Reflection Point

chapter SEVEN





The SARE meeting encountered a few bumps the following day. Zach was nursing bruises to both his ego and his ass as a result of his collisions with the Georgia peach. His colleague from Montrose had to leave halfway through the morning meeting due to a family emergency, and Ginger called Zach away from the afternoon meeting to work a single-vehicle accident just south of town. Nevertheless, they managed to get their work completed and plans finalized for the upcoming summer program.

Zach had thought long and hard before declining to serve as a program leader for a week in August. Two new deputies had accepted his job offers, but he couldn’t in good conscience leave a rookie department still in the midst of their first tourist season. Too many strange things happened in Eternity Springs during summer. He would miss his week camping with the kids, but maybe if today’s interview went well, he could make it up next year. Maybe volunteer for two weeks.

With that positive thought on his mind, Zach heard a laugh in the front office and he glanced up from his paperwork.

Well, well, well. His eleven o’clock interviewee had arrived early. Denver policewoman Gabriella Romano and Ginger were chatting and neither woman noticed him, so he took the opportunity to study his visitor through the window in his office door.

She shared a family resemblance with her brothers, he decided. Her hair was dark, and she was tall for a woman, with a sleek, runway model build. He couldn’t see her eyes, but her smile was big and bright. She was a pretty woman. And single.

That fact had given him pause. He’d wanted to add some diversity to his department, but he didn’t want to deal with on-the-job romances between his deputies. As far as he was concerned, workplace romantic attachments were off limits. If he hired Gabriella Romano, everyone would need to be clear about that. The last thing his department needed was a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Getting ahead of yourself, Turner. Go in and interview the woman first.

He opened the door to his office and stepped out. Both Ginger and Gabriella looked in his direction. Zach upgraded his opinion of her looks from pretty to gorgeous. Her eyes were a clear, brilliant blue, and in that moment, they studied him like twin blue laser beams.

“Officer Gabriella Romano, I presume?” he asked. “You’re early.”

Following a moment’s hesitation, she stepped toward him, her hand outstretched. “Gabi Romano, Sheriff Turner. Yes, I am early and if that’s a problem, I’m happy to leave and come back at eleven if you’d prefer.”

“No, not at all,” Zach said, accepting her firm handshake. “That was an observation, not a complaint. Welcome to Eternity Springs.”

“Thank you. I’m already in love with the town. I drove in after my shift yesterday and spent the night in one of Angel’s Rest’s creekside cabins. Was up before dawn and caught three trout for my breakfast.”

“So you like to fish, do you?”

“Honestly, not so much. I only went so I could call my brothers and give them grief about it.”

Zach laughed. “I like your style, Officer Romano. Why don’t you come with me to my office and we can talk about the job.”

Zach knew within the first five minutes that he wanted to hire her, so he skipped right to the tougher questions. Finally he asked. “Why do you want to leave Denver?”

“My brother told you about my mother’s situation, and I admit that’s part of it. Frankly, I’m not so sure that my brothers will convince her to come to Eternity Springs. I’ll be honest—I’m trying to move beyond a bad breakup, but I’m having a difficult time, since I see the jerk every time I turn around.”

Oh, crap. “He’s a cop?”

“Worse. A firefighter. I’d sooner date a priest than a cop, and I’m a good Catholic girl.” She flashed that smile, then added, “When I talked to Celeste Blessing about Eternity Springs, she sold me on the idea that this is the perfect place to put old ghosts to rest. Then when Max figured out that you had an opening in your department …” Gabi shrugged. “It seemed like fate.”

He nodded. He’d been a resident of Eternity Springs, and acquainted with Celeste, too long to argue with the notion.

“All right, then,” he said. “What questions do you have for me?”

She took a moment and considered her response. “I’d like to know a little more about the department and the people I’d be working with. I hope you won’t take it as being nosy, but I’ll be honest—I am a straight shooter, I don’t prevaricate, and I don’t see the benefit of p-ssyfooting around. If I want to know something, I’ll ask it. But …” She flashed him a smile. “I won’t take it personally if you tell me it’s none of my business.”

“Fair enough.”

“So, tell me about yourself, Zach, your background in law enforcement, your family.”

“It’s none of your business,” he quipped.

She frowned. “Now that’s just being mean.”

He grinned and gave her a quick recap. “I grew up in Oklahoma. Went to college in Florida on a basketball scholarship.”

“You played college basketball? Really? I did, too. Not in Florida. I played for Connecticut.”

