"I won't deny that if I find myself someplace interesting, I'll take a look."
"By interesting I take it to mean someplace that's connected to the Whitmore murder."
"Interesting can be defined a number of ways," she said, grinning at him. "That's one of them."
He shook his head. "You are a dangerous woman, Carly. I pity anyone who tries to keep up with you."
They kept the conversation light as they headed back into Cameron. Devlin figured that she was no more eager than he was to explore the desire and passion that simmered just beneath the surface. He told himself that was the way be wanted it. He reminded himself of what had happened the last time he got involved in a relationship with a woman who had a hidden agenda. But his heart didn't seem to agree.
* * *
Chapter 11
«^»
The next morning, Devlin led the truck from the rental company over to Melba Corboy's. A black Jeep Cherokee sat on the truck bed, and it only took a few minutes for the driver of the truck to deliver it to Carly, get her signature on the paperwork, and drive away. It would stop at Jam Peters's garage and pick up the damaged Jeep before heading back to Las Vegas.
"Thank you," Carly said to him as the truck disappeared around the corner. "For making all the arrangements, then making sure he found me."
"You're welcome," he said. He glanced at her new vehicle. "Have you decided where you're going to take it today?"
"Just around," she said. "Nowhere in particular. I'm going to stop at the Weekly Sentinel office first, then drive around the area."
"Is there a phone in this Jeep?"
"There should be. I requested one with a phone."
He checked, just to make sure, then stood on the curb, scowling at her. "You're going to go and get yourself into trouble, aren't you?"
"Of course not! I'm just doing a little sightseeing."
"Right. And I'm the Easter Bunny." In spite of himself, he felt his heart softening. "Take it easy, Carly. You're still recovering from your accident. I'll be happy to take you anywhere you'd like to go."
"You have a job to do, Dev," she said, but he thought he saw disappointment in her eyes. "I can't take up all your time."
"Just make sure you don't end up as part of my job," he said. "I don't like these accident investigations. And the accident you had the other day was a little too close for comfort."
"I'll be careful. I won't go anywhere unsafe."
"I wish I could believe that."
"Really, Dev, I'm not going anywhere you need to worry about."
"Those are famous last words if I ever heard them," he muttered. Shaking his head, he said, "Use that phone if you need anything. Even if you just get lost."
"Don't worry. I will."
He didn't want to leave, but he couldn't stand in front of Melba's all day. "I'll talk to you later. Stop by the office when you get back to town."
"I will."
As he slid into the truck and drove away, he felt her eyes following him. Just before he turned the corner, he looked back and saw her standing on the curb, watching him.
Carly watched Devlin drive away, then went back into the house. Grabbing her backpack and some bottles of water, she threw them into the new Jeep and headed for the newspaper office. After scanning a few more issues of the Weekly Sentinel and finding nothing about her brother or his murder, she replaced the papers and headed out of Cameron.
She'd been telling Devlin the truth. She wasn't heading for anywhere in particular. She wanted to visit the place where they'd found Edmund's body, but she would need permission from Devlin to do that. Edmund had been found on McAllister property.
So today she would just get out of town by herself and do some thinking. She had a decision to make, and she was terrified of making the wrong one. It was time to tell Devlin the truth. He had a right to know she was Edmund's sister, especially since he was reopening the investigation. But although her heart told her she could trust Devlin, her stubborn mind was still wary.
It had been a long time since she'd trusted anyone with the private Carly. No one really knew her, bone deep. If she told Devlin the truth, she would be trusting him with part of her soul.
And that scared her. It would give him a power over her that she didn't want to relinquish.
Her mind twisted and turned, making an argument, rejecting it, then thinking of something else. Finally, a few miles after she'd passed the entrance to the Red Rock Ranch, she saw a small road that seemed to lead up into the mountains. There was no ranch close to it, and she knew that behind the Red Rock was a national forest. Assuming that this road led onto federal land, she turned her Jeep off the asphalt and headed up the rutted dirt road.
