by Dana Marton
“I get my coffee either downstairs or at the station.” He stopped in front of the couch she’d commandeered for the morning. “I come bearing good news.”
She sniffed the tantalizing aromas in the air. “You’re not fooling me. You come bearing ten thousand calories. By the time I leave Broslin, all I’ll be fit to reenact is the dance of the blue whale.”
He grinned. “Your car is being released.”
She glanced at the cast on her foot. Of course they’d release her car as soon as she couldn’t drive it. “Thank you. For everything.”
“I can bring the Chevy over from the station later.” He moved on to his small kitchen table to set the food down.
“Would you mind taking it to the B and B? I’m going to head over after lunch.”
“No.”
And there went all the goodwill she’d unexpectedly discovered for him. She did her best to stare him down. Calamity Jane, help me now. “It’s not your decision to make.”
“I could take you into protective custody.”
“Dammit, Harper. You can’t keep me here against my will.”
Harper walked back to her, the fatigue in his eyes replaced by sparks of annoyance. “If you want to go back to your room so desperately, I’ll take you over. But someone, possibly your unhinged ex-boyfriend, almost ran you over last night. So please, think about this for a damn second.”
“Could have been an accident.”
“Could have. And we’ve already argued about that, so we’re not going to argue about it again. You were lucky last night. But just as easily, I could be out today investigating vehicular homicide.”
“It wasn’t—”
“You’re the only guest at the B and B. What if someone does want to hurt you, and he comes after you again? What if Shannon gets in his way? She just finally recovered from the fall she had last summer.”
Allie stared at him, hating that he was right and she was going to have to admit it. But not yet. “You’re emotionally blackmailing me with Shannon?”
“Yes.”
“And by openly admitting it instead of denying it, you’re taking the wind out of my sails. It’s very sneaky.”
“You got me. Too smart to be tricked.”
“I can’t tell if you’re mocking me or buttering me up.”
He grinned, and it was so quintessentially Harper, the old Harper she’d once been in love with, that she found herself grinning back at him, her aggravation evaporating. “Fine. I’ll stay.”
“If you insist.”
She threw a pillow at him. “Don’t push your luck.” Then she groaned. “You’re driving me crazy, you know that?”
“The feeling is mutual.” His tone was nothing but heartfelt.
In an unexpected move, he crouched in front of her.
Too close. His blue eyes too intent. She could smell his soap. Feel the heat of his body.
All humor disappeared from his expression as he said, “I can’t get the image of you in front of that car last night out of my head. The way you went down. You weren’t moving when I reached you. You didn’t open your eyes when I first called your name. Do you understand that you could have been killed?”
She didn’t know how to respond to that. He seemed sincerely concerned, like he truly, deeply cared. More than someone would care about a virtual stranger, which was what they were to each other after all those years apart. Right?
She struggled to stand without putting weight on her sore ankle until he rose and scooped her up, had her at the table in three steps, and smoothly deposited her into the nearest chair.
Oh. Her heart raced.
“Tell me about this Zane character,” he said before she could recover.
Not a conversation Allie wanted to have. But she did want to be back at the B and B, in her own room, and that meant she had to give Harper enough to convince him Zane wasn’t in Broslin.
“I don’t think it was Zane. Zane is a bullshitter. He’ll tell you what you want to hear and make you believe it.” God, that sounded like her father. She cringed. Was that her type? What did that say about her? That she didn’t have a brain? “He’s not a criminal. He’s…” She searched for the right words. “He could sell anyone anything.”
“Which is why he’s a used car salesman.”
She blinked. “You ran a background check on him.”
“Damn right. What else?”
She thought about it. “He’s stubborn. Once he sets his mind on something, nobody can talk him out of what he wants.”
And he’d set his mind on the two of them reconciling. When she’d told him she wasn’t getting back together with him, he refused to accept it. He wanted her, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“When did you break up?”
