Hold Your Breath (Search and Rescue) (11 page)

“Sometimes I think it would be nice to get that intimidation factor back,” he said after Bonnie left. Despite his words, it looked like he was holding back a smile.

“Never going to happen.” She blew her straw wrapper at him, giggling when she hit him on the chin.

“Callum. Lou.” The male voice brought up both of their heads. Lou flushed at being caught acting like an eight-year-old. An
immature
eight-year-old.

“Rob,” Callum said while Lou gave the sheriff a dorky little wave. A few seconds of awkwardness followed when no one said anything further. Although she knew there was no way Rob had overheard their earlier conversation about him and his ex-wife, Lou still felt a little guilty.

“Want to join us?” she asked, more to break the uncomfortable silence than anything. Callum’s face flattened into an expressionless mask.

“Thanks, but we’re not staying to eat. Tyler’s in the car—he mentioned you were headed here. I just wanted to let you know, Lou, that Chris told me about the incident last night.”

She nodded, holding back a wince. The afternoon of militia research and dinner with Callum were doing a pretty good job of distracting her from her stalker, and she hated being reminded.

“We’ll do our best to find whoever’s doing this,” Rob said.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “Chris was really thorough in his investigation today. I know you guys are working hard on this, and I appreciate it—especially since you have bigger issues to deal with right now.”

Rob gave her a wry smile. “Despite that, we still want you to feel safe.”

“Thanks.” She figured it would be silly to pass up an opportunity to further her research. “How’s the other case going? Any luck finding out who the”—she paused before saying
headless
or
dead guy
—“victim in the reservoir was?”

“No.” Rob’s answer was definite and did not invite further questioning. He immediately followed up with his good-byes before heading toward the door.

Lou took a sip of her water as she watched him leave the restaurant. “The sheriff is not as generous in sharing information as our pal Belly.”

“No, he is not.” Callum leaned back against the booth. “Rob doesn’t see many shades of gray when it comes to the law. It’s part of why he’s so good at what he does.”

It was almost funny to hear Callum, of all people, talk about someone being too rigid. “Can I ask you a question?”

Despite his cautious expression, he nodded.

“Exactly how bat-shit nuts is our local militia group?”

Callum blinked before relief washed over his face. “I’d say somewhere in the mid-range. Why?”

“Actually, now I’m more interested in what you
thought
I was going to ask that made you so nervous.”

With a shrug, he took a drink of water. Lou figured it was to stall long enough for him to think of an evasion rather than out of actual thirst. “I don’t know. Something personal, I guess.”

She tapped her fingertips together, evil-genius style. “Which means you have all sorts of juicy personal secrets hiding in those closets of yours.”

From his flat look, she gathered that she wasn’t going to be unearthing any of those secrets anytime soon.

“Fine. Let’s talk about the antigovernment type of crazy rather than our own personal neuroses. When you say ‘mid-range’ nuts, would that include the possibility of homicide?”

One of his shoulders lifted slightly.

“I’m going to interpret your semishrug as a yes. Do you know any of the members?”

“I’m acquainted with a few.”

Lou waited a few seconds, continuing only when she was certain that he was not going to elaborate on his answer. “Do any of your acquaintances seem particularly…murderous?”

After closing his eyes and looking pained, Callum sighed. “No.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” She frowned at him, spinning her glass of water in circles. “Do you think HDG’s head is mounted on the wall of the sadly named Freedom Survivors’ compound game room? Could he have been a member? Or maybe he was actually a journalist trying to infiltrate the local militia group for a career-making exposé?”

“I thought we weren’t going to try proving wild theories.”

“But…” Her whine was interrupted by Bonnie’s return. After they both ordered the ribs without ever having looked at their menus, Bonnie topped off their water and left them to their conversation.

“No, I don’t.”

Since she’d been expecting to have to argue just to get him to talk theories, she was startled at his direct answer…as well as a little confused about exactly which question he was answering. “You don’t what?”

“I don’t think there’s a head mounted in the Freedom Survivors’ game room.”

