All of a sudden she didn’t want to be alone. All of a sudden, despite the milk, she felt wide awake. Great. That was going to help on her test in the morning.
Regardless, she pulled on a bra under her sweat suit, tugged on her jogging shoes, grabbed her purse and headed for the truck stop.
She needed bright light, the swirl of people around her and some carbs to calm her down. At that moment nothing sounded better than a piece of Hasty’s cobbler and a bit of sensible talk with Claire.
* * *
As it happened, the place was pretty busy when she arrived. Claire and another waitress, Meg, were busy enough they could have used some help. Haley considered clocking in and digging a spare uniform out of her locker, but Hasty stopped her.
“You’re supposed to be resting, what with that test tomorrow and the play the next two nights. What in the world are you doing here?”
“I was called by your cobbler.”
He unleashed one of his rolling laughs and promptly dished her up a serving big enough for two. “Coffee?”
“Milk, please.”
She would have settled at the counter except that a table near the window emptied. She headed straight for it and closed her eyes for a few moments as she savored the first mouthful of peach perfection.
She opened her eyes again and studied the lot. The window really did act almost like a mirror. She could choose either to see what was going on around her in the restaurant, or to pick out the shadowy movements in the lot. And they
were
shadowy, until headlights came on.
So how could she be sure of what she had seen the other night? Staring out there now, she decided she really couldn’t have seen anything, that her mind had probably manufactured the whole impression to explain sounds and shadowy movement. More, nobody except people she trusted knew she might have seen anything.
She really didn’t have anything to worry about.
“Hi, hon.” Claire slid into a seat across from her and Haley was startled to realize that she had apparently wandered so far away in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed the place emptying out. The revving of engines and the bloom of headlights from the lot announced that the wave was moving on.
“Hi, Claire,” Haley answered.
“You’re supposed to be tucked in at home, resting for your big day tomorrow. Not taking a busman’s holiday here.”
“Maybe I’m nervous. All of a sudden I was wide awake,” Haley said.
“This is your first play, huh?”
“Yeah. I didn’t even do it in high school. It’s only a few minutes onstage, but those minutes seem to keep getting bigger.”
Claire laughed. “I felt that way about my first wedding. Two lousy words, and I kept wondering if I’d be able to get them out. Maybe I should have listened to the cold feet.”
The last two drivers left and Meg cleared the tables. Then she announced she was going out for a smoke. Hasty went with her, which left Claire and Haley alone in the empty restaurant.
“That Devlin guy is back in town,” Claire said. She reached for a paper straw, pulled the wrap off it and began to fold it like an accordion. “Says he’s on vacation. Does that make sense to you?”
“I saw him,” Haley said cautiously.
Claire looked up. “Aha! I thought you might be the reason he was hanging around.” There was a glint in her eye.
Haley didn’t know how to answer that. It was certainly what Buck had claimed he wanted people to think. “I don’t know about that. I saw him at the funeral home.”
“Well, I saw the cops come pick him up a little while ago. You better take care, honey. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that if the cops are interested in a guy, a woman shouldn’t be.”
Haley caught herself before she said the cops had just been checking him out. She didn’t want any of that getting around, and while Claire wasn’t the worst of gossips around here, neither was she a sphinx about anything.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Haley answered, quickly slipping some more cobbler into her mouth.
“You might also keep in mind that he doesn’t come in here with other groups of drivers. A lone wolf. Oh,” Claire added, “I asked about what you told the cops you saw in the lot the other night. Seems there was a crate that was headed for Gillette and they just put it on a smaller truck here.”
Haley’s heart quickened with anxiety. This was something she didn’t want to get around. “Who did you ask?”
Claire shrugged. “The guy who came in with Ray. He came in earlier, so I asked. Like I thought, it turned out to be no big deal.”
Oh, God, this was exactly what Buck had warned her about. The peach in her mouth now tasted like ash. “Did you mention I was the one who saw it?”
Claire shook her head. “I just said one of the girls. Why would I mention you?”
Maybe because she’d been the only other waitress on that night. Maybe because the driver would know that since she’d waited on him. Butterflies flapped unhappily in her stomach. What had possessed Claire?
The bell over the door jingled and Claire looked up. Her eyes widened a shade. “Speak of the devil,” she said quietly.
