Long Time Gone (11 page)

Erik drove back through town after the last of the bikers had left the park, stopping at the Silver Spur and the Faro to check for problems. Everything seemed relatively quiet. The Silver Spur had a folk singer in their outside garden who was putting the drunks to sleep. Not Erik’s choice of music necessarily, but a nice option for the drunks. The Faro was livelier, but the Faro also employed Chico Burnside, a former pro wrestler, as their bouncer, to say nothing of the owner, Tom Ames, one of the few imposing men in town who wasn’t also a Toleffson. Erik figured his own presence wasn’t required.

He came to the end of Main and circled back on one of the side streets. The lights from Cal’s animal clinic illuminated the parking lot. Erik slowed—he hadn’t realized they were open this late. Normally, Cal was home in time for dinner, particularly on a weekend when Docia was due to deliver within the next month. The parking lot beside the clinic was empty except for an SUV.

Morgan Barrett’s SUV.

He pulled his cruiser in beside it, locked up and headed for the clinic’s front door.

Morgan sat huddled in a chair in the waiting room. When he walked in, she glanced up, her mouth edging into a small smile. “Hey, Chief. What are you doing here? I thought you had bikers to police.”

“They’re policing themselves right now. What’s happening?” He took a seat beside her in a hard plastic chair that seemed designed to reject his butt. Probably Cal’s secret weapon against anyone who might want to spend too much time at the veterinary clinic.

“It’s Arthur.” She stared at him with luminous eyes.

He was suddenly afraid she might start to cry. Then he’d have to do something about it, and he didn’t have a clue what that should be. He usually ducked crying women. “Arthur?”

“My cat. You saw him a couple of times.”

“Oh, yeah.” He rubbed his jaw. “The bobcat. What happened to him?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. He’s been limping and throwing up. I was afraid maybe he’d been hit by a car. Cal’s checking him over, but they had to sedate him to do it. Arthur’s not exactly a good patient.”

He figured that was an understatement—Arthur was probably a vet’s worst nightmare. Better Cal than him. “How long have you been waiting?”

“It’s been about a half hour since Cal got here. They had to call him in since it’s after-hours.” She blinked back tears again. “Poor man, I must have ruined his weekend.”

She chewed her lip, and Erik felt a sudden, largely unwelcome flash of arousal. “Don’t worry. Cal’s probably used to it.”

The door to the examination area opened with a whoosh and Cal walked toward them. Erik realized suddenly he’d never seen his younger brother actually being a vet. With his beard and shaggy hair, he looked like a grizzly in scrubs, sort of a professional grizzly.

“Hey, Chief.” Cal grinned knowingly.
Great
. Now he’d probably go home and tell Docia his big brother was hooking up with Morgan.

Morgan stood up. “What’s wrong with Arthur?”

Cal shrugged. “Bad case of motor oil, as it turns out. Looks like he must have rolled in it. And he walked in it too, which made his paws swell up. That’s why he was limping.”

“Motor oil?” She stared at him. “Where would he find that?”

“Maybe around some of the equipment at the winery. Tomorrow you might want to see if there’s a pool of oil somewhere. You wouldn’t want the dogs getting into it too.”

“A pool of oil?” She still stared. “We wouldn’t have anything like that around Cedar Creek. We have to be extra careful about contamination, what with the grapes and the wine. Particularly now that we’ve got the harvest going on.”

“Well, maybe Arthur wandered into some oil at one of those ranches on the hillside. The thing is, it’s all over his fur and his paws, and he tried to clean himself, which is what cats do.”

She gasped. “Oh god, is it poisonous?”

“Not the way antifreeze is, but it’s not exactly good for him.” Cal pulled a plastic bin from underneath the counter. “That’s what made him throw up. The main worry now is pneumonia, that and getting him cleaned up.”

Erik frowned. “He can get pneumonia from motor oil?”

“When animals with oil on their fur throw up, sometimes they inhale the motor oil and that causes pneumonia. We’ll need to keep him here overnight to make sure he doesn’t develop respiratory problems.” Cal rummaged through the bin. “Plus we need to give him a bath.”

Morgan stared at him, aghast. “You’re going to use water on Arthur?”

Cal smiled thinly. “Yeah. I’m not all that excited about it myself, but we need to wash the oil off. Armando’s going to help. We can probably do it while he’s still sedated.” He pulled out a bottle of dishwashing liquid. “Here we go. Advanced grease-fighting properties.”

“Should I wait?” Morgan was squeezing her fingers together, her eyes in full-on Bambi mode.

Cal’s voice was kind. “It’s okay, Morg, I think he’ll be all right. But he does need to stay overnight, so we can keep an eye on him. You don’t have to wait.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to leave him. He may be frightened.”

