Long Time Gone (6 page)

His lips thinned. “Boy doesn’t know what he wants. Thinks he wants to be a cop. Here—in Konigsburg. Damn fool nonsense. He’ll never make a living that way.”

She took another careful step into the minefield. “They really need good cops in Konigsburg. After Chief Olema, that is. Nando might be able to get somewhere now that Erik Toleffson’s the chief.”

Ciro looked up at her, eyes blazing. “I didn’t raise that boy to be a cop. He’s got two generations of farmers in his blood. Vineyards are booming. I don’t know what the hell he’s thinking of.”

She touched his hand quickly. “I know. It’s a good industry to get into in Texas. I’m really grateful for the opportunity, although I wish I hadn’t gotten it just because Dad got hurt.” Which was true—more or less. She turned back to the refrigerator. “Want some sauvignon blanc? Looks like there’s an opened bottle from the tasting room to finish up.”

He shook his head. “Nah. Gotta get home. You take care of yourself, Morgan. Get some rest.”

Good advice. A half hour later, she wondered why she couldn’t get herself to take it. In fact, she hadn’t felt so wide awake in weeks. Outside she could hear cicadas buzzing and a few frogs chirping near the creek.

Stupid to feel nervous just because she’d taken a tumble down a hill. Particularly when she had all this protection. Fred and Skeeter lolled under the bar. Arthur sat in front of the door, waiting for some tasty critter to be stupid enough to come within puncturing range.

She poured herself a glass of sauvignon blanc. She didn’t usually finish up the leftover wine from the tasting room since they had so much of it, but maybe tonight she’d make an exception.

Fred and Skeeter suddenly came to attention as headlights swept across the road outside. Arthur got to his feet. A truck pulled up in the parking lot.

Morgan took hold of Skeeter’s collar for luck, not that Skeeter would attack anything larger than a gecko. A man walked up the stairs into the reflected yard lights.

Chief Erik Toleffson. Still in uniform. Looking…really hot.

Her breath came out in a whoosh. She let go of Skeeter and opened the door almost before he had a chance to knock.

He stood in the doorway, blinking. “Hi.”

“Hi. Come in.” She stepped back, warding off Skeeter and Fred who approached in tail-wagging frenzy. Arthur planted himself in Erik’s path with a challenging stare.

Erik stared back. “Is that a bobcat?”

“No, it’s just Arthur. Ignore him.” Arthur swung his head to give Fred a monitory hiss before stalking off toward the apartment and his food bowl. “Would you like a glass of sauvignon blanc? There’s some left over from the tasting room.” Morgan knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop.

Erik Toleffson turned his molasses gaze her way and smiled.

Erik placed his hat on the bar. “Thanks, I’ll pass.”

Technically, he was still on duty, assuming that the call forward worked on his cell, of course. A new way to get around not having enough people for night duty since it was Peavey’s day off. “I just wanted to check on you. To tell you the truth, I didn’t expect you to be awake.”

He’d hoped she would be, though.
Bingo
.

Morgan walked behind the bar and opened the refrigerator. “Water? Soda? Fruit salad? I’ve got a little of everything.”

“Soda. Thanks.”

He watched her reach into the refrigerator. She had on jeans and a white tank top that showed a lot of her chest and did interesting things to his solar plexus. When she turned to set the can down in front of him, he saw the clear outline of her nipples against the white ribbing.

No bra. His lungs contracted.
Down boy!

“Actually, I slept most of the afternoon.” She pushed a hand through her hair, sending short curls tumbling around her ears.

The shadowy disks of her nipples peaked against the thin cotton. He wondered if the feeling in his chest was heart palpitations.

“So now I’m wide awake.” She grinned in his general direction.

He tried to remember what she was talking about.
Oh yeah, sleeping.

He pulled up a bar stool on the other side of the counter. Better than standing there with his pulse thundering in his ears. “Nice place. How long has it been open?”

“The winery? Dad started off in a Quonset hut around 1994. He and Ciro finished this building a few years ago.” She looked up at the vaulted ceiling over her head, smiling. “I’ve always liked it.”

“How long have you lived here?”

Her smile faded slightly. “I moved in after my dad got hurt. Before that I just came down on weekends. But I needed to be on-site so I could help Ciro.”

“Does your mom come down to help you out sometimes?”