Haley looked around and saw Buck walking in. He nodded to her and Claire and kept on walking, taking a seat much farther down.
Despite all that had happened, she still thought he looked good enough to eat. Having him pass her as if he hardly knew her didn’t make her feel any better, either. Had Gage warned him off? If so, she didn’t like it. Sometimes folks around here could be overprotective.
“Well, I guess he’s clean,” Claire remarked. “Nothing outstanding, at least. I’ve gotta go take care of him. I wonder if Hasty and Meg are smoking a whole pack out there.”
Haley watched as Claire strode to Buck’s table and pulled her order pad and pencil out. Buck gave his order quietly, then returned his attention to the window that would give him a fractured view of the parking lot.
After what had happened earlier, she could only conclude that he was avoiding her. She couldn’t decide whether that was good or bad. Bad if he was right about her possibly being in danger, that was for sure. But under Claire’s gaze she could hardly approach the guy.
Then Claire disappeared down the hall to holler out back for Hasty to come in and cook.
At that, Buck looked across the intervening tables at Haley. “She didn’t have to disturb his break.”
Haley gave him a half smile. “She doesn’t get to annoy him often.”
“He doesn’t seem like the type to annoy easily.”
“He’s not.”
Then another truck rolled into the lot, signaling the advent of another wave of customers. Haley watched the trucks come, only a minute or two apart, until they neatly lined up and sat growling like mythical beasts. Beyond the window the noise level from all those idling engines would be high enough to require a man to shout to be heard.
That drew her up. How had she even heard that clanging from the ramp? It would have had to have been awfully loud, unless Ray had turned off his engine. Some drivers did and some didn’t, and she didn’t know why. But try as she would, she couldn’t remember if Ray’s engine had been idling that night. Of course, it would have been only a single engine, not as loud as a bunch of them.
As the place started to fill up, she ignored Claire and Hasty and everyone else, picking up her cobbler and milk and walking down to join Buck at his table.
He watched her with a lifted brow. “To what do I owe this honor?”
“I’m curious.”
He waited. She didn’t know what to say next, nor could she quite miss the way Claire looked at her when she brought Buck’s meal of steak and eggs.
“Somebody doesn’t approve,” Buck remarked as Claire walked away.
“She’s protective of me.”
“Maybe with good reason.” He picked up his knife and fork. “What are you curious about?”
“Why the sheriff called to say you’re okay.”
“He checked me out.” He sliced into his steak and forked a piece toward his mouth. Then he paused. “You still don’t know anything about me, Haley. Nothing that really matters. So maybe I should just keep you completely out of it.”
“I thought I was going to be your cover.”
“I can hang around like a lovesick bull without you doing a damn thing except brushing me off. Considering the way this town seems to gossip, that would probably be best for you.”
“But what about the danger part?” Haley said. “You were worried I might be in danger.”
Buck sighed and put his utensils down. “There is that,” he agreed.
“Are you still worried?” She was on the edge of her seat as she awaited his answer. She wanted him to say no, yet she feared she wouldn’t quite believe him if he did. Not with Ray dead.
The whole thing revolved around Ray. What he might have done, why he was dead. It could have just been an accident. Of course it could have been. But right now she was finding that awfully hard to believe.
“I don’t know enough about what’s going on,” Buck said finally. “I’m damn near in the dark here. Shipments are turning up on the wrong trucks. You saw something being transferred in that parking lot out there. Ray is dead. Does that mean you’re in danger? Possibly. But I can’t say for sure. How many people know what you saw? Two sheriff’s deputies and your waitress friend and Hasty. And me, of course.”
“Right.”
“So how many other people know what you saw by now?”
“I don’t know.” She hesitated, unsure if she should tell him what Claire had done. “It’s not a great topic for gossip.”
“So what would be a great topic for gossip around here?”
“Me sitting here talking to you. Well, no, probably not even that.”
“Coming over to the motel with me. Me coming to your place.”
She nodded, feeling her cheeks heat a little. “Apparently that conversation we had outside the funeral home.”
“Yeah.” He gave a short, quiet laugh. “The tom-tom went into overtime on that. The thing is, me hanging around with you gives me cover. But I’ve also gotten the dimensions of this town after my little experience tonight. So if I hang around with you, everybody will talk. And while that might be a nice diversion for me, it might not be so good for you. Quite the opposite.”
