This Good Man
This Good Man
Janice Kay Johnson
A man of integrity…or not? The moment Captain Reid Sawyer helps social worker Anna Grant with a sticky situation, she's hooked. He's gorgeous and clearly interested in her. Yet even as he pursues her, she senses he's holding back. For someone who prizes honesty and doing the right thing, how much of his evasion can Anna tolerate? Her trust in Reid is further shaken when he confesses what he's done to protect his newly discovered brother. Is Reid really one of the good guys?Then he's involved in a hostage situation. Suddenly, she fears she could lose him before telling him how she truly feels!
A man of integrity…or not?
The moment Captain Reid Sawyer helps social worker Anna Grant with a sticky situation, she’s hooked. He’s gorgeous and clearly interested in her. Yet even as he pursues her, she senses he’s holding back. For someone who prizes honesty and doing the right thing, how much of his evasion can Anna tolerate?
Her trust in Reid is further shaken when he confesses what he’s done to protect his newly discovered brother. Is Reid really one of the good guys? Then he’s involved in a hostage situation. Suddenly, she fears she could lose him before telling him how she truly feels!
She couldn’t look away from Reid now.
Anna wanted him to kiss her more than she could remember wanting anything in a long time.
His head bent slowly, either because he was giving her time to retreat or because he himself was hesitant. She quit blinking, only stared into his eyes. And then his lips touched hers. They were cold, but his puff of breath warmed her face.
A sound seemed to vibrate in his chest, and he tilted his head to fit their mouths more closely together. Anna reached out and gripped the sleek fabric of his jacket, her knuckles bumping something hard. Was he carrying a pistol under there? But right this second, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Her eyes closed and she reveled in the astonishing feel of him nipping at her lips, his tongue stroking the seam until she opened her mouth and let him in.
And then it only got better.
Dear Reader (#ulink_bdb54313-26c7-5d23-80cf-6c6692de561f),
I’ve created many troubled heroes—heck, they’re my specialty!—but Reid Sawyer is one of my all-time favorites. He was more of a challenge than some to write, too, because he’s not an angry man, he doesn’t lash out and he rarely if ever raises his voice. Most people see him as cool, strong, unemotional. He feels driven by duty and, yes, vicarious revenge on a brutal father. In fact, he sees himself as damaged, incapable of real emotion, especially the softer kinds. This is a man who is utterly self-contained, capable of suppressing any powerful emotion almost before it appears.
Maybe that’s what made it so satisfying to challenge his beliefs. First he discovers he has a younger brother who needs him, and then he falls in love with a woman despite himself—and the poor man doesn’t recognize what’s happening to him! Hmm. Come to think of it, he may be the perfect man: calm, competent, protective, quiet and tidy. Well, okay, a guy who says “I love you” once in a while is nice, too!
I never plan my books by thinking, “this one is about the hero,” or “this one is about the heroine.” But most often they come out that way, with the focus most intensely on one character or the other. Sometimes I’m really taken by surprise. I’ve got to admit, though, with only a couple of exceptions, my favorites among my books are hero-centric ones. So maybe I should plan better….
Here’s hoping you, too, fall in love with Reid while you’re saying goodbye to Angel Butte, Oregon, the setting for what was originally intended to be a trilogy but grew to five books. And you never know—I may decide to revisit Angel Butte one of these days!
Janice Kay Johnson
This Good Man
Janice Kay Johnson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#ulink_96da7aec-e745-5c0e-88c9-236952284a52)
An author of more than eighty books for children and adults, USA TODAY bestselling author JANICE KAY JOHNSON is especially well-known for her Mills & Boon Superromance novels about love and family—about the way generations connect and the power our earliest experiences have on us throughout life. Her 2007 novel Snowbound won a RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America for Best Contemporary Series Romance. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small rural town north of Seattle, Washington. She loves to read and is an active volunteer and board member for Purrfect Pals, a no-kill cat shelter. Visit her online at www.janicekayjohnson.com (http://www.janicekayjohnson.com).
Contents
Cover (#ubd5396b1-51ce-5623-8b53-4e9f880f6143)
Back Cover Text (#u85dbd1cb-01ac-52dd-bdf1-03c9754498bd)
Introduction (#ud0872f13-0119-5046-aab0-e78eba43d73a)
Dear Reader (#ulink_5e1ecd53-f1ef-53be-9926-a075953efdb3)
Title Page (#u425688d9-b89f-5f86-b57f-672420e19ebf)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#ulink_4325ed26-9035-58d7-a011-483f532872cc)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_c4544fde-0d8f-5564-8580-4d836f2169fd)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_cb0ec30c-cb92-512f-9dc7-b84736c5c80a)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_a91c13d3-145b-5b2e-950c-5aa96d278341)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_aa531deb-a6a9-5f97-a829-344889f621ac)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_fc6f8964-ed90-50b6-9200-b2b8e558bcf7)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_5bc1b4ba-61fe-5c72-979d-2c43564dbdbf)
THE SHOPPING MALL in a suburb of Spokane was new since Reid Sawyer had grown up in this northeastern corner of Washington State. Reid glanced around, approving the choice of this end of the mall. The boy didn’t know him. He’d been smart to pick someplace busy enough to be safe and yet deserted enough that they wouldn’t draw attention. The kid had good instincts.
The thought was followed by a soundless grunt. The boy’s instincts had been honed in the same hard school his own had been. Of course his wariness had been sharpened to a razor edge.
It was the same instinct that had Reid choosing a hard plastic seat with its back to a wall. The seats were situated at the corner of an L where, by barely turning his head, he could watch both the little-used mall entrance in one direction and, in the other direction, a wing that eventually dead-ended at a Macy’s. The small stores closest to him didn’t depend much on browsers, which meant that, down at this end, traffic was light and teenagers few and far between. Pearle Vision, Regis Salon, Sleep Country USA, a vitamin and food supplements store—all destination businesses. Reid could almost relax. He settled down to wait.
He watched idly as a mother ushered two kids into Pearle Vision. A middle-aged man and wife entered Sleep Country. None of them so much as glanced Reid’s way.
Reid saw the boy outside well before he reached the mall’s glass doors. For all his obvious youth, he moved like a cop—long, athletic stride, acute awareness of his surroundings. His head kept turning. He looked casual but didn’t miss anything. Before entering, he assessed the two women with a baby stroller opening one of the other doors, and dismissed them as a threat.
Once inside, his gaze locked almost immediately on Reid. The momentary hesitation in his step wouldn’t have been noticeable to anyone not watching as closely as Reid was.
Reid saw something else, too: a limp that was almost, but not quite, disguised.
The boy walked like a wounded cop who didn’t want anyone else to spot his injury and therefore vulnerability.
A tide of rage rose in a man who, until a week ago when he discovered the existence of this kid, hadn’t felt anything like that in many years.
He slowly rose to his feet, his own gaze never wavering from the boy.
My brother, he thought with an incredulity he couldn’t seem to shake.
Until now, he hadn’t been 100 percent sure the boy was his half brother versus a stepbrother. He’d have been here either way, but—damn. He could be looking at his own fifteen-year-old self.
Lean to the point of being skinny, muscles not yet having developed. Spiky hair the same shade of nut-brown as his, with an unruliness that hinted at the waves that had always irritated him. A bony face with cheekbones cut so sharp, they gave the kid a hungry look Reid saw replicated in the mirror every morning when he shaved.
The eyes he couldn’t be sure about until the boy got close. Then he felt another jolt. This Caleb Sawyer had Reid’s eyes, too, a hazel so dark as to look brown in dim lighting, but in the sun could appear as green as thick bottle glass.
He had his father’s eyes. Reid’s father’s eyes.
Caleb came to a stop a few feet from him, his shock apparent. “You’re really him,” he blurted.
“Your brother,” Reid agreed.
“He always said you were dead. That you had to be.”
“I might have been if I hadn’t gotten away.”
That too-familiar face clouded. “Where have you been all my life?”
“I didn’t know about you.” The defense was inadequate, Reid was well aware; he should have made sure he found out if his father ever had another child. “Once I was eighteen, I checked on him. Kept checking for a few years, but he hadn’t remarried.” His shoulders moved. “He was in his mid-forties by then. I thought he was unlikely—” He stopped, then said the most inadequate words of all. “I’m sorry.”
Caleb didn’t acknowledge that by so much as a nod. Instead, his stare challenged Reid. “Why now?”
“Because I did run a search out of curiosity and came up with court proceedings. An abuse allegation.”
“Dismissed.” No kid that age should be capable of such searing bitterness.
“Yeah. The few times we made it as far as court, it was always dismissed, too.”
Dean Sawyer was a cop. He was also a violent drunk who had beaten the shit out of his first wife and son. Reid’s mother died when she slipped in a spill on the kitchen floor and hit her head on a sharp corner of the cabinet top—or so the police report said. Nobody remarked on the fact that her skin displayed a road map of old and new bruises. Without an autopsy performed, nobody but her son and grieving husband knew how many bones in her body had been broken in the years of her marriage.
Several times one of Reid’s teachers or a school counselor called Child Protective Services. The final report always concluded that Reid Sawyer was clumsy—and it had been true that, like many boys destined to be tall men, he’d tended to trip over his too-large feet—or that father and son had scuffled, but the incident was understandable because Deputy Sawyer’s son was rebellious and prone to acting out. Counseling had sometimes been recommended for Reid. Once, his father—a sergeant by then—had been court mandated to take a class in anger management. He had known whom to blame for the inconvenience and humiliation, and he had vented his fury appropriately.
“You’re hurt,” Reid said now. He had shoved his hands into the kangaroo pocket of his hooded sweatshirt to keep the boy from seeing his fists.
A flick of one shoulder said, Yeah, so?
“What about your mother?” Reid asked reluctantly. The mother would be more of a problem.
“She took off. Like three years ago.”
“And didn’t take you.”
“He wasn’t bothered enough to go after her.”
“But he would have gone after you.”
“I’m his son,” Caleb said simply, with that same blistering anger. “He hates you, you know.”
Reid made a sound in his throat. Yes, he knew. No, he didn’t give a damn. Then he nodded toward the row of hard seats. “Let’s sit and talk for a minute.”
When he settled in one, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles in an appearance of relaxation, Caleb chose a seat one removed from Reid’s. His boneless slouch didn’t hide his tension.
“Why did you want to meet me?” he asked, eyes dark with turbulence. “You planning to start sending me birthday cards?”
“I came to see how bad off you are. Whether you’re ready to ditch Dad.”
The kid’s head came up. He struggled against it, but didn’t hide his hope any better than he had his misery. “You mean, like, go home with you?”
“No.” Reid’s voice came out gravelly. He hadn’t expected to feel so much. To want to say, Damn right you’re going home with me. “He could find me with no trouble, which means he’d find you.”
“If you contested—”
“The chances are good he’d win. He has so far, hasn’t he?”
The boy ducked his head. His shoulders hunched. He didn’t say anything.
“You need more than I can give you anyway,” Reid said slowly. “Hugs. Affection.” Something always softened inside him when he thought of the Hales and how much they’d given him. “Discipline, school, healing.”
“Like a foster home?”
As an officer of the law, Reid didn’t like knowing he’d be breaking the law. But, within hours of learning all he could about Caleb online, Reid had made peace with his conscience. Not often, but occasionally, the letter of the law contradicted what was just and right. He was living proof of that. The law had failed Caleb, too.
“A shelter. One that’s...different.” Reid held his brother’s eyes, determined that he listen to and understand every word. “It would mean you going off the grid. You’d have to be homeschooled, you wouldn’t be able to get your driver’s license until you’re eighteen and Dad couldn’t come after you anymore. It would mean obeying the rules and not doing something dumb that would bring the authorities down on you and the other kids in the shelter.”
His brother eyed him sidelong. “The way you say ‘authorities.’ Are you into illegal shit? Do you deal or something?”
“Drugs?” Reid gave a short laugh. “No. I’m in law enforcement.” He was very aware of the irony.
Caleb lifted his head to stare at him in disbelief. “Just like Daddy.”
“No. Not just like Daddy. I’m currently a sergeant in charge of the Family Violence Unit. I put men like Daddy in jail.” He sounded hard and didn’t care.
“Do you have kids?”
Reid shook his head.
Caleb nodded as if he understood. “I guess you’re, like, too busy for me,” he said after a minute, no longer looking at Reid.
“Yeah, I probably am, but...that’s not the main reason I think you’d be better off with these people I know. People who took me in when I ran away from home.” Even though he was looking down, he was aware the kid was listening. He couldn’t think of any way to say this but to come right out with the truth. “What you need isn’t anything I have in me. I’m what our father made of me. Damaged.”
The boy shook his head and laughed, the sound corrosive. Then he shot to his feet and looked down at Reid. “What a crock of shit. What you are is a coward. Daddy made you a coward,” he taunted.
The stab slid home. Reid’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t let his expression change. This wasn’t about him. “The place I want to take you...it’s good. These people saved my life.”
Caleb kept shaking his head.
Reid took a business card from his pocket and held it out. “This has my phone number on it. Call me when you decide.”
“I’ve decided.” His gaze was flat and emotionless. “Mr. Damaged Goods. You’re no use to me.”
“Take the card.”
The boy wasn’t proof against the voice of command. He hesitated only a moment, then grabbed it and shoved it into his jeans pocket without even looking at it.
“When you need me, I’ll come.”
Eyes so much like his own swept over him in one last scathing look. Then Caleb shook his head again. “Sure,” he said. “See you around.” He turned and sauntered away, back toward the mall entrance. Over his shoulder, he added, “Not,” and kept going.
Reid didn’t move for a long time. Whatever he felt wasn’t anything he recognized. All he knew was that he didn’t like it.
Closing his eyes, he let his head fall back until it bumped the wall. He’d blown it, but if there was another way, he couldn’t see it.
Usually he was patience personified. Impatience implied an emotional component he lacked.
Something new.
A month. If he didn’t hear from Caleb within a month, he’d try again.
And then again. And again.
This was his brother, who had no one else.
* * *
SEVENTEEN DAYS LATER—and Reid had been counting—his mobile phone rang. Sitting at his desk, he’d been concentrating on the long history of allegations against a husband and father one of his detectives had just arrested. Tearing his gaze from the computer monitor, Reid picked up the phone. He didn’t recognize the number, but he knew the area code. His pulse quickened. “Sawyer here,” he said.
“Uh, this is Caleb.” The voice was slurred. Drunk? No. Coming from a mouth that was swollen. Maybe missing a tooth or two. “You know. Your brother.”
“I know who you are,” Reid said gently, even as sickening rage filled him. “You ready to go?” His hand was on the computer mouse already; he went online and straight to Kayak. He could buy an airline ticket within the next minute or two.
“So ready, I’ve packed my duffel and I’m gone.”
“Then you can count on me.” Reid chose a flight, and they set up their meet.
Fifteen minutes later, he’d arranged to take two days of vacation and was walking out of the police station. To hell with any lingering qualms he felt about his course of action. He was doing what he had to do to save his brother.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_3370cb15-bc49-523e-a9b6-3def2e8f9de6)
“DON’T TELL ME to wait twenty-four hours.” Anna Grant gazed unflinchingly at the desk sergeant who was trying to make her go away. He should know he was wasting his time; he and she had butted heads before. “I’m not suggesting Yancey was abducted. He took off on his own. Twenty-four hours would give him time to disappear.” She leaned forward over the counter to emphasize her words. “Right this minute, he’s probably out on the highway waving his thumb. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s cold out there.” March was the dead of winter on this side of the Cascade Mountains. “He needs to be picked up now.”
“Ms. Grant.” Middle-aged and graying, Sergeant Shroutt looked exasperated and frazzled. “We’ve been through this before. You know there’s nothing we can do yet. No crime has been committed. You have no reason to think this kid is in danger—”
“No reason?” She hoped her eyes were shooting sparks. “This kid is thirteen years old. He’s so small for his age, he looks about ten. What if your own son that age was out on that highway, Sergeant?”
“Of course I wouldn’t like—”
“Wouldn’t you think the police should be concerned?”
“What seems to be the problem, ma’am?” asked a deep, calm voice from unnervingly close to her left.
Even as she swung around to face the newcomer, she took an involuntary step back. She hated the fear instinct that surfaced when someone startled or sneaked up on her. Anna prayed it didn’t show on her face.
“Captain.” The sergeant’s relief was obvious. “I was just explaining to Ms. Grant—”
“—why no one in the Angel Butte Police Department can be bothered to help me find a thirteen-year-old boy who has run away from his foster home and has no place to go that any sane adult would consider safe,” Anna concluded, even as she evaluated the tall man who stood on her side of the counter, but who was evidently a member of the department, and a senior one at that.
He was also an extraordinarily handsome man, his face all angles and planes, nothing soft about it except possibly his mouth, which she was annoyed at herself for noticing. His eyes were... She couldn’t tell. A dark hazel or unusual shade of brown, maybe. A gray suit fit as if it had been tailored for his big body. The knot of the conservative tie he wore was just a little loose, as if he’d given it a tug recently. Only when her gaze lowered did she notice the badge clipped to a narrow black belt and a glimpse of what she assumed was a weapon. At the moment, his expression was mildly curious.
Wait. Captain. Could he possibly be the new hire she’d read about, the one who’d accepted the position vacated by Colin McAllister, who had defeated the incumbent county sheriff in the November election? That would make this man captain of Investigative and Support Services, not patrol.
Still...he was right here in front of her. And if he’d paused only to help the desk sergeant get rid of her, well, screw him. At least she wasn’t likely to encounter him again.
“I’m Anna Grant.” Inexplicably reluctant to touch him, she nonetheless held out her hand. “I supervise foster homes for Angel’s Haven Youth Services.”
His eyebrows flickered as if she’d surprised him, but that was the only change of expression she detected. “Ms. Grant.” He engulfed her hand in his much larger one and squeezed before releasing her. “Captain Reid Sawyer.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t need an investigation. I was hoping—” she darted a look at the sergeant as she emphasized the word “—that I could get the city’s patrol officers to watch for a missing child.”
Captain Sawyer raised those surprisingly expressive eyebrows only a little, but it was enough. “Sergeant Shroutt?”
“He’s been missing three hours!” the sergeant burst out. “He might be smoking weed out back of the high school—”
“Except that he’s an eighth grader, not a high school student,” Anna pointed out. She almost felt sorry for him.
“Or panhandling in the Walmart parking lot. Playing Gears of War 3 at some buddy’s house!”
“Then why did he leave a note saying he was taking off?” she asked.
He glowered at her. “What note? You didn’t say anything about a note.”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
“What did the note say?” interjected a too-reasonable voice with a velvet undertone.
Pretending the sight and sound of Reid Sawyer didn’t make her quiver, Anna held herself stiff. “That we shouldn’t worry. He knew a good place to go.” Guilt and a shimmer of fear erased her momentary sexual awareness. “His stuff is all gone.”
Captain Sawyer had been reading every expression as it crossed her face. She couldn’t seem to look away from his eyes, which she concluded were an unusual shade of deep green.
“The boy’s name?” he asked.
“Yancey Launders. And no, his name doesn’t help. Kids make fun of it. He was born in Alabama. I’m told Yancey is a more common name in the Deep South.”
“He likely to be heading for Alabama?”
“I’m afraid so,” she said wearily. “He has a grandfather down there. That would be the one who kicked his mother out because she was pregnant and he didn’t want anything to do with her kind of trash. After she died, the grandfather was contacted. In his own words, he refused to have anything to do with some bastard kid whose father could be an ex-con or even racially mixed for all he knew.”
The captain made a sound in the back of his throat. “The boy know this?”
“His mother apparently believed heart and soul that her daddy would relent eventually and let her and Yancey back into Eden. Yancey said she talked all the time about the farm.”
“We’re a long way from Alabama.”
She knew what he was saying. “She drifted. Yancey has been in a dozen schools or more already. I guess there was always a man, and wherever the current one went, she went, too, and dragged her son along. Whoever the last man was, he didn’t want a twelve-year-old boy once she died.”
“So this Yancey became a ward of the court.”
“Yes. This is his second foster home. He has struggled,” she admitted. “The other boys in the home make fun of him.”
The police captain merely looked at her.
“I was trying to find something more suitable,” she said defensively, even as guilt dug in its claws. She’d known that poor, sad boy was ready to crack. She’d just believed she had longer.
The unnervingly emotionless gaze switched to the desk sergeant. “Do I need to involve Captain Cooper?”
Sergeant Shroutt sighed. “No, sir.”
Reid’s pleasant and yet disquietingly inscrutable eyes met Anna’s once again. “You can give a description, I assume.”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He nodded. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I have a meeting.”
The words almost stuck in her throat, but she got them out. “Thank you.”
His mouth curved into a smile that was oddly sweet, even if it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re very welcome.”
She watched as he strolled away, seemingly in no hurry but, with those long legs, crossing the lobby quickly and disappearing into an elevator that seemed to sense his approach and open for his convenience without him so much as pushing the button.
Anna turned back to the desk sergeant and realized he had been watching the new captain, too.
She could feel his resentment when he produced a form from behind the counter and said, “Please repeat the boy’s name, ma’am.”
At least he was apparently planning to be polite, probably because he was afraid of Captain Reid Sawyer. Who could blame him? She’d been intimidated, and she was willing to take on anyone to protect the children who were her responsibility. Thus her unpopularity in too many quarters.
“Yancey Launders,” she repeated and began to give a description.
Fortunately, she was unlikely to have anything to do with Captain Reid Sawyer in the future. Even if one of her kids was murdered—or murdered someone—she’d be dealing with one of Captain Sawyer’s detectives, not the great man himself. She hoped. Anna didn’t like anyone who made her feel vulnerable, however fleetingly.
* * *
INTERESTING WOMAN, REID thought as the elevator doors closed, shutting off his last view of Ms. Anna Grant, social worker. It was her voice as much as what she had been saying that had caught his attention as he’d passed by the front counter. It had been an intriguing combination of martinet and seductress, both crisp and throaty. On hearing it, he’d had a fleeting fantasy of a school principal who ruled her fiefdom with an iron will, but went home to shed the gray suit and reveal black lace. He had been compelled to find out what the owner of that voice looked like.
Now he knew, although he kind of doubted she wore black lace, or whether it would suit her if she did. She looked about seventeen, although she must be in her late twenties to early thirties to have the kind of job she did. He wondered if she ever used her apparent youth to disarm opponents. His mouth curved at the thought. No, he thought it was safe to say Anna Grant was a woman who would despise the idea of employing subterfuge to get her way.
The elevator doors glided open and he strolled down the hall toward his office, nodding at a couple of people as he passed, but still thinking about the social worker.
Ghost-gray eyes were her greatest beauty. She’d probably been blonde as a kid, but her hair had darkened to a shade between honey and brown, straight and worn shoulder length and tucked behind her ears, nothing unusual except that it was thick and shiny. His fingers had tingled for a moment as he imagined the texture, a reaction he’d tamped down quickly. Ms. Grant was medium height or taller, but with a slight build. Almost...delicate, which contradicted a personality he judged to be bossy, even abrasive. Maybe caring, too, or maybe she was just the rigid kind who wanted everyone and everything in their place, and who didn’t accept no as an answer. She had definitely terrorized Sergeant Shroutt. Amusement awakened again; Reid doubted she’d needed his intervention, but as he’d walked toward her, he’d heard enough to ensure he gave it. Whatever her motivation, she was worried enough about that boy to raise hell and keep raising it until he had the help he needed.
Satisfied by his conclusion, Reid greeted the temp serving as his personal assistant until he hired a permanent one. He entered his office, stripping off his suit coat, and was surprised to realize he hadn’t succeeded in dismissing Ms. Grant from his thoughts. Instead, he wondered what she did wear under her businesslike slacks and blazer. Serviceable white? Scarlet satin? Sweetly feminine petal-pink with tiny lace flowers?
He grinned as he sank into his desk chair. Probably not sweetly feminine anything. That’d be like dressing a Doberman in a tutu.
But, damn it, he’d gotten himself half-aroused imagining her slender, pale body next thing to naked.
