Waking the Dead

by Kylie Brant

  Gibbs grabbed her elbow when she would have passed him. “But that’s just it! My efforts are being underutilized.”

  Her gaze dropped to his hand before rising slowly to regard him. “You’re going to want to move your hand.”

  He released her and stepped back with far more alacrity than Sharper had when she’d leveled a similar order at him, only the night before. But then, Gibbs wasn’t in Sharper’s league. Few men were.

  “Sorry. It’s just that I can do more.” He shoved a hand through his short-cropped hair in frustration. “Just wanted you to know that, because I heard you were taking soil samples on properties that have hot springs on ’em. Most of the private property owners in this area aren’t going to let a stranger go tramping around, because they got things they don’t want law enforcement knowing about. Maybe growing a little weed on the side, but hey, that’s got nothing to do with the case, right? But they might let me on because they trust me. They know I won’t jam ’em up over something like that.” He paused expectantly. When she didn’t respond, he continued, “So if you run into trouble getting access to some places you’d like samples from, could be I can help you out with that.”

  His words had her stomach plummeting. Barnes had taken measures to stem the leak in the department too late. If Gibbs knew that much, chances were all his buddies inside Ketchers knew it, too. And by extension, so would untold other members of the nearby communities. The deputy couldn’t know that she’d veered in a slightly different direction with the samples, but that didn’t matter. The damage had already been done.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” A car pulled into the lot much too fast, and they both stepped out of the way of the gravel sprayed in its wake. It didn’t appear to occur to Gibbs that he’d just revealed he was willing to turn a blind eye to his friends’ illegal activities to retain their trust. Cait was inclined to believe that her original assessment of the man was valid.

  She was headed toward the tavern door when he stopped her again. Not by touching her this time, which meant he had at least some measure of good sense. But his voice had grown diffident.

  “Uh . . . I was wondering . . .”

  Turning toward him, she cocked a brow inquiringly.

  He shifted his weight a bit. “Saw you come in with Sharper. But if you want to go somewhere quiet and discuss the case . . . maybe talk over some possible leads . . . I’m available.” His shoulders seemed to hunch even more. “I was on my way out anyway.”

  “I appreciate the offer.” Experience had made her an expert in the art of softening rejection. “Tonight, though, I think I’m going to take a break from the case for a few hours.” That wasn’t strictly true, of course, since her time spent inside was more about observing than relaxing. But Gibbs seemed to buy it.

  “Oh, yeah, of course.” He pulled his keys out of his jeans pocket. “I can understand that. Another time, maybe.”

  “Another time.” And when she strode back toward the door he didn’t try to stop her.

  When Cait rejoined Zach, there was someone else standing at the table. Jodie Paulsen, she recalled. The farm hand whose boots bore the evidence of his occupation. But from the easy expression Sharper wore, he was friendly with the man. The same as he was with Kathy. For all his self-avowed solitary ways, it was evident that he was well regarded in the area. Even Sheriff Andrews spoke of his skills, at least, with a measure of respect.

  Both men looked up at her approach. Paulsen’s face was puppy-dog friendly. He was around Sharper’s age, she estimated. Midthirties, with none of the guide’s hard edges and vague sense of menace. Paulsen’s plaid shirt was almost an exact match for his gingery-colored hair. And it was clear from his appearance that he’d come to the bar straight from his chores.

  Zach’s gaze was searching. “Trouble?”

  Cait shook her head. “Just business.” She gave the other man a smile. “Hi. I’m Cait.”

  “I know.” Paulsen beamed a smile in return. “I’ve been standing here for ten minutes trying to pretend I wanted to talk to Zach, but really I was just waiting for you to come back inside so I could meet you.”

  “Careful.” A corner of Sharper’s mouth quirked. “You’re going to hurt my feelings.”

  “Way I hear it you’ve got no feelings, Zach.”

  Cait caught his slight wince at the jibe as she sank back into her chair.

  “You’ve been talking to your neighbor.” Sharper tipped the cup to his lips and drank.

