Along Came Trouble

Some sixth sense told her that she might be alone in Tucker’s bed, but she was not by herself. She rolled over and looked straight into eyes that were as familiar to her as her husband’s. More familiar, in some ways.

Tucker regarded her with a cool, penetrating gaze that seemed to see straight into her soul. She wondered if he could see the turmoil, if he could read just how terrified she was…how relieved that he was finally there, even if his expression was far from friendly.

“Welcome back seems a little inappropriate,” Tucker said with the wry humor that Liz had once decried because it kept her at a distance.

She studied his face, noted the new lines fanning away from the corners of his crystal-blue eyes, the furrow in his forehead that meant he’d spent most of the night thinking hard about how to cope with her unexpected presence. She wanted to touch him, wanted to smooth away that furrow and tell him not to worry, but that was out of the question. He had every reason to worry. She was about to draw him into a quagmire.

Not only was she—the woman who had once dumped him—suddenly back in his bed, but she was in more trouble than even Tucker Spencer with his keen intelligence, sterling moral streak and investigative skills was likely to be able to fix. But, God help her, she needed him to try…for both their sakes.

“Why are you here?” he asked, when she said nothing.

Liz wished she had the kind of simple answer he seemed to expect. “It’s complicated,” she began finally.

“Not good enough,” Tucker said flatly.

His inscrutable gaze never once left her face, not even to stray to the ample amount of bare skin revealed by his twisted, hiked-up T-shirt. She shivered at the sudden chill in the air and drew the sheet tightly around her, embarrassed by her indecent exposure. Once it wouldn’t have mattered, but now it did. Things between them had changed. Much as she might hate it, it was an undeniable fact.

She had to fight to blink back the tears that threatened. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—cry. If she started, she might never stop. She had made such a mess of things—of her relationship with Tucker, of her marriage, of her life. Right now, though, she had to concentrate on one thing…finding out what had happened last night and who was responsible.

“Still have that rigid self-control, I see,” she said, covering her nerves with sarcasm, even at the risk of alienating the only friend she was likely to have in Trinity Harbor, where people might have voted for her husband but had been slow to forgive her for the choice she’d made between Tucker and an outsider.

“It’s gotten me through the rough spots,” he replied evenly.

“Meaning what I did to you,” she said, regretting that they hadn’t had this particular conversation years ago and gotten it out of the way. But Tucker, stoic and disdainful, had refused to let her explain anything back then. He’d said it was enough that she was turning her back on everything they’d shared. He hadn’t wanted to know the details, hadn’t wanted to understand her reasons for choosing Larry over him. Maybe he’d been right. Maybe none of them were good enough to make what she’d done forgivable. Maybe he hadn’t needed to know how deeply she regretted having hurt him.

In the years since, even though they lived within miles of each other for part of the year, she’d done her best to stay out of his path. She’d figured she owed him that much. And if she hadn’t come to that conclusion on her own, King Spencer had made it a point to remind her every time they’d crossed paths. She’d made a powerful enemy there, no doubt about it.

“Is our breakup the rough spot you’re talking about?” she asked.

“That was one thing,” he agreed.

It saddened her that there might have been more, that he’d suffered losses, endured crises, she’d known nothing about. “And the others?”

“Liz, you’re not here to catch up on old times,” Tucker said with a hint of impatience. “Why are you here, instead of over at Swan Ridge? Where the hell are your clothes? What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into, and last—but hardly least—why aren’t you turning to your husband for help?”

She shivered again at the cold glint in his eyes and wondered if she’d made a dreadful mistake in coming here. Tucker was, after all, the sheriff. His first obligation would be to the law, not to her. But instinct had brought her to Tucker, and desperation would keep her from leaving. She needed help that he could provide…if he would. It all came down to that.

“I’m afraid Larry can’t help me with this one,” she told him.

“Why not?”

She risked a look into those hard, unyielding eyes, praying that Tucker would forgive her for the past, praying even harder that he would help her despite it.

