by Jodi Thomas
The man had been hired last night and was probably in town all day. He might already know more than she did.
Her office, with boxes stacked to serve as a coffee table and books lining her windowsill, was suddenly way too small for Piper to breathe.
She ran past Autumn’s desk and out into the hallway. After hours, the building was silent as a tomb. She took the stairs up to the widow’s walk that topped the building, making city hall look like a square wedding cake with each floor smaller than the one below.
As she stepped out on the walk, Piper felt her heart slow. She could always breathe here. Top of the world, her granddad used to say. The highest building in town. She could see almost all of Honey Creek and the river to the west. The water sparkled in the dying light, like it was winking at her, and the old cottonwood trees seemed to wave at her as they squatted on the river’s edge, their bony roots looking like knees bent toward the sky.
Piper leaned on the railing, listening to the evening noises as if they were the only beat that matched her heart. Closing her eyes, she almost believed she could hear the river drifting by as the low echo of a train’s whistle whispered on the breeze.
How could anything be wrong in this world? The people were hardworking and good to the bone. They cared for one another. The whole valley was known for being friendly, and Honey Creek seemed its center. The town was an eccentric day trip from Austin or Dallas with its legends and stories. Small towns like Honey Creek were where farmers’ markets thrived, and barn dances made the whole valley echo with pure country swing.
Half the folks in town maintained they were either related to someone crazy or had an ancestor who was an outlaw or gunfighter. The town even had a bed and breakfast that claimed to have a ghost who hiccupped. Fishermen near the river swore there was a catfish as long as a man that lived in the muddy water downstream.
And now, she reasoned, Honey Creek had a mystery. One handsome, almost boyfriend was missing.
As the sun lowered and evening lights made the town shine like a jewel nestled in the green rolling hills, all Piper saw was trouble.
She lowered her head almost to the railing. Somehow, this was her problem. She was the mayor. The whole town would look to her to do something.
The creak of a board alerted her a moment before a low voice whispered, “You all right, lady?”
Piper battled panic. She didn’t move.
Chaos whirled all around her. It might as well have a voice. She fought down a scream, but a tiny sound slipped through. Just nerves. Stand tall. Don’t let anyone know you’re afraid, she reminded herself.
“I’m fine,” she answered as if chaos would care. After three days of having reporters and townspeople screaming in her face, she was finally cracking up. With her luck she’d go down as the first mayor to be found mad while in office.
“You are the mayor, right?” The low voice came again.
Piper turned her head slightly as she pondered the idea of lying. The shadow of a man wearing a Stetson stood between her and the landing’s exit.
The stranger slowly removed his hat, and curly hair with a touch of crimson amid dark blond appeared. “I know you said we’d meet after dark, but I saw you up here from the bench across the street and thought we might as well talk here and now.”
“And you are?”
“I’m Trooper Colby McBride. The Rangers sent me. When we talked briefly before dawn, you said I was to check in with you at dusk.”
Piper let out a breath she felt like she’d been holding for days. “You’ve come to help, Officer.”
“Trooper,” he corrected. “And as of right now I’m working off the record. What I find will be reported straight to you with the understanding that any felony uncovered will bring in the Texas Rangers.”
She could barely see his eyes, yet she saw nothing but honesty in them. Of course, she’d been fooled before. If he’d waited a few more minutes in shadows, she wouldn’t have been able to make out his eye color or the sharp line of his jaw.
He seemed the kind of man she’d need on her side. Strong, straightforward, protective.
“I’m just a ghost here, Miss Mackenzie.” He smiled, suddenly looking younger. “I’m an observer hired to get to the bottom of this mess. The Rangers have already examined the car that was pulled from the river. They are sending me the full report along with a list of every person who was known to have seen Mr. Buchanan three nights ago. My job is simply to put the pieces together.”
Piper doubted this man would ever be just anything. He seemed self-assured, maybe a bit dangerous. The kind of man she wouldn’t feel comfortable dating. The kind who’d run straight toward trouble, instead of away.
He wore his western shirt and blue jeans casually. He’d fit in perfectly with the locals. If he’d worked the oil fields or rodeoed, he could probably walk into any bar and learn more in an hour than she’d ever known about the people in town. No one gossiped about crimes to a mayor who had two brothers who were Rangers.
From his stance to his slight twang, the man before her seemed pure Texan. He might be the type who said “yes, ma’am” to the ladies and fought his way out of a bar at midnight. But she had to trust him if she hoped to clean up this mess.
“I’m Piper Jane Mackenzie, the mayor.” She realized he already knew who she was, but she needed a bit of formality in their meeting.
He smiled. “I figured that out. You look just like your picture in the press. Former mayor’s granddaughter, state senator’s daughter, a rising star in politics. You had plenty of press before this happened, lady. Runner-up for the cobbler cook-off when you were sixteen, youngest one in your graduating class from law school, with high honors.”
He lowered his chin a bit and grinned. “Eleven months older than me, which makes us both thirty-three for one more month. You made a habit of collecting speeding tickets until you ran for mayor. Since then, not even a parking ticket. Lots of photos out there of you, none that would be embarrassing. Seems you’re perfect, Miss Mackenzie. Or at least you were until you started dating Boone Buchanan.”