  “Mostly just listening.” Paulsen rested a hand on the back of the free chair in front of him. “Woman scorned. She had a lot to say, and nothing I said in your defense made it any better.”

  It was difficult to say which fascinated Cait more. The topic of conversation or the look of discomfit on Sharper’s face. “Sounds like an intriguing story.”

  “Not one you’re going to hear,” he muttered.

  She shifted her gaze from him to Paulsen. “Is your neighbor here tonight?”

  The man took a huge swallow of beer before answering. “This isn’t Shellie’s type of place. And I’m just giving Zach a hard time. She knew the score going in. Hell, everyone ’round here knows Zach Sharper is the last person alive who’s going the white picket fence route. Shellie’s just sore because she thought she . . .”

  “Jodie.” Zach’s tone was pleasant. His eyes flinty. “Shut up.”

  The man appeared to take no offense. “Shutting up.” He took another drink and winked at Cait. Thoughtfully, she considered the man seated across from her as she took a sip of her own now-warm beer. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Paulsen’s assertion was correct. Sharper wasn’t exactly the type of man about whom a woman should be spinning dreams of white lace and organdy.

  She was also certain that he would have been brutally honest in that regard. And maybe that’s what had roused the woman’s ire. Some would find his brand of forthrightness abrasive. But few could complain that they didn’t know where they stood with the man.

  Rubbing at the condensation collecting on the outside of the cup, Cait figured she’d rather deal with a man like Sharper than most of those she’d dated. Men that used gloss and polish to mask their true design. Men who finally convinced her that the instinct she relied on to profile a criminal’s motives didn’t generalize to her personal life. When it came to taste in dates, she’d long ago concluded her judgment was too frequently flawed.

  “So Gibbs says you work for some outfit out east. That you used to be a fed.” Paulsen’s words were directed at Cait.

  Her answer was noncommittal. “I did work for the Bureau, but only in their labs, not as an investigator.” And although they’d valued her contribution there, she’d known there was no way she’d be allowed to move out of the lab into an agent slot. Once she’d determined that that was exactly what she wanted, she’d grown increasingly restless. She didn’t know how she’d come to Raiker’s attention. But she hadn’t had to weigh his offer too long. And she’d never regretted making the move. Her work for Raiker Forensics allowed her to utilize her forensic anthropology and molecular biology background while putting her at the forefront of investigations. So far it seemed a perfect fit.

  She smiled at the man blandly and decided to do a little pumping of her own. “What else did Gibbs say?”

  He seemed to recognize that the words were baited and exerted some belated caution. “Oh, not much.” He moved his shoulders uneasily. “No one really listens to him anyway. He’s a good guy, though.”

  “Hey, Paulsen, you in or out?”

  Visibly relieved, he inched away. “Gotta go. I’m down five bucks. I make it a habit to break even before I leave the table.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  With a slap on Zach’s shoulder, the man moved away. Sharper looked across the table at her, his gaze amused. “You must be a terror in interrogation.”

  “I underestimated him. I figured he’d walk right into that one.”

  “Jodie’s smarter than he look
s. Which is more than I can say for Gibbs.” He toyed with his empty cup. “You run into him out there?”

  She nodded. “Not hard to tell where some of the gossip about this case is coming from. But Barnes is on top of things. I don’t think Gibbs is in the loop as far as details in this case go.”

  “Good thing.”

  Raised voices at the far corner of the bar drew both their attention. “Might be a good time to leave. These things tend to escalate quickly.”

  His suggestion seemed overly cautious. As far as she could tell, no one else was paying attention to the short loud-mouthed man and his much larger counterpart. And it was early yet. Far earlier than he’d indicated trouble could be expected.

  “I’d like to stay a while longer and talk to some more people.”

  Sharper rose. “We need to leave.”

  Irritated, she remained seated. “Go ahead. I can find my way back to the motel if . . .”

  A chair hurtled through the air and narrowly missed their table. The bar seemed to explode. Men tumbled from their chairs and waded in, flinging fists and beers with indiscriminate abandon. Zach all but hauled her to her feet. “Grab your purse.”

