Peppermint Creek Inn (10 page)

Had he seen the shadow? Had someone else other than herself actually seen it? The thought didn’t bring an ounce of relief to her.

For more than two years, the hairs on the back of her neck had prickled a warning she was being watched. When it had first started, shortly after her husband’s death, she’d thought maybe his restless spirit had been trapped between this world and the other. She’d feared his ghost had come back to haunt her because she’d been unable to save him.

Numerous times, she’d stayed up all night, waiting and watching for him. But she’d never seen anyone. Until one crisp night late last Fall, shortly after she’d closed the inn for the season, something had happened to make her believe she wasn’t so crazy. She’d perched herself inside the loft, beside the picture window and watched.

The moon had been full force that night, beaming its white laser light across the front yard of her house and the meadow. It had been 3:15 a.m. when she’d seen the shadow saunter across the front yard, and up to her veranda. And she’d seen the orange glow of a cigarette.

She’d run out into the yard to confront the shadow but he’d disappeared.

Her fears of going crazy, of her husband’s tormented spirit being caught in this world had instantly vanished. Her husband didn’t smoke and a dead person didn’t leave behind footsteps in the gravel of the parking lot. Since then, she’d been on guard.

Sara straightened and peered over at the telephone. She’d forgotten to check if the phones were working today. She reached for it, placed the receiver to her ear and smiled at the dial tone.

Punching in the numbers quickly, her mind raced as she formulated how to explain to Garry she was harboring a man who’d shown up at her house wounded, wearing handcuffs and that she needed him to help Tom.

The phone rang on the other end.

Once.

Twice.

Please answer, Garry.

Her hand tightened around the receiver as it kept ringing and ringing. Finally his answering machine clicked on.

She hesitated a moment then left a discreet message. There was no telling how long it would take before he picked up his messages. For all she knew he could be in Florida with his brother on their annual fishing trip. She had no idea where they would be staying this time. But a good friend of his might know how to get in touch with him.

She looked up the appropriate number in her address book and didn’t have long to wait before a nasal voice answered, “Det. Dan Rawlings. New York Police Department.”

Sara hesitated a moment then took a deep breath and plunged ahead.

New York, New York…

“So you saw him pull the trigger?”

Garry Clarke suddenly shifted uneasily in his wheelchair as Sara’s private eye sister Jocelyn Brady’s question sliced through the quiet interrogation room.

They’d been ushered in there quickly, as if the chief of police—one of the witnesses to his twin brother Robin’s fatal shooting—hadn’t wanted anyone to know someone was asking questions about what had happened. And yet, as Garry’s piercing gaze remained glued on the chief’s pale granite blue eyes, he noticed the chief flinch at Jo’s question.

It was just the barest of a twitch on an otherwise stone-serious poker face, but Garry recognized it as a sign. A sign that indicated Chief Jeffries hadn’t told the entire truth about his brother’s murder.

He’d met the chief on two previous occasions without Jocelyn. The meetings had been formal and cordial. Actually, the chief had been too cordial. To the point of bending over backward to show Garry the overwhelming evidence he had on the suspect. Yet something didn’t sit right. He desperately wished he knew what it was.

In a last-ditch attempt to shake up the chief, he’d asked Jocelyn to tag along. Jocelyn, a striking woman, would arouse the chief’s interest. The chief, being a man who always chased a skirt, wouldn’t allow a beautiful woman to pass through his hands. Jo’s distraction would let Garry survey the man from afar. Apparently his idea had worked.

“I’ve already told you, Miss Brady,” the chief of police stated in response to Jo’s question. “The murderer was standing as close as I am to you when he blew out Robbie’s brains. I saw it and as you know, the suspect’s very own wife saw it.”

Garry suddenly felt sick to his stomach. Instead of being here talking about his dead brother, he should be down in Florida fishing with him, like they’d planned. But Robin’s last minute cancellation had come as a shock to him. Up until almost the very end, Robin had been obsessively secretive about the type of work he did.

Finally, during the last phone conversation they’d had, Robin had revealed to him a few days before his death, if everything went according to plan, the debris would hit the fan when certain information about a certain New York police precinct got out.

