How to Howl at the Moon (4 page)

He had twenty different sets of rose hips, each one from a new hybrid. He’d prepared them last September, carefully brushing together the anthers from a father rosebush and the pistols from the mother. And when the rose hips had grown, he’d harvested them and frozen them to mimic frost. There they had stayed, in his refrigerator in his little studio apartment above Marshall’s garage, until the night he’d left Santa Barbara. And they’d only been there, in his
apartment, because Marshall was too cheap to install a fridge in the company greenhouse.

And thank God he was. Because there was no way Tim could hybridize and grow new roses in six months, and the promise of the perfect new rose was all that stood between him and homelessness.

“Be beautiful,” he whispered to the tiny germs of life now buried in the loamy soil. He misted the tops of the trays with a spray bottle and sent them good juju. “Be lovely and strong. And if just
one
of my purple-tipped-ivories could pan out, I’d be forever grateful.”

There was nothing to do now but wait. He knew the odds. It might take two hundred hybrid tries to come up with one rose worth keeping, much less something award-winning and truly new. But he’d selected very good parents for these so maybe….

Well, there was nothing left to do but wait on the seedlings
and
fill up the greenhouse with hundreds of trays of other
seedlings, much more common, ordinary ones he could hopefully use to start a modest produce business.

Tim bagged up the smaller seeds that hadn’t made the cut and put them, and the remains of the rose hips, in a big stainless steel bowl. He turned to carry them back to the house and—

—saw a face looking at him through the greenhouse glass. He screamed and threw up his hands. The bowl went flying in a wobbly, panicked arc. It landed with an ear-killing clang.

Wait. He knew that face. It was the cop from the diner. The cop broke into a grin for a brief moment before he went back to his glower. But that moment was enough. Tim didn’t appreciate being laughed at. He narrowed his eyes
,
strode to the door,
and
yanked it open.

“You scared the shit out of me!”

“Apologies, sir.” The cop was all legal authority now. It was sunny, and he wore mirrored sunglasses. He looked like someone cosplaying Eric Estrada except, yeah, way cuter. Holy smokes. He had a sexy dark shadow of stubble on his square jaw, full lips, and a nose that was big but worked in his manly face. And how did anyone even have a body like that? The guy was all compact muscle with a non-existent stomach and nicely defined quads that showed under his tight uniform pants, and… and everything.

Tim’s righteous anger vaporized in a flush of nervousness he felt down to his toes. “Okay,”
he said lamely.

“This a greenhouse?” The cop asked politely, only it wasn’t really polite at all. He took a step toward Tim, as if he wanted to push past him and go inside. That would be necessary because Tim was standing in the doorway. He looked over his shoulder and realized there were rose hips all over the floor where the bowl had dumped out.
Oh, shit.

“No!” Tim said loudly. He stepped out and closed the greenhouse door firmly behind him. “I have… um…. That is, it’s a, uh, sterile environment. I can’t have anyone in there right now. Sorry.”

The cop very deliberately looked Tim up and down, and his nostrils flared as he sniffed. Even with the sunglasses blocking the man’s eyes, Tim could read the look. He was disheveled, covered with dust and dirt from all his cleaning and probably stunk too.
Sterile? Why don’t you pull the other one.

“Hey! I’m thirsty. You thirsty? Wanna drink? Something? Want something to drink? I have water. No, that’s boring. Coffee? Do you like coffee? 'Cause some people don’t. I don’t have any beer or anything. Not that you would care if I did. I’m over twenty-one. And it’s legal if it’s in a house. I mean, not an open bottle in a car. Not that you
would
drink beer on duty. I’m sure you would never do that, Officer.”

Tim clapped a hand over his own mouth.

The cop took off his glasses and stared at Tim as if the sunglasses might be responsible for his apparent lunacy.

Wow. Blue. Those eyes were seriously, seriously bright blue. Like the blue of the sky when it’s really deep on a perfect fall day. And
man
, did the guy know how to stare with those orbs or what? Tim had never met anyone who could stare like that, like he was reaching right down inside you and poking around in the cobwebs in your darkest corners. Tim shivered.

The cop took one last greedy peek into the greenhouse and then took a step toward Tim. “All right. Coffee. Let’s go.” He crowded into Tim until Tim had no choice but to move toward the house.
Okay, okay. Geez. Personal space, buddy.

“Sure!” Tim said lightly, and with the guy dogging his heels the entire way, he made it to the house.

*                          *                         *

Lance was starting to realize that the guy, T-Timothy, had two vocal speeds
—monosyllabic and hyperdrive. He resorted to the former as he led Lance to the house, let them inside, and started fussing with coffee stuff in the kitchen. He dropped a cup, the cheap white ceramic shattering into a zillion pieces. Then he fumbled with the coffee filters like they were a hot potato. Lance watched, not saying a word and determined not to find it endearing. At all.

He wandered a bit while the coffee brewed, looking at everything. Not that there was much to see. The old furniture obviously belonged to the cabin, and there was little of the current inhabitant in sight other than a row of books in the otherwise empty bookcase. Lance studied the titles. They were gardening and plant books, a few heavy-looking texts on plant biology. There was nothing on growing pot. But even this guy wouldn’t have a book like that sitting out where anyone could see it. There was no smell of marijuana in the cabin either, or on the boy today. Lance was sure he hadn’t imagined it.

