THE SECRET OF CHEROKEE COVE (8 page)

“Nix is right,” Briar said. “What I’m telling you is nothing but rumors. And you know how reliable rumors around here are.”

“Understood.”

“The last time I saw Nadine in person was fifteen years ago. February eighteenth.”

It took Dana a moment to do the math. “That’s the day my parents died.”

Briar nodded. “Nadine didn’t show up for school the next day. Or the day after that. So I talked my mama into taking me to see her.”

Dana had a feeling she knew where Briar’s story was going. “Let me guess. They had moved away without any warning?”

“No, they were there.” Briar glanced at Nix, as if needing his permission to continue. Dana glanced at Nix and found him looking not at Briar but at her, his expression bleak.

He knows,
she thought.
Whatever it is Briar’s trying to tell me, he knows.

She looked at Briar again. “But?”

“But they were in the middle of loading up a moving truck and getting the hell out of town,” she answered. “They said it wasn’t safe to be anywhere near Bitterwood if you’re a Cumberland.”

“Because of what happened to my parents?”

“Nadine told me that your mama had asked questions about what happened at the hospital in Maryville. Her daddy said she’d stepped on the wrong toes and paid for it.”

Dana shook her head, not wanting to hear the rest, even as she knew she had to know.

“That’s enough,” Nix said.

“No,” Dana managed to say in a low growl. “Tell me the rest. What did Nadine tell you about my parents’ accident?”

Briar looked as if she wanted to be anywhere but here in this little cabin, face-to-face with Dana. But she lifted her chin, finally, raised her gaze to meet Dana’s and spoke. “Nadine said that the Sutherlands and Hales killed her to keep folks from finding out the truth about her baby.”

“What truth?”

“Everybody in the Cumberland family believes that it wasn’t Tallie’s baby that died that day in Maryville but the Hales’ baby. And it was the Hales who stole Tallie’s baby for themselves.” Briar’s eyes darkened. “They killed your parents because they’d come back to town asking questions about the baby.”

Chapter Eight

The ride back to Bitterwood wasn’t exactly a silent affair, thanks to the rattle of the old truck’s engine, but Dana didn’t appear inclined to hash out all she’d heard from Briar Blackwood. Nix had seen the way she had taken in everything Briar had said, her quick mind at work behind those green eyes, weighing facts and speculation to figure out what to believe and what to discard.

Taking everything Briar had said at face value was dangerous. Even Briar had reiterated, after dropping the bombshell about the accident, that the only source of her information was Nadine, who in turn had gotten her information from family members who were less than reliable.

“I understand,” Dana had said, but Nix had seen the speculation in her eyes. She was a woman who made her living solving mysteries, in a way. Not in the investigative sense, perhaps, but a deputy U.S. marshal had to be able to sift through rumors and innuendo to find the facts that could lead her to the fugitive she sought.

He was curious to find out what she’d concluded.

She remained quiet as they cooled their heels in the waiting area at Brantley’s Garage to get an update on her car. Nix took the chair next to her and spent a few minutes pretending to read a car magazine before he tossed the magazine aside and turned to look at her.

“What are you thinking?”

Dana’s gaze flicked up to meet his. “That is such a girlie thing to ask.”

He grinned. “I’m a sensitive guy.”

“I’m thinking that we skipped lunch and I’m hungry.”

“We can walk across the street to the diner if you want.”

“How much longer do you think it’s going to take to get an answer on my car?” She arched her neck to see over the window that looked into the garage’s service bays. She gave a small start as Wally, the mechanic who’d picked up her car, suddenly appeared in the window and flashed her a grin.

He came through the door into the waiting area. “We’ve got you all fixed up, but I had to replace two of your tires. Someone did a job on them.”

“Slashed?” Nix asked.

Wally nodded. “And in a church parking lot of all places.” He shook his head with dismay. “I had some good-quality refurbished tires, so that’s what I put on for you. If you want a new set, I’ll have to order them for you, or you might try the tire store over in Maryville.”

Dana pulled out her wallet and withdrew a debit card. “Thank you for the quick service.”

Wally took the card. “My pleasure.”

While they waited for Wally to put the payment through the computer, Nix leaned closer to Dana, lowering his voice. “Still want to grab something at the diner?”

She seemed to think about it for a moment, then shook her head. “I’d rather go back to Doyle’s. I’ve had enough ogling from strangers for one day.”

Nix felt a flutter of disappointment and gave himself a mental kick. What did he think a dinner together would have been, even if she’d agreed to it? A date?

Don’t be an idiot, Nix.

“I wouldn’t mind company for dinner, though,” she added quietly, her gaze slanting toward him briefly. “I’m not a great cook, but I can put together something edible. Want to tag along?”

