Night’s Landing

Twenty-Two

Sarah woke up early and alone in bed, a mockingbird singing outside her open window and the air smelling faintly of roses. But the familiar sounds and smells did nothing to soothe her after her night of unsettling dreams and images. She slipped into jeans and a lightweight hiking top and tiptoed down to the kitchen, the fried apricot pies where she’d left them on a brown paper sack.

When she’d gone up to bed last night, Nate was in the shower. She’d slipped into her room and crawled under the covers, listened to the water turn off, the bathroom door shut, then his door shut, and she wondered if he was furious with himself for what had happened in the kitchen. If he regretted it because they both were under such stress, because he was a law enforcement officer and she was Rob’s sister-because, basically, he should know better.

Then again, he might not regret anything.

She poured herself a glass of iced tea and dialed Rob’s room at the hospital.

She pictured them as little kids running through the house, their laissez-faire parents only vaguely aware of what they were up to most of the time. They’d catch frogs and snakes and explore the limestone caves and sinks along the riverbank, and in winter, they’d wait for an ice storm so they could get out their orange plastic flying saucers and try to make it as close to the riverbank as possible-not that they ever went into the water. Once, Rob had slid off his saucer and cut his face and hands on the ice that covered every blade of grass, every exposed twig. It was the first time Sarah remembered seeing him in real pain.

He answered his phone himself.

“Am I calling too early?” she asked cheerfully.

“Yes. What’re you up to?”

“I’m about to eat a fried apricot pie for breakfast. I made them last night before bed.”

“Where’s Nate? Is he behaving himself?”

She sipped her tea, welcoming the jolt of sweetness. “I think he’s still in bed.”

“Stay on your toes with him. I know you like those old fusty academic types, but the guy has a hell of a reputation with women.”

“What old fusty academic guys?”

“Come on. You don’t trust hard-ass guys like Nate. You figure they’re just after your body not your mind-”

“Rob! You must be feeling better.”

“Yeah.” He sounded relieved, as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself.

“Don’t worry about me, okay? I can take care of myself.”

“Nate’s married to the job, but he’s got total focus-he’s the best at what he does, no matter what little tootsie he’s got on the side.”

“Little tootsie?” Sarah made herself smile, hoping it’d reflect in her voice. “Thanks for the warning, but maybe it’s time I let a hard-ass type have his way with me.”

“Oh, man. I don’t even want to go there. Have you talked to Mother and Dad? They’re heading to New York.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic. “They’ll be here in time to tuck me in tonight.”

“Aren’t you lonely?” She was half kidding.

Rob scoffed. “Not a chance. All the brass will roll out for them when they get here. Just what I need. I hate for Dad to make the trip when it’s not necessary.”

It was more than that, Sarah knew. He hated for their father to see him in the condition he was in, seriously injured on a job both parents thought he wasn’t suited for. To them, Rob was a fun-loving charmer, an average student who excelled at languages because he liked them. They didn’t really believe he had the backbone to be a federal agent. They feared he was a throwback to the Dunnemores of old, adventurous but without their tough recklessness, their ability to truly not give a damn.

“Dad’ll be fine,” she said. “He’ll probably live to be a hundred. Rob, you know he’s proud of what you do.”

“He’d rather I were secretary of state.”

She tried to laugh but hated how low he sounded. “But then you’d have to answer to Wes, and that’d never work. It’s not like getting shot proves Dad right-it was never a question about being right, anyway. It’s about his hopes for you.”

“I know.”

But there was something in his tone. Sarah frowned. “You’re not getting depressed on us, are you?”

“Dreading seeing the old man with my spleen in a garbage disposal and a scar-” He broke off, and she could hear that he was in a slump. “There’s something I’m missing. I don’t know. This guy you saw in Central Park-”

She picked at the browned edges of a fried pie. “I’m sure it’s a case of mistaken identity. I almost wish I hadn’t mentioned him.”

“You should have told Nate about him right from the start. Have you told anyone else about him?”

“Only you feds.”

“What about this note you found?”

“It was in the same pile as a note from a psychic.” She could hear the frustration building in her brother’s voice and decided to give him something new to think about. “Have you met the new property manager yet? Ethan Brooker?”

“No.”

“This reporter working on a bio of Wes, Conroy Fontaine?”

Rob was silent.

Sarah’s heart jumped. “Rob?”

“Is he in Night’s Landing?”

