Jealousy seared Alana’s skin. “It’s really none of my business.”
Lucas kept his face turned to the crowd in his living room. “You’re not the only cliché in this . . . thing,” he said. “Cops are dogs, on the lookout to score. Marissa Brooks, however, would cross the street rather than talk to a cop.”
“Why?”
“The former chief of police was a right bastard with kids. Hard on them if they made mistakes. Marissa made a really big mistake, and so did Adam. He hauled her down to the station in the backseat of a cruiser, locked her in an interrogation room, and read her the riot act, without her father there, or an attorney.”
She thought about Marissa, her dreamer’s soul, about family obligations. “Dear God.”
“I was there when she came out, and she was white as a sheet, shaking. Some women have a thing for uniforms, but Marissa’s not one of them.” He gave a small chuckle. “One, I was married when I came back. Two, after the divorce, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to start up with someone in town. And three, Marissa Brooks has been in love with Adam Collins since she was seventeen years old, something even an outsider summer kid like me knew. Relationships are hard enough if both people are committed to them. I try not to get involved with women who have divided loyalties.”
For a long moment the air between them vibrated with tension. “This was your uncle. Chief Ridgeway, right?” She ran through her few encounters with Lucas’s uncle. The man was as emotionless as they came, an older version of Lucas. Lucas’s grandmother gifted Lucas her house in the hopes he wouldn’t follow in Nelson Ridgeway’s footsteps. “Tanya’s father?”
A frown crossed Lucas’s face. “Yeah. Tanya’s father.”
Duke lifted his head at the knock at the door. Cody stood framed in the screen door. Alana took a quick step back from Lucas, then felt her face heat as the damned blush she couldn’t control when he was around bloomed on her cheeks.
She hurried past Lucas and opened the door. Cody ducked his head and stepped inside, his shoulders hunched over. He carried a large sketch pad and his messenger bag. “Come on in,” she said.
He glanced warily at Lucas, who gave him an assessing look, nothing more. Duke sniffed the air and whined, then looked at Lucas.
Oh, shit, Alana thought.
Lucas’s expression didn’t change. “Duke used to work on the drug squad with me in Denver,” he said evenly. “Right now he’s telling me he smells something he didn’t smell thirty seconds ago. I don’t smell anything I shouldn’t smell, but his nose is better than mine.”
Cody flushed as red as Alana, but he didn’t say a word.
“Well?” Lucas said.
“Well nothing.”
Lucas straightened and braced his weight on the balls of his feet. “Should I take a drive out to your place?”
“No! Don’t do that. It scares the little kids.”
“That’s not my fault,” Lucas pointed out. “I’m not the one bringing illegal substances into a house with three kids under the age of eight in it. You remember the conditions of your community-service agreement?”
“Fuck this,” Cody said and turned to leave.
“Wait!” Alana lunged for him. He shook off her arm, but didn’t open the door. She turned one beseeching look from him to Lucas. “Don’t go. Just . . . tell us what happened.”
“I got a ride into town with someone.”
“Someone who might have a little stash in the glove box?”
Cody’s face closed off even more.
“Who?”
“Lucas,” she hissed.
“Your brother, who’s on parole? Or one of his loser friends destined for another trip to the pen?”
“I’m not saying.”
Lucas shook his head, then shouldered past Alana to stand in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. “Excuse me,” he said in a tone of voice that carried easily.
All conversation halted.
“Did anyone see who was driving the car that just pulled out of the driveway?”
“I didn’t recognize the driver,” Mrs. Battle said, “but Colt and Cody Burton were in the car.”
“Neal Rogers from Hanover was driving.” This in Billy’s voice.
“Thanks,” Lucas said.
Cody seethed beside Alana. A muscle popped in his jaw, but the sheen covering his eyes tore at her heart. “It wasn’t Colt’s stash,” he said in a shaking voice when Lucas turned back to him. “It wasn’t.”
Alana took Lucas to the other end of the kitchen and lowered her voice. “I believe him,” she said, keeping one eye on Cody in case he bolted, and the other on Duke, in case he signaled or pointed or did whatever it was drugs dogs did to indicate the presence of illegal substances.
The look Lucas turned on her made her eyes widen. “Why exactly do you believe him?”
“Because the mural matters to him. This matters to him. He wouldn’t jeopardize that.”