“Me too.” Quick as lightning, he grabbed her again. One arm circled her naked waist, his other hand tangled in her already mussed hair. Holding his face a hair’s breadth from her own, he stared at her, and his eyes darkened with desire. He whispered, “This is our little secret.”
Before she could object, he kissed her, and once again she was lost. Just one more time, she thought as her blood heated and her body responded. Just one more time. But even as she made the promise to herself, she knew, deep in her heart, that this was just the beginning of what could only become a disaster.
*
Kat was running late and wasn’t surprised to find her father had already set his desk up as a table on which half a dozen cupcakes were displayed.
“Beginning to think you were gonna stand me up,” he said with a smile.
“Nope. But I gotta make this quick. You know the Crutchens burglary, where beer and cigarettes were taken, some petty cash?”
“Teenagers again?” he asked, reaching for a German chocolate cupcake.
“Yeah, but the bad news is, this time the Byrds’ grandson, Noel, could be involved.”
Her father grunted. “Uh oh.”
The Byrds didn’t much like the Prairie Creek Sheriff’s Department as a whole, and Patrick Starr in particular. Paul and Ann Byrd felt there’d never been enough done to find their daughter, Rachel, and they specifically blamed Patrick, which was entirely unfair, but there it was.
Kat had mainly told her father about the theft as a means to provide herself a quick exit. Her father always liked to visit a little longer than Kat did. However, the burglary and theft at Hal Crutchens’s farm were the crimes she was currently working on. She’d already interviewed several teens who had been involved, and they, and their parents, wanted this latest round with Mr. Crutchens to just go away. They’d offered the older man remuneration, but Crutchens, whose garage had been broken into and whose property was stolen, had demanded that they be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Crutchens had a history of making complaints about all his neighbors and the community at large, and naturally wasn’t well-liked. His attitude had made him a target for teen pranks and vandalism over the years, and this latest one was no exception.
“You see Shiloh?” her father mumbled around a last bite of chocolate cupcake.
Kat had just bitten into a red velvet one. “Mmm.”
“How is she? The same?”
She swallowed. “Yeah, maybe a little toned down.”
“Not a wild child any longer?” He threw the wrapper from the German chocolate cupcake in the trash can beside his desk and reached for a lemon chiffon one, peeling back the paper. “Good. I was afraid a kid like that might go off the rails.”
Kat bit back an automatic warning about his diet. You told him to get the cupcakes. You said it’d be okay for today. “She seems solid.” She took another bite of her own cupcake, and conversation stopped for a while as they made their way through their “breakfasts.”
Before her father could ask more about her conversation with Shiloh, she threw a glance at the clock and said, “Gotta run.”
“So soon? We’ve barely had a chance to catch up.”
“Next time,” Kat promised.
“Maybe you should take a couple of these for the road.” He motioned to the two lone cupcakes, but he looked longingly at them.
“They’re all yours. Just don’t eat ’em all at once.”
“I’m perfectly healthy.”
“Uh huh.”
Hurrying outside, she placed her sunglasses over her nose and climbed into her Jeep.
She parked in the lot at the back of the building. On her way inside, she waved at a couple of officers, dropped her purse into her locker, and grabbed a cup of coffee from the carafe in the lunchroom.
She nodded to Ricki Dillinger, then punched in Ruth’s number on her cell as she threaded her way to her desk. The door to the sheriff’s office was ajar, and as she passed, she caught a glimpse of Sheriff Sam Featherstone, ear pressed to his phone, his eyes steady on a computer monitor on the corner of his desk.
Ruth’s voice mail answered.
With an inward sigh, Kat left her name and number, clicking on her cell phone as she pulled out her desk chair. Ruth hadn’t replied to her text from the night before, sent after the meeting with Shiloh. Was Ruth actively avoiding her? Her old friend hadn’t made any attempt to connect with her since she’d returned, but then Kat hadn’t exactly been the Welcome Wagon, either. The fact was, all three of them were reminders to each other of that terrible night, and Ruth was the one who’d been attacked and hurt the most.
And now she was a single woman with a private practice and bound to be extremely busy.
Since seeing Shiloh last evening, Kat wanted action. She was over wrestling with her conscience. Maybe she should have confided in her father about the rape. Maybe waiting for Ruth meant waiting forever. Maybe she should run back over to his office and just lay it all out.
Kat picked up her cell phone in a rush of momentum, then set it back down again. No. She needed to talk to Ruth. She couldn’t blindside her. There was a way to bring this all forward, and it wasn’t helter-skelter.
Her desk phone rang. Naomi, from the front office. “Paul Byrd called again and asked for you,” she reported.
Kat grimaced. She knew for a fact that Byrd hadn’t called because he wanted her help with his grandson’s case. Nope, her last name was Starr, like her father’s, and though Paul Byrd was upset about Noel’s problems with Crutchens, it was his anger toward Patrick Starr that drove him to ask for Kat. Since Byrd believed the Prairie Creek Sheriff’s Department had failed on all accounts to find Rachel, who was better fit to listen to his vituperative complaints than retired-cop Patrick Starr’s cop daughter? “Okay, I’ll call him back,” she said, trying hard to keep the dread from her voice.
*
Beau finished fixing a broken pipe that led to the watering trough near the barn. With a final turn of the wrench, he straightened, then twisted on the handle and watched water pour into the trough without leaking all over the side of the barn. Satisfied, he filled the trough, walked into the barn, and slipped the wrench back into its spot on the workbench.
He ran his hand over the stained wooden top and wondered how many hours his old man had spent here. Probably not that many. And it didn’t matter now. He headed out of the barn again and, stepping into the bright sunlight, spied Shiloh with Morgan and one of the mares.
Morgan was astride the roan, Shiloh patting the horse’s neck. The sun was high in the afternoon sky, a slight breeze moving the branches.
Beau was surprised that the sisters seemed to be getting along, though he’d sensed a bit of a shift in Morgan’s attitude when he’d picked her up from Ayla’s and brought her back here.
“You like her, don’t you?” Morgan had accused as he’d nosed his truck up the lane and the tires had spun a little on the gravel as Faye’s house had come into view.
“Like who?”