“He rented a cabin at the fishing camp a few weeks ago. I met him last fall-”

“Last fall? Where?”

“Here. I was on my own for a few days. He was in the area trying to decide if he wanted to do this book. Rob? Do you know him?”

“He was in Amsterdam in April before you came over from Scotland. He wanted to interview Mother and Dad and got me instead. I ran him off. I didn’t think to say anything to you. I was going to check him out-what’s he got to do with this Brooker character?”

“Nothing. Ethan went over to Conroy’s cabin last night to check him out, and they got into a bit of a scuffle. Nothing to worry about. Ethan-” She hesitated. “He’s a good ol’ boy from West Texas. I think he’s trying to break into songwriting.”

Rob gave a long-suffering sigh, almost sounding like himself. “Another of Mother and Dad’s three-legged puppies?”

“They caught him fishing on the dock.”

“Trespassing.”

Sarah smiled. “They hired him on the spot.”

“Nate’s checking out both of these guys?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to run you out of here. I was thinking you’d be home on your own. I didn’t figure on a weird letter, all these guys-”

“Just concentrate on getting better. I’ll be fine.”

She could feel him making the effort to be cheerful. “Not if you’re eating fried apricot pies for breakfast. Put one in the freezer for me, okay?”

“Hurry home.”

“I’m trying.”

The doctors had warned her that as the anesthesia got out of his system and he started weaning off the heavy-duty painkillers, he could have an emotional letdown. Sarah hated to say goodbye.

She broke one of the half-moon-shaped pies and took it with her as she ducked out the back door, letting it shut quietly behind her so as not to wake Nate. She wanted to postpone the inevitable “morning after” awkwardness for as long as possible and hoped he didn’t regret what they’d done right to his bones. She didn’t. She’d never done anything like it, but she didn’t regret it.

At least not to her bones.

Sarah spotted Ethan working on the wood rail fence along the edge of a field they rented to a local farmer for haying and headed in that direction, taking a bite of the pie, relishing how good it tasted. Prune cake, casseroles and tea punch yesterday, and now fried apricot pies. They all tasted of home and, with the azaleas in bloom and the river coursing in front of her, the grass thick and soft underfoot, she was caught up in a wave of nostalgia that brought a tightness to her throat. As accustomed as she was to coming and going, living in different places, Night’s Landing had always been her anchor. She couldn’t imagine not having it to come back to.

When she reached him, Ethan was sweating from digging a post hole to fix a length of fence that had been rotting and sagging for as long as Sarah could remember. He stood up and leaned against his shovel. She noticed his black tattoo, the tanned muscles in his shoulders and arms. Probably, she thought, her parents should have checked him out before they gave him keys to the house.

“Good morning, Miss Sarah,” he said, ever amiable.

“Hi, Ethan.” She’d finished her fried pie on the walk across the yard and wished now she’d taken a whole one. “You have a minute?”

“You want to talk to me some more about Conroy Fontaine.”

She nodded. “It sounds like you’re lucky he didn’t call the police. What happened? What made you go over there?”

“You’re too trusting, Miss Sarah. You need to watch yourself.” He paused, his dark eyes on her, as if he were trying to tell her it was a mistake to trust him, too. “You don’t like to think there are bad people in the world.”

“Nobody does.”

He shrugged his powerful shoulders. “I don’t think about it one way or the other. It’s just the way it is.” He peeled a black bandanna from around his neck and used it to wipe the sweat off his face. “You’ll excuse my language, ma’am, but Fontaine’s a bottom-feeding piece of shit.”

Sarah took no offense at his language or his frank assessment of their temporary neighbor. “He’s a reporter trying to make a buck. Nothing’s going to come of his book. I haven’t told him anything except that my Granny Dunnemore was a good cook.”

“He’ll twist your words.”

“What would you have me do?”

“Refuse to talk to him. Go back to Scotland.” He tilted his head and looked down at her, his eyes sparking with sudden humor. “Take your deputy friend with you.”

She shifted, wondering how obvious the sparks between her and Nate had been yesterday, and felt the rich, sweet apricot pie heavy in her stomach. Ethan’s deferential manner didn’t seem as pronounced this morning-or as genuine.

“I went over to Fontaine’s cabin early this morning to apologize,” he went on. “He wasn’t around.”

“He hasn’t cleared out, has he?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe he just wants to give you a chance to cool down.”

