The Marriage Charm (Bliss County 2) (27 page)

They spent about an hour picking up pieces of broken glass, straightening the furniture and in general, repairing the damage.

Just like at her house, the damage had been superficial. And yet in both cases it seemed personal.

Maybe that had been the point of it all. Some kind of personal vendetta.

At least Harley wasn’t badly injured. Dr. Richards had assured them that the limp might be because the escaping thief had stomped on the dog’s foot, but that the mutt had held his own.

He’d called a while ago to confirm that the blood definitely wasn’t Harley’s. Good dog.

Great dog.

So maybe Spence would find a link come up with the connection he needed if the thief had gone for treatment. Across the table, Melody ate a forkful of some tasty potato salad—she’d put bacon in it, and she was a fan of the recipe, hoping the girls would like it, too. “So, who is it?” she finally asked. She figured she’d waited long enough.

She could sense that he didn’t want to have this discussion, but considering everything that had happened, he owed it to her.

He sighed. “I briefly dated a woman who told me her name was Mary Allen. I just met her at the grocery store one day, struck up a conversation and we went for coffee. Had dinner once. She’s attractive, but I think as a police officer you have an instinct for anything that’s off about a person. I never asked her out again. Supposedly she lives here in town, but I can’t find any evidence that she does, and I saw her at Ronald’s antiques place the other day. She was going in as I was coming out.”

Melody hoped her expression was neutral. “And you think it’s her? Why?”

“By her own admission, she makes her living appraising antiques.”

Now
that
made sense.

“I asked Junie if Cassandra could keep an eye out for anyone who came into the store frequently.”

“I wasn’t aware that you’d taken up detective work as a hobby.”

“I want that diamond back.”

His voice softened. “I know. And I want to be the person who hands it to you.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

C
HECKLIST.

Harley staying with Tripp.
Check.
He’d have fun with the other dogs, even with his injured paw.

Horses saddled, packs in place.
Check
.

Same trail he’d just done, so that was a breeze.
Check.

Jim Galloway was a few feet ahead of him, easy in the saddle, his horse a veteran who was so attuned to every movement, he probably didn’t need anything but a halter. “Let’s get this show on the road, son,” he said.

On the one hand, he was glad he’d be able to keep an eye on Melody’s safety. On the other, it chafed him to leave town again.

“Ready if you are.” He turned Reb and pointed his nose in the right direction. Hadleigh on Sunset, Melody on a bay of Tripp’s that he swore was reliable, Bex on a mare she’d borrowed from a friend. Pauline Galloway rode a well-behaved horse Jim had handpicked from the ranch, and all the young girls, ready to go and chatting excitedly, were behind them.

Some had pink backpacks, but he wasn’t going to even mention that, since he wasn’t in charge.

He and Jim were just backup, hired hands to do the grunt work.

But...pink? On a camping trip? Fine, maybe he’d have a daughter someday. The pastel color might even scare off wild animals. Still, pink backpacks felt wrong to him, but what the heck. The girls were laughing and joking, and all that fancy food Hadleigh, Bex and Melody had made would be better than the campfire fare they’d served the boys.

Black Forest brownies. He and Moe and Steve definitely hadn’t whipped those up, whatever they were.

“Tripp’s back there dying with laughter, right?”

“Dyin’,” Jim agreed, his mouth curved in a fond smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll get him back. We’ll come up with something inventive.”

“Sounds good.”

“I’m thinkin’ on it. I’ve also been thinkin’ about the robberies. No one local I can pull out of my sleeve as a good suspect, but maybe we can dangle some bait to trap ʼem.”

Entrapment wasn’t legal because it equated to encouraging someone to break the law. But Jim wouldn’t do anything remotely illegal unless it involved protecting someone he loved or an animal in danger. So Spence was listening.

Jim took a deep breath. “I have this old sword. I always believed it was from the War Between the States, but you know, I did some research and I think it’s more likely that it came from about the time of the Revolution.”

Riding next to him, Spence gaped. “What?”

“I looked up the person whose name is on the blade. Hanson. Turns out he was a silversmith who worked with Paul Revere. Who’d have thought?”

