Coming Home (35 page)

If Jeb noticed that she seemed moody that evening he didn't mention it. He had enough troubles dealing with keeping things light and easy when every instinct he possessed screamed for him to grab her and pour out his heart. Nope. He wasn't traveling down that path. Light and easy. That was the way and he hail tokeep reminding himself of that fact every second of every day.

For all her moodiness, when Jeb reached for her that night and kissed her, she went flying into his arms, aware that at these moments, these moments of passion and desire, precious moments of intimacy and tenderness, that she had no doubts. No doubts at all.

By morning, even though she had resolved nothing, Roxanne's sunny nature reasserted itself. She hummed in the kitchen as she put on a pot of coffee, took some eggs and shredded cheddar cheese out for an omelet, and cheerfully began to chop some green pepper, onions, and Canadian bacon. Her good mood might have had some basis in the fact Jeb was going to go in late to the office this morning and that they could share a leisurely breakfast together.

It was still raining lightly and the day wasn't appreciably more appealing than yesterday had been, but – somehow this morning it didn't seem quite so bad. In fact, as she and Jeb sat down at the kitchen table and ate the omelet and whole wheat English muffins she'd toasted, it was a great day as far as she was concerned. They took their coffee mugs into the great room and lingered over coffee, talking easily as they usually did. Dawg was resting at her feet as she sat on the couch and Boss had taken up his place near a corner of the couch that Jeb had claimed as his own. Their conversation wasn't important; it consisted of simple things as they talked about this and that, enjoying the moment and each other's company.

The phone rang and Roxanne sent it an irritated look. Rising to her feet she walked over and answered it, her expression of irritation disappearing the moment she recognized the voice. “Marshall,” she cried, “what a surprise to hear from you. How are you doing?”

Jeb set his mug down and cocked an ear. Marshall? Who the hell was Marshall? His stomach suddenly knotted. Oh, yeah. Her fancy, famous New York agent, Marshall Klein.

Jeb tried not to listen to the conversation, contenting himself with scratching Boss's ear, but since she was less than ten feet away from him, he couldn't help overhearing. From his end, it sounded as if Marshall was trying to convince Roxanne to take a modeling job in Bermuda next month. Roxanne appeared to be listening, to be considering it, and Jeb's heart nose-dived. He'd known she'd leave sometime. Known that sooner or later the bright lights and pavement and glamour would lure her away from the valley. Away from him. He'd known all along that this time with Roxanne was just a taste of paradise. That it wouldn't last. He thought he'd accepted the idea, but as he listened, everything within him rebelled. It was all he could do not to leap up, march over to where she stood, and slam that phone down and tell her in blunt terms that she wasn't leaving the valley … and him. He fought his primitive impulse and kept right on scratching Boss's ears, dying a little inside.

Forcing a smile, when Roxanne put the phone down and turned around to face him, he said, “I couldn't help overhearing. Sounds like a pretty plush assignment. Bermuda, sun and surf.”

It did sound like fun. At least it had until she considered that accepting the assignment would mean leaving Oak Valley. Her home. Dawg and Boss … and Jeb. If she'd never tasted the heady brew of fame and fortune, she would have jumped at the offer. The money was great. The locale was great. The photographer, Gabriel, was a leader in the industry and a favorite of hers. The assignment was short—she wouldn't be gone more than a week. It would be a perfect opportunity to rub shoulders again with friends she'd made in the industry. Put her toe back in the water for a bit. But Roxanne knew in her heart that the life she'd left behind no longer appealed—one of the reasons she was standing where she was right now, trying to decide if she
really
wanted to step back into the limelight—if only briefly.

Roxanne shrugged. Seating herself on the couch, she picked up her mug of coffee and took a sip. “When you've seen one sandy beach, no matter how beautiful, you've seen them all.”

“You're
not
going to accept the assignment?” he asked incredulously.

Roxanne looked at him across her mug. “Would you mind if I did?”

Jeb sat back and scowled at her. “Is this a test?”

Roxanne smiled. “No. I'm just curious how you'd feel about me taking off for a week or two to do some modeling.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Making oodles of money.”