He booted up his computer and frowned at the lit monitor. He knew what his trouble was; he hadn’t hooked up with a woman in... He couldn’t remember, a bad sign. Six months? Eight months? He cast his mind back. Good God, longer than that. This was the middle of March. It was last spring when he’d been seeing that assistant prosecutor. Courtney something. Coulson. That was it. Unlike Ms. Grant, Courtney had had generous curves. Like most women, though, she wanted more than an occasional dinner followed by sex. She’d hinted, he had pretended to be oblivious, and eventually she’d told him she was seeing someone else. He hadn’t much minded. He never did, except for the inconvenience of no longer having someone he could call when he wanted sex.
He should check email. He got as far as reaching for the mouse but didn’t move it. Instead he kept frowning and thinking about the woman he’d just met downstairs. No ring; he’d noticed that. Was she the type to be interested in something casual, assuming she wasn’t already involved with a man? Once Yancey Launders was picked up, Reid could call her and ask how the boy was doing. Suggest a cup of coffee.
He remembered those eyes, though, and felt uneasy. He hadn’t thought ghost-gray because of the color, he realized belatedly. It was more as if, in looking into those eyes, he’d seen her ghosts. He tended to stick with uncomplicated women. The scrape of his own scars against someone else’s would be...uncomfortable.
Reid shifted in his chair, unhappily aware that he’d remained aroused because he was thinking about her. He hadn’t reacted this strongly to a woman in a long time, and couldn’t understand why he had now. Anna Grant didn’t advertise her sex appeal, that was for sure. And, truth was, she might not have much, as skinny as she was.
Delicate.
He mumbled a profanity, relieved when his internal phone line rang. What he needed was a distraction.
Once the caller identified herself, Reid said, “I’m free now, Lieutenant. If you are, too, why don’t we get an early start?”
She agreed, and he was finally able to turn his mind from Anna, thinking instead about Lieutenant Jane Renner, who supervised detectives and whose rank placed her immediately beneath him. They’d planned this time to talk. She was bringing personnel files to help him familiarize himself with the investigative division. He’d already met with several key people in the support division he also headed—crime-scene technicians, clerical and records staff, fleet maintenance and more. That was the part of this new job most unfamiliar to him, where his learning curve would be steepest.
He was curious about the young woman with a bouncy ponytail who’d risen to lieutenant over an entirely male group of detectives. So far, he was reserving judgment, although she’d seemed sharp when she participated in his initial interviews. Police Chief Alec Raynor had spoken highly of her. Reid knew she’d recently married a sergeant with the Butte County Sheriff’s Department. Passing some of his female clerical staff in the hall yesterday, he’d overheard whispered gossip that made him wonder if Lieutenant Renner might be pregnant. Of course, he couldn’t ask her; HR would have his hide if he did. Assuming it was true, he had to trust she wouldn’t wait until it was painfully apparent, especially if she intended to quit. He hoped there was someone under her who was competent to step in while she took maternity leave, at the very least.
At the knock on his door, he called, “Come in,” and rose to his feet with automatic courtesy. When he was done with this meeting, he decided, he’d drive out to the Hales’ place and spend a little time with Caleb, however awkward that time would feel for both of them.
On the way out, he might stop at the front desk and ask Sergeant Shroutt to let him know when Anna Grant’s wandering lamb was safely back in her care.
* * *
AFTER LEAVING THE downtown public safety building, Anna drove a route that led from Yancey’s foster home and eventually all the way out to Highway 97, the main north-south corridor through central Oregon. Turning her head constantly in search of one undersize boy, she kept her speed down enough to annoy drivers behind her, one of whom decided to crowd her bumper. She was oh-so-tempted to slam on her brakes, but she didn’t want the hassle of having to leave her car in an auto-body shop. And she’d have to deal with the police, who might not be feeling very fond of her right now.
Too bad. Somebody had to make them do their jobs.
Tension rising as the miles passed with no sight of Yancey, Anna went south on 97 and continued through La Pine. She’d reached Little River when her phone rang. As she pulled into a gas-station parking lot, she answered crisply, “Anna Grant.”
“Ms. Grant, this is Sergeant Shroutt. We’ve picked up the boy. He’s currently at Juvenile Hall.”
She sagged with the rush of relief. “Oh, thank goodness.”
“No, thank Officer Cherney,” the sergeant said drily. “Can we assume you’ll be picking up young Yancey and taking responsibility for him?”
“You may,” she told him. “And please do thank Officer Cherney.” She hesitated only briefly. “And thank you. He’s...a sad boy. I was worried about him.”
“I do understand. It’s our preference to help, you know.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
They left it at that. She put on her signal and waited while a semi lumbered onto the highway, wondering if Sergeant Shroutt would be any more cooperative the next time she came to him. In one way, it was a pity that Captain Sawyer wasn’t in charge of the patrol officers, as he might conceivably have turned out to be a useful ally. She’d be more convinced of that, though, if he had displayed even a tiny hint of real emotion. Plus, she’d been hit by sexual attraction, which he’d shown no sign of reciprocating. No, it was just as well that she wouldn’t have to deal with him often.
Making up her mind, she made a call rather than starting back toward Angel Butte.
“Carol? Anna Grant. Listen, I know you wanted a longer break before you took another kid, but is there any chance you’d house a boy for a day or two until I can find another place for him?”
Carol Vogt was, hands down, Anna’s favorite among the foster parents associated with AHYS. A widow whose own two boys were in their thirties, she worked magic on troubled teenagers.
“A day or two.” Carol snorted. “What you mean is, ‘Will you take him just long enough so you decide you didn’t really want that break anyway?’”
Anna grinned. “Guilty as charged. But I promise, I’ll move him if you ask me to. Yancey is only thirteen, and he’s being tormented by the older boys in the home I had him living in. Which was his second since he came into the system. He ran away today and the police just picked him up. I’ve got receiving homes, but...”
She didn’t have to finish. This was a kid who needed stability, not another way station.
A sigh gusted into her ear. “Fine,” Carol said. “But you owe me one.”
“I already owe you a few thousand,” Anna admitted. “Bless you. We’ll be an hour or two.”
“I’ll have his bedroom ready.”
Anna was smiling when she finally made the turn out onto the highway.
* * *
CALEB HOVERED AT the head of the stairs where he knew he couldn’t be seen. Voices drifted up from the kitchen.
“I’m not sure where he is.” That was Paula Hale, who with her husband ran this place. “Caleb’s been spending a lot of time with Diego. They’re probably over in the cabin Diego shares with another boy.”
“I’ll take that coffee, then. Thanks.” This time, Reid’s voice came to Caleb clearly. He must be facing the stairs. “Sugar?”
“You always did have a sweet tooth. And you can’t tell me you’ve forgotten where I keep the sugar bowl.”
Caleb’s brother gave a low chuckle. “I was being polite.”
“You weren’t polite when you lived here. Why start now?”
This time they both laughed.
Caleb felt weird, an unseen third presence. He knew Roger, Paula’s husband, was outside working on Cabin Five. This place was an old resort that must have been shut down, like, a century ago. Most of the boys were paired up in the small cabins. The Hales’ room was on the main floor in the lodge, and Caleb and another guy were in bedrooms upstairs. If there were any girls in residence, Caleb had been told, they always had the rooms upstairs in the lodge so they were near the Hales. Otherwise, those bedrooms were used for new boys, until they had “settled in.” That was how Paula put it. Caleb wasn’t sure how he would ever prove he had, or even if he wanted to. He didn’t like it here—but nothing on earth would make him go back to his father’s.
“You know he doesn’t have to be here.” Paula’s voice came especially clearly.
What did that mean?
Stiffening, Caleb strained to hear Reid’s answer. It was brief, an indistinguishable rumble.
What you need isn’t anything I have in me. Remembering the expressionless way his brother had said that, Caleb sneered. Was that what Reid was telling Paula?
He couldn’t catch the beginning of what Paula said in response, but the tail end made his heart thud. “...you could prove abuse if you wanted to.”
“You refusing to keep him here?” Reid asked more clearly.
“You know that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“He needs to know you want him.”
Caleb quit breathing through the long silence that followed. And then his brother’s voice was so soft, he came close to missing it.
“I do.” Pause. “And I don’t.”
A skim of ice hardened in Caleb’s chest. The I do part was a joke. The only honest part of that was I don’t.
Paula said something, and then Reid did, but their voices were fading. They must have left the kitchen for what Paula called the great room.
He needs to know you want him.
I don’t.
His brother had found him, rescued him, but then palmed him off on someone else because he couldn’t be bothered.
Caleb eased down the stairs, then out the kitchen door without even pausing to grab a parka.
* * *
“YOU DON’T?” PAULA SAID. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Reid made an impatient gesture. “Come on. You know what I mean. I’m not father material. I told Caleb I’m damaged, and it’s true.”
Paula didn’t take her gaze from his as she sat on one of the benches at the long tables where meals were served in the main room of the lodge.
Despite having stayed in touch and contributed financially, he hadn’t actually seen either of the Hales in something like ten years until the day he’d brought Caleb here. He had been shocked to see Paula’s long braid was turning gray. She’d always looked like an aging hippie to him, but that had been from the perspective of a boy. Now she really was aging. Roger’s dark hair and beard were shot with gray, too. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d imagined them, and this refuge they guarded, as eternally the same. Reid hated to think about the time when they couldn’t take in kids anymore.
“Damage heals,” Paula said calmly.
Straddling a bench across the table from her, he had the uneasy feeling she was seeing further below the surface than he wanted her to. He’d forgotten the way she could always do that.
“I think you’re underestimating yourself, Reid. You’ve changed your life for the sake of a boy you didn’t know a couple of months ago. What’s that but love?”
Love? He snorted. “I feel responsible.” So responsible, he’d started job hunting in central Oregon the minute he’d brought Caleb here. Left a job that satisfied him for one he wasn’t so sure he was going to like. Yeah, he’d gone out on a limb for this brother, but he’d rather call it guilt than love.
“Responsible? Why?”
He eyed her smile warily. “He’s my brother.”
“You’d never met him. It’s not as if you grew up with him.”
“I swore I’d know if that son of a bitch ever had another kid. Instead, I let it go. Caleb has gone through hell because I shut my eyes.”
“No,” she said, correcting him, “he’s gone through hell because your father is abusive. You have no responsibility for your father’s sins.”
He stared at her, baffled and frustrated by her refusal to understand what he was saying. “So I should have shrugged and gone on with my life?”
“Neither of us could have done that.”
“Then your point is?”
“Is this about Caleb at all, or are you trying to save yourself?”
Not reacting took an effort of will. “What kind of psychobabble is that?” he scoffed.
“Same kind I’ve always thrown at you.”
Reid gave a reluctant chuckle.
“Do you see yourself in Caleb?”
“Save the crap, Paula. I’m not a kid anymore.”
“You’ll always be one of my kids.” Her voice had descended a register, letting him hear the tenderness, tying and untying a knot in his chest.
Reid cleared his throat. It didn’t do anything for the lump centered beneath his breastbone. “I’m sorry I haven’t been back to visit in so long.”
“Caleb made you revisit your past.”
Oh, crap. Here we go again. “I’m giving him the same chance I had, that’s all.”
“You’re doing more than that, or you wouldn’t have moved to Angel Butte,” she pointed out. “You’re trying to be family, Reid.” She reached across the table and laid her hand over his. “He needs you and you need him.”
He bent his head and looked at her hand, which was getting knobby with the beginnings of arthritis. So much smaller than his hand. Still so unfailingly...loving.
Shit. Did that mean he knew what the word meant after all? He’d have told anyone who asked that all he felt for Paula and Roger was gratitude and admiration, but...now he wasn’t sure that was true. He’d just as soon the possibility hadn’t occurred to him. Love had never been a safe emotion for him.
“Maybe so,” he said, hearing his own gruffness. “And I’d better go hunt him down before he decides I’m not here to see him at all.”
“Yes, you should.” She let him come around the table to her and lean over to kiss her cheek, but she grabbed his hand before he could turn away and looked at him with those penetrating eyes. “You’re a good man, Reid Sawyer. Trust yourself.”
He felt about seventeen again, as if his feet were still too big, and his cheeks turned red at any compliment. “I may be a decent man,” he said finally. “But good? No. You’re a good woman, Paula Hale. I don’t measure up.”
He tore himself away then. Her voice followed him. “You will, Reid. I have enough faith for both of us.”
Faith. Out of her hearing, he grunted. There was a word more foreign to him than love.
So, okay, she could be right that on some subconscious level he was seeing himself in this younger brother, who looked so much like him. Why else the cauldron of emotions he’d been feeling, the ingredients of which he didn’t even want to identify? That kind of transference was probably inevitable. He’d needed to be saved; now it was his turn to do the saving. Paying it forward was what people called it these days. That’s all I’m doing.
He didn’t think about why he was looking forward to seeing Caleb. Or why he was so disappointed when, twenty minutes later, he conceded defeat.
The disappearing act was so good, it was clear his brother didn’t want to see him. Reid told himself that was okay. The two of them hardly knew each other. When Reid had first come here, he’d been like a feral animal in a trap, suspicious of anything that looked like affection. He didn’t know why he’d expected different of Caleb.
The Hales had a gift for healing wounded, fearful young men. Paula was wrong; Caleb didn’t need his brother, the stranger.
Which raised the question, why had he turned his own life upside down to be nearby when he’d already fulfilled his responsibility? He could have stayed in touch long-distance well enough.
He laughed, short and harsh, as he climbed into his Ford Expedition. Taking a last look at the ramshackle lodge that anchored a line of even more run-down cabins strung along the bank of Bear Creek, he breathed in the distinctive odor of ponderosa-pine forest, sharp despite the near-freezing temperature. Trust Paula to get him analyzing his choices. One of her more irritating characteristics.
But he was a big boy now, capable of resisting. A big boy who, for whatever idiotic reason, had taken on a new job with more scope than he’d anticipated. What he needed to do was concentrate on that job, not hanker for some elusive connection he’d lived his whole damn life without.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_0c711864-dce1-5ad8-bb4f-8e87b769ba6c)
“IT’S ARSON,” REID said flatly. He crouched and stared closely at the distinctive pattern of charring that climbed the interior wood-paneled wall of the cabin. He’d been lucky to find it, given the extent of the damage. “I’m no fire marshal,” he said, rising to his feet, “but I don’t have to be.”
Beside him, Roger Hale grunted. “I thought I smelled gasoline.”
“Hard to miss,” Reid agreed.
He hadn’t expected to hear from either of the Hales so soon after his Wednesday visit. On this fine Sunday morning, he’d been sprawled in bed trying to decide whether he could roll over and get some more sleep or was already too wide-awake when his phone had rung. Given his job, he kept the damn thing close, despite how often he cursed its existence. Hearing what Roger had to say had driven away any desire on his part to be lazy.
When he arrived half an hour ago, a cluster of boys had hovered on the front porch of the lodge. Caleb wasn’t among them.
Walking to greet Reid, Roger had seen where he was looking. “Probably his turn in the shower. We were all pretty filthy by the time we got the fire out.”
Paula had been the one to spot it, according to Roger. She’d gotten up to use the john and seen a strange orange glow out the small window. Roger had yanked on clothes and run outside to find the fire climbing the back wall of the last cabin in the row. Even as he’d hooked up hoses, he had yelled to awaken the boys.
“This wasn’t one of the occupied cabins,” Reid said, turning slowly to examine the interior. Frigid blue sky showed through a gaping hole in the roof. There hadn’t been much furniture in the cabin. No mattress—or at least no springs—but the wooden bed frame was so much half-burned firewood now. On instinct, he started picking through the debris.
“No, we haven’t put anyone in here in...oh, five or six years,” Roger replied. “I’d been thinking I either needed to raze it or do some serious work. But you know we never fill all the cabins.” His expression was troubled. “You’re saying our firebug didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
Yet. Reid didn’t like thinking that, but had to.
“No, this was done either for fun or to get some attention.”
He debated whether to say more, but suspected he didn’t have to. Roger was a smart, well-read man. He’d already been thinking hard, or he wouldn’t have summoned Reid to take a look.
Arson wasn’t like shoplifting or half a dozen other crimes Reid could think of, tried by a kid once out of curiosity or on a dare, then forgotten in a generally well-lived life. Famously, arson was one of the classic precursors of a serial killer. A budding pyromaniac, who set fires for the thrill, was bound to escalate in a different way.
This fire had been relatively harmless. The cabin hadn’t been close to any of the others, and given that the last snowfall had melted only a few days ago, sparks had been unlikely to find dry fuel in the surrounding woods.
Reid found what he’d sought and wordlessly held out what was left of the side rail of a bed for Roger to see. One end was seared; the other was freshly splintered. As he’d suspected, the bed had been broken up to serve as firewood that would give the blaze what it needed to grow until it had the size and heat to bite into the solid log walls.
Roger shook his head. “We’ve had our share of troubles, but never a kid who wanted to burn up the world.”
“There’s a first for everything.”
“We can’t be sure it’s one of the boys.”
Reid kept his mouth shut.
“Goddamn.” Roger vented by kicking at a still-steaming pile of half-burned wood. One piece fell away, revealing an orange spark beneath. Part of the headboard, Reid diagnosed, as he stamped out the ember beneath his booted foot. “Shit,” Roger growled, “we’d better rake through this and be sure there’s nothing that can start it up again.”
“Yeah, you got lucky none of the neighbors spotted the glow and called the fire department.”
Everybody around here had acreage, so there were no close neighbors. This fire must have leaped pretty high into the sky before they began fighting it, though. The last thing the Hales needed was a fire marshal out here asking questions. He or she wouldn’t be able to help but notice that the Hales had too many kids. Even if Paula and Roger succeeded in hiding some of them, it would take barely a casual glance to see that a number of the cabins were occupied. With the addition of Caleb, there were currently ten boys in residence in the old resort, which was actually fewer than Reid knew they sometimes had.
Roger paused in the act of kicking through the charred debris. “Could that have been the point?”
“To rat you out?” Nice thought. “Only if you’ve got a kid who doesn’t want to be here.”
“Who says it has to be one of the boys? The middle of the night, anyone could have brought a can of gasoline and a matchbook. With this cabin down at the end, he’d have been unlikely to be heard.”
“It’s a possibility.” Reid wasn’t sure it was one he liked any better than the idea that one of the boys here was a newbie arsonist.
Roger gusted out a sigh. “We’ll talk to all of them. Along with Caleb, we’ve got two other relatively recent arrivals.”
Something in Roger’s tone caught Reid’s attention. He turned slowly to meet his shrewd gaze. Damn. Of course that question had to be asked.
“Caleb has no history of anything like this.” His jaw set. He made the reluctant addition, “That I know of.”
Roger waved his hand in what Reid knew was a conciliating gesture. “Didn’t think so, but he’s the newest.”
“And you’ve never had a fire before.”
“No. We’ve never had a fire before,” Roger echoed. “Guess it had to happen sooner or later.”
The resigned, even philosophical conclusion wrung a reluctant laugh from Reid.
They both heard the sound of approaching voices. End of discussion. Damn, he didn’t like to think what was to come. Once the Hales started separating boys and probing, the atmosphere would be poisoned by suspicion. How could it help but be?
He wouldn’t be the only one looking at every one of these boys differently from here on out—including the brother he didn’t know all that well.
Frowning at that blackened wall, he shook his head. He almost hoped the fire had been set for fun. Because if it actually had been intended to draw attention to the existence of this illicit shelter, it had failed in its purpose. Whoever he was, the arsonist would not be happy the fire had been put out quietly, causing only the slightest stir and some undirected finger-pointing.
The back of Reid’s neck prickled. Fun was a misleading word to start with. Fire suggested rage. Would the next blaze be bigger, causing more damage? Or would whoever set it try something completely different?
* * *
PUSHING HER CART down the aisle at Safeway, Anna caught a troubling whiff of smoke. Not tobacco—burning wood. Although there might be a hint of something else. Frowning, she came to a stop in front of the displays of boxed pastas and turned to look around her.
A man, also pushing a half-full cart, was directly behind her. Captain Reid Sawyer, no less, who had been featured on the front page of this morning’s Angel Butte Reporter. In well-worn jeans, boots, a heavy flannel shirt and down vest, he was dressed a whole lot more casually than he had been the last time she saw him.
He gave her a slightly crooked smile. “I thought I recognized that hair.”
“Hair?” Her hand rose to touch her head. Yes, it was still there. Feeling foolish, she snatched her hand back and wrapped it safely around the handle of the cart. “It’s brown,” she said repressively. “How could you recognize my hair?”
“It’s not brown.” He sounded amused. “It’s dozens of colors. I’ll bet you were a towhead when you were a kid, weren’t you?”
She and her sister both had been. She shied away from a memory that was borrowed from a snapshot rather than real, of two girls standing stiffly, side by side, staring at the camera. She thought it was one of the times when they’d been delivered to a new home.
“Once upon a time.” The smell was stronger, if anything. “Do you smell smoke?”
Strangely, he bent his head to sniff at himself. “Ah, that would be me. I’m sorry. I should have gone home to shower. I didn’t realize I’d soaked it up.”
She finally identified that illusory other component of the smell. “Gasoline.”
His eyes sharp on her face, he said, “Yeah. You’ve got a good nose.”
“What were you doing, cheating when you lit the briquettes?”
His chuckle was the first she’d seen echoed in his eyes. “That sounds suicidal.”
“I had a—” She stopped, said more stiffly, “I knew someone once who used so much lighter fluid that there’d be a huge burst of flame when he tossed on a match.”
“Also suicidal.” His gaze was thoughtful now, as though he wondered what she hadn’t wanted to say. “In my case, I was checking on a fire a friend had to put out on his property. He wanted to know what I thought.”
“You mean, whether it had been set on purpose?”
He dipped his head.
“And it was.”
“Thus the gasoline,” he agreed.
“Did you call the fire department?”
“No, it wasn’t that significant. More of an annoyance. But since I had to go right by the store on my way home, I decided to stock up for the week.”
“Oh. Me, too.” Duh. “Well, um, I’d better—”
“I hear Yancey was found alive and well.”
“Yes.” Anna was impressed that he’d remembered the name. The help he’d offered her had to have been a trivial part of his week. “He hadn’t gotten as far as the highway yet.”
“So Sergeant Shroutt told me. You return him to his foster home?”
“I found him a new one,” she corrected. “For the time being, he’ll be the only child in the home, which I think he needs. If I have to put anyone else in it, I’ll send, I don’t know, a ten-year-old girl.”
“A child who might look up to him.” He sounded approving.
“Yes.” Anna didn’t like feeling as if she had to defend herself, but she hadn’t liked his expression Wednesday when she’d told him she had been trying to find Yancey a better placement. Or, more accurate, she hadn’t liked her own sense of having failed one of the children for whom she was responsible. “This particular foster parent is one of my best. The brother and sister she had were returned to their parents, and she’d asked for a break. I was hoping Yancey could hold out until she was ready for another child. My mistake was not telling him what I planned.”
Something had changed on his face. “Returned to their parents,” he repeated in an unreadable tone. “That must be hard on a foster parent.”
“It depends. Sometimes we all have doubts about whether the family can be stable, but in this case, Carol had developed a close relationship with the mother in particular. She thought it was time. I know she plans to stay in touch. And of course the kids’ caseworker will keep an eye on the situation.”
He nodded. “Does this Carol keep kids long-term?”
“Usually not.” She hesitated. “Yancey has been freed by the court for adoption, but given his age it’s unlikely there’ll be any takers. I hate to have her tied up for that many years, but...” She sighed. “I think she’ll love Yancey, and he’ll love her. So...I hope she’s able to keep him.”
Something clanged into her cart and she turned quickly.
“I’m so sorry!” The woman had clearly been trying to squeeze her own, heavily laden cart past. “I’m a lousy driver.”
Anna smiled. “And I’m blocking the road.” She pushed hers out of the way, then glanced back at Reid Sawyer. “I’d better get on with my shopping now that I know the store isn’t going to burn down.”
“I should, too, before I scare anyone else.” His gaze rested on her face with a weight she’d never felt before. “Any chance you’d like to have a cup of coffee when you’re done?”
A curl of warmth low in her abdomen battled with the bump of alarm in her chest. She didn’t like the way he seemed to hear more than she meant to say, but... Oh, lord, if he was attracted to her, too...
Could he be? He was law enforcement calendar-cover-model material, while she knew perfectly well she was ordinary personified.
One eyebrow rose. “I’ll accept a polite no. You don’t have to agonize.”
