On Pins and Needles
Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

VICTORIA PADE

is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted chocolate lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. For information about her latest and upcoming releases, and to find recipes for some of the decadent desserts her characters enjoy, log on to www.vikkipade.com.

To Jill Megan Morian, acupuncturist extraordinaire.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 1

MEGAN BAILEY DOUBLE-CHECKED her treatment room to make sure everything was ready. Her muscle testing vials were in order and all ac counted for. The Soft Sounds Of Nature CD was in the CD player. There was a crisp sheet over her treatment table and she fluffed the pillow at the head of it just for good measure. Her needles were in the drawer of the corner cupboard where cotton balls and alcohol were also amply stocked. The dimmer on the light switch was working.

She was all set. All set for her first client in her new office. Hope fully the first of many. Not that she was expecting a sudden surge of business, because she wasn’t. She was realistic. She knew she was only breaking the ice in the small town and that it would take a while to build any kind of practice here.

After all, Elk Creek, Wyoming, was about as old fashioned, traditional, and conservative a small town as anyone could find anywhere. Which probably didn’t make it the wisest choice for a place to open an office for Megan to practice acupuncture and her sister Annissa to do massage therapy.

But Elk Creek was the site of the sole piece of property that the Bailey family owned—the twenty acres on which sat the old farm house Megan’s and Annissa’s maternal grandfather had built. It was also the place Megan and Annissa had lived for the longest amount of time—from birth until Megan was twelve and Annissa was eleven.

That made it seem like home. Like the place to come to when she and Annissa decided they wanted to finally put down roots.

So that’s what they’d done. They’d moved back to Elk Creek, into the old farm house that was costing them a fortune to get into livable condition, and they’d set up shop in this store front on Center Street.

But the office had been open for two weeks now and so far Annissa hadn’t had a single call for her services as a massage therapist and herbalist, and Megan’s days had been filled only with putting up posters and a single meeting with the town doctor to introduce herself, lay out her credentials and talk about the uses and success rates of acupuncture and how it might be applied in conjunction with Western medicine or when Western medicine failed. Particularly her specialty—allergy elimination acupuncture.

We knew it wouldn’t be easy, she reminded herself as she checked the clock on the wall and realized she had less than fifteen minutes until her appointment.

She and Annissa realized that introducing non-traditional forms of health care was bound to meet some resistance. But after being raised by two eternal hippie-flower children, neither Megan nor Nissa were unfamiliar with being considered out-of-the-norm weirdos and they were determined to make a go of it here no matter what.

And today could be the start of that, Megan thought. The start of establishing them selves in their old hometown. Especially since Megan’s appointment was with Josh Brimley.

She had only the vaguest memory of who he was. All she really recalled was that the Brimley family lived on a small ranch down the road from her family’s place and that there had been a lot of them. Six brothers, if she wasn’t mistaken.

She wasn’t sure in what order they came but she did know that Josh had not been in her grade in elementary school or in Nissa’s class one year behind hers. Nissa had known a Devon Brimley and Megan thought it was Scott Brimley who had been her age, but beyond that neither of them was sure where in the pecking order Josh Brimley fell. Or anything about him. Except that he was now Elk Creek’s sheriff.

Their paths hadn’t crossed in the three weeks Megan and Annissa had been in town but they were hoping that the very fact that he was the sheriff would carry some weight. Getting a man who held a respected public position to come in for acupuncture seemed like a good way to get word out that she and Nissa could provide valid services to the community.

At least that was what they were counting on and why Megan felt as if there was a lot riding on this single appointment, and why she’d accepted it for five o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.

When she was satisfied that she was prepared for her client, she left the treatment room and went into the bathroom to check her appearance. She wanted to make a good first impression so she’d opted for a loose cotton jumper that went nearly to her ankles and covered the white crew necked T-shirt she wore underneath it. She also had on her best clogs and her lucky bracelets—ten thin copper bracelets she wore on her left wrist.

A quick check in the mirror told her she looked all right but still she ran a brush through her hair until the pale-blond straight strands lay smoothly all the way to the blunt-cut ends that fell about six inches below her shoulders.

She didn’t wear makeup but she had used a henna mascara to darken her eye lashes so her blue eyes didn’t seem too washed out and she decided it didn’t need any freshening. She was also grateful that her skin had always been good—some thing she attributed to a healthy diet—and that her cheeks had a natural rosiness to them. It helped boost her confidence to see that she appeared fresh-faced even though she hadn’t really done anything since early that morning.

She did apply an organic moisturizing lip balm to add some gloss to her lips, and she blotted a bit of shine from her thin, straight nose before she judged herself pre sent able and went out to the desk she and Annissa shared in the waiting room of the office.

Not that they were sharing it at that exact moment. Nissa was doing free chair massages at a Ladies’ League meeting and potluck dinner—again in an effort to spark some interest in their services.

Two huge windows made up the waiting room’s front wall, leaving it exposed to the street and the street exposed to Megan as she sat behind her desk to gather together the packet of papers she would give the sheriff on his way out after their initial appointment. There were two articles—one explaining acupuncture in general and the other outlining the merits of allergy elimination acupuncture. There was also a brief biography that listed her education and experience, a pay schedule, and another sheet that touted Annissa’s services, along with coupons for a ten-percent discount on either an acupuncture treatment or a massage.

Megan tapped all the pages into line, added one of her cards and one of Annissa’s to the top left hand corner and stapled the whole packet together just as a rotund man who looked about her age paused outside.

She smiled at him through the window and he inclined his head, clad in a cowboy hat.

Was he Josh Brimley?

There wasn’t a badge of any kind in sight and he wasn’t wearing a uniform. At least not an officer-of-the-law uniform. Instead the man had on what seemed to be the uniform of Elk Creek—cowboy hat and boots, blue jeans and a Western shirt.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t the sheriff. And since he was lingering outside the door, Megan thought it was possible he might indeed be Josh Brimley. And that maybe he was having second thoughts. That maybe he wouldn’t come in at all without some encouragement.

But if that was the case, she wasn’t going to let him get away. So she got up and went to the door, opening it to smile again at the man with the hooked nose and the very small eyes as he took a flyer out of the basket she and Annissa had set out when they’d opened for business two weeks ago.

“Hi,” she greeted him warmly.

“’Lo,” came the gruff reply.

She held out her hand. “I’m Megan Bailey.”

The man looked from her out stretched hand to her face and back to her hand again before he accepted it. But he didn’t offer his name.

So Megan said, “You wouldn’t happen to be Josh Brimley, would you?”

The man gave her a look that said it was a dumb question. “No, I wouldn’t be. Name’s Burns,” he finally informed her.

“Ah. Well, I’m happy to meet you, Mr. Burns. Can I help you with anything or answer any questions you might have?”

“Wife’s curious about this hooey. Wanted me to bring ’er home somethin’ about it.”

Not a warm welcome or a hearty endorsement but Megan didn’t let it daunt her.

“You lookin’ fer the sheriff?” the man asked then. “’Cuz he’s down on the corner there, keepin’ an eye on this place.”

Mr. Burns’s tone was suspicious but it was the news that Josh Brimley was standing off in the distance, watching the office as if he were on a stakeout that really dismayed Megan. It didn’t seem like a good sign.

She glanced in the direction Mr. Burns had indicated with a pointing of his nearly nonexistent chin and discovered that there was, indeed, another man three doors down, leaning a shoulder against one of the many Victorian lamp posts that lined either side of Center Street, his hands in the pockets of a pair of tight blue jeans, one ankle crossed over the other.

But before she could decide how she should handle what appeared to be the sheriff’s reluctance to come any closer, Mr. Burns piped up in a louder voice and called, “Lady’s askin’ after ya, Josh.”

That news did not seem to please the other man.

In fact, even though his face was mostly lost in the shadow cast by the brim of his own cowboy hat, his jaw seemed to clench.

An even worse sign.

“That so?” he called back as if he didn’t have the foggiest idea why Megan might be inquiring about him.