His first response was to roar that you bet your sweet ass he didn't like the idea one damn bit. That hell, no, he didn't want her traipsing off to Bermuda and cavorting around half-naked before a guy named Gabriel and who knew how many other men. Christ, what did she think he was made of?

He opened his mouth. Shut it. Thought about it. This was her career. She must love it—she stayed in it long enough. How would he feel if she asked him to give up his career in law enforcement? He knew the answer to that one. He swallowed. Ah shit. Sometimes life was just too complicated.

Jeb rubbed his hand over his face. Wearily he said, “If that's what you want to do, then I've no right to put obstacles in your way.”

“That's true,” Roxanne agreed, not certain whether to be happy or upset with his words. It was nice that he was being so “modern” about it, but she thought she'd prefer it if he'd at least act as if her absence would bother him. “But would you be happy about it?” she persisted.

Jeb's look burned her. “Hell, no.” Feeling he'd revealed too much, he growled, “What about the opposite? What if I was gonna be gone for a week? Going back to Washington, D.C., for a seminar or something? Would you be happy?”

Her eyes danced, her heart nearly flying out of herchest. “Hell, no,” she said. “I'd make you take me with you.”

Jeb grinned, his dark mood vanishing. “Sounds like a plan. So you gonna take me to Bermuda with you?”

Roxanne stood up. “Nope.” At the expression on his face, she didn't know whether to run for her life or burst out laughing. “I don't think that Bermuda holds much interest for me these days.”

“You're going to
pass
on this job?”

She nodded. “Hmm, yes, I think so. Marshall will understand. I told him when I left New York that while I was going to be semi-retired what I really meant was that I'd be
mostly
retired and that the assignment would have to be something really special.” She shrugged again. “This one isn't. It'd be fun and I'm sure I would enjoy myself—Gabriel is a great guy, and an even greater photographer, and my friend Ann Talbot is going to be one of the other models on the shoot. It would be pleasant and no doubt fun, but …” She looked around her, at Dawg at her feet, Jeb and Boss across from her, and the view of the valley right outside the French doors. “But I'd have to leave all this behind and this means more to me now than a week in Bermuda ever could.”

As he drove down the twisting road, heading for work, Jeb kept turning Roxanne's words over and over in his head. Maybe she really was back in the valley for good. Maybe she
wasn't
going to go flying back to the glamorous world she'd left behind. Of course, that “now” was the tricky part. Maybe next time Marshall called she wouldn't feel the same way.

As he turned onto Highway 101, Jeb was frowning, his thoughts on Roxanne. He really wouldn't mind if she took the occasional modeling assignment, he wouldn't like it, but he wouldn't mind. He was a big boy. He could endure a week or two without waking up beside her in bed every morning. Just. But he could handle it. He'd be miserable, probably grouchy as a bear with a festered paw, but he'd be OK. What he feared was that if she did take those intermittent assignments and traveled to all those fascinating and enchanting spots all over the world, sooner or later the simple charm of the valley would pall and there'd be a time that she didn't come back. That she disappeared into the sophisticated hustle and bustle of New York, or Madrid, or London, or any one of a dozen more exotic cities and he'd never see her again except smiling from the pages of a magazine.

His heart turned into a lump of ice and there was a desolate twist to his lips as he considered that idea of Roxanne gone from his life. He didn't think he'd survive it. He'd thought he'd been in love before, thought that he'd found love everlasting, but comparing what he felt for Roxanne to the emotion he'd felt for his two wives made him realize what a pale thing those emotions had been. Christ. No wonder his marriages had failed. He'd only given half his heart and it had taken falling violently in love with Roxanne to show him the difference.

Jeb's eyes were bleak as he drove toward Willits. So what the hell was he going to do? Somehow he had trouble believing that Roxanne would be happy for very long simply being the wife of a deputy in a mainly rural county in northern California. She was used to the glamorous life. Oh, sure, she seemed to be happy right now, but what about a year from now? Two years from now? What then?

Jeb was in a thoroughly bad mood when he finally arrived at work. Like a wounded cougar, he hid out in his cubicle at the office and kept his head down, reading and writing reports, trying to keep focused on the job and not his personal problems. It was difficult, but somehow he managed and the stack of paperwork on his desk gradually shrank.

