Indigo Lake

by Jodi Thomas

  “What clues?”

  “I was the first one there. That’s the clue.”

  Tim shook his head. “If you had set the fire, you wouldn’t have rushed over to look at your work.”

  “What are you going to do?” She laced her fingers with Lucas’s. “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “That won’t be necessary, but thanks.” His words came fast and cold.

  “But I know you weren’t there when the fire went up. All I’d have to say was that I was with you and then you wouldn’t be a person of interest to them.”

  “Or,” Tim tried again since no one seemed to be listening to him, “the sheriff might think you both set the fires. A kind of Bonnie and Clyde thing.”

  Neither looked at him.

  Lucas stood and stared down at her as if he were memorizing her face. His tired gaze told her he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Don’t say a word, Lauren. If you do, I’ll deny it. I don’t want you involved in this mess.”

  “But what else can we do? You and I both know you didn’t set the fires.”

  “I can go down to the county office and see what evidence they have. I’ll simply say I was driving by. That’s why I was the first one there.”

  Lauren couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Her gut told her there was more that Lucas wasn’t telling her. He knew something else...about the fires, or maybe about the body.

  Before she could think of anything to say, Tim joined Lucas in the center of the room. “I’ll drive you to the sheriff’s office,” he said as he put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going on, buddy, but I want you to understand I’m on your side.”

  “No. Not this time, Tim. I have to do this alone.” Lucas pulled away. “I’ll go clean up, tell my parents not to worry, then I’ll walk into the sheriff’s office alone. I don’t want either of you involved.”

  Lucas kept his hands at his side as he glared at her as if he’d just lost something dear to him and there would be no going back at this point. “Stay away from me, Lauren. Goodbye.”

  Lauren stared as Tim walked Lucas to the door. She could hear his footsteps on the winding walk outside the door. Then nothing. No farewell kiss. No simple “I love you.” Nothing.

  She moved to where Tim still stood by the open door. “I don’t understand. Lucas didn’t do this. Why would he cut us out of his life?”

  Tim pulled her against his side. “I know that he wouldn’t set the fires and so do you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he confesses to something he didn’t do to protect another.”

  She could hear Lucas’s old pickup pulling away but she couldn’t move. Lucas might confess to a crime he didn’t commit. It made no sense. Lucas never lied. He was the one totally honorable person she’d ever known.

  She’d been with him on Kirkland land when the first fire started. She was the only one who could swear he didn’t do it and he’d told her to stay out of it.

  All the world went silent as she curled into Tim’s arms. Tears silently dripped down her face, but she didn’t cry out. She felt like she’d just witnessed all her might-have-beens die.

  Reporting the news didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Lucas, who’d worked so hard all his life to make something of himself, might just toss it away, and she had no idea why.

  As the tears slowed and her breath finally stopped coming in gulps, she realized something. Guilty or innocent, Tim O’Grady had stood beside Lucas no matter what he planned to do.

  But she wouldn’t. She planned to fight, even if she had to fight Lucas for the answer. She pulled a few inches away and looked up at Tim. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not staying away.”

  Tim grinned. “That thought never crossed my mind. Maybe the best way to help Lucas is to find out what happened.” He raised his hand.

  She placed her hand, palm to palm, against his. A silent oath they’d done since they were kids. “We do this.”

  He nodded. “We do this, all we can, for as long as it takes, till we find the truth.”

  “Agreed.”

  This time, somehow, she’d save him, even if she had to break Lucas Reyes out of her father’s jail.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BY THE TIME Dakota finished the paperwork on the Platt house on Rainy Day Lane, she felt like she’d known the Wilsons for years.

  Reta seemed to think she needed to carry the conversation while Dakota worked.

  “Howard was in the army when we married. Best-looking sergeant I’d ever seen. Then, when he got out, he drove a bread truck most of our married life. I worked off and on at part-time jobs until our daughters grew up.” She patted Howard on the knee. “We had some grand times with the girls. I thought I’d babysit the grandkids, but the two girls fell for army men just like their mother. One is in Germany and the other’s in DC.”

  Howard finally added, “I told Reta if we downsized, we could swing a visit to each daughter’s family for a month every year. Since they move with each new assignment, there is a good chance we’ll finally get to see the world.” He looked at his bride of forty years. “She don’t care about the travel. She just wants to see the grands.”

  “Oh, you know you’re just as crazy about them as I am,” Reta added. “He swears every new one is the prettiest baby he’s ever seen.”

  These two might be old and round as two matching salt and pepper shakers, but Dakota envied them. They had something special. Something that would take a lot longer than two weeks to build.

  She handed them the offer for the Platt house to sign and waited, thinking how grand it would be to travel with someone so close to you that you could read each other’s thoughts.

  But that dream wasn’t for her. Who would take care of Maria and Grandmother if she left? Grandmother had gone wild in her old age, or free as she called it. Maria spent her days daydreaming about Tall, Dark and Handsome stepping out of the pages of one of her romance books and into her life.