“Sure,” he said before he could stop himself.

He followed her car back to Doyle’s, spending most of the short trip trying to talk himself out of the sudden swell of anticipation chasing through his chest.
It’s dinner, man. Not a chance to score.

She seemed to expect him to help her put dinner together, so he followed her into her brother’s small kitchen and started looking for easy options. The chief had several cans of vegetables, so he picked out a few he liked and showed them to Dana for her approval. She nodded at the turnip greens and canned corn, motioning for him to grab a pan and start heating them on the stove.

She found a box of microwavable fish fillets in the freezer and showed it to Nix. “How far the boy from the beach has fallen,” she drawled, making him smile.

“We
are
a little landlocked up here,” he defended the chief.

“You have lakes, don’t you? He can’t go catch his own?”

“He’s been busy, you know, defending the town and winning the girl.”

“I do like Laney,” she said. “She’s a way better woman than I ever thought he’d go for. His taste in women hasn’t always been so discriminating.”

“Laney’s good people,” he agreed. “You met her family, didn’t you?”

“Just barely. We’ve all been a little preoccupied since Doyle’s accident.” She opened the box of fillets and pulled out the two frozen slabs of tilapia. “Fish okay with you?”

“Fish is fine with me.” He searched the pantry for spices to perk up the canned vegetables, settling on the staples—onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper and salt. “Do you do much cooking at home?”

“There are a dozen great restaurants in walking distance from my apartment.” She shot him a wry smile.

“I guess you stay too busy to indulge in domesticity?”

She gave him a sidelong glance as she punched the buttons on the microwave to start it. “You prefer your women to cook, clean and pop out babies?”

Not at this moment,
he thought. “Only if that’s what they want. Just call me an enlightened hillbilly.”

Smiling, she turned to face him, flattening one hand on the counter and putting the other on her hip. “I don’t mind cooking when I have time and the resources. I’m actually pretty clean by nature. And I guess if my life had turned out differently, I would have liked having babies, too.”

“No time for marriage and family?”

“No time, no opportunity.” She shrugged and turned back to look at the microwave. “In my job, most of the men I meet are either already married, not in the market for a work relationship or fugitive felons.”

“You must love your job, then.”

“I do. Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

She sighed deeply. “My bosses made me take this vacation because I get so focused on my job that it’s probably not healthy. Doyle thinks I focus on the job because it keeps me from dealing with other facets of life.”

“Like husbands and babies?”

She shrugged. “Maybe he’s right. I have my reasons.”

And there she went, dangling a mystery in front of him. He bit. “Such as?”

She shot him a quelling look. “They’re personal.”

“Well, yeah, I figured that. But you’re the one who brought it up.”

Her eyes narrowing, she looked back at him. “What about you? I didn’t see any signs of wedded bliss back at your cabin, either.”

Touché, he thought. “No, I’m still single.”

“You and Briar seem close. Logan obviously adores you.”

“Briar?” He shook his head. “That’d be too much like dating my sister.”

“You’re not gay, are you?”

“No.” Remembering what he’d been picturing while riding with her thighs wrapped around his on the back of the Harley, he stifled a grin.

“Considering the priesthood?”

He laughed aloud that time. “Definitely not.”

The microwave gave a ding, and she turned her attention back to the fish while he stirred the vegetables, which had begun to bubble on the stove eye. A few minutes later, he dished servings of turnip greens and corn onto the two plates she held out for him, and they carried their meal to the small kitchen table.

“Not sure what Doyle has in the way of beverages,” she warned as she opened the refrigerator.

“Water is fine for me,” he told her. He got up and retrieved the glasses from the cabinet to the right of the sink.

She closed the refrigerator, mumbling something about needing to go grocery shopping, and took the glass Nix handed her. Filling the glasses with ice and water from the refrigerator dispenser, they settled down to their meal.

The fish wasn’t half-bad, to Nix’s surprise, though he was like Briar in one regard—he liked to know where his food was coming from. He didn’t have a garden of his own, but between his mother and Briar, he usually had enough fresh from the garden fruits and vegetables to get by. He went fishing when he could, keeping and cleaning his catch. He didn’t hunt much anymore, but a single deer could keep him in venison steaks for months.

“You should tell your brother to make friends with some of these hill folks,” he told Dana as he finished up the food on his plate. “They’d probably be happy to keep him stocked up with fresh meat and vegetables.”

“Ah, but then he’d have to cook instead of stick things in the microwave,” she said with a smile. “Clearly, you have much to learn about my brother.”

Nix shrugged. “His loss.”

Her smile faded. “I didn’t mean to make light of the offer.”

“I guess your experience with local hospitality hasn’t exactly been a good one.”

