A sick feeling swept through Edie as she stared at her grandfather, hoping to see the familiar twinkle of a joke in his eyes. But there was no twinkle—only a faint tinge of fear coupled with the determination of an intergalactic warrior. And then she knew why somebody had called her to check on her Poppy. It was because he was losing his mind.
Chapter 2
Benjamin saw the dismay that swept over Edie’s features at Walt’s words. She was a pretty woman and he knew her statistics from looking at her license. She was five foot four and weighed 117 pounds. Her hair was auburn and her eyes were green.
But those statistics didn’t begin to really describe the woman who stood before him. Yes, her short curly hair was auburn, but it shone with a luster that made his fingers itch with the need to touch. Green was too ordinary a word to describe her eyes, which sparkled with tiny shards of glittering gold.
The orange sweater she wore complemented the burnished highlights in her hair and intensified the color of her eyes. Something about her stirred him in a way he hadn’t been stirred in a very long time.
“I’ll walk you out,” she said, casting a meaningful look at him.
“Walt, as always, thanks for the meal and the chess game,” Benjamin said.
“Thanks for the company,” Walt replied, obviously unaware that his previous words had upset his granddaughter. “Edie, you can pull your car into the garage. I sold my car a year ago. I got tired of paying for insurance.”
Edie nodded. “Thanks, Poppy, I’ll do that.”
As Benjamin walked out with Edie, he caught a whiff of her perfume, something subtle and spicy that reminded him of tangy fall air and cinnamon.
“I’m the one who called you,” he said when they were far enough away from the front door that Walt wouldn’t hear. “I’ve been worried about him.”
In the illumination from a nearby streetlight, he could see the confusion on her pretty face. “I didn’t catch the name of the person who’d called me and once I got here I thought maybe it was just a cranky neighbor upset because the yard needs some work. He seemed so normal.”
“He appears to be normal in every way except for the little issue that he thinks space aliens are trying to take over Black Rock. It wouldn’t be a big problem but he’s often out in the middle of the night alien hunting and I’m afraid he’ll get hit by a car or fall down someplace where nobody will be able to help him.”
“How long has this been going on?” she asked. She still looked overwhelmed by this news and as he remembered the things she’d told him when he’d pulled her over for speeding, he had a crazy desire to take her into his arms and assure her that everything was going to be all right.
Instead he rocked back on his heels and frowned thoughtfully. “About six months. My brothers and I have tried to assure him that there are no space aliens in town, but he’s adamant in his belief and gets downright cranky when you try to tell him different. Look, I’d recommend you take him into his doctor and get a full checkup done. Maybe this is some sort of a medical issue.”
“I guess that’s as good a place to start as anywhere,” she replied. “Well, thanks for all your help with him. I guess I’ll see you around over the next couple of days, but hopefully not in my rearview mirror with your lights spinning.”
He grinned at her. “As long as you’re not a fast woman, we won’t have any problems in that area. But I can’t promise I won’t follow you just because I think you’re pretty.” Someplace deep inside he recognized he was flirting a little bit.
She must have realized it, too. But her eyes cooled and she took a step back from him. “I am a fast woman, probably way too fast for a small-town deputy.”
He wasn’t sure who was more surprised by her response, him or her. Her lush lips compressed as she frowned once again. “Thanks again for you help. See you around.”
She turned and headed back to the house in short quick steps that swayed her shapely hips. Benjamin watched until she disappeared behind the front door and then released a sigh as he got into his truck.
He had no idea what had possessed him to attempt a little flirt with her. It was obvious by her response he wasn’t very good at it. Still, her cool response had surprised him.
Since his brothers Tom and Caleb had hooked up with their soul mates, Benjamin had become the toast of the town when it came to the single women. But all the women who were interested in him left him cold.
He’d been cold since his sister, Brittany, had disappeared over two months ago. Tom, his oldest brother and the sheriff of Black Rock, still held out hope that she would be found alive and well, but even though Benjamin never said anything out loud, as each day had passed with no word from her, he’d lost hope of ever seeing his little sister again.
As he backed out of Walt’s driveway, he tried to ignore the stab of grief that always pierced his heart when he thought of his missing sister.
And now they had another one missing. Tom was reluctant to tie the two disappearances together, but Benjamin had a bad feeling about the whole thing. He was afraid Black Rock was in for dark days, and the darkness had nothing to do with Walt’s imaginary space aliens.
As he headed for the ranch his thoughts returned to Edie Burnett. For a minute as he’d seen her tears after he’d pulled her over, he’d thought she was faking them to get out of a ticket.
Old Mabel Tredway did it on a regular basis. The eighty-two-year-old woman shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car and whenever Benjamin pulled her over for crossing the center line or going a little too fast, she wept like a baby. But the one time he’d given her a ticket, the fake tears had stopped on a dime and she’d cussed him, his dead mama and all the cattle on his ranch.
However, Edie’s tears had been real and as she’d burped up the details of her life with each sob, he had decided not to write the ticket.
She had enough to deal with in deciding what to do with Walt. Benjamin and his lawmen brothers had come to the end of their rope with the old man. Nobody wanted to see anything bad happen to him, but they all felt it was just a matter of time before he got hurt.
As he pulled into the gates that led to the family homestead, he felt the familiar sense of peace the place always brought to him. The house itself was an architectural anomaly. What had started as a simple two-bedroom ranch had become a sprawling complex as rooms were added with each birth of a child.
There was also a small cottage just behind the house where Margaret Kintell, a sixty-eight-year-old widow, lived. Margaret had worked as a housekeeper for the Grayson family for as long as Benjamin could remember. Her husband, John, had worked as a ranch hand until he’d passed away several years ago, and even though Benjamin had encouraged Margaret to retire she insisted that her job was still taking care of the Grayson children.
Unfortunately Benjamin was the only Grayson child still living in the family home and he wasn’t exactly a child at thirty years old. His brothers Tom and Caleb lived in town. Brittany had been living in town at the time of her disappearance and Jacob was holed up in a small cabin nestled in a grove of trees on the ranch property.
The porch light was on so he knew Margaret was probably still in the house rather than in her little cottage. As he walked through the front door, the scent of apples and cinnamon filled his nose and Tiny came running toward him, barking a happy greeting.
“Hi, Tiny.” He bent down on his haunches to pet the mixed-breed mutt who had stolen his heart six months ago. “Margaret?” he called as he stood. As he walked through the living room toward the kitchen, Tiny followed close at his feet.
She greeted him in the doorway and gestured him into a chair at the table. “Go on, now, sit down. I made fresh apple cobbler and I know that nutcase Walt probably didn’t feed you