As she drove uphill, over the winding, twisting road, she thought she saw puffs of dust on the road behind her. Each time, they were hidden when the road turned once again. For a moment she wondered if Devlin had followed her, but she quickly discarded the thought. He would have been up front if he wanted to accompany her. It was probably the dust she had stirred up herself, she told herself.
Ten minutes later she emerged from a grove of aspen trees, magnificent in their autumn yellow leaves, into a small clearing. Rock jutted out on her left and the road passed in front of the cliff, mere feet away from a steep drop-off. She forgot all about the dust behind her as she caught her breath at the view. Purple mountains seemed to stretch forever in every direction. The road continued past the cliff, heading into more trees, but Carly pulled the Jeep to the side of the road and stepped outside.
Careful to stay close to the rock, she walked behind the Jeep, then stopped, staring at the magnificent view. Pressing her palm against the cliff on her left side, she stood drinking in the scenery. She was high in the mountains and the air was noticeably cooler than down in Cameron, but the rock held the warmth of the sunlight and she leaned against it, letting its heat seep into her bones.
She wasn't sure how long she stood there, soaking up the heat of the rocks, thinking about what she should do. The endless vista of mountains stretching out in front of her was oddly calming to a woman who'd spent her entire adult life in a large city. She would never have imagined that she'd find so much comfort in such a wild, untamed place. But she couldn't tear herself away.
The first pebbles skittering down the cliff didn't alarm her. The rock was soft and crumbly, breaking away in her hand as she flattened her palm against the cliff and peered up at the shower of small stones bouncing toward the ground. The rock debris that lay along the road was evidence that the cliff was slowly eroding away, pebble by pebble.
As she stared up the cliff, narrowing her eyes against the sunlight and the bright blue of the sky, she saw a much larger rock teetering on the edge of the cliff. She watched in horror as it slowly toppled over the edge, hurtling toward her.
She managed to leap out of the way just in time. The rock smashed into the place she'd been standing moments earlier. As she stood staring at it, she heard an ominous rumbling above her.
Dozens of rocks, large and small, were crashing down the cliff, bouncing off the surface, dislodging more pieces of jagged stone as they fell. The roaring avalanche was headed directly toward her. There was no place to run—the road fell away into space only a few feet in front of her.
Pressing herself into a tiny seam in the rock, Carly crouched down and covered her head with her arms. In moments, the first of the falling rock hit her. Tiny rocks with razor-sharp edges sliced into her arms. She ignored the pain, bracing herself for the impact of the larger stones. The crashing of rocks around her filled her ears, blocking out everything else.
One bounced off her knee with a glancing blow, hard enough to make her cry out involuntarily. Another skimmed her arm and made her eyes water with the pain. She heard the dull thud of boulders slamming into the ground, only inches away.
Finally the barrage dwindled away to a few small pebbles that bounced against the rock and rolled to a stop. Then there was silence again. From far
away, she heard a bird call. The wind rustled the leaves of the aspen trees. But the ordinary, everyday sounds were drowned out by the pounding of her heart, beating frantically against her chest.
* * *
"Sheriff, there's a call for you."
Devlin looked up from the stack of reports he'd been reading and frowned at his dispatcher. "Could someone else take it, Marge? I need to get through this paperwork."
"She asked for you specifically." The dispatcher paused delicately. "I think it's that reporter."
Devlin snatched up the phone. "Carly? Are you all right?"
"I think so." She drew in a shaky breath, and his fingers curled tightly around the phone. "The thing is, I've had another accident. I can't drive back to town."
"What happened?" he shouted into the phone. "Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm fine. There was an avalanche, or whatever you call it, and there's a pile of rocks behind the Jeep. They're completely blocking the road. I'll need some help clearing them away."
"Can you tell me where you are?"
"I'm not sure. In the mountains." He heard her take another shaky breath, and his heart started to pound.
