Dead Giveaway (17 page)

A strong arm reached out and grabbed her, halting her in midstride and causing her to step right out of one shoe.

"What are you doing here?"

Allie blinked up at Clay. She'd seen a number of closely guarded emotions flicker across his face in the past three days, more than she'd ever seen him reveal before--but now his expression was positively stony.

"You didn't answer your phone," she explained. She looked past him, trying to see the road again. But the tow truck was gone.

"And?" Clay prompted.

She gave him her full attention. "And when I was on my way to Bonnie Ray's, I spotted your vehicle and thought you must be working outside."

"I was having a shower."

She could tell. Water dripped from his hair onto his bare shoulders. He hadn't taken time to put on a shirt or shoes before coming out of the house.

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to let you know that I'm interested in dinner."

He flicked his hair out of his eyes. "So you can dig a little deeper into my past?"

"So we can work together to discover what happened to your stepfather and bring Madeline and the rest of your family some closure." Allie suspected he wouldn't like that answer, but she knew he couldn't complain about it, regardless of his true feelings.

"And your father?" he asked.

"Don't worry about my father. He's...confused right now."

"About?"

"The nature of our relationship."

"Which is..."

She wasn't completely sure herself, but she knew what it needed to be. "Professional, of course."

"Of course," he repeated.

"So where should we eat?"

He wiped away a drop of water running down his chest. "I don't like crowds."

"We could find some out-of-the-way cafe. Or...wait, I know the perfect place."

He hesitated as if he might refuse.

"Have you changed your mind?" she asked.

"Maybe."

She sent him a challenging grin. "Why? Do I make you nervous?"

He chuckled softly--the cat laughing at the canary. "What time?"

77

Brenda Novak

"Is it okay if we go late? After I put Whitney to bed?"

"Your call," he said.

"Fine." She told him how to get to the back of her parents' property and promised she'd be waiting at the guesthouse. From there, they'd drive on to the destination she had in mind. "Pick me up at eight-thirty."

His eyes moved over her. The blouse she was wearing wasn't particularly revealing. It wouldn't raise eyebrows even in a church, which was why she'd felt perfectly comfortable wearing it to the service today. But Clay had a way of making her feel as if he could see right through it.

Her heart began to pound for no reason at all and she realized then, more than ever, that police officer or not, she wasn't as immune to his sex appeal as she preferred to think.

The nature of our relationship is professional. Of course.

"See you at eight-thirty," he said and went back inside as if he didn't care whether she rambled around the farm. But now that he was aware of her presence, she knew she wouldn't get very far if she started snooping again. Clay was infamous for guarding his own.

With a sigh, she wiggled her foot back into the high heel she'd lost, climbed into her car and headed to Bonnie Ray's. The place she'd chosen for dinner with Clay was private indeed. Which could work in her favor, if it put Clay at ease and he actually talked to her. Or the seclusion could be a liability, if Clay was as dangerous as her father had suggested.

Was she foolish to take the chance? Possibly. But not because she feared Clay would hurt her physically. It was the promise of what he could do to make her feel
good
that worried her. The last thing she needed was to get intimately involved with her prime suspect.

Clay picked up Allie and they took his truck, but she insisted on driving, so they switched seats.

She drove about forty-five minutes from Stillwater to an isolated fishing shack upstream from Pickwick Lake. Then she cut the engine, grabbed the picnic basket she'd wedged into the seat between them and climbed out.

Clay wasn't sure whether or not to follow her. He didn't know where Irene and Dale spent time together, but he figured it had to be fairly close. Neither of them was ever gone for long. And Clay doubted the chief would risk meeting Irene at the guesthouse on his property in town. This small fishing hut, which Allie had described as her father's favorite getaway, sounded like a much more viable option. It was always available to Dale, very private and somewhere Evelyn probably never went.

Clay stared at the cabin, which Allie had already entered. He'd never dreamed she'd take him to such a place. He hadn't even known it existed. Now that he did know, however, he could easily imagine Allie's father calling Irene and asking her to meet him here for a few hours on an available afternoon.