That was when it occurred to her that he might have been waiting to come in for his appointment until the disparaging Mr. Burns moved on so that no one would see him.

So much for hopes of word getting around and having a man who held a respected public position as a client breaking the ice around here and helping to get her started. At that point, Mrs. Burns’s curiosity seemed more promising.

But as Megan stood there she thought that she had two choices. She could say some thing that would give Josh Brimley away and get the word out herself that he had an appointment with her, or she could respect what seemed to be his desire not to have that known and just hope that when her treatments were successful, he’d admit to having had them.

She opted for the second scenario and in a voice loud enough for him to hear, she said, “I was just hoping to have the sheriff check our locks for us at some point, for safety’s sake.” Then, only to Mr. Burns, she added, “I hope your wife will come in and see us.”

And with that, Megan turned on her heels and returned to her office, keeping her fingers crossed that Mr. Burns would finally be on his way and Josh Brimley would feel free to keep his appointment under the auspices of giving his stamp of approval to her office security.

Although she was beginning to worry that he might not keep the appointment at all. That he might just go the other way and be a no-show.

But her fears were un founded. After Mr. Burns had disappeared in the opposite direction and the coast was pre sum ably clear, in came Josh Brimley.

Megan was nonchalantly watering the fern in the corner of the waiting room when he did and it struck her almost instantly that even though the space was large, the sheriff seemed to fill it.

He was a big man, she realized as she set the watering can down and turned to face him. He was probably three inches over six feet tall, with shoulders so broad it was a wonder they’d fit through the door. He wore a pale-gray Western shirt tucked into his jeans and there didn’t seem to be an ounce of fat on him. Instead he was a tower of lean muscle in long legs, narrow hips and a waist that V’d sharply up to those massive shoulders.

But it wasn’t sheer size that was responsible for his command of the room. He had a kind of intangible presence that she thought would cause the phenomenon no matter what room he entered.

Then he took off his hat and Megan’s gaze went naturally to his face.

He was no pretty boy but he had rugged good looks in a face of perfect sharp angles and planes. Perfect enough to cause a little catch in Megan’s breathing as she took it all in.

His brow was square, his nose was straight, and his lips had an intriguing suppleness to them that made her want to see them slide into a smile. His well-defined jawline was shaded by the hint of a thick beard, and to top it all off, he had the most incredible midnight-blue eyes she’d ever seen.

With his hat in one large, adept hand he ran the other over the short bristles of hair the color of antique oak, leaving it slightly spiky on top before he leveled those amazing eyes on her.

And the oddest thing happened. Megan felt a buzzing intensity ripple through her almost as if he’d actually touched her.

Of course she ignored it, held out her hand the same way she had to Mr. Burns, and said, “In case you didn’t know, I’m Megan Bailey.”

But unlike Mr. Burns, Josh Brimley didn’t take his eyes off her face even as he accepted her hand.

“Josh Brimley,” he said unnecessarily in a voice as deep and rich as aged bourbon.

His hand was strong, callused and warm to the touch, and having it wrapped around hers did wild and wicked things to the pit of her stomach. But she ignored that, too, clearing her throat so that when she spoke again her own voice didn’t ring with the effects he was having on her.

“I don’t remember too many people from around here so I assume not too many of them remember me, either,” she explained. “I just thought it wouldn’t hurt to introduce myself.”

“My brother Scott remembers you and your sister from grade school, but I’m two years older than he is and I can’t say that I have much recollection of the two of you. I know your place, though. I was amazed to see anyone trying to live in it again. It’s gotten pretty rundown over the years.”

“Worse than we expected,” she con firmed. “When we decided to come back we thought the house would need a little paint, a little fixing up. But so far it’s needed a whole lot more than that. Today we’re having to put in a new septic tank. When we left this morning there was so much machinery in our backyard it looked like a construction site.”

“I can imagine,” he said, smiling just enough to cut creases down both cheeks and prove just how lithe those lips were. It also in creased the level of his hand some ness by another notch. If that were possible.

Megan gave herself a quick, silent talking-to about the inadvisability of letting herself be distracted by a client’s appearance and cut the chitchat to get down to business before she completely forgot herself and why he was here.

“When your secretary made the appointment—at least I assumed it was your secretary—”

“Millie. She’s the dispatcher and the post mistress, too,” he explained.

“Oh. Well, she said you’re suffering from an allergy that Dr. McDermot thought might benefit from acupuncture.”

“Mmm,” he answered noncommittally, glancing around at the waiting room. “And I’ll take a look at your locks, if you want, too.”

Megan had almost for got ten she’d said that only moments before outside. But now that he’d brought it up, she said, “I’m not really worried about the locks. It just seemed as if you might not be comfortable letting Mr. Burns know you were scheduled to come in for acupuncture so I thought I’d cover your tracks.”

The sheriff’s full eyebrows drew together at that. “I wasn’t worrying about who knew or what anybody thought. I just wasn’t sure I was going to actually do this,” he answered matter-of-factly. “No offense, but it just seems like some kind of hocus-pocus or voodoo or some thing. Not anything that could actually do me any good.”

“Ah, I see. I appreciate your honesty,” she said, not taking offense because it was a sentiment she’d been con fronted with before. “But if Dr. McDermot recommended me he must have told you that acupuncture can be effective.”

“He wasn’t all that convinced himself. But this damn—this allergy thing has just come up recently and the medicines he’s given me make me fuzzy-headed and too tired to think. I can’t have that on this job. So Bax thought I might as well give you a try.”

She couldn’t be sure but she thought there might be a bit of innuendo to the last part of that statement. Especially since the give you a try had come with the tiniest upward quirk to one side of his mouth. But once more she opted for pushing aside the idea and sticking to matters at hand.

“In other words, I’m the last resort,” Megan concluded.

“That’s about it.”

“And you think you’re wasting your time,” she finished what he seemed to have left unsaid. “That’s okay. You aren’t the first person I’ve had to prove myself to and I’m sure you won’t be the last.”

His very attractive mouth eased into another smile, as if he thought he’d gotten her goat and it pleased him.

Well, he hadn’t gotten her goat. And to show him, she put some effort into sounding more professional.

“Have you had allergy tests to isolate what you are and what you aren’t allergic to?” she asked.

“No, but I can pretty much tell. Horses and hay seem to trigger it. And since, besides being sheriff and being around them pretty much every where I go, I need to work the family ranch, I have to do some thing about it.”

“Which is why you’re here.”

He merely inclined his head to concede the point.

“I’ll need to do some testing of my own—” Megan held up her hand when he opened his mouth to protest. “Unlike what an allergy doctor would do, my way of testing is much easier and absolutely non-invasive. It’s simple muscle testing through applied kinesiology.”

“Whatever that is.”

“You’ll see as soon as we get started. But I need to isolate everything you’re allergic to. For instance, if you were allergic to bacon you might have a sensitivity to pork, or it might be the nitrates the meat is cured with that bother you. I’d have to know which it is before you could actually be cleared.”

“For takeoff?”

Okay, so he could make her smile and she liked that in a man, too. She still tried to maintain her perspective, though, by reminding herself that he thought she was a quack. “No, not cleared for takeoff. Cleared of the allergy. That’s what it’s called when I cure you,” she said with exaggerated bravado.

He caught it. “When you cure me. Do you do laying on of hands and faith healing, too?”

“No, just acupuncture.” And she was enjoying their back-and-forth teasing too much, so she amended her tone to a more authoritative one and said, “Shall we get started?”

But before he could answer, the front door opened suddenly to admit the contractor Megan had hired to replace her septic tank.

It surprised both Megan and Josh. Their focus on each other had been so intense that neither of them had seen him coming despite the fact that anything was hard to miss through the huge windows.

“Never thought I’d find you both in one place,” Burt Connors said by way of greeting. “Glad to see it, though. Saves me a trip.”

“Hi, Burt,” the sheriff answered as if they were old friends.

“Josh,” the excavator countered the same way.

“What’s up?”

