“Warren’s clothes,” Sully repeated. “Are they gone, too?”
The man looked irritated. “I dunno. I guess so,” he mumbled. And then he seemed to take offense. “Hey, I don’t go looking through a man’s things,” he protested, looking at Rae rather than this offensive newcomer. “That’s private.”
“You’re right,” Sully agreed. “I just meant that if this missing wrangler didn’t take his things with him, maybe he’s not really missing. Maybe he’s just somewhere else on the ranch.” He directed his conversation to Rae. “It’s a big ranch.”
That was all relative, Rae thought. “Not compared to the other ranches around here.”
He wasn’t familiar with the area, but he supposed that she would know better than he did. But that didn’t change his initial assumption.
“Still, a man could go somewhere and not be seen.” His eyes swept over the wrangler Rae had brought back with her, and then returned to Rae. “You’ve got several structures from what I can see, not to mention all this wide-open acreage. Could this Warren be on another part of the ranch, doing something you assigned him to do?” Sully asked.
Rather than answer him, Rae turned her eyes on Rawlings. The wrangler raised his shoulders in complete frustration. “I don’t know. Maybe. All I know is he wasn’t there when I woke up and he didn’t leave me no note to tell me where he was at. Not that he would,” the wrangler added in what Sully took to be disgust.
“Maybe someone should look around for him before deciding that the man just took off for good,” Sully suggested to Rae, picking up his shovel again. “But that’s just my opinion.”
“And a pretty good one. You heard the man,” Rae said, turning toward the wrangler. “Start looking.”
“What, he’s my new boss now?” Rawlings asked resentfully, jerking his thumb at Sully and looking disgruntled.
“No, but I am, and I just gave you a direct order,” Rae pointed out, looking at Rawlings expectantly.
“That’s going to take me forever on foot,” Rawlings protested.
Rae took off a key from her key ring and then held it out to the wrangler. “Go back and get the other truck. And try not to drive it into a ditch,” she warned. “It belongs to Miss Joan.”
“What she gonna do if something happens to it?” Rawlings asked sarcastically.
“Trust me,” Rae answered, looking up into his eyes. “You do not want to find out.”
Rawlings frowned as he took the key from her. “I’ll be careful.”
“Wise decision,” she told him.
Taking the key and putting it into his pocket, Rawlings started to go off in the direction of the bunkhouse. Just before he left, the wrangler glanced over his shoulder and glared at the newcomer. When Sully glanced his way, Rawlings ducked down his head and quickened his pace.
“I don’t think I made any points with your man,” Sully told her as he got back to digging holes for the posts.
Although she didn’t want to, Rae found herself staring at the way the man’s muscles strained and seemed to bulge with every movement he made with the shovel. It took considerable effort to draw her eyes away.
She replayed what he had asked earlier when Rawlings had told her that the other man had taken off. It raised questions in her mind.
“What did you say you did before you came here?” she asked.
“I didn’t say.” Pausing for a second, he spared her a glance. “You didn’t ask,” he reminded her in case Rae thought he was being flippant.
“I’m asking now,” she told him, waiting.
“A little of this, a little of that,” he said vaguely.
Some people reacted strangely when they found out that he was a detective with the Aurora police department, so it wasn’t the first thing he volunteered when he was asked.
“Do this and that have a name?” Rae asked him pointedly.
“Yes,” he answered, his breath growing a little short as he dug yet another hole. He was grateful that there were only two more holes left to dig.
“So are you going to tell me what you did, or are you waiting for me to say ‘pretty please?’” Rae asked. When she saw his mouth curve in a deep smile, she decided she’d had enough of playing games. “What the hell were you?”
“A detective,” Sully answered. Crossing his arms and resting them on top of the shovel handle, he added, “I still am.”
Rae looked at the man who was working up another sweat before her with renewed interest. “A detective?”
Because of what he was doing, it took Sully a second before he could answer. “Yes.”
She tried to reconcile the image of the man before her with the one he’d just told her about.
“You’re one of those people other people hire to find someone?” she questioned.
“No,” he explained patiently as he continued digging the last post hole. The ground around here felt as if it was made out of clay. Hard clay. Trying to dig a hole in it was both a challenge and at times felt like exercise in futility.
With every move he made, he could feel the muscles in his arms vigorously protesting. “I’m one of those people who works for the police department,” he answered.
That made even less sense to her than her first assumption. “You work for the police department,” she repeated.
“That’s...what... I...said.”
Maybe he was in worse shape than he thought, Sully decided. Digging shouldn’t be taking this kind of a toll on him. He stopped for a minute longer to catch his breath and then resumed digging.
Rae moved around so that she was directly in front of this so-called police detective in wrangler’s clothing. “If you’re telling the truth—”
He stopped dueling with the cement-like soil to look at her. At this point, he was up for only one battle at a time. It was either digging or matching wits with this foreman.
“Why would I lie about that?” Sully asked.
“Okay,” she amended. “You’re a police detective.” She granted him that, although part of her was still dubious. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
He looked accusingly at the shovel and then decided maybe he was better off digging. With luck, Rae would get tired of this and leave him to do the work.
“Right now, trying to dig a hole in this soil and wondering what the hell is in it to make it almost completely impenetrable,” he answered.
Rae frowned, waving away his response. She could see what he was doing, and that wasn’t what she meant. “Sections out here in this area are really hard to dig in, but that’s not the point right now.” Taking hold of the handle of his shovel, she held it fast so he was forced to stop digging altogether—not that he minded all that much. “What are you doing here, Cavanaugh?” she repeated with more feeling. It didn’t make any sense to her, and she hated things that didn’t make sense. “Forever isn’t exactly on the map as a prime vacation spot.”
“I’m not out here on a vacation,” Sully informed her. “I’m out here to clear my head.”
“You said you were from California. There have got to be places you could do that in that