fixtures during his summers at the lake. As had their two sons who had wreaked havoc with the McCall brothers.
“How’s your foot, Etta?”
“Healing too slow for my liking.” Her scowl emphasized the network of lines around her eyes and mouth. “Come in and sit, Joshua. I can use the company.”
“You’re sure it’s not too late?”
“Not for this night owl.” Leaning on a cane, she limped across the living room filled with furniture positioned on an earth-toned rug. Colorful candles and crocheted throws added to the room’s sense of comfort.
“Who’s this?” Josh asked, pausing to stroke a finger over the jet-black kitten curled on the recliner.
“Anthracite. She’s a stray who wouldn’t leave.”
“Especially after you fed her, I bet.”
“What else was I supposed to do? Poor thing was starving.”
Josh scratched behind one furry ear, and was rewarded with a purr. “You named her after coal?”
“Scotty did,” Etta said, referring to her youngest grandson. “When he saw the kitten, he decided she looked like the coal he’d learned about in science class.”
“Good call.” Leaving the kitten sharpening its claws on the recliner, Josh followed Etta along a hallway. When they neared the kitchen, he raised his chin. “Do I smell apple pie?”
“You do. I decided to bake tonight and just took the last of the pies out of the oven. Could be I had a premonition you’d show up, looking too thin for your own good.”
Blame that on his suspension, he thought.
He followed her into the kitchen, painted in soft yellow, its white-tiled countertops sparkling beneath the bright overhead light. “Have I told you I’m crazy about you?”
“Every time you want pie.” She waved him to the small metal table. “Have a seat and I’ll cut us some.”
“You sit.” Placing a hand on her bony shoulder, he nudged her to a chair. “Everything still in the same place?”
“Nothing’s changed.” Etta shifted a stack of mail to one corner of the table. “There’s tea in the refrigerator.”
Minutes later, he had slices of pie and glasses of iced tea on the table. Josh settled into the chair across from hers, lifted his fork and dug in. The warm pie tasted like heaven.
“How’s the family?” Etta asked before taking her first bite.
“Mom and Dad are rocking along. Everybody’s married now, except Nate and myself. He’s fallen for a gorgeous ex-cop from Dallas. He and Paige just moved in together.” Feeling a tug on his sock, Josh looked down in time to see Anthracite attack his shoe. Chuckling, he scooped her up, settled her onto his lap and went back to his pie. “I figure it’s only a matter of time before Nate calls and tells me to rent a wedding tux.”
Etta regarded him over the rim of her glass. “Think it’s time you found a girl of your own?”
“I got tons of ’em,” he drawled.
“You’ll settle down when you find the right woman.”
“She’ll have to find me because I’m not looking for her.” The simple fact was his life had always run more efficiently solo. After Nate moved out of the house they’d shared, Josh had discovered how much he savored living alone. Made things less complicated. Just like women whose idea of the perfect relationship was a good time, a fast ride and a friendly parting.
As he popped the last bite of pie into his mouth, his gaze settled on the stack of mail on the corner of the table. “Is that a digital recorder?” he asked, plucking up the long silver piece of metal that sat on top of the stack.
“Michael bought me that gadget,” Etta said, referring to her eldest son. “I use it to record reminders. Like when to take my medicine. I call it my memory box.”
“Smart.”
“The thing tends to startle me when my own voice comes out of the blue, telling me to take my pills. There’s already enough going on around Sundown to make a person nervous.”
Josh set the recorder aside. “I heard about the prowler.”
“Whoever it is has been peeping in windows for months now. Chief Decker hasn’t had any luck catching him.”
Josh frowned. From working sex crimes, he knew that prowlers sometimes turned out to be Peeping Toms, who had the potential of escalating to indecent exposure, then more serious sex crimes. Like rape. His own career problems had been due to one man’s zeal to take down the six-time rapist.
“How were things at my tavern tonight?”
Etta’s question diverted his thoughts. “The place was packed.” Leaning back, he watched the kitten climb up his chest, wincing when her razor-sharp claws stabbed through his shirt. “Howie’s burgers are still gold. Deni’s as big a flirt as ever. Your new bartender is…interesting.”
“Regan’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she? All that dark hair and those big brown eyes.”
Cat’s eyes, he thought again. Watching and waiting. For what?
“I baked an extra pie for her,” Etta added, sliding her plate aside. “The girl’s way too thin. She hardly ever sits still and she eats like a bird.”
“And brings to mind a raw nerve.”
“How so?”
“Cops get used to people getting fidgety around them—goes with the job. But what I do for a living didn’t come up, so it wasn’t that.” He sipped his tea. “I can’t put my finger on why I made Regan nervous. Yet.”
Chuckling, Etta patted his hand. “Joshua, men who are all rakish charm and promise of trouble to come have given women the jitters since the beginning of time. You’re no exception.”
“You think that’s it? My charm made Regan itchy?”
“What else could it be?”
“Yeah, what else?” He thought about how effectively she had evaded his questions, divulging next to nothing about herself. “Does Regan have a last name?”
“Doesn’t everyone? Hers is Ford.”
“Regan Ford,” he said, trying it out. Regan Ford, hailing from no particular place, yet sounding to him more like the deep South than anywhere else. “I take it you checked her employment record and references before you hired her?”
“I didn’t need to. My instincts told me to take a chance on her. She’s living in the apartment over the tavern.”
With the kitten now propped on his shoulder, Josh crossed his forearms on the table. “You gave her a job and a place to live without running a background check? That’s not wise, Etta.”