Apparently Josh Brimley thought he should take over. But since Megan was still trying to figure out why her contractor had been looking for her and the sheriff, she guessed it was just as well.

“Got that old septic tank out and put in the new one,” Burt Connors informed them both. “But when we were coverin’ it up again we dug a little in another spot for fill dirt and found somethin’ else. Somethin’ that looks like sheriff business.”

“You found sheriff business in my backyard?” Megan said.

“Yes, ma’am. Looks like a skeleton. A human skeleton.”

“Are you sure it isn’t just an old family grave?” Josh asked reasonably.

“Sure enough. He’s not too deep, there’s no coffin and it looks like the guy was planted belongings and all. I think you better come take yourself a gander, Josh. And you, too, Ms. Bailey. This ain’t no kind of formal buryin’. I’m bettin’ we’ve opened up somethin’ somebody thought would never come to light.”

Josh Brimley turned those dark, dark blue eyes to Megan again, this time from beneath one raised brow. “Anything you’d like to tell me?”

“Only that I don’t have the foggiest idea what’s going on.”

But he didn’t look completely convinced of that as he led the way out of her office.

Chapter 2

THE OCCASIONAL CAR ACCIDENT. Reckless driving. Speeding. Mailbox bashing. Minor vandalism. Cattle tipping. Drunk and disorderly conduct. Brawling. A break-in here and there—in the history of Elk Creek that was as bad as it got in the way of crime. Until now.

It was a little hard for Josh to believe that only three months into his run as sheriff he was looking at what seemed to be a murder. But it didn’t take him long after reaching the Bailey place and looking over what had been un earthed to realize that could well be just what he was con fronted with.

“I’ve put up the crime scene tape to cordon off the area. Your men can work around it,” he told Burt Connors when he had the burial site contained.

Chaos reined supreme in the Bailey backyard since Burt insisted that he and his crew had to finish up their work so the Bailey sisters would have use of their plumbing facilities by night fall. And although Josh was fairly certain curiosity in what that same crew had uncovered was the real reason behind their lingering, he didn’t object. He had work of his own to do as he used a whisk broom to care fully and methodically brush away the soil that remained partially obliterating the skeleton so that the entire grave and its contents were visible.

Josh had trained with the Wyoming sheriff’s department and he knew all the procedures, including those for a crime of this magnitude. He knew the procedures by heart. But a murder investigation was the last thing he’d ever expected to actually have to do in his small hometown.

Of course he should have known better than anyone that not many things turned out the way a person expected them to. But still, it was a sobering job that lay ahead of him.

Daylight had disappeared by the time Josh backed away from the freshly cleared hole, confident that he’d done all he should do on his own for the moment. But he did avail himself of Burt Connors’s offer of floodlights to illuminate the area and then hunkered down on his heels at the grave side to get a closer look at what he’d actually exposed while he waited for the sheriff’s department’s forensic team.

Along with the bones that had been discovered, there was a knapsack and the clothes the victim had worn. The clothes were non de script, the same kind of clothes he and most everyone else around these parts wore—a plain shirt, blue jeans, cowboy boots.

The sole of one of the cowboy boots was down to its last layer of leather and the fact that there was a tear in one knee of the jeans and the shirt was thread bare around the edges led him to believe this hadn’t been a prosperous man. Josh was betting that when they got into the knapsack that rested along side the skeleton, they’d find all his worldly goods contained in it.

The knapsack itself was a well-worn canvas bag and, although Josh was careful not to disturb anything so that the scene would be intact for the forensics unit, there was a local news pa per sticking out far enough for him to read the date without touching anything. It was a June news pa per. Eighteen years old.

After his arrival on the scene and his initial look into the grave Josh had radioed Millie Christopher—the woman Megan Bailey had referred to as his secretary—and had Millie look for any missing persons reports that might be on file at the office.

Millie said she’d look, but she knew for a fact that in the entirety of her thirty-eight years as the sheriff’s girl-Friday, the only missing persons case there had ever been was a teenage girl who had turned out to be a runaway in 1982.

So much for hoping for an easy lead.

The forensics unit arrived then and Josh met them at their van, introducing himself and filling them in as he took them to the site. Once they got to work he was left to stand by and oversee their first few chores—taking pictures of the scene from all angles, and closely ob serving and describing in notes the placement of everything. Nothing could be moved until that was accomplished.

Within moments of the arrival of the forensics unit, two state patrol cars showed up, too. The officers had heard over their radios what was going on and had come to see if they could help. They couldn’t, but they stayed around anyway, adding to the number of on lookers. One of whom, of course, was Megan Bailey.

Her sister hadn’t returned yet but Megan had set up a card table with beverages and bran muffins for anyone who might want them.

Josh was tempted to shout over to her “What do you think this is? A tea party?”

But he refrained. It wasn’t as if she appeared to be enjoying this because she didn’t. On a rational level, Josh knew she was only being consider ate of everyone’s comfort. But still, just having her there—even out of the way beside her back door—was damn distracting.

At least it was damn distracting to him.

No one else seemed to pay her much mind beyond quick trips to the table to accept her hospitality before getting right back to work. But for Josh it was a different story.

Here he was, in the middle of some thing as big as a potential homicide and his thoughts—and eyes—kept wandering to Megan Bailey.

She’s a flake, he told himself impatiently. Allergy elimination acupuncture—that was how she made her living, for crying out loud. With a gazillion bracelets on one wrist and those nutty-looking wooden clogs on her feet instead of regular shoes. A flake. That’s what she was all right.

It didn’t matter if she had gleaming blond hair that was so silky and flawless that even the flood lights made it seem to glow. It didn’t matter that she had skin like porcelain or high cheek bones the color of summer roses. It didn’t matter that she had a small, sculpted nose or lips that gave off the sensuality of a siren. It didn’t matter that she had a perfect, compact little body with just enough up front to make a man wonder. And it sure as hell didn’t matter that she had long-lashed doe-eyes the pale color of cream stained by blue berries.

The only thing that mattered was that she was a flake. A flake with a body buried in her backyard.

And even if she hadn’t had a body in her backyard, she was not the kind of woman he should be distracted by.

He’d learned his lesson the hard way. Taught in painful detail by an off-the-wall woman. He definitely didn’t want anything to do with another one.

Plain, down-to-earth females—those were the only kind he intended to give a second look, and Megan Bailey was a long way from that.

So why was he standing there, watching her open a soda can for the lead forensic investigator and noticing how delicate her hands were? Why was he straining for a look at her shape through the gossamer draping of her dress when he should be straining for a look at his crime scene? Why was he memorizing the way her hair fell around her shoulders rather than memorizing every word that passed from one forensic investigator to the other? And why on God’s green earth was he paying more attention to a detail like her earlobe and the sweet spot just below it than to the details of his own job?

He didn’t know why. He only knew that even though he felt as if he was being derelict in his duties, he still couldn’t tear his eyes off her….

“I think we can start to move ’im out, see if there’s anything important underneath ’im, and get everything to the lab now.”

The head of the forensic team’s voice yanked Josh’s attention away from Megan and his confused reveries, and back to what he was supposed to be concentrating on.

“Anything you can tell me yet?” he asked.

“Not much. So far there’s no obvious indication of cause of death—like a bashed-in skull. But these are hardly optimum working conditions. Hope fully we’ll be able to tell more at the lab and won’t need a forensic anthropologist. There are only a handful of those in the whole country. For now the best I can do is put the time of death at June, eighteen years ago.”

“Yeah, I saw the date on the news pa per, too.”

The team leader shrugged. “You probably already guessed it’s the skeleton of a man, too, from the clothes. I’d say he was in his midfifties. Probably Caucasian. Not well-off. We haven’t gotten into the knapsack yet, could be some thing in there will tell us more.”

Josh nodded. “Just let me know as soon as you find anything out.”

“Your case. You’ll be the first.”

The septic tank crew seemed to have finished up, too, because they were clearing out as Burt Connors stood talking to Megan Bailey at the card table. Josh crossed to them and drew both glances.

