The Black Sheep and the Princess (18 page)

“How did you—” He flashed on Finn, heads bent close, her laughter. “Right. Glad to share.” And he was. In fact, he was quite willing to share a hell of a lot more than his beer with her. He tugged the cooler out of the back of the truck, but left the rest of the equipment there.

“Should we stow that somewhere?”

“I'll get it later. I'm going to stow it in my cabin anyway. There is some assembly required,” he added with a smile. He noticed her instinctive glance…and it wasn't in the direction of the unoccupied cabins down the hill. She'd instinctively glanced at her own. His body revved up quite nicely to that unconscious suggestion. He fought to quell the reaction. They had a long night ahead of them. And at some point, he had to get back on task. The case had to come first.

Whether or not either of them were going to come later remained to be seen.

He sighed a little as he hefted the cooler and hiked the steps up to her front porch. And to think he'd once loved this job.

At the moment, he was thinking there might actually be a point to having a life outside of work. Novel concept for a guy like him.

She held the door open for him, and he had to angle himself carefully to keep from brushing up against her, but was trapped as Bagel plastered himself all around his ankles with loving adoration. Cruel, really. Worse was the whiff of her fragrance. And the killer was that it wasn't some fancy perfume. It was the fresh scent of soap and shampoo. Who'd have thought the wafting scent of citrus could give a guy a raging hard-on?

He was so in trouble here.

“Why don't you review the report in full while I cook something up?” She smiled as she stepped into the cabin behind him, then squatted down to rub Bagel's quivering belly. “We can eat while I badger you with a million questions and generally make you crazy.”

You have no idea
, he thought.
No idea at all
.

K
ate had thought he'd dominated her screened-in porch last night—had it been only last night? His presence was so much bigger than life it felt as though he'd been in it far longer than that. But now that he was standing in her small kitchen, she realized she had sorely underestimated just how big a presence he truly was.

“You cook?” he asked.

“Very funny.” She reached into the jar on the little shelf beside the door and tossed Bagel a piece of rawhide.

Donovan walked across the main room of the four-room cabin—the other rooms being her bedroom, her office, and the bathroom—to the open kitchen area and pulled out a chair to the small, two-seat dinette set she'd scrounged at a flea market. “Actually, I wasn't being a smart-ass,” he said. “I don't assume a woman can cook just because she's a woman.”

“You're so not going to save your behind trying to sound gender enlightened.”

“I am gender enlightened,” he said, sounding all offended, but there was that twinkle in his eye again.

“Be honest, you assumed I couldn't cook because I grew up with one on staff.”

“That, too, but really—” He ducked easily when she flipped one of the two throw pillows from the couch in his general direction as she passed by. “Careful, you could take an eye out.”

“With a pillow?”

He bent down and snagged it from the floor by his feet. “You never know.”

She opened the refrigerator door and hid her smile. Her entire dream might be falling apart…and here she was, grinning like a fool over a little banter with an attractive man. So what if it had been a while? Okay, a long while. And so what if it was her teenage crush, returned to her life in all his infinite grown-up glory? A little professionalism at the moment would go a long way.

Then there came the scrape of the chair against the hardwood floor, and before she could close the door and move, he was behind her, peering over her shoulder at the meager contents of her refrigerator.

“So, I'm guessing it's PB and J and water,” he said, his breath warm on the side of her neck. “Got any chips to go with that?”

His close proximity was making it really difficult to concentrate on what he was saying. Her body was getting the message loud and clear, but it had nothing to do with making dinner. She snatched a bag of ready-made salad from the crisper drawer and a bottle of salad dressing from the rack in the door. “Amateur.”

She straightened and deftly moved to one side and away from him so she could open the freezer. She slid a small bag of flash-frozen chicken breasts out and tossed the bag directly at his chest, which had the added bonus of making him straighten and move back a few steps.

He looked down at the bag now clutched to his chest. “They're frozen.”

She slipped past him and went to the stove. “They have this new invention; it's called an oven.”

He scanned the short countertop wedged between the fridge and the stove. “No microwave? Not even a toaster oven? What kind of heiress are you?”