Cal looked about as nervous as Erik felt, men confronting a potential weeping woman. “It’s okay, we’re used to frightened animals. We can deal. And you can come back first thing tomorrow morning to see him. I’ll make sure Bethany knows to let you in early.”

Morgan nodded, biting her lip again. Erik’s body went back on high alert. He took a deep breath. “You can stay at my place. Then you can be here as early as you want to be. It’s the apartment over Docia’s bookstore.”

Morgan smiled up at Erik gratefully. “Thanks. I’ll take you up on that.”

Cal looked like he was trying not to grin. “Yeah, that apartment is fairly close to the clinic. I used to hike over every morning when Docia was still living there.”

Erik gritted his teeth. “Thanks for the tip.” He really loved being an object of amusement for his little brother. On the other hand, his little brother deserved as much revenge on him as he wanted, given the amount of bullying he’d had to endure from Erik when they were younger.

“Okay.” Cal let the grin break through. “I’ll see you in the morning, then. Have a good weekend. What’s left of it.”

Erik ushered Morgan out the clinic door. Maybe there was only a little weekend left, but the chances for a good one were suddenly looking up.

Chapter Ten

Erik helped Morgan into the front seat of his truck, trying to pretend that he really was concerned about Arthur’s health. He was also trying to pretend his temperature hadn’t risen five degrees just from being in the same room with her.

True, they’d both had a demanding couple of days dealing with the bikers, and they both could probably use a little relaxation. Stress release could take a lot of different forms, including sex, and he could definitely provide something along those lines. Then again, taking the lady home so he could jump her when she was worried about her cat didn’t exactly qualify as honorable behavior. And, he reminded himself, he was trying to be an honorable man.

Morgan leaned back against the seat, her eyes closed. Erik glimpsed her face in the reflected streetlights. Her eyelashes looked like smudged shadows on her cheeks. Her lips turned up slightly in that faint built-in v shape.

Looking at her wasn’t doing anything for his honor, to say nothing of his willpower.

“Have you had any dinner?” His voice sounded rusty, like his throat needed oiling. At least he hoped she’d think that was the problem.

She opened her eyes, grimacing. “Sort of. I grabbed a hunk of cheese and a bag of chips before I took Arthur in to Cal’s.”

He shook his head. “Sorry. That doesn’t qualify as dinner in my book.” He checked down Main. Brenner’s was closed, and the Silver Spur was likely to be packed with bikers.

“Try the Coffee Corral,” she murmured.

He narrowed his eyes. “You in the mood for a burger?”

“They do sandwiches and salads along with burgers. That’s about all I’m up for right now anyway.”

Erik parked the truck in front of the blinking neon coffeepot. Inside, a scattering of tables were spread across the floor in front of the counter. One wall was taken up with booths upholstered in red leatherette.

Horace Rankin, Cal’s partner and the city council president, sat with his wife, Bethany, who was also one of the assistants at the clinic. His brownish walrus moustache contrasted sharply with his thinning gray hair.

Horace’s age was a mystery. Originally, Erik had figured he was around sixty-five, but he didn’t act like a senior citizen. Horace and Bethany had gotten married soon after Cal and Docia, and now they sat hip to hip in one of the booths. Every once in a while, Bethany touched his hand and smiled. That kind of behavior gave a man hope.

Horace wiped a napkin across his crumb-dusted moustache. “Evening, Chief, all quiet on the biker front?”

“Far as I can tell.” Erik squinted at the menu posted over the counter. “Any recommendations besides burgers?”

“Hell, son, this ain’t Brenner’s. Stuff tastes like you’d expect it to.” Horace took off his gold-rimmed glasses and polished them with an outsize pocket handkerchief. “Enchiladas are good, though.”

Bethany grinned at him, then nodded at Morgan. “What’s the word on Arthur? Armando said he was staying overnight.”

Morgan shrugged. “Motor oil. Cal’s giving him a bath and keeping him under observation.”

Rankin shuddered. “Bathing the mountain lion. Better him than me. I knew I had a good reason for partnering up with your brother.”

“Arthur will be okay, Morg. Cal’s the best.” Bethany grinned again, turning her bright blue gaze to Horace. “Present company excepted, that is.”

Erik ordered a plate of cheese enchiladas and a tuna salad sandwich for Morgan from Al Brosius, the owner who also ran the kitchen. They took a table at the side.

The wall opposite them was painted with a mural of cowboys gathered around a campfire. Cowboys and one very familiar-looking cowgirl.

Erik squinted. Unless he’d lost his mind completely, the cowgirl looked a lot like Helen Kretschmer. He studied the mural more closely, examining the cowboys beside her. One was a dead ringer for Horace.

