Safety in Numbers

“I know. I’m just looking for a lead, something that was perhaps overlooked when the initial investigation took place.”

He pulled the folder from beneath her hand and opened it. He quickly withdrew three photographs and flipped them face down on the table just out of her reach. “There’s no reason for you to see those,” he said. There was a toughness in his tone that forbade her to argue with him.

She didn’t want to argue. She didn’t want to see crime-scene photos of her mother’s broken body. She had a faint memory of her mother’s smiling face, and she wanted nothing to displace her single visual memory of the woman who had given her life.

For the next hour they pored over the papers and while she read lab reports and crime-scene analyses she tried not to notice the evocative scent of Chase, the heat of his body so close to hers.

It had been a very long time since she’d been so intensely aware of a man and aware of her own desire for a man. She held no illusions about her desirability as a woman. She’d always been a bodyguard first, a woman second, more in touch with her abilities to exist in a man’s world than in her own femininity.

But as she sat next to Chase, she wished she knew more about womanly wiles, about how to flirt and how to let a man know she was interested in him.

She instantly chided herself. She knew nothing about Chase McCall, about what kind of man he was, what was important to him. She knew nothing about him except the fact that one glance of his eyes and everything tightened inside her, one brush of his hand against hers and the defenses she kept wrapped around herself threatened to shatter.

With a sigh of irritation at her own wayward thoughts, she consciously focused on the paper in her hand.

“Was it your mother’s usual habit to go grocery shopping on a Friday night?” Chase asked.

“I don’t know. Unfortunately, I don’t know a lot about my mother.”

His eyes held curiosity. “You never asked your father or any of your brothers about her?”

She leaned back in the chair and frowned thoughtfully. “Over the years I’d asked some simple questions. I wanted to know what kind of woman she was, what she liked and didn’t like. But I never asked anything that might stir up Dad’s grief all over again.”

Chase nodded. “I’d be interested to know if your mother was a creature of habit or if the shopping trip that night was just a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Maybe I should write down some of the questions.” She got up from the table and went to the desk in the corner of the kitchen to get pen and paper. “Tanner would be the one for me to talk to. He was ten when Mom died and he still has a lot of memories of her.”

It was a relief to have just that momentary distance from him, from his pleasant scent that seemed to fill her head. When she returned to the table, she noticed that the photos he’d placed on the side had been moved, letting her know that while she’d hunted for paper and pen, he’d looked at those photos.

He leaned back in the chair and frowned thoughtfully. “The investigation looks tight. The officials did everything that should have been done,” he said. “Unfortunately they didn’t have a lot to go on. There were no witnesses and not much evidence to examine. But it looks like they spoke to your mother’s friends and acquaintances to see if there was anyone giving her problems or somebody she’d made angry.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t look like they missed anything.”

Meredith sighed in frustration. She’d hoped he’d find something, anything that might provide a lead to the killer.

She stared toward the window where the black of night reflected her image back to her. “I think she was killed by somebody who knew her, somebody here in town. For a week after she was buried, a bouquet of daisies was placed on her grave. Daisies were my mother’s favorite flowers and nobody from the family was responsible for putting them there. A bouquet of daisies is still put on her grave every year on the anniversary of her death.”

“Has that been investigated?” He leaned forward, as if she’d captured his attention. His blond hair gleamed in the artificial light and she wondered if it was as soft as it looked.

She nodded. “Clyde Walker was the sheriff at the time of her death and he tried to solve the mystery of the daisies. According to Tanner what he discovered was that an FTD order was placed and paid for in cash from Oklahoma City directing the flowers be placed on the grave for that week. The florist here had no idea who had ordered them. Sheriff Ramsey has tried to get to the bottom of the yearly bouquets, but he hasn’t learned anything new.”

“I agree with you, I think she was killed by somebody she knew, by somebody she trusted.”

“Why do you think that?” Meredith asked.

“The evidence, such as it is, supports it. I’m assuming that stretch of road between here and town is dark and probably not well traveled.”

“That’s right.”

“There was no evidence in those reports that your mother had any kind of car trouble that night, yet she pulled over to the side of the road and got out of her car to meet her murderer. That’s not consistent with a stranger kill. And there’s something else…” He frowned, his gaze assessing, as if gauging how strong she was, how much she could hear.