Her smile disappeared entirely. “My mom doesn’t like wine.”

“Must have made for interesting dinner conversation.” He picked up his soda.

“Oh, it did that.” Her lips stayed flat. “Like I told you, my folks are separated. Not legally, but practically.”

“Where do they live?”

“Austin. My mom’s there full-time. My dad was there in a rehab facility, getting his leg back in shape. My mom let him move back in when they released him, so maybe some good came out of the whole wretched mess. Maybe they’ll work out their differences. What about your folks?”

Erik frowned, not sure what she was asking. “They’re still in Iowa.”

“Are they thinking of moving down since all of you are here?”

“They threaten to every once in a while. We might be able to lure them down for the winter, but my mom’s not big on heat.”

A moment of silence stretched between them. He tried to think of something to fill it. “Remembered anything else about what happened on the hill?”

She gave him a dry smile. “No. In fact, I’m looking forward to forgetting the whole thing.”

Not as great a smile as before, but he’d take what he could get. He mentally told his nether regions to cool it. “I’ll try to get back up there tomorrow to see if I can find the tracks you talked about.”

“Good idea. At least I’ll know I didn’t imagine them.” She leaned on the counter next to him, letting the scoop neck of her tank slide down a little more. “So what were you doing up on that ridge this afternoon when you so kindly saved my butt?”

Erik gave up trying to calm his unruly body. As long as she was leaning against the counter like that it was a lost cause. “I was looking at the stock tank. Rancher who owns the land had some sick goats. Claimed it was because somebody poisoned his tank. We need to have the water tested.”

Her head snapped up. “Oh shit.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t think the situation was good, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“It is if we’re thinking of planting a vineyard there.” Morgan rubbed her hand across her forehead. She looked like her headache was back. “Ciro is going to freak. And I told him I’d pitch the vineyard to Dad.”

“Take it easy. We don’t know what’s wrong up there yet. The water could be bad, but it could just be something that was dumped in the stock tank. Particularly since somebody also pushed you down that hill.”

He put his hand on her shoulder, reassuringly. At least he thought it was reassuring. A moment later, he wasn’t so sure. His hand rested on smooth bare skin, silky and warm. He smelled lavender and rose and hints of wine. And she was watching him with those eyes—rich, dark brown, like chocolate kisses.

All of a sudden, he felt a little dizzy. He leaned forward, almost without thinking. She rose slightly to meet him.

Her lips were soft, warm. He inhaled her sigh, tasting wine, then angled his mouth against hers. Her mouth opened beneath his lips, but he wasn’t going to do anything about it. This was just a quick kiss, an intro as it were. Nothing serious yet.

And then it was.

Morgan’s mouth opened wider and his tongue plunged deep, tasting, sensing. Warmth and smooth deep wetness. Without thinking, he raised his hand to her breast and felt the hard pebble of her nipple against his palm. Heat flashed again at his groin.

Somewhere his brain went on red alert.
Danger, danger, Will Robinson.
His body surged right ahead, hardening almost instantly. The warm weight of her breast filled one hand and he rubbed his palm against the other, her faint moan raising prickles on his scalp.

She held her hands at the sides of his chest, then smoothed them around his body, pulling herself tight against him. Erik heard a melodic chirping and wondered if it was him or her.

Until he realized it was his cell phone.

He stepped back, eyes closed, trying to catch his breath. His face was damp with sweat. “Sorry,” he whispered, clicking open the cell with one hand.

A routine traffic call, fender bender on Highway 16. But by then he knew he had to go anyway. He turned back to her, tucking his cell in his pocket, trying not to think about what had just happened.

And what had almost happened.

Her eyes were huge, her mouth a thin line. “I didn’t…” she stuttered, then stopped.

“I’m sorry about the call,” he said quietly. “I’m not sorry about the kiss. Not hardly.”

She still watched him, as if she were trying to make up her mind about something. Then the corners of her mouth edged up, slowly. “Drive carefully.”

“I will.” He smiled back at her, breathing again. “Sleep well.”

“I will.”

Erik headed for his truck, listening to the voice screaming in his head.
What was that? What the hell was that? You’ve got more than enough on your plate, Toleffson. You’ve got two months to prove yourself. Keep your mind on your freakin’ job. You’re supposed to be in control here, remember?