“No.” Oh, for heaven’s sake—now her cheeks were heating. “I mean, yes. I was, um, just juggling my schedule in my head. Coffee would be nice. If you don’t mind waiting until I finish,” she added hastily.
His eyes had warmed. “I have a ways to go myself. In fact, I was going to grab some rotini as soon as you moved.”
The rotini she was blocking. No wonder he’d lingered to make conversation.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted and pushed her cart forward. Then remembering she needed pasta, too, she turned back to grab lasagna noodles at the same time he was reaching past her. They bumped. He dropped the box he’d been taking from the shelf, and she apologized several more times and felt like a klutz and a social disaster by the time she wheeled around the end of the aisle and out of sight of the single sexiest man she’d ever met.
* * *
ANNA WAS JUST getting into line when Reid accepted his receipt and decided to put his groceries in the back of his Expedition so he’d be free to help her stow hers.
The store was a busy place today, and he intercepted several interested glances in the parking lot. He managed civil nods in response. Much as he hated the idea, he’d had to cooperate when the newspaper decided they wanted to run a piece on him. He wasn’t just a cop anymore; he was a public official, symbolizing this small city’s police department. Unfortunately, there’d been more interest in him than there likely would have been if his predecessor had accepted a job somewhere else and faded away. No such luck for Reid. Colin McAllister had run a very public, highly scrutinized campaign right here in this county and unseated an incumbent sheriff that the Hales, at least, had described as lazy and self-satisfied. The reforms McAllister was instigating in the sheriff’s department were drawing a lot of press, too. It wasn’t surprising that people were curious about the man who had replaced him in his old job.
Reid hoped he’d hid how very uncomfortable he was about that kind of scrutiny. He’d done his damnedest to deflect personal questions and talk instead about what he saw as his professional role. One thing he couldn’t do was admit he’d ever lived in Angel Butte. Instead he’d implied he had vacationed here in the past, liked the area, jumped when he saw the job opening. No, he wasn’t a fisherman or hunter and he’d never alpine skiied, but he did cross-country ski, hike and kayak. Yes, he was looking forward to the recreational opportunities.
“Clean air is good, too,” he’d said, and the quote appeared in the paper. As had a photo of him that he’d scrutinized for several minutes this morning, the newspaper spread open on his table. Even though he saw that face in the mirror every morning when he shaved, he hardly recognized himself in print. It was a peculiar experience.
He had very few pictures of himself. When he had run away from home, it hadn’t occurred to him to take anything like baby pictures along. He’d brought a couple pictures of his mother, that was all—ones he’d secreted away from his father. As for the rest of the family photos, he had no idea whether his father would have kept them in a box in the closet or burned them. Maybe he’d ask Caleb sometime. Reid knew the Hales had taken pictures, but not a lot. He’d never had reason to go to a professional photographer. The few times he’d appeared in the newspaper, he’d been caught as part of a scene, or, a couple of times, when he was giving a statement or was arriving at or leaving court. The focus hadn’t been so intensely on him.
Now he put the last grocery bag in the rear cargo area and slammed the door. He was glad to see Anna leaving the store just then and strode to meet her.
“Oh!” She looked shy. “I wondered how to find you.”
“I got done first.”
She stopped in front of a bright blue Toyota RAV4, one he thought was several years old but still in good condition, and unlocked the rear hatch. His hands were large enough to grab the handles of several bags at once, and he made short work of unloading.
“Why don’t you come with me?” he suggested. “I can bring you back to your car later.”
“There’s a Starbucks inside the store.”
He’d noticed it. The tiny tables in the middle of traffic weren’t what he had in mind.
“There has to be someplace we won’t be on display.”
She eyed him curiously. “I saw you in the paper this morning.”
“You and every other person shopping today.” He knew he sounded grumpy. He had an odd moment of wondering whether her interest in that article had been more than casual and whether her eyes had lingered on the photo.
With a smirk, she inclined her head to draw his attention to two women passing, both of whom were staring.
He was getting good at those polite nods.
“Like I said, I’d enjoy a cup of coffee a lot more if people weren’t gaping at me.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Intrigued, he said, “What?”
“I just...” Her cheeks were a little pink. She made a face. “I was going to say, what’s to stop me gaping at you?”
He grinned. “Gape to your heart’s content.”
Yeah, he liked this lighthearted exchange. No ghosts here. He wasn’t sure if she was flirting with him or not, but she had said yes to coffee, and that meant something. He was getting more interested by the minute in finding out what she wore beneath today’s close-fitting jeans, knee-high boots and thigh-length sweater over a turtleneck. Slightly more revealing than her utilitarian work getup—he could at least tell she had fabulous legs—but not much. Of course, given the temperature outside, everyone was dressed in bulky layers.
Seeing her looking more stylish today, though, he was close to ruling out the serviceable white undergarments. The field was now open. Her personality had enough contradictions, he had no idea. Fortunately, he liked mysteries.
Besides, he could strip off panties of any color or material just as quickly.
“Why don’t I drive?” she suggested. “I gather you haven’t been in town very long. Do you know where to go?”
“I’d stop at the first place that said coffee,” he admitted, not telling her he’d spent his first day in town doing nothing but driving around. He was like a cat, needing to know his territory and where the outermost edges of it were.
Angel Butte had changed one hell of a lot since he had left after turning eighteen, and nearly as much since his last visit when he was twenty-four or -five. Then, it had still been a small town. The mall, Walmart, Staples and the rest weren’t here. An annexation had extended the city limits to take in a whole lot of new development, as well as empty country he had no doubt would be developed in the next ten years. Many of the new homes weren’t for full-time residents, which made Angel Butte different from anyplace else he’d ever lived. He imagined it as something of a ghost town during the in-between seasons: after the ski lifts shut down, but before hiking trails were open and fishing licenses issued, and then again in the fall when the reverse happened.
Reid suspected Anna was challenging him by offering to drive. Cops were notorious control freaks who didn’t like being driven by someone else. The generalization applied to him, all right. Still, he figured he was safe with her behind the wheel given what a short distance they had to travel.
“Sure,” he said, hiding his smile at her surprise.
Turned out she wasn’t a bad driver at all. He only compressed the floorboards with his right foot a couple of times and grabbed for the armrest once. She laughed at him that time.
They ended up at a place called The Butte, only a couple blocks from the public safety building that housed the police station, but on a side street. He’d seen it, but not yet been in. From the length of the line inside, business was bustling.
“Best coffee in town,” she told him as they waited. He listened to conversations around them and decided most of the people were locals rather than tourists.
She looked at him askance when he ordered an Americano and then narrowed her eyes and said, “Not a word,” before asking for a gingerbread latte.
“A froufrou drink,” he murmured in her ear.
She accepted it from the teenager behind the counter and breathed in happily. “Dessert and caffeine all in one. I love gingerbread.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever had any,” he remarked as they wended between tables to an open booth on the side.
“Never eaten gingerbread? Not even a gingerbread man?”
Her outrage made him smile. “I don’t think so.”
Even though he would have remained more anonymous if he had sat with his back to the door, he maneuvered her so he could sit facing the room. He liked knowing what was behind him.
At first they chatted about Angel Butte, edging gradually to the kind of questions people asked when they wanted to know each other: What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? Where did you grow up? How’d you end up here?
They both admitted to being readers, enjoying some movies. Both were runners, although she was taking a step-aerobics class right now instead. He worked out at a gym, too, and played basketball and racquetball.
“I’ve already played in a few pickup games at the Y,” he said, smiling slyly. “Beat the mayor himself at racquetball.”
“Noah Chandler?” She looked intrigued before grinning at him. “Well, you ought to be able to. He’s got to be too muscle-bound to be fast.”
“I wouldn’t say that. It was a hard-fought game.”
He admitted to having grown up in Spokane, then repeated the lies he’d told the reporter about having vacationed in central Oregon.
“I’ve lived all over Oregon,” she said, her lashes veiling her eyes and making him wonder what she didn’t want him to see. “I finally graduated from high school in Bend.”
Reid nodded; Bend was the largest city in central Oregon and only about a forty-five-minute drive from Angel Butte.
“Parents still in the area?” he asked casually.
He’d have sworn the gray of her eyes darkened, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. Oh, damn, he thought—he’d been right about the ghosts.
“I grew up in foster homes,” she said after a minute, so casually he realized she must say this often. Which made sense. Telling her story would be a good way to connect with the kids on the job. “My parents split up when I was three or four, I think. I never saw my father again, and I barely remember my mother. She couldn’t cope on her own.”
“Was she abusive?” A familiar ball of anger and something else formed in his chest. He was disturbed at how clearly he could see that little girl, skin and bones, pale hair and the eyes that were still huge and haunting.
But she shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Just...negligent.”
He curled his hand around his coffee to keep from reaching for her. “Did you miss her?”
Tiny crinkles formed on her forehead as she seemed to ponder. “I suppose I might have. I don’t remember.”
“You’ve never looked for her? Or your father?”
“No.” That lusciously sexy voice had gone hard. “I have no interest in them.”
“I suppose this answers the question of how you chose your profession,” he said thoughtfully.
“I consider it a vocation.”
No nine-to-five for her. Apparently the two of them had something in common. Unlike most cops, he’d hungered for the domestic-abuse calls. He’d never dreamed about working Homicide; he wanted to bring down the assholes like his father.
Of course, he’d found himself arresting not only men but women, too. Not quite as many, but plenty of them. Mostly for child abuse, but occasionally they were the aggressors against the men in their lives, too.
“I’ve...always felt the same about my own job,” he said slowly, zinged by the sense of shock and, yeah, panic that came when he let himself wonder what in hell he had thought he was doing here in Angel Butte. The Family Violence Unit had been his goal from the minute he joined the Orange County P.D. in Southern California. It had been the next thing to a religious vocation for him, although he’d never used that word before. Now he was an administrator who would rarely deal directly with people in crisis. Supervising major investigations, sure, but also juggling the demands of different departments for paper clips, printer ink cartridges, air filters for the police cars and more clerical help.
God help him.
“What about your parents?” Anna asked softly, dragging him back to the present.
He sat very still, doing his best to give away nothing. “My mother died when I was ten. My father...is also a cop. Spokane P.D.”
“You took after him.”
“No.” There was more bite in the one word than he’d meant to put there. Her eyes widened. “I consider myself his antithesis,” Reid said calmly. “He’s a son of a bitch.”
“I...see.”
He was afraid she did. Those extraordinary eyes gazed at him as if he were a crystal ball and the mist within was clearing to reveal what she wanted to know. The sensation made his skin crawl.
Why had he started this, against his original instinct? It wasn’t only her eyes that were spooky; it was her. A casual sexual relationship wasn’t going to be possible with this woman.
He made a production out of draining the last of his coffee and then glanced at his watch. “We probably shouldn’t linger too long. Our frozen food will melt.”
She didn’t call him on the absurdity of that, when the outside temp might conceivably have reached a not-so-balmy forty degrees Fahrenheit. Instead, she took a long drink of her latte and said politely, “You’re right. I’m ready if you are.”
On the drive back to the Safeway parking lot, he asked how long she’d lived in Angel Butte. Seven years. Although she enjoyed cross-country skiing, she’d never taken up alpine. She hadn’t learned as a child and couldn’t afford the sport now even if she’d wanted to try it. He felt guilty for asking, when she had already told him she’d grown up in foster homes. Of course she hadn’t had the opportunity.
When she came to a stop right behind his SUV and said “Thank you for the coffee” in a tone that told him she knew his interest had cooled, Reid felt...regret. He didn’t like knowing he’d probably hurt her feelings.
Be smart.
“My pleasure,” he said, opening his door. “Glad I ran into you.”
She said something as meaningless. He nodded, shut the door and dug his keys out of his pocket as he walked around the driver side of the Expedition. By the time he got in and glanced in the rearview mirror, she was gone.
Out of sight, out of mind, he told himself, but his chest constricted uncomfortably.
All the more reason to stay clear of her. Thinking hard these past nights since his Wednesday visit to the shelter, he’d recognized that Paula might be right. A part of him did want to love this newfound brother and be loved in return. If so, it was a major step for him. The kind of intimacy it took to really love a woman... No. He did know his own boundaries. Anna Grant was outside them.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_53152cb7-8752-56f1-b33c-fcfdd1dd3254)
CALEB LEAPED UP from the bench and stared at Paula in outrage. “You think I set the fire.”
“No.” Her gaze was kind, but when she said, “Sit down,” he didn’t mistake her firmness. He’d already figured out that, despite first impressions, Paula was the hard-ass, Roger the easy touch of the two.
“Then why are you asking me—”
“All we’re trying to do is determine whether any of you saw anything. If possible, we’d like to be sure none of you boys set the fire.”
“Why would we?”
She gave him a little lecture about how arson was a form of acting out and how some of the boys who came here were troubled. Good word—troubled. He hadn’t yet asked anyone else why they were here, but he knew it had to be shit as bad as he’d experienced. And, like had happened with him, the police and courts had screwed them over, too. That was what this place was—a last resort.
Hey, pun.
Caleb repeated that he’d been asleep until he heard Roger bellowing for help. He’d looked out his window but hadn’t seen anything—his window faced the wrong way—but then he’d stuck his head out into the hall to find out what was going on.
“I heard you yelling there was a fire, to hurry and get dressed, so I hammered on TJ’s door.” TJ was the other guy who had a room upstairs at the lodge. Caleb didn’t really like TJ, who had a major chip on his shoulder and an explosive temper. “He yelled, ‘What?’ You know, like he was pissed I’d woken him up.”
Paula nodded. TJ was always pissed. It was March now, and Caleb had been here since right after Christmas. TJ had already been here a couple of months then. He was probably stuck living in the lodge because no one wanted to share a cabin with him. Caleb had a really bad feeling they’d end up paired whether he liked it or not.
“Was he dressed when he came out?” she asked.
Caleb cast his mind back. “No, he was buck naked. His hair was flat on one side and sticking up on the other. I told him there was a fire and Roger needed help putting it out. He sort of shrugged and went back into his room.” TJ had eventually showed up to help haul buckets of water from the creek.
“You were a big help fighting the fire,” Paula said. “Thank you.”
“You weren’t using that cabin anyway, right?”
She gave him sort of a funny look. “No, but the flames could have spread. And what if the same somebody decides to set another fire?”
“How do you know it wasn’t, like, bad wiring or something?” he asked, feeling awkward but not liking what she was suggesting. What if whoever it was set the lodge on fire next time?
“Didn’t you smell the gasoline?”
He frowned, remembering. “I guess. I thought it was propane. I mean, there’s a tank outside the lodge.”
“But not the cabins.”
He nodded after a minute.
“And you know your brother was here this morning to take a look. He showed Roger where the fire started. It wasn’t near an electrical outlet or in the kitchen area where there were any appliances.”
Your brother. He hadn’t gotten used to those words. They made him feel...twitchy. As if he couldn’t sit still.
“I know you boys are talking about it.” Paula sounded weary. “I wouldn’t normally encourage any of you to rat on each other, but this is serious. Even scary. Please come to Roger or me—or Reid,” she added, “if you hear anything that makes you uneasy.”
That was one of the reasons he wasn’t settling in here. It was knowing the only reason they’d taken him was Reid. That Reid was like their real son, and Caleb was only a favor they were doing for him.
He nodded, even though he didn’t know if he was really agreeing to anything, and asked, “Can I go?”
“Yes. Thank you, Caleb. If you see Isaac, will you send him in?”
“Um...sure.”
He went outside to look for Diego, who’d been grilled right before Caleb. Fun Sunday—taking turns facing an inquisition. And after they’d all busted their asses helping to put out the fire last night.
He found Diego splitting wood, watched by two of the other guys, Damon and Isaac. They must have been talking, because they all turned and looked at him.
“Paula wants you,” Caleb said to Isaac, a lanky, beak-nosed seventeen-year-old. He was some kind of math genius who’d helped Caleb with his geometry the other day.
Isaac nodded and left. He never had much to say. He’d probably been doing nothing but listening to what the other two were saying.
Diego lifted the ax and swung. Thud. A chunk of wood split and fell from the big round of fir they used as a base.
Damon glanced over his shoulder, as if to make sure Isaac was really out of earshot. “Palmer doesn’t think Isaac was in his cabin when Roger woke everyone up,” he said.
“What?” Diego stared at him, the ax dangling from his hand. “How would Palmer know? He’s, like, two cabins away.”
“That’s what he says. Only Apollo came out.”
“Did anyone ask Apollo?”
Damon sneered. “Like he’d say. They’re tight.”
“Tight enough to lie about something like that?” Caleb asked, almost reluctantly.
“Shit, yeah!”
“I don’t know.” Diego sounded doubtful.
“What?” Damon stepped forward, his stance aggressive. “You’re saying Palmer’s lying?”
“I’m saying maybe Isaac was sound asleep and slower to get up. He’s been here, like, three years. If he wanted to set fires, why wouldn’t he have done it before?”
“Who says he hasn’t? None of the rest of us have been here that long.”
Caleb shook his head. “This is stupid. We don’t know anything. We shouldn’t be making accusations because somebody said somebody else said.”
Damon swung an angry stare at Caleb. “Who are you calling stupid?”
Caleb balanced on his feet in case this asshole decided to make it physical. “Nobody. I’m saying we should stick together, not whisper about each other.”
“You would say that.”
Caleb was getting pissed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re new here. You could have gone out easy. Come back in just as easy.”
“I don’t set fires,” he said flatly, when what he wanted to do was plant his fist in the guy’s mouth.
“Yeah? We don’t know you.”
“You mean, you don’t know shit,” Caleb shot back.
Damon launched himself. A moment later, they were rolling on the ground and Caleb had the satisfaction of feeling his knuckles connecting with Damon’s nose.
* * *
CALEB’S SPLIT LIP had crusted over. The black eye had faded to mauve and puce, but was still visible. Reid assessed the range of colors. The fight must have taken place in the neighborhood of three days ago. Today was Wednesday, so the injury had likely happened Sunday after the fire. When suspicion had begun to gather.
“What?” Caleb snarled. “I suppose you’re here to give me some big lecture about being a good boy and not fighting while your best buds the Hales are being generous enough to give me a home.”
They were in the front room of the lodge, temporarily alone. Determined to hide the tension his brother had awakened with his obvious hostility, Reid leaned back where he sat on the sagging sofa and clasped his hands behind his head. “I didn’t know you’d been in a fight until I saw your face,” he said mildly. “I came to see you.”
“Oh, right. Like they didn’t call you the minute it happened.”
Reid shook his head, his experienced eye dating the progression of the bruises. “Has to have been a few days.”
Caleb stared stubbornly at him.
Reid sighed. “This is not a school. They don’t call me every time you get in trouble.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Your privilege.” He raised his eyebrows. “Do you want to tell me?”
It was disconcerting seeing the sullenness gathered on a face that looked so much like his own. Caleb must be giving the Hales flashbacks. “What if I say no?” his brother challenged him.
“That’s your privilege, too.”
They sat in silence for what had to be a minute. Clattering came from the kitchen, but nobody appeared. It wasn’t Paula; Reid knew she’d driven up to Bend to load up on basics at Costco.
Caleb glanced toward the kitchen, but the two of them were far enough away to go unheard.
“There’s been a lot of shit talked since the fire,” he mumbled. “This one guy said I’m the newest, so it must be me who set it.” He shrugged. “I told him I didn’t, and to shut up.”
Reid’s mouth quirked. “He didn’t like that, I gather.”
“He’ll know better than to go for me next time. I broke his nose.”
God. How was he supposed to handle this? A fatherly lecture wouldn’t go over well, assuming he knew how to give one. All their father would have wanted to know was why Caleb had let a fist get through his defenses.
I’m not his father. I’m his brother.
Yeah, no on-the-job experience there, either. The feeling of helplessness didn’t sit well with Reid.
“So you know how to fight” was the best he could come up with.
Caleb bent his head so Reid couldn’t see his face. “I guess.”
“You miss being on sports teams?”
Caleb shrugged.
This was going nowhere. Reid decided to let it drop and get to what he’d come out here for. Besides visiting his brother, making sure he was okay.
“Dad called.”
“What?” The boy’s head snapped up. “You mean, that stuff about him thinking you were dead was bullshit?”
“He never thought that,” Reid said flatly. “He just didn’t want to give you any ideas.”
Caleb shook his head as if dazed. “Wait. He knows where you are?”
“After I turned eighteen and started college, my guess is he’s always tracked me. I thought about changing my name, but I never did. I figured, what could he do to me?” Reid’s turn to shrug. He didn’t like saying this, but had to. “He asked if I had you.”
Fear darkened Caleb’s eyes. “What did you say?”
“No, of course.” That wasn’t all he’d said. He’d also said mockingly, So you lost another son. Guess you didn’t learn anything the first time around.
It might have been smarter to ask who the hell Caleb was. He doubted his father would have bought the pretense, though. If he’d kept checking on Reid over the years, Dean Sawyer would know his oldest son was a cop. They were a paranoid bunch, and his father was more paranoid than most, as well as arrogant. He was bound to assume Reid had remained wary enough to keep checking up on him.
Caleb jumped to his feet, his face pinched with fear. “What if he comes here looking for me?”
Reid let his hands fall to his sides. “What if he does? Not many people know what the Hales’ place is. It’s way out of town. How could he possibly find you here?”
“I don’t know, but— Jesus.”
Reid straightened. “It does mean you need to stick close to home. Don’t go into town for now. If a car pulls into the driveway, stay out of sight. If Dad comes down to Oregon to look around, he’ll find out I live alone. The job was a promotion for me. There’s no reason for him to question why I moved here. I haven’t told anyone about you or my connection to the shelter.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about! He won’t let me go.”
Reid added steel to his voice. “You’re already gone. You told me that yourself. Remember?”
“If he shows up, some of the guys would tell him in a second I’m here!” Caleb’s panic was unreasoning. He backed away and almost stumbled over a side table.
“And why is that?” Reid asked.
His brother’s face twisted into an ugly expression and he let loose an expletive. “Has to be my fault, right?”
Reid rose to his feet. “I didn’t say—”
“Yeah, well, you’ve warned me.” His gaze raked Reid. “Nothing like having a brother who’ll nobly risk everything for my sake.”
The churning inside felt like heartburn or something worse. Reid held Caleb’s gaze. “You want to come home with me right now? Take Daddy on? Is that it?”
“No!” the boy shouted. “I don’t need you, okay? Thank you for coming. Goodbye.”
The front door of the lodge slammed behind him. Reid was left standing alone, baffled, frustrated, angry...and hurt.
* * *
ANNA DIDN’T REMEMBER ever setting eyes on Reid Sawyer’s predecessor in real life. On television when he was campaigning, but that was different.
So she couldn’t believe it when Reid appeared at the back of the room when she was giving a talk at the library Wednesday night. “The Joys and Frustrations of Providing Foster Care: An Honest Q & A,” the flyer had said. She’d been pleasantly surprised to have an audience of twelve people. Who knew, she might get a new foster home out of this group.
She’d been rolling along, being truthful but upbeat, even eliciting some laughs, when a flicker of movement drew her gaze to the man who’d paused in the open doorway leading to the lobby. It had been only a few days since he’d stung her by making it plain he wouldn’t be calling. What were the odds they’d happen to run into each other three times in one week?
Hair tousled and wearing jeans and an unzipped parka with gloves sticking out of one pocket, he might have gone unrecognized by her audience if she hadn’t felt such a flare of...something. Anger, she told herself, and knew better.
With malice aforethought, she said in a ringing voice, “Captain Sawyer. How good of you to stop in.” Her entire audience swiveled to stare at the newcomer. “Folks, this is our new Angel Butte Police Department captain of Investigative and Support Services. Say hi.”
A chorus of voices greeted him.
His eyes met hers very briefly, expressing an astonishing amount given that she doubted anyone else in the room would so much as notice.
“Glad to see such a turnout,” he said, inclining his head.
“Would you like to join us?” she asked.
“No, I, uh...” He backed up. “Just thought I’d look in.”
His retreat duly noted, the audience turned back to her. Trying to put him out of her mind, Anna struggled to remember where she’d been in her familiar script. She sneaked a glance at the clock. Oh, well. With only fifteen minutes left to go, she could fill the time with questions.