She raised her chin and held his gaze. “Tell me. What else?”

He rubbed a hand across his lower jaw where she could see the faint stubble of a five-o’clock shadow. “According to the crime-scene report, there was evidence of a struggle and yet from the photo I saw that was taken when your mother was found, her clothing was almost artfully arranged in place. If I had to guess, whoever killed your mother had some sort of feelings for her.”

He leaned forward and gathered the papers together and shoved them back into the folder, then looked at her once again. “Is it possible your mother was seeing somebody?”

“You mean like an affair? Absolutely not,” she said forcefully. “Everyone who knew my parents talk about how devoted they were to each other. All of the women who knew my mother said she adored my father.”

She didn’t even want to think that the fairy-tale love her parents had shared wasn’t true, that her mother had wandered outside her marriage vows. “Mom was a budding actress in Hollywood when she met Dad. She was just beginning to enjoy success and attention. She left her career behind to move here with him and have a family.”

He tapped a finger on the file. “I don’t see how I can help you on this,” he said. “It looks like everything was done at the time to try to find the murderer. It’s a cold case with no new evidence to explore.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” she replied. “I really appreciate your thoughts on this.”

“No problem.” He grinned, a slow, sexy gesture that caused her breath to momentarily catch in her chest. “Now, tell me, why don’t you go to the town dances?”

She got up from the table. Now that he’d done what she’d wanted him to do in looking through the files, she felt the need to escape. The kitchen felt too small, his very presence far too big.

He rose from the table and moved to stand within inches of her. His clean, masculine scent once again infused her head, making her half-dizzy. “I thought all women loved dances,” he said, his breath warm on her face.

“I went to a few but I got tired of standing around waiting for somebody to ask me to dance.” Step back, her mind commanded, but it was as if her legs had gone numb.

“I find that hard to believe,” he said, his gaze focused on her mouth. She fought the impulse to lick her lips, afraid he might see it as an open invitation, even more afraid she would mean it as an invitation.

“It’s true,” she said, the words seeming to come from far away. “I don’t know if the men in this town are more afraid of my brothers or because I carry a gun.”

He touched her then, a mere brush of her hair away from her face. As his fingertips skimmed the side of her cheek, a coil of heat unfurled in the pit of her stomach.

“I’ve met all your brothers and I don’t find them scary at all. And I carry a gun, too, so that definitely doesn’t bother me. But, let me tell you what does bother me.” His eyes were no longer cold and assessing, but rather warm and inviting. “It bothers me that since the moment I laid eyes on you I’ve wondered what your mouth would feel like under mine.”

Her breath caught painfully tight in her throat. “Do you intend to keep on wondering or do you intend to find out?” Her heart crashed inside her chest.

How had they gotten from talking about a murder to contemplating a kiss? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. All she wanted at the moment was for him to kiss her…hard and deeply.

“I definitely intend to find out,” he said as he wrapped her in his strong arms and pulled her tight against him. His mouth took hers, his lips possessing, demanding.

She opened her mouth to him, wanting the touch of his tongue against hers, the shattering heat of full possession. She raised her arms around his neck and placed her fingers where the bottom of his thick, silky hair met his shirt collar. Soft. The blond hair was definitely soft.

The kiss seemed to last forever, but it wasn’t long enough for her. It was he who finally broke the kiss and stepped back from her, his eyes gleaming with wicked intensity.

“If you dance even half as well as you kiss, then we should have a great time on Saturday night.” He walked over to the table and picked up the file folder. “Sweet dreams, Meredith,” he said, then left the kitchen.

She stared after him, wondering if she’d ever breathe normally again. Meredith had spent most of her life competing with her brothers, but at this moment she was intensely grateful that she was a woman.

He’d seen the cars come and go at the West ranch from his hiding place in the stand of trees. The entire family had gathered. But he wasn’t interested in any of the others…just her…just Elizabeth.

No, not Elizabeth, he told himself. Elizabeth was gone. Dead. But Meredith was wonderfully alive and having her would be like having Elizabeth.

It had only been in the last month or so that he’d realized that Meredith was the spitting image of the woman he’d loved, the woman he’d been obsessed with.