“Six months ago. He broke up with me, actually. He wanted me to cut back on traveling. Since that’s literally my job, I said no. He told me to empty out my dresser.”
Harper raised an eyebrow as he brought them plates and silverware along with two bottles of water. No napkins, but he kept a roll of paper towels on the table. He handed her a sheet of that.
“Then, a month later, he magnanimously changed his mind. Told me I could come back.”
“And when you didn’t, he switched to stalking.”
“How do you know?”
“Not the first stalker I’ve run into on the job.” He tugged the aluminum foil off the platter. “How bad is it?”
“Mostly online. I have a business. I advertise on social media. I can’t shut down my accounts.” Allie scooped steamed vegetables over to her plate, along with a juicy hamburger, and some french fries.
“You didn’t block him?”
“He just starts new accounts. For the first few months, he was trying to make me see how great he was, what I was missing. Dick pics galore. Remember the good times, babe?” She looked away. “It changed about a month ago. Now I get angry posts. He tells me I’m an idiot, a slut, never going to find anyone as great as him.”
“When did the in-person stalking start?”
“Same as the online stuff. He would track me down, come to a performance, try to talk to me afterwards. All nice at first, bringing flowers, asking me to dinner. Then lately…” She shook her head as she bit off half a french fry. “More menacing. Just following me. Or he’d park outside my door all night at whatever motel where I was staying. I thought I saw a black SUV following me when I was in Maryland, but I could have been just paranoid. Or he lost me in the storm. There hasn’t been anything since, except a hang-up call when I got into the B and B, but I don’t think that was him. He would have said something. Did you track down the license plate?”
“Belongs to a rental. The SUV was rented for the week by a Jason Allen. He was in town visiting his grandparents with his fiancée. Remember John Allen? His wife, Ruth, used to work at the gas station. Anyway, that’s who Jason was visiting. He and his fiancée flew back to Seattle early this morning. I talked to him over the phone. He says someone might have taken the car last night. He hadn’t locked it since it sat in his grandfather’s driveway, and well, this is Broslin. But he thought it smelled like cigarettes in the morning. Does Zane smoke?”
“A cigar, now and then, when he’s out with friends. But I don’t think Zane would steal a car. He works at a dealership. He could grab anything he wants.”
“And if he had dealer plates, we’d know it’s him. How long did you live together?”
“A year.” She groaned. “I know. I’m stupid. I should have seen through him sooner, but I travel almost all the time. I wasn’t at his condo that much. A long weekend here and there was the most we ever spent together.”
“You said you moved out. Where do you keep your stuff?” Harper asked as he finally made himself a plate.
“I don’t have much.” She shrugged, picking up a french fry and dipping it into the ketchup he’d squirted onto the edge of her plate from a little plastic packet. “I have a storage locker in Harrisburg. I travel with enough cl
othes for a week or two at a time. If I need something important that’s not in the car, I drive up to Harrisburg and get it. But if I need something like a heavier sweater and I’m more than fifty miles away? Thrift shops. Cheaper than gas and tolls.”
“So you really don’t live anywhere?” He stared at her like he couldn’t fully comprehend the concept.
“Do I have to?”
“How do you get mail?”
“I have a PO Box with a mail-forwarding service. But usually I have them hold my mail, and I just pick it up when I’m in town. Honestly, there’s never anything in the mail anymore that can’t wait. I do almost everything online.”
He stared at her with his burger halfway to his mouth. “It’s—”
“Crazy?”
“Strange.”
“Because you have a large, loving family. A family business. You have roots. Not everybody gets to have that.”
“What if you get sick?”
“Worst I’ve had so far was the flu once. I took my pills and slept it off in my little motel room. Maid came in every day to change my sweaty sheets. Uber Eats delivered chicken soup I ordered online. As for whatever decongestant and other over-the-counter meds I needed…” She shrugged. “Pharmacies deliver too.”
