With dusk melting into darkness and the mellow notes of a guitar sliding from the stereo, Josh steered his red Corvette convertible along the road that ringed Paradise Lake. His mind wasn’t on the night air that flowed like warm water across his face, the soothing music or the shadowy groves of oaks and glimpses of shoreline that zipped by.
His thoughts centered on the bartender.
Although a booth had opened up just as Deni served his hamburger and fries, he had remained at the bar. While eating, he watched Regan draw beers, mix drinks and refill bowls of peanuts with single-minded intensity.
She was petite, slim and sleek. The white blouse she wore had been tucked into the waistband of jeans snug enough to whet a man’s appetite.
Her hair was as black and shiny as the lapel of a tuxedo, and it hung straight to her shoulders. She had wispy bangs that ended just above brown, gold-flecked eyes. Eyes that had reminded him of a cat’s—watching and waiting.
For what? he wondered.
When a yellow warning sign blipped in the high beams of the car’s headlights, Josh downshifted. Seconds later, the ’Vette reached the razor-sharp bend in the road the locals had dubbed Wipeout Curve.
He felt the ’Vette’s raw power as it whispered through the treacherous turn. Any other time he would have cleared his mind, eased back and savored the ride. Tonight, his thoughts remained on a slim, dark-haired stranger.
He had noticed her the instant he walked into the tavern. Noticed, too, that while she worked the register and straightened liquor bottles, she surveilled him in the mirror behind the bar. He was used to feeling a woman’s gaze, but instinct told him Regan’s study of him had nothing to do with hot-blooded attraction, and everything to do with cool-eyed suspicion.
“Interesting,” he murmured while the guitar’s soothing notes mixed with the night air. It was also of interest that she’d failed to give him her last name, nor had she revealed where she was from. It hadn’t been lost on him that every question he’d asked about her, she’d turned back on him.
Just because he’d been on suspension didn’t mean he’d gotten rusty when it came to spotting some nifty evasion tactics.
His mood darkened as the reminder of the past month threw a mental switch, rerouting his thoughts. The bitterness over having been accused of planting evidence in a rapist’s apartment was still there, simmering with a foul taste he’d almost grown used to. What he would never get used to was how his nearly losing his badge and the job that defined him had hurt his family. A law enforcement family, in which cops were the majority and wearing a uniform was a matter of pride.
He respected the badge and the law. He had just found it sometimes necessary, while coming up through the ranks, to circumvent the letter of the law in order to get what he needed to take down a guilty bad guy. No harm, no foul…until he’d been at the right place at the wrong time, and his reputation for stretching the rules had gone far in having a hell of a lot of cops suspect the worst of him.
And, yeah, he had looked guilty—who knew better than a sex crimes detective what evidence was needed to score a slam-dunk conviction on a rape? The whole squad had known he’d spent uncountable off-duty hours trying to track down the vicious six-time rapist. And stretching the rules innumerable ways just to get the bastard’s scent wasn’t something he’d shy away from—but crossing the line wasn’t one of those ways. The finger-pointing in Josh’s direction, the insinuation that he’d planted evidence had him close to quitting the force in a rage. And then he’d thought about his family and what the badge meant to him. So he’d swallowed back that rage and in the end managed to clear himself.
Now that he was back in the department’s good graces, he intended to toe the line a little closer when he reported back to duty.
Another mile down the road Josh steered into the drive of what he’d considered his second home for his entire life. The three-story structure was an architectural masterpiece. Built on a sloped, heavily wooded lot and made entirely of cedar and glass, it had a broad wraparound porch and a wide chimney built of local rock that had been weathered to a soft gray. Beyond the lush back lawn lay Paradise Lake, its rambling shoreline coiling like a snake across the Oklahoma-Texas border.
Josh climbed out of the car. Instead of heading for the house, he strode across the drive and skirted the hedge that separated McCall and Truelove property.
Although only a single porch light glowed beside Etta’s front door, Josh knew from memory that the two-story house was painted a pale blue with white shutters. A wooden swing suspended on chains dangled from the porch’s ceiling.
The air around him sparked with fireflies as he headed up the walk lined by plants that formed shadowy shapes in the night. By the time he reached the porch, the front door had swung open.
“Joshua McCall, if you aren’t a sight for sore eyes.”
The woman standing behind the patched screen door, soft light glowing behind her, was tall and lean with a helmet of iron-gray curls framing a square-jawed face. She wore a short-sleeved yellow cotton dress that hit her midcalf.
“So are you.” Frowning at the snow-white cast on her right leg, he jogged up the porch steps, gripped the screen she held half open and dropped a kiss on her forehead. He couldn’t remember when he’d actually met the gregarious tavern owner and her late husband. They had just always been permanent fixtures during his summers at the lake. As had their two sons who had wreaked havoc with the McCall brothers.
“How’s your foot, Etta?”
“Healing too slow for my liking.” Her scowl emphasized the network of lines around her eyes and mouth. “Come in and sit, Joshua. I can use the company.”
“You’re sure it’s not too late?”
“Not for this night owl.” Leaning on a cane, she limped across the living room filled with furniture positioned on an earth-toned rug. Colorful candles and crocheted throws added to the room’s sense of comfort.
“Who’s this?” Josh asked, pausing to stroke a finger over the jet-black kitten curled on the recliner.
“Anthracite. She’s a stray who wouldn’t leave.”
“Especially after you fed her, I bet.”
“What else was I supposed to do? Poor thing was starving.”
Josh scratched behind one furry ear, and was rewarded with a purr. “You named her after coal?”
“Scotty did,” Etta said, referring to her youngest grandson. “When he saw the kitten, he decided she looked like the coal he’d learned about in science class.”
“Good call.” Leaving the kitten sharpening its claws on the recliner, Josh followed Etta along a hallway. When they neared the kitchen, he raised his chin. “Do I smell apple pie?”
“You do. I decided to bake tonight and just took the last of the pies out of the oven. Could be I had a premonition you’d show up, looking too thin for your own good.”
Blame that on his suspension, he thought.
He followed her into the kitchen, painted in soft yellow, its white-tiled countertops sparkling beneath the bright overhead light. “Have I told you I’m crazy about you?”
“Every time you want pie.” She waved him to the small metal table. “Have a seat and I’ll cut us some.”
“You sit.” Placing a hand on her bony shoulder, he nudged her to a chair. “Everything still in the same place?”
“Nothing’s changed.” Etta shifted a stack of mail to one corner of the table. “There’s tea in the refrigerator.”
Minutes later, he had slices of pie and glasses of iced tea on the table. Josh settled into the chair across from hers, lifted his fork and dug in. The warm pie