She tucked the salad and dressing into one hand and snatched the chicken from his hand as she moved past him once again to the small chopping-block island that officially divided the space between kitchen proper and dining area. In her mind it did, anyway. “The poor, starving kind who learned one hundred and one ways to cook entire meals in a dormitory microwave and never wants to see another one as long as she lives.” She flashed him a smile and batted her eyelashes. “Or until she has someone else to do the cooking for her. Whichever comes first.”

“Ah ha,” he said, coming to stand next to her. “I knew your inner rich girl was in there somewhere.”

“Very funny.” And couldn't he stand somewhere else? She tried not to fidget. “I wasn't talking about the kind that I'd have to put on salary, wiseass. Here.” She stepped back and waved him to take her place. “Since you seem bent on getting in my way, you can toss the salad.” She opened an overhead cupboard and pulled out a serving bowl, two little bowls, and a box of croutons. “Don't put those on yet. It'll take a few minutes to heat up the chicken.”

“Heat?”

“Already grilled and flash frozen. Don't worry, they'll heat up quickly. Give me time and I'll make some garlic bread to go with it.”

He stepped around her to the serving bowl and surprisingly put together the salad with an ease that belied his bachelor-at-large status. “No tomatoes?”

She shuddered. “Not unless forced under penalty of death.”

“Does that mean this is a no-spaghetti zone?”

She slid two thin chicken breasts out and popped them on a tray and into the oven in one smooth move. “Why?” she asked him as she turned to face him, arms folded. “You planning on dining here often?”

He finished mixing the bowl of salad. “Maybe.”

Before she could come up with a retort, and she was certainly going to, he slid by her and put the croutons and dressing on the table.

“Silverware? Dishes?”

“You can set a table?” she asked with feigned surprise.

“Very funny. Although I admit I lived off of paper plates for almost a year after we all moved in together.”

Kate's hands stopped in midreach for the fridge door. She looked over her shoulder at him. “You three…live together, too?”

“Not in sin or anything. It's legal, I swear.”

Her lips twitched. “The Unholy Trinity, all under one roof. And the world is still standing.”

“It's a pretty big roof.” He stacked silverware on top of the dishes, grabbed a few napkins, and moved over to the table. “And I thought I mentioned it, but we're saving the world.” He sent her a sideways look that was anything but innocent. “One downtrodden heiress at a time.”

She tried not to be swayed by his devilish charms, really she did. “I'm not downtrodden.” She moved around the table in the opposite direction from him—no need testing her sway ability by putting herself in actual contact range—and pulled out a chopping block. She kept her back to him, all the better to not be caught up in those quicksilver eyes of his, and started buttering a few bread slices and sprinkling them with garlic and parmesan cheese she rescued from her meager spice cupboard. “I'm just a little financially challenged at the moment, that's all.” She wished that had come out sounding a bit more confident. “I find it rather ironic that, of the two of us, I'm not the one living the high life in some fancy Virginia mansion. And you give me grief.”

Donovan came to stand beside her, holding the bowl of tossed salad greens. She put the knife down. She knew her limits. Bracing herself, she looked at him. Up close like this, almost as close as they'd been in the cab of her truck when he'd kissed her, it was impossible not to get caught up in his intensity. He didn't even have to try. How he worked that laconic smile with those laser beam eyes of his, she had no idea. But anybody fooled by his easygoing demeanor was just that, a fool.

“Tell me something,” he said, holding her gaze with a direct look.

Anything,
she thought.
I'm an open book for you
. To hell with logic and reasoning. A girl got this lucky only a few times in an entire lifetime. If that.

“Does Shelby value what you do?”

She blinked. What the hell did Shelby have to do with Donovan seducing her? “What?”

“This camp. When you told Louisa—and I assume Shelby knew then, too, what you wanted to do with it—what was his reaction?”

She took the bowl from his hands, still nonplussed. Although she was feeling steadily more foolish for the ridiculous path her mind had been taking for the past twenty minutes. Who was she kidding? Since she'd found him on her porch yesterday, it was all she could do to not think about how badly she wanted him. “What difference does it make?”

“I'm trying to piece this whole thing together and fit Shelby into it more concretely. We need proof for that, so I need a trail to follow.”

“I thought you were going to secure the property from vandals.”

