Lost in Tennessee (12 page)

“Tell me about Sunday night at the Sly Dog.”

Kate told Jeb how Angie cornered Butch and how she had distracted him by making faces. “A while later, she followed me into the ladies’ room.”

Jeb held his hand up. “How do you know she followed you?”

“She didn’t use the bathroom. She didn’t have her purse, fix her makeup, or brush her hair. I came out of a stall, and she came at me. She surprised the hell out of me. I’ve hung out in some rough places but never had anyone put their hands on me the way she did. Trudy came in as Angie poked me in the tit while saying I should stay out of the way. Trudy stepped in before I could do anything. I thought there was going to be a fight, but Angie used the first excuse to leave.”

“Did you know Butch gave Angie money?”

Kate’s phone rang. She silenced it without looking at it. “No. When I came out of the bathroom with Trudy, I went outside for some fresh air. Butch came out a few minutes later. I’d had enough, and he brought me back to the house.”

“You didn’t tell Butch what happened. Why?”

Kate leaned forward, her blue eyes honest and open. “It was just so weird. I had only known Butch for two days. I’d already pushed my luck by letting him know what I thought about foster care for snakes. I know it’s none of my business, but stupid is stupid. There’re plenty of legit environmental causes if he really wants to get involved.”

Jeb pursed his lips and closed his eyes. “So you went back to the house, and…?”

“I organized my things, and I was in bed by ten.”

“And my brother?”

“I heard him playing the guitar in his studio room. He was still playing when I fell asleep.”

Jeb nodded. “All right, then. Tell me about last night.” He held up his hand when she started to protest. “Tell me again. Everything. Details, like did you notice any fresh tracks?”

It took Kate another half hour to walk through those two hours before the previous night’s sunset. “I don’t know what caught my attention. Dusk can play tricks on your eyes, you know? I was so afraid, I didn’t think clearly.”

A fist pounded on the door, and Kate jumped and knocked over her coffee cup. She was grateful to see she had drunk every last drop, although she didn’t remember it.

“What the hell? A closed door means I’m busy,” Kate yelled.

Paula’s voice filtered through the thin door. “Waters called. Those boys did it again. He needs you out there. Now.”

She tossed Jeb a hard hat. “Come on. Maybe I can make use of you.”

Jeb caught the hat and followed her out to the site. After a few minutes’ walk, Waters stalked toward them, his fists clenched tight.

“Sheriff Jeb McCormick, my foreman, Dave Waters. What’s the problem, Dave?”

Dave shook Jeb’s hand, then cut Kate a look. “One of those kids dumped again.”

“Damn it. Those lazy dumbasses. The stream that cuts through here is a big fishing stream.”

Jeb scowled at her. “I’ve fished in it all my life.”

“Cicada made it very clear that they have no interest in impacting the stream. I support their approach, philosophically and ethically, and made it a feature of the campus. If that weren’t enough, it’s illegal to dump, but some people don’t buy into pollution and the problems it causes. We’re fighting hundreds of years of bad habits.”

They quickly covered the quarter mile to the stream. Jeb pulled up short when he saw the five “kids,” as Waters called them. Those kids were young men from the county, each barely twenty years old, sitting on a downed tree looking guilty as charged.

One of the men recognized Jeb and bounded up. “Sheriff—”

“Shut up,” Kate snapped. “This is my job site, and you will address me, do you understand?” She paused long enough for the “yes ma’ams” to be muttered. “What about Waters’s direction that there would be no dumping from this job into the water didn’t you understand? Look at that mess. What’s downstream of here?”

“Painted Rock,” one of them answered.

“You fish there?” Kate demanded.

They all nodded.

“Do you want to eat a fish that swam through and breathed that milky crap you dumped?”

“No ma’am,” they muttered.

“Goddamn it. I’ve had it.”

“Kate,” Waters interrupted. “They’ve all got good hands and strong backs—”

“But rocks in their heads,” she finished for him.

“Still, I can get a lot more done with them than without them.”

Kate wanted to boot them all off the job, not just for what they did, but because she hadn’t slept, and her stomach kept rolling when she thought about what happened last night.