No question. He was definitely going to concentrate on his job and nothing else. He was going to make this work. Definitely. But the smell of lavender and roses and dry white wine lingered in his head all the way back to town.

Chapter Five

By eleven the next morning, the glow of Morgan Barrett’s kiss was a distant memory. Erik sat in the monthly meeting of the Konigsburg Merchants Association trying to avoid death by boredom. Technically, he had no business there since he wasn’t a merchant, but Arthur Craven, the association president, had asked him to come, and he’d thought it was a good idea at the time. “Chief Olema never came,” Craven explained, “and Chief Brody…” His ears turned slightly pink. Nobody in town wanted to say much about Brody. Now Erik sat in the back of the room and wondered if there was any way he could catch forty winks without being noticed while Hilton Pittman droned on for what seemed like eternity.

Pittman was a problem. If he didn’t keep Pittman happy, the mayor would complain to the council and it would be a mark against him. So he had to make an effort. He was making one now, but it wasn’t easy, given what a jerk Pittman was. He’d always managed to avoid crap like this as a working cop. Now he was an administrator, and apparently he was supposed to be fascinated by Pittman’s latest version of the World According to Hilton.

Instead, he looked out the window of the restaurant and let his mind ramble back to Morgan.

He had a feeling she’d been as shocked as he was by that kiss last night. As a rule, he didn’t go around making out with women he barely knew, no matter how appealing they were. It was also one of the more memorable kisses he’d had in his fairly routine romantic career. Most of the women he knew were practical about what they expected from him, and he pretty much gave them what they wanted. A lot of them had been cops like him—they understood each other. Of course, his last relationship in Konigsburg had been a disaster, given that the woman in question turned out to be a psycho bitch, but she wasn’t exactly par for the course.

A picture of Morgan’s face popped into his mind—her stunned expression when his cell phone had brought them both up for air. That definitely hadn’t been par for the course. For either of them.

He liked the way her chin came down in that rounded point. She had a slight widow’s peak too, that emphasized the heart shape of her face. A sprinkle of freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose, like cinnamon on sugar.

Cinnamon on sugar. Lord have mercy. Toleffson, you really are losing your mind. And your focus.

Morgan Barrett was obviously a very dangerous woman.

At the lectern, Pittman was finally wrapping up. “We have some big weeks ahead of us here, leading up to the Wine and Food Festival at the end of August. Y’all got your tickets to sell now.” He gave them a wide, professional smile that probably should have had cameras clicking in front of it. “And don’t forget the annual motorcycle rally this weekend. Bigger and better than ever.”

Erik stared at him. Motorcycle rally? This weekend?
What motorcycle rally?
He looked around the room. Most of the faces looked resigned. A couple looked downright mulish.

Pittman’s smile became even broader as he tried to warm up the audience. “According to the latest figures I have, we can expect over three hundred bikes. How about that, folks! That’s a hundred more than last year!”

Pittman’s assistant began to clap enthusiastically. After a moment, a few more people, like Tom Ames, the owner of the Faro tavern, joined him. Erik glanced at Allie Maldonado. Her arms were folded across her chest—she was very pointedly not applauding.

After a moment, Arthur Craven raised his hand. “I thought we’d agreed to limit the registrations to two hundred this year, Mr. Mayor.”

“Limit registration?” Hilton raised his eyebrows theatrically. “We’ve got people who want to come to Konigsburg, Arthur. Why would we want to limit their numbers?”

Erik heard a few grumbles from behind him. Apparently, that question wasn’t as rhetorical as Hilton thought it was.

“C’mon, folks!” he cried. “Let’s all work together and make this the best rally we’ve ever had. Go, Konigsburg!” Pittman pumped his hand in the air like a cheerleader. His assistant clapped even more enthusiastically. Some of the merchants joined in, but if they were excited, Erik thought they were doing a great job of hiding it. Even Ames looked like he’d rather be someplace else.

After Craven gaveled the meeting to a close, Erik headed for the front. Pittman glowered at his assistant, maybe because he didn’t seem to be surrounded by nearly as many enthusiastic supporters as he might have expected. In fact, the unenthusiastic non-supporters were all heading in the opposite direction, toward the exit.

“Motorcycle rally?” Erik managed to keep his voice mild. Yelling at Pittman was not currently part of his job description and would be an example of gross stupidity.