Ethan tucked the bandanna in a back pocket of his overalls. “I wasn’t upset. I was just checking up on him. Maybe I made him nervous.”

“He said you rammed him against his refrigerator.”

He picked up his shovel, as effortlessly as if it had been a switch. “Mr. Fontaine has a gift for storytelling, ma’am. He exaggerates. Imagine what kind of book he’ll write on President Poe.”

It was a fair point-not that good storytelling and exaggeration were unheard of in Night’s Landing-but Sarah could see only trouble ahead if Ethan decided to make Conroy his problem. “We have to put up with him for as long as he’s here. It’s not like we have a choice. What he’s doing is not illegal. We can be cordial.”

“You don’t have to let him onto the property.”

“That’s true, I don’t.” At least Ethan understood that letting Conroy-or anyone else-onto the property was her decision, not his. She hadn’t seen this protective side of him in the week she’d been home, but, then, there’d been no brother shot in Central Park, no feds at the door. “Conroy knows by now that I’m not going to be telling tales on an old friend.” But she could, she thought-her whole family could, and Wes on them; it was the nature of their long, close friendship. She smiled at Ethan. “He’s not unpleasant to be around. So, okay? No more ass-kicking.”

He grinned at her. “That was hardly a good ass-kicking, Miss Sarah. But don’t you worry. I’ll behave. And you’ll be careful?”

“I will. Promise.”

“Don’t be so trusting. Even that marshal friend of yours-who knows about him? He wasn’t hurt that bad in the sniper attack. That’d make me suspicious.”

“Ethan, please-”

“Hell of an alibi, ain’t it?”

“He did everything he could to save Rob’s life.”

“So he wanted to be the hero, I don’t know.” Ethan’s tone was matter-of-fact; Sarah had no idea if he was making a serious point or exaggerating to underline his point about her being less trusting. “I’m not accusing him of a thing, Miss Sarah. I’m really not. I’m just saying you shouldn’t always be thinking people have your best interests at heart.”

“Including you?”

“I’ve been here a month without causing trouble, stealing, burning the place down. That’s saying something.”

“I appreciate your concern.”

Ethan nodded toward the house. “Here’s your fellow coming after you now. He’s not the trusting type, Miss Sarah, I’ll say that for him.”

She spun around. Ethan wasn’t kidding-Nate was walking up from the house. He had on jeans and a black jacket, probably to hide the weapon he was carrying, and his expression was unreadable as he approached the fence. “I didn’t realize you were up,” she said, pushing back any sense of awkwardness at seeing him. “I left a fried pie for you in the toaster oven.”

“Pies for breakfast. That a habit here?”

She shook her head. “I’m just not in much of a mood to resist.”

She immediately regretted her comment, felt the heat rising to her cheeks, but Nate had already shifted back to Ethan, who, if he noticed the tension between his boss and her company, made no comment. “I want to talk to you later,” Nate told Ethan. “Stay where I can find you.”

“Yes, sir, Deputy Winter.”

Sarah thought she detected a hint of sarcasm in Ethan’s tone, another surprise from him, but she supposed lawmen elicited different reactions from people. But Nate didn’t linger or argue, and she chose not to ask more questions-or to remind the two men that they were both on Dunnemore property at her sufferance.

She walked past Nate and felt a blast of damp, chilly air off the river as she headed back to the house, pounding up the porch steps, her heart racing, her cheeks flushed from awareness and anxiety. She tore open the porch door and marched down the hall to the kitchen. Using a dish towel as a pot holder, she pulled a fried pie from the toaster oven, put it on a plate and dusted it with confectioner’s sugar.

Nate came into the kitchen, and she shoved it at him. “Fried apricot pies might even be better than prune cake.”

“Better than sex?”

She stared at him. There. Throw down the gauntlet, Deputy.

He wasn’t letting her off the hook. He wasn’t going to pretend last night hadn’t happened. She leaned back against the counter, twisting her dish towel in both hands, and decided not to let him get to her, even if he was more accustomed to “morning afters” than she was.

Her brother was wrong. She wasn’t afraid of hard-ass types who wanted her just for her body and didn’t much care about her as a person. She just knew she should avoid them.

Or she used to know it.

Not that Nate didn’t care about her as a person.

