The couple who’d cancelled, allowing Burley to have the cabin to rent, had told him personally that they’d changed their mind because the cost was more than they’d counted on. Which hadn’t raised an iota of suspicion at the time. Evergreen summer rates were steep. They had to be to support the business owners during the off season. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to book a room far in advance and when it came down to figuring total cost of the trip, determine that they couldn’t afford as much as they’d thought they could in terms of boarding.

  But what if Burley had contacted them with a higher price than originally agreed upon? It could have been as simple as them booking over the phone and him informing them later that his prices had raised. If they hadn’t already paid for the room, or put money down on it...

  And Jackson could be so desperate to find something that he was grabbing at straws.

  He had to grab at something.

  And keep his hands off from Aimee, too.

  “Mr. Burley was the only one who responded with an offer. He said he’d had a cancellation, and that it was the only cabin available in the area. I was really surprised at the price he offered. It was so reasonable...”

  Again, nothing at all wrong sounding about that on the surface...and Jackson’s radar was squelching off the charts. Burley would have seen her name come through on the request. Aimee spelled with two e’s instead of y was memorable. If Burley had ever had reason to know the spelling. Or if Burley had known Adele’s maiden name, or had kept track to know that Aimee’s aunt had changed Aimee’s name...if he’d had reason to keep track...like maybe he knew a three-year-old child had witnessed something horrific?

  But why would Burley want her to come back if he had something to hide?

  To know what she had to hide? Or if she knew anything?

  “Why are you asking me this?” Aimee’s frown was growing.

  She was there to find the truth. How did he tell her that he thought her father had had a potentially serious gambling problem? And that he suspected, and as yet had not one iota of proof, that it had somehow gotten him into trouble that may or may not have resulted in her parents being killed.

  Maybe run off the road, just as she’d almost been?

  “We found out some pieces of information during our various investigations today that, when all put together, seem to be making a cohesive picture. And while I have no intention of keeping you in the dark on any of this, I’d rather speak with Kelly Chase before I reveal my theories to you, in the advent that I would lead you to discern something that might or might not be real.”

  “It’s best that the memories return to me on their own,” she agreed with a nod. But her brows were still creased. “Did you find out something about my parents? Is it bad?”

  “I did not,” he could truthfully assure her. “We just found some connections with other people and the mine that might come into play.” Again, truthful. Without giving her more than he should.

  “Randall Burley. He’s a part of this, isn’t he? But then, why rent me a cabin if he didn’t want me around?”

  “That’s something we’d need to find out.”

  “It makes no sense, renting the place to me and then trying to drive me off as soon as I get here. But if he wanted me out of town, that would explain all the bad things happening at the cabin.” He watched the expressions crossing her face, question, answer, confusing, making sense. “But then, why try to run me off the road?” she continued. “If he wanted me dead, why not just stage some accident at the cabin that would kill me?”

  “One theory would be that he figured he could handle whatever he had to handle by getting you to leave. If you stayed somewhere else, he’d have no control. Getting you to his place...he knew he could run you off. But maybe first, find out why you were there at all. Find out what you know. Then, today, I question Randall Burley, and suddenly your life is in real danger. My instincts tell me that we’re onto something. But again, there’s no proof of anything. And Burley has an alibi for the time of your crash.”

  “You think Burley knew my dad?” Her eyes, wide, her tone so hopeful, he really, really wanted to stop. “And for some reason, wanted me at his place, rather than staying somewhere else in town, so he could get me out of town?”

  “I think your father and Burley might have had connections in common.”

  The way she was studying him...intently, seriously...if he didn’t know better he’d think she was reading his mind.

  “Bad connections.”

  He shrugged. She nodded. Stood. Said she was going to get changed out of her blood-spotted dress and get some kind of dinner on the table for him. No histrionics. No drama. Just trust and acceptance. He’d seen tears in her eyes, though.

  A couple of seconds later, Jackson stood, too. Followed her to the kitchen. Got them both fresh beers.

  And figured, if it was possible, he might just have fallen into a serious, monogamous kind of like.

  Chapter 14

  She was the one who asked if they could go out and sit with Hoot after dinner. The darkness would hide much of what was going on inside her. It had been a long hard day. While she wasn’t all that sore from the accident, she was feeling more and more stiff and knew that it would probably be worse in the morning.

  Stiffness, a sore finger and shoulder, she could handle. Easily. Knowing she wasn’t safe hanging out in town, or being on her own, was definitely working a number on her already stretched emotional resources.

  Yet, she felt safe with Jackson. A feeling that wasn’t totally logical. Yeah, he was sheriff, but he wasn’t Superman.

  Still, if she could just be with him. Soak up a bit of good feeling before going upstairs, maybe she’d actually be able to sleep. It had sure worked the night before.

  Had it been only that morning that she’d slept so late? And enjoyed the delicious burrito he’d made for her? Hard to believe that someone who could prepare such a great breakfast couldn’t cook anything else.