When she asked if anyone had any, a gratifying number of hands shot up.
By the time she finished, she felt really good about the evening. Several people talked to her afterward and took the brochures and initial applications she’d brought. The last of them left, and she gathered up her material and notes, then started for the door. She still had ten minutes before the library closed to take a quick look at the new books. Anna was chagrined to catch herself wondering whether Reid might still be in the library.
She was reaching for the light switch when he once again filled the doorway.
“Anna.”
“Captain Sawyer.”
“Surely we’re to the first-name stage.”
She pretended to look surprised. “Are we?”
His jaw tightened.
“Did you need something?” she asked, keeping her voice pleasant. “You know that I’m more involved in supervising foster homes than in working directly with the kids. But if you have a question, I might be able to refer you to someone who can help—”
“I don’t have a question.” His irritation was obvious.
“Then?”
His jaw muscles spasmed again. “Never mind. Have a good evening, Ms. Grant.”
He was shrugging on the parka and walking toward the exit when she hurriedly followed him out into the lobby. She’d been a bitch, and all because he’d made it obvious he wasn’t interested in her. Politely.
“Captain... Reid,” she said more softly.
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to stop. He was almost to the exterior doors when he hesitated and turned. “Anna.”
Now she felt awkward. “You must have had something you wanted to talk to me about.”
He looked at her for a long moment, his face unreadable, as it so often was. “Call it an impulse,” he said finally.
“I’m really not in any hurry.” She didn’t move closer to him, but kept her voice down for reasons she didn’t understand. The moment seemed...significant. The two of them were very alone, though there was activity behind her in the brightly lit library proper, while headlights were coming on out in the parking lot. They were bound to be interrupted any minute; with the library closing, patrons would be streaming out, or someone would emerge from one of the restrooms. She suddenly, desperately, wanted to know why he’d hung around to talk to her.
“I have a problem with a teenager,” he said slowly. “I thought you might be an expert available for consultation.”
Her disappointment was acute. So he’d wanted her only in her professional capacity. Of course. Trying for brisk, she said, “I don’t know that I’d call myself an expert on teenagers in particular, but I’m happy to help if I can.” She did owe him one. She shifted the weight of the heavy bag slung over her shoulder and started toward him and the exit. “You’re welcome to call me, or—”
“It’s my brother.” Lines had deepened on his forehead. He looked disconcerted, as if he hadn’t meant to say that.
“A teenager?” she blurted in surprise.
That very speaking eyebrow of his twitched. “Think I’m too old to have a brother that young?”
“Well, um, yes?”
He grimaced. “You’re right. I am. I should have said half brother. Who I didn’t know existed until a few months ago.”
“That sounds like a story.” He wasn’t moving, so she came to a stop.
“It is.” He shook his head. “You probably just want to get home.”
“Actually, now you have me interested,” she admitted. She didn’t know what had happened the last time they had seen each other. She would have sworn he’d been checking out her body, if smoothly. He wouldn’t have suggested coffee if he hadn’t been attracted to her, would he? It was more as if she’d said something wrong. The annoying part was having no idea what that could have been. It might be that he’d happened to be at the library tonight, saw that she was speaking and thought, Aha! There’s someone I can talk to. He did say it was an impulse. But...she didn’t believe that. He hadn’t been carrying any books earlier, and he didn’t have one in his hands now, either. She had a feeling he had come looking for her.
“I suppose you’ve had dinner.” He sounded almost tentative.
“Actually, no. But you don’t need to feed me.”
“I wouldn’t mind having something to eat myself. How about Chandler’s Brewpub?”
“They often have live music,” she pointed out. “Not so great if you want to talk.” She hesitated. “Will you be shocked if I confess I was planning to go to A&W? I really wanted a root-beer float.”
He flashed a grin that made her knees wobble. “A root-beer float and French fries sound damn good to me.” He pushed open the door, letting in a blast of cold air, and waited for her to go through.
She gave an involuntary shiver. “You know where it is?”
“I do.”
“My car’s that way.” She gestured vaguely. “See you there.”
He raised a hand and strode away.
* * *
ANNA INSISTED ON paying for her own meal, a clear message. She carried her tray toward a far booth even though the place was empty but for one other couple, leaving him to place his own order and follow a minute later.
He slid onto the hard plastic bench across from her. “Think we’ll hear our numbers from here?”
“I thought you might not want to be overheard,” she said coolly.
“You’re right.”
He still didn’t know what he was doing here. Not an unusual state for him these days. Confusion seemed to be his new usual. Still—he’d made the decision to stay away from Anna, and yet here he was, three whole days later, having sought her out.
Weirdly, when he had driven away from the shelter this afternoon, he’d immediately thought of her. By serendipity, he’d spotted a notice in the morning paper for her talk at the library, so he guessed that was why she’d been at the back of his mind. He could talk to her about Caleb’s issues, he’d thought, without saying anything about his relationship to the boy. Then what was the first thing out of his mouth? He’s my brother.
“There’s mine,” she said abruptly, sliding out of the booth.
Her number. He’d been so busy brooding, he hadn’t even heard.
She was still up there when his was called, but when he turned, Anna waved him back to his seat. She returned with his food, as well as her own.
“Damn, that smells good,” he said, hungrily reaching for his French fries. “This was a good idea.”
“Yes, it was.” She took a slurp from her root-beer float then unwrapped her cheeseburger.
“How’d your talk go?” he asked between bites, aiming to put off a conversation he still wasn’t sure he wanted to have.
“Hmm? Oh, good. We’re always short of homes, which means I put in a lot of time recruiting new foster parents.”
“Is Angel’s Haven local only?”
“You mean Butte County? Mostly, but we do have some scattered foster homes in Deschutes and Klamath Counties. If someone good prefers to work with us rather than an agency closer to them, we don’t turn them away. The home has to be near enough for us to visit easily, though.”
He nodded. She talked about some of the questions people had asked tonight, and about the fears she thought kept people from being willing to take in children who might—and often did—have problems.
She switched gears when she finished her burger. “Are you going to tell me how you didn’t know you had a brother?”
Reid grunted, no closer to having made a decision about how much to tell her. “I haven’t stayed in touch with my father. Didn’t know he’d remarried. A few months ago, I ran a check on him. Turns out he’s divorced, but they had another kid who stayed with him rather than going with the mother. Caleb. He’s...a mess.”
Anna’s big gray eyes were compassionate. “In what way?”
“Our father was abusive.” He paused, frowning. “Is.”
“I...see.”
Damn it, there she went again. Wasn’t that exactly what she’d said over coffee that scared the shit out of him? The trouble was, she meant it. She saw more than he’d said. And this time he’d set himself up for it.
He reached for a French fry, attempting to look more casual than he felt. “I’m...trying to build a relationship with Caleb. He doesn’t want to trust me.”
“Maybe he can’t.”
“Can’t?” He stared at her, inexplicably angry. “What are you suggesting? That he’s broken and unfixable?”
Like me? The quick thought was unwelcome. If he believed himself to be permanently damaged...maybe Caleb was, too. Maybe he’d found him too late. It was disconcerting to realize how pissed he was at the very idea.
But Anna was frowning repressively at him. “Of course not. I’d never suggest anything of the kind. I’ve seen too many children from horrific homes blossom when they feel safe and loved.”
Damn. She sounded like Paula.
“I hardly know him,” he said. “Love... That’s asking a lot.”
“Can you bring him to live with you?”
“I don’t see that as an option.”
“Why not?” she asked.
He should have known she wouldn’t let it go that easily.
“Aside from the fact I have a job that demands a whole hell of a lot more than forty hours a week?”
“How old is Caleb?”
“Fifteen,” he said reluctantly.
“Unless you live way out of town, he could get himself home from after-school activities, to friends’ houses. He could take on responsibility for putting dinner on the table some nights. He doesn’t need the same time commitment from you that a younger child would.”
His appetite had deserted him. “His father won’t let him go without an ugly court battle.”
“So you’re just going to leave him?” Her spine had straightened and her eyes held the light of battle. Despite the topic and the fact she was judging him, Reid was disconcerted to find his body responding to the fire in her. Apparently, he was turned on by a woman who could take to task not only a crusty desk sergeant, but also a stone-faced police captain.
At least she hadn’t commented on what he’d said—his father. No one he wanted to claim.
“That’s not entirely my decision,” he pointed out. “What I’d like to understand is why Caleb is trying to reject me, too.”
He basked in the way her face softened.
“When you were his age, would trust have come easily to you?” she asked.
He gave a short, harsh laugh. “No.” He’d been with the Hales for a year or more before he felt anything close to that for them. “You’re saying I need to prove myself to Caleb.”
“I’m saying that he’s testing you. He’s pushing you away to see if you’ll go.” She leaned forward a little, as if to underline the urgency of what she was saying. She exuded such intensity, he couldn’t have looked away from her if someone wearing a ski mask had walked in with a gun and told the cashier to stick ’em up. “What you have to do is refuse to go,” she said. “He needs to see you digging in for him. By fighting for custody of him, if necessary, or only by giving him an ear and a refuge.”
An ear and a refuge. Wasn’t that what he’d been trying to offer? He couldn’t be Caleb’s home, although he thought he’d provided an even better one. He was giving everything he could. Pushing himself into places he’d never gone.
“He’s testing me,” he said slowly.
“Without having met him, I can’t say for sure, but that’s my guess.”
“It fits,” he admitted. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
There was more, of course; Caleb had wanted his big brother to wade in with fists flying to rescue him. Eventually, he’d see that this way was better. Safer.
A thought crept into Reid’s head, a follow-up to things he’d been brooding about anyway. Okay, it was possible he had, without realizing it, come to love Paula and Roger, but...would they actually love Caleb? Did they love all the kids they took in? Some of them? None? Certainly, back then Reid hadn’t thought of the word in association with them. His mother was the only person he’d ever been sure loved him—or known he loved, despite the limitations on her love.
Whatever Paula and Roger gave was enough for me.
He was stunned by the voice that whispered, Was it?
No, that was ridiculous. Sure, what kid wouldn’t rather have a normal family? Mom, Dad, sister, brother, cat and dog. The cynic in him thought, Fresh-baked cookies when I came in the door from school, gentle lectures when my grades dropped, a parent in the stands at every football and basketball game. A father who talked openly to me and laid a comforting hand on my shoulder while he listened when I told him my worries. A warm-hearted TV-sitcom childhood. If they existed, he hadn’t seen one up close and personal. Some of his friends seemed to have it good, but who knew what went on behind closed doors? Shame had kept him from telling any of those friends his father beat the shit out of him on a regular basis. He’d never said, My father killed my mother and got away with it. So they might have been keeping quiet for the same reason. Once he became a cop, stable, loving families weren’t the ones he saw.
But that’s what I wanted.
That’s what Caleb wants.
A sound escaped him, one even he didn’t know how to label. Glimpsing Anna’s startled expression, he snapped his guard back into place. She’d seen too much already. He knew better than to lay himself out naked like this.
“That helps,” he said, sounding easy, but for a residual roughness in his voice. “Thank you.”
She studied him long enough to make him sweat, but he playfully snitched a French fry from her tray, since his were gone, and then stirred the last of his float before peeling off the lid and drinking it.
“You’re welcome,” she said and swatted at his hand when he reached for another French fry. “Hey!”
“You’re not eating them.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “My eyes were bigger than my stomach.”
She’d hardly made a dent in the fries and half her root-beer float was left. No wonder she stayed skinny.
Delicate.
They chatted for a few more minutes. He made a concerted effort, though he needed desperately to be moving, to be alone. He didn’t want her to know how he felt, especially since, as usual, he didn’t know what he did feel.
“I was kidding. Here, you can have the rest of these.” She offered the fries, but he shook his head.
“I’ve had enough.”
“I should get home,” she said, her expression completely unrevealing.
They bused their table, then walked out together. The other diners had long since left. The parking lot was dark and empty; the only remaining vehicles besides their own were parked toward the back of the building and probably belonged to employees. He wanted to kiss her good-night—and yet he didn’t want to. Or didn’t dare.
More to be confused about. He felt some of the same panic he had when he’d admitted to Paula that he both wanted and didn’t want to take Caleb home.
Even if he’d formed the impulse, Anna unlocked her Toyota and hopped in too quickly to have given him the chance to act on it. “Good night, Reid,” she said, slammed her door and started the engine immediately. She was backing out before he’d circled around to the driver’s side of his own vehicle.
Because she didn’t want to start anything with him? Or because he’d had his chance and blown it?
Or—most unwelcome possibility of all—because she’d read him all too accurately and knew a man running scared when she saw one?
He swore under his breath and told himself it really would be better to keep his distance.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_fd3b75e2-f8cd-54f3-b725-d5c5904a2730)
“ANOTHER FIRE?” REID stopped midstride, only peripherally aware of other people parting to go around him, barely sparing him a glance. The snowy sidewalk meant everyone needed to watch their footing. Having become accustomed to Southern California winters, he had almost forgotten that mid-and even late March did not qualify as spring in this part of Oregon.
It was Monday morning, and he had been striding from the parking lot toward the public safety building, wishing he’d worn boots for better traction, when his phone rang and he saw that Roger was the caller.
“Not as major,” Roger assured him. “Might’ve been the snow that made it fizzle.”
Reid stepped off the sidewalk into deeper snow on the lawn, separating himself from the stream of people heading into work. A late-winter storm had left three or four inches of snow the past couple of days. Gazing at the ice-rimmed Deschutes River, he asked, “What was lit this time?”
“Woodshed. One of the boys got up to take a leak and spotted it.”
Not Caleb, then. No, wait. Reid visualized where the woodshed was in relation to the cabins and lodge, and realized that Caleb could have seen this fire from his bedroom window. God damn it. Had this been a direct attack on Caleb?
Not a very effective one, he reassured himself. Caleb would have seen the flames in time to escape downstairs and out.
“Which boy?” he asked.
“Trevor.”
Reid grunted; he recognized all the boys by now, but couldn’t say he knew them.
“You think to do a bed count?”
“Yeah, I did. Felt like a shit, but I went cabin to cabin. Everyone was where they were supposed to be except Trev, who’d come running to get me, and his cabinmate, Diego, who’d dragged the hose over by the time I got out there.”
Both men were silent for a moment, Reid thinking. Video cameras were out. They’d need too many to cover grounds that extensive.
“Damn,” he concluded. “What you need are regular patrols.”
“Yeah, I think Paula and I are going to start taking turns making the rounds.” He gave a rough, unhappy chuckle. “Give us a couple nights, we’ll be feeling like new parents constantly having to get up with a screaming baby.”
“Yeah, you can’t keep doing that. I might sneak out and set up surveillance some night.”
“In this weather?”
“You’ve got some empty cabins.”
“Let me know so I don’t shoot you if our paths cross.”
“Good enough. Hell.” Reid rubbed the back of his neck and discovered his hand felt like a block of ice. “I don’t like this,” he said unnecessarily.
“You and me both.”
“I wish you were inside the city limits.”
“What would you do, send patrols by?”
Of course he couldn’t do that. “All right,” he said. “Let me know if anything develops.”
“Glad you’re here,” Roger said unexpectedly and then was gone.
The foot traffic had thinned somewhat while Reid had stood out in the cold talking. Snow crunched underfoot until he was back on the sidewalk, where the smooth sole of his dress shoes skidded. To hell with this, he thought. Nobody would notice or care if he wore dark boots with a decent tread. And...this was March. With April to follow. How many more times was it likely to snow before the seasons turned?
He wasn’t looking forward to his day. The morning plan was for him to interview a couple of applicants for the personal-assistant position. He’d been just as glad his temp apparently hadn’t wanted the job; she didn’t seem to be all that well-informed and he had the impression he’d scared her. He was hoping to hire internally; he felt so damn ignorant, it would be good to have a PA who knew the ropes. About once an hour, he cursed Colin McAllister for having taken his PA with him when he changed jobs.
This afternoon, he intended to take a tour of every department in the building, starting with Records in the basement. He was beginning to realize that he’d misinterpreted his “territory” when he arrived in Angel Butte. He’d felt satisfied after driving damn near every road inside the city limits, memorizing the way house numbers ran, which neighborhoods looked run-down, where the bars and taverns were, the location of parking lots that would be dark enough at night to put women walking alone to their cars in peril.
Truth was, he should have been mapping this building and the maintenance garage, where most of his responsibilities lay, so he had the slightest idea how to respond the next time someone came to him with a request.
Once the first applicant showed up, Reid blocked everything else from his mind, including both his afternoon agenda and the threat to Caleb and the shelter. His skill at compartmentalizing was useful.
This applicant currently worked in Technical Services and might be a whiz at computers and social media, but the way her eyes shied from his and her cheeks stayed rosy the whole time they talked, he could tell she was intimidated by him, too.
Irritated after he saw her out, Reid wondered—not for the first time—why he had that effect on so many people, not only women. He was a big man, sure, but lean, not mountainous. He didn’t have an alarmingly ugly face. He rarely raised his voice. So what the hell was the problem? Why couldn’t he find someone like—
There she was, in his head again. Anna Grant, of course. She hadn’t been afraid of him.
So, okay, he needed a woman like her, someone brisk, businesslike, organized and determined. And, please God, someone who knew the police department from the lowliest of supply closets to the most obscure of requisition forms.
Applicant number two turned out to be a maybe. This one was a man who at least didn’t jump every time Reid shifted in his chair. He was internal only in the sense he was already a city employee, however; his current position was second assistant in the mayor’s office.
Maybe, Reid thought, hiding his grin, that was why the guy wasn’t scared. After all, he’d presumably gotten used to Mayor Noah Chandler, who was an ugly bastard and, rumor had it, tended to be brutally direct.
Reid thanked the man for coming, said he’d let him know and glanced at the clock. He was embarrassed at how much he looked forward to lunch.
Last week, Lieutenant Renner had told him the best place to eat lunch in Angel Butte was the Kingfisher Café, only a couple of blocks from the police station. Reid had given it a try on Friday, walking down there late enough to miss the lunch rush. The door had opened before he reached for the handle, and he’d found himself face-to-face with Anna. She had appeared as startled as he’d felt. After their dinner at the A&W, he sure as hell hadn’t intended to seek her out again.
But courtesy demanded they exchange a few polite words, during which he’d asked whether she was a regular at the café.
“I come at least two or three days a week,” she had admitted, then wrinkled her nose. “I know I shouldn’t eat out so often, but I’m not a morning person. Half the time, I forget to pack a lunch.”
“Ah. Well, maybe I’ll see you here another day,” he’d remarked and was unable to interpret a look that might have been wary, shy or hopeful.
Damn it, after that accidental meeting, she’d been in his head all weekend, with the result that here he was Monday morning, panting to sit down to lunch with her. Stupid thing to do or not, he wanted to talk to her.
Since finding his brother and moving to Angel Butte, Reid had never felt lonelier. He didn’t understand it and sure as hell didn’t like it. No matter who he was with, he felt an uncrossable distance.
The one exception was Anna. He refused to analyze why. Did it matter? She was someone he could talk out some of his confusion with, that was all.
He was going to be very disappointed if this happened to be one of the days she’d remembered to pack herself a lunch. It wasn’t quite time to leave yet, though, which gave him a few minutes to brood.
He envied Mayor Chandler his view of Angel Butte, the volcanic cinder cone that rose right in the middle of town and was topped with the huge marble angel that gave the town its name. His office looked out on the brick wall of the jail. Not bothering to swivel his chair to look out the window, instead, he frowned, unseeing, at the closed door while he let his thoughts rebound to the shelter and the fact that a second fire had been set only a week after the first.
He briefly pondered the timing. The first fire had been set on Saturday night, the second on Sunday night. Chance? Or was there a reason their arsonist had chosen weekends?
This fire wasn’t an escalation. That was a positive. The lodge or one of the occupied cabins, now, that would have been scary. This fire, too, could have been set for entertainment value. It could have been a warning...although of what, Reid couldn’t figure. What worried him most was the possibility it was part of a campaign of terror. Everyone at the resort must be edgy now. No one would be sleeping well. The boys would all be watching each other. The fight Caleb had been in wouldn’t be the last.
Nobody out there would feel safe.
This was where, reluctantly, he had to ask himself whether it was a coincidence that Caleb had been the most recent arrival.
What if Caleb was angry enough to light the world on fire? Or what if this was a campaign not to terrorize, but to make Reid believe he should take his brother home to live with him?
To keep him safe.
Or—and this was the most unwelcome speculation of all—was there any possibility that their father had found his runaway youngest son? Had Reid screwed up big-time by moving to Angel Butte? Could he absolutely swear that when driving out to the old resort a couple times a week, he hadn’t been followed?
“Damn,” he murmured.
He hadn’t let Caleb know how much that phone call from their father had shaken him. In the nearly twenty years since he had seen Dean Sawyer, Reid had tried to think about him as little as possible. He didn’t like knowing how much he resembled his father physically. Sometimes he’d stare at himself in a mirror with an incredulity he had to shake off. But he couldn’t have so much as described his father’s voice.
But the minute he heard it on the phone, the hairs on his arms had stood on end as if he’d come in contact with a bare electrical wire. The feeling that rushed over him had been bad. He’d been thrown back, as if all the years since had never happened. Dad had just walked in the door, and Reid could see that he was mad about something. Could have been anything—some imagined slight at work, a detective junior to him getting a headline for a press-worthy arrest, an asshole who’d cut him off on the drive home. Didn’t matter what, unless the “anything” had to do with Reid directly. Say, the school counselor had called and said, “We’re concerned about the number of bruises your son has had recently.” Those days were the worst.
By fifteen, Reid had been as tall as his father; he thought he must be a couple of inches taller now that he’d reached his full height. But then he’d been skinny, like Caleb was now. Unable to stand up to a muscular, angry man.
He shook off the recollection, if not the shadow of the memory, of blows falling.
The day he’d called, the first words out of his father’s mouth had been “So you’re a cop like your old man.”
“Not like you,” he’d said flatly, just as he had to Caleb. “I’m the kind of cop who should have investigated Mom’s death.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Dean had snarled.
“Sure you did. I was young, not deaf and blind.”
“You ever make an allegation like that, you’ll find yourself in court and I’ll take you for every cent you make in the next fifty years.”
He had managed to sound bored. “Is there a point to this call?”
And that was when he’d demanded to know whether Reid had snatched Caleb.
It wasn’t even a lie to say no. Helping the boy get away was a whole other story.
But mocking his father...that wasn’t a good idea. It was bound to have made him suspicious.
Shit, Reid thought again. I need to find out whether he could be in Angel Butte.
His gaze strayed to the time at the bottom of his computer monitor.
Yeah, he’d have to make a few calls...but not now. Right now, he was going to wander down to the Kingfisher Café and hope to feed his unexpected craving for another person’s company.
* * *
ANNA TOLD HERSELF she’d chosen to sit where she did because the light was better if she ended up pulling out her book to read while she ate. Not so she could keep an eye on the door. If Reid happened to eat here again today, what were the chances he’d be alone? He’d consider the lunch hour to be a good time to conduct business.
But she remembered the way he’d asked You come often? And every time the door opened, she glanced that way.
The waitress was taking her order when he came in. Alone. He scanned the entire restaurant in one lightning sweep, analyzing and dismissing everyone he saw, until his gaze reached her and stopped. She felt as if a heat-seeking missile had just locked on target.
He lifted an eyebrow, the slightest of quirks, but it was enough to ask a question. Throat closing, Anna inclined her head toward the chair opposite her. He smiled, ignored the hostess as if she wasn’t there and crossed the room to Anna’s table.
“May I join you?” he asked in that deep, velvety voice.
The waitress turned, startled. “Oh!”
“Of course you may,” Anna said, then, to the waitress, “Why don’t you hold off on my order until Captain Sawyer decides what he wants?”
“Yes. Um, of course.” Plump and tattooed, the young waitress retreated in disarray.
He pulled out the chair across from Anna, immediately making her feel crowded. This table beneath the window was tiny, sized for two who knew each other really well. His knees bumped hers, and he murmured, “Sorry.”