  They didn’t go more than a few paces before their exit was blocked by the mob of men. And one woman, Cait noted. The emaciated blonde in the corner was beating one guy in the head with the heel of her sandal.

  At the sound of a sickening thud, she risked a glance over her shoulder and saw the bartender on this side of the bar swinging a club at anyone within reach. He caught the arm of the logger and knocked the blade he’d drawn out of his hand.

  Then she was shoved to her knees with a force that had her teeth snapping together. From the corner of her eye she saw a blur of motion as a pool cue swiped harmlessly over her head and caught Sharper squarely in the chest. In the next moment the other man’s head snapped back. His eyes rolled white. And he crumpled, nearly landing on top of Cait.

  Zach rubbed his fist, then pulled her up by her elbow. She followed him closely as they made their way toward the door. Out of it.

  The brawl seemed to follow them into the lot. They stumbled toward Zach’s Trailblazer. Before getting in, Cait looked over her shoulder. Bodies grappled in the shadows and rolled on the ground.

  Her door flew open. “Get in.” Zach’s jaw was clenched. Once she’d obeyed, he engaged the automatic locks and started the vehicle.

  “Well.” She settled back in her seat and secured her seat belt. “That was interesting.”

  “That was avoidable,” he corrected her tersely. He wasted no time pulling away and nosing the vehicle in the direction of the motel. “I seem to recall telling you the place is a nest of idiots.”

  He was entitled to an I-told-you-so. She kept her voice mild. “You mentioned something to that effect.” There was silence as he traveled the few blocks to their destination. She didn’t consider the night a total loss. Just the opposite. She’d wanted to meet Gibbs. She’d planned to talk to the taxidermist. All in all, the time had been well spent. At least until the end when she’d nearly been clobbered.

  She looked across the shadowy interior of the vehicle at the man bringing the SUV to a stop in front of her motel door. The lot’s nearby security light splintered the darkness in the front seat. “You owe me twenty bucks.”

  He threw the Trailblazer into park, incredulity lacing his words. “And how do you figure that?”

  “Our bet.” When he said nothing she prompted, “The logger? He had a knife at the end. Granted I didn’t see him pull it, and you could split hairs and argue that it might not have come from his boot. So to be fair, I guess we could settle at ten.”

  “Given the fact that I saved your ass back there, let’s call it even.”

  “You saved my . . .” She stopped abruptly, narrowing her eyes. It had been a blur of action, but she hadn’t been in any danger. Unless. . . “The pool cue?”

  He smiled humorlessly. “If he’d connected, you’d be nursing the mother of all headaches right now.”

  She’d been shoved to her knees, she recalled. Not by the press of the crowd, but by Sharper. “But he hit you instead.”

  “Like I need the reminder.”

  Her gaze lowered to his chest. And remembering the sound the cue had made when it’d smacked him had her feeling a little sick. “Why would you do that?” She was honestly baffled.

  “Why would I . . . yeah, I forgot. You’re the woman of steel. Did I offend your super-agent sensibilities? Excuse me all to hell.” His voice dripped derision. “Next time I’ll step aside and let the idiot whale on you.”

  His sarcasm sailed by her. Cait was still grappling with the ramifications of his actions. Zach peered more closely at her. “Haven’t you ever had a man step up to protect you?”

  She lifted a shoulder impatiently. It was a nonissue. She didn’t need a male to protect her when she was usually perfectly capable of doing it herself. But his question gave her pause. Because she hadn’t always had the training she’d acquired in the course of her work for Raiker. And Cait was trying—and failing—to remember a time prior to that when anyone in her life had tried to protect her. From anything.

  “I almost got mugged once,” she recalled suddenly. The memory was hazy. It’d been nearly twenty years ago. They’d been in Milan. Or maybe Rome. “The man I was dating threw the guy my purse so he’d let us go.” She didn’t bother to mention that the man had been fifteen years her senior. Some details weren’t pertinent.

