hardly made a dent in the fries and half her root-beer float was left. No wonder she stayed skinny.
Delicate.
They chatted for a few more minutes. He made a concerted effort, though he needed desperately to be moving, to be alone. He didn’t want her to know how he felt, especially since, as usual, he didn’t know what he did feel.
“I was kidding. Here, you can have the rest of these.” She offered the fries, but he shook his head.
“I’ve had enough.”
“I should get home,” she said, her expression completely unrevealing.
They bused their table, then walked out together. The other diners had long since left. The parking lot was dark and empty; the only remaining vehicles besides their own were parked toward the back of the building and probably belonged to employees. He wanted to kiss her good-night—and yet he didn’t want to. Or didn’t dare.
More to be confused about. He felt some of the same panic he had when he’d admitted to Paula that he both wanted and didn’t want to take Caleb home.
Even if he’d formed the impulse, Anna unlocked her Toyota and hopped in too quickly to have given him the chance to act on it. “Good night, Reid,” she said, slammed her door and started the engine immediately. She was backing out before he’d circled around to the driver’s side of his own vehicle.
Because she didn’t want to start anything with him? Or because he’d had his chance and blown it?
Or—most unwelcome possibility of all—because she’d read him all too accurately and knew a man running scared when she saw one?
He swore under his breath and told himself it really would be better to keep his distance.
“ANOTHER FIRE?” REID stopped midstride, only peripherally aware of other people parting to go around him, barely sparing him a glance. The snowy sidewalk meant everyone needed to watch their footing. Having become accustomed to Southern California winters, he had almost forgotten that mid-and even late March did not qualify as spring in this part of Oregon.
It was Monday morning, and he had been striding from the parking lot toward the public safety building, wishing he’d worn boots for better traction, when his phone rang and he saw that Roger was the caller.
“Not as major,” Roger assured him. “Might’ve been the snow that made it fizzle.”
Reid stepped off the sidewalk into deeper snow on the lawn, separating himself from the stream of people heading into work. A late-winter storm had left three or four inches of snow the past couple of days. Gazing at the ice-rimmed Deschutes River, he asked, “What was lit this time?”
“Woodshed. One of the boys got up to take a leak and spotted it.”
Not Caleb, then. No, wait. Reid visualized where the woodshed was in relation to the cabins and lodge, and realized that Caleb could have seen this fire from his bedroom window. God damn it. Had this been a direct attack on Caleb?
Not a very effective one, he reassured himself. Caleb would have seen the flames in time to escape downstairs and out.
“Which boy?” he asked.
“Trevor.”
Reid grunted; he recognized all the boys by now, but couldn’t say he knew them.
“You think to do a bed count?”
“Yeah, I did. Felt like a shit, but I went cabin to cabin. Everyone was where they were supposed to be except Trev, who’d come running to get me, and his cabinmate, Diego, who’d dragged the hose over by the time I got out there.”
Both men were silent for a moment, Reid thinking. Video cameras were out. They’d need too many to cover grounds that extensive.
“Damn,” he concluded. “What you need are regular patrols.”
“Yeah, I think Paula and I are going to start taking turns making the rounds.” He gave a rough, unhappy chuckle. “Give us a couple nights, we’ll be feeling like new parents constantly having to get up with a screaming baby.”
“Yeah, you can’t keep doing that. I might sneak out and set up surveillance some night.”
“In this weather?”
“You’ve got some empty cabins.”
“Let me know so I don’t shoot you if our paths cross.”
“Good enough. Hell.” Reid rubbed the back of his neck and discovered his hand felt like a block of ice. “I don’t like this,” he said unnecessarily.
“You and me both.”
“I wish you were inside the city limits.”
“What would you do, send patrols by?”
Of course he couldn’t do that. “All right,” he said. “Let me know if anything develops.”
“Glad you’re here,” Roger said unexpectedly and then was gone.
The foot traffic had thinned somewhat while Reid had stood out in the cold talking. Snow crunched underfoot until he was back on the sidewalk, where the smooth sole of his dress shoes skidded. To hell with this, he thought. Nobody would notice or care if he wore dark boots with a decent tread. And...this was March. With April to follow. How many more times was it likely to snow before the seasons turned?
He wasn’t looking forward to his day. The morning plan was for him to interview a couple of applicants for the personal-assistant position. He’d been just as glad his temp apparently hadn’t wanted the job; she didn’t seem to be all that well-informed and he had the impression he’d scared her. He was hoping to hire internally; he felt so damn ignorant, it would be good to have a PA who knew the ropes. About once an hour, he cursed Colin McAllister for having taken his PA with him when he changed jobs.
This afternoon, he intended to take a tour of every department in the building, starting with Records in the basement. He was beginning to realize that he’d misinterpreted his “territory” when he arrived in Angel Butte. He’d felt satisfied after driving damn near every road inside the city limits, memorizing the way house numbers ran, which neighborhoods looked run-down, where the bars and taverns were, the location of parking lots that would be dark enough at night to put women walking alone to their cars in peril.
Truth was, he should have been mapping this building and the maintenance garage, where most of his responsibilities lay, so he had the slightest idea how to respond the next time someone came to him with a request.
Once the first applicant showed up, Reid blocked everything else from his mind, including both his afternoon agenda and the threat to Caleb and the shelter. His skill at compartmentalizing was useful.
This applicant currently worked in Technical Services and might be a whiz at computers and social media, but the way her eyes shied from his and her cheeks stayed rosy the whole time they talked,
