She certainly wasn’t about to forget it in a hurry.
“Have a seat,” he said, standing aside for her to get into the booth.
He slid in beside her. Very closely beside her. They were hip to hip, thigh to thigh, knee to knee and she was convinced she had a silly smirk on her face and there was nothing she could do about it. Rod made her want to smile.
He also had her wanting to yank him onto the Formica tabletop and rip his clothes off, but that urge she managed to control. Just.
“Okay?” Rod asked.
Between them they’d rewritten the definition of “okay” quite nicely. “Oh, yes. I’m fine. Made an interesting discovery going through some old papers, but I can tell you about it later.” She looked at the man opposite. “Hello, I’m Juliet ffrench,” she said and held out her hand.
The wide brim of his hat dipped as he nodded. “Lance Colby.” His hand was strong and callused and he didn’t get those shoulders working at a desk job.
“Lance is the foreman on your grandfather’s ranch,” Rod said.
“Mr. Rankin mentioned a ranch and other property. How large is it?”
“Twenty-five thousand acres.”
“I’ve been in countries smaller than that.”
“It’s a good-sized spread. Many are much larger.”
Most likely. What she knew about ranching she could hold in her closed fist. “Sounds pretty large to me. You must have half an army working for you.”
He shook his head. “Five.”
Yes, agriculture was beyond her. Besides, this was sort of interesting, but nowhere near as vital as what she’d just discovered.
“Want something to eat?” Rod asked.
“Not yet. I have something I need to talk to you about.”
After a brief pause, Lance downed the last of his beer. “I need to get back.” She hadn’t quite meant it that abruptly but…“Good seeing you again, Rod, and meeting you, ma’am.” It took her a minute to realize Lance was addressing her.
“Yes, it was a pleasure.”
He stood. “Why don’t you come out to Maddock’s Dream one day and look around?”
Was he talking to her, or Rod, or…“We’d be glad to,” Rod replied and then had the courtesy to look her way. “That okay with you?”
Since she was curious about her grandfather, seeing his home would surely tell her a little about him. “Of course. I’d love to.”
“Great. We’ll take you around the place.” Lance paused as if a thought just struck him. “Can you ride? We could go around in the jeep but…”
“I have ridden. It’s been a while, but yes.”
He looked a little dubious but gave a smile. “Okay, then.” He reached for the bill lying facedown on the table. “How about Sunday? Maxine can fix us lunch and then we can take a ride around the ranch.”
“Thanks. I’m curious about my grandfather. I’d like to see where he used to live.”
“See you both then.” He took the bill over to the counter and left with a look back at her and a tip of his hat.
“Didn’t mean to scare him off but we need to talk.”
“He needs to get back. He was waiting around hoping to see you.”
“Why me?”
“Why not you? By now the whole town knows you’re a crime-fighting superwoman.”
“Then the whole town has gone bonkers. Haven’t they anything better to talk about?”
“Not round here.”
That was beginning to bother her, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. “Hope they enjoy themselves. Now, I have something to ask you.”
“Certainly, love,” he replied, his arm resting on the back of the seat. “What time? I ought to close tonight but I’d much rather have a long, slow conversation with you. How about it, darling?” Her face must have shown what she thought about the diversion. “Something the matter?” he asked. “I hated to walk out on you, but I had to open up. I left a note.”
“Yes, you did. That’s not it.” Heck, she might as well say it since, according to Mary-Beth, it was written all over her face. “Last night was wonderful! Utterly fantastic and thank you very much.”
“I could say the same and you’re welcome.” His free hand took hers and he squeezed his leg much closer. “Okay for tonight then?”
She’d be a fool to say no, but first…“Just explain one thing. Why exactly did you leave that file out where I would find it? Couldn’t you have just told me instead of rooting through the desk drawers?”
“Are we switching subjects here—from telling me ‘you were fantastic’ to accusing me of messing with your files? I haven’t touched anything in that room. Haven’t been in there.”
Either he was a brilliant actor or he had no idea what she was talking about. “Bear with me, Rod. Please, I want to believe you, but you’re telling me you did not take out a file and leave it on the floor so I couldn’t miss it?”
“No, Juliet, I didn’t. Why would I?”
“Because it held information that radically changed my opinion of my grandfather.” It hadn’t been Rod; he looked more perplexed than ever.
“Honey, what are you talking about?”
She told him.
“And you found this on the floor?”
“Yes, looked as if it had been dropped there and left for me to find.”
“Well, sweetheart, it wasn’t me.”
“Then we’re back to the poltergeist. A very selective poltergeist, it seems.”
“A poltergeist that opens drawers and finds specific papers. I don’t think so.” A crease appeared between his eyebrows. “Obviously someone has been in and out of your office, and that means someone’s been in and out of the building.”
“Who?”
The crease deepened. “That I intend to find out.”
“How? Have Sheriff John round up the usual suspects?” Personally she’d start by asking Gabe Rankin who else had keys.