“It’s also not the nineteenth century anymore.”
Suddenly his dark eyes sparkled with laughter, and his lips quirked upward. “So you want to have a whirlwind romance for pretend? To hell with what the neighbors say?”
She liked that sparkle in his eyes, the almost devilish look it gave him, with just that hint of danger she’d sensed around him before. “Frankly, I don’t give a damn,” she said.
And realized that she didn’t. Almost before she knew it, something had wakened in her: a thirst for adventure. A thirst to break out of her rut.
“Your call,” Buck said finally. “Want me to escort you home?”
She did but she didn’t, and the conflicting feelings were enough to call a halt for the night. She might not be concerned about gossip, but what frightened her was that she felt herself wanting this man.
That was the real danger here—the danger of derailment, the danger of disappointment and heartbreak. She had to rein herself in a bit before she’d be ready to handle those feelings.
“No, thanks,” she said with a pallid smile. “Tomorrow night after my play. Maybe.”
Then she got up and walked out without even busing her own dishes.
Chapter 4
B
uck had seen the moment of decision come over Haley’s face. He wasn’t prepared to question her further. After the way she had stood up to him at the funeral home and then at the campus, he figured she was quite capable of making up her own mind.
Tough but fragile, the sheriff had said. Well, he sure didn’t see any fragility in her, except possibly her youth, and twenty-four wasn’t exactly a baby. Nor did he know quite how to proceed. It was one thing to investigate criminals. It was another to give the third degree to a nice woman who had just offered to help him.
Still, he spent more time thinking about her than about the play the next evening. He came late, sat in the back and hoped she didn’t notice his late arrival.
He’d gotten an email from his boss earlier and had spent hours sorting through the annotated manifests, building himself a little calendar of the operation. One thing was for sure: the altered shipments didn’t keep to a regular schedule, although the activity had been increasing.
He showed up for the play just long enough to watch Haley. Not that he could have resisted. That woman was watchable under any circumstances.
As soon as the curtain calls were over and the house lights came up, he headed for the outdoors. The need for space overwhelmed him.
The same space that was going to make this investigation so difficult. A trip to the library to look at maps of the county and the surrounding areas, with the help of the lovely librarian who turned out to be the sheriff’s wife, had given him some appreciation for the odds he was up against.
Hell, he should have gotten a rose somewhere. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to give an actress after a performance?
The hoppity-skip of his own thoughts amused him. Haley was turning into a major distraction. Maybe he should scuttle his plan to use her as cover and just do it all alone. Except that nagging feeling that she might be at risk wouldn’t leave him alone.
He muttered a cuss word.
“Hi.”
He turned at the sound of her voice and saw her approach almost shyly. God, she called to him like a siren. Everything about her appealed to him. “You were great,” he assured her.
“I was average. I’m no actress. But it was fun.”
“How’s your face?”
“Claire’s advice about petroleum jelly worked. No reaction.”
“Well, good.”
They stood there awkwardly, two people pulled together without a good reason, unsure how to step forward. Finally he asked, “Can I escort you home?”
She led the way and he could feel eyes on him. Watching, judging. Soon the mouths would be talking. Good for him, but not so much for Haley.
“I heard the sheriff picked you up last night. I wasn’t the one who complained about you,” she said as she started her car and headed it out of the lot.
“I didn’t think you were,” he said.
“Why not?”
He shrugged even though she couldn’t see it. “You don’t seem the type. I thought you handled me pretty well on your own.”
“Unless you were a sick creep.”
“If you’d thought that, you never would have met me on the campus, and you never would have gone home alone. No, you handled it yourself. Do you always handle things yourself?”
“I try to. There hasn’t been a whole lot of choice.”
He caught a tone of sadness in her voice, but chose not to pursue it. He didn’t want to create a false sense of intimacy, not if he was going to protect her from himself as well as whatever might be going on in this county.
“So you’re an MP?”
“Was,” he corrected.
“Parking tickets and stuff? Basic cop things?”
“At first. Then I became an investigator and life got more interesting.”
“So you were more like a detective?”