“I am, but that's not all of it. We have enough to start, but I need to find the thing that ties it all together.”

“You mean Shelby and Timberline?”

“And Ralston. And the vandalism. I'm not saying it's for certain every element is tied in, but we have to consider it.”

“Okay, but one thing I can't figure is, why would Shelby or a big developer resort to such petty tactics as graffiti? Especially when Shelby holds all of the cards at the moment. He has what I want. And I'm willing to give him everything to get it. If he doesn't want me here, all he has to do is not sign the papers.”

“Which is precisely what he did yesterday.”

“I know…but—” She carried the bowl to the table and set it down with a mindless thump. “None of this makes sense. But what do Shelby's feelings about my camp have to do with anything? He doesn't care what I do with it, as long as I give him the money. At least, that's what I thought was the case.”

“Exactly. Wine?”

“Huh?”

He gestured to her meager kitchen. “Happen to have a bottle of wine? I have beer, but it's not really the thing for chicken salad.”

Mixing Donovan and alcohol struck her as being even more supremely stupid than she'd already been acting thus far. Which, apparently, was saying something. “There is an open bottle of white in the fridge.” She watched him open the door and bend down to look inside. Her gaze followed the action—and hung somewhere around the back pockets of his jeans. Yeah. She'd have water.

He pulled two glasses from the rack, and she said nothing as he poured both. No reason to make a scene about it. “So,” she started, sliding the bread onto the top rack in the oven and forking the chicken over. “Why don't we start at the beginning of Finn's report and go from there. Maybe it will spark some thread of logic for me.” She could be all business. Really, she could. She pulled her own chair out and sat down before he could move around behind her and took a sip of her wine. “Chicken will take a little bit. Can I look at it while we wait?”

Mac took a sip of wine. “Wouldn't make much sense to you, but sure. We can go over it together.”

“Why don't you hit the highlights for me.” She didn't say anything when she noticed him slip a crouton under the table to Bagel. It should have been annoying, and instead, it was a little endearing. Which was ridiculous. So he was a soft touch? What difference did that make?

“Okay,” he said, spearing a fat baby carrot from the salad bowl and neatly popping the whole thing in his mouth. White teeth flashed, his jaw flexed, as he made short work of it.

Her mouth watered. And it had nothing to do with her meal. “What does Finn think the connection is between Shelby and the vandalism? I get him possibly talking to the developers, but the rest is a bit of a stretch for me. Did he offer any theories? What's his opinion?”

“
Our
opinion is that Shelby's quite possibly involved all the way up to his impeccable credit rating. Finn's research was just following my hunch.”

“Okay, okay, don't get your ego in a twist. So Shelby is talking to the developers, but couldn't that be innocent? You said there was no paper trail, so nothing has been proposed or signed that you can find.”

“Yet.”

“What if they were just making an offer to the current owner? And, on record, that would be Shelby at the moment. He could have just said no, end of story. Perfectly legit. Is there anything showing any dealings between Shelby and any Ralston business? Or”—she brightened—“between Ralston and Timberline? Maybe it's not Shelby at all. Maybe it's just the town and the developer. What about Stan's father and the bank? Would the developers need financing of any sort or is that done privately through investors?”

“I'm not sure on that part yet. Most of it, as you pointed out in the case of Shelby and Timberline having any preliminary discussions, is circumstantial until we get documentation of a deal in the works.”

“Meaning we really don't know anything, then.” She huffed out a sigh and leaned back in her chair. “This whole thing is just supposition.”

“There are too many players with questionable motives in potential contact here. It's plausible and probable. That's enough to pursue it.”

“Okay, okay.” She took another sip of her wine, then shoved her chair back and rescued the bread slices from the oven. She slid them into a small basket and put them on the table, then went ahead and took the chicken out and poked at it. Thawed and warm, if not exactly hot. It would have to do. “So, let's focus on Timberline. What do we know, for sure, about their interest in this area, and I don't just mean Winnimocca. There has to be some proof they're looking here, feasibility studies, something.” She started slicing up the thin cutlets.

“We do know they've done that much, and you're right, not just the Winnimocca area, a larger range, but they are focusing their attentions in this area and appear quite serious about it.”