Chapter 10 #2
The ATV answered their question by stopping near a large rock formation. A man and a lanky pup got off it. “I remember that rock. It was in Uncle Garrett’s notes about the big showdown with Ethan’s birth father.”
“See?” Drew asked. “He really is retracing his father’s steps, just like he told you.”
“Yeah,” Willow said as her heart sank. “With a metal detector.”
“What?” Drew pulled up her spyglasses and saw the same thing Willow had. Jeremiah, moving slowly back and forth, waving a metal detector over the ground as the pup ran a large figure-eight around him. “Son of a—”
“I knew it.” Willow sank down low, turned around and leaned back against the jutting stone. “I knew I was fallin’ too fast.”
“Just because he’s lookin’ for somethin’ doesn't mean it’s somethin’ illegal.”
“Right. Just somethin’ he wants to hide from his pal the deputy. Even while wheedlin’ for information she hadn’t ought to be getting.”
“What information did you get that you shouldn’t have?” Drew asked.
“None yet. But I called a friend and asked. It’ll be waitin’ for me when I go into the office.”
Drew arched her brows.
“Background check on Juanita Lopez, the current owner of the Bluebonnet, ‘til it sells, I guess. She was just a teenager when de Lorean was here.”
“And we’re interested in her because…?”
“Because Gringo is.”
Willow looked at her watch. “He’s fixin’ to quit soon. Look, he’s putting the pup on the ATV.”
“Well, shoot, I need to go make brownies for the bonfire,” Drew said. Then she wiggled her brows. “But everything I need’s at your place. You want me to stay tonight? Or do you want the Gringo back?”
“You know damn well I want the Gringo back,” Willow said.
Drew looked down at Jeremiah again and tipped her head to one side. “I’m not seein’ it.”
“Well, that’s because he doesn’t have dark brown curls and nerdy glasses,” Willow said.
Drew grinned and punched her in the shoulder.
They headed back to their horses and rode back to Willow’s place.
In the stable, they rubbed the horses down thoroughly, gave them oats with molasses, and turned them out into their cool meadow with plenty of time for grazing before they’d go in for the night.
Then they headed to the cottage
Willow was physically tired as hell. She was hurting more than she should’ve been, too. Already, she’d let the Gringo get under her skin.
“Take the first shower, Drew. I need to rest before the bonfire.”
“You need anything?” Drew was already bringing her a glass of water and an apple.
“I’m good. Go on.”
“Okay.” Drew started for the bathroom. Then she paused, “I like him,” she said. “And I don’t think he’s bad. I think maybe he thinks he’s bad, but he isn’t really. Not down deep.”
“And you base this assessment on…”
“The whole saving the puppy thing, mainly,” Drew admitted.
Her cousin had a solid point. It was hard to believe a guy who’d jump fully clothed into a creek to save a puppy could be beyond redemption. But she wasn’t in the redemption business. She was in the law-enforcement business. When she fell for a guy, he had to come pre-redeemed.
No, she needed to leave Jeremiah alone. Period. She needed to end whatever was between them in no uncertain terms.
Either that or find out what he was really up to.
Tonight.
Country music played, the bonfire danced, and Jeremiah looked like her dream-man.
Willow sat across the fire from him, watching him through the flames that danced in front of his face, striping it in yellow light and shadow.
His hat was off, but nearby, and his golden hair was pulled behind his head in a band.
He was one of the gang around a central fire that included her six cousins and two cousins-in-law. Everyone had enjoyed a few beers—nearly everyone—so the mood was relaxed and easy.
Ethan, seated right beside his half-brother, gave him an affectionate slam on the shoulder as they both laughed at something.
There was a serious bond shaping up between them.
Willow thought back to when she’d warned Ethan not to get involved with Lily, because if it went bad, it might put a rift in the family.
Even as she thought it, Lily, sitting on Ethan’s other side with her lawn chair so close to his that their armrests overlapped, slid a hand over his knee.
She’d been wrong about that. It had worked out fine, they were married now and irritatingly blissful. Lily was one of the folks not imbibing in the beer, being pregnant and due right in the spring.
