Safety In Numbers Read online

  Savannah narrowed her eyes and studied Meredith intently. “Are you sure you aren’t just looking for a reason to push him away?”

  Meredith opened her mouth to vehemently protest, but instead closed it again. Was that what she was doing? She couldn’t be absolutely certain she’d overheard correctly. Was she unconsciously looking for a reason to put distance between herself and Chase?

  “I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “He scares me a little bit. He has a way of looking at me that makes me feel both wonderful and afraid.”

  Savannah nodded. “I know exactly what you’re talking about. I feel the same way with Joshua.”

  “It’s not the same,” Meredith scoffed. “I’m not about to fall in love with Chase McCall.” At that moment the waitress arrived with their orders.

  Thankfully, the conversation as they ate revolved around the newspaper and Raymond Buchannan’s decision to sell the paper to Savannah.

  By the time they’d finished eating and Savannah had to get back to work, Meredith had managed to put thoughts of Chase on the back burner.

  She didn’t tell Savannah about the note and the roses. In fact, she hadn’t told anyone about the note she’d found. She certainly didn’t want to tell any of her family members, and Savannah would make a big deal out of it.

  Savannah was the kind of woman who would think it was all wonderfully romantic. There was no way Meredith could explain to anyone the strange feeling of disquiet the note evoked in her.

  It was almost two when Meredith returned to her car.

  There was no sign of Chase, but there was a piece of paper placed beneath the driver’s windshield wiper. Her fingers trembled as she plucked it out and opened it.

  “You will be mine forever.”

  She crunched up the note into her fist as her gaze shot around the street. There were people everywhere, hurrying down the sidewalks to their destinations, sweeping off the sidewalks in front of their places of business. But nobody paid any attention to her. Nobody appeared to be watching her.

  She didn’t know how long she stood there with the note clutched tightly in her grip. This didn’t feel like a secret admirer. It felt darker, more dangerous.

  It felt like stalking, like a sick obsession.

  He watched from the storefront as she got into her car and drove away. He closed his eyes, for a moment overwhelmed with need. Elizabeth. His heart cried out the name.

  The afternoon sunshine had caressed her dark hair, and he wanted it to be his hands tangling in the rich strands. He’d been too far away to see her facial expression when she’d read the note, but he could imagine the sparkle of her eyes, the sweet anticipation that had flooded through her.

  Soon, he thought. It was a promise to her. Soon. It was a promise to himself.

  Chapter 6

  She waited until quarter after two, and when Chase didn’t show up, she left and headed back to the ranch. As she drove she tried to figure out who might be leaving the notes, who might have sent the roses.

  Was it possible that Buck Harmon was responsible? He was the only man other than Chase who had asked her to dance. Had that brief moment in Buck’s arms stirred something in the man?

  Maybe she was overreacting to the whole situation. Maybe she should just sit back and enjoy the fact that she’d captured the interest of someone.

  Like Mary Lou had said, when the time was right the man would identify himself. In the meantime there was no point in stewing about it.

  As she thought of the florist she couldn’t help but think about her mother. She liked to believe that if Elizabeth had lived she and Meredith would have been best friends.

  By the time she pulled up at the house, she was hungry for a connection, any connection with her mother. If Elizabeth had lived, would she have taught Meredith the nuances of being a woman? A real woman?

  She found her father where he usually was, out in his garden pulling weeds. He straightened as he saw her, a flash of pain creasing his features. The arthritis that had finally forced him to give up working for the family business seemed to grow more pronounced everyday. “Hey, girl. I thought you were in town.”

  “I just got back.” She sat on a nearby stone bench and watched him once again begin to pull the weeds threatening to choke his fall-colored mums. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Mom.”

  Red smiled. “I think about her every single day.” He brushed off his hands and joined Meredith on the bench. He smelled of earth and sunshine and that indefinable scent of Dad.

  “I wish I could have known her. It’s not everyone who can boast that her mother was a Hollywood starlet at one time.”

  Red laughed, a wistful sound of distant memories. “She was beautiful and she was a wonderful actress. She was on her way to stardom, and I couldn’t believe it when she made the choice to give all that up to marry me and move out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  For a long moment he stared off into the distance, and Meredith knew he was remembering the woman he’d married, the woman he’d loved. He sighed, then looked back at Meredith. “You know there are boxes of your mom’s Hollywood memorabilia in the old shed in the pasture.”

  “Really?” This was the first she’d ever heard of any boxes.

  Red nodded. “Your mom packed that stuff out there and said those boxes were like her own personal time capsules. Maybe it’s time you looked in them.”

  “I’d like that,” she replied.

  He stood. “I’ll just go get the key to the shed.”

  Minutes later Meredith took off down the pasture lane. Once again it was an unusually warm day for October, but even the bright sun couldn’t heat the cold places that the appearance of that second note had left inside her.

  As she walked, her head swirled with disturbing thoughts. She apparently had a stalker, she had a houseguest who might not be who or what he claimed to be, and she had the haunting mystery of her mother’s murder all battling for dominance.

