man Devlin was.
Phyllis snorted. "What time off? When Dev's not on duty, he's out at the Red Rock, helping his sister with the ranch chores." She shook her head. "That boy needs to lighten up, if you want my opinion. He's working himself into an early grave."
"I got the impression that he didn't care much for ranch work."
"He doesn't," the waitress said frankly. "Everyone in Cameron knows his heart is in the sheriff's office. But he's not about to let his sister work herself into the ground, either. Shea works more than any ten people I know."
"Couldn't they hire someone to help out?"
Phyllis shook her head. "It's not that easy to find reliable help on a ranch, especially in an out-of-the-way place like Cameron. Plus they can't afford to pay much. They had a young guy there for a while, but I guess he didn't work out. So until someone else shows up who's willing to work cheap, they do it all themselves." From the way Phyllis's face softened, it was obvious she thought highly of Devlin and his sister.
Phyllis took her order and left, and Carly stared down into her coffee cup. So the McAllister's were hard-working people who had endeared themselves to the town of Cameron. It didn't matter, Carly told herself fiercely. Their father had killed her brother. That was the reality. And if the truth changed the way the people of Cameron looked at the McAllisters, there was some justice in that, too. Because her brother Edmund's death had changed Carly's whole life.
After finishing her breakfast, Carly headed back to the newspaper office. She was determined to find the newspapers from twenty years ago and read the stories about what had happened in Cameron in the months before Edmund died. They might give her a place to start, a reason he'd been killed. And the stories about his murder could supply names of people who were witnesses or who knew something about the incident. If it took a week of sifting through papers in the basement of the newspaper office, that's what she would do.
Pushing open the door to the office of the Cameron Weekly Sentinel, she saw that Ralph Hanson was at the desk today. She smiled at him and held out her hand.
"Good morning, Mr. Hanson. I'm back to look at your files again."
He smiled back, but she could see that it was an effort. "Good morning, Carly." He hesitated for a moment too long, then waved toward the stairs. "Go ahead and take a look. I'm sorry that the files aren't in better order." His gaze traveled around the office, and Carly glanced around. No wonder the files in the basement were in such a jumble, she thought. Clearly, organization was not the Hansons' strong suit.
&nb
sp; "Does it matter how long I stay?" she asked, turning as she started down the stairs.
"What exactly are you looking for?"
Carly shrugged. "I'm just looking. I don't know enough about Cameron to have anything specific in mind. I just want to get a feel for the town."
Ralph studied her, his brown eyes suddenly and surprisingly hard. "Take all the time you want. We want you to say only positive things about Cameron in your article."
She gave him a noncommittal smile and headed down the stairs, wondering at Ralph's reaction. It was almost as if he didn't want her looking at the newspapers, but didn't know how to tell her no.
Then she stepped into the basement room again and looked around ruefully. The answer was probably no more complicated than Ralph's embarrassment about the way he kept his files. Slipping her backpack off her shoulders, she pulled open a file drawer and got to work.
Carly had no idea of how much time had passed when she heard footsteps on the stairs. Jerking her attention away from the file cabinet she was searching, she slammed the door shut and turned to face whoever was coming down the stairs. Had Ralph Hanson changed his mind about letting her look at the files?
But it wasn't Ralph who appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Devlin swung around the corner and stopped, watching her.
For a moment, his eyes softened. Embers of the passion of the night before flared into life, and a shadow of the desire they'd shared quivered in the air between them.
Then she straightened and forced herself to forget about the night before. "Good morning, Devlin. What are you doing here?"
His eyes cooled as he stared at her. "I might ask you the same thing. June Hanson said that yesterday you were looking for papers from twenty years ago. How is that going to help you write an article about Cameron today?"
"Are you asking in an official capacity?" She was trembling inside, but she hoped her voice was cool.
His face darkened. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Did the Hansons ask you to get rid of me?"
"No, they did not." His eyes flashed at her. "I stopped in because of another matter, and they mentioned you were here. They were concerned about what you were looking for, and I told them I'd ask."
"If the Hansons don't want me here, all they have to do is say so." She gave him a thin smile. "Although I find it interesting that they would object. What are they afraid of?"
He stared at her for a long minute, his jaw tense, his eyes cold steel. Then he sighed. "Hell, Carly, is everyone from New York this prickly? They're older folks with some personal problems. They're afraid you're going to dig out their troubles and splash it across your magazine. Can't you understand that?"
"I already told you I have no intention of publicizing their problems. You can assure them that I'm not snooping into their private lives."
"Then what are you doing?"
"It's called research." She waved a hand at the file cabinets. "This is the history of your town. Where else am I going to get this kind of information?"
He strolled past her and pulled open a file drawer. Pulling out a yellowing copy of the paper, he studied the first page. Then, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth, he handed it to her.
"Is this what you had in mind?"
The tension in the room dissipated as she glanced at the paper, then laughed. "I don't think that's going to make the cut into my story. 'Steer escapes and tramples garden, ruins prize-winning tomatoes and zucchini' isn't exactly cutting edge journalism."
His smile disappeared. "But it's what Cameron is all about. This is the news in our town. Remember that, and you'll be just fine."