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Janice Kay Johnson
A man of integrity…or not? The moment Captain Reid Sawyer helps social worker Anna Grant with a sticky situation, she's hooked. He's gorgeous and clearly interested in her. Yet even as he pursues her, she senses he's holding back. For someone who prizes honesty and doing the right thing, how much of his evasion can Anna tolerate? Her trust in Reid is further shaken when he confesses what he's done to protect his newly discovered brother. Is Reid really one of the good guys?Then he's involved in a hostage situation. Suddenly, she fears she could lose him before telling him how she truly feels!
A man of integrity…or not?
The moment Captain Reid Sawyer helps social worker Anna Grant with a sticky situation, she’s hooked. He’s gorgeous and clearly interested in her. Yet even as he pursues her, she senses he’s holding back. For someone who prizes honesty and doing the right thing, how much of his evasion can Anna tolerate?
Her trust in Reid is further shaken when he confesses what he’s done to protect his newly discovered brother. Is Reid really one of the good guys? Then he’s involved in a hostage situation. Suddenly, she fears she could lose him before telling him how she truly feels!
She couldn’t look away from Reid now.
Anna wanted him to kiss her more than she could remember wanting anything in a long time.
His head bent slowly, either because he was giving her time to retreat or because he himself was hesitant. She quit blinking, only stared into his eyes. And then his lips touched hers. They were cold, but his puff of breath warmed her face.
A sound seemed to vibrate in his chest, and he tilted his head to fit their mouths more closely together. Anna reached out and gripped the sleek fabric of his jacket, her knuckles bumping something hard. Was he carrying a pistol under there? But right this second, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Her eyes closed and she reveled in the astonishing feel of him nipping at her lips, his tongue stroking the seam until she opened her mouth and let him in.
And then it only got better.
Dear Reader (#ulink_bdb54313-26c7-5d23-80cf-6c6692de561f),
I’ve created many troubled heroes—heck, they’re my specialty!—but Reid Sawyer is one of my all-time favorites. He was more of a challenge than some to write, too, because he’s not an angry man, he doesn’t lash out and he rarely if ever raises his voice. Most people see him as cool, strong, unemotional. He feels driven by duty and, yes, vicarious revenge on a brutal father. In fact, he sees himself as damaged, incapable of real emotion, especially the softer kinds. This is a man who is utterly self-contained, capable of suppressing any powerful emotion almost before it appears.
Maybe that’s what made it so satisfying to challenge his beliefs. First he discovers he has a younger brother who needs him, and then he falls in love with a woman despite himself—and the poor man doesn’t recognize what’s happening to him! Hmm. Come to think of it, he may be the perfect man: calm, competent, protective, quiet and tidy. Well, okay, a guy who says “I love you” once in a while is nice, too!
I never plan my books by thinking, “this one is about the hero,” or “this one is about the heroine.” But most often they come out that way, with the focus most intensely on one character or the other. Sometimes I’m really taken by surprise. I’ve got to admit, though, with only a couple of exceptions, my favorites among my books are hero-centric ones. So maybe I should plan better….
Here’s hoping you, too, fall in love with Reid while you’re saying goodbye to Angel Butte, Oregon, the setting for what was originally intended to be a trilogy but grew to five books. And you never know—I may decide to revisit Angel Butte one of these days!
Janice Kay Johnson
This Good Man
Janice Kay Johnson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#ulink_96da7aec-e745-5c0e-88c9-236952284a52)
An author of more than eighty books for children and adults, USA TODAY bestselling author JANICE KAY JOHNSON is especially well-known for her Mills & Boon Superromance novels about love and family—about the way generations connect and the power our earliest experiences have on us throughout life. Her 2007 novel Snowbound won a RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America for Best Contemporary Series Romance. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small rural town north of Seattle, Washington. She loves to read and is an active volunteer and board member for Purrfect Pals, a no-kill cat shelter. Visit her online at www.janicekayjohnson.com (http://www.janicekayjohnson.com).
Contents
Cover (#ubd5396b1-51ce-5623-8b53-4e9f880f6143)
Back Cover Text (#u85dbd1cb-01ac-52dd-bdf1-03c9754498bd)
Introduction (#ud0872f13-0119-5046-aab0-e78eba43d73a)
Dear Reader (#ulink_5e1ecd53-f1ef-53be-9926-a075953efdb3)
Title Page (#u425688d9-b89f-5f86-b57f-672420e19ebf)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#ulink_4325ed26-9035-58d7-a011-483f532872cc)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_c4544fde-0d8f-5564-8580-4d836f2169fd)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_cb0ec30c-cb92-512f-9dc7-b84736c5c80a)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_a91c13d3-145b-5b2e-950c-5aa96d278341)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_aa531deb-a6a9-5f97-a829-344889f621ac)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_fc6f8964-ed90-50b6-9200-b2b8e558bcf7)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_5bc1b4ba-61fe-5c72-979d-2c43564dbdbf)
THE SHOPPING MALL in a suburb of Spokane was new since Reid Sawyer had grown up in this northeastern corner of Washington State. Reid glanced around, approving the choice of this end of the mall. The boy didn’t know him. He’d been smart to pick someplace busy enough to be safe and yet deserted enough that they wouldn’t draw attention. The kid had good instincts.
The thought was followed by a soundless grunt. The boy’s instincts had been honed in the same hard school his own had been. Of course his wariness had been sharpened to a razor edge.
It was the same instinct that had Reid choosing a hard plastic seat with its back to a wall. The seats were situated at the corner of an L where, by barely turning his head, he could watch both the little-used mall entrance in one direction and, in the other direction, a wing that eventually dead-ended at a Macy’s. The small stores closest to him didn’t depend much on browsers, which meant that, down at this end, traffic was light and teenagers few and far between. Pearle Vision, Regis Salon, Sleep Country USA, a vitamin and food supplements store—all destination businesses. Reid could almost relax. He settled down to wait.
He watched idly as a mother ushered two kids into Pearle Vision. A middle-aged man and wife entered Sleep Country. None of them so much as glanced Reid’s way.
Reid saw the boy outside well before he reached the mall’s glass doors. For all his obvious youth, he moved like a cop—long, athletic stride, acute awareness of his surroundings. His head kept turning. He looked casual but didn’t miss anything. Before entering, he assessed the two women with a baby stroller opening one of the other doors, and dismissed them as a threat.
Once inside, his gaze locked almost immediately on Reid. The momentary hesitation in his step wouldn’t have been noticeable to anyone not watching as closely as Reid was.
Reid saw something else, too: a limp that was almost, but not quite, disguised.
The boy walked like a wounded cop who didn’t want anyone else to spot his injury and therefore vulnerability.
A tide of rage rose in a man who, until a week ago when he discovered the existence of this kid, hadn’t felt anything like that in many years.
He slowly rose to his feet, his own gaze never wavering from the boy.
My brother, he thought with an incredulity he couldn’t seem to shake.
Until now, he hadn’t been 100 percent sure the boy was his half brother versus a stepbrother. He’d have been here either way, but—damn. He could be looking at his own fifteen-year-old self.
Lean to the point of being skinny, muscles not yet having developed. Spiky hair the same shade of nut-brown as his, with an unruliness that hinted at the waves that had always irritated him. A bony face with cheekbones cut so sharp, they gave the kid a hungry look Reid saw replicated in the mirror every morning when he shaved.
The eyes he couldn’t be sure about until the boy got close. Then he felt another jolt. This Caleb Sawyer had Reid’s eyes, too, a hazel so dark as to look brown in dim lighting, but in the sun could appear as green as thick bottle glass.
He had his father’s eyes. Reid’s father’s eyes.
Caleb came to a stop a few feet from him, his shock apparent. “You’re really him,” he blurted.
“Your brother,” Reid agreed.
“He always said you were dead. That you had to be.”
“I might have been if I hadn’t gotten away.”
That too-familiar face clouded. “Where have you been all my life?”
“I didn’t know about you.” The defense was inadequate, Reid was well aware; he should have made sure he found out if his father ever had another child. “Once I was eighteen, I checked on him. Kept checking for a few years, but he hadn’t remarried.” His shoulders moved. “He was in his mid-forties by then. I thought he was unlikely—” He stopped, then said the most inadequate words of all. “I’m sorry.”
Caleb didn’t acknowledge that by so much as a nod. Instead, his stare challenged Reid. “Why now?”
“Because I did run a search out of curiosity and came up with court proceedings. An abuse allegation.”
“Dismissed.” No kid that age should be capable of such searing bitterness.
“Yeah. The few times we made it as far as court, it was always dismissed, too.”
Dean Sawyer was a cop. He was also a violent drunk who had beaten the shit out of his first wife and son. Reid’s mother died when she slipped in a spill on the kitchen floor and hit her head on a sharp corner of the cabinet top—or so the police report said. Nobody remarked on the fact that her skin displayed a road map of old and new bruises. Without an autopsy performed, nobody but her son and grieving husband knew how many bones in her body had been broken in the years of her marriage.
Several times one of Reid’s teachers or a school counselor called Child Protective Services. The final report always concluded that Reid Sawyer was clumsy—and it had been true that, like many boys destined to be tall men, he’d tended to trip over his too-large feet—or that father and son had scuffled, but the incident was understandable because Deputy Sawyer’s son was rebellious and prone to acting out. Counseling had sometimes been recommended for Reid. Once, his father—a sergeant by then—had been court mandated to take a class in anger management. He had known whom to blame for the inconvenience and humiliation, and he had vented his fury appropriately.
“You’re hurt,” Reid said now. He had shoved his hands into the kangaroo pocket of his hooded sweatshirt to keep the boy from seeing his fists.
A flick of one shoulder said, Yeah, so?
“What about your mother?” Reid asked reluctantly. The mother would be more of a problem.
“She took off. Like three years ago.”
“And didn’t take you.”
“He wasn’t bothered enough to go after her.”
“But he would have gone after you.”
“I’m his son,” Caleb said simply, with that same blistering anger. “He hates you, you know.”
Reid made a sound in his throat. Yes, he knew. No, he didn’t give a damn. Then he nodded toward the row of hard seats. “Let’s sit and talk for a minute.”
When he settled in one, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles in an appearance of relaxation, Caleb chose a seat one removed from Reid’s. His boneless slouch didn’t hide his tension.
“Why did you want to meet me?” he asked, eyes dark with turbulence. “You planning to start sending me birthday cards?”
“I came to see how bad off you are. Whether you’re ready to ditch Dad.”
The kid’s head came up. He struggled against it, but didn’t hide his hope any better than he had his misery. “You mean, like, go home with you?”
“No.” Reid’s voice came out gravelly. He hadn’t expected to feel so much. To want to say, Damn right you’re going home with me. “He could find me with no trouble, which means he’d find you.”
“If you contested—”
“The chances are good he’d win. He has so far, hasn’t he?”
The boy ducked his head. His shoulders hunched. He didn’t say anything.
“You need more than I can give you anyway,” Reid said slowly. “Hugs. Affection.” Something always softened inside him when he thought of the Hales and how much they’d given him. “Discipline, school, healing.”
“Like a foster home?”
As an officer of the law, Reid didn’t like knowing he’d be breaking the law. But, within hours of learning all he could about Caleb online, Reid had made peace with his conscience. Not often, but occasionally, the letter of the law contradicted what was just and right. He was living proof of that. The law had failed Caleb, too.
“A shelter. One that’s...different.” Reid held his brother’s eyes, determined that he listen to and understand every word. “It would mean you going off the grid. You’d have to be homeschooled, you wouldn’t be able to get your driver’s license until you’re eighteen and Dad couldn’t come after you anymore. It would mean obeying the rules and not doing something dumb that would bring the authorities down on you and the other kids in the shelter.”
His brother eyed him sidelong. “The way you say ‘authorities.’ Are you into illegal shit? Do you deal or something?”
“Drugs?” Reid gave a short laugh. “No. I’m in law enforcement.” He was very aware of the irony.
Caleb lifted his head to stare at him in disbelief. “Just like Daddy.”
“No. Not just like Daddy. I’m currently a sergeant in charge of the Family Violence Unit. I put men like Daddy in jail.” He sounded hard and didn’t care.
“Do you have kids?”
Reid shook his head.
Caleb nodded as if he understood. “I guess you’re, like, too busy for me,” he said after a minute, no longer looking at Reid.
“Yeah, I probably am, but...that’s not the main reason I think you’d be better off with these people I know. People who took me in when I ran away from home.” Even though he was looking down, he was aware the kid was listening. He couldn’t think of any way to say this but to come right out with the truth. “What you need isn’t anything I have in me. I’m what our father made of me. Damaged.”
The boy shook his head and laughed, the sound corrosive. Then he shot to his feet and looked down at Reid. “What a crock of shit. What you are is a coward. Daddy made you a coward,” he taunted.
The stab slid home. Reid’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t let his expression change. This wasn’t about him. “The place I want to take you...it’s good. These people saved my life.”
Caleb kept shaking his head.
Reid took a business card from his pocket and held it out. “This has my phone number on it. Call me when you decide.”
“I’ve decided.” His gaze was flat and emotionless. “Mr. Damaged Goods. You’re no use to me.”
“Take the card.”
The boy wasn’t proof against the voice of command. He hesitated only a moment, then grabbed it and shoved it into his jeans pocket without even looking at it.
“When you need me, I’ll come.”
Eyes so much like his own swept over him in one last scathing look. Then Caleb shook his head again. “Sure,” he said. “See you around.” He turned and sauntered away, back toward the mall entrance. Over his shoulder, he added, “Not,” and kept going.
Reid didn’t move for a long time. Whatever he felt wasn’t anything he recognized. All he knew was that he didn’t like it.
Closing his eyes, he let his head fall back until it bumped the wall. He’d blown it, but if there was another way, he couldn’t see it.
Usually he was patience personified. Impatience implied an emotional component he lacked.
Something new.
A month. If he didn’t hear from Caleb within a month, he’d try again.
And then again. And again.
This was his brother, who had no one else.
* * *
SEVENTEEN DAYS LATER—and Reid had been counting—his mobile phone rang. Sitting at his desk, he’d been concentrating on the long history of allegations against a husband and father one of his detectives had just arrested. Tearing his gaze from the computer monitor, Reid picked up the phone. He didn’t recognize the number, but he knew the area code. His pulse quickened. “Sawyer here,” he said.
“Uh, this is Caleb.” The voice was slurred. Drunk? No. Coming from a mouth that was swollen. Maybe missing a tooth or two. “You know. Your brother.”
“I know who you are,” Reid said gently, even as sickening rage filled him. “You ready to go?” His hand was on the computer mouse already; he went online and straight to Kayak. He could buy an airline ticket within the next minute or two.
“So ready, I’ve packed my duffel and I’m gone.”
“Then you can count on me.” Reid chose a flight, and they set up their meet.
Fifteen minutes later, he’d arranged to take two days of vacation and was walking out of the police station. To hell with any lingering qualms he felt about his course of action. He was doing what he had to do to save his brother.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_3370cb15-bc49-523e-a9b6-3def2e8f9de6)
“DON’T TELL ME to wait twenty-four hours.” Anna Grant gazed unflinchingly at the desk sergeant who was trying to make her go away. He should know he was wasting his time; he and she had butted heads before. “I’m not suggesting Yancey was abducted. He took off on his own. Twenty-four hours would give him time to disappear.” She leaned forward over the counter to emphasize her words. “Right this minute, he’s probably out on the highway waving his thumb. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s cold out there.” March was the dead of winter on this side of the Cascade Mountains. “He needs to be picked up now.”
“Ms. Grant.” Middle-aged and graying, Sergeant Shroutt looked exasperated and frazzled. “We’ve been through this before. You know there’s nothing we can do yet. No crime has been committed. You have no reason to think this kid is in danger—”
“No reason?” She hoped her eyes were shooting sparks. “This kid is thirteen years old. He’s so small for his age, he looks about ten. What if your own son that age was out on that highway, Sergeant?”
“Of course I wouldn’t like—”
“Wouldn’t you think the police should be concerned?”
“What seems to be the problem, ma’am?” asked a deep, calm voice from unnervingly close to her left.
Even as she swung around to face the newcomer, she took an involuntary step back. She hated the fear instinct that surfaced when someone startled or sneaked up on her. Anna prayed it didn’t show on her face.
“Captain.” The sergeant’s relief was obvious. “I was just explaining to Ms. Grant—”
“—why no one in the Angel Butte Police Department can be bothered to help me find a thirteen-year-old boy who has run away from his foster home and has no place to go that any sane adult would consider safe,” Anna concluded, even as she evaluated the tall man who stood on her side of the counter, but who was evidently a member of the department, and a senior one at that.
He was also an extraordinarily handsome man, his face all angles and planes, nothing soft about it except possibly his mouth, which she was annoyed at herself for noticing. His eyes were... She couldn’t tell. A dark hazel or unusual shade of brown, maybe. A gray suit fit as if it had been tailored for his big body. The knot of the conservative tie he wore was just a little loose, as if he’d given it a tug recently. Only when her gaze lowered did she notice the badge clipped to a narrow black belt and a glimpse of what she assumed was a weapon. At the moment, his expression was mildly curious.
Wait. Captain. Could he possibly be the new hire she’d read about, the one who’d accepted the position vacated by Colin McAllister, who had defeated the incumbent county sheriff in the November election? That would make this man captain of Investigative and Support Services, not patrol.
Still...he was right here in front of her. And if he’d paused only to help the desk sergeant get rid of her, well, screw him. At least she wasn’t likely to encounter him again.
“I’m Anna Grant.” Inexplicably reluctant to touch him, she nonetheless held out her hand. “I supervise foster homes for Angel’s Haven Youth Services.”
His eyebrows flickered as if she’d surprised him, but that was the only change of expression she detected. “Ms. Grant.” He engulfed her hand in his much larger one and squeezed before releasing her. “Captain Reid Sawyer.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t need an investigation. I was hoping—” she darted a look at the sergeant as she emphasized the word “—that I could get the city’s patrol officers to watch for a missing child.”
Captain Sawyer raised those surprisingly expressive eyebrows only a little, but it was enough. “Sergeant Shroutt?”
“He’s been missing three hours!” the sergeant burst out. “He might be smoking weed out back of the high school—”
“Except that he’s an eighth grader, not a high school student,” Anna pointed out. She almost felt sorry for him.
“Or panhandling in the Walmart parking lot. Playing Gears of War 3 at some buddy’s house!”
“Then why did he leave a note saying he was taking off?” she asked.
He glowered at her. “What note? You didn’t say anything about a note.”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
“What did the note say?” interjected a too-reasonable voice with a velvet undertone.
Pretending the sight and sound of Reid Sawyer didn’t make her quiver, Anna held herself stiff. “That we shouldn’t worry. He knew a good place to go.” Guilt and a shimmer of fear erased her momentary sexual awareness. “His stuff is all gone.”
Captain Sawyer had been reading every expression as it crossed her face. She couldn’t seem to look away from his eyes, which she concluded were an unusual shade of deep green.
“The boy’s name?” he asked.
“Yancey Launders. And no, his name doesn’t help. Kids make fun of it. He was born in Alabama. I’m told Yancey is a more common name in the Deep South.”
“He likely to be heading for Alabama?”
“I’m afraid so,” she said wearily. “He has a grandfather down there. That would be the one who kicked his mother out because she was pregnant and he didn’t want anything to do with her kind of trash. After she died, the grandfather was contacted. In his own words, he refused to have anything to do with some bastard kid whose father could be an ex-con or even racially mixed for all he knew.”
The captain made a sound in the back of his throat. “The boy know this?”
“His mother apparently believed heart and soul that her daddy would relent eventually and let her and Yancey back into Eden. Yancey said she talked all the time about the farm.”
“We’re a long way from Alabama.”
She knew what he was saying. “She drifted. Yancey has been in a dozen schools or more already. I guess there was always a man, and wherever the current one went, she went, too, and dragged her son along. Whoever the last man was, he didn’t want a twelve-year-old boy once she died.”
“So this Yancey became a ward of the court.”
“Yes. This is his second foster home. He has struggled,” she admitted. “The other boys in the home make fun of him.”
The police captain merely looked at her.
“I was trying to find something more suitable,” she said defensively, even as guilt dug in its claws. She’d known that poor, sad boy was ready to crack. She’d just believed she had longer.
The unnervingly emotionless gaze switched to the desk sergeant. “Do I need to involve Captain Cooper?”
Sergeant Shroutt sighed. “No, sir.”
Reid’s pleasant and yet disquietingly inscrutable eyes met Anna’s once again. “You can give a description, I assume.”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He nodded. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I have a meeting.”
The words almost stuck in her throat, but she got them out. “Thank you.”
His mouth curved into a smile that was oddly sweet, even if it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re very welcome.”
She watched as he strolled away, seemingly in no hurry but, with those long legs, crossing the lobby quickly and disappearing into an elevator that seemed to sense his approach and open for his convenience without him so much as pushing the button.
Anna turned back to the desk sergeant and realized he had been watching the new captain, too.
She could feel his resentment when he produced a form from behind the counter and said, “Please repeat the boy’s name, ma’am.”
At least he was apparently planning to be polite, probably because he was afraid of Captain Reid Sawyer. Who could blame him? She’d been intimidated, and she was willing to take on anyone to protect the children who were her responsibility. Thus her unpopularity in too many quarters.
“Yancey Launders,” she repeated and began to give a description.
Fortunately, she was unlikely to have anything to do with Captain Reid Sawyer in the future. Even if one of her kids was murdered—or murdered someone—she’d be dealing with one of Captain Sawyer’s detectives, not the great man himself. She hoped. Anna didn’t like anyone who made her feel vulnerable, however fleetingly.
* * *
INTERESTING WOMAN, REID thought as the elevator doors closed, shutting off his last view of Ms. Anna Grant, social worker. It was her voice as much as what she had been saying that had caught his attention as he’d passed by the front counter. It had been an intriguing combination of martinet and seductress, both crisp and throaty. On hearing it, he’d had a fleeting fantasy of a school principal who ruled her fiefdom with an iron will, but went home to shed the gray suit and reveal black lace. He had been compelled to find out what the owner of that voice looked like.
Now he knew, although he kind of doubted she wore black lace, or whether it would suit her if she did. She looked about seventeen, although she must be in her late twenties to early thirties to have the kind of job she did. He wondered if she ever used her apparent youth to disarm opponents. His mouth curved at the thought. No, he thought it was safe to say Anna Grant was a woman who would despise the idea of employing subterfuge to get her way.
The elevator doors glided open and he strolled down the hall toward his office, nodding at a couple of people as he passed, but still thinking about the social worker.
Ghost-gray eyes were her greatest beauty. She’d probably been blonde as a kid, but her hair had darkened to a shade between honey and brown, straight and worn shoulder length and tucked behind her ears, nothing unusual except that it was thick and shiny. His fingers had tingled for a moment as he imagined the texture, a reaction he’d tamped down quickly. Ms. Grant was medium height or taller, but with a slight build. Almost...delicate, which contradicted a personality he judged to be bossy, even abrasive. Maybe caring, too, or maybe she was just the rigid kind who wanted everyone and everything in their place, and who didn’t accept no as an answer. She had definitely terrorized Sergeant Shroutt. Amusement awakened again; Reid doubted she’d needed his intervention, but as he’d walked toward her, he’d heard enough to ensure he gave it. Whatever her motivation, she was worried enough about that boy to raise hell and keep raising it until he had the help he needed.
Satisfied by his conclusion, Reid greeted the temp serving as his personal assistant until he hired a permanent one. He entered his office, stripping off his suit coat, and was surprised to realize he hadn’t succeeded in dismissing Ms. Grant from his thoughts. Instead, he wondered what she did wear under her businesslike slacks and blazer. Serviceable white? Scarlet satin? Sweetly feminine petal-pink with tiny lace flowers?
He grinned as he sank into his desk chair. Probably not sweetly feminine anything. That’d be like dressing a Doberman in a tutu.
But, damn it, he’d gotten himself half-aroused imagining her slender, pale body next thing to naked.
He booted up his computer and frowned at the lit monitor. He knew what his trouble was; he hadn’t hooked up with a woman in... He couldn’t remember, a bad sign. Six months? Eight months? He cast his mind back. Good God, longer than that. This was the middle of March. It was last spring when he’d been seeing that assistant prosecutor. Courtney something. Coulson. That was it. Unlike Ms. Grant, Courtney had had generous curves. Like most women, though, she wanted more than an occasional dinner followed by sex. She’d hinted, he had pretended to be oblivious, and eventually she’d told him she was seeing someone else. He hadn’t much minded. He never did, except for the inconvenience of no longer having someone he could call when he wanted sex.