“I wasn’t dating him, really. We were not engaged. Our families knew each other. I just asked him to go with me to a few functions in Austin and then he started showing up when I was in the capital. To be honest, I don’t even think I’d call us friends.” She thought of saying that Colby was more her type than Boone, but she had to keep this professional. “I don’t date, Trooper McBride.”
Colby shrugged. “I saw the pictures. You two looked pretty friendly to me. Also, you looked taller in the photo. Of course, you were wearing high heels then.” He leaned down closer, so he could look straight at her. “That threw me for a minute. I pictured you taller.” His gaze moved from her face all the way down to her feet. “Cute toes, by the way, Miss Mackenzie.”
“You don’t need to notice my toes, Mr. McBride.”
“I thought I was hired to notice everything, Mayor. Right now, as far as I’m concerned, you, like everyone in this town, are a suspect.”
She nodded once. “Fair enough. What do I call you?”
“Colby. It’ll be easier when folks see us talking if they think you already knew me from somewhere. In fact, that’s part of the cover story we’ll use. I based it on what I know of you. Don’t alter the back story of us in any way, or people will start asking questions of both of us.”
“All right.”
Colby’s amber eyes, reminding her of a wolf’s stare, flashed in the low light as he moved closer. He studied her. “Thanks to the Internet I know enough to put together reasons why I’m in town and why people might see us talking. If any part of my cover doesn’t fit with your approval, let me know and we can change it now.”
“Should we go to my office to talk?”
He shook his head. “It’s safer here. I wouldn’t be surprised if your office is bugged. With the sheriff missing a day after your boyfriend vanished, leaving his car parked in a river, who knows what else is going on.”
His fingert
ips lightly brushed her back as he guided her deep into the shadows. “The cover story is, I’m an old friend of your ex-husband. We were college buddies before I flunked out and you came into his life. At your engagement party, nice pictures by the way, I got drunk and made a pass at you. I wasn’t invited to the wedding.”
“Okay, so that could have happened, but why are you here now?”
“I decided you’ve been divorced ten years and might be desperate enough to give me a second chance. I’ve inherited a little money, so I got time to follow my dreams, so to speak. One is to hook up with you, and another is to buy land around here if things go good between us.”
“Your dream is to charm me after I crossed you off the list of guests at my wedding?”
His voice lowered a bit. “How am I doing so far?”
Piper grinned as she fought the urge to kick him. “You’re not my type, Colby McBride.”
Colby shrugged. “As near as I can tell, Mayor, you don’t have a type. Not one picture of you out on the town since you divorced. Unless you count the ones of you dancing with Boone at a fund-raiser in which you looked bored. Or a dozen shots of him hugging on you and you not even looking his direction. If you’ve got some secret lover out there, you might want to let me know. Otherwise as far as the town is concerned, I’ve come a-courting. I’m downright crazy about you.”
“Dressed like that?”
“So, I’m the underdog type. People will want to help me out.”
“That’s the worst cover story I’ve ever heard.”
“You got a better one? Everyone will either try to run me out of town or take my side. Heartsick lovers always get pulled under someone’s wing. With luck I’ll be able to play the fool and seem harmless. No one will notice I’m listening for clues. People tend to let the truth slip. I’ll hang out at the breakfast café in the morning, bars at night, and maybe even land in church on Sunday. I’ll blend in.”
She reached in her pocket and pulled out a key she’d been holding all day. “Check in at Fisherman’s Lodge. Show the owner, Digger, this key. Pay in cash.”
“Is Digger working as my partner?”
“No, he’s just helping out, but you can trust him. This key will unlock a storage room in the cabin he rents you. You’ll be working alone. Let me know anything, no matter how small, that you find out.” She met his gaze deciding she had to trust him. “Do you need to change your name?”
Colby shook his head. “Colby is a nickname. No one will find a Colby McBride on the Web. If I find something, I’ll try talking to you in public. Of course, you’ll be polite, but distant. Then we meet somewhere in private and talk.”
“Where?”
“You tell me, PJ?”
“Don’t call me by my initials. I hate that.”
The trooper just waited like she was a toddler throwing an unnecessary fit.
She continued. “I’ll set a book with a red cover on my far windowsill, if I need to talk to you. We can meet here.”
“Fair enough. I won’t be hard to find,” he said as he backed into the shadows. She couldn’t see his face when he added, “I’ll find you.”
The floor near the door creaked again and he was gone.
Piper turned back to the view of her town and watched for a few minutes before she saw Colby walking away from city hall. His hands were in his pockets, his hat low. He headed straight across the street to a little diner. The T on the neon sign had burned out years ago, but the exas Best Coffee sign burned bright. The place served only breakfast from six to midnight, but it had a direct line of vision to city hall.
If Colby sat in the front window table, he’d be able to see the square and she’d be able to see him from her office window.
Slipping down the stairs, she tiptoed to her office trying to decide what she thought of the undercover visitor her brother had sent. She knew he must be the best at his job or Max wouldn’t have picked him, but the idea of spying on her own population bothered her. Plus, this Colby guy was too young. He was her age. Shouldn’t he be older, wiser? Shouldn’t she?