But Waters wanted them. He’d taught Kate everything she knew about being on-site. He had pushed her until there were no soft curves left; he had to, or she would have gotten eaten alive. For that, and so much more, she respected him. So he would have his way.

Kate stood in a broad stance with her hands on her hips and looked down at the men. “You want them, fine; you can have them. But get that stream cleaned up, now. And the next time you pull something like this on my job, I’m personally hauling your sorry asses over to the EPA. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am,” they muttered and looked to Jeb.

“Don’t look at me. I fish out of this stream, too. I’ll haul you in and let the EPA make the drive over. And I don’t even want to think about what your mamas will do to you.”

The men cringed again. Kate turned to leave, hopeful she wouldn’t have this problem again. As she walked away, Waters walked with her.

“You were right,” Waters said. “It was off by two inches. Always said you had the best eye I’d ever seen.”

“I don’t know why you doubted me. I learned from the best.” Kate glanced over Waters’s shoulder. “I’m serious about the dumping, Dave. I can get you new men.”

“I know you can, grasshopper, but I’ll take the devil I know. They’ll stay in line. I’ll have to remember to call their mothers. Never used that one before.”

“You’re going to keep them on?” Jeb asked, keeping pace.

“What Waters wants, Waters gets. He’s the best there is for a reason. Do you have any more questions?”

Jeb caught her arm to bring her to a stop. “Where were you yesterday until you met up with my brother?”

“Butch dropped me here just before seven in the morning. I didn’t get a chance to breathe before the middle of the afternoon. I left around four-thirty, determined to move back out of his house.”

Jeb’s head jerked up. “Why?”

“I didn’t know who he was.” She shrugged off the embarrassment she had told herself she was over. “He didn’t tell me the whole story. Paula recognized him along with a few of the guys. Makes sense now. I felt foolish. They’re all asking me questions about him, and I’m blabbering on about how he helped me out and how I hoped he made it big someday, because he was really good.”

“Why did you stay?”

Kate slapped her hands on her dusty jeans and frowned. “Because I like his house. Because I hated the motel. Because he bought me ice cream. Because I like him. Because he asked me to stay.”

Jeb studied her face.

Kate firmed her mouth. “You don’t trust me.”

“No, ma’am, I don’t. Butch has done a good thing with his music, but it brings out all kinds. People relate to his music, and think they know him. He’s soft hearted, too soft for his own good.”

“And you’re going to protect him.”

Jeb nodded. “He is my little brother.”

Kate lifted her chin defiantly. “I don’t want anything from him. I don’t need anything from him.”

“He’s not staying, you know. He’s just visiting before his tour starts. He lives in California.” Jeb removed the hard hat and put his own back in place. “Let me know if you have any more trouble with those ‘kids.’”

Kate nodded and turned her back on him, leaving him to find his own way out as she climbed into the trailer. She still had hours of work ahead of her and a splitting headache. “I need more coffee, Paula.”

“Is everything all right?”

“God only knows. I need to get through some of this paperwork. Only let the important calls through, please.”

“Butch McCormick?” Paula asked with a grin.

“Sure.” Why not? Jeb told her Butch wasn’t staying to run her off. What Jeb didn’t think about was she wasn’t staying either. In less than a year, this project would be done, and she would be off to the next. That would be then. This was now.

“Your father?”

“Tell him I’m on-site.” Kate took the fresh cup from Paula and went to her office, closing the door behind her. She woke her computer and set to work approving invoices, reviewing shop drawings, and updating the schedule. Hours later, she drove her work truck to the house blurry-eyed and parked on the wide gravel drive.

B
utch had spent the day at Angie’s mother’s house, as had most of the town. With Angie’s mother, Margie, being a widow, Butch was the closest thing to family she had in town. He did what he could. He helped with the arrangements, called Angie’s friends, the few who hadn’t already heard, and found the snake people and called them, too. Just when he thought he had things under control, he received a phone call from Fawn that took the drama to a new level. The day had been long and emotionally draining. He turned into his drive and felt a punch of excitement at seeing Kate’s truck parked at the front walk.

He wondered if she’d made dinner, then cringed and hoped she didn’t. He’d scrape together something for them. Wine would be nice. Something to warm them.