He should check email. He got as far as reaching for the mouse but didn’t move it. Instead he kept frowning and thinking about the woman he’d just met downstairs. No ring; he’d noticed that. Was she the type to be interested in something casual, assuming she wasn’t already involved with a man? Once Yancey Launders was picked up, Reid could call her and ask how the boy was doing. Suggest a cup of coffee.
He remembered those eyes, though, and felt uneasy. He hadn’t thought ghost-gray because of the color, he realized belatedly. It was more as if, in looking into those eyes, he’d seen her ghosts. He tended to stick with uncomplicated women. The scrape of his own scars against someone else’s would be...uncomfortable.
Reid shifted in his chair, unhappily aware that he’d remained aroused because he was thinking about her. He hadn’t reacted this strongly to a woman in a long time, and couldn’t understand why he had now. Anna Grant didn’t advertise her sex appeal, that was for sure. And, truth was, she might not have much, as skinny as she was.
Delicate.
He mumbled a profanity, relieved when his internal phone line rang. What he needed was a distraction.
Once the caller identified herself, Reid said, “I’m free now, Lieutenant. If you are, too, why don’t we get an early start?”
She agreed, and he was finally able to turn his mind from Anna, thinking instead about Lieutenant Jane Renner, who supervised detectives and whose rank placed her immediately beneath him. They’d planned this time to talk. She was bringing personnel files to help him familiarize himself with the investigative division. He’d already met with several key people in the support division he also headed—crime-scene technicians, clerical and records staff, fleet maintenance and more. That was the part of this new job most unfamiliar to him, where his learning curve would be steepest.
He was curious about the young woman with a bouncy ponytail who’d risen to lieutenant over an entirely male group of detectives. So far, he was reserving judgment, although she’d seemed sharp when she participated in his initial interviews. Police Chief Alec Raynor had spoken highly of her. Reid knew she’d recently married a sergeant with the Butte County Sheriff’s Department. Passing some of his female clerical staff in the hall yesterday, he’d overheard whispered gossip that made him wonder if Lieutenant Renner might be pregnant. Of course, he couldn’t ask her; HR would have his hide if he did. Assuming it was true, he had to trust she wouldn’t wait until it was painfully apparent, especially if she intended to quit. He hoped there was someone under her who was competent to step in while she took maternity leave, at the very least.
At the knock on his door, he called, “Come in,” and rose to his feet with automatic courtesy. When he was done with this meeting, he decided, he’d drive out to the Hales’ place and spend a little time with Caleb, however awkward that time would feel for both of them.
On the way out, he might stop at the front desk and ask Sergeant Shroutt to let him know when Anna Grant’s wandering lamb was safely back in her care.
* * *
AFTER LEAVING THE downtown public safety building, Anna drove a route that led from Yancey’s foster home and eventually all the way out to Highway 97, the main north-south corridor through central Oregon. Turning her head constantly in search of one undersize boy, she kept her speed down enough to annoy drivers behind her, one of whom decided to crowd her bumper. She was oh-so-tempted to slam on her brakes, but she didn’t want the hassle of having to leave her car in an auto-body shop. And she’d have to deal with the police, who might not be feeling very fond of her right now.
Too bad. Somebody had to make them do their jobs.
Tension rising as the miles passed with no sight of Yancey, Anna went south on 97 and continued through La Pine. She’d reached Little River when her phone rang. As she pulled into a gas-station parking lot, she answered crisply, “Anna Grant.”
“Ms. Grant, this is Sergeant Shroutt. We’ve picked up the boy. He’s currently at Juvenile Hall.”
She sagged with the rush of relief. “Oh, thank goodness.”
“No, thank Officer Cherney,” the sergeant said drily. “Can we assume you’ll be picking up young Yancey and taking responsibility for him?”
“You may,” she told him. “And please do thank Officer Cherney.” She hesitated only briefly. “And thank you. He’s...a sad boy. I was worried about him.”
“I do understand. It’s our preference to help, you know.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
They left it at that. She put on her signal and waited while a semi lumbered onto the highway, wondering if Sergeant Shroutt would be any more cooperative the next time she came to him. In one way, it was a pity that Captain Sawyer wasn’t in charge of the patrol officers, as he might conceivably have turned out to be a useful ally. She’d be more convinced of that, though, if he had displayed even a tiny hint of real emotion. Plus, she’d been hit by sexual attraction, which he’d shown no sign of reciprocating. No, it was just as well that she wouldn’t have to deal with him often.
Making up her mind, she made a call rather than starting back toward Angel Butte.
“Carol? Anna Grant. Listen, I know you wanted a longer break before you took another kid, but is there any chance you’d house a boy for a day or two until I can find another place for him?”
Carol Vogt was, hands down, Anna’s favorite among the foster parents associated with AHYS. A widow whose own two boys were in their thirties, she worked magic on troubled teenagers.
“A day or two.” Carol snorted. “What you mean is, ‘Will you take him just long enough so you decide you didn’t really want that break anyway?’”
Anna grinned. “Guilty as charged. But I promise, I’ll move him if you ask me to. Yancey is only thirteen, and he’s being tormented by the older boys in the home I had him living in. Which was his second since he came into the system. He ran away today and the police just picked him up. I’ve got receiving homes, but...”
She didn’t have to finish. This was a kid who needed stability, not another way station.
A sigh gusted into her ear. “Fine,” Carol said. “But you owe me one.”
“I already owe you a few thousand,” Anna admitted. “Bless you. We’ll be an hour or two.”
“I’ll have his bedroom ready.”
Anna was smiling when she finally made the turn out onto the highway.
* * *
CALEB HOVERED AT the head of the stairs where he knew he couldn’t be seen. Voices drifted up from the kitchen.
“I’m not sure where he is.” That was Paula Hale, who with her husband ran this place. “Caleb’s been spending a lot of time with Diego. They’re probably over in the cabin Diego shares with another boy.”
“I’ll take that coffee, then. Thanks.” This time, Reid’s voice came to Caleb clearly. He must be facing the stairs. “Sugar?”
“You always did have a sweet tooth. And you can’t tell me you’ve forgotten where I keep the sugar bowl.”
Caleb’s brother gave a low chuckle. “I was being polite.”
“You weren’t polite when you lived here. Why start now?”
This time they both laughed.
Caleb felt weird, an unseen third presence. He knew Roger, Paula’s husband, was outside working on Cabin Five. This place was an old resort that must have been shut down, like, a century ago. Most of the boys were paired up in the small cabins. The Hales’ room was on the main floor in the lodge, and Caleb and another guy were in bedrooms upstairs. If there were any girls in residence, Caleb had been told, they always had the rooms upstairs in the lodge so they were near the Hales. Otherwise, those bedrooms were used for new boys, until they had “settled in.” That was how Paula put it. Caleb wasn’t sure how he would ever prove he had, or even if he wanted to. He didn’t like it here—but nothing on earth would make him go back to his father’s.
“You know he doesn’t have to be here.” Paula’s voice came especially clearly.
What did that mean?
Stiffening, Caleb strained to hear Reid’s answer. It was brief, an indistinguishable rumble.
What you need isn’t anything I have in me. Remembering the expressionless way his brother had said that, Caleb sneered. Was that what Reid was telling Paula?
He couldn’t catch the beginning of what Paula said in response, but the tail end made his heart thud. “...you could prove abuse if you wanted to.”
“You refusing to keep him here?” Reid asked more clearly.
“You know that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“He needs to know you want him.”
Caleb quit breathing through the long silence that followed. And then his brother’s voice was so soft, he came close to missing it.
“I do.” Pause. “And I don’t.”
A skim of ice hardened in Caleb’s chest. The I do part was a joke. The only honest part of that was I don’t.
Paula said something, and then Reid did, but their voices were fading. They must have left the kitchen for what Paula called the great room.
He needs to know you want him.
I don’t.
His brother had found him, rescued him, but then palmed him off on someone else because he couldn’t be bothered.
Caleb eased down the stairs, then out the kitchen door without even pausing to grab a parka.
* * *
“YOU DON’T?” PAULA SAID. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Reid made an impatient gesture. “Come on. You know what I mean. I’m not father material. I told Caleb I’m damaged, and it’s true.”
Paula didn’t take her gaze from his as she sat on one of the benches at the long tables where meals were served in the main room of the lodge.
Despite having stayed in touch and contributed financially, he hadn’t actually seen either of the Hales in something like ten years until the day he’d brought Caleb here. He had been shocked to see Paula’s long braid was turning gray. She’d always looked like an aging hippie to him, but that had been from the perspective of a boy. Now she really was aging. Roger’s dark hair and beard were shot with gray, too. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d imagined them, and this refuge they guarded, as eternally the same. Reid hated to think about the time when they couldn’t take in kids anymore.
“Damage heals,” Paula said calmly.
Straddling a bench across the table from her, he had the uneasy feeling she was seeing further below the surface than he wanted her to. He’d forgotten the way she could always do that.
“I think you’re underestimating yourself, Reid. You’ve changed your life for the sake of a boy you didn’t know a couple of months ago. What’s that but love?”
Love? He snorted. “I feel responsible.” So responsible, he’d started job hunting in central Oregon the minute he’d brought Caleb here. Left a job that satisfied him for one he wasn’t so sure he was going to like. Yeah, he’d gone out on a limb for this brother, but he’d rather call it guilt than love.
“Responsible? Why?”
He eyed her smile warily. “He’s my brother.”
“You’d never met him. It’s not as if you grew up with him.”
“I swore I’d know if that son of a bitch ever had another kid. Instead, I let it go. Caleb has gone through hell because I shut my eyes.”
“No,” she said, correcting him, “he’s gone through hell because your father is abusive. You have no responsibility for your father’s sins.”
He stared at her, baffled and frustrated by her refusal to understand what he was saying. “So I should have shrugged and gone on with my life?”
“Neither of us could have done that.”
“Then your point is?”
“Is this about Caleb at all, or are you trying to save yourself?”
Not reacting took an effort of will. “What kind of psychobabble is that?” he scoffed.
“Same kind I’ve always thrown at you.”
Reid gave a reluctant chuckle.
“Do you see yourself in Caleb?”
“Save the crap, Paula. I’m not a kid anymore.”
“You’ll always be one of my kids.” Her voice had descended a register, letting him hear the tenderness, tying and untying a knot in his chest.
Reid cleared his throat. It didn’t do anything for the lump centered beneath his breastbone. “I’m sorry I haven’t been back to visit in so long.”
“Caleb made you revisit your past.”
Oh, crap. Here we go again. “I’m giving him the same chance I had, that’s all.”
“You’re doing more than that, or you wouldn’t have moved to Angel Butte,” she pointed out. “You’re trying to be family, Reid.” She reached across the table and laid her hand over his. “He needs you and you need him.”
He bent his head and looked at her hand, which was getting knobby with the beginnings of arthritis. So much smaller than his hand. Still so unfailingly...loving.
Shit. Did that mean he knew what the word meant after all? He’d have told anyone who asked that all he felt for Paula and Roger was gratitude and admiration, but...now he wasn’t sure that was true. He’d just as soon the possibility hadn’t occurred to him. Love had never been a safe emotion for him.
“Maybe so,” he said, hearing his own gruffness. “And I’d better go hunt him down before he decides I’m not here to see him at all.”
“Yes, you should.” She let him come around the table to her and lean over to kiss her cheek, but she grabbed his hand before he could turn away and looked at him with those penetrating eyes. “You’re a good man, Reid Sawyer. Trust yourself.”
He felt about seventeen again, as if his feet were still too big, and his cheeks turned red at any compliment. “I may be a decent man,” he said finally. “But good? No. You’re a good woman, Paula Hale. I don’t measure up.”
He tore himself away then. Her voice followed him. “You will, Reid. I have enough faith for both of us.”
Faith. Out of her hearing, he grunted. There was a word more foreign to him than love.
So, okay, she could be right that on some subconscious level he was seeing himself in this younger brother, who looked so much like him. Why else the cauldron of emotions he’d been feeling, the ingredients of which he didn’t even want to identify? That kind of transference was probably inevitable. He’d needed to be saved; now it was his turn to do the saving. Paying it forward was what people called it these days. That’s all I’m doing.
He didn’t think about why he was looking forward to seeing Caleb. Or why he was so disappointed when, twenty minutes later, he conceded defeat.
The disappearing act was so good, it was clear his brother didn’t want to see him. Reid told himself that was okay. The two of them hardly knew each other. When Reid had first come here, he’d been like a feral animal in a trap, suspicious of anything that looked like affection. He didn’t know why he’d expected different of Caleb.
The Hales had a gift for healing wounded, fearful young men. Paula was wrong; Caleb didn’t need his brother, the stranger.
Which raised the question, why had he turned his own life upside down to be nearby when he’d already fulfilled his responsibility? He could have stayed in touch long-distance well enough.
He laughed, short and harsh, as he climbed into his Ford Expedition. Taking a last look at the ramshackle lodge that anchored a line of even more run-down cabins strung along the bank of Bear Creek, he breathed in the distinctive odor of ponderosa-pine forest, sharp despite the near-freezing temperature. Trust Paula to get him analyzing his choices. One of her more irritating characteristics.
But he was a big boy now, capable of resisting. A big boy who, for whatever idiotic reason, had taken on a new job with more scope than he’d anticipated. What he needed to do was concentrate on that job, not hanker for some elusive connection he’d lived his whole damn life without.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_0c711864-dce1-5ad8-bb4f-8e87b769ba6c)
“IT’S ARSON,” REID said flatly. He crouched and stared closely at the distinctive pattern of charring that climbed the interior wood-paneled wall of the cabin. He’d been lucky to find it, given the extent of the damage. “I’m no fire marshal,” he said, rising to his feet, “but I don’t have to be.”
Beside him, Roger Hale grunted. “I thought I smelled gasoline.”
“Hard to miss,” Reid agreed.
He hadn’t expected to hear from either of the Hales so soon after his Wednesday visit. On this fine Sunday morning, he’d been sprawled in bed trying to decide whether he could roll over and get some more sleep or was already too wide-awake when his phone had rung. Given his job, he kept the damn thing close, despite how often he cursed its existence. Hearing what Roger had to say had driven away any desire on his part to be lazy.
When he arrived half an hour ago, a cluster of boys had hovered on the front porch of the lodge. Caleb wasn’t among them.
Walking to greet Reid, Roger had seen where he was looking. “Probably his turn in the shower. We were all pretty filthy by the time we got the fire out.”
Paula had been the one to spot it, according to Roger. She’d gotten up to use the john and seen a strange orange glow out the small window. Roger had yanked on clothes and run outside to find the fire climbing the back wall of the last cabin in the row. Even as he’d hooked up hoses, he had yelled to awaken the boys.
“This wasn’t one of the occupied cabins,” Reid said, turning slowly to examine the interior. Frigid blue sky showed through a gaping hole in the roof. There hadn’t been much furniture in the cabin. No mattress—or at least no springs—but the wooden bed frame was so much half-burned firewood now. On instinct, he started picking through the debris.
“No, we haven’t put anyone in here in...oh, five or six years,” Roger replied. “I’d been thinking I either needed to raze it or do some serious work. But you know we never fill all the cabins.” His expression was troubled. “You’re saying our firebug didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
Yet. Reid didn’t like thinking that, but had to.
“No, this was done either for fun or to get some attention.”
He debated whether to say more, but suspected he didn’t have to. Roger was a smart, well-read man. He’d already been thinking hard, or he wouldn’t have summoned Reid to take a look.
Arson wasn’t like shoplifting or half a dozen other crimes Reid could think of, tried by a kid once out of curiosity or on a dare, then forgotten in a generally well-lived life. Famously, arson was one of the classic precursors of a serial killer. A budding pyromaniac, who set fires for the thrill, was bound to escalate in a different way.
This fire had been relatively harmless. The cabin hadn’t been close to any of the others, and given that the last snowfall had melted only a few days ago, sparks had been unlikely to find dry fuel in the surrounding woods.
Reid found what he’d sought and wordlessly held out what was left of the side rail of a bed for Roger to see. One end was seared; the other was freshly splintered. As he’d suspected, the bed had been broken up to serve as firewood that would give the blaze what it needed to grow until it had the size and heat to bite into the solid log walls.
Roger shook his head. “We’ve had our share of troubles, but never a kid who wanted to burn up the world.”
“There’s a first for everything.”
“We can’t be sure it’s one of the boys.”
Reid kept his mouth shut.
“Goddamn.” Roger vented by kicking at a still-steaming pile of half-burned wood. One piece fell away, revealing an orange spark beneath. Part of the headboard, Reid diagnosed, as he stamped out the ember beneath his booted foot. “Shit,” Roger growled, “we’d better rake through this and be sure there’s nothing that can start it up again.”
“Yeah, you got lucky none of the neighbors spotted the glow and called the fire department.”
Everybody around here had acreage, so there were no close neighbors. This fire must have leaped pretty high into the sky before they began fighting it, though. The last thing the Hales needed was a fire marshal out here asking questions. He or she wouldn’t be able to help but notice that the Hales had too many kids. Even if Paula and Roger succeeded in hiding some of them, it would take barely a casual glance to see that a number of the cabins were occupied. With the addition of Caleb, there were currently ten boys in residence in the old resort, which was actually fewer than Reid knew they sometimes had.
Roger paused in the act of kicking through the charred debris. “Could that have been the point?”
“To rat you out?” Nice thought. “Only if you’ve got a kid who doesn’t want to be here.”
“Who says it has to be one of the boys? The middle of the night, anyone could have brought a can of gasoline and a matchbook. With this cabin down at the end, he’d have been unlikely to be heard.”
“It’s a possibility.” Reid wasn’t sure it was one he liked any better than the idea that one of the boys here was a newbie arsonist.
Roger gusted out a sigh. “We’ll talk to all of them. Along with Caleb, we’ve got two other relatively recent arrivals.”
Something in Roger’s tone caught Reid’s attention. He turned slowly to meet his shrewd gaze. Damn. Of course that question had to be asked.
“Caleb has no history of anything like this.” His jaw set. He made the reluctant addition, “That I know of.”
Roger waved his hand in what Reid knew was a conciliating gesture. “Didn’t think so, but he’s the newest.”
“And you’ve never had a fire before.”
“No. We’ve never had a fire before,” Roger echoed. “Guess it had to happen sooner or later.”
The resigned, even philosophical conclusion wrung a reluctant laugh from Reid.
They both heard the sound of approaching voices. End of discussion. Damn, he didn’t like to think what was to come. Once the Hales started separating boys and probing, the atmosphere would be poisoned by suspicion. How could it help but be?
He wouldn’t be the only one looking at every one of these boys differently from here on out—including the brother he didn’t know all that well.
Frowning at that blackened wall, he shook his head. He almost hoped the fire had been set for fun. Because if it actually had been intended to draw attention to the existence of this illicit shelter, it had failed in its purpose. Whoever he was, the arsonist would not be happy the fire had been put out quietly, causing only the slightest stir and some undirected finger-pointing.
The back of Reid’s neck prickled. Fun was a misleading word to start with. Fire suggested rage. Would the next blaze be bigger, causing more damage? Or would whoever set it try something completely different?
* * *
PUSHING HER CART down the aisle at Safeway, Anna caught a troubling whiff of smoke. Not tobacco—burning wood. Although there might be a hint of something else. Frowning, she came to a stop in front of the displays of boxed pastas and turned to look around her.
A man, also pushing a half-full cart, was directly behind her. Captain Reid Sawyer, no less, who had been featured on the front page of this morning’s Angel Butte Reporter. In well-worn jeans, boots, a heavy flannel shirt and down vest, he was dressed a whole lot more casually than he had been the last time she saw him.
He gave her a slightly crooked smile. “I thought I recognized that hair.”
“Hair?” Her hand rose to touch her head. Yes, it was still there. Feeling foolish, she snatched her hand back and wrapped it safely around the handle of the cart. “It’s brown,” she said repressively. “How could you recognize my hair?”
“It’s not brown.” He sounded amused. “It’s dozens of colors. I’ll bet you were a towhead when you were a kid, weren’t you?”
She and her sister both had been. She shied away from a memory that was borrowed from a snapshot rather than real, of two girls standing stiffly, side by side, staring at the camera. She thought it was one of the times when they’d been delivered to a new home.
“Once upon a time.” The smell was stronger, if anything. “Do you smell smoke?”
Strangely, he bent his head to sniff at himself. “Ah, that would be me. I’m sorry. I should have gone home to shower. I didn’t realize I’d soaked it up.”
She finally identified that illusory other component of the smell. “Gasoline.”
His eyes sharp on her face, he said, “Yeah. You’ve got a good nose.”
“What were you doing, cheating when you lit the briquettes?”
His chuckle was the first she’d seen echoed in his eyes. “That sounds suicidal.”
“I had a—” She stopped, said more stiffly, “I knew someone once who used so much lighter fluid that there’d be a huge burst of flame when he tossed on a match.”
“Also suicidal.” His gaze was thoughtful now, as though he wondered what she hadn’t wanted to say. “In my case, I was checking on a fire a friend had to put out on his property. He wanted to know what I thought.”
“You mean, whether it had been set on purpose?”
He dipped his head.
“And it was.”
“Thus the gasoline,” he agreed.
“Did you call the fire department?”
“No, it wasn’t that significant. More of an annoyance. But since I had to go right by the store on my way home, I decided to stock up for the week.”
“Oh. Me, too.” Duh. “Well, um, I’d better—”
“I hear Yancey was found alive and well.”
“Yes.” Anna was impressed that he’d remembered the name. The help he’d offered her had to have been a trivial part of his week. “He hadn’t gotten as far as the highway yet.”
“So Sergeant Shroutt told me. You return him to his foster home?”
“I found him a new one,” she corrected. “For the time being, he’ll be the only child in the home, which I think he needs. If I have to put anyone else in it, I’ll send, I don’t know, a ten-year-old girl.”
“A child who might look up to him.” He sounded approving.
“Yes.” Anna didn’t like feeling as if she had to defend herself, but she hadn’t liked his expression Wednesday when she’d told him she had been trying to find Yancey a better placement. Or, more accurate, she hadn’t liked her own sense of having failed one of the children for whom she was responsible. “This particular foster parent is one of my best. The brother and sister she had were returned to their parents, and she’d asked for a break. I was hoping Yancey could hold out until she was ready for another child. My mistake was not telling him what I planned.”
Something had changed on his face. “Returned to their parents,” he repeated in an unreadable tone. “That must be hard on a foster parent.”
“It depends. Sometimes we all have doubts about whether the family can be stable, but in this case, Carol had developed a close relationship with the mother in particular. She thought it was time. I know she plans to stay in touch. And of course the kids’ caseworker will keep an eye on the situation.”
He nodded. “Does this Carol keep kids long-term?”
“Usually not.” She hesitated. “Yancey has been freed by the court for adoption, but given his age it’s unlikely there’ll be any takers. I hate to have her tied up for that many years, but...” She sighed. “I think she’ll love Yancey, and he’ll love her. So...I hope she’s able to keep him.”
Something clanged into her cart and she turned quickly.
“I’m so sorry!” The woman had clearly been trying to squeeze her own, heavily laden cart past. “I’m a lousy driver.”
Anna smiled. “And I’m blocking the road.” She pushed hers out of the way, then glanced back at Reid Sawyer. “I’d better get on with my shopping now that I know the store isn’t going to burn down.”
“I should, too, before I scare anyone else.” His gaze rested on her face with a weight she’d never felt before. “Any chance you’d like to have a cup of coffee when you’re done?”
A curl of warmth low in her abdomen battled with the bump of alarm in her chest. She didn’t like the way he seemed to hear more than she meant to say, but... Oh, lord, if he was attracted to her, too...
Could he be? He was law enforcement calendar-cover-model material, while she knew perfectly well she was ordinary personified.
One eyebrow rose. “I’ll accept a polite no. You don’t have to agonize.”
“No.” Oh, for heaven’s sake—now her cheeks were heating. “I mean, yes. I was, um, just juggling my schedule in my head. Coffee would be nice. If you don’t mind waiting until I finish,” she added hastily.
His eyes had warmed. “I have a ways to go myself. In fact, I was going to grab some rotini as soon as you moved.”