  The large shed was in the middle of nowhere with nothing but pasture around and in the distance groves of trees and other outbuildings. An overhang shielded bales of hay that were stored there and the other part of the shed was a typical locked storage area.

  She unlocked the door and pushed it open, allowing the bright sunshine to add to the light coming in through a small window. Dust motes flew in the air, and she didn’t even want to think about what spiders and bugs might be occupants.

  The inside was stuffed with outcast furniture, old lamp fixtures and boxes. She moved around a sofa she never remembered seeing in the house and to a stack of boxes that were neatly labeled on the sides. She read the labels until she came to one that said Elizabeth.

  With an effort, she pulled the box out from beneath several others, then carried it to the sofa. She sat down next to the box and opened the lid.

  Playbills, old photographs and reviews greeted her, along with a swell of emotion for what might have been, what should have been. She should have had her mother in her life to guide her, to teach her, to love her.

  How she wished she could find the sick bastard who had stolen that from her when he’d strangled the life out of her mother. What had Elizabeth West done to deserve being choked to death and left by the side of her car on a deserted road?

  She picked up an old photograph and stared at the image. It was like looking into a mirror. She touched her mother’s smile with the tip of her finger, and tears burned at her eyes.

  She’d always thought it was impossible to mourn for something you’d never had, but she realized now that wasn’t true. She mourned the mother she’d never had, mourned the girl talk and the hugs and kisses. In Meredith’s world of five brothers, a father and Smokey, there had never been a soft place to fall. Her mother would have been that place, if she’d lived.

  “Meredith.”

  The deep voice startled a cry from her, and she jumped up from the sofa, ready to defend herself from some unknown threat. She relaxed as she saw Chase standing in
the doorway.

  “What are you doing out here?” she asked. She sank back on the sofa as her heart resumed a more natural rhythm. She hadn’t realized how on edge she’d been until he’d startled her.

  “Your dad said you were out here going through some things of your mother’s. I thought maybe if you were looking for clues you might need an extra pair of eyes.” He walked over to the sofa and sat next to her.

  “I’m pretty sure I won’t find any clues out here to who might have murdered her. These boxes mostly contain things of my mother’s from her days in Hollywood.” She wished he hadn’t sat so close to her, for his nearness created a tiny ball of tension in the pit of her stomach.

  “What have you got there?” He pointed to the picture she held in her hand.

  She held it out to him. “A picture of my mom.”

  “Wow, the resemblance is amazing.” He looked from the picture to her, his gaze assessing. “Your hair is a little bit lighter and your face is a bit longer, but the differences are so subtle.”

  Meredith took the picture back from him and once again traced the smile with her fingertip. “I’ve read a few of the reviews of some of her work as an actress. She was as talented as she was pretty.”

  “Maybe you need to let it go,” he said softly. She looked at him in surprise. “Maybe you need to let her go. Even if you solve her murder, it won’t bring her back.”

  “I know that,” she replied. She set the picture aside and sighed. “You don’t know what it’s like to grow up without a mother.”

  His eyes darkened, holding secrets. “I know what it’s like to feel alone,” he countered. “I know what it’s like to feel isolated. Even though I had Kat…Mom, my childhood wasn’t exactly a bag of chips.”

  She didn’t miss his tongue bobble when he’d mentioned his mother, and it brought back the conversation she’d overheard that morning along with an edge of suspicion. “Who are you and what are you really doing here?”

  His eyes narrowed slightly. “What do you mean?”

  She stood, her gaze searching his features. “I think you know exactly what I mean. You aren’t here on vacation, are you? There’s something more. You and Kathy didn’t just suddenly get a hankering to visit Dalton here in Cotter Creek. Tell me what you’re really doing here.”

  He held her gaze for a long moment, a muscle ticking in his lower jaw. He finally broke the gaze and swiped a hand through his hair. “We’re here on an investigation.”

  “An investigation?” She returned to the sofa and once again sat. “An investigation into what?”

  “Into your family. We’re looking into a couple of tips we got that somebody in your family is behind the land scheme and the death of those ranchers.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. She knew she should probably be angry, but she wasn’t. She was somewhat relieved that her suspicions about him had proven correct. “So, you’re what? FBI?” He nodded. “And Kathy?”

  “Is my partner.”

  She sat back and tried to digest what she had just learned. “Does Dalton know?”

  “No. Nobody knows except the two agents in town and now you. What gave us away?”

  “I overheard some of a conversation you had with Kathy this morning,” she replied. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

  “But you did,” he said flatly. “I don’t suppose you’d consider keeping the information to yourself?”

  “You know you’re wasting your time. Nobody in my family would ever have anything to do with this,” she said. “That’s not the kind of people we are.”

  “We’ve pretty much come to that conclusion,” he replied. He reached and grabbed her hand in his, his gaze intent. “I’m asking you not to tell anyone about who we are and what we’re doing here. We have a perfect cover as your guests to investigate people in this town.”

  She didn’t like the way his hand felt holding hers, so warm and inviting. His scent filled the shed, a wonderful smell of male and wind and that woodsy cologne.

  She pulled her hand from his. “I’ll keep your secret for now,” she agreed. “And I want you to investigate my family inside and out. I don’t want there to be any doubt as to our innocence.”