“They have a great ladies’ program.”

She nodded. “They do.”

“Good family genetics for athletics, obviously.”

“We’re all sports fiends.” Then she gave her head a shake. “And after college? Did you go straight into law enforcement?”

“Yeah. I originally thought I wanted to be an attorney, but when a friend of mine was killed during a convenience store holdup during our freshman year, I changed course. Guy was high on crack and murdered three people for seventy-eight dollars.”

“Man, that sucks. Drugs are evil.”

“They absolutely are.”

“Did your parents mind the switch?”

His mouth lifted in a wry grin. “They weren’t thrilled.… I was their beloved son, and they worried.”

“Do they still worry?”

“If there’s such a thing in heaven, then I expect so.”

“They’re both gone? I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks. They were great people and wonderful parents. I miss them.”

“I have to say that losing my dad was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through, but I’m thankful I have a big family who are my support system. What about you? Big family? Small?”

Zach had begun to feel like he was the job seeker and she the job giver. “Is that your way of asking if I’m married?”

“No. Celeste already answered that question for me.” Her grin was bright and unapologetic. “You don’t need to worry, Sheriff. I give you my solemn oath that I have absolutely no romantic interest in you or any of your deputies. If you hire me, you don’t need to worry about on-the-job flirtations. Any flirtations at all, for that matter. I’ve sworn off men.” Wincing, she added, “And I’m only into women as friends. My question about family is because I’m looking for some common ground here. I was asking if you had siblings or aunts and uncles. See, I have a huge extended family, with all the blessings and curses that includes. You’ll understand me better if you have walked in my shoes, so to speak.”

“I was an only child. If I hire you, you’ll just have to educate me on the issue.”

“Count on it. I won’t be able to avoid it.” Gabi Romano’s grin went serious. “I’d like the job, Sheriff Turner. I’m a good cop, and I’ll make you a good deputy.”

“Good. I want to offer it to you.”

She beamed, and her smile lit up the sheriff’s office. Looking over her shoulder, Zach saw Ginger give him a thumbs-up. He sighed, stood, and shut his office door so that they could hammer out terms and agree on a start date in private. When Gabi left the building half an hour later, Ginger gave her a hug on the way out, then made a beeline for Zach’s office. She hugged him, too. “Thank you, Zach. She’s wonderful. She’s a woman! Do you know how thrilled I am at the thought of having a woman around the office? What a happy coincidence that her brother happened to stop by when you were doing a phone interview with your door open right when Gabi decided she needed a fresh start and just after Celeste had primed her to think kindly about Eternity Springs! Gabi called it fate; I say it’s angel dust.”

“I won’t argue with it,” Zach replied. A person couldn’t live in Eternity Springs for long without coming to appreciate the special properties of angel dust.

He thought about coincidence and fate, angel dust and Eternity Springs as he drove home later that afternoon. Celeste claimed that the valley had a unique energy that made it a place where special things happened to those who opened themselves to the healing powers of love. Four years ago he would have rolled his eyes at the notion, but he’d since witnessed the phenomenon himself too many times not to give it credence. Call it fate, kismet, or the guiding hand of God, but if a man had faith in a higher power—and Zach did—then he had to take the energy of Eternity Springs into account when making decisions about the people who found their way here.

Not everyone received the benefit of what he and Cam Murphy had dubbed the Eternity Springs “woo-woo.” Some visitors and citizens were simply sorry SOBs who would need to breathe the valley air for a hundred years or have a mountain of angel dust fall on them for their stone hearts to melt. Having the job he did, Zach tended to meet those folks more than most.

That train of thought led him to the town’s newest resident. Where did Savannah Moore fit into the scheme of things? Was her heart black, or was it simply in need of healing? Had she found her way to this valley by accident, or had she had a push from fate or kismet or the hand of God? What was the woman’s story?

Why did she get beneath his skin like no other woman he could remember?

Was it hormones, or was it … angel dust?

With these questions uppermost in his mind, Zach wasn’t at all surprised when he negotiated a bend in the road and spied a car pulled off to one side.

Savannah Sophia Moore’s old, worn-out Taurus.

Angel dust? “Well, hell.”

Savannah was so frustrated that she wanted to scream. Was it not enough that having a gasket replaced at Eternity Springs Auto and Sports Center just this morning had blown her budget to smithereens? Or that the owner had told her that her Taurus was on its last legs? That he’d said her car had a condition they called the “black death”? The black death! He’d told her to Google it, and she had. It wasn’t good.