He was hardly being subtle in his interest, but then, he didn’t want to be. He wanted to send a message loud and clear.
Whatever nefarious thing you’re
planning
out here, you won’t get away with it, not with me around.
That business out at the greenhouse? The way Timothy had panicked at the idea of Lance going in there and maybe getting an eyeful of what he was planting? Lance hadn’t liked that one bit. The guy was up to something.

Normally, Lance could trust his gut instinct about people, but Timothy was confusing. On the one hand, Lance knew damn well he was lying and hiding things. But on the other hand, he appeared to be naive and dorky, innocent in a way that made Lance’s inner dog wag its tail. But it was an act—had to be. Lance couldn’t let himself fall for it.

He wandered back into the kitchen as Timothy poured the coffee. Lance held his breath, but nothing further was spilled, broken, or disastrously fumbled.

“Did you buy this place?” Lance asked casually.

“Me? Hardly.” The guy gave a sad little laugh.

“Renting?”

“Cream? Well, milk really. Two percent. Sorry.
I don’t have sugar. I have
honey, but it has some crystally bits in it. Not that those will hurt you. I don’t think. Not many people like honey in their coffee, though. Even, you know, fresh honey. Although people use it for tea. So you’d figure, coffee! Especially if you like sugar and there isn’t any. But then, most people probably have sugar around.”

Lance let Timothy spew on for a bit. He was either a really bad liar or a brilliant one.

Timothy finally ran out of words and looked at Lance expectantly, still holding his cup.

“Black,” Lance said, taking the cup.

“Oh.” Timothy blushed.

If the guy thought he could distract Lance,
Lance
, for God’s sake, he was mistaken. “So. You renting this place?”

“Um. Sort of. Yeah.”

“From….?”

“Linda Fitzgibbons,” Timothy said smoothly, but he blushed harder.

Lance had looked up the land owner before he’d come out here, so he knew Timothy was telling the truth. At least that showed he probably wasn’t a squatter. From what Lance was able to tell, the Fitzgibbons had owned this property on Broad Eagle Drive for twenty-two years, but they used it as a vacation home and rarely even that. Lance couldn’t recall their faces, and he knew everyone around here.

“Yeah? What’s she charge for a place like this?” Lance sipped his coffee. It was surprisingly good.

“Well… n-nothing right now. It’s sort of…” Timothy trailed off warily.

“Barter arrangement?” Lance suggested.

“Yeah!” Timothy brightened.

“She gets some of your profits?”

“Exactly!” Timothy smiled as if relieved not to have to explain it. Lance just stared at him.
Timothy’s smile faltered. “Or… um… what?”

Lance straightened up and put down the coffee cup very deliberately. He put one hand on his hip near his gun. “What are you planning to grow here, Mr. Traynor?”

For a second, Timothy looked afraid. Then he seemed to grow a backbone—or maybe drop the pretense of not having one.

He straightened up tall, and his face grew angry and defensively shuttered. “Pardon me, Officer Beaufort, but I don’t see how that’s any of your business. I’ve tried to be civil. But you—”

“Sheriff Beaufort.”

“Wh-what?” Timothy glanced at the badge on Lance’s jacket, confused. “It says ‘Sheriff’, but I thought that just meant ‘Sheriff’s Department’. Like—”

“
I
am the Sheriff,” Lance interrupted again. “Sheriff Lance Beaufort.”

Timothy looked more confused than impressed. “Well… what’s the sheriff doing harassing me? I’m nobody!” Timothy huffed a strange little laugh, but there was still a touch of fear lurking in those eyes.

“It’s a simple question. What are you planning to grow here, Mr. Traynor?” Lance took one step closer, crowding the man.

“None of your business, Sheriff Beaufort.” Timothy held his ground and, surprisingly, met Lance’s stare. He tilted his chin up stubbornly for good measure.

There was a weird frisson as Timothy’s hazel eyes stared challengingly into Lance’s, a bubbling energy at the base of Lance’s spine and a
rat a tat tat
rhythm that tripped through his heart like a tap dancer crossing the stage. He wasn’t used to being defied and denied. When Lan
ce asked people to jump around
here, they bounced like
freaking
Ping-Pong balls.

Timothy’s eyes might be defiant, but his lower lip trembled. Lance stared at it.

“I have to get back to work,” Timothy said abruptly. “If you want to visit me again, maybe you can get a warrant?”

Lance looked back up into Timothy’s eyes, said nothing.

“And you might want to work on your town’s welcoming committee. Maybe invite a few little old ladies to participate. Tell them I want my fucking fruit basket.”

And with that, Timothy Traynor marched to the front door and held it open pointedly.

Struck Dumb

“MRS. FITZGIBONS? This is Sheriff Beaufort in Mad Creek.”

It’d been a few days since Lance had been thrown out on his ear by Timothy Traynor. He’d been busy. There’d been a battalion of bad-news bikers who stopped in town and had to be encouraged to go spread their leathery charms elsewhere. He and Deputy Smith had searche
d the neighboring woods for two
hikers who had vanished from the Ansel Adams Wilderness. It was unlikely they’d made it this far south, but they’d looked anyway. Fortunately, the hikers had finally been found by another search party near Alpine Lakes. Lance had to attend the city board meeting and give a report. And Lance’s mother had practically dragged him by the scruff of his neck to the McGurvers to see baby Samantha.

She was very cute. And so warm to hold. Fine. Whatever.

But no matter what Lance had been doing, a certain young man with floppy brown hair—
the color of dark straw maybe
—never completely left his mind.