The rotini she was blocking. No wonder he’d lingered to make conversation.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted and pushed her cart forward. Then remembering she needed pasta, too, she turned back to grab lasagna noodles at the same time he was reaching past her. They bumped. He dropped the box he’d been taking from the shelf, and she apologized several more times and felt like a klutz and a social disaster by the time she wheeled around the end of the aisle and out of sight of the single sexiest man she’d ever met.
* * *
ANNA WAS JUST getting into line when Reid accepted his receipt and decided to put his groceries in the back of his Expedition so he’d be free to help her stow hers.
The store was a busy place today, and he intercepted several interested glances in the parking lot. He managed civil nods in response. Much as he hated the idea, he’d had to cooperate when the newspaper decided they wanted to run a piece on him. He wasn’t just a cop anymore; he was a public official, symbolizing this small city’s police department. Unfortunately, there’d been more interest in him than there likely would have been if his predecessor had accepted a job somewhere else and faded away. No such luck for Reid. Colin McAllister had run a very public, highly scrutinized campaign right here in this county and unseated an incumbent sheriff that the Hales, at least, had described as lazy and self-satisfied. The reforms McAllister was instigating in the sheriff’s department were drawing a lot of press, too. It wasn’t surprising that people were curious about the man who had replaced him in his old job.
Reid hoped he’d hid how very uncomfortable he was about that kind of scrutiny. He’d done his damnedest to deflect personal questions and talk instead about what he saw as his professional role. One thing he couldn’t do was admit he’d ever lived in Angel Butte. Instead he’d implied he had vacationed here in the past, liked the area, jumped when he saw the job opening. No, he wasn’t a fisherman or hunter and he’d never alpine skiied, but he did cross-country ski, hike and kayak. Yes, he was looking forward to the recreational opportunities.
“Clean air is good, too,” he’d said, and the quote appeared in the paper. As had a photo of him that he’d scrutinized for several minutes this morning, the newspaper spread open on his table. Even though he saw that face in the mirror every morning when he shaved, he hardly recognized himself in print. It was a peculiar experience.
He had very few pictures of himself. When he had run away from home, it hadn’t occurred to him to take anything like baby pictures along. He’d brought a couple pictures of his mother, that was all—ones he’d secreted away from his father. As for the rest of the family photos, he had no idea whether his father would have kept them in a box in the closet or burned them. Maybe he’d ask Caleb sometime. Reid knew the Hales had taken pictures, but not a lot. He’d never had reason to go to a professional photographer. The few times he’d appeared in the newspaper, he’d been caught as part of a scene, or, a couple of times, when he was giving a statement or was arriving at or leaving court. The focus hadn’t been so intensely on him.
Now he put the last grocery bag in the rear cargo area and slammed the door. He was glad to see Anna leaving the store just then and strode to meet her.
“Oh!” She looked shy. “I wondered how to find you.”
“I got done first.”
She stopped in front of a bright blue Toyota RAV4, one he thought was several years old but still in good condition, and unlocked the rear hatch. His hands were large enough to grab the handles of several bags at once, and he made short work of unloading.
“Why don’t you come with me?” he suggested. “I can bring you back to your car later.”
“There’s a Starbucks inside the store.”
He’d noticed it. The tiny tables in the middle of traffic weren’t what he had in mind.
“There has to be someplace we won’t be on display.”
She eyed him curiously. “I saw you in the paper this morning.”
“You and every other person shopping today.” He knew he sounded grumpy. He had an odd moment of wondering whether her interest in that article had been more than casual and whether her eyes had lingered on the photo.
With a smirk, she inclined her head to draw his attention to two women passing, both of whom were staring.
He was getting good at those polite nods.
“Like I said, I’d enjoy a cup of coffee a lot more if people weren’t gaping at me.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Intrigued, he said, “What?”
“I just...” Her cheeks were a little pink. She made a face. “I was going to say, what’s to stop me gaping at you?”
He grinned. “Gape to your heart’s content.”
Yeah, he liked this lighthearted exchange. No ghosts here. He wasn’t sure if she was flirting with him or not, but she had said yes to coffee, and that meant something. He was getting more interested by the minute in finding out what she wore beneath today’s close-fitting jeans, knee-high boots and thigh-length sweater over a turtleneck. Slightly more revealing than her utilitarian work getup—he could at least tell she had fabulous legs—but not much. Of course, given the temperature outside, everyone was dressed in bulky layers.
Seeing her looking more stylish today, though, he was close to ruling out the serviceable white undergarments. The field was now open. Her personality had enough contradictions, he had no idea. Fortunately, he liked mysteries.
Besides, he could strip off panties of any color or material just as quickly.
“Why don’t I drive?” she suggested. “I gather you haven’t been in town very long. Do you know where to go?”
“I’d stop at the first place that said coffee,” he admitted, not telling her he’d spent his first day in town doing nothing but driving around. He was like a cat, needing to know his territory and where the outermost edges of it were.
Angel Butte had changed one hell of a lot since he had left after turning eighteen, and nearly as much since his last visit when he was twenty-four or -five. Then, it had still been a small town. The mall, Walmart, Staples and the rest weren’t here. An annexation had extended the city limits to take in a whole lot of new development, as well as empty country he had no doubt would be developed in the next ten years. Many of the new homes weren’t for full-time residents, which made Angel Butte different from anyplace else he’d ever lived. He imagined it as something of a ghost town during the in-between seasons: after the ski lifts shut down, but before hiking trails were open and fishing licenses issued, and then again in the fall when the reverse happened.
Reid suspected Anna was challenging him by offering to drive. Cops were notorious control freaks who didn’t like being driven by someone else. The generalization applied to him, all right. Still, he figured he was safe with her behind the wheel given what a short distance they had to travel.
“Sure,” he said, hiding his smile at her surprise.
Turned out she wasn’t a bad driver at all. He only compressed the floorboards with his right foot a couple of times and grabbed for the armrest once. She laughed at him that time.
They ended up at a place called The Butte, only a couple blocks from the public safety building that housed the police station, but on a side street. He’d seen it, but not yet been in. From the length of the line inside, business was bustling.
“Best coffee in town,” she told him as they waited. He listened to conversations around them and decided most of the people were locals rather than tourists.
She looked at him askance when he ordered an Americano and then narrowed her eyes and said, “Not a word,” before asking for a gingerbread latte.
“A froufrou drink,” he murmured in her ear.
She accepted it from the teenager behind the counter and breathed in happily. “Dessert and caffeine all in one. I love gingerbread.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever had any,” he remarked as they wended between tables to an open booth on the side.
“Never eaten gingerbread? Not even a gingerbread man?”
Her outrage made him smile. “I don’t think so.”
Even though he would have remained more anonymous if he had sat with his back to the door, he maneuvered her so he could sit facing the room. He liked knowing what was behind him.
At first they chatted about Angel Butte, edging gradually to the kind of questions people asked when they wanted to know each other: What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? Where did you grow up? How’d you end up here?
They both admitted to being readers, enjoying some movies. Both were runners, although she was taking a step-aerobics class right now instead. He worked out at a gym, too, and played basketball and racquetball.
“I’ve already played in a few pickup games at the Y,” he said, smiling slyly. “Beat the mayor himself at racquetball.”
“Noah Chandler?” She looked intrigued before grinning at him. “Well, you ought to be able to. He’s got to be too muscle-bound to be fast.”
“I wouldn’t say that. It was a hard-fought game.”
He admitted to having grown up in Spokane, then repeated the lies he’d told the reporter about having vacationed in central Oregon.
“I’ve lived all over Oregon,” she said, her lashes veiling her eyes and making him wonder what she didn’t want him to see. “I finally graduated from high school in Bend.”
Reid nodded; Bend was the largest city in central Oregon and only about a forty-five-minute drive from Angel Butte.
“Parents still in the area?” he asked casually.
He’d have sworn the gray of her eyes darkened, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. Oh, damn, he thought—he’d been right about the ghosts.
“I grew up in foster homes,” she said after a minute, so casually he realized she must say this often. Which made sense. Telling her story would be a good way to connect with the kids on the job. “My parents split up when I was three or four, I think. I never saw my father again, and I barely remember my mother. She couldn’t cope on her own.”
“Was she abusive?” A familiar ball of anger and something else formed in his chest. He was disturbed at how clearly he could see that little girl, skin and bones, pale hair and the eyes that were still huge and haunting.
But she shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Just...negligent.”
He curled his hand around his coffee to keep from reaching for her. “Did you miss her?”
Tiny crinkles formed on her forehead as she seemed to ponder. “I suppose I might have. I don’t remember.”
“You’ve never looked for her? Or your father?”
“No.” That lusciously sexy voice had gone hard. “I have no interest in them.”
“I suppose this answers the question of how you chose your profession,” he said thoughtfully.
“I consider it a vocation.”
No nine-to-five for her. Apparently the two of them had something in common. Unlike most cops, he’d hungered for the domestic-abuse calls. He’d never dreamed about working Homicide; he wanted to bring down the assholes like his father.
Of course, he’d found himself arresting not only men but women, too. Not quite as many, but plenty of them. Mostly for child abuse, but occasionally they were the aggressors against the men in their lives, too.
“I’ve...always felt the same about my own job,” he said slowly, zinged by the sense of shock and, yeah, panic that came when he let himself wonder what in hell he had thought he was doing here in Angel Butte. The Family Violence Unit had been his goal from the minute he joined the Orange County P.D. in Southern California. It had been the next thing to a religious vocation for him, although he’d never used that word before. Now he was an administrator who would rarely deal directly with people in crisis. Supervising major investigations, sure, but also juggling the demands of different departments for paper clips, printer ink cartridges, air filters for the police cars and more clerical help.
God help him.
“What about your parents?” Anna asked softly, dragging him back to the present.
He sat very still, doing his best to give away nothing. “My mother died when I was ten. My father...is also a cop. Spokane P.D.”
“You took after him.”
“No.” There was more bite in the one word than he’d meant to put there. Her eyes widened. “I consider myself his antithesis,” Reid said calmly. “He’s a son of a bitch.”
“I...see.”
He was afraid she did. Those extraordinary eyes gazed at him as if he were a crystal ball and the mist within was clearing to reveal what she wanted to know. The sensation made his skin crawl.
Why had he started this, against his original instinct? It wasn’t only her eyes that were spooky; it was her. A casual sexual relationship wasn’t going to be possible with this woman.
He made a production out of draining the last of his coffee and then glanced at his watch. “We probably shouldn’t linger too long. Our frozen food will melt.”
She didn’t call him on the absurdity of that, when the outside temp might conceivably have reached a not-so-balmy forty degrees Fahrenheit. Instead, she took a long drink of her latte and said politely, “You’re right. I’m ready if you are.”
On the drive back to the Safeway parking lot, he asked how long she’d lived in Angel Butte. Seven years. Although she enjoyed cross-country skiing, she’d never taken up alpine. She hadn’t learned as a child and couldn’t afford the sport now even if she’d wanted to try it. He felt guilty for asking, when she had already told him she’d grown up in foster homes. Of course she hadn’t had the opportunity.
When she came to a stop right behind his SUV and said “Thank you for the coffee” in a tone that told him she knew his interest had cooled, Reid felt...regret. He didn’t like knowing he’d probably hurt her feelings.
Be smart.
“My pleasure,” he said, opening his door. “Glad I ran into you.”
She said something as meaningless. He nodded, shut the door and dug his keys out of his pocket as he walked around the driver side of the Expedition. By the time he got in and glanced in the rearview mirror, she was gone.
Out of sight, out of mind, he told himself, but his chest constricted uncomfortably.
All the more reason to stay clear of her. Thinking hard these past nights since his Wednesday visit to the shelter, he’d recognized that Paula might be right. A part of him did want to love this newfound brother and be loved in return. If so, it was a major step for him. The kind of intimacy it took to really love a woman... No. He did know his own boundaries. Anna Grant was outside them.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_53152cb7-8752-56f1-b33c-fcfdd1dd3254)
CALEB LEAPED UP from the bench and stared at Paula in outrage. “You think I set the fire.”
“No.” Her gaze was kind, but when she said, “Sit down,” he didn’t mistake her firmness. He’d already figured out that, despite first impressions, Paula was the hard-ass, Roger the easy touch of the two.
“Then why are you asking me—”
“All we’re trying to do is determine whether any of you saw anything. If possible, we’d like to be sure none of you boys set the fire.”
“Why would we?”
She gave him a little lecture about how arson was a form of acting out and how some of the boys who came here were troubled. Good word—troubled. He hadn’t yet asked anyone else why they were here, but he knew it had to be shit as bad as he’d experienced. And, like had happened with him, the police and courts had screwed them over, too. That was what this place was—a last resort.
Hey, pun.
Caleb repeated that he’d been asleep until he heard Roger bellowing for help. He’d looked out his window but hadn’t seen anything—his window faced the wrong way—but then he’d stuck his head out into the hall to find out what was going on.
“I heard you yelling there was a fire, to hurry and get dressed, so I hammered on TJ’s door.” TJ was the other guy who had a room upstairs at the lodge. Caleb didn’t really like TJ, who had a major chip on his shoulder and an explosive temper. “He yelled, ‘What?’ You know, like he was pissed I’d woken him up.”
Paula nodded. TJ was always pissed. It was March now, and Caleb had been here since right after Christmas. TJ had already been here a couple of months then. He was probably stuck living in the lodge because no one wanted to share a cabin with him. Caleb had a really bad feeling they’d end up paired whether he liked it or not.
“Was he dressed when he came out?” she asked.
Caleb cast his mind back. “No, he was buck naked. His hair was flat on one side and sticking up on the other. I told him there was a fire and Roger needed help putting it out. He sort of shrugged and went back into his room.” TJ had eventually showed up to help haul buckets of water from the creek.
“You were a big help fighting the fire,” Paula said. “Thank you.”
“You weren’t using that cabin anyway, right?”
She gave him sort of a funny look. “No, but the flames could have spread. And what if the same somebody decides to set another fire?”
“How do you know it wasn’t, like, bad wiring or something?” he asked, feeling awkward but not liking what she was suggesting. What if whoever it was set the lodge on fire next time?
“Didn’t you smell the gasoline?”
He frowned, remembering. “I guess. I thought it was propane. I mean, there’s a tank outside the lodge.”
“But not the cabins.”
He nodded after a minute.
“And you know your brother was here this morning to take a look. He showed Roger where the fire started. It wasn’t near an electrical outlet or in the kitchen area where there were any appliances.”
Your brother. He hadn’t gotten used to those words. They made him feel...twitchy. As if he couldn’t sit still.
“I know you boys are talking about it.” Paula sounded weary. “I wouldn’t normally encourage any of you to rat on each other, but this is serious. Even scary. Please come to Roger or me—or Reid,” she added, “if you hear anything that makes you uneasy.”
That was one of the reasons he wasn’t settling in here. It was knowing the only reason they’d taken him was Reid. That Reid was like their real son, and Caleb was only a favor they were doing for him.
He nodded, even though he didn’t know if he was really agreeing to anything, and asked, “Can I go?”
“Yes. Thank you, Caleb. If you see Isaac, will you send him in?”
“Um...sure.”
He went outside to look for Diego, who’d been grilled right before Caleb. Fun Sunday—taking turns facing an inquisition. And after they’d all busted their asses helping to put out the fire last night.
He found Diego splitting wood, watched by two of the other guys, Damon and Isaac. They must have been talking, because they all turned and looked at him.
“Paula wants you,” Caleb said to Isaac, a lanky, beak-nosed seventeen-year-old. He was some kind of math genius who’d helped Caleb with his geometry the other day.
Isaac nodded and left. He never had much to say. He’d probably been doing nothing but listening to what the other two were saying.
Diego lifted the ax and swung. Thud. A chunk of wood split and fell from the big round of fir they used as a base.
Damon glanced over his shoulder, as if to make sure Isaac was really out of earshot. “Palmer doesn’t think Isaac was in his cabin when Roger woke everyone up,” he said.
“What?” Diego stared at him, the ax dangling from his hand. “How would Palmer know? He’s, like, two cabins away.”
“That’s what he says. Only Apollo came out.”
“Did anyone ask Apollo?”
Damon sneered. “Like he’d say. They’re tight.”
“Tight enough to lie about something like that?” Caleb asked, almost reluctantly.
“Shit, yeah!”
“I don’t know.” Diego sounded doubtful.
“What?” Damon stepped forward, his stance aggressive. “You’re saying Palmer’s lying?”
“I’m saying maybe Isaac was sound asleep and slower to get up. He’s been here, like, three years. If he wanted to set fires, why wouldn’t he have done it before?”
“Who says he hasn’t? None of the rest of us have been here that long.”
Caleb shook his head. “This is stupid. We don’t know anything. We shouldn’t be making accusations because somebody said somebody else said.”
Damon swung an angry stare at Caleb. “Who are you calling stupid?”
Caleb balanced on his feet in case this asshole decided to make it physical. “Nobody. I’m saying we should stick together, not whisper about each other.”
“You would say that.”
Caleb was getting pissed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re new here. You could have gone out easy. Come back in just as easy.”
“I don’t set fires,” he said flatly, when what he wanted to do was plant his fist in the guy’s mouth.
“Yeah? We don’t know you.”
“You mean, you don’t know shit,” Caleb shot back.
Damon launched himself. A moment later, they were rolling on the ground and Caleb had the satisfaction of feeling his knuckles connecting with Damon’s nose.
* * *
CALEB’S SPLIT LIP had crusted over. The black eye had faded to mauve and puce, but was still visible. Reid assessed the range of colors. The fight must have taken place in the neighborhood of three days ago. Today was Wednesday, so the injury had likely happened Sunday after the fire. When suspicion had begun to gather.
“What?” Caleb snarled. “I suppose you’re here to give me some big lecture about being a good boy and not fighting while your best buds the Hales are being generous enough to give me a home.”
They were in the front room of the lodge, temporarily alone. Determined to hide the tension his brother had awakened with his obvious hostility, Reid leaned back where he sat on the sagging sofa and clasped his hands behind his head. “I didn’t know you’d been in a fight until I saw your face,” he said mildly. “I came to see you.”
“Oh, right. Like they didn’t call you the minute it happened.”
Reid shook his head, his experienced eye dating the progression of the bruises. “Has to have been a few days.”
Caleb stared stubbornly at him.
Reid sighed. “This is not a school. They don’t call me every time you get in trouble.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Your privilege.” He raised his eyebrows. “Do you want to tell me?”
It was disconcerting seeing the sullenness gathered on a face that looked so much like his own. Caleb must be giving the Hales flashbacks. “What if I say no?” his brother challenged him.
“That’s your privilege, too.”
They sat in silence for what had to be a minute. Clattering came from the kitchen, but nobody appeared. It wasn’t Paula; Reid knew she’d driven up to Bend to load up on basics at Costco.
Caleb glanced toward the kitchen, but the two of them were far enough away to go unheard.
“There’s been a lot of shit talked since the fire,” he mumbled. “This one guy said I’m the newest, so it must be me who set it.” He shrugged. “I told him I didn’t, and to shut up.”
Reid’s mouth quirked. “He didn’t like that, I gather.”
“He’ll know better than to go for me next time. I broke his nose.”
God. How was he supposed to handle this? A fatherly lecture wouldn’t go over well, assuming he knew how to give one. All their father would have wanted to know was why Caleb had let a fist get through his defenses.
I’m not his father. I’m his brother.
Yeah, no on-the-job experience there, either. The feeling of helplessness didn’t sit well with Reid.
“So you know how to fight” was the best he could come up with.
Caleb bent his head so Reid couldn’t see his face. “I guess.”
“You miss being on sports teams?”
Caleb shrugged.
This was going nowhere. Reid decided to let it drop and get to what he’d come out here for. Besides visiting his brother, making sure he was okay.
“Dad called.”
“What?” The boy’s head snapped up. “You mean, that stuff about him thinking you were dead was bullshit?”
“He never thought that,” Reid said flatly. “He just didn’t want to give you any ideas.”
Caleb shook his head as if dazed. “Wait. He knows where you are?”
“After I turned eighteen and started college, my guess is he’s always tracked me. I thought about changing my name, but I never did. I figured, what could he do to me?” Reid’s turn to shrug. He didn’t like saying this, but had to. “He asked if I had you.”
Fear darkened Caleb’s eyes. “What did you say?”
“No, of course.” That wasn’t all he’d said. He’d also said mockingly, So you lost another son. Guess you didn’t learn anything the first time around.
It might have been smarter to ask who the hell Caleb was. He doubted his father would have bought the pretense, though. If he’d kept checking on Reid over the years, Dean Sawyer would know his oldest son was a cop. They were a paranoid bunch, and his father was more paranoid than most, as well as arrogant. He was bound to assume Reid had remained wary enough to keep checking up on him.
Caleb jumped to his feet, his face pinched with fear. “What if he comes here looking for me?”
Reid let his hands fall to his sides. “What if he does? Not many people know what the Hales’ place is. It’s way out of town. How could he possibly find you here?”
“I don’t know, but— Jesus.”
Reid straightened. “It does mean you need to stick close to home. Don’t go into town for now. If a car pulls into the driveway, stay out of sight. If Dad comes down to Oregon to look around, he’ll find out I live alone. The job was a promotion for me. There’s no reason for him to question why I moved here. I haven’t told anyone about you or my connection to the shelter.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about! He won’t let me go.”
Reid added steel to his voice. “You’re already gone. You told me that yourself. Remember?”
“If he shows up, some of the guys would tell him in a second I’m here!” Caleb’s panic was unreasoning. He backed away and almost stumbled over a side table.
“And why is that?” Reid asked.
His brother’s face twisted into an ugly expression and he let loose an expletive. “Has to be my fault, right?”
Reid rose to his feet. “I didn’t say—”
“Yeah, well, you’ve warned me.” His gaze raked Reid. “Nothing like having a brother who’ll nobly risk everything for my sake.”
The churning inside felt like heartburn or something worse. Reid held Caleb’s gaze. “You want to come home with me right now? Take Daddy on? Is that it?”
“No!” the boy shouted. “I don’t need you, okay? Thank you for coming. Goodbye.”
The front door of the lodge slammed behind him. Reid was left standing alone, baffled, frustrated, angry...and hurt.
* * *
ANNA DIDN’T REMEMBER ever setting eyes on Reid Sawyer’s predecessor in real life. On television when he was campaigning, but that was different.
So she couldn’t believe it when Reid appeared at the back of the room when she was giving a talk at the library Wednesday night. “The Joys and Frustrations of Providing Foster Care: An Honest Q & A,” the flyer had said. She’d been pleasantly surprised to have an audience of twelve people. Who knew, she might get a new foster home out of this group.
She’d been rolling along, being truthful but upbeat, even eliciting some laughs, when a flicker of movement drew her gaze to the man who’d paused in the open doorway leading to the lobby. It had been only a few days since he’d stung her by making it plain he wouldn’t be calling. What were the odds they’d happen to run into each other three times in one week?
Hair tousled and wearing jeans and an unzipped parka with gloves sticking out of one pocket, he might have gone unrecognized by her audience if she hadn’t felt such a flare of...something. Anger, she told herself, and knew better.
With malice aforethought, she said in a ringing voice, “Captain Sawyer. How good of you to stop in.” Her entire audience swiveled to stare at the newcomer. “Folks, this is our new Angel Butte Police Department captain of Investigative and Support Services. Say hi.”
A chorus of voices greeted him.
His eyes met hers very briefly, expressing an astonishing amount given that she doubted anyone else in the room would so much as notice.
“Glad to see such a turnout,” he said, inclining his head.
“Would you like to join us?” she asked.
“No, I, uh...” He backed up. “Just thought I’d look in.”
His retreat duly noted, the audience turned back to her. Trying to put him out of her mind, Anna struggled to remember where she’d been in her familiar script. She sneaked a glance at the clock. Oh, well. With only fifteen minutes left to go, she could fill the time with questions.
When she asked if anyone had any, a gratifying number of hands shot up.
By the time she finished, she felt really good about the evening. Several people talked to her afterward and took the brochures and initial applications she’d brought. The last of them left, and she gathered up her material and notes, then started for the door. She still had ten minutes before the library closed to take a quick look at the new books. Anna was chagrined to catch herself wondering whether Reid might still be in the library.