“Find anything out?” Burt asked without preamble.

“Not yet. But I’m going to need a few preliminary questions answered,” Josh said, aiming the statement at Megan.

“Can we do it inside? It’s getting kind of chilly out here,” she responded, crossing her arms over her middle to rub them with those long-fingered hands he’d been watching before.

Some thing caught in Josh’s throat at the sight, and what he really wanted to do was put his arms around her and warm her up himself….

He nixed that idea in a hurry, wondering where the hell it had come from in the first place.

Then he said, “Yeah, no matter how nice the days are this time of year, April nights cool off plenty. If you can’t take it, go ahead in. I’ll be there as soon as everybody out here is gone.”

Megan’s eyebrows rose slightly at the gruff ness in his tone but he couldn’t worry about that. She didn’t have to like him. He didn’t want her to like him. As far as he was concerned she was part of a murder investigation and that was it.

Josh turned back to the excavation site then. And as he retraced his steps he told himself to use this time before he went in to question Megan Bailey to get a handle on whatever this was that was going on with him.

She’s a flake, he repeated to himself as a reminder of why he had no business noticing the things he’d been noticing about her, or thinking the things he’d been thinking about her. Why he should know better than to notice those things or think those things.

But neither the fact that he considered her a flake nor the fact that she might be involved in some way with a murder, kept him from wishing the state patrolmen, Burt Connors’s crew, and the forensics team would hurry up and clear out of there.

Because the sooner they did, the sooner he could get back to Megan Bailey.

And be alone with her again….

Megan sat in her kitchen, trying to sort through what had happened today.

There was no denying that returning to Elk Creek had been fraught with complications. The house had been in such disrepair. Worse than room after room of cobwebs, four broken windows, and a need for new paint inside and out, there had been problems with the electrical wiring, old appliances that had refused to come out of retirement, and the need for a whole new septic system.

Not only had she and Nissa had to do all the home repairs they could possibly do them selves, they’d also had to set up their office on top of it—complete with more cleaning and painting and furniture moving—because they hadn’t been able to afford to hire help.

Certainly clients hadn’t been clamoring to their door and they hadn’t been met with a warm reception.

And now this.

Someone was buried in the backyard? Megan didn’t know what to make of that. Especially when Josh Brimley turned officious and contrary on her. As if she’d had some thing to do with it.

Did he think she and her sister had brought the skeleton with them and planted it behind the house for fun? Or maybe he thought it was part of some hocus-pocus or voodoo ritual since that’s what he considered the practice of acupuncture.

Well, fine. It was good to know from the start what kind of man he was. That he was not the kind of man she would ever allow to get close to her again. The next man she let into her life was going to be accepting and tolerant and receptive. He was going to be open-minded, liberal, enlightened and unbiased.

In short, he wasn’t going to be anything like Noel.

And so far, Josh Brimley seemed a whole lot more like Noel than not.

Hocus-pocus and voodoo, Megan thought, taking offense now to what she hadn’t taken offense to when he’d said it earlier. And that facetious, if you can’t take it…

As if she should stay standing out in the chilly night air as punishment. As if, under the circumstances, she didn’t deserve to come in out of the cold.

He might be incredible to look at, but now she knew what was under the surface—he wasn’t just a skeptic who could be won over to the idea that there were viable alternatives in the world, to the fact that not everyone had to be a carbon copy of everyone else. He wasn’t a person who could learn to appreciate diversity. He was judgmental, close-minded, and suspicious. Suspicious of her, of all things.

Megan had worked up quite a head of steam by the time the knock came on the back door just then.

“Yes,” she called in a clipped tone that lacked all welcome.

And when Josh Brimley opened the door and stepped inside, she didn’t stand to greet him and she absolutely refused to offer him some thing to drink to warm up—like a cup of the spice tea she’d fixed herself.

But what she did do—much to her own dismay—was become instantly aware all over again that he was jaw-droppingly handsome and brought with him a heady, primitively sensual masculinity that alerted everything female inside her.

Not that she was going to let that make any difference to her. Now that she knew what he was made up of.

“I need a few questions answered,” he informed her bluntly as he closed the door behind him.

“So you said,” Megan answered in the same stern voice he was still using on her.

“Mind if I sit down?” he asked, pointing with a nod of his head to the chair around the corner from her at the square oak table her father had made by hand.

“Suit yourself,” was Megan’s curt reply.

But for some reason, her response seemed to amuse him. He was fighting it, but a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth just the same.

“Are we getting defensive here?” he asked then.

“Since you seem to want to treat me like some kind of criminal, I guess we are, yes.”

He shot a glance at the wrist of the hand she was using to grasp her teacup and said, “I don’t see any hand cuffs and I haven’t hauled you into the station. How am I treating you like a criminal?”

“Your attitude.”

“My attitude. My attitude is that I’ve just found a body buried in your backyard and I have some questions about it. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”

“I haven’t lived here since I was twelve years old. What do you expect me to know about it?”

“Twelve years old, huh? My brother Scott is thirty and he was in your class in elementary school. That’d mean you and your family moved away eighteen years ago, right?”

“Has the interrogation begun?”

That made him chuckle. Clearly at some point he’d begun to enjoy himself.

“I don’t think this could be considered an interrogation. But that is one of my questions, yeah.”

“Eighteen years ago—yes, that’s when my family left Elk Creek,” she supplied what was no secret. “What month?”

“June. Right after school let out for the summer.”

“What do you remember about that time?”

Megan rolled her eyes. “This is just silly.”

“Humor me,” he suggested, his tone cajoling now.

She took a deep breath and decided it wasn’t going to do anyone any good to go on being hostile. Besides, Josh Brimley was getting too much pleasure out of it and she didn’t want to contribute to that.

So, after a sigh, she said in a calmer tone, “What I remember about June, eighteen years ago, is that I didn’t want to leave. That my parents had turned an old school bus into a mobile home so we could live on the road going from one cause to another because they’d decided that being here was basically living with their heads in the sand and they couldn’t go on doing that when there were so many social and environmental in justices that needed to be ad dressed. They wanted to be active, not passive, and that meant not staying in Elk Creek.”

“How about the exact month you left? Do you remember anyone being around besides your mother and father?”

“My sister.”

“Anyone besides your mother, father and sister?” he amended.

“No.”

“Think about it.”

“I don’t have to think about it. I don’t remember anything except not wanting to go.”

Josh Brimley’s navy-blue eyes stayed on her, as if he knew better and would stay in a stare-down with her until she told him the truth. But that was the truth—she didn’t recall anything but being miserable at the thought of leaving her home to live in a bus and be taught by her mother rather than staying in one place and going to school like everyone else.

Maybe her continuing silence finally convinced Josh that she didn’t have any more to say on the matter because after a few moments he seemed to decide to make an attempt at sparking her memory rather than merely waiting her out.

“What about friends your parents might have had or maybe an uncle or a cousin? Do you remember anyone like that being around?”

“Neither of my parents have a brother and even if they did, both their families steer clear of them because they think my folks are lunatics. And as for friends, what I do remember was that there weren’t a lot of people around Elk Creek who my parents were close enough to to call friends. Their friends then and now are other people like them.”

“Okay, they didn’t have a lot of friends around town—that’s one thing more that you’ve remembered than you had a minute ago. Keep thinking about it. Did they maybe have a visit from a friend from some where else? Maybe who was here and then gone just before you left?”

“I don’t remember anyone. It was a long, long time ago. Do you remember who might have been around your house when you were twelve? Who your parents hung out with? Go ahead, June, eighteen years ago—tell me what you remember about it.”

Josh held up both hands, palms outward as if to ward off an attack. “Okay, point taken,” he conceded.

“Finally,” Megan said on another sigh.

“But I’m going to need to talk to your folks,” he said then.

“I know you’ll probably see this as my being uncooperative,” she prefaced. “But talking to my folks is easier said than done. They’re on board a ship off the coast of Peru trying to stop the dumping of waste solvents. It isn’t as if I can just pick up the phone and reach them.”

