Stranger in Cold Creek (7 page)

“I really don't believe you have. But if you do something to start drawing attention to yourself there, you might.”

“Fine.” He made himself relax, even though he could still feel prickles of unease running up and down the skin of his neck. “They're not after me.”

“You don't sound as if you believe it.”

“I don't think dropping my guard will help anyone.”

“If it's not you, then it's the deputy. Are you sure there's no reason someone might want her out of the way?”

He thought about what Gil Duncan had told him about the missing person case Miranda had been investigating. “Maybe,” he admitted. “And maybe you can help. Can you see if you can find me some info on a woman named Delta McGraw?”

* * *

J
OHN
ARRIVED
WITH
the cat food within ten minutes, and soon Ruthie and Rex were happily crunching their kibble while John took in the improvements she'd managed to accomplish while he was gone.

The sink was still a disaster area, but she'd picked up all the chairs and swept up the mess on the floor. In the living room, she'd finished putting the books in the shelves and piled the ripped-up cushions onto the sagging frame of the sofa.

“You've made some headway,” he said, sounding impressed. But the look he shot her way made it clear that he could see right through her attempt at pretending she wasn't feeling like hell. “Why don't you rest a bit and let me catch up?”

“I'm fine.”

“As fine as a concussed, sleep-deprived person could be,” he agreed. “But if we're going sofa shopping in town a little later, you should rest up.”

She leaned against the door frame that led into the hall and crossed her arms, looking at him through narrowed eyes. “Why are you doing all this for me?”

“You mean helping you buy a sofa?”

She nodded. “Yeah, that. And everything else you've done to help me.”

“I need another badge for my Boy Scout uniform.”

She smiled. “There's a furniture-moving badge?”

“You sound skeptical.”

He wasn't nearly as average as she'd originally thought, she was beginning to see. His eyes might be a muddy sort of hazel green, but they twinkled brightly when he was amused, like sunlight sparkling on a murky stream. His ordinary features seemed to come to life when he smiled, carving interesting lines in his normally unremarkable face. He wasn't ripped like a bodybuilder, but his body was well-proportioned, his muscles lean and well-defined beneath his long-sleeved T-shirt when he bent to pick up a picture frame she hadn't gotten to yet.

He looked at the photograph in the broken frame, a smile curving his lips. “Is this you and your mom?”

She pushed away from the door frame and crossed to where he stood, looking at the photo. “Yes. I was six. First day of school. My dad took that photo as Mama was walking me out the door to the bus.” She'd been crying a little, the tears still sparkling on her cheeks in the photo. “She said I'd love it if I just gave it a chance.”

“Was she right?”

She looked into his curious gaze. “She always was.”

“She's not still around, is she.” He didn't phrase it as a question.

“No. She died when I was still a kid. Hit head-on by a drunk driver over in Plainview. She was a nurse at the hospital there.”

“I'm sorry.”

She studied the photograph, relieved to find it hadn't been scratched by the broken glass of the frame. “Some of the photos are irreplaceable. Why would someone trash the place like this? What on earth could they have been looking for?”

John reached out for her, and to her surprise, she let him pull her into a comforting hug, feeling further evidence of his lean muscularity. He smelled good, too, she realized, despite a long night sleeping in a chair. He must have showered before she'd shown up at his place the night before.

She, however, hadn't showered since the previous morning. God only knew what she must smell like about now. With a blush, she extricated herself from his arms and flashed a sheepish smile. “Why don't we just get the sofa shopping over with now?” she suggested. “So I'll have somewhere to pass out when I finally hit the wall.”

To her relief, he agreed, and she grabbed her jacket and followed him out to the truck.

John Blake was proving to be a surprising temptation, one she wasn't used to having to struggle against. Yes, she was finding him attractive, but if that had been the extent of it, she'd have been able to resist quite easily. It wasn't that she was immune to physical attraction—she'd had her share of boyfriends over the years, enjoyed their company and more—but she'd always found it easy enough to walk away when the time came for a relationship to end.

There was something about the mysterious newcomer with his murky eyes and murkier intentions that were proving to be damn near irresistible on a whole other level.

If there was anything she couldn't walk away from, it was a mystery.

And John Blake was nothing if not a mystery.

Chapter Seven

Miranda had hit the wall, as she called it, around three that afternoon, after they'd managed to clean up and bag up most of the trash in her house. It had taken a little longer than John had expected, mostly because Miranda had insisted on sifting through everything they picked up in search of trace evidence.

“Do you really think you're going to find any?” John had asked, dutifully holding the trash bag for her while she dumped a load of fiberfill stuffing from the shredded sofa.

“Probably not,” she'd admitted with a grimace of a smile. “But I wouldn't be a good cop if I didn't check.”

He'd talked her into leaving the bedroom for later, and she'd settled, finally, on the thrift store sofa she'd purchased in town earlier.

“It's in better shape than the original,” she'd drawled upon seeing it in the previously bare spot in the middle of her living room. She'd tested it out for napping comfort and promptly fell asleep, leaving John on his own for the next couple of hours.