  Grandmother! Dakota hadn’t heard from her since Hamilton had appeared. She often spent days without checking in, but Dakota didn’t want her frightened when she discovered he’d been on their property. As soon as possible, she needed to find the old lady and tell her about him. Only, finding Grandmother was never easy. After her only child, Dakota’s mother, died, she’d begun to roam the canyons around their place.

  Most people her age wanted to knit or quilt. Grandmother wanted to become one with the land. Her shichu had a mule named Patience and two dogs that looked just alike named Pete and Repeat. The dozen chickens who nested in her barn every night provided them with more eggs than they could eat, but Grandmother refused to call them hers. She claimed they were wild birds who simply liked to live with her.

  Grandmother’s two dogs were too lazy to bark or follow her, but Patience walked behind her carrying the baskets as she collected wild plums.

  Dakota figured Grandmother believed if she ever slowed down, death would catch up with her. The old girl might be wrinkled, but she was still healthy and fiercely independent in her little cabin a hundred yards behind their main house.

  She came in to visit with Maria sometimes while Dakota was at work, and she’d eat a meal with them now and then. For her, the day of the week wasn’t important, only the season.

  Once, a doctor asked Dakota if she worried that Grandmother, well into her eighties, might be losing her mind. Dakota answered that she doubted it. Grandmother was no more or less crazy than she’d always been.

  Growing up, Maria sometimes told Dakota stories about grandmothers who played with their grandchildren or took them for ice cream. Their shichu taught them how to make traps and howl at the full moon. Her stories were never bedtime stories, but more stay-awake-all-night stories. When Dakota had needed her all those months when Maria was in the hospital, Grandmother never le
ft the land to offer help.

  When Maria came home, Grandmother began leaving food on the porch. Homemade rabbit stew. Bushels of apples, apricots, and wild plums. Maria couldn’t stand for the fruit from the trees her ancestors had planted to go to waste, so she taught herself to can without the light.

  Cooking had always been her passion, and losing her sight hadn’t taken that away.

  Somehow, as the Wilsons told Dakota their life story, she began to look at her own. By the time they left and she’d faxed the offer, she was deep into thinking about where her life was headed. Maybe she was more like her grandmother than she thought. They were both wandering in their own way.

  She thought about Blade’s offer. A two-week lover would be something different. A path she’d never gone down before, but she feared it would be a trail to nowhere.

  About four o’clock Hamilton brought back her truck. He simply walked in and handed her the keys without saying a word. He looked bone tired.

  At the door, she caught up to him. “You okay?”

  His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m fine. Just dealing with a mess at the sheriff’s office. I’m used to working fires or bomb threats but this is different. This time we may be working a murder investigation and everyone wants to point the finger at someone else.”

  Her phone rang.

  “Wait.” She pointed at him. “Let me take this call and I’ll drive you back.”

  “I can walk,” he said as she answered her phone.

  Three minutes later she tracked him down a block away. He was walking slow, his head down, so deep in thought that he didn’t glance at her when she pulled up beside him.

  She had to put the truck in Park and scoot across the old bench seat to roll the window down. “Get in!” she yelled as she tried to pull her bunched up skirt down over her knees.

  He didn’t argue. He just climbed in. “I said I could walk. It’s only...”

  Hamilton stopped in midsentence, obviously noticing her wool skirt that had just become a mini.

  “Nice legs.” His grin was wickedly crooked.

  “Shut up.” She slid back and the show ended.

  He shrugged. “Did you pick me up just to yell at me, Elf?”

  “I told you not to call me Elf.”

  He grinned. “You did pick me up just to yell at me. Things must be really dead in this town. I guess the one stoplight doesn’t cause much road rage so the locals just pick on—”

  She broke in. “I sold the Platt house. The owners accepted the offer. All they have to do is fax the paper back and it’s a done deal. They agreed to everything, even the small things you suggested the Wilsons put in. New oven and countertop. New handicap toilet. They don’t want to fix or paint anything, but they said they’d pay for whatever minor repairs needed to be done.”

  This time his smile was real. “That’s great. We sold a house and you got them a super deal. I’m proud of you.”

  She drove right past the sheriff’s office and noticed a huge blue Dodge Ram parked out front. “I called and left the Wilsons a message to contact me, but we’ve got to celebrate right now. You really did help with the sale and I owe you a bonus. Ten minutes and I’ll bring you back to the sheriff, but right now I’m buying you a chocolate-dipped cone.”

  He didn’t say anything but she thought she saw his shoulders relax a little. “You should just show me those legs again and I’d call us even.”

  She frowned at him but before she could open her mouth, he added, “I know, shut up.”

  He looked out the window. “I guess we’re back to square one.”

  They drove through the take-out window and picked up the ice cream, then parked at the back of the lot. One wooden light pole and a barbed wire fence were all that stood between them and open land for as far as they could see.

  “You parking at the edge of town, Elf, so you can take advantage of me?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes, telling him without words that he’d never get that lucky.