She needed a new car. After pouring all her savings into starting up her business, she couldn’t afford one.

And now she had a damned flat tire, and who knew the state of her spare? Savannah had a well-earned aversion to looking into trunks, so she didn’t use hers unless she had no choice.

She gave into the urge, kicked the flat tire, and let out a yell that would have made her Rebel ancestors proud.

Sighing heavily, she studied the road. After bailing her car out of the shop, she’d driven down to South Fork to check out a potential packaging supplier. She’d dawdled on the way back, playing tourist and stopping at all the scenic overlooks. The beauty of the mountain vistas simply took her breath away and provided a welcome respite from all the worries and concerns churning through her mind.

What was she going to do about her car?

Had she made the right decision in going upscale with her packaging?

When was Barney Fife going to pull the rug out from under her?

Thinking about Zach Turner caused her to kick the tire again, and then do it once more for good measure.

“Okay, Moore, you have three choices,” she muttered to herself. “Call the Auto and Sports Center and have them send someone out to fix this, wait around for a good Samaritan to stop and help, or figure out how to do it yourself.”

Since she didn’t have the money to have the auto shop fix it, that option wasn’t her best bet. The last time she’d let a good Samaritan near her car, she’d ended up in prison, so that didn’t appeal much either. “All right, then. You can do this yourself. It doesn’t matter that you’ve never changed a tire before. You are an intelligent woman. You can figure it out.”

If she could get up the nerve to open her trunk, that was.

“Oh, stop it. The black death is under the hood, not in the trunk.” She hit the trunk release, marched around to the back of her car, and ignored the instinctive tremble in her hand as she opened the compartment. Empty. She released a sigh. “Of course it’s empty, idiot.”

She stared into the trunk at the donut tire, and her teeth tugged at her lower lip. Years ago, her father had shown her how to do this. “Okay, Dad. I hope you’ll be watching over my shoulder now.”

She paused, halfway expecting to hear the sound of his voice in her head. Since she hadn’t heard Grams’ voice after that day up at Lover’s Leap, it was certainly time for someone to step in.

Nobody did. Her head remained a silent zone.

She sighed and reached to unscrew the keeper bolt to free the spare tire, then lifted the tire from the trunk. Rolling it around to the front of the car, she leaned it against the left front fender and went back to remove the jack and the lug wrench from the trunk. After she carried them to the front of the car, she frowned. She had thought she knew what to do, but it had been a long time. She needed a set of instructions.

When she’d bought the Taurus from a used-car lot in Atlanta, it hadn’t come with instructions. “Use your head, dummy,” she muttered. “And your phone. Smart-phones make for smart tire changers.”

She typed “how to change a tire” into her search engine, read through a step-by-step how-to guide, then watched a three-minute video tutorial. Her memory refreshed, her confidence renewed, she searched the vicinity for something heavy to place against the back tires. She’d knelt beside the car and was beginning to loosen the lug nuts when she heard a vehicle pull in behind her. Glancing up, she spied the grille of a white Range Rover … with flashers on top. Her stomach sank.

Maybe it’s one of his deputies.

The driver’s door opened. She forced herself to lift her gaze from the sheriff’s decal on the door.

Of course it’s not one of his deputies. When have I ever been lucky?

Zach Turner climbed out of his vehicle, shut the door, and sauntered toward her. “Need some help?”

Yes. “No, thanks. I can do it.”

She leaned on the lug wrench. The blasted nut wouldn’t budge.

He waited, watching, for a long moment. “Savannah …”

“I’ve got it!” she snapped, frustration giving an added oomph to her force upon the wrench.

“No. Actually, you don’t. You need to turn it counterclockwise.”

Savannah froze. Damn. She knew that. The blasted man had her rattled.

Without acknowledging his comment, she switched directions, but since she’d just spent the last minute or so tightening the nut, she still couldn’t manage to move it. She shifted the wrench to another lug nut and twisted counterclockwise viciously.

“You are stubborn, aren’t you?”

“I’ve learned that stubbornness helps a girl survive.”

After successfully loosening the other lug nuts, Savannah returned her attention to the first. She still couldn’t get it to budge. As a squeal of pure frustration welled up in her throat, she sat back on her heels and glared up at Zach, who stood with his hands shoved into the back pockets of his jeans. His amused grin only stoked her temper hotter.

“Calling calf rope?” he asked.

“Pardon me?”

“Are you done? Ready for me to help now?”