“Today wasn’t great,” she admitted. “But Briar was lovely. And everyone at the station has been a big help to me.” She pushed her plate away, biting her lower lip. He was beginning to recognize what that expression meant—there was something she wanted to say, but she wasn’t sure how to say it.

“Everyone was a big help, but...?”

“I’m not sure that helpfulness will stand when I tell them what I want.”

He had a sinking feeling he knew what she was going to ask. But he couldn’t blame her. If he’d been in her position, he’d want to know the same answers. “You want to look at the case file on your parents’ accident.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, I would. And I’ll help you find the files.”

Her smile was like sunshine breaking through the clouds on a rainy day. He gave himself a mental kick for even thinking such a corny thought, but he wasn’t immune to the effects of that smile. He felt instantly hot all over and antsy to get closer to her. The tiny table between them suddenly seemed like an enormous obstacle.

She stood from the table and he moved with her as she started toward the cabin door. “So, how hard is it going to be to find the files?”

He caught up with her before she reached the middle of the front room, catching her arm. “You want to go now?”

She gave him a puzzled look. “Well, yeah.”

“It’s well after five. The file room will have been shut down for the night. Support staff gets to go home regular hours.”

“Don’t you have to go back to the office and type up a report of your day or something?” She pulled him with her toward the door.

He tugged her back to him, apparently catching her off guard, for she stumbled into him, her breasts flattening against his chest. All the air seemed to leak right out of his lungs as she clutched the front of his jacket to steady herself, staring up at him with those bright green eyes.

He made himself let her go, even though every nerve in his body was screaming for him to pull her closer. “If we go tonight, I’ll have to explain why we need the key to the file room. People will ask a lot of questions we don’t necessarily want to answer yet. If we wait until morning, when the file room will already be open for the day, I can look for the files myself without anyone but the file-room clerk having to know what I want or why.”

Frustration darkened her eyes, but she gave a nod. “Okay. You’re right.” Her shoulders slumped a little in defeat. “But I guess you still need to go file a report?”

“You want me to go?”

Her gaze snapped up to his again. “No. I don’t.”

“Then it can wait until morning, too.” He nodded toward the sofa, which was angled so that it sat right in front of the fireplace. The temperature outside had dropped with the setting sun, leaving a distinct chill in the air, even inside the heated cabin. He nodded at the dark hearth. “How about a fire?”

“Sounds good. Do you know how to start it?”

“You are such a city slicker.” He found logs in the wood bin next to the fireplace and got a fire going within a couple of minutes. Dana scooted closer, stretching her hands out toward the heat of the flames.

“Nice,” she murmured.

He looked up from his crouch and felt a flipping sensation in his chest. The glow of the fire seemed to illuminate her from the inside, transforming her into a creature of light. Her auburn hair crackled with radiance and her skin glowed like burnished gold. Flames reflected in her green eyes as she looked down at him, the hint of a smile on her lips.

He rose slowly, testing his resistance and finding it weak. “Fire becomes you.”

The smile spread. “What a courtly thing to say, Detective.”

He couldn’t stop himself from touching the lock of hair dangling against her cheek. “Are you making fun of me, Marshal?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t mind a little courtliness.”

“Mama raised me to be a gentleman.” And his daddy had raised him to raise hell. But he kept that part to himself.

“Does your mother still live around here?” She eased away from his touch without being unkind about it, settling on the sofa. She patted the seat next to her, and he sat before he answered.

“She lives not far from the church. The one where your tires were slashed.” He waited for her to ask the obvious question. When she didn’t, he continued. “She wasn’t in the crowd today.”

“I didn’t assume she was.” Dana kept her gaze focused on the fire. He couldn’t tell if she was speaking the truth or just saying what she had for his benefit. “What about your dad?”

“He wasn’t in the crowd, either.”

She made a face. “Not what I meant.”

“My dad has very little patience for superstition.” He shook his head. “How he lives with my mother, I’m not sure, but they’ve been together for nearly forty years.”

“You must see a lot of them, living so close.” Dana sounded wistful as she turned to gaze at the fire.

“Not as much as my mother would like,” he admitted. “But yeah. I try to go by the house once a week, at least. Mama worries about my job and Dad worries that I’m becoming a psychotic loner. You know, parents.”

He regretted his flip remark about the same time Dana’s expression froze with pain.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “That was
not
a very courtly thing to say.”

She managed a smile, but there was sadness at its heart. “When you’re young, all you can think about is getting out of the house and making your own way. But under all that radical independence, there’s this safety net you know is going to keep you from falling too hard or too far. And when that net gets ripped out from under you—” She pressed her mouth together as if saying the rest of the words might break her apart.