A flicker of a smile twitched the corner of Rod’s mouth. He picked up his almost empty glass of iced tea. “Here’s looking at you, kid!” Heavens! A man keyed on to Casablanca! “I think I’ll start looking closer to home and…while we’re on the subject, think this might be the start of a beautiful friendship?”
Heavens, he did know the movie. “I hope so, Rod, I really hope so.”
“You and me both, love. You don’t still think I was messing with your papers?”
“No. Not now. Didn’t really but couldn’t think who else might and it irked me, though, to think you’d been there after last night.”
“Yes.” His eyes went all thoughtful. “Last night.” His lovely mouth curled into a wide smile. “It was incredible wasn’t it?” He wasn’t talking about the mugging.
She meshed her fingers with his. “Yes.”
“Tonight?” he almost whispered it.
“Yes, please.”
“Anything else I can do for you, love?”
“Actually, yes. Can you turn on the electricity in the closed-off part of the building?”
He shook his head. “Don’t think so. We’d need to call the power company for that. Hasn’t been used since before I took over.”
“I’d like to look at it. Rod, I’m serious about wanting to make it habitable.”
“You’re not planning on moving out?”
“No. I thought I’d set up a luxurious love nest for us.” She had to be getting soppy on him but his sexy laugh got a definite physical reaction and it wasn’t in her toes.
“That all?”
“That’s a start. Eventually, I’d like to make all the space usable and I’m serious about the minigallery. If you’re running the Rooster, that can be my bailiwick.” After she worked out who was poking through her papers. All right, her grandfather’s papers.
“Makes sense. I’d have done it but fixing up the Rooster took all I had.”
And there her grandfather had done him dirty. Maybe there was more to that as well. “Where is he buried? My grandfather, I
mean.”
“He wasn’t.”
“He was cremated?”
“Neither. They never found his body.”
News to her. Come to that, what did she really know? All Rankin had mentioned was money and property. She did need to talk to him and now was as good a time as any.
Juliet deflected Gabe Rankin’s comments about crime-fighting Amazons. They were, after all, marginally preferable to his “little lady” approach, but other than that, a twenty-minute wait netted her nothing new. Her grandfather had no grave because there was no body. Her “How did you know he was dead?” earned a pained look. She’d take it up with someone else. As for keys, she apparently had the only set in existence. “I think I’d better have the locks changed, then” resulted in soothing platitudes and exhortations to avoid being hasty.
Five minutes after leaving him, she was back in the Rooster, grabbing the heavy phone book from under the counter and hauling it back to her office. Relieved there wasn’t another mysterious file left for her attention, she called Rudy Johnson, the local locksmith, and arranged for him to come out as soon as possible and rekey all the locks. Monday was the soonest he could come. She’d make do with that. She also called an office supply place and ordered a filing cabinet with extra strong, supposedly unpickable locks.
Satisfied she’d done all she could right now to foil whoever was doing this, and wondering why she wasn’t more worried, Juliet leaned back in the swivel chair. Who was it? Rod was the obvious one but he swore he wasn’t and she believed him. Of course that could be hormones overtaking her brain.
And right now, the inspiration for her hormone surge was filling the open doorway.
“Learn anything from Gabe?”
“Not a dratted sausage! There are no keys except the ones he gave me. He didn’t exactly say I was hallucinating but…”
“You’re not, Juliet. Someone’s been in my room, too.”
She was out of her seat and across the room to him. “What?”
“Silly really. Just like in your room, it was a paper moved. Come and see.” She followed him across the hall. “I haven’t been in here since yesterday,” he went on. “Opened the bar this morning, was busy there, ran out to pick up an order that was delayed, then Lance came in. Just got back in here ten minutes ago and this was lying on my desk.”
He picked up a sheet of lined yellow paper and handed it to her.
She recognized the writing immediately. “My grandfather wrote that.”
Rod nodded. “Seven years ago. Go ahead and read it.”
She scanned it and soon caught the gist. It set out pretty succinctly, and in the terms Rod had claimed, the promise her grandfather had made re the Rooster. The handwriting left her in no doubt at all.
“If I’d seen this yesterday, I’d say it was just more proof that my grandfather was a no-good, selfish old man who wasn’t worth his word, but after what I found this morning…” She sighed and handed the paper back to Rod. “I suppose the most pressing issue is who the hell is getting in the building and making free with our private papers? I assume this was filed away?”
“Yes.” He put the paper back on the desk and frowned at it. “It was in a folder with my birth certificate and my Social Security papers. They’re still there. I checked.”
“Let me think,” Juliet said. “Give me a minute.” He gave her several, even offering her the battered desk chair, but somehow, standing helped her brain turn over.
“Bear with me, Rod. This is a proper pig’s ear. All right”—she counted off on her fingers—“someone is moving our papers. Presumably because they want us to read them. We agree it’s not either of us. So, who is it? How are they getting in? And why?”
“All good questions,” he replied, “but I have another. We could stop whoever it is by changing locks and installing a security system but do we want to?”
He was nutters! “Of course we do! We don’t want anyone breaking in.”