“How can they be contacted?”

“There’s a number I can call to have word sent out to the ship and then my parents will have to contact me when they can.”

“Then that’s what you’ll have to do.”

Just like that, Megan thought. He gave the order and she was supposed to follow it.

But she’d had a lifetime of role models who bucked authority at every turn and it wasn’t easy for her not to follow in those same shoes. Some thing about just the way he’d given the order made her feel contrary.

“I don’t see why I should have to bother them,” she said. “My parents didn’t have anything to do with whatever happened here any more than I did.”

“There’s someone buried in your backyard,” Josh said with forced patience, explaining the obvious and then adding to it. “And in the grave, along with the skeleton, is a news pa per dated June, eighteen years ago. That puts the time of death at the exact month, the exact year that your parents high tailed it out of town. Those are a whole lot of reasons why I need to talk to them.”

“They didn’t hightail it out of town. They left because of a strong social con science and a belief that they could make a difference in the world. Nowhere in that are they the kind of people who would bring harm to another human being, let alone bury them in their backyard and hightail it out of town.”

“Even good people can do bad things under certain conditions, Megan.”

She tried not to like the way her name sounded being said by that deep voice of his for the first time.

“My parents don’t do bad things under any conditions. They wouldn’t even hurt a fly. In fact, if one gets indoors, they chase it around until they can catch it in a cup and set it free outside. They’ve pro tested for the rights of people who are being abused or neglected or treated in any way unfairly. They’re against doing bad things.”

“I under stand that it’s impossible to believe the worst of your own family. But the fact is, someone was buried in your backyard at the same time your parents opted to take to the road. Now that may be circumstantial, it may be purely coincidental, but I’ll still need to talk to them about it.”

“Without condemning them with premature conclusions,” she said as if it were a condition she was applying.

“I’m not condemning anyone and I don’t have any premature conclusions. I’m just beginning at the be ginning.”

She couldn’t refute that reasoning, even though the contrary part of her still wanted to. Besides, she knew when she’d lost a fight.

But that didn’t mean she was just going to roll over without getting a little some thing in return.

So she said, “Say please.”

“Say please?” he repeated, sounding partially amused again and partially in disbelief of what he was hearing.

Then he leaned across the corner of the table, putting his extraordinarily handsome face within inches of hers. They were almost nose to nose and he was near enough for her to smell the lingering scent of his after shave and a sweet ness on his breath as he said, “In case it’s escaped you, I’m the law around here. I don’t have to say please when it comes to this. If you don’t do what I tell you to do I can charge you with obstruction and put your little fanny in jail.”

Megan angled her chin upward in answer.

It was an act of defiance. But what she hadn’t factored in was that that act of defiance also accidentally put her mouth in close proximity to his. So close that it suddenly occurred to her that he could kiss her without much more effort.

And the trouble with that realization was that once it was there in her head, it left her unable to think about anything else.

Until she reminded herself that they were in the middle of a tug-of-war.

“Say please anyway,” she insisted.

Josh smiled. A slow, lei surely smile that was oh-so-sexy and made her wonder if he’d just read her thoughts.

Or maybe he was on the verge of arresting her and looking forward to it.

Then he said, “Please,” in a husky whisper that gave her goose bumps.

She rubbed her arms as if she’d caught another chill, worried that he might see the goose flesh.

“I’ll do what I can,” she finally conceded as if she didn’t have a single other thing on her mind.

But Josh didn’t back away even after he had her word. He stayed leaning across the table.

And the longer he did, the more those thoughts of kissing gained strength. Strength and potency and vivid ness as she began to wonder what it might be like to have him actually do it. To have him kiss her…

Then, abruptly, Josh stood and went to the door.

Megan didn’t move to follow him, to walk him out, because she was struggling to regain the equilibrium she seemed to have lost in those thoughts of him kissing her.

“I’ll need to talk to your parents right away so make sure you get on it ASAP. Please,” he added with the hint of yet another smile.

“I’ll put in the initial call tonight,” she told him without a fight this time because she was locked in her own internal battle against this wholly in appropriate and unwarranted reaction to the man.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”

Oh great, now she was thinking about him touching her, too….

Megan managed a nod as she watched his big hand close around the knob to open the door again.

Then, as if he’d just had a flash of memory, he said, “Don’t do anything to the grave site. I’ll need clearance from forensics before it can be tampered with or filled in.”

Once more Megan nodded, not speaking as she marveled at all he was still inspiring in her even now.

He hesitated a moment as if he had something else to say. But in the end he went out the way he’d come in, closing the door behind him and leaving Megan alone in the kitchen again.

When she was, she breathed another sigh, this one a deep sigh of relief to be out from under the powerful effects of his presence.

And that was when rational thought kicked in again.

Was there anything dumber than getting carried away by a man who not only thought she was some kind of oddity, but who also seemed to think her parents were capable of some thing as awful as killing someone? she asked herself.

No, there wasn’t anything dumber than that.

But that’s what had just happened, hadn’t it? In the middle of him questioning her and trying to find information that in criminated her family, she’d been imagining Josh Brimley kissing her. Josh Brimley who had accused her of practicing hocus-pocus and voodoo.

It was worse than dumb. It was insane.

And it wasn’t going to happen again, she told herself firmly.

Josh Brimley was not just some nice guy she’d met in passing. In a way he was the enemy and she’d better not lose sight of that fact.

She’d better not lose sight of what kind of man he was.

Because while she might have faith that she could win over Elk Creek’s citizens to the benefits of acupuncture, she knew better than to put any effort whatsoever into trying to convince a man who viewed her as an oddity that that wasn’t what she was. And when that man also suspected her parents of a horrible crime on top of it, she really knew he was someone to stay away from.

The trouble was, loitering around the edges of her mind was the last view she’d had of Josh Brimley walking out the door.

The view of a rear end to die for.

And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake off her appreciation of that….

Chapter 3

“WHEN’RE YOU GONNA DO somethin’ ’bout them allergies, boy?”

Josh held up his hand in acknowledgement of his mother speaking to him as he sneezed three more times. Merely walking into the kitchen the next morning and being in the proximity of the mudroom where his brothers hung their work coats was enough to send him into a paroxysm of sneezing.

When it finally subsided, he said, “I don’t have the time to do some thing about it now.”

He hadn’t told even his mother about his appointment the previous day with Megan Bailey and her needles. And certainly now there were more important issues that needed to be dealt with.

“You got in awful late last night and you’re up even earlier than usual this mornin’,” Junebug observed then, as Josh poured himself a cup of coffee. She sat at the kitchen table with her own mug and the romance novel she read a few pages of each day since she was up before the news pa per arrived.

“Something’s happened,” Josh answered as he joined her. Then he went on to explain the discovery of the grave on Megan Bailey’s property.

When he’d given his mother all the details—except for the fact that he’d been about to undergo acupuncture when Burt Connor had found him—Josh said, “Anything you remember about the Baileys from way back?”

Apparently there was, because Junebug turned down the corner of one page in her book and closed it as if she knew she wasn’t going to be reading any more of it.

“Not likely to forget those people,” she told Josh then. “They weren’t like anybody else around these parts.”

“I know they’re environmentalists,” he supplied.

“If that’s what you call it. Most folks called it rabble-rousin’ and trouble-makin’ and worse. They turned that farm of theirs into one of them communes for a while before they had kids. There were rumors of free love and drug-takin’ and who knows what all goin’ on.”

“Really?” Josh said, interested to hear what his mother was saying. “What happened after they had kids?”

“No more communal livin’ with the slew of long-haired, smelly sorts they had there before. But even after that they’d let just any passerby into their house. It’s one thing to be neighborly and friendly and hospitable to folks if you know ’em or if you know somebody else who knows ’em. But the Baileys, they’d take in vagabonds and riffraff, anybody.”

“Do you remember anyone like that in particular? Around eighteen years ago?”