He was just getting ready to leave to drive home that evening when the phone on his desk rang. It was Gene Cartwright.

They exchanged greetings and bullshit for a few minutes and then Gene said, “You know that murder you asked me to look into? Guy by the name of Dirk Aston? Killed back in January of last year?”

“Yeah. Anything interesting about it?”

“A lot more interesting than I thought it would be.”

Jeb sat up, his eyes alert. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it's still technically unsolved, like most drug-connected crimes, but we think we know who did it—and why. Word on the street is that it was no accident that your guy got clipped. It
was
an accident that he died, but not that he got shot. Word is that he'd been skimming money and drugs and his employers took a dim view of it—they wanted their belongings back. According to street gossip, some kid was supposed to
wound
Aston, frighten him, let him know just exactly what a dim view they took of his pilfering. Wasn't meant to be a hit. At least not then. I don't doubt that once they got back their belongings Mr. Aston wouldn't be long for this world. He crossed the line and there was no way they were going to let him live. But first he had to cough up the goodies.”

“Aston? Skimming? Christ. I always thought of him as a small-time marijuana grower. Real low echelon. Not the brightest bulb in the lamp.”

“Yeah, he was that too, but apparently, he also acted as a mule between Oakland and your neck of the woods. If my information is correct—and remember it's mostly street gossip—now and then he carried cocaine and other drugs into your area and money back to Oakland. Wasn't a regular, but was trusted enough to do the job upon occasion.”

Jeb felt stupid. He'd known Dirk Aston and dismissed him as a nuisance. And even though he investigated mainly homicides in the county, he kept his ear to the ground and his eyes wide open for intriguing bits of information that might come in handy down the road. There'd never been a whisper that dirty ole Dirk had been more than just another low-life subsistence grower.

“So, what about this kid? Was he picked up? Questioned?”

Gene sighed. “Nobody connected it at the time, but two days after the Aston hit, a black kid, name of Leroy Seely, was found floating in the bay—shot in the back of the head. Same caliber gun that killed your guy.”

“The kid messed up by killing Aston by mistake so they took care of him,” Jeb said flatly.

“Yeah, that's our read. Can't prove it. But we're pretty certain that's what happened. Doesn't mean your guy wouldn't have bought it eventually, just not then and probably not in Oakland.” Gene chuckled but there was no humor in it. “Once they'd gotten their money and drugs back, you'd probably have had the pleasure of investigating Mr. Aston's death.”

“Probably.” Many things were coming together for Jeb. “The money and drugs were never recovered, were they?” he asked after a moment.

“Nope, not as far as I know, but you gotta know, there's only so much information circling on the street. Bastards don't tell us all the gossip. Just what doesn't matter anymore. You know, throw the poor bumbling cops a bone now and then.”

“What kind of money are we talking about, Gene?”

“Best estimate, relying on our informants, is around a hundred thousand, maybe a little less. Part in cash and part in actual drugs.”

Jeb whistled. No wonder Roxanne's place had been broken into time and again. The damage was now easily explained and it hadn't been just your garden-variety trespasser either. It had been someone dangerous; someone who didn't think twice about murder, someone searching desperately for a hundredthousand-dollar stash they thought was hidden in or around Dirk's old place. A chill snaked down Jeb's spine. Dirk's old place, the place Roxanne now called home. …

Chapter
17

J
eb's first instinct was to drive like a maniac to Roxanne's. Then common sense asserted itself and he realized that Aston's old place had been searched and re-searched numerous times during the past year. The place had been deserted for over six months—anyone looking for drugs and money had had plenty of time to do so. New construction had been going since last September and structures had been torn down and rebuilt; by now it was highly questionable that anyone would still be nosing around. Logic said that the people Aston had double-crossed must have given up on ever finding his stash, or at least decided that Dirk hadn't hidden it on his own place. Roxanne was in no danger, he repeated to himself several times. No danger at all. Trouble was, he couldn't quite completely convince himself and calling himself all kinds of a fool, he picked up the phone.