“Oh.” Oddly, she was a little disappointed. After reading militia stories all afternoon, her imagination was ready to take off at a full-on gallop. “Why not?”

“To my knowledge, they haven’t reached
that
level of crazy. I’ve asked around some, and the consensus is that they’re just a bunch of preppers who have a big gun collection and like to run drills. They’re not going to be chopping off some guy’s head and tossing him in the reservoir because he spoke out of turn. If they
are
responsible for killing this guy, they’ve reached a serious new level of fucked-up and have hidden it well.”

That didn’t disprove anything—but it didn’t prove it either. Since he seemed more open than usual about discussing theories, she asked, “How about the motorcycle club?”

Callum looked thoughtful. “Don’t really know enough about them to comment on that. You know who’s a member, though?”

“Who?”

“Your crush.”

She barely prevented herself from blurting,
You?
When she just looked at him, mentally fumbling away from that potential disaster, he grimaced.

“Calendar boy? With the sexy tattoos?” He said
sexy tattoos
in a falsetto that made her snort, although she still didn’t know the identity of this so-called “crush.” When she continued to stare blankly at Callum, he sighed. “Walsh? The guy whose ass you couldn’t take your eyes off of the other night?”

“Ian? The fireman?” She had to think about that for a moment. Her brain immediately went to the obvious image. “Whoa, Ian on a motorcycle. Just when I thought he couldn’t get any hotter.”

Callum made a disgruntled sound, and she bumped him with her foot under the table. “I’m just messing with you, Cal.”

“Did you
kick
me?”

“It was barely a nudge,” she scoffed. “A little love nudge.”

His face went still, and his eyes flared with sudden heat. As she realized what she’d just said, she clapped a hand over her mouth, instantly making her slip of the tongue so much more obvious. They stared at each other for a long, charged moment.

She finally couldn’t take it anymore and mumbled through her fingers, “So, about the dead guy…”

The intensity of Callum’s stare eased as his mouth relaxed into a half smile. “What about him?”

The arrival of their food stalled any further discussion. To Lou, it was a welcome relief from the earlier tension. If Callum was going to be sleeping over at her house tonight, it probably wasn’t good to bring up the whole “love” topic…or sex, or lust, or anything having to do with his body touching hers. Her ears grew hot at the thought, and sudden warmth pooled low in her stomach, although she tried to convince herself the spicy sauce on her ribs was to blame.

After she worked her way through half her plate, she sighed and looked at Callum. “Think Ian will talk to me?” At his sharp look, she added, “Not in a fifth-grade crush kind of way. Do you think he’ll talk to me about whether the MC might be involved in HDG’s death?”

“No.”

“Oh.” She poked her baked beans with her fork, frowning.

“If they had something to do with it, he’s not going to rat out his club, Lou.”

That made sense, although it did make things harder. “Not even for his emergency-services sister? I thought we were a club, too.”

Although she meant it mostly as a joke, Callum answered seriously. “He grew up in the MC. I think it’s hard for him, balancing both the club and Fire. There are guys on both sides who don’t trust him because he straddles that line.”

“That must be hard.” She took a bite of the beans. After she swallowed, she asked, “Did you grow up around here?”

“Yeah.” His expressionless mask fell back into place. It wasn’t until she was faced with robot-Callum again that she realized how much he’d opened up over the past few days.

“Did you know him? Ian, I mean.”

“Not really.” He crumpled his napkin and tossed it next to his cleared plate. “You done? I should get to the meeting.”

She stared at him in horrified disbelief. “You cannot eat at Levi’s and not have the berry-apple crumble. You just can’t. It’s…sacrilegious!”

His scowl eased slightly.

“Besides”—she glanced at her watch—“you have oodles of time to get to the meeting.”

“Fine!” He threw up his hands. “I’ll have crumble.”

“You will have crumble,” she told him with a mock-frown, pointing her fork at him, “and you’ll like it.”

The last remnants of his icy countenance melted away as he laughed. When Bonnie arrived at the table, Lou asked for a box for her leftovers and ordered two crumbles with ice cream. Her glare dared Callum to argue, but he just watched her with an amused twist to his mouth.