“But are they? Seems whoever it is knows their way around and has no trouble coming and going.”
“You don’t think it’s one of the staff?”
He thought about that a minute. “Don’t see why they would.”
“Why would anyone?”
“You changed your mind about your grandfather after reading that file.”
“Yes, and you had it rubbed in that he went back on his word. They rather cancel each other out.” He picked up something small off the top of his desk and squeezed it between his fingers with an oddly familiar crackling sound. “What’s that?”
“This?” He opened his hand. “Just an old candy wrapper. The old man sucked mints as if they were going out of style. Dropped the damn wrappers everywhere. We’ll most likely be finding them for the next twenty years.”
Yes! “There were heaps in my desk before I cleaned it out.”
Rod stood. “You wanted to go over the closed-off part of the building. Let’s do it now. Heck, we could have a family of squatters up there and not know it.” That thought gave her the creeps! “Let me get a couple of flashlights.”
He came back with two heavy-duty torches from the storeroom. “We keep them in case the power goes out,” he explained, handing her one. It was heavy black rubber, threw a wide bright beam, and would come in handy if she ever needed a murder weapon. “The stairs are old, and who knows what the floors are like,” he said. “Let me go first and keep your distance. There may be places that take one person’s weight but not two.”
“When were you last back there?”
“Four, five years ago. I thought of expanding but it was too run-down and I didn’t have the money to take on such a major project. You’ve got the keys?”
“I’ll get them.”
They were where she had left them, in a cubbyhole in the rolltop desk. The lock on the heavy door was old and stiff but Rod had it unlocked on the third try. He opened the door, and they stepped through.
The place was filthy, bare patches on the walls showing where plaster had fallen. There were damp marks on the walls and the smell of mice was everywhere.
“It’s worse than I imagined,” Rod said. “It’ll cost you a small fortune.”
“It so happens I have a small fortune.”
He gave a grunt and walked down the corridor. All right, he’d taken umbrage but it was hardly her fault her grandfather left her money.
The main shop was large and lofty and a good bit of the ceiling was still intact. The place was dark, with the windows boarded up, and the walls were covered with cheap-looking white imitation paneling. “There’s been some work done here,” she said. Just not quality work—a corner of a panel came up in her hand and an army of cockroaches poured out! “Ugh!” Something tickled her leg, and as she looked down she saw an immense cockroach heading for her knee. She hit it off and jumped back.
Rod pulled her away. “Better be careful—there could be worse.”
“What’s worse?”
“Snakes!”
“Lovely!”
“At least a couple of snakes will mean there are no rodents.”
“I suggest we make a lot of noise and scare them all off.”
That was easy enough going up the uncarpeted stairs and tramping through the four large rooms. There was rudimentary plumbing, and the water heater and the old stove belonged in a museum.
“It needs a heck of a lot of work,” Juliet said. Rod nodded. “Thanks for not saying ‘I told you so’!”
He smiled. “Are you really serious about this?”
“Definitely, Rod. I have the money. This way, I’ll have my shop and you’ll have the Rooster. I can redo the apartments.”
“You don’t want to stay with me?” He’d taken a step closer.
“Do you want me to?”
“What do you think?” They were close, close enough for her to feel his breath.
“I wouldn’t ask if I knew.”
“Hell yes!” He grabbed her, pulling her against him. “After last night you�
��re not certain?”
“I’m certain. Didn’t know if you were.”
He muttered something that sounded vaguely like “damn this”; let his flashlight fall; and, with both hands, pulled her to him and kissed her.
It was like drowning in sweetness and heat. For a second, his lips just brushed hers; it was enough. With a little whimper, she pressed her mouth on his, wrapping her arms around him to draw him closer. He responded by opening her mouth with his lips and teasing her with the tip of his tongue. He traced the outline of her lips, then gently tapped her tongue with his. It was not enough. She pressed her tongue against his, seeking to share his passion and relish his maleness. She was leaning hard into him now. And he was hard. For her. No mistaking it. Rod Carter was hot for her. Brilliant!
His arms tightened around her, one hand smoothing down her back to cup her bottom and press her against his erection. She rubbed and rocked against the glorious hardness under his jeans. It wasn’t enough; she wanted his skin on hers. Needed him inside her.
Her pussy all but throbbed, her nipples ached, and little sharp moans were coming from somewhere inside her head.
Rod moved, backing her up so she was against the wall, his erection pressed harder into her belly, and now he was yanking her shirt from her waistband and unhooking her bra. Both hands were on her breasts, and her shirt was now up under her chin.
And it wasn’t anything like enough!
Her moan came deep from her heart as she lifted her right leg and ran her foot up and down his calf.
He groaned.
And deepened his kiss, his hands stroking her breasts until she felt her pussy wet with need and beads of sweat ran down her back.
Pressed hard against the wall, she ground her belly toward his hips and lowered her hands to cup his butt and press him into her.
Her heart was pounding inside her ribs, his breath tight and ragged, when he looked down at her.
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