Spence turned to stare at him. There were days when you got out of bed and just didn’t see something coming. He cleared his suddenly dry throat. “Let me get this straight. You have a sword that goes back to 1776? It should be in the Smithsonian if it’s genuine, Jim. Where do you keep it?”

The older man glanced back at the women and girls following them and lowered his voice. “I used to stick it in the attic. What if I went around getting estimates on it? If nothing else, it’s pretty showy.”

“What if you put it under lock and key, instead? We can find a different way to handle this. Pardon me if I’m fond of you and Pauline, so I don’t want to invite thieves into your home. That recently happened to me, and I didn’t enjoy it.”

“Um, well, I already started the process. Let’s just hide it in a better spot. We’ll pick one out. I brought it along.”

“Where—”

“What do you think is in the long sheath strapped to my saddle? Not a rifle.”

Spence could hardly believe it. Jim had brought a Revolutionary-era sword that might have been touched by Paul Revere. It was probably worth a fortune.

And they were going to hide it in the mountains.

Right
.

Swords. Pink backpacks. Black Forest brownies. This was unlike any other camping trip he’d ever taken.

The forecast hadn’t been accurate, either. Although he knew better than to rely on a weather forecast. What happened in Mustang Creek wasn’t necessarily what happened as you gained altitude.

*

N
OT A SINGLE
one of the females present was happy when it started to sprinkle. Hair seemed to be the main objection. At least it was summer, so getting soaked wasn’t pleasant, but not as bad as it could be.

He pointed that out to Melody when he dropped back to see how everyone was doing. In return, she said coolly, “I invite you to explain that to girls who probably spent a lot of time getting ready for this trip. Good luck. Go for it.”

He beat a hasty retreat, nudging Reb toward the front of the line. He told Jim, “The it-could-be-worse speech didn’t go over very well.”

“I told you not to worry about that, but I get it. You want to keep her happy.”

“I want to marry her.”

“I’ve known that for some time.”

He shoved back his hat. The rain was increasing, which wasn’t going to improve his evening. Droplets caught in his eyelashes. “I’m trying to figure out how to ask. It’s a pretty important question.”

Their horses moved calmly up the trail.

“Oh, yeah, it is.”

“Pauline is a trouper.”

Jim smiled contentedly. “She is. But let’s keep in mind that she has the advantage of life experience. She understands that everything isn’t going to go perfectly. She’s faced real adversity and compared to that, this is just a little vacation with some rain.”

Spence rested his hands on his saddle, thinking it over. “I don’t really know what my own mother went through. I haven’t seen her in years, but she sent me something recently. There’s this part of me that just wants to walk away. That make sense to you? Shake it off like a wet dog and call it a lost cause. I want to give it to my aunt, let her deal with it, but you know, she’s had to put up with enough of my problems. Should I do that? Would it be fair? I have no idea what this letter or card even says.”

“Life ain’t fair.” Jim laughed, but it wasn’t with humor. “Life is...well, it’s life. All kinds of people out there are trying to explain every little thing. Can’t necessarily be done. My advice is just open it, trust yourself and then respond to her or don’t. Not complicated.”

Good advice.

They rode on, and the weather did not improve.

When they stopped to set up camp, he was especially grateful that Tripp had recommended Jim for the trail ride. The man could put up a tent faster than Spence could—and Spence was pretty handy. Jim’s genial smile also won over every one of the grumpy girls with damp hair.

Hadleigh, also, wasn’t at all happy that her fancy alfredo meal wasn’t going to happen.

It got worse.

The skies
really
opened. Rain pelted down.

He received accusing glares.

This business of apologizing for the weather was frustrating.

The campsite was fairly sheltered, but not sheltered enough to keep it dry.

“Sorry,” he said about thirty minutes after they’d halted, all of them relatively dry in their tents, shaking his head as he peered into the one Melody, Bex and Hadleigh were sharing. “I’ll stand over you with an umbrella as you cook. You brought one, right?”

Hadleigh, who’d seemed about to combust over their situation, instead burst into laughter, and Melody and Bex followed. She fell on her sleeping bag. “Yes,” she gasped. “I want to see the chief of police standing over me with a pink umbrella while I cook chicken and pasta... By all means, Spence. You have a deal.”