She was reaching for the light switch when he once again filled the doorway.
“Anna.”
“Captain Sawyer.”
“Surely we’re to the first-name stage.”
She pretended to look surprised. “Are we?”
His jaw tightened.
“Did you need something?” she asked, keeping her voice pleasant. “You know that I’m more involved in supervising foster homes than in working directly with the kids. But if you have a question, I might be able to refer you to someone who can help—”
“I don’t have a question.” His irritation was obvious.
“Then?”
His jaw muscles spasmed again. “Never mind. Have a good evening, Ms. Grant.”
He was shrugging on the parka and walking toward the exit when she hurriedly followed him out into the lobby. She’d been a bitch, and all because he’d made it obvious he wasn’t interested in her. Politely.
“Captain... Reid,” she said more softly.
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to stop. He was almost to the exterior doors when he hesitated and turned. “Anna.”
Now she felt awkward. “You must have had something you wanted to talk to me about.”
He looked at her for a long moment, his face unreadable, as it so often was. “Call it an impulse,” he said finally.
“I’m really not in any hurry.” She didn’t move closer to him, but kept her voice down for reasons she didn’t understand. The moment seemed...significant. The two of them were very alone, though there was activity behind her in the brightly lit library proper, while headlights were coming on out in the parking lot. They were bound to be interrupted any minute; with the library closing, patrons would be streaming out, or someone would emerge from one of the restrooms. She suddenly, desperately, wanted to know why he’d hung around to talk to her.
“I have a problem with a teenager,” he said slowly. “I thought you might be an expert available for consultation.”
Her disappointment was acute. So he’d wanted her only in her professional capacity. Of course. Trying for brisk, she said, “I don’t know that I’d call myself an expert on teenagers in particular, but I’m happy to help if I can.” She did owe him one. She shifted the weight of the heavy bag slung over her shoulder and started toward him and the exit. “You’re welcome to call me, or—”
“It’s my brother.” Lines had deepened on his forehead. He looked disconcerted, as if he hadn’t meant to say that.
“A teenager?” she blurted in surprise.
That very speaking eyebrow of his twitched. “Think I’m too old to have a brother that young?”
“Well, um, yes?”
He grimaced. “You’re right. I am. I should have said half brother. Who I didn’t know existed until a few months ago.”
“That sounds like a story.” He wasn’t moving, so she came to a stop.
“It is.” He shook his head. “You probably just want to get home.”
“Actually, now you have me interested,” she admitted. She didn’t know what had happened the last time they had seen each other. She would have sworn he’d been checking out her body, if smoothly. He wouldn’t have suggested coffee if he hadn’t been attracted to her, would he? It was more as if she’d said something wrong. The annoying part was having no idea what that could have been. It might be that he’d happened to be at the library tonight, saw that she was speaking and thought, Aha! There’s someone I can talk to. He did say it was an impulse. But...she didn’t believe that. He hadn’t been carrying any books earlier, and he didn’t have one in his hands now, either. She had a feeling he had come looking for her.
“I suppose you’ve had dinner.” He sounded almost tentative.
“Actually, no. But you don’t need to feed me.”
“I wouldn’t mind having something to eat myself. How about Chandler’s Brewpub?”
“They often have live music,” she pointed out. “Not so great if you want to talk.” She hesitated. “Will you be shocked if I confess I was planning to go to A&W? I really wanted a root-beer float.”
He flashed a grin that made her knees wobble. “A root-beer float and French fries sound damn good to me.” He pushed open the door, letting in a blast of cold air, and waited for her to go through.
She gave an involuntary shiver. “You know where it is?”
“I do.”
“My car’s that way.” She gestured vaguely. “See you there.”
He raised a hand and strode away.
* * *
ANNA INSISTED ON paying for her own meal, a clear message. She carried her tray toward a far booth even though the place was empty but for one other couple, leaving him to place his own order and follow a minute later.
He slid onto the hard plastic bench across from her. “Think we’ll hear our numbers from here?”
“I thought you might not want to be overheard,” she said coolly.
“You’re right.”
He still didn’t know what he was doing here. Not an unusual state for him these days. Confusion seemed to be his new usual. Still—he’d made the decision to stay away from Anna, and yet here he was, three whole days later, having sought her out.
Weirdly, when he had driven away from the shelter this afternoon, he’d immediately thought of her. By serendipity, he’d spotted a notice in the morning paper for her talk at the library, so he guessed that was why she’d been at the back of his mind. He could talk to her about Caleb’s issues, he’d thought, without saying anything about his relationship to the boy. Then what was the first thing out of his mouth? He’s my brother.
“There’s mine,” she said abruptly, sliding out of the booth.
Her number. He’d been so busy brooding, he hadn’t even heard.
She was still up there when his was called, but when he turned, Anna waved him back to his seat. She returned with his food, as well as her own.
“Damn, that smells good,” he said, hungrily reaching for his French fries. “This was a good idea.”
“Yes, it was.” She took a slurp from her root-beer float then unwrapped her cheeseburger.
“How’d your talk go?” he asked between bites, aiming to put off a conversation he still wasn’t sure he wanted to have.
“Hmm? Oh, good. We’re always short of homes, which means I put in a lot of time recruiting new foster parents.”
“Is Angel’s Haven local only?”
“You mean Butte County? Mostly, but we do have some scattered foster homes in Deschutes and Klamath Counties. If someone good prefers to work with us rather than an agency closer to them, we don’t turn them away. The home has to be near enough for us to visit easily, though.”
He nodded. She talked about some of the questions people had asked tonight, and about the fears she thought kept people from being willing to take in children who might—and often did—have problems.
She switched gears when she finished her burger. “Are you going to tell me how you didn’t know you had a brother?”
Reid grunted, no closer to having made a decision about how much to tell her. “I haven’t stayed in touch with my father. Didn’t know he’d remarried. A few months ago, I ran a check on him. Turns out he’s divorced, but they had another kid who stayed with him rather than going with the mother. Caleb. He’s...a mess.”
Anna’s big gray eyes were compassionate. “In what way?”
“Our father was abusive.” He paused, frowning. “Is.”
“I...see.”
Damn it, there she went again. Wasn’t that exactly what she’d said over coffee that scared the shit out of him? The trouble was, she meant it. She saw more than he’d said. And this time he’d set himself up for it.
He reached for a French fry, attempting to look more casual than he felt. “I’m...trying to build a relationship with Caleb. He doesn’t want to trust me.”
“Maybe he can’t.”
“Can’t?” He stared at her, inexplicably angry. “What are you suggesting? That he’s broken and unfixable?”
Like me? The quick thought was unwelcome. If he believed himself to be permanently damaged...maybe Caleb was, too. Maybe he’d found him too late. It was disconcerting to realize how pissed he was at the very idea.
But Anna was frowning repressively at him. “Of course not. I’d never suggest anything of the kind. I’ve seen too many children from horrific homes blossom when they feel safe and loved.”
Damn. She sounded like Paula.
“I hardly know him,” he said. “Love... That’s asking a lot.”
“Can you bring him to live with you?”
“I don’t see that as an option.”
“Why not?” she asked.
He should have known she wouldn’t let it go that easily.
“Aside from the fact I have a job that demands a whole hell of a lot more than forty hours a week?”
“How old is Caleb?”
“Fifteen,” he said reluctantly.
“Unless you live way out of town, he could get himself home from after-school activities, to friends’ houses. He could take on responsibility for putting dinner on the table some nights. He doesn’t need the same time commitment from you that a younger child would.”
His appetite had deserted him. “His father won’t let him go without an ugly court battle.”
“So you’re just going to leave him?” Her spine had straightened and her eyes held the light of battle. Despite the topic and the fact she was judging him, Reid was disconcerted to find his body responding to the fire in her. Apparently, he was turned on by a woman who could take to task not only a crusty desk sergeant, but also a stone-faced police captain.
At least she hadn’t commented on what he’d said—his father. No one he wanted to claim.
“That’s not entirely my decision,” he pointed out. “What I’d like to understand is why Caleb is trying to reject me, too.”
He basked in the way her face softened.
“When you were his age, would trust have come easily to you?” she asked.
He gave a short, harsh laugh. “No.” He’d been with the Hales for a year or more before he felt anything close to that for them. “You’re saying I need to prove myself to Caleb.”
“I’m saying that he’s testing you. He’s pushing you away to see if you’ll go.” She leaned forward a little, as if to underline the urgency of what she was saying. She exuded such intensity, he couldn’t have looked away from her if someone wearing a ski mask had walked in with a gun and told the cashier to stick ’em up. “What you have to do is refuse to go,” she said. “He needs to see you digging in for him. By fighting for custody of him, if necessary, or only by giving him an ear and a refuge.”
An ear and a refuge. Wasn’t that what he’d been trying to offer? He couldn’t be Caleb’s home, although he thought he’d provided an even better one. He was giving everything he could. Pushing himself into places he’d never gone.
“He’s testing me,” he said slowly.
“Without having met him, I can’t say for sure, but that’s my guess.”
“It fits,” he admitted. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
There was more, of course; Caleb had wanted his big brother to wade in with fists flying to rescue him. Eventually, he’d see that this way was better. Safer.
A thought crept into Reid’s head, a follow-up to things he’d been brooding about anyway. Okay, it was possible he had, without realizing it, come to love Paula and Roger, but...would they actually love Caleb? Did they love all the kids they took in? Some of them? None? Certainly, back then Reid hadn’t thought of the word in association with them. His mother was the only person he’d ever been sure loved him—or known he loved, despite the limitations on her love.
Whatever Paula and Roger gave was enough for me.
He was stunned by the voice that whispered, Was it?
No, that was ridiculous. Sure, what kid wouldn’t rather have a normal family? Mom, Dad, sister, brother, cat and dog. The cynic in him thought, Fresh-baked cookies when I came in the door from school, gentle lectures when my grades dropped, a parent in the stands at every football and basketball game. A father who talked openly to me and laid a comforting hand on my shoulder while he listened when I told him my worries. A warm-hearted TV-sitcom childhood. If they existed, he hadn’t seen one up close and personal. Some of his friends seemed to have it good, but who knew what went on behind closed doors? Shame had kept him from telling any of those friends his father beat the shit out of him on a regular basis. He’d never said, My father killed my mother and got away with it. So they might have been keeping quiet for the same reason. Once he became a cop, stable, loving families weren’t the ones he saw.
But that’s what I wanted.
That’s what Caleb wants.
A sound escaped him, one even he didn’t know how to label. Glimpsing Anna’s startled expression, he snapped his guard back into place. She’d seen too much already. He knew better than to lay himself out naked like this.
“That helps,” he said, sounding easy, but for a residual roughness in his voice. “Thank you.”
She studied him long enough to make him sweat, but he playfully snitched a French fry from her tray, since his were gone, and then stirred the last of his float before peeling off the lid and drinking it.
“You’re welcome,” she said and swatted at his hand when he reached for another French fry. “Hey!”
“You’re not eating them.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “My eyes were bigger than my stomach.”
She’d hardly made a dent in the fries and half her root-beer float was left. No wonder she stayed skinny.
Delicate.
They chatted for a few more minutes. He made a concerted effort, though he needed desperately to be moving, to be alone. He didn’t want her to know how he felt, especially since, as usual, he didn’t know what he did feel.
“I was kidding. Here, you can have the rest of these.” She offered the fries, but he shook his head.
“I’ve had enough.”
“I should get home,” she said, her expression completely unrevealing.
They bused their table, then walked out together. The other diners had long since left. The parking lot was dark and empty; the only remaining vehicles besides their own were parked toward the back of the building and probably belonged to employees. He wanted to kiss her good-night—and yet he didn’t want to. Or didn’t dare.
More to be confused about. He felt some of the same panic he had when he’d admitted to Paula that he both wanted and didn’t want to take Caleb home.
Even if he’d formed the impulse, Anna unlocked her Toyota and hopped in too quickly to have given him the chance to act on it. “Good night, Reid,” she said, slammed her door and started the engine immediately. She was backing out before he’d circled around to the driver’s side of his own vehicle.
Because she didn’t want to start anything with him? Or because he’d had his chance and blown it?
Or—most unwelcome possibility of all—because she’d read him all too accurately and knew a man running scared when she saw one?
He swore under his breath and told himself it really would be better to keep his distance.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_fd3b75e2-f8cd-54f3-b725-d5c5904a2730)
“ANOTHER FIRE?” REID stopped midstride, only peripherally aware of other people parting to go around him, barely sparing him a glance. The snowy sidewalk meant everyone needed to watch their footing. Having become accustomed to Southern California winters, he had almost forgotten that mid-and even late March did not qualify as spring in this part of Oregon.
It was Monday morning, and he had been striding from the parking lot toward the public safety building, wishing he’d worn boots for better traction, when his phone rang and he saw that Roger was the caller.
“Not as major,” Roger assured him. “Might’ve been the snow that made it fizzle.”
Reid stepped off the sidewalk into deeper snow on the lawn, separating himself from the stream of people heading into work. A late-winter storm had left three or four inches of snow the past couple of days. Gazing at the ice-rimmed Deschutes River, he asked, “What was lit this time?”
“Woodshed. One of the boys got up to take a leak and spotted it.”
Not Caleb, then. No, wait. Reid visualized where the woodshed was in relation to the cabins and lodge, and realized that Caleb could have seen this fire from his bedroom window. God damn it. Had this been a direct attack on Caleb?
Not a very effective one, he reassured himself. Caleb would have seen the flames in time to escape downstairs and out.
“Which boy?” he asked.
“Trevor.”
Reid grunted; he recognized all the boys by now, but couldn’t say he knew them.
“You think to do a bed count?”
“Yeah, I did. Felt like a shit, but I went cabin to cabin. Everyone was where they were supposed to be except Trev, who’d come running to get me, and his cabinmate, Diego, who’d dragged the hose over by the time I got out there.”
Both men were silent for a moment, Reid thinking. Video cameras were out. They’d need too many to cover grounds that extensive.
“Damn,” he concluded. “What you need are regular patrols.”
“Yeah, I think Paula and I are going to start taking turns making the rounds.” He gave a rough, unhappy chuckle. “Give us a couple nights, we’ll be feeling like new parents constantly having to get up with a screaming baby.”
“Yeah, you can’t keep doing that. I might sneak out and set up surveillance some night.”
“In this weather?”
“You’ve got some empty cabins.”
“Let me know so I don’t shoot you if our paths cross.”
“Good enough. Hell.” Reid rubbed the back of his neck and discovered his hand felt like a block of ice. “I don’t like this,” he said unnecessarily.
“You and me both.”
“I wish you were inside the city limits.”
“What would you do, send patrols by?”
Of course he couldn’t do that. “All right,” he said. “Let me know if anything develops.”
“Glad you’re here,” Roger said unexpectedly and then was gone.
The foot traffic had thinned somewhat while Reid had stood out in the cold talking. Snow crunched underfoot until he was back on the sidewalk, where the smooth sole of his dress shoes skidded. To hell with this, he thought. Nobody would notice or care if he wore dark boots with a decent tread. And...this was March. With April to follow. How many more times was it likely to snow before the seasons turned?
He wasn’t looking forward to his day. The morning plan was for him to interview a couple of applicants for the personal-assistant position. He’d been just as glad his temp apparently hadn’t wanted the job; she didn’t seem to be all that well-informed and he had the impression he’d scared her. He was hoping to hire internally; he felt so damn ignorant, it would be good to have a PA who knew the ropes. About once an hour, he cursed Colin McAllister for having taken his PA with him when he changed jobs.
This afternoon, he intended to take a tour of every department in the building, starting with Records in the basement. He was beginning to realize that he’d misinterpreted his “territory” when he arrived in Angel Butte. He’d felt satisfied after driving damn near every road inside the city limits, memorizing the way house numbers ran, which neighborhoods looked run-down, where the bars and taverns were, the location of parking lots that would be dark enough at night to put women walking alone to their cars in peril.
Truth was, he should have been mapping this building and the maintenance garage, where most of his responsibilities lay, so he had the slightest idea how to respond the next time someone came to him with a request.
Once the first applicant showed up, Reid blocked everything else from his mind, including both his afternoon agenda and the threat to Caleb and the shelter. His skill at compartmentalizing was useful.
This applicant currently worked in Technical Services and might be a whiz at computers and social media, but the way her eyes shied from his and her cheeks stayed rosy the whole time they talked, he could tell she was intimidated by him, too.
Irritated after he saw her out, Reid wondered—not for the first time—why he had that effect on so many people, not only women. He was a big man, sure, but lean, not mountainous. He didn’t have an alarmingly ugly face. He rarely raised his voice. So what the hell was the problem? Why couldn’t he find someone like—
There she was, in his head again. Anna Grant, of course. She hadn’t been afraid of him.
So, okay, he needed a woman like her, someone brisk, businesslike, organized and determined. And, please God, someone who knew the police department from the lowliest of supply closets to the most obscure of requisition forms.
Applicant number two turned out to be a maybe. This one was a man who at least didn’t jump every time Reid shifted in his chair. He was internal only in the sense he was already a city employee, however; his current position was second assistant in the mayor’s office.
Maybe, Reid thought, hiding his grin, that was why the guy wasn’t scared. After all, he’d presumably gotten used to Mayor Noah Chandler, who was an ugly bastard and, rumor had it, tended to be brutally direct.
Reid thanked the man for coming, said he’d let him know and glanced at the clock. He was embarrassed at how much he looked forward to lunch.
Last week, Lieutenant Renner had told him the best place to eat lunch in Angel Butte was the Kingfisher Café, only a couple of blocks from the police station. Reid had given it a try on Friday, walking down there late enough to miss the lunch rush. The door had opened before he reached for the handle, and he’d found himself face-to-face with Anna. She had appeared as startled as he’d felt. After their dinner at the A&W, he sure as hell hadn’t intended to seek her out again.
But courtesy demanded they exchange a few polite words, during which he’d asked whether she was a regular at the café.
“I come at least two or three days a week,” she had admitted, then wrinkled her nose. “I know I shouldn’t eat out so often, but I’m not a morning person. Half the time, I forget to pack a lunch.”
“Ah. Well, maybe I’ll see you here another day,” he’d remarked and was unable to interpret a look that might have been wary, shy or hopeful.
Damn it, after that accidental meeting, she’d been in his head all weekend, with the result that here he was Monday morning, panting to sit down to lunch with her. Stupid thing to do or not, he wanted to talk to her.
Since finding his brother and moving to Angel Butte, Reid had never felt lonelier. He didn’t understand it and sure as hell didn’t like it. No matter who he was with, he felt an uncrossable distance.
The one exception was Anna. He refused to analyze why. Did it matter? She was someone he could talk out some of his confusion with, that was all.
He was going to be very disappointed if this happened to be one of the days she’d remembered to pack herself a lunch. It wasn’t quite time to leave yet, though, which gave him a few minutes to brood.
He envied Mayor Chandler his view of Angel Butte, the volcanic cinder cone that rose right in the middle of town and was topped with the huge marble angel that gave the town its name. His office looked out on the brick wall of the jail. Not bothering to swivel his chair to look out the window, instead, he frowned, unseeing, at the closed door while he let his thoughts rebound to the shelter and the fact that a second fire had been set only a week after the first.
He briefly pondered the timing. The first fire had been set on Saturday night, the second on Sunday night. Chance? Or was there a reason their arsonist had chosen weekends?
This fire wasn’t an escalation. That was a positive. The lodge or one of the occupied cabins, now, that would have been scary. This fire, too, could have been set for entertainment value. It could have been a warning...although of what, Reid couldn’t figure. What worried him most was the possibility it was part of a campaign of terror. Everyone at the resort must be edgy now. No one would be sleeping well. The boys would all be watching each other. The fight Caleb had been in wouldn’t be the last.
Nobody out there would feel safe.
This was where, reluctantly, he had to ask himself whether it was a coincidence that Caleb had been the most recent arrival.
What if Caleb was angry enough to light the world on fire? Or what if this was a campaign not to terrorize, but to make Reid believe he should take his brother home to live with him?
To keep him safe.
Or—and this was the most unwelcome speculation of all—was there any possibility that their father had found his runaway youngest son? Had Reid screwed up big-time by moving to Angel Butte? Could he absolutely swear that when driving out to the old resort a couple times a week, he hadn’t been followed?
“Damn,” he murmured.
He hadn’t let Caleb know how much that phone call from their father had shaken him. In the nearly twenty years since he had seen Dean Sawyer, Reid had tried to think about him as little as possible. He didn’t like knowing how much he resembled his father physically. Sometimes he’d stare at himself in a mirror with an incredulity he had to shake off. But he couldn’t have so much as described his father’s voice.
But the minute he heard it on the phone, the hairs on his arms had stood on end as if he’d come in contact with a bare electrical wire. The feeling that rushed over him had been bad. He’d been thrown back, as if all the years since had never happened. Dad had just walked in the door, and Reid could see that he was mad about something. Could have been anything—some imagined slight at work, a detective junior to him getting a headline for a press-worthy arrest, an asshole who’d cut him off on the drive home. Didn’t matter what, unless the “anything” had to do with Reid directly. Say, the school counselor had called and said, “We’re concerned about the number of bruises your son has had recently.” Those days were the worst.
By fifteen, Reid had been as tall as his father; he thought he must be a couple of inches taller now that he’d reached his full height. But then he’d been skinny, like Caleb was now. Unable to stand up to a muscular, angry man.
He shook off the recollection, if not the shadow of the memory, of blows falling.
The day he’d called, the first words out of his father’s mouth had been “So you’re a cop like your old man.”
“Not like you,” he’d said flatly, just as he had to Caleb. “I’m the kind of cop who should have investigated Mom’s death.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Dean had snarled.
“Sure you did. I was young, not deaf and blind.”
“You ever make an allegation like that, you’ll find yourself in court and I’ll take you for every cent you make in the next fifty years.”
He had managed to sound bored. “Is there a point to this call?”
And that was when he’d demanded to know whether Reid had snatched Caleb.
It wasn’t even a lie to say no. Helping the boy get away was a whole other story.
But mocking his father...that wasn’t a good idea. It was bound to have made him suspicious.
Shit, Reid thought again. I need to find out whether he could be in Angel Butte.
His gaze strayed to the time at the bottom of his computer monitor.
Yeah, he’d have to make a few calls...but not now. Right now, he was going to wander down to the Kingfisher Café and hope to feed his unexpected craving for another person’s company.
* * *
ANNA TOLD HERSELF she’d chosen to sit where she did because the light was better if she ended up pulling out her book to read while she ate. Not so she could keep an eye on the door. If Reid happened to eat here again today, what were the chances he’d be alone? He’d consider the lunch hour to be a good time to conduct business.
But she remembered the way he’d asked You come often? And every time the door opened, she glanced that way.
The waitress was taking her order when he came in. Alone. He scanned the entire restaurant in one lightning sweep, analyzing and dismissing everyone he saw, until his gaze reached her and stopped. She felt as if a heat-seeking missile had just locked on target.
He lifted an eyebrow, the slightest of quirks, but it was enough to ask a question. Throat closing, Anna inclined her head toward the chair opposite her. He smiled, ignored the hostess as if she wasn’t there and crossed the room to Anna’s table.
“May I join you?” he asked in that deep, velvety voice.
The waitress turned, startled. “Oh!”
“Of course you may,” Anna said, then, to the waitress, “Why don’t you hold off on my order until Captain Sawyer decides what he wants?”
“Yes. Um, of course.” Plump and tattooed, the young waitress retreated in disarray.
He pulled out the chair across from Anna, immediately making her feel crowded. This table beneath the window was tiny, sized for two who knew each other really well. His knees bumped hers, and he murmured, “Sorry.”
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Janice Johnson
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A man of integrity…or not? The moment Captain Reid Sawyer helps social worker Anna Grant with a sticky situation, she′s hooked. He′s gorgeous and clearly interested in her. Yet even as he pursues her, she senses he′s holding back. For someone who prizes honesty and doing the right thing, how much of his evasion can Anna tolerate? Her trust in Reid is further shaken when he confesses what he′s done to protect his newly discovered brother. Is Reid really one of the good guys?Then he′s involved in a hostage situation. Suddenly, she fears she could lose him before telling him how she truly feels!