“Annual event.” Pittman began tossing notes into his briefcase, watching the disappearing hordes at the exit without making eye contact.

Erik gritted his teeth, feeling the slow burn deep in his gut.
Cool it.
“Three hundred bikers, you say? Shouldn’t you have passed this news on to the police department, Mr. Mayor?” He gave Pittman his best viper-getting-ready-to-eat-the-sparrow smile.

Pittman finally turned to look at him. He seemed far too pleased with himself all of a sudden. Erik felt a sense of approaching doom.

“Well now, Chief, I told the police department. I even passed on the permit application from the rally organizers. Several days ago.” Pittman narrowed his eyes slightly. “Seems like you’ve got a failure in communication over there in your department. Better look into that. You wouldn’t want to miss anything important.”

Erik’s smile didn’t waver. He’d spent a lot of time learning to hide how pissed he was about anything. “I’ll have to check that permit, then, won’t I? Make sure it’s all in order.”

“You do that, Toleffson.” Pittman’s voice became arctic. “Those bikers bring in several thousand bucks’ worth of business with this rally. I wouldn’t want anything or anyone to screw it up. Bad for the town, you know.” He turned and stalked toward the exit, his assistant trailing behind him.

“Right.” Erik watched Pittman’s retreating back as he unfisted his hands. “Nothing bad for the town.” At the moment, he felt like torturing Ham Linklatter in some particularly lengthy and excruciating way, which might be bad for the town but would be great for his own disposition.

Morgan watched Nando Avrogado step carefully into the tasting room. He seemed to be doing his best to be inconspicuous. Given his size, that might be difficult, and given Carmen’s bloodhound abilities, avoiding her would probably be impossible.

The three people at the tasting room bar glanced up as he came in, then ignored him. They looked like yuppies from Austin, people who assumed they knew a lot more about wine than any small-town cop. They were, in fact, dead wrong about that, as Morgan knew only too well. Like all of Ciro and Carmen’s kids, Nando had been drinking wine since he was in middle school, and he could probably tell the difference between sangiovese and syrah with a single sniff.

Nando caught sight of her and smiled, looking faintly embarrassed. “My dad around?”

“In the barrel room. I can call him.”

He shook his head quickly. “Nah. I’ll just leave him a note.”

Kit was doing another one of her sales jobs on the Austinites. “This next one is our primitivo. Genetically, it’s the same grape they use for Zinfandel, but we do it a little differently.”

Nando’s eyes narrowed as he watched her pour. Morgan fought to keep from grinning. No doubt visions of TABC officers invading the place were dancing through his head.

“I’ll be with you in a moment, sir.” Kit smiled at him, her teeth sparkling against her olive complexion. “Would you like to do a tasting today?”

Nando folded his arms across his chest and gave her a definite Officer of the Law look, then turned back to Morgan.

Morgan smiled. “This is Kit Maldonado—she’s Allie’s niece.”

“So? You think that’ll cut any ice with the TABC?”

“Now why exactly would the TABC be interested in Allie’s niece?” She gave him a wide-eyed look, her lips curving into a demure smile. “Why, officer, you don’t think I’d use an underage pourer, do you?”

Nando frowned, his lips thinning.

“Relax, Ace.” She put a hand on his arm. “She’s twenty-one. I saw her driver’s license. So did your boss, for that matter.”

“Toleffson?” Nando gave her an incredulous look. “He was checking IDs?”

Morgan beckoned toward the cash register, where Kit was ringing up the wine purchases. “Hey, Kit, this is Nando Avrogado, Ciro’s son. Got your ID handy?”

Nando shook his head, backpedaling. “That’s okay. I’ll take your word for it.”

But Kit pulled out a black leather purse and retrieved her billfold without looking at him. “Here.” She handed her driver’s license across the bar. “Everybody seems to be checking it these days.”

Nando cleared his throat, as he glanced at the license. “Doesn’t do you justice.”

“Thanks.” Her voice was still slightly sharp. “Maybe I could have a T-shirt made up that says
Twenty-one as of May 23
.”

“How long have you worked here?”

He gave her his killer smile, what Morgan thought of as the Nando Special. She felt like shaking her head.
You’ll need to do better than that, Ace.

Kit narrowed her eyes again. “I started after May 23. Believe me, I’ve always been legal.”