  “Okay.” He looked relieved.

  “What’s happening with the investigation? Any suspects?”

  “Agents Wallace and Tompkins are still sifting through Sheila Wadsworth’s papers and personal items, looking for a clue that might point a finger at somebody.”

  “So, basically, nothing is happening,” she replied.

  He frowned. “I think Sam Rhenquist knows something, but I can’t get him to tell whatever it is he knows.”

  “That man gives cranky a new meaning.”

  “Yeah, well I tried to get him to talk to me this afternoon, but he was having nothing to do with it. Did you find out who sent you the roses?” he asked in an obvious attempt to change the subject.

  “No. I went to the florist shop but didn’t get any answers. The order for the roses was left in the mail slot along with cash.”

  “You think maybe they were from that cowboy who tried to maul you outside the bathroom? Maybe some kind of apology for his behavior?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Doug is the kind of man who thinks it’s funny to pass gas in church, he certainly doesn’t have the class to send roses in apology for anything.”

  “You certainly put him in his place. That was a smooth move you did on him.” There was a hint of admiration in his voice.

  “I told you last night that you don’t grow up with five brothers without learning the basics of self-defense, and in any case in my line of work I have to know how to take care of myself.” And maybe that was the problem with her. Maybe that was why Todd hadn’t wanted her, because she wasn’t needy like a real woman should be.

  “If I kissed you right now would you use some of that self-defense to fend me off?” he asked.

  Her heartbeat stuttered. The last time he’d kissed her he’d taken her breath away, stirred a desire in her she’d never felt before. “I guess you won’t know until you try. I did tell you last night at the dance that the next move was up to you.”

  His eyes fired with a familiar spark that lit something hot and hungry inside her. With a studied determination he stood and reached out to take her hand. He pulled her up off the sofa and into his arms.

  She didn’t even think about protesting. She’d wanted him to kiss her every moment of every day since he’d last kissed her. “You drove me crazy in that little green dress last night at the dance,” he said as his arms tightened around her. “But you drive me just as crazy in your flannel shirt and jeans.”

  There was nothing else he could have said that would have effectively melted her as these words did. “Do you intend to just stand there, or do you intend to do something about it?” she asked.

  “Oh, I definitely intend to do something about it.” His mouth took hers in a kiss that demanded surrender, that took no prisoners.

  And she surrendered. She opened her mouth to him as her knees weakened and she melted against the hard length of his body. His tongue rimmed her lower lip, then plunged inside to battle with her own.

  Meredith wrapped her arms around his neck, wanting to feel the silk of his gorgeous blond hair, needing to mold herself to him.

  There was no slow build. As he deepened the kiss, there was nothing but hot hunger ripping through her.

  His hands moved up and down her back, heating her skin through the shirt’s fabric, deepening the hunger in her for more—more intimacy, more tactile pleasure, more Chase.

  She’d set the rules when she’d told him she wasn’t interested in anything but a physical relationship with him. And that was still true, now more than ever.

  He was an FBI agent, here for the moment but before long he’d be gone back to Kansas City and out of her life. She had no illusions, no expectations. All she knew was that she wanted this man right now.

  He broke the kiss only long
enough to move his mouth from her lips to her neck where he nipped and nibbled as if he couldn’t get enough of the taste of her.

  She gasped as his hands gripped her buttocks and pulled them against him. He was aroused, and the feel of his hardness thrilled her. She ran her hands up beneath his shirt, loving the feel of his warm skin over taut muscles. Her fingers encountered several ridges of skin, the telling feel of scars, and vaguely she wondered about them, but had no ability to process any rational thought.

  He in turn moved his hands beneath her shirt, the heat of his hands warming her back, then making her gasp once again as he moved them around her body to cup her breasts. Once again his mouth took possession of hers and she was no longer capable of conscious thought.

  His thumbs rubbed across the tips of her breasts, warming despite the barrier of her bra. Her nipples tightened and hardened as if to greet the touch.

  She ground her hips against his, needy as she’d never been. As her fingers began to fumble at the buttons on his shirt, he caught her wrists in his hands and stepped back.

  His ragged breathing filled the silence of the shed. “Not like this,” he said when he finally found his voice. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted a woman in my life, but not here in this dusty shed.” He dropped her wrists and took another step backward. “I want you in a bed, Meredith. I want you naked between the sheets.”

  She didn’t say a word, wasn’t sure at the moment that she was capable of speech. Desire pooled like hot liquid in the pit of her stomach, and her limbs felt heavy with it.

  He raked a hand though his hair, then looked at his wristwatch. “Dalton is picking me up in half an hour. I don’t want this between you and me to be a fast, frantic groping in an old shed. If you want me like I want you, then come to my room tonight.” He took a step toward the door and smiled. “I guess that means the next move is up to you.”

  He didn’t wait for her reply but turned and exited the shed. Meredith stared after him. She wasn’t sure what scared her more, the mysterious notes and the idea of an obsessed mystery man or Chase McCall, who she suspected had the power to shake up her life like it had never been shaken before.