He was tempted to head back home to see if the crime scene unit had finished processing the scene of the wreck, but he didn't want to leave Miranda alone, asleep and vulnerable, in a house that had been ransacked in the past twenty-four hours. He settled, instead, in the only chair in the living room that hadn't been relieved of its stuffing—a wooden rocking chair that had no stuffing at all, only a slightly sagging woven cane seat that creaked a bit as he sat down.

It was solidly made, the handiwork painstaking and careful. An antique, he thought, not one of those mass-produced, overpriced jobs you could buy in almost any chain store.

He had trained as an accountant, a job he hated. He'd worked twice as an undercover agent, a job he loved, but now, as it had the first time, fate and circumstances had forced him out again, leaving his future in flux.

But carpentry was the skill he was actually good at. His grandfather on his mother's side had been a true artist with wood, and John had been the only grandchild who'd been interested enough to sit for hours at his side, watching him work and learning all the skills and tricks of the trade.

Blanchard Building was a real company that employed real craftsmen from time to time, and his cover for being in Cold Creek was a real job, using his carpentry skills to renovate the home where he was living for the next couple of months.

It was also a way to recover some of his physical strength and stamina, because carpentry could be a physically taxing skill, as he'd learned over the past week, when his rusty joints and muscles had been forced into work after almost a week in the hospital and another three weeks of physical therapy.

As he quietly rocked, the two cats wandered into the living room from somewhere in the back of the house. They crept cautiously around the new sofa, sniffing the upholstery from end to end before they decided it was no threat. One after the other, Ruthie first, then Rex, jumped gracefully onto the sofa and settled side by side behind the crook of Miranda's knees. Ruthie gave John a wide-eyed stare for a couple of moments before she closed her eyes to nap.

John watched Miranda sleep for a little while, enjoying the view of her face soft with sleep. Awake, she was almost militantly competent, a woman of substance and power, but asleep, he saw a hint of girlish softness he suspected she tried to hide. He'd worked with female agents at The Gates, though largely from a distance, and he'd seen a similar sort of dichotomy in each of them, as well. Strength before softness, almost always. It was the only way they knew to survive in a world where men outnumbered women by a substantial degree.

He admired Miranda's strength. But it was that hint of softness that intrigued him the most, made him wonder what other secrets she hid behind that tough-girl exterior.

For one thing, despite her rangy build, she had delicious curves. He'd felt them beneath her clothes when she'd let him give her a comforting hug. Firm, round breasts and delectably flaring hips that would tempt a eunuch to let his hands wander. She'd pulled away from his embrace just in time, because John Blake was a lot of things, but a eunuch wasn't one of them.

With his mind drifting to dangerous places once more, he pushed to his feet and wandered around the house, looking for a distraction.

He found it in the back of the house.

He hadn't really noticed that the kitchen took up only half of the back part of the house. To the left of the kitchen, there was another room that hadn't been touched by the intruders, as far as John could tell. That was probably because it was nothing but a frame of a room, with no drywall or flooring. Not an addition, he decided as he took in the handiwork. Part of the framework was obviously older, the wood darkened and worn with age.

Repair work?

“Tornado damage.” Miranda's voice behind him made him jump.

He turned and found her watching him with sleepy eyes the color of a stormy sky. The cats wound in complicated patterns around her legs and each other.

He remembered the order of two-by-fours she'd picked up at the hardware store the day he met her. “Are you rebuilding it yourself?”

“Slowly,” she said with a rueful smile. “I wanted to do it myself. To see if I could.”

“It's complicated work. Do you know what you're doing?”

“I've helped with other building jobs,” she answered, not appearing to take his skeptical question personally. “My dad owns a hardware store, you know. I've grown up around builders and saved for college by working summers on building crews.” She pushed her sleep-tousled hair away from her face. “I've just never been my own foreman before.”

“When did the tornado hit?”

“Last November. Late in the season. I was lucky. It was a small twister and the wind only caught the edge of the house. I was working. Got home after a long day of dealing with multiple tornadoes to find the back corner of my house gone.”

“How'd the cats handle that experience?”

“About like they did this time with the intruder. Hid under the bed for hours until they were convinced the freight train that hit the house was gone.” She stifled a yawn.

“You should go back to sleep.”

“So you can snoop around my house in peace?”

“I wasn't.” He stopped before he told the easy lie. “Okay, I was snooping, a little.”

“Sadly, my life is an open book.” She stepped past him into the room, then turned suddenly to look at him. “Why do I get the feeling you can't say the same thing?”

Because he couldn't, he thought. His life hadn't really been an open book since his college graduation, over fifteen years earlier, when a man named Alexander Quinn had introduced himself by another name altogether and asked him to take a drive.

His CIA career had ended almost before it began, but the things he'd seen and done during that short time had changed the way he approached life. There had been no such thing as a normal life for him, even when he'd been working for his father at the accounting firm. There'd certainly been nothing ordinary about his life as Alexander Quinn's undercover operative in southern Virginia.

“Your name is John Blake. I'm pretty sure about that.” She stepped closer to him, taking full advantage of her height to crowd his space. “Although you seemed to disappear for a while between your time at your family accounting firm and showing up on the payroll of Blanchard Building.”

