the missus got tired of living out in the middle of nowhere, even if it was with Jack Wheeler who looked more than capable of providing enough nighttime stimuli to keep the old hearth fires burning.
Her heart fluttered a little with the thought of this man starting fires only he could extinguish. All that energy, all that power, all that size—the thought of him leaning in close to her, of running those brown fingers along her face, down her spine—it sent chills racing across her overheated skin.
It was kind of impossible not to compare this hunk of he-man flesh with the refined presence of her former boyfriend, Kevin, a news anchor at the station where they both worked. Four days earlier, he’d dumped her, flashing all twenty-eight perfectly capped teeth as he smiled like a used car salesman and spat out the hated words, “Face it, Roxanne. You’re just like your mother.”
Good riddance, she’d said, but his words had stung.
She put aside thoughts of Kevin and moved along to the next puzzle: a pink box tied with a pink ribbon sitting on the bench seat between them. Utterly feminine, the box implied a new love interest, which made Roxanne so curious it was all she could do to mind her own business.
Business reminded her why she was there. “I’m looking for Dolly Aames,” she declared once again.
“So you said.”
“Last anyone heard from her, she lived out here—”
“Listen,” he said, cutting her short, “this is the desert. A really remote part of the desert.”
“Not that remote, not by car. Not even half an hour from town if you stay in your car—”
“If your friend lived out here and let connections back home drop,” he said, interrupting her with another flick of his blue eyes, “then I’d be the last person in the world to blow her cover. I’ve never heard of her. Honest.”
“But you wouldn’t tell me even if you had?”
“No.”
“Then how do I know you’re not lying now?”
He shrugged. “I guess you don’t.”
About then, they hit the fork in the road. He turned in the direction Roxanne had decided against.
“Where was I headed?” she asked.
“You don’t know?”
She gestured at her foot, slipping the purse off as she did so. How embarrassing to have a man like this come across her with her foot stuffed in a purse! Digging in her skirt pockets, she extracted the car keys, wallet and micro tape recorder she’d deposited there when her shoe broke. At the sight of the tape recorder, Jack grimaced.
“What’s that for?” he demanded.
She held up the little contraption. “This?”
“Yeah. Who do you plan to record?”
“Dolly Aames, of course,” she said, throwing her belongings back in the now-tattered bag where they belonged.
“You should never have turned off the main highway,” he said, his voice as dry as the landscape. “This is all private property out here. It belongs to the High W Ranch. It’s well marked.”
“I didn’t see any signs,” she told him truthfully, but she suspected that even if she had, she would have taken a chance.
He grunted.
Roxanne indulged in more canteen water. Would a little tin sign nailed to a fence have dissuaded her from turning off the main road and trying to fulfill her grandmother’s fondest wish? Not likely!
“The signs are there,” he said firmly.
“But I didn’t see them. How can this be a ranch? I don’t see a single cow. Even if there are cows, what do they eat?”
“I’m still having trouble imagining someone dressed as inappropriately as you are striking out on her own,” he said, obviously not interested in discussing what the cows ate. “You should have carried water and stayed near your car. At the very least, you could have used your jacket to shade your head. If you were going to walk, then why not head back out to the highway? If I hadn’t come along…”
His voice trailed off. Even though she had thought the very same things, his observations made her bristle. “I’m sorry if I just flunked your version of Desert Survival 101. I’m new at this. I knew the highway was a long way back. The mountains looked closer. Besides, that was the direction I needed to go.”
Digging in her pocket, she extracted a yellowed envelope. “Dolly Aames,” she said evenly, “sent this letter to my grandmother almost forty years ago. See, the postmark on the envelope says Tangent, January, 1964.”
He stopped the truck in the middle of the empty road, then turned to her. Face on, within the tight confines of the truck cab, his presence was overwhelming and she gulped.
“Let me get this straight. You’re trying to track down a woman no one has heard from in forty years? What are you, a private eye? A bounty hunter?”
“I told you, I work for a television affiliate in Seattle. I produce midday news programming.”
“Produce? I would have thought you’d be in front of the camera.”
“The real power is behind the camera.”
“Power, huh? You’re one of those.”
“No, I’m not one of those. I just enjoy putting things together. Besides, I hate makeup, and have more bad hair days than good ones. Now, about Dolly Aames…”
His gaze traveled up to her hair and back again. She could only guess its current condition, but as he didn’t sputter a rebuttal, she imagined the worst. “Is this woman an escaped criminal or a notorious husband killer?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
“Then why did you come all the way from Seattle to find her? Is she a relative?”
“No. She’s an old friend of my grandmother’s.”
“So you traveled almost two thousand miles just to look up an old friend of the family? Why did your grandmother wait so many years to look for her?”
“It’s complicated,” Roxanne said, hedging. She didn’t want to go into the details of her grandmother’s illness just to satisfy this guy’s curiosity. Besides, she could barely stand to think about Grandma Nell’s symptoms and what they might portend. She added, “Grandma wants to reunite a singing group they both belonged to a long time ago.”
“And how about you? What do you want?”
She stared at him, unblinking, then muttered, “I want to help my grandmother.”
“Hmm—” Shaking his head he added, “Has it occurred to either one of you that this Dolly either moved away or died?”
“Of course. But you have