With a contented sigh, Lou leaned back against the booth, patting her stomach. “After I eat here, I always feel like I’ll never be hungry again. That never turns out to be the case, though.”

Callum grunted. “Guess you won’t have room for that crumble, then.”

“Touch my crumble and die.”

He smiled again, but it slid too fast into a frown. “I wish you’d go to the meeting with me tonight.”

“Remember how I said I’d rather get shot in the face? That still applies.”

His frown deepened as he tried to scowl her into submission. It didn’t work. Her aversion to civic-type meetings of all sorts had been beaten into her years ago. She easily ignored his displeasure…especially when Bonnie slid their heavenly crumbles in front of them. She also left a box for Lou’s leftovers, and the check.

“Mmm,” she hummed around a bite. “Besides, there’s another reason I can’t go. I have stuff to do.”

“What stuff?” For a guy who was ready to leave before getting his crumble, he was packing away the dessert at an impressively rapid rate.

“Peeper prevention,” she explained after swallowing another mouthful. “I picked up some window shades at the hardware store before going to the library today.”

For some reason, maybe because it was a reminder of how he was stuck sleeping on her uncomfortable couch for an undetermined amount of time, this didn’t seem to make him any happier. “Wait until I get there, and I’ll help you hang the shades.”

Her spoon clanked against the glass bowl as she set it down firmly. “Are you saying that I’m incapable of hanging shades on my own?”

“No.” He obviously saw the warning signs of an imminent explosion and was hurrying to backtrack. “I was just offering to help.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously as she picked up her spoon again.

He was quiet for a moment before asking, “Do you need to borrow my drill?”

“I have my own drill, thanks.”

“How about some drywall screws?”

“Got ’em.”

“I have a level in the truck you can use.”

“Why would I need that to hang shades?” At his aghast look, she laughed. “Kidding, of course. I have a level. I am fully stocked with tools, despite being in possession of a vagina.”

His mouth opened and then closed again as his cheekbones darkened with a flush. Lou was a little proud that she’d managed to embarrass him. Getting him to smile was the best, but she’d settle for ruffling his feathers.

“Ready?” she asked, digging in her purse for her wallet.

“Put that away,” he growled, tossing bills on the table.

“But—” As she started to protest, he shut her down with a look. “Thank you,” she said meekly, instead. “I get next time.”

“No, you don’t,” he said, sliding out of the booth. “You have tires to buy.”

“Ugh.” Standing, she felt her stomach sink at the reminder. “At least the honey thing is a cheaper fix. I hope. Actually, I have no idea how to get frozen honey off of a wooden door. Do you think just soap and hot water would work?”

He shrugged. “Probably. We’ll figure it out.”

His words sent a rush of warmth through her. As he escorted her toward the door, she told herself that the cozy feeling was because he was there to help. She loved her little cabin and was fiercely protective of her new ability to survive on her own, but there was something so reassuring about having another person—a capable person—with whom she could share the load. Over the winter, she’d had some panic-filled moments when her truck wouldn’t start or her generator stopped working. She’d survived, but it would’ve been nice to have had another pair of hands, especially a pair controlled by Callum’s practical, intelligent brain.

Lou immediately warned herself not to get used to that warm and safe feeling. The only brain and hands she could rely on were her own. There was no way she could let herself backslide and become that meek, helpless, and useless person she used to be.

“Where’d you go?” he asked, giving her shoulder a nudge.

“Hmm?” She blinked, realizing that they were almost to the library, where the trucks were parked. “Oh! Sorry. Just thinking about…stuff.” Stuff too personal to share,
especially
with Callum.

His mouth quirked. “Well, pay attention on the drive home.”

“Yes, sir.” She resisted giving him a salute, but she did stand at attention. She felt it was a fair compromise between well-earned respect and her need to mock him.

“Text me when you get there.”

“Will do.” She climbed into the driver’s seat and cranked the engine.

“Hang on.”

Lou waited as he did a full circle of the truck, inspecting all four tires. Although he didn’t seem to see anything amiss, he was still frowning when he returned to her open door.