Jeremiah nodded at something Maria had said. Maria beamed back at him. She liked him. The whole family liked him. They’d wrapped their big Brand tentacles around him and made him part of the clan. They did that.
But he was up to something. He was looking for something. Something he must have reason to believe his father had buried there. Something metal, like coins, or jewelry, or gold. A little shiver raced down her spine.
He sat in a canvas lawn chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him, looking thoroughly relaxed, his dog lying beside him, snoring.
The Gringo had a beer in his hand. It was the same one he’d been nursing all night.
She’d been watching. He was pretending to drink it, but unless it was magically refilling itself, he wasn’t actually drinking it.
He’s even dishonest about that.
The flames shifted, lighting his cheek and casting that demon dimple in shadow.
He must be smiling, she thought, her gaze shifting to his lips.
Yes, he was smiling, but it was a slight smile, not meant to be widely seen, and it seemed mischievous.
Her eyes shifted upward and found his already locked on her, beaming heat all the way through her, that mischievous hint of a grin for her alone.
He shifted his gaze to the flames, took another fake gulp from his brown bottle, but midway through, he caught her eyes, and turned it into a real one.
Maybe deflection is his default, being raised in his old man’s citadel of crooks.
“We really needed a good bonfire,” Ethan said. “How you holdin’ up, Willow?”
Beside him, Lily nodded. “We were so scared for you.”
“I can imagine. I’m really sorry I put you all through that. I have the best family in the world.”
“She’s sorry she put us through it.” Baxter was on Willow’s left, his hair blond and shaggy, and the firelight made the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses flash orange. He wore cargo pants and sneakers, and he reached across and gave her a shoulder-squeeze. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was a little bit my fault.” She lowered her head. Her greatest fear was failing at her job as a deputy. And so far, that fear was proving prophetic.
Drew said, “Uncle Garrett’s had the whole department on this. They found the motorcycle abandoned in a ditch a mile away from the accident. It had been stolen from a local who’d just bought it for his kid for his twenty-first birthday. Hadn’t even given it to him or licensed it yet.”
Drew glanced at her brother, Orrin.
Orrin nodded. “We have feelers out too, Willow. Mom, through her network and us through ours. So far nobody knows anything. The feelin’ is that causing a cop to wind up in a coma likely scared ‘em off.”
“Then I let ‘em get away,” Willow said, lowering her eyes.
“Come on, Will,” Trevor said. “You’re alive. You came close to not being. That’s worthy of celebration.”
“Hear, hear,” Harrison said, raising his beer. “Here’s to Willow being alive and well.”
“Hear, hear,” said Maria, leaning closer to her husband and raising her bottle.
Everyone lifted their beverage of choice. Jeremiah hoisted his bottomless beer, Lily her sweet tea, and when they all shouted, “To Willow.” The dog raised his giant head and looked around, alarmed.
Jeremiah patted him. “All good, Beans. Settle down.”
“He’s so calm, for a puppy,” Drew said.
“It’s the breed,” Jeremiah said. “I’ve been reading up.”
“Ah,” Baxter said. “That’s what you were reading all those hours in the hospital waiting room where we all lived for a two nights and two days.”
“Yep. Learned a lot. Beans’ll have bursts of energy but he tires out fast. According to what I’ve been reading, right now it takes most of his energy to grow. And as he gets bigger, he’ll just naturally be even more slow and easy. They’re a calm breed.”
“You hung out in the hospital waitin’ room?” Willow asked. She didn’t mean to, it just came out. And then she added, “All of you?”
“Well, where else would we have been?” Baxter asked
“Don’t be dumb, Will,” Drew said. “If any of us were in a trauma bed, you’d be in the same dang place.”
Yeah, she thought, but if it were anyone else, would the Gringo be there?
“What did you do with the pup all that time?” she asked Jeremiah.
“Hired on Frankie as my official dog-sitter,” he said. “I set things up with him right after your accident. Tell you the truth, I don’t know how I’ll get by without him, once school starts back up.”
Willow tilted her head, watching the way Jeremiah’s fingers were scratching on the back of the pup’s head as he sat there. The pup was loving it.
