“I was hoping you’d take another ten or fifteen minutes,” he told her. “I’m enjoying the sun. It’s pretty rare that I can sit and do nothing.”
“I thought Eagle’s Nest was a sleepy town with little crime. I’d guess you spend a lot of time with your feet up on your desk.” She spotted a faint scar on his chin. A fight? He’d skipped shaving that morning and the slight growth made it stand out.
How does the other guy look?
“I wish. There’s always something. And it’s never simple, you know? Nothing can ever be fixed with a web search or a quick phone call. Usually it involves me showing up in person and talking with someone for two hours. The people around here like to talk. A lot.”
“It’s a lost skill back in Portland. I must answer a hundred e-mails a day. It doesn’t leave time for casual talk, except in the elevator.”
“So you’re saying this is a vacation for you.”
Her brows rose. “Not quite.”
“Did you see your family yet?”
“Some of them.” She looked out over the lake. “I haven’t been to this lake in ages.”
His raised eyebrow indicated he’d noticed she had changed the subject. “When I called, you said you’d never heard of the cave man when you were growing up.” He didn’t get off his rock, so Mercy picked another large rock to sit on. If he wanted ten more minutes of sunshine before they started their search, he could have it.
“Nope. That was a new one to me, but I’ve always loved this water. I swam here dozens of times as a teen. It was a bit of a teen hangout during the summer.”
The blue sky reflected off the water. It was quiet. No car sounds, no phones ringing, no useless chatter.
“It is wonderful,” Truman agreed.
She took a deep breath and settled on the rock, closing her eyes for a brief second, inhaling the scent of sun-toasted rocks and murky lake water. Tension melted out of her.
“I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you let your guard down, Special Agent Kilpatrick.”
She turned to glare at him, but his gaze was relaxed and happy. For a split second Mercy lost herself in his eyes’ brown depths.
She swallowed.
No. Not for you. Unprofessional.
The thoughts stung.
He stood and held out a hand. “Let’s take a look around.”
She took his hand as her feet wobbled on the rounded surfaces of the big rocks. Time to get back to work.
Truman didn’t want the hours by the lake to end.
He and Mercy had walked the entire circumference of the small lake. No cave man. No weapons. Now they headed away from the lake and to the west, where the land sloped up several hundred feet to a dust-colored table-rock formation. She’d seemed as pleased with the sun as he was. She’d pulled her long, dark hair into a ponytail, and her step grew lighter.
He didn’t want to go back to the office.
Mercy was easy to be around. She didn’t take herself too seriously and had even cracked a half smile at some of his lame jokes. She’d shared bits and pieces of growing up in Eagle’s Nest, and he’d identified with a lot of her observations, as they’d correlated with his high school summer experiences.
“That must have been the worst for you, having to live here while all your friends were having fun back home,” she said.
“I hated the first few weeks of the first summer I lived here. But once I found some friends, it was sorta fun. Teens around here make their own entertainment. Get four guys together with one dirt bike and an empty field, and your entire week is set. Back home I had to search for things to do.”
“Where were you from?”
“San Jose.”
“That’s quite different from Eagle’s Nest.”
“But Eagle’s Nest isn’t bad. I’ve seen places a lot worse.”
“Like what?”
Truman glanced at her, wondering if she was just making idle conversation, but her gaze was focused on him with her brows raised, waiting for an answer.
“I did a couple of tours in Africa. I’ve never seen poverty like that.”
“Army?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do when you got out?” Curiosity filled her tone.
“I joined the city’s police force back home. I’d done that for several years when I got word of the job up here. I was ready for a change.” That’s putting it mildly. He kept his tone even, making it sound as if he’d taken the Eagle’s Nest job on a whim, while he tightened the lock on his memories.
“This town is definitely a change. Do you have siblings?”
“One sister. She lives in Bellevue, Washington, and is married to a—”
“Microsoft executive?”
He laughed. “Yes. Too stereotypical? She shops and seems to spend a lot of time in the gym.”
“Does she have kids?”
“No. Not sure there will be.”
“Do you want to go back to California?” she asked. “How can you handle such a different way of life?”