“I guess it depends on the sex,” she said airily. “Last night was right up there with fried pies, I’d say. But, I imagine it broke every rule in the deputy U.S. marshal rule book-”

“There are no rules that cover you. Twin sister of a wounded deputy, friend of the president, daughter of a diplomat, southern academic. Pretty.” He smiled and sat at the table with his pie. “Very pretty.”

“Well, my life would be easier if it’d been someone else with Rob, or someone else who flew down here-”

“Someone you’re not so attracted to?”

“God, you can be direct.”

“It’s a quality we share.”

And she was attracted to him. Never mind what he wanted from her or what he cared about, she hadn’t objected to sex with him in the kitchen.

Not even a little.

She decided to change the subject. “Ethan said he checked on Conroy this morning. I wish he hadn’t, but at least Conroy wasn’t around. And I talked to Rob. Our folks are arriving in New York tonight. I told him about Ethan and Conroy. Turns out he met Conroy in Amsterdam. Conroy was there trying to get interviews with my parents. Nice business write-off.” She sat across from Nate, trying to calm herself down. “My family attracts a lot of drama on a good day. These haven’t been particularly good days.”

Nate didn’t answer. He picked up a pie semicircle and examined it as if it might have ants. “What’s in it?”

“What? Oh. Apricots and spices.”

“So, it’s like a turnover.”

“Better.”

He smiled. “Better than a turnover, maybe or maybe not better than sex.” He broke the pie in half, the warm cinnamon-apricot filling oozing out. “Another stick-to-your-ribs southern recipe.”

“They’re one of Wes Poe’s favorites. I don’t think he tells many people. And, no, it’s not something I shared with Conroy.”

Nate tried a bite. “Not bad.” He sat back in his chair, his incisive eyes on her. “I don’t trust Ethan Brooker. I don’t trust Conroy Fontaine. Hell, I don’t trust myself.” He sighed. “You do bear closer watching, Miss Sarah.”

“You’re not responsible for me.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Not officially.” She had no intention of backing down with him. “I’m not letting you or anyone else force a security detail on me in my own home. I won’t have it, not unless there’s just no other choice.”

His eyes were flinty. “We’ll see what comes in the mail today.”

She ignored him. “I suppose what happened last night wouldn’t have happened if you were here ‘officially.’”

“I love the oblique way you put it. You mean indulging in prune cake or-”

She pushed back her chair and threw her dish towel at him, which he caught with one hand, laughing unexpectedly for the first time since she’d met him, at least like that. He had a great laugh. Sexy. But she was in a frame of mind and all her nerve endings were such that they had her thinking everything about him was sexy.

“About last night.” She cleared her throat and made herself go on. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you that way. You’ve experienced a recent trauma, and I should have been more sensitive to that.”

He almost choked on his apricot pie. He had to get up, go to the sink and get water before he could speak again.

Sarah frowned. “What? I started things rolling last night. I’m not the one who was shot the other day. It was up to me to stop things before they went too far.” She had a feeling she was making a mess of things. “I’m just saying, if you have any regrets this morning, I understand.”

He waved one hand and choked out, “No regrets.” He took another drink of water, then turned and leaned back against the sink. “God, you’re a trip, Dr. Dunnemore. You tell me how the hell you could possibly have taken advantage of me when I’m the one who was standing, holding you, when we-” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

“I’m talking about emotional advantage more than physical advantage. If I’d simply gone about making my fried pies-”

“You’d just have had more flour on you when we made love.”

She was getting nowhere. She wasn’t sure she wanted to and smiled. “And dough on my hands. Sticky dough.”

“Jesus.” He grinned at her. “You’re right. You did take advantage of me. I hope you will again soon.” But he went still and swore under his breath, drawing his weapon. “Don’t move.”

Sarah followed his gaze, stifling a yell of surprise when she saw the fat, black snake slithering up the hall toward the kitchen.

“Water snake or cottonmouth?” Nate asked in a low voice.

She noted the triangle-shaped head and stout body. “Cottonmouth.”

It was at least three feet long. Nate kept his eyes on it.

Sarah took a breath. “Slowly move toward the back door.”

“And what? Let it find its way under my bed? Not a chance.”

“Well, you’re not going to shoot it!” She took a step toward the counters, the snake moving quickly now. “Try to get behind it if you can. Rob and I used to catch cottonmouths all the time, but outside. I think they might be faster on a floor.”

“Oh, good.”