  She was surprised by his loud bark of laughter. “Your boy-friend gave up your money? What a prince.”

  His mockery had annoyance rising. “And what would you have done? Chased the guy down and beat an apology from him?”

  “Damn straight.”

  His verbal machismo wouldn’t have been so irritating if she weren’t so certain it was accurate.

  “I guess you had to be there.” It had seemed slightly more heroic at the time. Of course she’d been sixteen. A bit more impressionable than she was now. “My ex-fiancé once gave me a gift certificate to a women’s self-defense course for my birthday.”

  “I have a news flash for you, Slim. The guys you dated were dicks.”

  The fact that he’d summed up the men in question so precisely when it had taken her months, and one very messy broken engagement, to do the same wasn’t particularly flattering. But no one knew better than she that shaking out the men from her past would result in a pile of users, losers, and liars. And that said far more about her than them.

  “So . . . I guess you keep the ten then. Like you said. Call it even.”

  He cocked a brow. “Ten bucks for your life? Seems about fair.” He paused a beat. “Of course I also might have saved you some professional embarrassment. If you’d landed in the hospital with a concussion, it would have been hard to explain to your boss.”

  Amusement stirred. “So now I owe you, is that it?”

  “Then there’s the pain and suffering aspect. Probably going to bruise where that guy connected.” He lifted a hand to brush over his chest. Gave a theatrical wince.

  “My tab’s mounting.”

  “Don’t worry, though.” His voice in the semishadows was pure wicked invitation. “I’ve got a payment plan in mind.”

  She’d just bet he did. “Let’s keep things in perspective. It’s not like you threw yourself under a bus for me.”

  He tapped his finger against his lips. “One kiss. Just one. Then call us square.”

  Cait eyed him dubiously. If he was trying for innocence with that expression, she could have told him his effort was wasted. He looked about as innocent as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, offering Eve a bite of that Granny Smith.

  And like Eve, she found the temptation overpowering.

  She made a production of releasing her seat belt. Noticed his had never been fastened. And slowly, with a great deal of anticipation, leaned over to touch her lips against his.

  Their previous kiss had been too brief. Unsatisfying.
It hadn’t allowed her to test for herself whether there was any softness in the man. To tell if he was all hard edges and steely resolve. Or whether she was fooling herself by believing his tough exterior really masked a depth that she’d occasionally caught glimpses of.

  He was motionless, and that surprised her. If he had tried to take control of the depth or speed, it would have been all too easy to stop. To pull away and end the evening with a glib comment and more than a little regret. But since he didn’t—since he allowed her to set the pace—she found herself relaxing infinitesimally. And took her time discovering some answers about the man for herself.

  Her lips parted slightly to explore his. They were softer than she would have thought. With a firmness that held promise. She scored his lower lip with her teeth, and smiled at his sharply hissed in breath. It would be easy to get used to this. To tease and taste without worrying that it wouldn’t lead any further. That it couldn’t. To indulge in a fantasy that, if she was honest, had lingered in the corner of her mind like a persistent ghost.

  The console between them made it difficult to get closer. To change the angle and deepen the kiss. But she leaned nearer, sliding her bandaged palm over his smooth jaw. And when she slicked her tongue along the seam of his lips, he exploded into action.

  His arms sped out to lift her up and over the dividing console so she sat across his lap, all without breaking contact. His mouth ate at hers, pressing her lips apart so his tongue could sweep in, staking a claim.

  And she couldn’t resist reveling in the torrent she’d unleashed for another minute. Or maybe two.

  He was good at this. No surprise there. There was a basic carnal pleasure to be had in the mingling of breath. The clash of lips, teeth, tongues. But when the sensation kick-started need, she mentally clawed for reason. Found it surprisingly difficult to summon.

  A man with this much appeal was dangerous on a level she hadn’t even contemplated. If he could have her setting aside logic with a mere kiss . . . The thought fragmented when he nipped at her lip. Re-formed as he soothed at the tender area with the tip of his tongue. Then he posed a risk she couldn’t afford. And she’d given up her risky behaviors years ago.