“So what’s up with your old man’s will?” Orrin asked Jeremiah out of the blue. And Willow knew Drew had put him up to it.
“Somebody’s challenging it,” Jeremiah said, not even trying to lie. Okay, so he wasn’t dishonest about everything.
“Oh no,” Maria said, sending a look at Ethan as if to ask if he knew about this, then refocusing on Jeremiah once again. “What are you gonna do?”
“Let it work itself out in court.”
“Well, yeah but, don’t you…” Maria bit her lip to stop the question.
“She wants to know what you’ll live on if your old man’s money goes to someone else,” Willow said.
“Oh. Sure, no, the will doesn’t cover everything my father left me. There was a trust fund set up when I was born. I got control of that right out of school, kept it invested, and it’s still producing an income. And there are…other things. I’ll be all right.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“Still,” Drew said, “A man needs something to do. How do you spend your time, Jeremiah? What is it you, you know, do?”
“Right now, most of my time is spent on Beans, here.” He changed his stroke, and the dog sighed audibly.
A non-answer, and it had Willow curious. What was the handsome drifter good at, besides looking hot in a sombrero? Or out of one. And sex, he was really good at sex.
This was going to drive her crazy. Was he good or bad, and why was she having trouble keeping her mind as far from him as she’d placed her body? She’d sat on the opposite side of the fire. She should’ve realized that would put him right in her line of sight.
In the distance, dry thunder rumbled.
A quick frown bent Jeremiah’s brows.
Drew leaned over from her seat on the right and whispered, “You still wanna get a look at his phone?”
“I don’t know. I mean, it would be illegal.”
“Wouldn’t be admissible in court. Wouldn’t be legally gained evidence in a case. But checkin’ up on the guy you’re sparkin’? Since when is that illegal?”
“We’re not sparkin’!” Her whisper was on the loud side. A few heads glanced her way, so she faked a grin and chucked Drew’s shoulder and spoke through a fake smile. “I don’t know if I can cross that line, cuz. I want to be sheriff someday, I can’t go breakin’ the law just ‘cause I feel like it.”
“Fine, I will.” Then she put an arm around Willow, tipping her chair dangerously in the process, and called, “Gringo, take our pic. The fire’ll make a cool effect.”
Jeremiah obligingly pulled out his phone, aimed it. Willow felt his gaze on hers through the lens and sent it right back as he tapped.
“That was way too easy,” Drew said to Jeremiah, her tone teasing. “Do you always do what you’re asked?”
“Spoken like a gal with another ask in mind,” he replied.
Drew nodded. “We need more firewood, and our pile is decimated.”
“We’ve had a lot of bonfires this year,” her brother agreed.
“You want me to find firewood?” Jeremiah asked.
Drew blinked. “All you big, strong males, actually. So we damsels don’t freeze.”
Willow rolled her eyes. Drew was the most progressive of the bunch, so the guys should’ve all been suspicious at her playing the helpless female card, but the only ones who looked at her oddly were Maria and Lily.
Groaning, the guys all got up, though, Jeremiah included.
Drew cried, “Wait, Gringo, one more pic!”
He picked up his phone, snapped another shot, put it back in the cup holder on his chair, and fell into step with the guys. Drew lunged and yanked his phone out of the cup holder before the men were even out of sight.
“Jeez, Drew, all they have to do is look back!” Willow whisper-shouted, but Drew shot back to her chair before anyone did, tapping the phone the whole way.
“It didn’t lock yet. Come on, what are we looking for?”
Maria and Lily were frowning at them.
Willow gave in to curiosity. “The seventeenth between one and two a.m.”
“Lookin’, lookin’, lookin’…”
“What are you up to?” Maria asked. “Put that back!”
“No calls,” Drew said. “There aren’t any, incoming or outgoing.”
“He must’ve deleted it.”
“Tell us what’s going on,” Lily said as she and Maria came closer.
Drew ignored them both. “Maybe it wasn’t a phone call you heard.”
“Well, what the heck else could it—”
“Got it! Voice memo, right here.” She turned the phone toward Willow.
Willow bit her lip. Maria and Lily were standing there, too. Maria shook her head left and right.
Willow looked at the phone and said, “Play it.”