Return to Oak Valley (11 page)

Shelly frowned. “You mean, you think they might have lent him money? Did they do that sort of thing? Loan sharking?”

Jeb glanced around as if becoming aware that they were standing together right out in front of God and everybody having a very private, very serious conversation. “Look, I shouldn't have started talking about this right now—if ever. Let's just leave it that there are things that happened prior to Josh's suicide that didn't sit right with me.” At Shelly's mulish expression, he said, “I know. I shouldn't have started if I didn't mean to finish. And I will. But not here. And not now.” He glanced around, his gaze narrowing as he caught sight of a dark blue pickup truck pulling into the small gravel parking lot of the Blue Goose. “Oh, hell, speak of the Devil.” He gave a faint jerk of his head. “There's Milo Scott getting out of his pickup at the Goose.” His eyes on Shelly's, he said, “Invite me up to the house for dinner tomorrow night—I'd say tonight, but we're a little shorthanded right now, and I'm subbing for one of the other sergeants—the reason I'm in uniform and not in plain clothes. I still live up here, but I work out of the Willits office…unless someone dies violently. I don't mean to put you off—I promise, I'll tell you what I know.” His mouth thinned. “Which is damn little. Deal?”

Shelly studied the wiry, sandy-haired man who slammed the door of the blue pickup and ambled into the restaurant. He looked nondescript, and she didn't recognize him. She turned her attention back to Jeb. “Deal. Come out about six thirty tomorrow night,” Shelly said. “And don't you try to wiggle out of it.”

“I won't—honest. But don't fret over what I've told you and convince yourself there's some big mystery. Like you, I'm having trouble dealing with Josh's death, and I'm probably jumping to conclusions to keep from making the obvious one; he killed himself.” His expression disgusted, he muttered, “Me and my big mouth. First time I see you in years, and I have to dump this on you.”

Shelly forced herself to smile. “Tact was never your strong point.”

Following her lead, he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Honey, with my charm, I don't need tact.”

Laughing, Shelly threw herself into his arms again, burying her face into his warm neck. “Oh, Jeb, I've missed you…the valley…everything. I can't believe I stayed away so long. Until I came home, I didn't realize that this is my real home, this is where I belong.”

He dropped a kiss on top of her head. “I know, kid. You just had to have time to realize it yourself.”

“How did you get so damned smart?” she muttered against his skin.

He hugged her tighter. “Just those Ballinger/Granger genes, I guess.”

Neither was aware of Sloan pushing out of Heather-Mary-Marie's and walking past them until he said in arctic tones, “Afternoon, Delaney. Doing some private detecting?”

Jeb grinned and held Shelly firmly against him when she would have jerked away. “You bet. I'm a man who takes my work seriously.”

Sloan snorted and slipped into the big Suburban parked next to where they stood. His mouth grim, he gunned the engine, reversed right smartly, and sped away.

“Brrrr.” Jeb said. “Is it just me, or did you feel that glacial blast, too?”

“I felt it.” Her mouth twisted. “Some things never change, do they? Simply because I'm a Granger, the Ballingers hate me.”

Jeb chuckled. “Honey, that wasn't hatred that made Sloan all lemon-lipped and grumpy. I know a jealous man when I see one—I'm a detective, remember? And that was one jealous man. It's a wonder I'm still standing upright and not lying on the ground nursing a broken jaw. I thought he was going to take a swing at me, throw you over his shoulder, and gallop away. Whew! Sloan was pissed, no doubt about it.”

“You're wrong. Sloan was just being Sloan.”

“If you say so, kid.”

Not wanting to discuss the matter, Shelly moved away from him, and muttered, “I've got to go now. I'll see you tomorrow night.” She glanced at him. “Anything in particular you'd like for dinner, or should I just cook whatever comes to mind?”

He grinned. “Whatever comes to mind, darlin', will do just fine. I'm a bachelor—what more can I say?”

Shelly paused. “Again? Josh said something about you getting married a second time a couple years after I left.”

“Yeah, well, you know me—I'm great at the chasing, but just can't seem to keep 'em when I catch 'em. About twelve years ago when my second wife left, I decided that marriage wasn't for me. Tried it twice and struck out both times, and I ain't looking to try it a third time.”

