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A horn blared, and Luke spied Stephen behind the steering wheel of J.D.’s rig. A broad smile creased his face.
“Stephen, stop!” Tiffany said, shaking her head at her son. She turned back to Luke. “We really do have to run,” Tiffany said as J.D. managed to get his soon-to-be stepson to move to the back seat as he was still a few years too young to drive.
Luke waved and headed up the stairs. He tried not to think about Katie dressed up and looking for him at the reception, nor did he want to dwell too long on the thought of a couple making vows. He’d been down that road himself and had ended up being burned. Big-time. Good luck to Mason and Bliss. He wanted no part of it.
The carriage house was stuffy and hot, so he cracked the windows, opened a beer and settled into his recliner with the paper. The headline on page one caught his attention: Wells Mystery Deepens. Katie Kinkaid’s name was on the story. “Great,” Luke growled, taking a long swallow from his bottle. His eyes skimmed the article, and his jaw hardened. “Damned fool woman.”
There was no doubt about it; she was trying her best to get herself killed.
It’s none of your business, Gates. None.
“Hell.” He attempted to read the rest of the paper, but his mind kept straying back to Katie and her stubborn fixation on becoming some kind of hotshot ace reporter. In Bittersweet, Oregon. Fat chance. No wonder she wanted to jump feet first into this Isaac Wells mystery.
He drained his bottle, then slammed it down on a nearby table. Try as he might, Luke couldn’t forget the fact that she was getting crank calls and weird letters.
Dog-tired and irritated as all get-out, Luke slapped the copy of the Rogue River Review on to the table and shoved himself to his feet. Knowing he was about to make a huge mistake, he kicked off his boots and stormed into the bathroom.
He yanked off his T-shirt and dropped it on to the floor. What the devil was Katie thinking? Why did she insist upon stirring up trouble? Muttering under his breath about hardheaded career women who had more guts than brains, he twisted on the shower faucet and stripped out of his jeans.
In the past two days he’d half expected her to show up at his ranch again, half wanted it. Anytime he’d heard a rig slow at the end of the lane, he’d felt an unlikely rush of adrenaline, experienced a clenching in his gut, only to end up disappointed when she didn’t appear.
Whether he wanted to admit it or not, there was something about that little spitfire of a woman that got under a man’s skin—well, at least his skin.
“Man, you’ve got it bad, Gates.” Disgusted with that particular thought, he stepped under the shower spray and sucked in his breath. Hot water splashed against his chest and ran down his torso. As he scrubbed the dirt, sweat and smell of horse dung from his body, he told himself that Katie Kinkaid was off-limits. Way off-limits. She was the kind of woman who could turn a man’s head around, and he needed no part of that. None. And yet…
Annoyed, he scrubbed until the dirt under his fingernails had washed away, and all the lather that swirled down the drain was white. Wh
y did he care what Ms. Kinkaid did? It wasn’t as if she was someone special in his life. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t in his life at all. Heretofore he’d helped her out of a jam with her car and her kid, and had made the mistake of kissing her. She’d shown up on his doorstep asking about Dave. That was it. So what if she wrote articles about hermits who disappeared? Who cared that the man had decided to contact her? It wasn’t any of his business.
Oh, yeah? What if she’s the mother of Dave Sorenson’s kid? What then? It sure as hell is your business.
And he was bothered by Katie’s involvement in this Isaac Wells mess. The situation bordered on the bizarre. What if the old man was involved in something criminal or sinister? The police had been questioning Ray Dean, a local hoodlum who’d been in and out of prison for years. Though no connection had been made, there was speculation in town that the two men had known each other.
A lot of people had thought Isaac Wells was dead. Maybe even murdered.
Yeah, then who wrote Katie the letter?
That was what bothered him. Was the letter the real thing or some kind of grand hoax? Either way, he was worried.
Angrily he dried his hair with a towel, stepped in front of the foggy mirror and swiped at the glassy surface until he could see his reflection well enough to scrape off his five-o’clock shadow and run a comb through his hair. He’d suspected from the moment Katie had invited him that he would attend the wedding reception, but it galled him to think that he had no will where that woman was concerned. One curve of her lips, a tiny sparkle in her eye, a mocking lift of her eyebrow, and he found himself doing things he’d sworn to avoid.
“Damn.” He dressed in a white shirt and black slacks, then fingered a bolo tie only to discard it and slide into his best pair of boots. By the time he walked outside it was dusk, and the filmy clouds gathering over the moon were beginning to thicken. The air was hot and sultry without the slightest hint of a breeze, and yet he sensed a storm was brewing.
As he walked to his truck, he eyed the old Victorian house. It seemed strangely empty. No lights glowed in the windows, no kids ran in the yard, no angry guitar chords wailed from one of the upstairs rooms. Boxes were stacked on the porch—evidence that the Santini clan was moving out.
And Katie Kinkaid would be moving in. That thought made him edgy and restless. Living less than a hundred feet away from her was much too close. Though she probably needed a man to look out for her, he wasn’t a candidate. As he climbed into his truck he tried to take solace in the fact that he wouldn’t be here long. As soon as the electricity and phones were connected, he’d set up housekeeping at the ranch.
Oh, yeah? And then what? Are you just going to forget her and the fact that she’s wading into dangerous waters? Are you going to ignore the fact that you’d like nothing more than to kiss her until her knees went weak, peel off her clothes and make love to her until dawn? And what about the fact that Josh just might be Ralph Sorenson’s grandson? What the hell are you going to do about that?
His fingers tight on the wheel, he drove through town, past the church where Bliss Cawthorne had become Mrs. Mason Lafferty, and on to the old Reed Hotel. A tall three-story building with a Western facade, narrow windows and the original weathered siding, the Reed Hotel had once been a stagecoach stop. Now, after some remodeling and additions, it was the most elegant and historic inn anywhere near Bittersweet.
He handed his keys to a kid who didn’t look old enough to drive but was eager to park the truck, then headed inside. As if it were Christmas instead of early September, thousands of tiny lights winked in the branches of the trees and shrubbery that flanked the front porch. Again, he told himself, he had no business being here—none whatsoever—and yet he climbed the few steps to the open double doors.
Music filtered from within, and he didn’t have to pause at the front desk; he just followed the tinkle of laughter and buzz of excited conversation to a ballroom that was filled to the brim with the citizens of Bittersweet. A small band was playing a lively tune, and couples were already swirling around the floor.
He spotted Katie instantly. In a long blue dress with her red hair piled on to her head, she danced with a guy Luke didn’t recognize. Long-legged, with hawkish eyes and a smile that looked as phony as a three-dollar bill, Katie’s partner held her close. Too close. As if she were his personal possession. And Katie was eating it up. She talked and laughed, tilting her head back and flirting outrageously with the stranger. Her cheeks were flushed, her green eyes sparkling, her smile positively radiant. Luke’s gut twisted with something akin to jealousy, and he silently swore.
When offered a glass of champagne by a waiter dressed like an old stage hand, Luke accepted the drink and downed it in one long swallow. The room was crowded, the music a little loud, the room surprisingly stuffy and hot. With two fingers he pulled at his collar and told himself his claustrophobia was way out of line.