He almost laughed at the rapid-fire questions. Now that she’d made up her mind, she wanted the mysteries solved, starting with him. “It was the toughest detective job in the world,” he said, deciding to volunteer what he could. “Military units are a little like gangs. They don’t squeal on each other. And when one of them is under investigation, the rest get protective. Sometimes dangerously so.”
“Oh, wow,” she said quietly, turning onto a darker, deserted street overhung by some very old trees.
“Unit cohesion and pride,” he said. “It works for us and against us. Mostly
for
us. The more specialized the unit, the more likely they were to give me trouble. These guys develop a total dependency on each other. They have to—it’s how they survive. These guys would die for each other, and they’d never squeal. So unlike a regular detective, I usually didn’t get very far by asking questions of anyone in a unit. I had to find other ways.”
“I can’t imagine.”
Nor did he have any intention of telling her. “Of course, that wasn’t the case in every situation I investigated. I was just good at handling the problems with the harder nuts to crack.” Because no matter how tough they were, he had to be tougher, quicker and more alert.
“I need to tell you something,” she said as she turned another corner. She was driving so slowly now that a speed walker would have passed them. “Claire told me she saw the other driver who was with Ray that last night. So she asked him why they’d been moving crates.”
Buck stiffened. Not good. Very definitely not good. “I hope she didn’t mention you.”
“She says not.”
“How did he react?”
“Simple explanation. There was a crate on Ray’s truck that needed to go to Gillette. It sounds reasonable.”
“Only to someone who doesn’t know how this business works. Cargo doesn’t get transferred at truck stops. Not on my line, not on any big line. There’s a huge liability for the shipper and the trucking company, so it’s all done at terminals where manifests can be checked until it goes out on local delivery trucks, or reaches the final destination.”
She fell silent and he didn’t say any more. Now he was more worried. Claire had talked to one of the drivers involved and had made him aware the transfer had been observed. Since Buck was certain it was not a legitimate transfer, he now had plenty of reason to worry for Haley and Claire both.
Unless Claire was somehow involved? He had no way of knowing. All he could be sure of was that one way or another, the problems might have just compounded.
His cell phone rang just as Haley was wheeling them into a parking space at a run-down-looking cluster of apartments. He pulled it out of his breast pocket. Bill.
“Devlin,” he answered as Haley turned off the engine.
“Ray Liston’s truck was just unloaded in Denver. We’ve definitely got a problem. One crate that should be there was missing, and one that was shipped on a different truck last week was on Liston’s truck. Same tally, but different crate.”
“I’ve got a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“Is there any way we would have offloaded a shipment for Gillette at a truck stop here?”
“Hell, no. That’s a stupid question. I-90 runs through Gillette. You know that. No way in hell short of a blizzard we would have shipped something for Gillette that far south, and it sure wouldn’t have come off the truck before Denver if we had.”
“I thought so. By any chance do you keep the LoJack info on the trucks?”
“Not until just recently. Hell, Buck, we only activate it if something big-time happens, like a truck gets hijacked or a driver is really late. We started keeping records a couple of weeks ago, but nothing looked out of line. Trucks pull over all the time for weigh stations, rest stops, food, diesel.... We couldn’t see anything.”
“I’d like to look at it.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Why haven’t you put LoJack on some of the shipments?”
“The shippers are responsible for that, not us. Do you know how expensive that would be?”
He ended the call and stuffed his phone into his pocket. “Let’s get you inside.”
“Did something bad happen?”
“Not really. Just more of what I’ve already told you.”
Still she sat with her hands on the wheel, and he wondered what was going on in her mind. Finally she said, “You shouldn’t have come with me. It’s a long walk back to the motel.”
“I can jog it in about fifteen minutes, if that. Besides, walking gives me thinking space. Come on, let me see you to your door. Make sure everything is okay.”
Her head swiveled and she looked at him. “You think Claire’s question might have caused trouble.”
“What do
you
think?”
“That I can’t believe she even asked the guy. Or for that matter that she remembered him from that night. I was the one who waited on him and Ray, and I’m not sure I could recognize him if I saw him sitting at one of the tables surrounded by other people.”
“Face recognition is one of the human mind’s greatest talents,” he said.
“Then how can so many witnesses be wrong in court?”