He didn’t sound scared at all. Sarah realized that getting behind the snake, which was coming toward them in the kitchen, wasn’t going to be easy. “I’m going to the pantry, okay? Granny used to catch snakes with the mop handle.” She moved deliberately, as quickly as she dared, to the pantry in the corner of the kitchen. “Distract it if it goes after me.”

“I’m going to shoot it if it goes after you.”

She grabbed the rag mop from the open pantry and detached its metal head. “We just need to get it outside. Remember, most water moccasin bites don’t end up being poisonous. They don’t release their venom willy-nilly. Anyway, I have an antivenom kit. Of course,” she added, walking slowly back toward the hall doorway, “I’ve never had to use it.”

Nate glanced at her. “Want me to do it?”

She shook her head. “I watched Granny catch snakes with the mop a dozen times, at least. Usually grass snakes, though.”

The snake slithered under the table. Nate still had his gun pointed at it. Careful not to do anything sudden, Sarah came up behind the snake, then, in a swift, one-chance-only move, she pinned it down within the hardware that usually held the mop head in place, just as her grandmother had done so many times.

She didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the snake just behind its head, removed the mop handle and stood up straight, the black body wriggling in front of her. “This was a lot more fun when I was a kid.”

Nate stepped forward and took the mop from her. She ran out the back door, the snake’s thick three-foot body hanging past her knees. She kept going, all the way down to the dock.

She flung the cottonmouth as hard as she could into the river.

It disappeared in the brown water.

She was breathing hard, aware of Nate behind her on the dock.

Ethan eased in behind them. “I’d have shot it if I were you, Deputy.”

Sarah spun around at him. “Did you put that snake in my house? Because I got on your case about Conroy-”

“Not me, Miss Sarah.” Ethan was unruffled. “I grew up in West Texas. I’m not that big on snakes.”

She glanced at Nate and saw that he’d returned his gun to its holster. She turned back to Ethan, who just watched her calmly. She was still on edge. “We haven’t had a snake in the house in years, and I don’t remember ever having a cottonmouth in the house.”

Ethan shrugged. “If I were your granny and had to fetch a snake out of the house, I don’t know as I’d tell a little kid it was poisonous.”

Sarah expelled a breath. “I’m sorry. I have no business accusing you of anything. I’m sure it was an accident.” She tried to smile. “At least I know how to catch a snake. I wonder if that poor snake knows I saved its life.”

Nate shook his head. “I’m with Brooker. Easier just to shoot it.”

“You’d clean up the mess?”

Ethan gave an exaggerated shudder, his eyes sparking with unexpected humor. “You know, Miss Sarah, I could have gone all day without that picture in my head.”

“Sorry. But the snake didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not like it wanted to be in the house-it just found itself there.”

“Next time you find a snake in the house,” Ethan said, “you call me, okay? That’s what I’m here for.”

“You won’t shoot it?”

“No, ma’am, how could I shoot it? I don’t carry a gun.”

He ambled off the dock and back toward the fence. Nate stared out at the water. The sun broke through the clouds and played on the ripples of coppery water. A bright red male cardinal flew into the low brush along the river, and Sarah could hear a mourning dove with its intermittent, almost plaintive song.

So quiet, so peaceful.

But her heart was thumping, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the snake and how it had gotten into the house.

“About last night,” Nate said. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

She nodded.

“Your brother’s trusting me to look after you-”

“I can look after myself.”

He half smiled. “You did all right with that snake.”

She glanced up at him and forced herself to smile. “I did, didn’t I?”

“You’re pals with the president. For all we know, a dozen Secret Service agents are camped out here.”

“And saw us last night? I don’t think so. Nobody saw anything.”

His eyes sparked. “There was plenty to see.”

She thought of diving into the river. The snake was probably halfway to Nashville by now. Nate’s words had brought back all of last night. She could feel her body quaking with him inside her, remembered how she’d resisted screaming out-how uninhibited she’d been with him. He was not an inexperienced lover. She warned herself not to expect anything more.

She ran her hands through her hair. “I think we should check the house for more snakes, don’t you?”

“Damn straight.”

But when they reached the house, he stopped in the front hall and curved an arm around her middle, kissing her softly. “Last night wasn’t just opportunistic,” he whispered. “When this thing gets settled-” But he didn’t finish, just stood back and sighed. “We’ll see.”

He didn’t trust himself right now on any level-she guessed that was what he was trying to say. Which made sense to her, because she didn’t trust herself, either.