looked at him once again. “You of all people should know how easygoing Dad was. He didn’t have a temper. He didn’t go looking for problems. I just can’t imagine anyone having a reason to hurt him. You know he was on the town city council. I have gone to most of the meetings and there’s always arguing about issues, but never does it feel mean-spirited.”
“Maybe I need to check out the local politics, go to the next council meeting.”
“The next meeting is a week from tomorrow. Every second Saturday evening of the month. I just can’t imagine any city business that would result in somebody wanting to kill Dad.”
He stared off into the night. “If we can figure out a motive, then it will be easier to solve the crime. Unfortunately it’s possible there is no motive, that it was a crime of rage, a crime of passion.” He returned his gaze to her and his eyes glittered in the artificial porch light.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean maybe out there on the trail Gray encountered somebody and they had a fight that ended tragically.”
“There was no fight,” she countered. “At least, not a fair one. Dad was a big man and quite capable of taking care of himself. I saw him, Zack. I saw him on the ground. I held one of his hands in mine.” Her voice cracked and she took a deep breath to steady herself. “There wasn’t a mark on his face, a scratch or bruise on his hands. He never got a chance to defend himself.”
Without conscious thought she stepped forward and curled her hand around Zack’s strong forearm. “It was an ambush, Zack. That’s what happened on the trail that morning. Somebody ambushed my father and killed him.”
He covered her hand with his own, his eyes holding not a haunted but a dangerous glint. “I told you we’ll get him, Katie, and we will.”
His hand was hot on hers and for a moment her breath caught. She licked her dry lips. “Kate,” she said, her voice a mere whisper. “It’s Kate. I’m not a little girl anymore, Zack.”
“Yeah. I noticed.” His voice sounded deeper than usual and in that moment Kate remembered how many times in her youth she had dreamed of Zack’s hand holding hers, his mouth touching hers and his body possessing hers.
She wondered what his mouth tasted like, if it would taste as dangerous, as sensual as it looked.
There was something in his eyes that filled her with a crazy, sweet longing and, with a rush of anticipation, she leaned forward.
Chapter 5
Zack’s senses swam with her. All memories of the negative way he’d once felt about her, what he’d once thought about her, disappeared as she leaned closer, close enough that if he wanted he could capture her full, sensual lips with his.
For just a brief, charged moment he saw only the fact that she was a beautiful woman with eyes that beckoned and a scent that half dizzied him.
Would kissing her somehow ease the ache that had been in his heart for the last month? Would pulling her body tight against his somehow diminish the anger that had festered in him for too many days, too many nights?
The desire to find out might have tempted him if he didn’t remember all too clearly the last time she’d looked at him with her eyelids half open and her lips parted as if expecting a kiss.
He stepped backward, breaking their physical contact as he pulled away from her. “Last time I stood that close to you, you scratched half the flesh off my cheek,” he said.
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “If you expect me to apologize, you’ll be waiting a long time. You were where you didn’t belong and it really wasn’t any of your business.”
“You were where you didn’t belong, as well,” he reminded her.
Her cheeks deepened in color. “That was a long time ago. What’s important isn’t the past, what’s important is the here and now.”
“Easy for you to say. I bear the scars of the temper tantrum you threw in the past.” He reached up and touched his cheek where the small scar had ensured that he’d never completely forget Katie Sampson.
“You’re joking, right? I didn’t really leave a scar, did I?” She stepped closer to him and once again he tensed as the scent of her surrounded him. Before he knew her intent, she reached up and traced a soft, warm finger across his cheek.
She gasped and jerked her hand away. “Oh, Zack. Tell me the truth? Did I do that or did you get it some other way and you’re just trying to make me feel bad?”
What in the hell was he doing? As he looked at her face, her features taut with concern and maybe just a touch of remorse, he wondered why he’d even brought up that night so long ago.
“I’m just giving you a hard time,” he finally said. “I got this scar in a bar fight several years ago, and you’re right, what’s important is the here and now.” He stepped down from the porch. “I’d better get back to the bunkhouse before the other men come back from town.”
“Of course. I’d like to go with you when you take the file to Dalton.”
“That will be first thing in the morning. Dalton won’t be in the office in town tomorrow, but he has everything he needs at the ranch to start working the background checks. Don’t you need to be here for the cattle tagging?”
He didn’t want her with him. He’d been less than twenty-four hours in her employment and she was already bothering him in a way that confused and irritated him.
“No. Doc Edwards and the men know how to handle it.” She leaned against one of the porch railings once again, her features obscured by the night shadows. “Zack, I have no intention of you running this investigation without me. I want to be beside you every step of the way. Partners, so to speak.”
“I don’t work with partners,” he said.
“Well, you’ve just changed your work habits,” she replied. “I’ll be ready first thing in the morning to go with you to speak to Dalton.”
Before he could protest again, she turned and disappeared into the house. Zack stared at the closed door, his cheek still burning from her touch.
He placed the manila folder in his truck parked at the side of Katie’s house, then headed back to the bunkhouse with the moonlight overhead guiding his way.
When he’d decided to give Katie a couple of days, he figured the worst he’d have to put up with from her was her explosive temper tantrums and impertinence.
He never would have guessed that the scent of her would twist his guts into knots, that her simple touch to his face would generate enough electricity to start a storm. He never would have guessed that her mouth would tempt him to forget the fact that he had no intention of ever getting deeply involved with a woman again.
It had been one hell of a day. First, the realization that Gray’s accident hadn’t been an accident after all and now the knowledge that Katie Sampson had the power to stir him on a level where he hadn’t been stirred in a very long time.
George’s