Obviously, something had gone terribly wrong because his brother was now dead and buried. Allegedly killed by the hands of a crooked police officer.

The tiny nerve twitched again under the chief’s right eye, drawing Garry’s immediate attention. Their gazes locked. For a split second, Garry read the fear in those stone-cold eyes. Fear of what? What was he hiding?

In a quick sweep, the chief’s eyes became shuttered once again. He pressed his hands onto his desk, stood and drew his attention back to Jo.

“If that’ll be all, I’ve got a precinct to run,” the chief said gently. He acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

Jo took the hint, got out of her seat, leaned over the desk and shook hands with the chief. “I’m grateful to you, sir, for taking some time out of your busy schedule for us. You’ve been very helpful.”

The chief managed a brilliant smile for Jocelyn. Most men did. And they should. Jo was a very attractive thirty-three-year-old woman with straight, chestnut-colored hair that dropped just below her shoulders.

Her sky blue-violet eyes always twinkled a welcome to anyone she met. But Jo never seemed interested in getting hitched. She always kept herself in a very cool business-like manner when she spoke to a man. And the moment they showed any interest in her, that famous icy exterior glazed over her, and the men just kind of slid away. One by one.

He sensed something had happened in her past to make her shy away from men and relationships. She’d never told him about it and he’d never pried. But she was very different with him. Always friendly and helpful.

Maybe because she figured he wasn’t a threat. Being thirty-odd years older, a good friend and a father figure, he considered Jocelyn and her sister Sara, to be the daughters he’d always wanted but never had. The bullet that had shattered his spine and paralyzed him from his waist down had taken care of having any more kids, besides an only son.

Garry’s thoughts drifted back to the chief and Jo who now stood.

“You come back anytime, Miss Brady.”

Jo smiled. The cute little dimple popping out in her right cheek. “Oh, please call me Jo. All my friends do.”

Garry’s eyes widened at her words. She considered him a friend? A sinking feeling hit the pit of his gut and his hands tightened around the vinyl arms of the wheelchair. He should have filled her in on the chief. Told her the real reason he’d asked her to accompany him today.

“And I’d love to come back and visit,” Jo said softly, teasingly. “Perhaps we could do brunch sometime?”

Brunch? God, he was going to be sick.

“That would be wonderful, Jo. I’m looking forward to it.”

Garry threw the chief a stiff nod as a needle of anger sliced through him. He barely felt the smooth rocking motion as Jo turned his wheelchair and pushed him out into the corridor. When they were halfway down the hallway, Garry twisted awkwardly in his wheelchair and peered angrily up at Jo. A sweet, smug smile lifted her pretty lips.

Immediately his anger deflated into curiosity. Jo had taken her porcupine quills in for a reason. She was onto something.

“What gives, Jo?”

“What makes you think something’s up?” she replied casually.

“You know why.”

Jo slowed the wheelchair and leaned closer to Garry.

“Let me ask you something, Garry.” She threw a cautious glance over her shoulder.

The corridor was clear.

“If one person shoots another person at close range, but not too close. For instance, like what the chief said, the killer being as close to the victim as I was to the chief today, right?”

Garry nodded.

“Well then, tell me this, Gar. Why would the autopsy report say Robin had powder burns on his face? Isn’t that consistent with someone shooting him at point-blank range? Not a few feet away?”

Garry slowly shook his head. He’d thought she’d been onto something. He’d been wrong. “Don’t read too much into it, Jo. He was using it just as an example.”

Jo bit her lip thoughtfully. “Maybe.”

“But? What?” Garry frowned. He didn’t like the tiny sliver of uneasiness slithering across his shoulder blades. “C’mon, Jo, you have excellent instincts. What are you thinking?”

“Who would doubt the chief of police as a witness?”

“Yeah,” Garry agreed softly as he finally understood her meaning.

Satisfied she’d made her point, Jo began pushing Garry’s wheelchair down the deserted hallway.

—

The hot sun hung high overhead, radiating its welcome heat into the rich earth. A strong wind swept across the tall slender blades of the nearby meadow grass. Large puffy white clouds drifted from horizon to horizon allowing only moment’s relief from the stifling yellow heat.