Privately Shelly thought that his two wives had to have been crazy to divorce him. She'd known Ingrid, his first wife only a little, but had not cared for her—in fact few in the valley had liked the German baron's daughter Jeb had married so impetuously. The fact that the marriage failed within six months came as no surprise to anybody and had brought forth a collective sigh of delight from the female portion of the population—married and not. If his second wife had been anything like Ingrid, his second divorce was perfectly understandable. Keeping her thoughts to herself, she asked, “Josh never said, but any kids from the second marriage?”

“Now that's one mistake I didn't make,” Jeb said with a hard note in his voice. “Guess I knew from the git-go it wouldn't last.”

Shelly pressed a quick kiss on his cheek. “And maybe you just planned it that way. If your second wife was anything like Ingrid, I'm not surprised the marriage didn't last.”

“Now don't you start. You're beginning to sound just like my mother.”

Shelly grinned. “And how is your mother? No, never mind. You can tell me during dinner. If we start talking family, we'll be here the rest of the afternoon. I'll see you tomorrow night.”

She waved to Jeb as she pulled out of the parking lot of Heather-Mary-Marie's, and since she didn't want to run the risk of running into Sloan again, she pointed the Bronco in the direction of home. As she drove the Bronco along the familiar road, she replayed the scene with Sloan in her mind.

She hadn't meant to argue with him. It had just happened. Seeing him after all these years, looking into that once-loved face, remembering the betrayal and pain of their parting and to still have her body reacting to his presence the way it had had just been too much for her to handle. She needed to put some distance between them and have some time to come to grips with the shock of seeing him again. She'd known that they would meet again, she just hadn't been prepared for it to happen the first time she ventured out of the house and into town. Nor had she counted on the leap her heart had given at the sight of him, the thrill that had coursed through her. Or the way her pulse had raced and her entire body had surged to life as she had stared at him. She'd been stunned. Aroused. Terrified. Looking at those blunt, hard features, seeing the broad shoulders and the way the black jeans had fit his muscular thighs she'd been eighteen again, and all her hormones had burst into the “Hallelujah Chorus” at the sight of him.
You'd think
, she thought disgustedly,
that at my age, I'd have better control of my emotions—and hormones.

Shelly sighed. It was probably just as well, though, that the first meeting was out of the way. At least she didn't have to dread it anymore. And seeing Cleo again had been wonderful. Meeting Hank O'Hara had been fun. Running into Jeb had been great, too. She frowned, thinking about the things Jeb had said about her brother. Tomorrow night couldn't come soon enough for her, but she realized that Jeb had been right to suggest a more private setting. The more she turned over the conversation in her mind, the more troubled she became. Josh friends with dopers? That didn't sound right. And yet Jeb said that it had happened. The gambling sounded right…but not the huge losses. She caught her breath, suddenly remembering the odd entries in the account books. Maybe the valley gossip wasn't all wrong, maybe Josh
had
suffered some big losses and turned to this Milo Scott and Ben Williams for financial help. But that didn't sound right. Josh could have come to her. They could have dipped into the principal of the trust funds left them by their parents. She paused. No. Josh wouldn't have come to her—she was his baby sister and his first instinct would have been to protect her from anything unpleasant. And he wouldn't have been happy to reveal a flaw in his own nature to her. He wouldn't have wanted her to think less of him. She snorted. Men!

Reaching the house, she put on the brake and turned off the ignition. She wasn't going to think about Josh's behavior any more today. Once she had talked to Jeb, she'd know more and could make a better assessment about what had really been going on in Josh's life these past few years. And if those events had led to his suicide…or something else…

She shook her head. She was being fanciful again. A rueful smile curved her mouth. As fanciful as Jeb Delaney thinking that Sloan had been jealous at seeing them together. Ha! That'd be the day.

But Sloan was jealous. Fiercely. Savagely. Furiously. Jeb had nailed down his feelings exactly. When he had pushed out of Heather-Mary-Marie's and had seen Shelly standing in Jeb's embrace, Sloan had experienced a primitive emotion that had rocked him to his roots. It had taken every ounce of control he possessed to keep from yanking Shelly away from Jeb and strangling Delaney right then and there. He and Jeb had been friends for a long time, but this afternoon, as he pulled away from the store, Sloan's thoughts were murderous about his
friend.