Savannah knew she was being stupid. What good did it possibly do her to refuse his offer of assistance? And yet with every stubborn fiber of her being she wanted to change this tire by herself. She braced herself and then gave one more massive effort, pulling harder … harder … harder.… The nut moved. “Yes!”

She shot him a triumphant smile. “Feel free to go on about your business.”

He folded his arms and returned a challenging look. “It’s part of my job to assist stranded motorists.”

“I’m not stranded,” she grumbled beneath her breath. Now he had her so rattled that she had to take a peek at the how-to guide on her phone to double-check her next move. Yes, jacking up the car was next.

Savannah carefully placed the jack under the Taurus’ frame, inserted the jack handle, then went to work. This part was even less fun than loosening the lug nuts, but she got the job done. Then she threw Zach Turner another smugly victorious grin.

He smirked back at her.

She refocused her attention on her task and pretended to ignore him. She removed the lug nuts, set them beside her on the ground, and wrestled the flat tire off the axle. It was heavy and dirty and smelled like, well, an old tire. Yuck, she silently said as she allowed it to fall onto the ground.

She lifted the lighter donut tire, fitted it onto the wheel studs, and retrieved a lug nut from the ground. Remembering that the video had suggested that the nuts be tightened in a star pattern, she began at the top, then placed the second, third, and fourth nuts. She reached for the fifth.

She couldn’t find it.

Frowning, she looked hard at the rocky ground around her. Where did it go? Had she set the tire on top of it?

“It rolled,” the sheriff said, holding the nut in the palm of his hand, offering it but not handing it to her.

Jerk. What was he trying to prove?

Savannah hesitated. She supposed she could go without it. Surely one missing fastener wouldn’t hurt. He’d probably arrest me for unsafe driving, though.

Biting back a sigh, she rolled to her feet and took the four steps over to within reach of his hand. She nabbed the lug nut, but as she drew her hand back, he grabbed her wrist.

Savannah’s gaze flew up to meet his. He was staring at her, his eyes narrowed and intent, almost angry. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

Then he dragged her against him and kissed her.

His mouth was hot and hard and hungry, and Savannah resisted it … for about three seconds. It had been so long since a man’s arms had held her. So long since a man’s mouth had captured hers. So very, very long since she’d felt the liquid heat of desire zinging through her veins. It felt so good, so delicious, that she surrendered to it.

When he lifted his head a few moments later, those sky blue eyes of his hazy with desire and just a little bit stunned, she put her hand on his head and guided his mouth back down to hers. Just before their lips touched, he repeated, “Son of a bitch.”

He backed her up against the Taurus, his tongue stroking her lips, slipping between them, meeting hers. He kissed her deeply, passionately, and tasted of spearmint and danger. This was no first-date kiss, but then, this was no date, was it? This was impulse, greedy and furious. It was as if Zach acted against his own better judgment, against his own will, as if he was helpless against his attraction to her. The possibility of it filled her with a heady feeling of power.

Not that she was actually doing much thinking at the moment. Her blood pounded, her skin tingled, she ached. She needed. While a part of her recognized that she might have just tripped over the line into insanity—after all, she was enthusiastically indulging in a very public display of affection with a sheriff she didn’t even like—she was too caught up in the moment to care.

His hand began to move, skimmed across her breast, thrilling her. Her breath hitched, and for an instant he froze.

Zach released her mouth and his arms fell away as he jerked back and stepped away. Her stomach dropped with an instant of loss before good sense prevailed. For a long, humming moment he stared at her with eyes gone dark and edgy, the angles and planes of his face pronounced. I did get to him, she thought, pleased.

He got to you, too. And he’s the sheriff! He knows about you. It’s only a matter of time before he tells everyone in town.

Savannah wasn’t nearly as pleased as she’d been a moment before.

Maybe her displeasure showed in her expression, because all of a sudden Zach relaxed. That oh-so-talented mouth of his lifted in a smug, knowing smile. He tipped an imaginary hat and turned to leave. “See you later, Peach.”

Only after his Range Rover had disappeared around a curve in the road did she turn back to her tire. That’s when she realized that at some point in the proceedings, she’d dropped the stupid lug nut. It took her five minutes to find it, then another five minutes to finish with the tire. Pulling back onto the highway, she headed for Eternity Springs and the comfort of a long, hot bath and a glass of wine.

She never noticed the truck parked on the side road that slipped onto the highway after she passed and followed her stealthily back to town.