“Because he’s dead,” she said, then added before she could lose her nerve, “and everyone’s going to think I killed him.”

2

W ell, hell, Tucker thought, as Mary Elizabeth’s explanation hit him in the gut. He should have known she wasn’t here to rekindle an old flame. He had known it. A part of him just hadn’t wanted to believe it. A part of him, overcome with that same old uncontrollable lust, hadn’t given two figs why she was back. He was going to have to try really, really hard to ignore that part of him, at least until he knew what the devil was going on.

If Chandler was dead, why hadn’t he heard about it? Surely it would have been big news. She couldn’t possibly be telling him it had just happened, could she?

“When did he die?” he asked, trying to ignore the fact that tears were welling up in her eyes and that she was doing her best to keep them from spilling down her cheeks. Mary Elizabeth had always hated to let anyone see her cry, especially him.

“Sometime yesterday, I think. I’m not sure.”

He stared at her incredulously. “You don’t know?”

“I went to Swan Ridge last night about eleven,” she began.

The news just got worse and worse, Tucker concluded. “Am I hearing you right? It happened here, in Trinity Harbor?” he demanded as the ramifications of that slammed into him. He had a dead politician in his jurisdiction and no one knew about it. Dear God, what had Mary Elizabeth been thinking?

She nodded at his harsh question. “Yes. I…” She swallowed hard. “I found him. And then I came here.”

“Damn it, Mary Elizabeth, have you lost your mind?” Tucker exploded before he could stop himself.

Now the tears were more than she could fight. A steady torrent of them streamed down her cheeks, and Tucker’s heart flipped over. He fought the reaction and stayed right where he was.

“I didn’t know where else to go, what else to do,” she whispered.

She sounded more frightened and helpless than she’d ever sounded in her life, at least around him. Bravado had been ingrained in her from the day she’d arrived to live with her grandfather, a little girl who’d just lost her parents and been left with a man who was a virtual stranger.

“Did you think for one single second about calling the police?” he asked, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice, but not really succeeding.

She stared at him with those huge, watery eyes. “You are the police.”

Tucker raked a hand through his hair and muttered a curse. Okay, first things first. “You’re sure he’s dead?”

She nodded, her expression bleak.

He wanted to relent, to reach for her and hold her until those uncharacteristic tears dried up, but he steeled himself against that reaction. He needed to be a cop first, a friend second, at least until he knew more. It might seem cold and unfeeling, but it was the best way to help her.

And to protect himself, he thought bitterly. He couldn’t let himself forget for one single second that he’d been burned once by this very same woman. Lust aside, he couldn’t let himself trust her, not for a minute. She could have come here just to muddy the hell out of any investigation by the local authorities. Maybe she wanted the state police on the case, for some reason—they would take over if there was any question about whether the sheriff’s department had a conflict.

“Did you do it?” he asked, leveling a look straight into her eyes. He would know if she was lying, had always been able to tell, not because she was lousy at it, but because he could see into her soul. He knew her inside out, knew what she was capable of. Or at least he’d once thought he did, and she’d let him believe it, right up until the day she’d announced her engagement to Chandler. He’d missed that one coming.

Now there was a flicker of hurt in her eyes at the question, but then she responded, her tone as cool and impersonal as his. “No.”

Tucker held her gaze, but she never once wavered, never even blinked. Something that felt a lot like relief—or maybe more like cautious optimism—rushed through him. “Okay, then, why don’t I make some coffee and you can tell me what’s going on.”

At least that would get her into some clothes and out of this bedroom. Maybe then he’d be able to concentrate, act like a policeman instead of a frustrated ex-lover who wanted to jump the bones of a potential murder suspect.

She seemed surprised. “Just like that?”

He shot her a rueful look. “You knew how I’d react. That’s why you’re here and not at the station over in Montross.”

“That’s one of the reasons,” she conceded.

“And the others?”