Not that imagining such a rendezvous created a picture Clay wanted to see....

"Aren't you coming?" Allie called from the front step, her body silhouetted by the flicker of a kerosene lamp. She seemed uncertain about his delay, but she didn't act as if she'd just stumbled on proof that her father was having an affair.

Releasing his breath, Clay got out of his truck and approached the cabin.

"This is definitely private," he said.

"My dad comes out here almost every Sunday," she told him. "He likes to fish."

"With you?"

"When my brother and I were younger, he'd bring us along. These days he mostly comes 78

Brenda Novak

alone."

Or so he wanted everyone to believe, Clay thought. "What about today? He didn't come up?"

"No, he had too much to do. I saw him at home before I left."

More good news. "I can see why he likes it here."

The
qui-ko-wee
of a lone whip-poor-will, which rose from the damp woods surrounding them, seemed louder than any Clay had ever heard. He liked that sound and the sense of seclusion provided by the dense vegetation. But he hesitated at the cabin door, still afraid he might find something of his mother's inside.

"You seem...reluctant to be here with me," Allie said, frowning up at him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said and stepped across the threshold.

Only about twelve by fifteen feet, the shack looked like an old miner's cabin. There was a double bed pushed up against the wall. A dining table sat in front of a rock fireplace that had a spit and an iron hook dangling from above. Three wooden logs, crudely fashioned into chairs, were arranged by the table. White drapes hung at the window. The other furnishings included a small bookcase near the bed, some detached cupboards, a shelf above the fireplace with cooking utensils hanging from it and a knotted rug that covered the wooden planks of the floor.

"There's no bathroom?" he said.

"The outhouse is downstream a bit. This time of night you'll need a flashlight or you'll never find it."

"How long has your father owned this place?"

"Most of my life." She gestured around her. "Luxurious, isn't it?"

Maybe it wasn't luxurious, but it was appealing. After all the unwanted attention he'd endured in his life, Clay felt as if he'd just stepped into another world, as if he could hide out here and avoid the prying eyes that watched him wherever he went in Stillwater.

It was easy to see how Chief McCormick and Irene might feel the same sense of security.

Clay was almost certain this had to be their meeting place. But, fortunately, he saw no sign of his mother's having visited once, let alone more often.

"Maybe someday my father will make improvements," Allie said.

Clay shook his head. "I hope not. I like it the way it is."

"If you had to cook here very often, you wouldn't be so eager to keep it primitive," she said.

"I personally think it could use running water and electricity. And I'm not fond of trudging down to the outhouse in the middle of a dark cold night." She moved the picnic basket from the floor to the table. "But considering how remote this place feels, it's really not that far from civilization."

She tilted her face up, expecting a reaction to her remarks, but he'd already forgotten what she'd said. Clay was beginning to marvel at the fact that he hadn't originally considered Allie very attractive. She was so quick-witted and optimistic, so full of life and energy. She made him
feel
again--eagerness, hope, a deep-seated arousal--just when he'd decided he was beyond reach.

Stillwater had become such a stagnant place, one that, for him, still revolved around the events of nineteen years ago. And yet, now that Allie was back, everything seemed to be changing....

He welcomed the way she made him feel, knew he needed it. At the same time, he feared the hope--because he knew no one could really change anything in his life. Certainly not the past...

"What?" she said when he simply stared at her.

"It's perfect," he said.

She smiled as if she was a little surprised he liked it so much. But he hadn't been talking about the cabin. "I hope you're hungry."

79

Brenda Novak

"What's for dinner?" He eyed her basket. "Or do the pointed questions come first?"

"Don't worry about the questions. I'm going to ply you with wine before we start. Maybe I'll get more out of you that way," she said with a wink.

He arched his eyebrows. "More
what
out of me?"