“It would work, right?” Dammit, he was trying to be helpful here.

Hadleigh collapsed in another fit of laughter. So did Bex and Mel.

“I’m willing to get soaked,” he said, in what he thought was a reasonable tone, “so you can cook dinner. And y’all think this is funny?”

They did.

Jim was the one who saved him. He tapped him on the shoulder and gave him a plate covered in plastic wrap to hand to the occupants. “Pauline watched the weather report, didn’t believe it—I swear that woman can smell rain coming—so she brought along some peanut butter and jelly. She made a few sandwiches for everyone. I’ve been passing them out. The girls seem happy enough.”

He might kiss Jim right then and there, or better yet, Pauline, who was darn cute in a grandmotherly way.

Bex took the plate with alacrity and tore off the plastic. “I’m starving. Grape
and
strawberry? Be still, my heart. Girls, you’ll have to arm wrestle me for the strawberry.”

“Have at it. I want the grape, anyway. PB and J is exactly how I remember camping.” Melody selected a sandwich and passed the plate to Hadleigh. She eyed Spence’s dripping hat through the mesh doorway. “We’d invite you in for supper, but first of all, you’d take up half the space, and secondly, you’d get everything wet. This is the wilderness. Every man for himself. But...would you mind passing out the cookies?” She handed him a bag and smiled with real mischief in her incredible eyes. “There are ones for each tent in there in separate bags. Consider yourself the cookie elf.”

Bex and Hadleigh each clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Hmmph.” Spence straightened, feeling ridiculous. They were probably those dried cherry kind or white-chocolate doodads, and while they tasted good, a grown man walking around in the mountains, delivering cookies in the pouring rain, well, he might as well turn in his male card.

He
was
soaked, and he still had to take care of the horses and tack. Maybe the cloudburst would pass.

Jim was openly amused. Spence heard another round of laughter from the three women as they zipped the doorway to the tent. “You tell anyone about this, Galloway,” he warned, “and I’ll steal Pauline away from you.”

“Son, that is a powerful threat coming from a dripping-wet cookie elf.” Jim, just as wet, was holding his sides now, guffawing up a storm.

“You do know you’re a sadistic bunch,” Spence muttered, stalking toward the closest tent.

Jim did help him with the chores after the bags of cookies had been dutifully delivered to squeals of delight. The only real consolation was that, despite the weather and the lack of a gourmet meal, there was a lot of feminine laughter coming from each tent. Especially the one with the chaperones.

That was something, anyway.

His one-man tent was the last to go up, and while Spence would normally just strip out of his wet clothes before crawling in, that wasn’t an option with a group of teenage girls around. So he had to finagle a way to get out of his sodden attire and muddy boots to ensure that he didn’t sleep in a damp bed.

No one, he noticed, had delivered sandwiches to his tent. He ate a couple of the granola bars he always kept in his pack and washed them down with a bottle of water then munched on some nuts while thinking about Jim’s sword idea.

It might work.

And if Jim had jumped the gun by asking around already, at least he’d brought the prize with him; it would take one hell of a thief to track them down in the pouring rain.

Without warning, the flap to his tent opened, and someone practically dived in.

Melody landed on top of him, since there was nowhere else to go, and he whooshed out a breath as he caught her. Good thing he had excellent reflexes.

“I’m just a drive-by good-night kiss,” she said, a little damp but not too bad, thanks to her rain slicker. The weight of her body felt so...comforting. And sensual, all at the same time. “I’m supposed to be a role model, so I can’t be seen sneaking into your tent,” she whispered against his mouth and kissed him.

Very nicely—with a hint of naughty thrown in.

He certainly kissed her back.

It was over far too quickly, and she scooted backward as she prepared to leave. But before she did, she pulled a bag from her pocket. “Cookies. I forgot to give you these.”

He wasn’t proud, he ate them, and decided that maybe he was more of a Renaissance man—on the cookie front, anyway—than he’d realized, because he was developing a fondness for dried cherries.

*

D
AY TWO WAS
worse than day one.