"Do you remember where you left the main road?" He tried to keep his voice calm.
"I took a trail that left the main road about three or four miles from the driveway to your ranch. I figured it was national forest property and I wanted to see where it led."
Her voice was definitely quavery now, and he wanted to fly to her, to wrap his arms around her and tell her that nothing was going to hurt her. Instead, he asked carefully, "Was it on the same side of the road as the Red Rock?"
"Yes. I wasn't paying real close attention, but I don't think it was more than a few miles past your driveway."
Slowly he exhaled. "I know just where you are. You're on Red Rock property. Stay right where you are, and I'll be there as quickly as I can."
"Believe me, I'm not going anywhere."
Even over the phone he could hear the bubble of hysteria in her voice. "You'll be fine, Carly. Stay in your Jeep until I get there, in case there's another rock fall. And lock the doors."
"I already did." Her voice quavered again.
"Good. I'm on my way."
He disconnected the phone and almost ran out the door. "Trouble, Sheriff?" he heard Marge call behind him.
"Get Ben Jackson on the radio and have him meet me back here in about an hour." The door slammed behind him, and he jumped into his truck. He threw on the lights and sirens, and floored the accelerator as soon as he hit the edge of town.
Ten minutes later he bumped his way cautiously up the rutted trail that was the back road out of the Red Rock Ranch. The road was dry and dusty. There was no way of telling how many vehicles had driven over it lately, but he continuously scanned the area, looking for anything out of the ordinary, anything out of place.
He didn't see anything that alarmed him until he reached the place where the road curved around the cliff. A huge pile of debris blocked the road behind Carly's Jeep. Barely waiting for his truck to stop, he leaped out the door and ran to Carly, slipping and stumbling on the rocks in the road.
Her face relaxed when she saw him, and she reached to unlock the door. He didn't miss the way her hand shook.
And he didn't miss the shocking smears of blood on both of her arms, either.
"My God! I thought you told me you weren't hurt."
He reached for her, running his hands down her arms, smoothing the hair away from her face.
Instead of pulling away from him, she buried her face in his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him. "It's nothing," she said, her voice muffled by his shirt. "They're just scratches."
He held her close, angry he hadn't been able to protect her, to keep her safe. Her heart fluttered against his and he tightened his arms around her.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" he asked.
"I'm sure I have a couple of bruises on my arms and legs, but that's it." She didn't lift her head as she spoke. "I think I was lucky."
"You were damned lucky." He looked at the pile of rocks behind her Jeep and tightened his arms again. "Let's get you out of here."
At that she raised her head. "What about my car?"
"The hell with your car. It's not going anywhere. We'll worry about it later. Right now, we need to get you back to Doc Ellis."
She swallowed once, but didn't look away from him. And she didn't let him go. "I don't think that avalanche was an accident, Devlin."
Fear twisted in his gut, but he tried to keep his face impassive. "What do you mean?"
"I didn't move for a long time after the rocks stopped falling." She swallowed again. "I was afraid that if I did, it would set off another avalanche. So everything was very quiet. I thought I heard a car engine start up, not too far away. And that's not all."
She looked toward the trail, where his Blazer sat. "When I was driving up here, I kept seeing puffs of dust behind me, the kind that you get as you drive along. I never saw another car, so I just assumed that they were from me. But when I heard the car, after the avalanche, I wondered. So I locked the door to the Jeep and called you."
"Thank God you did," he muttered. He pulled her closer, touching her hair, her back, her face, just to assure himself that she was all right. "Let's get you to Doc Ellis."
"I don't need to take up more of his time. I'm fine."
"I'm sure you are, but we're going to get Doc's opinion on that."
He let her go reluctantly, keeping one arm wrapped around her waist to help her across the pile of rocks in the road. When they got to his truck, he eased her onto the seat, then climbed in and began backing up. As soon as they reached a place where he could turn around, be headed the truck down the mountain, picking up speed as they went.