He watched her for a moment with unreadable eyes, then said, "I'll reassure the Hansons again. Sorry I disturbed you."
She listened to him walk up the stairs, and heard the low murmur of his voice up in the office. Finally the door opened, and then there was silence again.
Devlin had filled the room with his presence, making it seem more inviting. Now it was a dusty, damp basement again, and she needed to get back to work. Slamming the file drawer shut, she looked around the basement. Clearly the old newspapers weren't neatly filed away.
She finally found them. Hidden in a far corner of the basement, behind the file cabinets and covered by a collection of broken office equipment, she discovered several cardboard boxes, stained and dusty with age. When she dragged the boxes into the center of the room and opened the first one, she was elated to find that the papers dated from the time before her brother's death.
Banishing Devlin from her mind, she sat on the floor for a long time, staring at the issue on top of the box. "Joseph and Marla Whitmore, Publishers," the paper proudly proclaimed. Finally she pulled it out of the box and held it with hands that shook, tracing the names with her finger.
Her parents' names.
Carly checked the date carefully and saw that it was several months before her brother had died. Her father had been dead for a few years by then, but her mother had kept his name on the masthead. She'd always said that it was his paper, anyway. And her mother had never really been interested in publishing a small town newspaper. She'd only done it in order to keep the paper going until her son could take over.
Swallowing the ball of grief that lodged in her throat at the sight of her parents' names, Carly carefully put the paper aside and removed the next issue. It was for the following week, and she felt a tingle of excitement. Were all the papers in order?
They were. Handling the fragile newspapers carefully, she removed them until she found the issue for the week her brother had died. She would go back and study the earlier papers later.
Now she wanted to read the stories about her brother's death. She carried several papers over to a work bench and turned on a light.
The story about Edmund's murder was on the front page, but it said nothing about any suspects or motives for the slaying. It just gave the bare facts—that seventeen-year-old Edmund Whitmore had been found shot to death on the McAllister ranch, outside of Cameron. Frowning, she read the story again, certain she had somehow missed the information. But it wasn't there.
She found another story in the next week's issue. This time, the article included the information that Edmund was shot with a slug from a small-gauge shotgun. The authorities were looking for a weapon missing from the McAllister ranch. That was it.
On the last page she found a small obituary. Her mother was listed as a survivor, and her own name was there. Caroline Whitmore, dear sister. The words suddenly blurred as she stared at the yellowed newspaper. At eight years old, she hadn't completely understood what had happened. But she remembered her mother's inconsolable grief and her own confusion. And she remembered the day when she finally realized that she'd never see her loving, happy-go-lucky brother again.
Swallowing her grief and her tears, she set aside the paper containing the obituary and picked up the next week's issue. There was a story on the front page again, but this time it detailed the death of a man described as a drifter. His body had been found at the bottom of a cliff on McAllister land, his neck broken, and it was assumed he'd been the man who killed Edmund Whitmore. The story closed with the information that the gun missing from the McAllister house hadn't been found, and neither had the Whitmore murder weapon. Two weeks later there was a small blurb on an inside page about the case. All it said was the sheriff had decided there wasn't enough evidence to make an arrest in the Whitmore case, but he was looking for more information.
Then, nothing. That was all the information in the Cameron Weekly Sentinel about her brother's death. She paged through a number of issues after those, and found a story about her mother selling the Sentinel to Ralph Hanson, the editor. Marla Whitmore moving away with her eight-year-old daughter was briefly noted, and after that there was no further mention of the Whitmore family. They might have vanished from the face of the earth, for all the notice they got in Cameron.
Slowly Carly replaced all the old papers in the box,
with the exception of the four that mentioned her brother's death. Then she dragged the boxes back to their hiding place. Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she walked up the stairs, squinting in the bright light.
June Hanson was now at the desk, and when she looked over at Carly her glance sharpened when she saw the newspapers in her hand.
"Find something interesting?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact. Do you have a copy machine I could use?"
June hesitated for a moment, and the expression on her face told Carly she would have refused if she could have thought of a reason. Finally she said, grudgingly, "Over there."
"I'll be happy to pay for copies," Carly said, reaching into her pocket for some coins.
Behind her, June blustered, "That's not necessary," but Carly set the pile of coins on the side of the copier.
It only took a moment to make copies of the four stories. After slipping the still warm sheets of paper into her backpack, Carly cradled the four issues of the Sentinel in her arms and headed down the stairs again. "I'm just going to put these back," she called to June.
As she replaced the papers, she heard June's footsteps approach the top of the stairs. "You put everything back where you found it," she called down.
She had every intention of doing just that, Carly thought grimly as she struggled to replace the heavy office equipment that sat on top of the boxes. She planned on studying these papers, and she didn't want them to disappear. And the best way of preventing that was to leave them just as she'd found them. It would take a while for anyone to find the boxes, and that's exactly what she wanted.
When everything was restored to its former disarray, Carly turned off the light and headed back up the stairs. June stood at the top, blocking her way.
"Did you find some interesting story about Cameron?" she asked, her eyes wary.
COWBOY WITH A BADGE Page 5
