Chapter Eight #3
“I did. Things are going well with all the visitors in town, but it’s still a busy weekend for my deputies. I needed to check in, but I also made a promise to you.”
Her gaze sought out her sister. She and her boyfriend were at a booth over near the cross-country trail. “I like Cam, and I trust Lexie’s judgment. I could have told you he’s a good guy.”
“He’s growing on me. From what I could tell, he made his fortune out of nothing.” Zac cleared his throat. “My head just gets jumbled up when I see him touching her. She looks so much like you. It gets me going, you know?”
“Gets you going?” Maxie started to say more, but she stopped. Her straw squeaked loudly against the hole in the plastic lid, and Zac hesitated.
What got her going? Looking at someone who mirrored her so much? Or watching herself with someone else?
When she said nothing more, he shifted uncomfortably. Nothing like putting yourself out there and feeling yourself flap around in the breeze.
He concentrated on stroking the ice cube over her back in a figure eight. “As far as I can tell, your sisters have no ill intent. They just want to get to know you.”
She nodded. “I want to get to know them too.”
That was good, because he had a few more bits to share. She’d asked him to check into things, and he’d dug deep. “I managed to find some other information that I thought would interest you.”
“Info on what?”
“Pete and Mary Miller.”
Her eyes went wide. “What did you find?”
“It’s not much,” he cautioned. Damn, when she looked at him like that, it cut straight through. “I had to go pretty far back.”
She laid her hand on his thigh. “Tell me.”
The unconscious intimacy wasn’t lost on Zac, but he tried to keep his brain on track.
The information he’d found would be insignificant to most people, but it was important to her.
That was why he’d made the effort. “Your mom had jury duty about twenty-five years ago in Cobalt City. From what Roxie’s PI was able to gather, that would have been after the time the adoption occurred. ”
“So, we did live there.”
“You can be happy to know she performed her civic duty.”
“She would. She was a nurse. She was always helping others.”
Maxie started blinking a bit too fast, and Zac’s gut tightened. Needing to distract her, he moved the ice to the side of her neck, just behind her ear. It was melting fast, and a dribble ran forward over her collarbone. He held his breath as it followed her curves and dipped between her breasts.
Instead of wiping it up, she let out a relieved, “Ahh.”
More creative phrases sat on the tip of his tongue.
He cleared his throat again. “I also found a speeding ticket for your dad in Cobalt.”
What had been cooling before, now caused a shiver. She bit her lip and pulled her hand back so it lay in her own lap. “He was driving when they were killed. The accident investigators said he was going too fast then too.”
Zac’s fingers stilled, and another stream of water slid down her back. A different kind of ice went down his spine. “Were you in the wreck?”
“I was spending the night with my grandmother.” Her chin dipped. “It turned out to be a much longer stay than either of us envisioned.”
The knot in his gut worked its way up to his chest. He couldn’t imagine. With one bad decision, she’d been left an orphan. He flicked the sliver of ice onto the ground and settled his open palm across her back. It was a soothing touch, cool, wet and intimate.
She accepted it, sighing heavily. She was watching Lexie and Cam again, her focus intense. “What are your brothers’ and sister’s names, Zac?”
“Mine?” He circled his thumb against a knot near her shoulder blade. “Kevin, Mike and Chrissy.”
“Are you the oldest?”
“Is it that obvious?”
She shrugged. “What’s it like? Having siblings?”
Now that was a loaded question. He evaluated the concentration on her face. “I guess it depends on the situation. Sometimes they’re your best friends, but at others, they can get under your skin worse than ticks. It just depends on how you click together.”
“Do they live in Chicago?”
“All but Mikey.”
She glanced again to where Lexie was still shopping, and the weight in the air had nothing to do with humidity. “Do you think Lexie, Roxie and I click?”
“Are you kidding me?” She’d been at the pool. They clicked like frenetic dolphins. He slid his hand to the nape of her neck. “You’re thinking too much again, Beauty.”
His gaze dropped to her lips. They both knew how he liked to fix that. He leaned closer, but the speaker overhead crackled, startling them both. Maxie’s spine went ramrod straight, and Zac winced.
“Last call for talent show entrants. Come on, Indigo Falls, show us what you’ve got!”
She glanced wistfully at the stage, but a commotion in the tent had them both turning around.
“Finish your drink, Martin. We’re going to be late.” Audrey Shimwell walked past their table, rushing her son along, but she paused when she saw the two of them sitting so close together. Her face pinched. “Sheriff Ford.”
Zac didn’t let the sour look faze him. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Shimwell. Are you enjoying yourself?”
The woman scrunched her nose, but her eyes softened when she looked at Maxie. “Good afternoon, dear.”
“Hello, Audrey. I look forward to hearing you and Martin sing.”
“I hope you like it. We have a lovely duet selected.” The stiffness in the woman’s face seeped into her lips, and they twisted oddly. “I’m sorry your grandmother isn’t here to compete anymore.”
“Thank you,” Maxie said. “I miss her, especially today.”
“Yes, well… Have a good afternoon.” The woman tugged at her son’s elbow. “Stop dawdling, Martin.”
Martin tossed his Java Mama coffee cup into the trash and followed in his mother’s trail. “Hey, Maxie,” he called over his shoulder.
Zac’s upper lip twitched into a snarl, but he let it go.
“Do librarians patent that look?” He understood the coolness towards him. Mrs. Shimwell had obviously been hoping for a pairing of her son with Maxie, but her aloofness seemed like more than that. “What was that about?”
Maxie rolled one shoulder as if it didn’t matter, but it clearly did. “Oh, it’s one of those small-town feuds. She’s always been nice to me. She’d put aside books for me at the library, but she and my grandmother didn’t get along. They’d battle it out every year here at the talent show.”
“Battle?” Zac tried to get past the image inside his head. Battle of what? Frowns? Arched eyebrows? “Okay, I’m liking the sound of this. What did your grandmother do? Sing? Play an instrument?”
A small smile pulled at Maxie’s lips. “Magic. Every year she’d have a new trick to wow the crowd.”
He set down his lemonade so fast, the ice cubes clunked. “Are you serious?”
The smile widened. “She usually won.”
“I’ll be damned.” The light bulb finally clicked on inside his head. “Is this the first year that she isn’t here?”
Maxie nodded, her expression turning wistful again.
“Well, hell. Do you know any of her tricks?”
Her hair swung around her shoulders as she turned to look at him. “What?”
“You can’t let those two win.” The Shimwells had already worked their way to the entry table, and onlookers were starting to gather. Apparently, this talent show was a main event. It had been important to Maxie’s grandmother. It had to be important to her. “You’ve got to defend her title.”
The statement flustered her, and the straw in her drink kinked as she fiddled with it. “Oh, I couldn’t. I can’t perform in front of people.”
“So, you do know a trick or two.”
She squirmed. “It’s not an option. I was too shy to be her assistant even when I was little. There’s no way I could get up there…alone.”
The word hung out there like a balloon, but then it was as if the string was cut. Her chin snapped up, and her gaze drilled into the stage. Energy started pumping from her, and her lemonade hit the table with a smack.
Uh-oh. Zac’s warning antennae started vibrating. He recognized that look. He’d seen it in her eyes before, right as she’d jumped nearly butt-naked into the Inndigo’s pool.
She twisted in her seat and flung her legs over the bench. “Excuse me.”
“Hold on. Where are you going?”
She was rushing off towards her sisters. “Don’t let them close the registration table.”