I t was dark by the time Molly remembered the glasses she’d left on the front porch. She’d been so furious with Holt Tanner and his insane suggestion that she’d had something to do with Harriet’s death that she’d spent the entire afternoon and early evening pummeling the earth in her tiny backyard.
She had the great makings for a garden by the time exhaustion finally forced her to stop. Of course, if Molly’s sister had been around, she’d have wryly pointed out that planting a garden in Montana during the last harsh gasp of summer was probably a fruitless venture.
Rinsing off her gardening tools, Molly stored them in the little storage shed and headed around the side of the house, intending to get the glasses. There were some times that she missed her sister so badly, she ached with it.
If she could only call Christina. Hear her sister’s voice. Molly would feel better about the path she’d chosen.
But she didn’t dare call Christina. Nor could she email her sister, or send a letter, or do anything at all that might possibly provide a trail back to Molly’s location. It was safer for her, and certainly safer for Christina and her family, for things to remain just the way they’d been for the past eighteen months.
Which meant that Molly had nobody with whom she could share her worries. Nobody with whom she could vent her frustrations that she could even find a man in law enforcement remotely attractive. Not after all she’d been through with Rob.
Rounding the corner of the house, Molly went up the porch steps and grabbed the glass from the table. She didn’t want to track mud from her shoes through the living room, so she started back down the porch steps to return to the back of the house and the entrance there that led into a tiny mudroom.
Just as she reached for the wooden screen door, though, she stopped cold. One glass.
She held it up to the light, gingerly peering at the glass as if it had turned into a snake.
The glass wasn’t a snake, though. A certain deputy sheriff was.
No doubt in her mind at all that Holt Tanner had taken the other glass, she snatched open the screen door and grabbed her purse and car keys from where they were sitting on top of the washing machine.
Less than five minutes later, she’d driven up Main Street and pulled into the small parking area near the sheriff’s department. It was after eight o’clock in the evening and there was no earthly reason why she’d know that Holt Tanner would be at the station. But there he was. Just walking out the door, the light from inside shining over his dark hair, making it gleam like onyx.
You are in control. She climbed out of her car, and his head snapped up as if he’d sensed her. Though it was too dark and he was too far away to be sure, she was certain he was looking at her with that narrow-eyed, intense stare of his. Then he started toward her, moving with that curiously loose-limbed grace that seemed odd for someone who was always grim.
He stopped several feet away, his face in shadow. “Ms. Brewster. Something I can do for you this evening?”
Her hands curled. “You can give me back my glass that you stole this afternoon.”
“Harsh words.”
“True words. You had no right to take it. I can only imagine what you thought you would do with it. There are privacy laws in this country, you know.”
He turned on his heel and started for an SUV parked several yards away.
She blinked and hurriedly shut her car door. “Hey. Don’t ignore me!”
He kept right on walking until he reached the vehicle. Then he opened the door and leaned inside.
Irritation bubbled in her veins and she went right after him. “Deputy, do not ignore me. I won’t have it, I tell you. Unless you’re serious about me being a suspect in Harriet’s death, you have absolutely no right to invade my privacy like you have. You have no possible way of knowing the trouble—” He was inviting. She barely contained the words and stood there, shuddering at her temerity.
He straightened and turned. “Believe me, Ms. Brewster, I wish I could ignore you.” His lips were twisted as if he found something amusing about the situation. “Here.”
He thrust out his hand, and she recoiled, realizing belatedly that he was handing her the paper sack he had in his hand. “What is it?”
“So suspicious,” he murmured. “It’s your glass.”
Feeling like a fool, she snatched the sack from him. The thin paper crinkled under her tight grasp. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black. You give suspicious new meaning.”
“I’m doing my job, Ms. Brewster.”
“Stop calling me that!” Her face flamed. She knew she was acting like an idiot, but there seemed nothing she could do about it. Outrageous words kept coming out of her mouth no matter how badly she wanted to contain them.
“All right. What would you prefer I call you?” He leaned back against the side of his truck and crossed his arms. Leisurely. As if they had all the time in the world.
Now the words stopped up in her throat.
He tilted his head slightly, watching her as if she were some kind of bug stuck on the end of a pin. “Maybe you’d prefer I use your real name,” he suggested softly.
Molly’s fingers tightened spasmodically, and the sack fell from her grasp. She stared as, almost in slow motion, it headed for the pavement. She couldn’t even bring herself to move as glass, definitely not in slow motion, exploded from the bag like a perfectly rounded firework.
She heard a stifled oath, then nearly screamed when hands closed tightly over her hips. “Leave me alone!”
“Be still. You’ve got glass all over your legs.”
He dumped her unceremoniously on the bench seat inside his truck and dropped his hand on her knee. When he leaned toward her, she sucked in a harsh breath and instinctively flattened herself back against the seat as far as she could go.
Holt went completely still. Panic rolled off her in waves strong enough to knock him flat, and a ball of fury formed inside him so rapidly that he felt sick to his stomach. Maybe Molly Brewster was secretive. Maybe she caused him no amount of personal consternation.
But he wanted to put his hands on whoever had hurt her and slowly choke the life out of him.
“I’m reaching for my flashlight,” he said after a moment, when he could be sure his voice would come out without betraying the red haze burning in his head. “So I can see if the glass cut you.” Moving slowly, he took his hand off her knee and stepped back a few inches. “It’s right under the seat.”
Her eyes were filled with shadows and bored into his face.
“Put your right hand down, Molly,” he said softly. “You can’t miss it. You’ll feel it.”
Her hands, clutched together at her waist, separated. She started to reach. Paused.
“It’s one of those long-handled kind. Metal. Makes a good weapon in a pinch.”
Her