She meant all that as a good thing. But even she could hear how pitifully lonely she sounded. And she hated the idea that he would pity her.
“Look, Harper. I don’t need anybody. I’m fine. This is good. I’m building a kickass business. I’m thinking about expanding. Maybe hiring local talent in places to add to the show. We could act out scenes. I don’t need help,” she repeated.
He finally took a bite, chewed, swallowed. “So how are you going to get down those stairs in that brace?”
Leave it to Harper flipping Finnegan to zero in on her one, minor, temporary weakness. Her ankle screamed bloody murder every time she hobbled to the bathroom, and that was just a dozen steps away. So fine, maybe the stairs were too ambitious to attempt as a solo trip.
Not that she was ready to admit defeat. “I’ll borrow a cookie sheet and ride it down like a sled.”
“As an officer of the law, I’m obliged to interfere if I see any citizens engage in an unsafe activity.”
“You wouldn’t let me borrow a lousy cookie sheet?”
“I don’t have a cookie sheet. I don’t bake.”
She clicked her tongue with disapproval. “Foiled by typical bachelor unpreparedness.”
When he grinned, she caught herself. Oh God, were they flirting?
He was smiling at her as if they were.
No, no, no. The one thing Allie had promised herself when she’d lit out of Broslin at eighteen was to always look forward, never look back. She did not retrace her steps. As far as Harper was concerned, she’d been there, done that, suffered through the aftermath. Would not, ever, trust him with her heart again.
She finished the last few bites on her plate, then laid down her fork. “Could you please take me back to the B and B?”
Harper leaned back in his chair. “I’ll make you a deal. Let me track down your ex. Let me confirm his whereabouts. Make sure he hasn’t followed you here. Give me another forty-eight hours. All right?”
She watched him. If she said no, he’d think she was scared to be here with him, that she was bothered by the proximity. Which she was, but she didn’t want him to know that.
And his reasoning sounded…reasonable. She would rest easier if she knew Zane wasn’t in Broslin, waiting for her around some corner.
“All right,” she said.
If Calamity Jane could survive for months alone on the prairie, and Annie Oakley could survive years of starvation, Allie could survive Harper Finnegan for forty-eight hours. Dagnabbit.
Chapter Nineteen
“Found a plot of land I like,” Kennan told Harper over the phone. “I wouldn’t mind if you came out with me to take a look. Second set of eyes.”
“I’m in the car, heading back to the station. I have an interview in half an hour. But I could go with you after work. I thought you were looking for a house.”
“It’ll be dark by the time you get out. Tomorrow?”
“Sure. Where is it?”
“By the reservoir. Kind of on the hillside, so it overlooks the water and open land. I spent too much time in the desert. Would be nice seeing water when I look out my window.”
“It’d be easier to buy a home that’s already built.”
“I don’t mind bunking at the farmhouse for another few months. That way, I can plan my place, have it made right. No rush. You should think about it too. There’s another parcel up for sale out there. Your apartment above the pub won’t be big enough for a family.”
“It’s not like I have a bunch of kids underfoot.”
“You have a woman moved in. That’s how it begins.”
“Two more days.”
“Mhm.”
“I just want to track down her idiot ex so I can let her go without having to worry about her.”
“Sure you do.”
“After growing up with you and our other numb-nut brothers, I need some quiet and solitude.”
He liked walking out of his bedroom in the morning and not having to talk to anyone until he fully woke up. When he set down something, he liked being able to find it later because nobody moved it. He enjoyed watching what he wanted on TV.
Oddly, having Allie around hadn’t driven him bonkers. So perhaps after she moved on again, he would rethink the sacrosanct nature of his bachelor pad. He didn’t mind having somebody around as much as he’d thought he would.
She smelled nice, for one. And she was smart, good with ideas. He liked talking to her, sharing his meals with her. Her presence brought something to his life he couldn’t define. Maybe just nostalgia. Maybe she just reminded him of his youth, although, he wasn’t one to wish back the old times when he’d been an idiot little dickhead.