With her foot, Sara forced the shovel deep into the rich black earth, withdrew the burden of dirt, and then flipped it over as one might flip over a pancake. Then she wiped away the perspiration crawling from beneath her tattered straw hat.

“Darn it,” she muttered angrily as she turned over yet another shovelful of dirt, allowing it to bake in the sun. She could have used the rototiller, but she needed to get a new spark plug. The old one hadn’t been worth a hill of beans last year. Oh, who was she kidding. The rototiller would work well enough for now. Truth is, she just didn’t want to wake Tom up.

She didn’t need a half-naked man hanging around the house. Especially a man wearing nothing but a pink terry cloth towel, slung so low over his hips, she’d almost erupted from internal combustion. The sooner he got out of here, the better. He was too dangerous.

Too sexy.

Last night she’d dreamed that same dream again. About the day she’d met Jack, and the day they’d found out she was pregnant. This time a strange new twist had been added. Everything had occurred in the same sequence, up to the point when Jack had twirled her around and around until she’d felt dizzy.

At that point Jack’s face disintegrated and Tom held her in his strong, yet tender arms.

And this time no gunshot ripped throughout the air. Only Tom who stood in front of her, gently unbuttoning her dress. Lifting it over her head. Gazing upon her nakedness with lusty eyes and a giant cock that stretched straight out as he eased her onto the bed and came down between her widespread legs.

She blew out an aroused breath at the sexy vision and wiped a bead of perspiration off her forehead, frowning as the tiny hairs on the back of her neck suddenly popped to attention.

Suddenly she had the distinct feeling someone was watching her.

Whirling around, she caught sight of a tall man standing at the picket gate of her garden, arms folded casually across his chest. He watched her carefully, saying nothing.

Alarm rippled along her nerves as she surveyed the clean-shaven newcomer. Was he looking for Tom?

Her grip on the wooden handle of the shovel tightened as did her protective instincts of keeping harm away from Tom. If this man tried anything, she’d be on him faster than a she-wolf on a rabbit.

Then she noticed the familiar smile edging up his full lips and aroused shock sifted through her system.

“Oh, my God! Tom?”

Drop-dead gorgeous. A young Mel Gibson look-alike.

“Wow,” she heard herself saying, her insides suddenly trembling, her pussy creaming with heated arousal.

Tom’s smile widened and she felt as if all her breath had stalled in her lungs.

Without saying anything, he popped open the picket gate and stepped into the garden, strolling confidently up the center path.

Sara leaned heavily on the shovel, her knees suddenly feeling weak as she watched him draw nearer. Heaven only knew she needed some sort of a crutch, because the crisp, clean smell of soap along with his erotic masculine scent slammed into her nostrils, making her quite aware of his maleness.

His hot gaze raked over her body making intense urges erupt deep inside her abdomen.

Oh, boy, she did not need this. She really didn’t. But he looked so good. Handsome and clean-shaven. The dreaded paleness from being sick had vanished, replaced by a robust healthy color that made the yellowish-blue bruises barely visible. He’d tied his long, feathery dark brown hair neatly behind his neck. The rest of his hair was tucked beneath an old baseball cap that had once belonged to Jack.

“So? What do you think? Do I pass muster?” he asked huskily.

“You look…different.” Heat flushed her face and it wasn’t from the sun. She allowed her appreciative gaze to drop from his handsome face to the light gray muscle T-shirt stretched taught over his broad shoulders and muscular chest, then down to the gorgeous hip-hugging jeans she’d washed.

The shirt had belonged to her husband and Tom filled it out quite nicely indeed.

Yes, very nice.

Unconsciously Sara licked her dry lips.

Her face blushed warmer as she gazed back into Tom’s prodding gaze. There was something shimmering in those green depths. Something hot, dangerous, sexy. Something erotic, aching to burst free.

It was something she wanted.

“I didn’t recognize you.”

“Good. It’s my new master disguise. Amazing what a little bit of spit and polish won’t do. I hope you don’t mind about the hat?” He touched the beak of the hat. “But the sunshine’s a bit hard on the eyes after being inside for so long.”