She ignored the double meaning. "More than you normally say, which isn't much." She pinched her bottom lip, an action Clay found distracting, to say the least. Her lips were so full, so kissable. He was imagining what they might taste like, when she drew him back to the conversation. "Why is that? Why do you keep such a tight rein on yourself?"

Clay was beginning to believe they were far too alone.... "I don't. Haven't you heard? I do exactly as I please."

She shook her head. "That's not true. You push everyone who reaches out to you away.

And yet I sense a deep desire to connect."

"That's bullshit," he retorted, but he couldn't meet her eyes. The way she watched him made him feel as if she could decipher every need, every longing. "I don't trust just any idiot who comes along, that's all."

She folded her hands on top of the picnic basket. "Are you willing to trust me, Clay?"

He couldn't trust anyone.
Especially
her. But he didn't say that. He steered the conversation in a different direction. "Tell me what you think happened."

"To Barker?"

"Who else?"

"As far as I'm concerned, it's still a mystery."

"Come on," he said. "After everything you've heard, you have to wonder--am I the guilty party?" He advanced on her to see if she'd back away. "I don't even go to church regularly. That makes me a heathen right there."

She stood her ground. "Not in my opinion."

"You're avoiding the bigger issue," he said softly. "What if it's not safe for you to be alone with me?"

He loomed over her, hoping she'd cower in fear or retreat--so he could dismiss her as easily as he did everyone else in Stillwater. He had to destroy the confidence she seemed to have in him.

He was pretty sure it was the way she treated him, as if he was good and not evil, that affected him so deeply. But she didn't blanch or move. She seemed perfectly relaxed as she glared up at him.

"You don't intimidate me," she said calmly.

"Then maybe you don't know what's good for you," he scoffed. "I bet no one's even aware that you're out here."

"Who would you have me tell?"

"Not your father, that's for sure."

"Good. We're in agreement there."

"So no one knows."

"Does it matter?"

"It could if I'm the monster everyone thinks I am."

Her expression turned thoughtful. "You're not a monster, Clay. But that doesn't mean you're perfect."

"Do I have to be?"

She studied his face, but he glanced away before she could guess how badly he wanted her to accept him as he was. "For what?" she asked.

To atone for the past. But it was a pointless question. He already knew he could never be 80

Brenda Novak

good enough. And that was his problem, not Allie's. He was the one who had to live with his role in what had happened. "To get fed tonight," he said.

She jerked her head toward a small stack of firewood. "As soon as you build a fire, we'll eat."

The flames cast a golden haze of moving shadows over Clay, softening the harsher angles of his face. Allie wished she could see him more clearly, but once she'd warmed the gumbo over the fire and poured it into the sourdough bowls she'd brought, he filled two wineglasses with Merlot and turned off the kerosene lamp.

She'd considered turning the lamp back on, but, in the end, decided that she liked the darkness. It encircled them like a protective shroud, evoking the kind of intimacy that set them apart from the concerns of everyday life. She thought that might help Clay loosen up and talk to her. But she was a little concerned that it might loosen
her
up, too.

They ate mostly in silence. Then, because the chairs were so hard, they carried their wine over to the bed. Allie lay on her stomach, cradling her glass in her hands; Clay leaned against the wall and stretched his legs out in front of him.

"I could get used to coming here," he said, gazing into the fire.

Allie had guessed he'd like the place, but she'd been surprised by how vocal he'd been about it. Clay wasn't all that vocal about anything. "I'll bring you again sometime."

He raised his glass to her in a mock toast. "Providing I have more secrets to share, eh?"

She grinned. "You must have something I want."

"I can play pool, remember?"

"And if I'm ever in the market for a 1950s Jag, I'll know where to go."

He shook his head. "Wow, such enthusiasm. You really build a guy's ego, don't you?"

She ran her finger around the rim of her glass. "I suspect your ego can withstand one less female swooning at your feet."

"Swooning?"
He took another sip of wine. "I never dreamed someone so prim and proper could be such a smart-ass."