His jaw tensed. Morgan would bet he was always the “good cop” in any interrogation. He probably wasn’t used to hostility. Particularly not from good-looking women.

“Glad to hear it. ‘Legal’ is something I’m always in favor of.”

“Oh knock it off, both of you.” Morgan took the driver’s license out of his hand and gave it back to Kit. “You’re as bad as Arthur and the pups.”

He seized on the change of subject. “So where is the mountain lion, anyway? Out doing a little hunting?”

“Probably. I haven’t seen him all day.” She frowned. “Come to think of it, he didn’t come in for lunch.”

“Probably found himself something tasty on the hoof, so to speak.”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t usually eat what he catches. He’s a picky eater anyway.”

Kit raised her eyebrows. “Arthur is picky?”

“Believe it or not. He chews on things, but he usually just leaves the carcass lying around with some strategic puncture wounds.”

Kit grimaced. “Way more information than I wanted, boss.”

Nando grinned again, charm oozing from every pore.

Kit glanced at him and then grinned back. Morgan suddenly felt like she should find something urgent to do in her office.

“About time you got here,” Ciro’s voice boomed from the doorway.

Nando managed not to roll his eyes, but Morgan guessed it was a near thing.

Ciro strode into the room. “Didn’t you get my message?”

Nando nodded. “I got it, Dad. Didn’t think I’d see you. I was gonna leave a note with Morgan.”

Ciro shrugged. “No need now. Let me take you over to get a look at that property of Powell’s.”

“I’m on duty right now, Dad, I just stopped by to ask Morgan a couple more questions.”

“On duty?” Ciro snorted. “Driving around in that sorry excuse for a police car?”

Morgan watched Nando’s shoulders stiffen. As a veteran of more than a few family battles herself, she could sympathize. But judging from Ciro’s face, she didn’t think Nando would win this one.

“I don’t have time now. Maybe later.” Nando sounded like he was talking through gritted teeth.

“Later?” Ciro’s face darkened.

“Ciro?” Morgan’s voice was soft, but both men turned toward her. “We need to talk some more about that land before we do anything else about it. Erik Toleffson said there’s a possible water problem up there.”

“Toleffson? How does Toleffson know anything about that land?”

“Mr. Powell said some of his goats got sick. That’s why Erik and Cal were up there the day I fell. We need to have him test the water before we go any further with leasing the land.”

Ciro’s eyes narrowed. “Powell won’t like that.”

“Probably not. But I don’t think we’d want to lease someplace where the ground water is tainted.”

Nando shook his head. “That’s not likely. From what I understand, it’s just the stock tank.”

“And if it is, we can go ahead. But we need to see the results first.”

Ciro shook his head slowly. “We might lose the chance to lease the place if we push Powell too hard. You sure about this, Morgan?”

She kept her voice level, but her fingernails cut into her palms as she clenched her fists. “I can call Dad if you want me to. I’m not asking you to give up the lease completely. Just get the water tested.”
And stop acting like everything I suggest is suspect.

“There is a problem up there, Dad. It may not be serious, but Powell does have some dead goats.”

Ciro glanced at his son, then back at Morgan, his expression still dubious. “I’ll think about it.” He turned and stalked toward the work area in back.

“Thanks,” Morgan murmured.

Nando gave her a dry smile. “No problem. It got me out of driving up to Powell’s goat pasture, at least for the time being.”

Ham Linklatter wasn’t at the station when Erik got back from the Merchants Association meeting because it was his turn on night duty. Helen Kretschmer dug through Ham’s desk without a qualm and unearthed the permit application for the motorcycle rally from the back of a drawer, along with the log Linklatter was supposed to be keeping to record any night calls.

The log was blank. The application wasn’t.

Helen recommended some creative uses for Ham’s entrails, which Erik promised to consider. She watched him as he scanned the permit application, her arms folded across her chest.

He sighed and dropped the application back onto the desk. “Looks okay to me. This thing goes on every year?”

“No sir. Not every year. Sometimes they go to Big Bend or somewhere like that. But we get them every couple years or so.” She raised her chin, regarding him through narrowed, gunmetal gray eyes.

“They give you any problems?”

Her expression suddenly became as blank as Ham’s log. “Brody didn’t have any. But Brody was Brody.”