“Maybe after she leaves, I’ll start dating again,” he told Kennan. Seriously dating, bringing the woman home, letting her in. The truth was, when he thought about Allie leaving, he didn’t feel relief. When he thought about walking into an empty apartment after work, it didn’t fill him with satisfaction. He didn’t want the emptiness back, he realized as he drove. “I guess I could try living with someone.”
“Or at least have a sleepover.” Kennan laughed. “Rest of us have done it a time or two. Didn’t kill us.”
“Remind me of the great relationship currently in your life? Your right palm, is it?”
“Screw you,” his brother said, laughing. “All right. Point taken.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow at noon? I’ll swing by home on my lunch break and pick you up?”
“Sounds good. Thanks.”
Harper clicked off the call as he pulled into the station.
Inside, Robin greeted him with “Carmelo is in the interview room. Lawyered up. Could be a good thing.”
“Could mean he wants to ask for a deal.”
That, however, did not turn out to be the case.
Frank Carmelo clammed up completely. Every time Harper asked him something, the guy would glance at his lawyer, and the lawyer—a fifty-something woman with a Puerto Rican accent—would say My client doesn’t wish to answer that question, or some variation on the theme.
“I would like to take some castings from your winter boots, with your permission,” Harper asked finally.
“Not without a warrant,” the lawyer objected. She was a hardass, but in all fairness, if Harper was in Frank’s situation, she would have been the lawyer he wanted.
“It’s in your client’s best interest to be cleared,” Harper told her, just as her phone rang.
“Excuse me.” She took the call, listened. “I’ll be right there.” She hung up. “I’m sorry, I—”
“It’s fine. We’re done here for the time being.”
“Thank you. And I do apologize. I have a client emergency at the courthouse.” She looked at Fran
k, then back at Harper. “I drove Mr. Carmelo here.”
“I can give him a ride home.”
Frank shifted on his seat. “I need to use the bathroom first.”
“Sure.” As they walked out, Harper pointed the man in the right direction, then swung by his desk to grab his coat from the back of his chair.
Mike stopped by with the blue folder Harper had given him a couple of days before. “I have some updates for you, if you have a minute.”
“I have to drive Frank Carmelo home. If you want to ride along, we can talk on the way back?”
“Stop for doughnuts?” Hope glinted in Mike’s eyes. “I haven’t had lunch.”
Harper sighed. “You’re a walking cliché, you know that?”
But they stopped for doughnuts on the way there because Frank wanted some too. They waited while he painstakingly picked a dozen, all his granddaughters’ favorites. Then they drove him home, and they even walked him in. The temps had dropped below freezing again, and the driveway was slippery. If they’d thought their helpfulness would earn them some cooperation, however, they were mistaken. Frank marched into his town house and slammed the door in their faces.
Mike shrugged and gave a heavy sigh. “When you’re good-looking, some people can hate you just for that. It’s the McMorris curse.”
Harper patted his back. “You should consider cleaning your bathroom mirror.”
As Mike opened his mouth, either for a retort or a joke, the neighbor’s door opened next to them. A thirty-something woman stepped out, wearing green hospital scrubs.
“Harper Finnegan.” Harper flashed his badge. “Broslin PD. Would you mind if we asked you a couple of questions, ma’am?”
“I have to leave for work.”
“It won’t take more than a minute.” Harper descended Frank’s steps and walked over to her. “It’s about a murder case we’re investigating.”
“I don’t know any more about that than what I saw on the news. Amy Martin,” she introduced herself at last, which Harper took as a good sign and an indication of further cooperation.
“Were you home that night? Last Monday?”
“Sure. Trying to sleep. I have the early shift at the hospital on Tuesdays. Morning shift means I have to be there by six, which means I have to leave here by five, which means I have to drag myself out of bed at four a.m. to get ready.”