  “I’m guessing you don’t want to cook,” she said, sipping from her second beer, as they waited for Hoot to show up. Easy, innocuous conversation. Nothing about death—hers or her parents’. No past, no future. No squirrelly landlord, or miners or unanswered questions.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You fry potatoes to perfection. Scramble eggs. Chop onions. Get just the right amount of everything else...which tells me you can cook. You just don’t want to.”

  “My father made me stick at it, every morning, for an entire school year,” he said after a longish moment. “Whatever I managed to do with it, we both ate. We had cold potatoes. Soggy potatoes. Burnt potatoes. Mushy eggs. Rubbery eggs. Probably blood in the onions, a time or two as well. It wasn’t cooking. It was a different kind of lesson that just happened to take place in the kitchen. You stuck at something until you got it right. Don’t accept mediocre out of yourself. And if, after you master it, you don’t want to do it anymore, or don’t like it, then you walk away.”

  “Don’t quit.” She’d learned some version of the same lesson somewhere along the way, too. Assuredly from Aunt Bonnie, though she had no specific recollection of having it brought home to her.

  “Don’t quit on steroids,” he said with a humorless sounding chuckle.

  “How old were you that year?” Fifteen? Sixteen? Rebellious teen, for sure.

  “Nine.”

  She looked over at him, could only distinguish a partial face due to the moonshine and shadows. “Did you say nine?”

  “Yeah. Nine.”

  “And you haven’t cooked since?”

  He continued to study the landscape above them, as he had the night before. “Not unless I have to.”

  She thought about that for a few seconds. And then, still frowning, “But you didn’t know I’d be staying over until yesterday, and those things were in the refrigerator when I moved my stuff in...”

  “I like the burritos.”

  He didn’t cook anything else. But he still made the breakfast his father had forced him to perfect. Something about that touched her heart. Softly. Deeply.

  Each new thing she learned about the man...there were so many parts of him—a puzzle with a million pieces—and each one, as it presented itself to her, seemed like a gift.

  She itched for flowers. For her work board. Needed to express the feelings he raised in her in the only way she knew. To make a floral portrait of him. Something that would be a forever reminder of how she felt when she was with him.

  Which brought up another point she’d been mentally avoiding, telling herself it didn’t pertain to her because her feelings for him were only fantasy. Except that they weren’t.

  And, back there, inside, the hand thing, she’d told him her feelings for him existed.

  She was pretty sure he’d told her not to be sorry about that.

  “You have a girlfriend tucked away somewhere, Sheriff?” Her use of the title established firm boundaries, she hoped. Was pretty sure, as she heard the lilt in her voice as she’d said the word, that it had done exactly the opposite.

  Obviously, since Kelly had invited a friend up from Phoenix to hang out with her, she wasn’t looking for alone time with Jackson, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone who was. Someone who was alone that evening because Jackson had to protect Aimee...

  “No.”

  “It’s fine if you do, of course. It’s just, I should have asked last night, before I agreed to stay, only to insist that it’s okay with her that I’m here.” Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. “Not that there’s any reason it shouldn’t be okay with her, if there was a her, just...”

  His hand covering hers on the deck chair silenced her. She didn’t dare look at him. Didn’t dare move forward. Didn’t know how to go back.

  And then his free hand lifted. He was pointing to a tree directly above them.

  Barely eight feet above their heads, Hoot sat perched, his bright eyes and hooked nose pointed straight in their direction.

  Giving his blessing?

  Or warning Jackson to get rid of her?

  * * *

  Jackson used Hoot shamelessly, figuring the owl would be glad to help his friend out of a tight spot. As an immediate subject change, it worked. Beyond that, not so much. Sitting there in the dark with Aimee, in the private space and with the raptor friend he’d never shared with anyone before her, he was hard as a rock and fighting himself from taking her hand again, and leading her straight into his bedroom.

  In the tie-dyed spaghetti-strap dress again, her shoulders gleamed nearly naked underneath the moon’s glow.

  If he was getting her signals right, and he was pretty certain he was, she’d lead the way if she knew where he stood on the matter. Completely erect.

  She had the hots for him. Because he was her protector and one of the two professionals helping her through a very vulnerable emotional situation. Psychiatrists were more likely to deal with transference issues, but he’d seen it happen more than once with cops, too.

  Even if it was more than that, even if she was experiencing some of the same bizarre pull toward him that he was getting from her, and he acknowledged it could be, chances were it wasn’t going to end well. A little girl didn’t normally mentally bury happy memories that came back to attack her in nightmare form.

  And gambling...followed by death...didn’t bode well, either. Any way he looked at things, he was going to be the bearer of bad news. If they were extremely lucky, he’d find details of a car accident, but he was having a hard time believing that was the case. And not just because he couldn’t find any record of it.

  Why would a thirty-year-old car crash be a threat to anyone? Unless it hadn’t been an accident? He hadn’t heard back from Leon on the Halston accident reports, but if the town wasn’t any better digitized than Evergreen was, it could be later on Monday before he knew anything there.