Josh’s mother was an enormous woman—six feet tall and three hundred pounds. Her hair was pure white and she wore it pulled into a bun on the top of her head, leaving every inch of her meaty face exposed for the look she gave her son that said he was out of his mind.

“Do I remember who might have been hangin’ around the Bailey place eighteen years ago? ’Course not. It wasn’t like I visited with ’em. They alienated them selves from folks around here.”

“How did they do that?”

“Mostly by not eatin’ meat.”

“A lot of people don’t eat meat,” Josh pointed out, suppressing a smile at his mother’s horror at the very notion.

“Not back when they were around. But even then nobody woulda cared what they ate or didn’t eat except that they made it known that they objected to the raisin’ of animals for food. That didn’t make ’em popular in ranch country. Plus they picketed around town and made more’n one scene at Margie Wilson’s Café and over at the Dairy King. Then there was some vandalizing of the slaughter house that every body knew had to be them even though the sheriff at the time couldn’t prove it.”

Junebug paused a moment, as if some thing had just occurred to her.

Amidst more sneezing, Josh hoped for a breakthrough, some flash of memory about someone or something that had gone on at the Bailey place eighteen years ago.

But that wasn’t what he got. Instead his mother said, “Come to think of it, it doesn’t really fit that they’d be involved in hurtin’ a person when they were so set against any harm comin’ to any livin’ thing. They thought eatin’ an egg was a crime against nature.”

“That’s what their daughter says about them, too.”

“Pretty girls, those Bailey daughters. I saw ’em in town the other day. Which of ’em were you talkin’ to?”

“Megan. The one Scott knows.”

“The acupuncture one?”

“Yeah.”

That’s all he said—yeah. And some thing about it was enough to raise his mother’s bushy white eyebrows.

“What about the other one? Did you do any talkin’ to her?” Junebug asked as if she were testing him.

“I didn’t meet the other one. She didn’t come home the whole time I was at their place overseeing the removal of the evidence.”

“But you liked the acupuncture one well enough.”

It was a statement of fact, not a question, and even though Josh was a grown man his mother still surprised him with how easily she could see through him.

“I didn’t find anything to dislike about her,” he answered, making sure to sound completely noncommittal. “But my job isn’t to like or dislike her. My job is to find out how and why someone was buried in her backyard eighteen years ago, the same month her family moved out of Elk Creek.”

A slow, knowing grin spread across Junebug’s face. “Oh, you liked ’er all right.”

Josh just rolled his eyes and forced the subject back to the matters at hand. “What about anybody around here disappearing suddenly, eighteen years ago? Do you remember anything like that? Maybe someone connected with the slaughter house? Or to some thing else the Baileys were opposed to?”

“Nah.” Junebug confirmed what Millie had told him the night before about the lack of missing persons cases in town. “Besides, if somethin’ like that had ever happened ’round here there’d still be talk and you’d of heard it already yourself.”

That was true enough. Stories in Elk Creek were told over and over through generations.

“But if the Baileys took in passers-by,” Josh reasoned, “there could have been someone there who no one else knew or took notice of. Or would have thought twice about when they weren’t around anymore.”

“S’pose so. Here today, gone tomorrow, there were a lot of folks like that with the Baileys. But then there’s always been ranch hands or crop-pickers who’ve come in and left again without much ado. It’s just that the Baileys were the only ones to open their doors to even the disreputable sorts who happened through.”

Josh nodded, taking a mental note of the picture his mother was painting of the Baileys and realizing that it didn’t make his job any easier.

Then he said, “And there isn’t anything else you can think of that might help?”

Junebug shrugged her beefy shoulders. “Sorry.” Then, as if that were far less important than the interest she thought her son had in Megan Bailey, she said, “Maybe you ought to try that acupuncture for your allergy.”

Josh pre tended that was the farthest thing from his mind.

“Couldn’t hurt,” Junebug persisted.

“Having needles stuck in me? What about that do you think couldn’t hurt?” he scoffed.

“They say it’s painless.”

“Who says?”

“I’ve just heard. Besides, you could stare into that Megan Bailey’s pretty face and I’ll bet you wouldn’t even feel the pain.”

“I have an investigation into an eighteen-year-old crime on my hands. I don’t have time for whatever it is you’re tryin’ to encourage here.”

“Investigatin’ a body in her backyard’ll give you the chance to see ’er. Talk to ’er. Get to know ’er. Havin’ her do acupuncture, that would be another way. You keep to yourself too much ever since Farrah did wrong by you. Time you get out there again.”

Josh finished his coffee and took his cup to the sink. “I think for now I’ll just tend to business, if that’s all right with you.”

Junebug didn’t say another word as Josh suffered through one more sneezing attack.

But once it was over and he headed out of the kitchen to get to work, he caught her smiling that knowing smile again.

Only this time it irritated him to no end.

“How did a Ladies’ League meeting and dinner turn into some thing that kept you out so late I fell asleep waiting for you?” Megan asked her sister Annissa when Annissa got out of bed at eight the next morning and came into the kitchen where Megan was having tea and toast.

“Didn’t you get the message I left on the answering machine?” Nissa countered with a question of her own.

“I got it but all you said was you’d had a good response to the chair massages and didn’t know when you’d get here. What exactly does that mean? The Ladies’ League had you doing chair massages until after midnight?”

Nissa laughed as she made herself a cup of herbal tea. “No, but I was a big hit there. So big that Kansas Heller suggested that if I was interested in drumming up even more business I should take the chair to her husband’s honky-tonk one night and do a few free massages there, too. You know, The Buckin’ Bronco, over by the train station? She said I’d be introducing the massages to a whole different con tin gent and broaden my customer base. I thought she was right and that I should strike while the iron was hot, so when she offered to take me over right then, I accepted.”

“And you were a big hit there, too,” Megan guessed.

“I handed out every card and coupon I had with me and then started writing our office phone number and the ten-percent-off deal on bar napkins. And all the while I talked about the good acupuncture can do, too. I know it was unconventional but I really think I drummed up some business yesterday and last night.”

“Great.”

Nissa moved to the kitchen sink to set the tea ball in it to drain just as Megan said, “I had a pretty amazing night myself.”

“What in the world…”

Nissa wasn’t commenting on what Megan had said. Megan knew that her sister had just caught sight of the crime scene tape around the hole that stood between the house and the dilapidated barn out back. It was the opening Megan had been waiting for and she finally filled Nissa in on the events of the previous evening.

When she’d finished, she said, “Do you remember anything unusual about the time just before we left here? Anything that might help identify who the man was or what happened to him?”

Nissa shrugged and shook her head at once. “No. I remember the two of us crying because we didn’t want to go and not liking the idea of living on a bus, but that’s about all. It was a long time ago.”

“My point exactly! But Josh Brimley refuses to see that.”

“And he’s convinced Mom and Dad had some thing to do with whatever happened?” Nissa asked, referring to that portion of what Megan had told her.

“So convinced that if they were here now I think he’d have them locked up already,” Megan confirmed.

“That’s just crazy. They wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“Also what I told him. His only answer was that it’s hard for people to believe the worst of their family.”

“That’s true, but still, Mom and Dad wouldn’t hurt a flea, let alone another human being.”

“Josh Brimley isn’t going to take your word any more than he took mine.”

“Did you put the call in to Peru?” Nissa asked as she came to sit at the table with Megan, in the same chair Josh Brimley had occupied the evening before.

The same chair Megan had spent too much time this morning staring at and picturing him in the night before. All handsome and muscular…

And suspicious. Don’t lose sight of that, she told herself.

“I called the number the folks gave us if we needed to reach them,” Megan said when she’d leashed her thoughts. “But there’s no telling how long it will take to get the message out to them and arrange long-distance ship-to-shore contact. The person I spoke to warned me that it could be days.”

“I don’t suppose the sheriff will be happy to hear that.”

“You can bet on it.” Of course he had shown a little pleasure in certain things the previous evening, but none of them had had to do with being denied his requests or a delay in doing his bidding.

