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“Could be,” Libby says somberly, holding up the pages still in her hand. She’s flipped past her father’s handwritten notes on legal paper, and to those older parchment pages. “Because these other papers…looks like a few of the missing pages from Father Matthew’s journal.”
* * *
Today’s been a day for some serious goddamn revelations.
We’ve got a Martian rock worth murdering over, a priest’s confessions totally linking Ursa with its legendary bandits, and no frigging clue what to do about Declan until he shows his face again.
Blake suggests having someone post watch at the town to make sure Declan and his crew don’t start looting.
It’s not a bad idea.
Trouble is, who?
It’s one thing to ask Blake, Warren, Doc, and Leo to step in for quick things, but overnight guards are for single men—not married guys with children, businesses, and lives of their own.
Which basically leaves me and Alaska.
And I don’t want to leave Libby alone at night when those thugs might just come back.
Guess I’ll be owing my foreman free beer for life.
After Blake and Andrea leave, Libby and I sit in the living room, silent and facing each other across the L-shaped couch with the rock and the stacks of papers on the coffee table between us.
Libby presses her clasped hands against her mouth, her brows knitting. “I’m still not quite buying it. It’s just a freaking rock. It can’t be from Mars. And it can’t be…I mean, Dad loved astronomy, but he wouldn’t kill someone over a meteorite. He wasn’t that kind of guy.”
“I know he wasn’t,” I say, trying to keep my voice low, soothing. She’s had a rough enough day. “There’s got to be more than we’re seeing. Bostrom said he had buyers lined up from that note in the briefcase.”
“So something went sour between them.” She stares blankly at the table. “But what?”
“We’re not going to figure that out tonight, honey. No use in turning ourselves inside out until we’re stressed to death and still don’t have any answers.” I flash her a quick smile. “How do you feel about getting dressed up?”
“Huh?” Libby lifts her head, blinking at me quizzically.
“Well.” I drape my arms over my spread thighs, leaning across the table toward her and dropping my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Just so happens the Nortons are having a big shindig tonight. Half barn raising, half barn dance.”
It’s not hard to tell she’s locked up inside her own head. She’s staring at me like I’ve lost my mind. “And?”
I chuckle. “Libby Potter, I’m asking if you want to go out with me. We’ve been stressing over so much shit we’re fixing to give ourselves an aneurysm. You ask me, we both need to take our minds off it and shake loose. It’ll still be there in the morning to sort. Tonight, let’s get messy.”
It dawns on her slowly. Then her eyes glitter, wicked blue and bright as she leans back on one hand, throwing the tempting curves of her body into stark, enticing relief.
The worst part is, she doesn’t even know it.
“I take it,” she says, “you know about this barn dance because the Nortons’ twenty-one-year-old daughter invited you after your crew put up their new barn?”
“It’s a possibility,” I concede. “She didn’t tell me I couldn’t bring a date.”
“Because she was hoping to be your date. She’s too young to know not to mess with men like you,” Libby points out with a smirk.
“You, too?”
“Huh?”
“Are you too young to know not to mess with dudes like me?” I tease.
She leans forward, folding her arms over her thighs, drawing close to me across the coffee table.
Shit. It gives me a damn nice view down the plunging neckline of her tank top, distracting me with creamy tan lines against gold skin.
“That depends what you mean by ‘mess with,’” she drawls in a husky whisper. “’Cause I can promise you, Holt Silverton, I’m old enough to mess around plenty with any man I please.”
Those words stab lightning right through me.
The girl’s a grade A tease, I’ll hand her that.
While I’m staring, my mouth practically half open, she just pulls back with a pixie smile playing at her lips and stands. The switch of her hips draws my gaze down over that tight ass and those toned, pretty thighs as she heads for the stairs and the bedroom.
“Hope you’ve got something nicer than that to wear,” she throws back over her shoulder. “Even if we’re raising a barn, you shouldn’t dress like you were raised in one.”
I look down—another flannel over an undershirt, jeans. Typical work duds lately if I’m not in protective coveralls, but it does just fine for casual wear, too.
“What’s wrong with my outfit?” I ask.
“Nothing, if you’re mucking out stables,” she calls down, and I laugh.
“I can do that, if you want me to.”