  And how could a car crash explain Aimee’s nightmares of a boy/man? Or any of the memories that had been surfacing? Why wasn’t there any evidence of where her parents had lived from a year after her birth until their deaths?

  How was she going to feel about him if he had to tell her that her father had worked for a gambler or gotten into trouble gambling and either or both had resulted in him and his wife being killed?

  And why did his body so badly need to be moving inside her? He’d always had a healthy libido, but had never had trouble keeping his desires under control. Mentally or physically. He’d learned self-control before he’d learned to walk.

  Okay, probably not literally, but it sure as hell felt that way.

  He played some owl calls. Talked softly to Aimee about antics he’d witnessed between the family over the past couple of years, answering her questions about the nine-to-ten-year wild owl life expectancy, about the insects and mammals upon which they typically fed and about them generally staying within the same territory year-round. Grateful for the distraction, he tried to focus on answers he knew by rote, instead of the sexy sound of her voice on the dark night air.

  And then Mrs. Hoot showed up, and all he could think about was mating again.

  “The great horned owls, which is what they are, mate for life,” he blurted, still as part of his lesson. And not. He had mating on the brain.

  Jackson held off on sipping any more from the bottle of beer he’d carried out with him. Told himself to get his ass inside. And locked in his office. Focus on the case.

  And no way he was leaving her outside alone. Or forcing her to stay locked upstairs in her room. She’d asked to come out. He understood so well needing fresh air to breathe, needing nature, to help sustain calm during times of stress. He couldn’t deny her that.

  And couldn’t turn his head in her direction when he felt her looking at him. Had his voice just sounded as strained as it had felt?

  “I think I’ll turn in,” she said, which did suck his gaze right to her. The moonlight on the bottle of beer she held showed it half-full still.

  He stood with her, only half facing her, and that same moon glow was like a spotlight on the crotch of his work pants—a thinner cotton than the jeans that would have contained him more firmly. She wasn’t even pretending not to notice. Just stared straight at the evidence.

  “You want some help with that discomfort, Sheriff?” She was grinning, but didn’t sound like she was teasing. More like she was as emotionally charged as he felt.

  “In another place and time, you bet,” he told her. No point in denying what was standing right up there between them.

  She didn’t turn toward the door. Or even take a step away. He felt like, if he did, he’d show her how weak he really was on the matter. How little it could take to get him to change his mind. How hard he was struggling to maintain the professionalism that was mandated between them.

  “I...um... I’m not a woman who takes sex lightly.” Her words were near whisper. “I’ve actually only ever slept with a couple of men. I just...you seem to... I don’t really even know you, and yet I feel...”

  “Transference.” The word was mostly strangled as he finally got it out. She’d only ever had two other lovers? He’d be only the third?

  “No.” Her frown even turned him on. She was looking up at him completely without guile and yet that short dark sassy hair gave him wild thoughts. “I felt it the first time we met. Before you knew anything about me or my parents. Not that that means anything, or is meant to sway you. I just...being with you feels good. In what seems like a purely physical, healthy way. If there even is really such a thing. Purely physical, and healthy.”

  He’d had some one-night stands that offered pleasure to both parties and left both fine to walk away without looking back. This wasn’t that.

  “I know it’s inappropriate for you, in your position with the sheriff’s department, to come on to me, but what are the rules if I ask for some moments of distraction from you as long as you’re mutually engaged in the effort?”

  He choked. Gulped beer. By the time he’d recovered, she’d stepped back a pace or two. But was still there.

  Jackson reached a shaking hand out to her face, caressing her jawline with his palm, igniting fires inside him with the feel of her softer skin against his. “How about if we table this for a day or two,” he said, his internal battle probably obvious in the less than steady tone of his voice. He’d meant to tell her no. And maybe to add that he wished things were different.

  She studied him in the semishadows, then slowly nodded. She didn’t look away. Didn’t act as though she’d been rejected. It was like she could read him. Like she truly understood.

  And he had no idea what to do with that. He’d grown up in a universe where everyone had known him since before he was old enough to remember them. His place in the world, who he was, his role in life was taken for granted. Everything was at face value. No one needed to look deeper.

  He’d never been aware of wanting them to.

  He wasn’t turning down her offer. He was putting it on hold. That knowledge lingered, seemingly clear to both of them. Accepted by both of them.

  Jackson wasn’t ready to say good-night. To watch her walk away. He needed some kind of seal on the mostly silent deal they’d just made.

  Not to have sex. But to revisit the idea of doing so.

  Something magnanimous had just happened.

  An understanding that there was mutual heat between them, that might be more, and a choice to not rush into cheapening it. An agreement to be there, in that place of mutual attraction, together.

  Or some such.

  He couldn’t stand there and rub her face forever. Even if she’d let him. He had to drop his hand. To end that moment of their spell.

  And he leaned forward, closer and closer, until his mouth was touching hers. Softly. Gently. And then...what was meant to say “Hold on” changed.