“Had you done his acupuncture before all this happened?” Nissa asked then.

“No, he was in the process of telling me that he thought it was hocus-pocus or voodoo or some thing.”

“Ah, he’s one of those.”

“It didn’t bother me at first. I thought he was just being honest about his skepticism, and that I’d win him over. But later… Well, he made me mad with his barely veiled accusations of Mom and Dad, and I changed my mind.”

Nissa laughed. “It bothered you belatedly?”

“Some thing like that. But by then everything about him bothered me.”

“Oh?” There was a lilt in her sister’s tone that made Nissa seem more interested in that than in anything else they’d been talking about. “What else about him bothered you?”

“His tunnel-vision. His close-mind ed ness. The fact that he has a basketful of preconceived notions about me and acupuncture and our whole family—including that Mom and Dad could be murderers, of all things. He’s definitely what I swore to myself I’d never get involved with again after Noel, that’s for sure.”

“Were we talking about you getting involved with him?”

“No, I’m just saying—”

“But obviously the thought occurred to you.”

Her sister knew her too well and Megan realized there was no sense in denying that the vague thought of some fleeting kind of involvement with Josh Brimley had flitted through her mind.

“Okay, maybe, just in passing,” she conceded. “He’s a great big, good-looking guy. It would have occurred to anyone.”

“So you were attracted to him.”

“I wouldn’t say attracted, no. I just did some objective observation.”

“And came to the conclusion that he was a great big, good-looking guy,” Nissa repeated, teasing her now.

“That’s not a conclusion I needed to come to. It’s an empirical fact.”

“An empirical fact that you took note of.”

“Do you want to talk about the problems this man is determined to cause us or about his appearance?”

“Maybe you could flirt us out of problems with him,” Nissa joked.

“You definitely don’t know Josh Brimley.” Although there had been some flirting going on in the under currents.

Or had she only imagined it? Maybe at the same time she’d been imagining him kissing her…

“This is serious, Nissa,” Megan claimed as if her own mind hadn’t just wandered from the weightiness of the situation. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to take it lightly.”

Nissa shrugged again. “No matter how we take it, what can we do about it? I assume this Josh Brimley is going to investigate and find out what really happened all those years ago and who did it.”

“But will he find out the truth if he doesn’t look at any scenario that doesn’t put the blame on Mom and Dad? Because as it stands now, he seems to believe that our leaving Elk Creek was a sign of their guilt, that they were running away.”

“I have to think that the truth will out,” Nissa said, honestly sounding un concerned as she took her cup and headed for the shower.

But Megan couldn’t be so confident. She didn’t for a minute doubt her parents’ innocence. But she did doubt that Josh Brimley would explore other possibilities since he’d seemed to have his heels dug into suspecting them.

So what was she going to do about it? she asked herself.

But she didn’t have an instant answer.

Especially not when that kitchen chair Nissa had just vacated started taunting her with images of the sheriff sitting in it again.

And once that happened, she had trouble concentrating on anything else….

When Josh Brimley showed up at her office at about the same time that afternoon that he had the afternoon before, Megan’s first thought was that he must have been passing by, seen her through the waiting room windows putting the final touches on the base board paint and decided that even though it was Sunday he might as well take advantage of her being there and come in to have the acupuncture they hadn’t gotten to the previous day. She even imagined that he’d re considered everything, realized how silly he was being to suspect her parents of murder, opened up his mind to an alternative allergy treatment, and they could start fresh.

Okay, so maybe she was being naive and overly optimistic. But she certainly didn’t expect what he’d really come for.

“You have a warrant to search our house and be longings?”

“That’s what I said. I’ll need you to take us over there and let us in right now.”

“Us?”

He nodded his handsome head over his shoulder and for the first time Megan noted the forensics van that had been at her house the prior evening and a State Patrol car parked on the opposite side of Center Street near Josh’s squad car.

“You can’t be serious,” she said in clear disbelief.

“As serious as I can get,” he assured her. “It’s standard operating procedure. The forensics guys want another look around in daylight and the patrolmen and I need to search the house and premises. I had to go into Cheyenne and interrupt a judge’s Sunday dinner to get the warrant but I didn’t have any problem convincing the judge that it should be issued and executed immediately.”

“Right. On a Sunday. Before Nissa and I might destroy evidence that’s already been around for eighteen years.”

“It’s just routine.”

“For you to go through our things?” Megan said as the reality of a home search began to sink in.

Josh’s silence confirmed that he was. “You’re welcome to just give me the key and stay here so you don’t have to see it.”

That was even worse.

“You can’t go into my house without me at least being there.”

“It’s up to you. But one way or another I’m already slowing things down by coming here first to let you know. I have to get out there.”

Was that supposed to make her feel better? That he was allowing her some small courtesy he wouldn’t have allowed someone else before he rifled through her under wear drawer?

Well, it didn’t make her feel better about it. Not in the least.

But regardless of how she felt, when she glanced at the warrant he handed her as proof of what he was saying, she could see she didn’t have a choice in the matter.

“I guess I’ll have to take you,” she finally said, wishing her sister were there to go along. But Nissa had garnered more than interest from potential clients the previous night and had gone on a date to Cheyenne for the day and evening. Which left Megan alone on the hot seat.

“We’ll mainly be looking for blood,” Josh told her. “On the walls, the floors, the base boards, the door jambs, the edges and corners of counters and cup boards, and on whatever furniture has been there all along. We’ll probably have to spray luminol inside the drawers of any dresser that you didn’t bring with you, but you can take out your personal things yourself before we do that. And on the bright side, for now the warrant doesn’t allow us to pull up floor boards or get into your pipes.”

He seemed to think that was some kind of consolation. He also almost sounded sympathetic and apologetic. But none of it made any difference. A bunch of strangers—men—were about to go into her home, open her closet doors, her cup boards, her drawers, and go through every nook and cranny of her living quarters, no matter how private. There was no consolation for that and even if he was sorry about it, it didn’t change anything.

But since there was nothing she could do to stop it, Megan closed her paint can, went to set her brush to soak in the sink in the break room and, without another word to Josh Brimley, she walked out of her office to her car, thinking the whole way that no matter how terrific-looking Josh Brimley was, it didn’t make up for this.

The search took several hours and Megan hated every minute of it. Even though Josh allowed her to be the one to take her and Nissa’s undergarments from the drawers, and their personal things from the bathroom, he was still right there watching her, keeping an eye on everything she removed as she removed it.

It was humiliating. Embarrassing. Enraging.

And it made her determined to dish out a little in return. So, once her and Nissa’s unmentionables were out of the way, she opted for never letting Josh out of her sight as if she didn’t trust him as far as she could see him.

But it didn’t seem to bother him quite the same way. Instead, as if she weren’t there at all, he went about his business.

As the forensics unit studied the grave and surrounding area, and the patrolmen walked the rest of the property and searched the old barn, Josh searched the house.

He did a thorough job of it, beginning by getting up into the attic and down into the crawl space, then turning his attention to the main floor and the second level of the two-story home.

Since the furniture had been there from before her family had taken to the road, Josh left no piece of it unmoved, over turned, or with a drawer that wasn’t pulled completely free and checked inside and out.

When that was accomplished, he sprayed the luminol over nearly every surface and used a fluorescent light that he explained would expose even old blood that was in visible to the naked eye.

And while he confiscated several items—her father’s ancient sneakers and her mother’s equally aged gardening gloves among them—Megan was convinced he didn’t find anything that would end up being evidence of a crime.

It was after eight o’clock that evening before Josh decreed the search over. The forensics men had left before sundown but the other two officers had stayed as long as Josh.

Megan could see them through the living room window, talking beside the patrol car. She wondered if they were all just going to leave or if at least one of them would allow her the courtesy of a goodbye.

She didn’t have long to wonder, though. After a while Josh shook both men’s hands and watched them get in their car.

But he didn’t follow suit. Instead he stayed staring after them until they’d driven out of sight.

