Liam sighed, as much in anticipation of more futile phone calls as at the loss of the game. “I’ll delve a little deeper, see if I can turn anything up.” He started racking the balls again, trying not to be distracted by his opponent’s amber gaze. “I have to admit, there is something about the woman that makes the back of my neck itch.”
Baba’s shoulders relaxed microscopically as she realized he wasn’t dismissing her suggestion out of hand, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her he still found her a heck of a lot more suspicious than Peter Callahan’s fancy assistant.
“That’s two days you owe me now,” she said in a satisfied tone. “Are you sure you don’t want to quit while you’re ahead?” A tiny smile played at the corner of her full lips.
He shook his head and leaned into the break, pushing his frustration into the forward movement of the stick. A yellow ball raced across the green surface, hung for a moment on the edge of oblivion, and then fell over with a swish. Liam grinned at Baba as he knocked a second solid ball in right after it.
“No thanks, I’m good,” he said. “And you owe me two more answers.”
SIX
LIAM PONDERED HIS next two questions, not wanting to waste either one—since there was a distinct possibility he wouldn’t get another chance. The woman played pool like she did everything else, with an almost scary competence and cool grace.
Baba’s sly half smile didn’t help his concentration any. He didn’t understand what it was about her that shook his usual self-possession. Yes, she was beautiful—in the same way a bolt of lightning is beautiful when it shatters the night sky, or a lioness is beautiful as it races across the veldt. This was not a safe or gentle woman, no damsel in distress in need of rescuing. Any knight in shining armor who dared such a thing would probably find himself picking bits of his own sword out of his teeth.
Not that he was any kind of knight. Or interested in having any woman in his life, much less this prickly, mystifying, cloud-haired stranger with her secrets and her lies. That all ended long ago, when the world fell out from underneath him, changing in an instant from a place of warmth and joy to a dark and cruel mockery, empty and cold.
He’d tried to stay strong for Melissa, because that is what you do when you love someone. But she couldn’t be strong for him. Or even for herself, more’s the pity. And then she was gone, swallowed up in an ocean of secrets and lies, and he vowed never again. Never again. And meant it.
As much as he missed sex, nothing was worth putting himself through that kind of pain and betrayal again. And being a sheriff in a small town meant he couldn’t exactly get away with temporary, meaningless liaisons, even if that were his style, which it wasn’t.
So why did his fingers itch to run themselves through the silken length of that dark hair every time he saw it? Why did he catch himself staring at her lips, her eyes, the sway of her hips? It’s like that feeling you get when you stand at the top edge of a tall, tall building . . . that momentary urge to step into the abyss, and see what it would be like to fall, and keep on falling. And to hell with the crash that would hit you at the bottom.
“Sheriff?” An amused-sounding voice cut into his reverie.
God, he had to get more sleep.
“Right. First question,” he said after a brief pause. “Have you lied to me?” Liam felt as though the world was holding its breath as he waited for the answer; although why he thought she would tell him the truth now if she hadn’t before, he wasn’t sure. Even so, for whatever reason, he believed she would stick to their bargain.
Baba gazed at him steadily, amber eyes clear and guileless. “Not nearly as much as you think I have, and not about anything important.”
A weedy teenager approached the table with a quarter in his outstretched hand, ready to put it in the slot that would reserve the next game for him. A frown and a minute shake of the head from Liam sent him scuttling toward one of the other tables. Liam turned the look on Baba, who wasn’t nearly as easy to intimidate, unfortunately. Apparently that was all the answer he was going to get from her on that subject.
Fine.
He walked around the table, ostensibly gauging his next shot, and ended up standing close enough to feel the heat of her skin. The room held six tables, and maybe twenty people, but for a moment, it seemed as though they were alone, held in isolation by a bubble of reality in which only the two of them existed.
His voice was low and serious. “Second question: what are you really doing in this area?”
She took a long swallow of beer before saying in a matterof-fact tone, “I came because Mariska Ivanov called me for help in finding her granddaughter.” A tiny smile flickered on and off like a lightbulb in an electrical storm. “But there are some very interesting plants growing in Clearwater County, so I didn’t lie when I said that was why I was here. I just didn’t tell you the entire truth.”