"I'm really all right," she finally said. "You don't have to drive so fast. I'm not going to bleed to death or anything."
"Sorry," he muttered as he slowed down. He reached for the radio. "Marge? Is Ben back at the office yet?"
When she answered in the affirmative, he said, "Have him meet me over at Doc Ellis's place. I'll be there in about ten minutes."
Ignoring his dispatcher's flood of questions, he replaced the radio in its holder and turned back to Carly. "Did any of the rocks hit you in the head?"
"No. I covered it with my arms." She looked at the scratches and bruises that seemed to cover her from shoulder to fingers, then tried to smile. "I may be hard-headed, but I didn't want to go up against a bunch of boulders."
"Who knew you were heading up into the mountains?"
"No one. I didn't even know myself that I was going to take that road until I saw it."
"Who besides me knew you were driving out of town today?"
"Melba did." She paused, then said uneasily, "I stopped at the Weekly Sentinel office before I took off. I probably mentioned it to the Hansons, but they would hardly know where I was going. And I can't see either Ralph or June climbing rocks."
"I'll check and see if anyone saw either of them leave the office." He glanced over at her. "Did you notice any cars behind you this morning?"
She shrugged. "No, but I wasn't looking." She paused, then looked out the window of the truck. "For the first time since I came to Cameron, I wasn't thinking about my story. I was enjoying the scenery and thinking about … other things."
What had she been thinking about? Did it have something to do with him? He ached to ask, but wasn't sure if he wanted to hear the answer. Clearing his throat, he said, "Here's the clinic again. Let's get you looked at."
An hour later they emerged into the sunlight again. Carly squinted at its brightness, and almost stumbled as Devlin steered her toward his truck. But he held onto her, and she didn't fall.
He hadn't let go of her since he'd found her up on the mountain. Even in the exam room, Doctor Ellis had had to order him to leave. And she'd felt bereft without the comfort of his hand on her side, or on her arm. He'd hovered outside of the door, returning the mom
ent Doc had walked out of the room.
"I told you I wasn't badly hurt," she said brightly as he settled her into the Blazer again.
His eyes were brooding as they settled on her. "That depends on your definition of hurt. I saw that bruise on your knee."
She'd be sore tomorrow, she knew, but she plastered a smile on her face. "A good soak in a hot bathtub, a couple of aspirin, and I'll be as good as new."
Instead of starting the truck and pulling out of the tiny parking lot next to the clinic, he leaned back against the door and watched her. "Carly, we need to talk about what's been going on."
"Maybe the avalanche was an accident," she said, speaking too quickly. "I was probably just seeing my own dust in the road, and you told me yourself that sound carries a long way in the mountains. I probably heard a truck from your ranch."
"We'll see. I talked to Ben Jackson while Doc was examining you, and I sent him up to take a look. If there's anything to see, he'll find it. He's a tracker, and he knows what he's doing out there. He's going to call me as soon as he's finished."
She shrugged and smiled again. "I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"I'd like to think that's all it was."
She felt her smile fading. "But you don't think so."
"I think it was pretty damned coincidental that the rock fall happened exactly where you were standing. What do you think the odds are of that?"
He sat up and leaned toward her. "I doubt that this 'accident' was very accidental. I think it was deliberate, and I think it's time to do something about it."
"I'm not going to leave." She angled her chin at him. "So don't even say it."
A ghost of a smile flickered across his face. "I wouldn't dare. I think I know you well enough by now to know it wouldn't work." The smile disappeared and his eyes hardened. "I want you to move to the Red Rock. Right now. Nothing against Melba, but you're essentially alone in that boarding house. There's no one else staying there. Out at the Red Rock, there are always people around. Shea and my mother are in and out of the house all day, and our housekeeper Maria is always there. And our three hands, Dusty, Joe and Levi, are around, too. You won't be alone."
COWBOY WITH A BADGE Page 15