  He gave up talking as he watched how she ate her chocolate-coated ice cream.

  She finally paused long enough to rejoin the conversation. “Pretty much every parking lot that doesn’t face one of the two highways in town faces the edge of town. We’re not a very dense settlement.” She pulled a bite of the chocolate off with two fingers. “I loved these things when I was a kid. My dad used to call them Brown Derbys.”

  “I love watching you eating that thing but I’m not really an ice cream kind of guy.”

  She looked up from her dessert into gray eyes staring at her as if she would be his next course. She found the look a bit frightening in its intensity, but sexy as hell. If those wolf eyes got any hotter, he’d probably melt her ice cream.

  “Try it, Hamilton, you might like it.”

  He’d just been holding his Brown Derby and the tiny crack where the chocolate almost met the cone was beginning to drip melted ice cream on his fingers.

  She fought the urge to lick the tip of his finger just to see what he tasted like.

  He took a bite and chocolate exploded, sending a waterfall of ice cream onto his hand.

  Suddenly, they were both laughing and trying to clean up the melting mess off his clothes with the tiny napkins that came with the treat.

  “This is great.” He licked some of the chocolate off his hand.

  She looked at him with chocolate on his cheek. “You’ve never had a dipped cone?”

  “Nope.” He took another lick. “I’ve seen them on signs but I never thought they looked worth trying.”

  She leaned over and wiped the chocolate from his cheek. “Hamilton, you’re a puzzling man. First, you say you’re only staying two weeks and then you hire half a dozen cowboys to build you a bridge to a house you don’t even want.”

  “I just called the same carpenter who got rid of the tree at the Platt house. He said he could finish the bridge in three days with the help of a few friends, and I got the feeling they could use the work.”

  Blade’s wolf-gray eyes studied her and for a second she felt like the prey in the sight of a predator.

  He leaned a few inches closer, making the cab of the pickup seem smaller. “You keeping up with me, Elf? I know I didn’t mention the extra help when I brought back your keys.”

  “No. That carpenter’s sister just called me to see if you also need a plumber. Her husband was one of the hands who got laid off at the Bar W. Cowboys do ranch work because they love it, but most take on other jobs. That carpenter is named Jerry Cline. He married my best friend right out of high school.”

  “More information than I need to know,” he said as he tossed his empty cone into the trash can five feet beyond his window. “But, since you’re friends, tell her to have her husband go to work. The whole place will probably need replumbing.”

  “You can eat the cone, you know,” she said as she took a bite of hers.

  “You can?” He leaned over and closed his fingers around her wrist, then slowly pulled the hand holding her cone to his mouth and took a bite.

  She forgot what they were talking about. If his hand hadn’t been holding hers steady, she would have dropped the last of her ice cream.

  Dakota just stared as he moved closer.

  “Mind if I taste yours?” His eyes seemed to be sending a completely different request.

  “I don’t mind, but I usually don’t share...”

  His mouth touched hers and the tip of his tongue brushed the bottom of her lip, and then he whispered, “You taste like chocolate. I could learn to like this bonus.”

  Dakota closed her eyes and gave in to the kiss. His lips were cold at first and his gentle kiss sent a shiver down her spine. She opened her mouth slightly and he began to taste her. The world slowed and her senses came alive. She could feel the warmth
of him as his arm circled just below her breasts and his kiss melted into passion.

  His hand slid beneath her jacket and tugged her tighter against him. “Let me warm you up, honey.”

  Maybe it was the fact that she didn’t know him well enough to call him by his first name or maybe it was the way he said “honey,” like he’d called a hundred other girls that, but Dakota woke up from her trance.

  “Get out.”

  Confusion flashed in his gray eyes for a second as he moved away, then anger flared. “You’re the one who told me to get in. Make up your mind. I don’t deal with crazy and, Elf, you’re the definition of it.”

  He was gone before she could think of an answer. She gunned the engine and took off, having no idea where she was going.

  Of course he was right. She was crazy. She was always kind, always nice, ask anyone. He seemed to be the lottery winner for every mean thing she would say this year.

  Maybe it was the curse. Or she might be allergic to him. Or maybe the way she felt about him scared her to death. Passion all mixed up with need and longing. Attraction drew her to him and logic pushed her away.

  She didn’t have time for complicated. Her life was overloaded now with dreams and a job and responsibilities.

  She couldn’t handle more. Not even for a two-week affair.

  But what-ifs were already taking root in her mind—not to mention a few other parts of her body.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BLADE JOGGED THE few blocks back to the sheriff’s office. He couldn’t believe a short elf of a woman had him off his game. It wasn’t like him. He could usually read the signals.

  Since his college days, he’d always considered himself easygoing where women were concerned. He’d never chased one, or run from one, for that matter. In fact, they’d usually been the ones to suggest hooking up. He liked to keep it casual and easy. Always tall girls, usually blondes. Then, after college, he seemed into strong women with high-powered careers. No long-term plans, no getting too involved in each other’s lives. No lovers with baggage. No fights when it was over. No cats!