Then he retraced his steps back to the house and came in without so much as a knock on the front door that opened into the living room.

Still, he didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t say anything. He merely leaned a nonchalant shoulder against the door he’d closed behind himself and gave Megan the once-over.

“Time for my strip search?” she said facetiously before she realized what she was actually saying.

Josh cracked a smile—the first since he’d shown up at her office that afternoon—and raised a charmingly lascivious eyebrow at her. “Are you offering?”

Megan could feel her face heat and knew it was turning cherry-red—a hazard of having such a fair complexion. “I just meant that that seems like the only thing you haven’t done here, so I’m wondering if that’s what I’m in store for since you didn’t leave with the rest of them.”

She was only making it worse and she knew it, so she finally stopped talking.

Josh’s smile remained, as if he were still enjoying her blunder and the blush it had induced. “As a matter of fact, I’m off the clock now and I thought I’d help get everything back in place.”

“Oh,” she said for lack of a better response as his big hands began to roll up the cuffs of his uniform shirt, exposing thick wrists and hair-spattered forearms.

Helping to put everything back in place was a nice thing for him to do but it left Megan in a melee of mixed feelings.

She was mad at him for this whole thing. For suspecting her parents. For searching her home.

But at the same time, here she was feeling pleased by his offer to pitch in with the cleanup and admiring the sight of oh-so-masculine hands and wrists and arms, of all things.

Of course it had been that way all afternoon and evening. Even in the midst of invading her privacy not a detail about him had escaped her notice.

She’d taken in every scuff on his cowboy boots, and the snug caress of blue jeans that fitted his to-die for derriere like kid gloves. She’d studied his uniform shirt—a tan color with darker brown epaulets and flaps on the breast pockets. She’d surreptitiously read the lettering on the sheriff’s department insignias that rode each of the sleeves where his biceps stretched them to their limit. She’d memorized the number on the badge emblazoned on a chest that appeared to be made up of massive pectorals. And all in all she couldn’t help but be aware of how incredibly appealing he looked. Despite the fact that he was tossing her home as if she were a common criminal.

“So what do you say? Let’s put this place back in order.”

For a moment more Megan just stared at him. He’d been freshly shaved when he’d shown up at her office and she could still smell the faint scent of a sea breeze-like after shave wafting to her from where he stood.

Tell him no thanks, she ordered herself. Tell him that if his business is finished he should get out, that he isn’t welcome here.

But the trouble was, as much as she knew she should say exactly that, she couldn’t quite do it.

Instead, another voice some where in her head said, He was the one who made the mess, he should be the one to clean it up….

And somehow that seemed perfectly reasonable.

“Where would you like to start?” she heard herself say suddenly.

“How about in the same order I messed things up? You can put your things back in the bathroom and the dresser drawers while I get the beds and bureaus against the walls again.”

Megan was about to agree when her stomach rumbled quietly and reminded her how hungry she was.

“Or you could go to work on the furniture and I could make us a couple of sandwiches,” she suggested.

“Better yet. It’s way past sup per time and I’m starving.”

And wasn’t this all amiable and companionable? Megan thought, feeling disloyal.

But again there was emotional confusion because she was also feeling a twinge of excitement at the prospect of the two of them sharing a light, impromptu supper alone together.

This was really crazy, she decided, wondering if she should rescind her own offer of sandwiches, reject his offer of help putting the house in order, and call it a night after all.

Only once more she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

It would be rude, she rationalized. Not to mention that being on the good side of the sheriff seemed wiser than alienating him any more than she already had.

It didn’t mean she was any less resentful of his suspicions of her parents or any less on their side. It was just good public relations, she assured herself.

“Sandwiches,” she repeated as if to remind herself.

“Furniture,” Josh said the same way.

Then he pushed off the door and spun around to the stair case.

And only when his eyes slid away from her then did she realize he’d been watching her very intently. So intently that it was almost as if she’d been under a heat lamp. A heat lamp that had just been turned off.

It was a strange sensation. Especially since it was ac companied by the slight wave of disappointment she was experiencing, as well as the desire to regain the warmth of that midnight-blue gaze in whatever way she could.

Crazy. Definitely crazy.

“Food,” Megan whispered to herself, again in reminder.

Maybe she hadn’t gone crazy, she thought then. Maybe hunger had made her go haywire. Maybe as soon as she got some thing in her stomach she’d be more resist ant to Josh Brimley’s effects.

And it was with the hope that that was true that she forced herself into motion and went to the kitchen.

It took nearly forty-five minutes for Megan to get the sandwiches ready. The search had left her kitchen in as much disarray as the rest of the house and she had to clear space among the dishes, pots and pans, utensils, and even food stuffs that had been left out of cup boards, drawers and pantry to litter the counter tops and kitchen table.

But even after making room to prepare their food there still wasn’t anywhere to eat it so, when she finished, she decided they’d have to dine picnic-style in the living room, around the coffee table.

With that in mind, she piled everything on a tray and pushed through the swinging door that connected the kitchen to the living room.

Josh was already in the living room, pushing the sofa against the wall facing the front door and the picture window. It was the last of the furniture to be put back where it had been and once it was he took a quick scan of the room.

“All done,” he announced just as Megan set the tray on the coffee table. “Upstairs and down. I think I have pretty much everything in order again. Except the books in that case in the upper hall. I thought you’d probably rather put them in whatever order they were in before and I didn’t know what that was.”

“I’ll do it later, when I put things back in the drawers and clean the kitchen,” Megan said. Then, glancing at the tray full of food, she added, “I thought we could eat in here.”

“A picnic,” he said as if he’d read her earlier thoughts.

“Mmm. The kitchen is in pretty bad shape.”

“Sorry. But I think eating in here is a great idea anyway. I like things casual.”

Megan knelt on the floor between the coffee table and the couch to set out the two food-laden plates, silver ware, napkins and tall glasses of iced tea.

“Cloth napkins aren’t too casual, though,” Josh observed as he sat just around the bend of the oval table, also on the floor, with his back against the sofa and one leg bent at the knee to brace his forearm while his hand dangled over his shin.

“We don’t use paper napkins. Cloth can be washed and reused. It’s better for the environment,” she explained.

“Ah.”

He didn’t say more on that subject and Megan appreciated his restraint.

“Big sandwiches,” he said then, nodding toward his plate as he used his free hand to flip open the cloth napkin and lay it across the thigh of the leg he had extended out in front of him.

“The bread is seven grain, homemade,” Megan explained. “Inside yours is a grilled portobello mushroom, tomato slices, roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, black olives, onion, sprouts and a little vinaigrette.”

Some thing about that made him smile at the same time his brow wrinkled up. “I’d have been happy with meat and mayo. This sounds like more trouble to go through than a sandwich deserves.”

“Try it,” she urged.

He looked skeptical but in a more con genial way than he had the day before when they’d talked about acupuncture. Still, he didn’t dive in, though. It took him a moment of eyeing what was on his plate before he picked up one half of the three-inch-high sandwich. Then he gave it a meager taste, as if it might bite him back.

Megan waited for the verdict, watching him chew and pleased that it was with his mouth closed and without so much as a crumb on his supple lips.

Then he swallowed and his eyebrows rose. “It’s good. Almost tastes like a steak sandwich.”

Megan felt as if she’d finally won one small victory. She stretched out her own legs so she could sit more comfortably on the floor, too, and finally began to eat her own food.

“You told me what was inside my sandwich,” Josh said then. “Does that mean there’s some thing different in yours?”

“Turkey, ham and bacon,” she answered with a straight face once she’d swallowed her own bite.

His responding expression was exactly what she’d been going for and she laughed at him.

“I’m kidding. Mine is the same as yours. Want to see?”

He grinned at her joke. “Last time a girl asked me that she wasn’t talking about what was between two slices of bread.”

Megan laughed at his innuendo but didn’t give him the satisfaction of a comment.

Josh ate more sandwich, a few potato chips, and then poked his chin at the room in general. “Did I get the furniture pretty much back where you had it?”

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