He shook his head to clear it. Obviously, he’d been working too hard. “That mural’s new, isn’t it? I don’t remember seeing it before.”

Morgan grinned, nodding toward Al, who was now flipping a burger on the grill. “He started putting it in last week. Al was an artist in Austin before he and Carol opened this place. He says he’ll add somebody new from time to time. Like that.” She gestured toward a distant corner of the mural where a pair of cowboys were inspecting a calf. The one checking its teeth bore an uncanny resemblance to Wonder Dentist, while Erik was pretty certain the one holding its rear end was his baby brother, Cal.

He shook his head again. Definitely Konigsburg.

Hilton Pittman was not a happy man, although he did his best to conceal it. He walked down Milam, his hand on Jonelle’s elbow, nodding to the citizens who recognized him and ignoring the ones who didn’t.

Jonelle narrowed her eyes as they approached the Coffee Corral. “I thought you were taking me out to dinner.”

“I am.” Hilton managed a smile, although it made the muscles of his jaw hurt. “This is an undiscovered gem, believe me.”

Jonelle snorted.

Hilton paid her little attention—his mind was elsewhere. The biker rally had been one of his best ideas, a surefire moneymaker and an easy sell. The bikers came to town, stayed in the area hotels and B and Bs, ate in the area restaurants, and drank in the area bars. Everybody had a stake in keeping them happy and keeping them in Konigsburg. Brody had understood that.

Toleffson apparently didn’t.

All weekend long, Hilton had listened to whining bikers. Or rather, one whining biker—Mel Hefner. Mel was a royal pain in the ass. Toleffson had threatened him, he told Hilton, actually threatened him with arrest. Toleffson had told him to keep the other bikers in line. Toleffson had warned he’d haul people to jail.

Hilton had assured Hefner he was shocked—
shocked
—that the chief of police would take it upon himself to threaten the town’s honored guests. He promised he’d look into it directly and finally managed to pry Hefner out of his office.

Hefner was an idiot, but he seemed to be telling the truth. Toleffson had actually arrested five of the bikers for public drunkenness. Hilton had had to do some fast talking with Hefner and some equally idiotic biker lawyer who’d threatened to take the city to court.

He doubted that they’d have much of a case, given that the five bikers had been found puking in the city park, but that wasn’t the point. The point was Toleffson didn’t understand the importance of keeping the bikers happy. The man was moving from being a nuisance to being a liability. And dealing with the problems he’d caused had cut into time Hilton had reserved for the pursuit of Ms. Jonelle Montevista, who worked for the local beer distributor. For that alone, Hilton had decided to make Erik Toleffson pay.

He pushed open the door of the Coffee Corral, smiling his best trust-me-with-your-daughters smile.

Jonelle ran her gaze around the room. She still seemed unimpressed.

Hilton turned the smile in her direction. “A gem, trust me, a gem.”

The sound Jonelle made didn’t bode well for the rest of the evening.

Behind him Erik heard a brief flurry of voices as more people came in. He turned to see a woman with hair the color of sun-bleached hay checking the menu. Hilton Pittman stood beside her, furtively studying her breasts. They were worth studying, if only to figure out how she managed to walk upright with that much weight in front of her.

Morgan’s lips thinned. “Unless that’s Hilton’s long-lost niece, he’s stepping out on his wife again.”

Erik watched Pittman scan the customers, stopping to stare at Horace Rankin and then at him. He wondered which of them Pittman would approach first.

Rankin, of course. Good indication of where Erik came in the political pecking order.

Horace looked like he was suffering from a sudden case of dyspepsia. He nodded a quick greeting at Pittman and then returned to his enchiladas. Pittman worked his way toward Erik’s table, shaking a few hands along the way, but his smile seemed to lose some brilliance as he came closer. “Toleffson.” He nodded toward Morgan. “Ms. Barrett. Quiet night.”

Erik allowed himself a half-smile. “Looks like it, Mr. Mayor.”

Pittman’s eyes narrowed. “Heard you picked up some of our guests yesterday.”

“Yes sir.” Erik leaned back in his chair. “Some of our guests were drunk as skunks. Turning them loose on the streets with eight hundred pounds of motorcycle didn’t seem like a great idea.”

“Throwing people in jail won’t make them or their friends want to come back here any time soon. Brody was always able to handle the problem without arrests.”

“Brody also left most of the drunks wandering around the streets on their own,” Horace growled from his table behind them. “Or ralphing in the parking lots. That wasn’t much of a solution, Pittman. Anyway, the rest of us never thought so.”

Erik studied Pittman. He wasn’t sure how far the news had spread about how Brody had “handled the problem”, but it might be interesting to find out. “Brody had some unique law enforcement methods. Do you know how he handled the bikers, Mr. Mayor?”