Even now, ten minutes later as he pushed a grocery cart down one of the narrow aisles of MacGuire's, his gut still twisted and his knuckles were white from the furious grip he had on the cart, imagining them around Jeb's neck. Bastard! Coming on to her before she'd been in town a half hour. Who the hell did Delaney think he was? Casanova?

The ridiculousness of the situation struck him and he grinned wryly. Ah, hell. Who was he kidding? He was just being a horny, jealous old goat. Jeb and Shelly had been friends in the old days, so why shouldn't he hug her? Sloan grimaced. God knows he'd had to fight against the powerful urge to pull her into his own arms and kiss her when she'd stood there before him in the shadows of the store. Of course, there wouldn't have been anything remotely
friendly
about his kiss. And if he hadn't been so eaten up with jealousy, he would have realized immediately that it was only a friendly embrace that the two had been sharing. Shelly had always been warm and generous in her affection, so why wouldn't she have been happy to see Jeb? His problem, and he admitted it, was that the sight of Shelly posing before the mirror in Heather-Mary-Marie's, that T-shirt held against her slender body, had aroused him and aroused emotions he'd thought long dead. And it wasn't like he hadn't expected to see her inside the store. He had.

As soon as he'd spotted the Bronco parked in the lot, he'd known whose vehicle it was. And had he continued on his original errand to the grocery store? Oh, no. He'd had to swerve into the lot and go looking for trouble. He snorted. And couldn't he have just said a friendly hello and left it at that? Not on your life! No, he'd had to go all stiff-necked over her brother. As much as he loathed the man, would it really have hurt him to say that he was sorry that Josh was dead? Probably not. God. Sometimes he could be such an asshole. You'd think he'd learn.

Muttering to himself he guided the metal grocery cart toward the meat counter. Pandora had let it be known this morning that she wasn't eating dry dog food another day. She was a predator, and she wanted meat. Raw. And lots of it.

Sloan bought a pound of calf's liver and the smallest beef heart he could find. He had a freezer full of meat from the steer he'd had butchered last fall, and even though he had doled them out judiciously, the organ meats had disappeared from Pandora's bowl months ago. Today's purchases would hold her for a while, and he'd be able to eat his own meals without having to endure her outraged stare. He'd planned to buy several other items, but the mood for shopping had left him the moment he'd spied Shelly's Bronco. He did take time to grab some milk and cottage cheese and some lettuce and onions before he headed to the checkout counter.

“Hi, Sloan. Didn't realize that you were in town. The big city finally got you down, and you had to come back to God's country, right?”

Sloan smiled at Debbie Smith, manning her familiar post at MacGuire's register. Well into her sixties, with her steel gray hair, pale blue eyes, pink, plump cheeks, and round little body, she looked like a Disney version of a grandmother. She had been at MacGuire's for as long as Sloan could remember and had started work behind the meat counter when the place had been nothing more than a tiny butcher shop tucked into the corner of Joe's Market, the oldest grocery store in the valley. As MacGuire's had grown and prospered, so had Debbie. She'd met her husband, Tom, at the store forty years ago; he'd been hired to stock shelves when the market expanded into its own tiny building, adding a few fresh vegetables, milk, and camping supplies to the meat counter. Those days were gone; MacGuire's was now a full-fledged grocery store, and Tom presently supervised the meat department and Debbie ran the freezer section and manned one of the three checkout counters whenever necessary or she felt the need to gossip. She could have retired long ago, but as she said often enough, “I like people. I like seeing what's going on in town. And if I retired, I'd be down here visiting with everyone anyway. This way, I get to visit, and I get paid for it, too!”

Glancing down at the liver and heart in Sloan's basket, she snorted. “You spoil that dog, you know that, don't you?”

Sloan grinned. One of the blessings and curses of the valley was that everyone really did know your business. “I know,” he said easily. “Sometimes I wonder who owns who.”

“If you'd get yourself a wife and some kids, that question would be settled right quick,” Debbie said as she rang up his order. “Your folks would love some grandkids, and with five kids, you'd think that one of you would have found the time to produce at least one member of the next generation.”

“Yeah, well, you'd better talk to the others, because I tried marriage once, remember?” he muttered. With anyone else, he would have remained silent and simply frozen them with an icy stare, but Debbie treated everyone under the age of fifty as if they were one of her children—or grandchildren. Even as he wished she'd mind her own business, Sloan knew that her motives were kind.