Butch parked in the garage and walked into the dark house. He knew immediately she wasn’t there. He checked her bedroom and the living room anyway. The house felt alive when she was in it. Now, it felt like it was hibernating, waiting for her to come home so life would continue again.

Butch came down the steps and walked straight out the back door to the barn. The dog Kate had come to call Chubsy wandered through the yard, looking around like he’d lost something, before he went back out the way he’d come. Butch told himself he was overreacting. Likely, Kate was working on the chore list and would be back when she finished or the sun set. Hungry himself, he hunted through the kitchen and settled on a container of soup his mother put in his freezer. He set a pot on the stove and started to heat dinner, watching through the window as the light faded.

When the sun set, worry took center stage. Butch rubbed his sweaty palms against his thighs while he looked around for clues. The tractor was parked in its usual spot. She wasn’t fixing shutters or painting walls. He didn’t think she would have walked off into the fields. Not for work, anyway. He ran to his truck and drove back to the place where Angie had been found.

He banged his head a time or two as he drove too fast over the uneven ground. He slowed down, realizing if she were out here, she walked in the dark. He crept along, keeping his eyes sweeping from left to right across the windshield. He reached the pond without seeing her. Nearing panic, he pulled out his phone.

“Jeb, I can’t find Katie.”

“What do you mean you can’t find her?”

“Her work truck is here, but I can’t find her. She’s not in the house or the barn. I’m back by the pond. It’s as dark as midnight, Jeb.”

“Okay. Stay calm. I’ll be right over. Check her truck. See if anything is missing.”

Butch buckled his seat belt and made it back to the house in half the time. The truck skidded to a halt across the gravel driveway. In the moonlight, Butch could see her truck wasn’t empty. “Katie!”

The world moved in a viscous slow motion. The harder Butch pushed, the faster he ran, the slower he moved. Tears filled his eyes as he wrenched the door open and pulled her rag doll body into his arms.

Chapter Six

W
ith hard, demanding hands, Butch yanked Kate from where she lay draped over the steering wheel. She came up, swimming for the surface from a deep sleep. Legs kicked and hands clawed, catching Butch in the shoulder. He pinned her to the truck, his mind still doubting that she lived and breathed.

Small fists thumped his back. “Get off of me. Get. Off. Me. Can’t. Breathe.”

Butch loosened the steel bands of his arms but didn’t let go. His heart still pounded, his stomach still lodged in his throat. In light of what happened to Angie, he just couldn’t let go. “Thank God. I thought you were dead.” He buried his face in her neck and inhaled her sweet scent.

Kate relaxed, wrapping her arms around his neck. She stroked his hair as if willing both of their hearts to downshift to first gear. “I’m not dead. I’m just really tired. Tired and hungry.”

Taking her face in his hands, Butch brushed his lips over her tired eyes and her downturned lips. “I have just the thing for that. Chicken soup and a soft bed.”

“Add in a shower, and it sounds like heaven to me.”

The lights from Jeb’s sheriff’s truck cut through the night like a beacon. Kate closed her eyes and pulled her face from Butch’s hands to bury against his neck. The engine cut, and boots shuffled across the gravel.

“You found her,” Jeb said.

“Asleep in her truck,” Butch answered, his arms wrapped protectively around Kate’s head.

“Just like you after a show.” Jeb walked past Butch toward the house. “You got anything to eat? I missed dinner.”

Butch set the small table for three and served the soup his mother made and a box of saltines. He and Jeb talked about meaningless topics over the thick and fragrant soup. Kate ate two bites before pitching forward, all but falling asleep in her bowl. Jeb saved the bowl while Butch caught her up in his arms.

Katie’s head snapped up, her wild gaze sweeping the room as her hands grasped the collar of Butch’s shirt. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

“Easy, Tiger. I’m just putting you to bed.”

“My bed.” Her head fell heavily into the niche in his shoulder.

Butch tickled her ribs. “I like to think of it as our bed.”

“I’m not sleeping with you.” Kate’s eyes were already closed again.

Butch ignored Jeb’s snicker. “You slept with me last night, and we did just fine.” He carried her up the stairs and tucked her in his bed.

“I’m not easy,” she mumbled, more asleep than awake.

Butch brushed her hair from her face. “Now there’s a surprise. Get some sleep. I’ll seduce you in the morning.”