“I was finding myself.”

She laughed, a deep belly laugh that made him want to laugh with her. “You know what? I'm not sure I want to know what you were doing. I have a feeling the truth wouldn't be nearly as interesting as what I'm imagining.”

Damn, he wanted to kiss her. It would be so easy; she was standing there, near enough that he could reach out and pull her to him, close the space between their bodies. He remembered how her body had felt pressed to his all too briefly.

The air between them electrified, and her laughter faded until she was gazing up at him, her eyes luminous and her lips trembling apart.

So very easy to kiss her...

He pulled back, trying to remember why he was in Texas in the first place. He was here to lie low, not start an affair with a Barstow County sheriff's deputy. She was already curious about his background. She was smart and she had the resources at her command that could unravel a lot of his secrets.

He needed distance from her, not closeness.

Except someone wanted her dead. And protecting people was his business these days.

As she took a step back as well, her eyes narrowing, he said the first thing that came to mind. “Tell me about Delta McGraw.”

She took another step back. “Who told you about Delta?”

“You did.”

“I didn't mention her name.”

“Your father told me her name.”

Her brow furrowed, her eyes darkening to thunderclouds. “You talked to my dad about one of my cases?” She pushed past him and stalked down the hallway, her shoulders squared with anger.

He followed her into the living room. “Someone tried to kill you. And me, in case you forgot. That same person came back to my house looking for God knows what. And someone also tossed this place and left no stone, canister or sofa cushion unturned.”

She turned to face him. “That could have been kids.”

He arched an eyebrow at her, and she sighed.

“Fine. It was probably related. But what do you think any of it has to do with Delta?”

“You said yourself it's the only real case you're investigating. And didn't you say that the call that sent you out to Route 7 in the first place was about Delta? Someone had seen her hitchhiking or something?”

“Right. But I didn't see her anywhere.”

“Maybe you weren't supposed to.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You mean that call was to lure me out there?”

“The weathermen were predicting snow. Hardly anyone was out on the roads by that hour because of the dire reports.”

“But someone would have to know I was the one who took the call.”

“It was your case. You would have been the first person the call would have gone to, right?”

She nodded, looking thoughtful. “But that still doesn't answer the question of why someone would run me off the road and try to shoot me. That's pretty drastic for a missing persons case.”

“Unless she's not just missing.”

“You think someone killed her.” Her expression remained mostly neutral, but there was a flicker of pain in her eyes.

“How close were you and Delta?”

“Not real close. But I guess about as close as she'd let anyone get.” There was a hint of hesitation in her voice. “I tried to help her a few times. Adjusting to life without her dad was really strange for her. They had a...difficult relationship.”

“Because he was a con artist?”

She frowned. “Did my dad tell you that, too?”

Busted. “I asked about her. He didn't know he was spilling state secrets or anything.”

“Why didn't you just ask me?”

“Because you'd probably pull that whole police-business thing and keep it to yourself.”

She shot him a look of consternation that told him his words had hit the mark. He was right and she knew it. “It
is
police business,” she said weakly.

“And you weren't the only one who nearly got killed yesterday.” He stepped closer to her, willing her not to back away. He needed her to understand that he had a stake in this mystery, too, because there was no way in hell he was going to let her whip out her badge and try to shut him out.

Her eyes went wide and unexpectedly soft. “I know. But you were only involved because of me.”

He knew she was probably right. But there was that little sliver of possibility that he'd been the one who was the real target, wasn't there? Quinn didn't think anyone from the BRI had tracked him down to Texas, but despite his downright mythical reputation, Quinn didn't really know everything. He could be wrong.

And all it took to get a man killed was to drop his guard just once in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“You're not just a carpenter, are you?”

He snapped his focus back to her. She was looking at him with sudden understanding.

“I don't know what—”

“A year overseas working for a global marketing firm. But you're an accountant. Or a carpenter. Why doesn't that compute?”

“Miranda—”

“And there's a whole year missing more recently, until you show up a couple of weeks ago on the payroll of Blanchard Building in Garza County. But as far as I can tell, the entire time you've been on their payroll, you've been living here in Cold Creek.”

“So?”

“You don't react to things like a civilian.”

“I'm not a cop.”

“No, you don't have that vibe,” she agreed. “But I'm betting you've done some sort of intelligence work. No record of time in the military, so I'm guessing CIA or NSA. Maybe Homeland Security.”

He decided to play it for a joke. “I'd tell you, but then I'd have—”

“To kill me. Right.” She shook her head. “Don't worry. I'm not going to ask any more questions. Promise.”

Good, he thought, though he wasn't sure it was a promise she'd be able to keep. Curiosity glittered in her eyes like diamonds, even now. How long would she be able to keep that desire to know at bay?

* * *

M
IRANDA
HAD
MANAGED
to find a bottle of bath gel that hadn't been dumped down the bathroom sink and took a long, hot soak while John went to the barbecue joint a half mile down the road to pick up takeout. By seven that evening, she was full and growing sleepy, but he showed no signs of leaving.

“You're not planning on leaving, are you?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

John met her gaze. “I'd rather not.”