Piper closed her eyes. Maybe she was too young to be mayor of even a small town. The fact she’d run unopposed was probably the only reason she’d won. That and her grandfather stood just behind her at every public event.
This was her town, her people. How could a stranger uncover anything that she didn’t already know? Hiring a man to dig up the truth about the sheriff’s secrets as well as Boone’s disappearance would probably be a waste of time. Either no one would talk about it, or more likely everyone would make up their own facts to prove their theories.
After all, what could a spy find that her secretary, Autumn, didn’t already know?
When a cool breeze chilled her, Piper ran down the hallways that always seemed haunted after five. As always, she waved at Granddad when she passed.
A moment later she slipped past Autumn’s desk and was at the threshold of her office when she looked up and saw a man in a black suit and clerical collar around his tanned throat sitting at her desk. He was staring out the window, obviously lost in his own thoughts.
Piper froze, trying to decide to run or scream. One strange guest after dark was enough for tonight. “May I help you,” she whispered as she backed toward the door.
Then, the stranger turned toward her and smiled. “Howdy,” he said. “I’m Sam Cassidy. I noticed your light on and I hoped you might still be here. When I got upstairs the door was open, so I made myself at home.”
Before she could answer or run, the man stood and offered his hand. “I’m the fill-in preacher at the First Saints Independent Church. Sounds to me like you people had a bit of a problem naming the place.”
She should have been mad at him dropping in, but the preacher was a charmer. There was a bit of mischief in his smile and pure Southern charm in his low voice. She’d thought Colby was tall, but the preacher was another three or four inches taller, making her feel tiny standing beside him.
“We weren’t expecting you so early.” In truth she’d forgotten he was coming. “And locals just call it Saints Church.”
As she reached across the desk and shook his hand, she noticed the note stuck to her desk lamp. It said simply, Don’t forget to welcome new preacher. Take him to dinner. Autumn.
“I’m Mayor Mackenzie.”
His big hand circled around hers. “I figured you’d be back. Cold Coke can on your desk, shoes in the middle of the floor.”
She pulled her hand back, moved over a few feet, and stepped into her heels.
Piper didn’t miss his widening smile as she grew four inches closer to his height. “If you’re up to it I’d like to show you around my town. We’ll stop by the church first; then if you’re feeling brave, I’ll take you to dinner.”
“Brave?”
She shrugged. “My last date went missing three days ago.”
“Sounds like an interesting topic for dinner. Lead the way, Miss Mackenzie.”
Chapter 4
Friday evening
Sam
Sam had waited in the mayor’s cluttered fourth-floor office for maybe ten minutes. The e-mail from the church had said she was the one who would officially welcome him, but it didn’t mention where to meet her.
Someone named Stella B. had sent a note after he contacted the church and said he was coming, that he meet the mayor first before coming to the church. Stella B. also said the mayor would tell him about the town as she drove him to the church to meet a few of the flock.
He watched the last glow of the sun as clouds moved in across the darkening sky while he waited.
Sam had always loved watching the ever-changing sky. Like his life, the shadows grew until there was nothing to be seen. Somehow the night sky was the same everywhere in the world. It followed him, protected him, made him forget that there was once sunshine.
As a child, this Texas view was the first sky he’d studied. He’d pushed memories of lying in the grass with his dad as they picked out the co
nstellations from his thoughts. It was too painful to remember. Sitting between his father and mother, traveling along calling themselves vagabonds for the Lord was another he’d hidden away. They’d treated every little town like an Egyptian tomb to be explored. Then, one phone call when he’d been in college, and his parents were gone. Maybe the happy memories of them would slowly fade, maybe they would stay hidden away. . . . Forgetting was easier than remembering.
This Texas sky looked like a thousand other evenings beneath stormy clouds. The last time he drove through Honey Creek, he was on his way to his folks’ funeral. He’d taken the back roads southeast out of Dallas. Of all his dad’s churches and all the places they’d explored, his parents had picked this valley in which to be buried. A beautiful cemetery resting between three towns—Honey Creek, Clifton Bend, and Someday Valley. Maybe they’d picked the spot because here had been the last time the three of them had lived together.
He closed the past away and studied the small town with the city offices built square in the center of a cluster of mismatched homes and businesses. Whoever mapped out the streets must have been drunk.
He’d spent the last few months of his high school senior year here. Sam remembered feeling like a fool getting lost in such a small town. But streets dead-ended into alleys and street signs changed from block to block. At one point he believed no matter which way he drove he would run into the river.
After he left, his parents moved on to three more jobs before he came home for Christmas.
That was their life. Home was wherever they felt a calling to go.
Sam turned back to the mayor’s office as he pushed the past away. He mentally listed the facts about his tour guide for the night. MAYOR PIPER MACKENZIE was engraved on the door, so he had to be in the right place. With the fresh Coke can sitting on her desk, she was probably planning to work late. She obviously hadn’t remembered he was coming, which meant this was just one of the duties as mayor that she had to do.
He decided after she introduced him to the waiting church members he’d let her off the hook for dinner.