Pittman’s tan turned a nasty shade of magenta.

Erik waited.

A smart man would stay quiet. Pittman, however, didn’t. “Just because Brody was on the wrong side of the law doesn’t mean he didn’t do some things effectively.”

“What things would those be?” Erik kept his expression blank.

Pittman leaned forward, resting his palms on the table. “He knew how to get along with people, that’s what. Tourists are our lifeblood here, Toleffson.”

Erik nodded. “Yes sir, they are. But drunk ones are likely to make the non-drunk ones unhappy. And if they drive around, they may make the non-drunk ones dead.”

Pittman stood up again, his hands fisting at his sides. “You don’t keep anybody happy by roughing them up, drunk or not.”

Erik kept his bland expression in place. He’d dealt with better bullies than Pittman—compared to his commander in the MPs, the man was an amateur. “True enough. That’s why we didn’t rough them up. Unless you count Helen’s comments concerning their manhood.” Behind him, he heard Rankin snicker.

Pittman’s color didn’t improve. His voice came in a hiss. “You just keep in mind you’re on probation, Toleffson. And if you keep screwing up when you handle the tourists, you’ll be out on your ass before your two months are up.”

Morgan’s voice was soft. “Mr. Mayor, I think your lady friend is getting impatient.”

Miss Straw Hair was looking at Pittman as if he’d crawled out from under a rock and could crawl right back as far as she was concerned.

“Miss Montevista is a business associate,” Pittman snapped. “She is not a lady…er…friend.”

Morgan looked like it was killing her not to say anything, and Erik had to admit it was hard not to grab a nice fat straight line like that. But she smiled sweetly.

“Better hurry, Mr. Mayor, she’s waiting.”

Pittman gave Erik one more narrow-eyed scowl, which he broadened to include Morgan and Horace, then walked back to join his business associate at the counter.

Al Brosius arrived at their table a few moments later, carrying some large platters on his arm. “Here you go, Chief, enchiladas, tuna salad, chips and salsa.”

Erik frowned. “I didn’t order the chips.”

Brosius’s mouth spread in a thin smile. “Had some extra lying around in the kitchen. They’d just go to waste. Enjoy.” He glanced toward Pittman, then sauntered back slowly as Ms. Montevista expressed her general annoyance in a voice that sounded a lot like fingernails on a blackboard.

Morgan grinned at him. “You really do like jerking authority figures around, don’t you? Of course, in Hilton’s case it’s totally justified.”

“Hell, Pittman’s too easy. He’s already a walking politician joke.” Erik glanced around the room. Morgan wasn’t the only one grinning as Miss Straw Hair gave Pittman her opinion of his general competence. “If everybody thinks he’s a jerk, why exactly is he mayor?”

Morgan peppered her tuna. “Mostly because nobody else wants to do it. The people who’d be good don’t have time, and the people who have time are all as bad as Hilton.” She sighed. “Maybe we’ll get lucky next election.”

Ten minutes later, the mayor left with a couple of bags of food and a clearly disgruntled date. Erik would be very surprised if Pittman got any action out of his adventure with Miss Straw Hair.

He wondered if he’d have any better luck himself. Not with Miss Straw Hair, of course.

Morgan chased a bit of ketchup around her plate with a French fry, careful not to look up at him. Erik had a feeling she wondered something similar.

He took a deep breath and pushed back from the table. Show time.

Morgan told herself she wasn’t nervous. Several times. It didn’t work. Her stomach was tied in knots. Maybe they weren’t going to have sex. Maybe they were just going back to his apartment to sleep.

Maybe she’d be the next American Idol.

She tried to remember how long ago it had been since she’d last gone to bed with someone. Probably Christopher, who qualified as her last boyfriend. Nobody since she’d moved to Konigsburg, that was for sure.

But then again, Erik Toleffson wasn’t like anyone she’d ever known before, so what made her think that being with him would be like being with someone else?

Erik parked near the side door to his apartment, around the block from the bookstore. Docia had lived there for the first three years she’d owned the shop, until she’d moved in with Cal. Morgan had been to Docia’s apartment lots of times, and she told herself that going there now wouldn’t be that different.

Right, Morgan.

She climbed the stairs behind Erik, carefully keeping her eyes away from his really great-looking butt, and watched him unlock the apartment door. Then she stepped through while he held the door for her.

The rooms seemed oddly bare without Docia’s furniture. A slightly battered couch sat in front of the limestone fireplace, a faded rag rug on the floor beside it.

Erik shrugged. “Pretty barren, I know. I haven’t bothered to buy much furniture, but there’s an extra bed in the spare bedroom. I’ll take that. You can take the main one.”