“Because we remember a face so well. What we don’t always remember is where we saw it. Then, of course, a little nudging can shift memory. Once you see a face in a lineup, even a photo lineup, it’ll always seem familiar to you.”
At last she pulled the keys from the ignition. He climbed out quickly so she could lock up, then walked around to do the gentlemanly thing of helping her out. He almost smiled when she ignored his extended hand.
Almost but not quite, because that was the exact moment when it struck him that his attraction to Haley Martin was a little bit more than a passing thing. He wanted her to take his hand. He wanted to reach her door and take her into his arms and find out what that tempting mouth tasted like.
And when her eyes met his then slid quickly away, he saw his desire answered.
A whole lot of instincts rose to the fore then, demanding he forget his investigation for a little while, be the ordinary guy he’d wanted to become when he left the service.
Damn, he wished he weren’t such a bulldog. It would be nice right now to tell himself that the investigation wasn’t really his problem—he was a driver now, after all, not an MP—and that he could just blow the whole damn thing off.
Except he wasn’t built that way. Not even a tiny bit. Being a bulldog about his job had cost him his one and only serious relationship. Hell, that last time they’d called him off in the service, he had disobeyed a direct order and followed his instincts right to the solution of the case. He had been saved by a brass hat who stepped in and pointed out that a medical discharge for the bullet fragment lodged near his spine might be a cleaner, quieter way to handle a guy with an outstanding record.
Since he’d been in a hospital bed and unable to walk, he hadn’t been in any condition to object. Probably for the best. But that brought him to the here and now, with a lovely woman he wanted like hell to kiss and maybe make love to, an investigation he’d taken on when he shouldn’t have, and a whole lot of obligations and duties goading him in every direction except the one he wanted to follow.
Just focus on the job and on making sure Haley didn’t get into any trouble. And try not to be disturbed that Claire had spoken to the driver, possibly putting the entire operation on alert.
That
might make things harder.
Not that they were exactly easy right now. He needed to drive around this county a little more, getting the lay of the areas outside of town, because if there was one thing he was fairly certain of, nobody
in
this town could be running an illegal operation without someone noticing something. That much was clear after his interview with the police.
So wherever those crates were going, it was somewhere considerably more private. He needed to get a rental car, since he’d draw attention bobtailing it in his cab up and down these local roads.
Keeping his mind on the job at hand worked all the way up the creaky wooden stairs to the second floor. It worked until Haley opened her door and he stepped in beside her. It kept him focused as he quickly checked out the one-bedroom efficiency that was scantily furnished with items that belonged to the age range between junk and antiques. He wondered what her story was, and figured he was going to ask one of these days.
Then he faced her, about to say good-night and get his butt back to the motel and the truck stop, the nexus for all he was investigating, and he fell right into those almost violet eyes of hers.
It happened so fast he would never be able to say who moved first or even how they came together. One instant he was falling into a sea of violet, the next she was wrapped in his arms and hers were tight around his waist. Lips met and instantly the night burst into flames.
He had forgotten just how good a woman could feel in his arms. His self-imposed exile for the past two years suddenly seemed stupid to the extreme. He had given this up, and for what? Because he didn’t quite trust himself? Because he’d lived in a dark world for so long he was no longer sure he was fit for ordinary society? Because, except for a small group of his fellow MPs, he’d lived as an outsider among a fraternity that all wore the same uniform?
They were probably all good questions, but they blew away for later consideration on a gale of rising desire.
He wanted this woman. His body reacted instantly with a full, throbbing ache so intense he wasn’t sure he could contain it. He’d been resisting the yearning since he’d first laid eyes on her, for a million good reasons, but right now he couldn’t remember a single one.
Her mouth beneath his was soft and yielding, questing but not really certain, as if this kiss was a new thing. Somehow that penetrated his need, and he forced himself to rein his hunger. Slow. Take it slow. There was no question of her welcome, but her inexperience was equally obvious to him.
It surprised him. He was not used to it. For an instant something in him froze, wondering if he wanted to get into this. But then a little murmur escaped her and one of her hands slipped up to cup his cheek.
It soothed him. It banked the raging fire enough, just enough, to give him back his control. He didn’t want to hurt Haley. He didn’t want to devalue that gentle touch of her palm against his cheek, a touch that seemed to reach cold places deep inside him.