to turn the corner, pull into the lot, grab Howard by the lapels of his custom-tailored suit and demand the truth about Glen. There would be a time and a place to talk to the man, but this was neither.
By the time he’d turned north on River Road, a bit of the tension had seeped out. He liked Copper Lake. It was the quintessential small Southern town, war memorials in the square and the parks, beautifully restored antebellum homes. The people were friendly and happy to answer questions. No one had treated him with suspicion … though so far he hadn’t asked any questions that sounded suspicious. He hadn’t brought up the subject of Glen’s disappearance or the discovery of his belongings or his gut instinct that the Howard family was responsible. If he started asking that sort of question, they were likely to close ranks and protect their own.
Mick sat straighter in the seat when Jones turned off the highway onto Howard property. Shutting off the AC, Jones rolled the windows down, and the mutt immediately stuck his head out to sniff the air. When they drove through the gate, though, Mick drew it back in, let out a long, low whine and moved to the floorboard to curl up.
“Baby,” Jones accused, but Mick just laid his head on his paws. The dog knew the place was unsettled. Reece knew it. How the hell could Miss Willa not know, or if she did, how could she continue to live there?
The road continued past the cottage, leading to the other buildings. Jones drove past the small house, then pulled onto ground covered with a heavy layer of pine needles. The spot would block the view of his truck from any casual visitors to the house—maybe not a bad thing once Miss Willa’s grandson and others found out she was planning to spend a ton of money on their grand project.
“Come on, buddy, let’s get settled.” Jones climbed out and stood back, but Mick didn’t stir. “Mick. Out.”
The dog gave a great sigh, but didn’t move.
“C’mon, Mick, out of the truck now.” He stared at the dog, and the dog stared back.
He’d never had a battle of wills with an animal that he hadn’t won, and today wasn’t going to be the first. He snapped his fingers, an unspoken command that Mick always responded to, but the mutt just whined once and hunkered in lower.
“I guess we know who’s the boss in this family.”
Jones started. He’d been so intent on the dog that he hadn’t even heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel, and apparently neither had Mick. He reacted now, though, stepping onto the seat, sniffing the air that brought a faint hint of perfume and smiling, damn it, as he jumped from the truck and landed at Reece’s feet.
She offered her hand for Mick to sniff, then crouched in front of him, scratching between his ears. “You’re a big boy, aren’t you? And a pretty one. I don’t blame you for wanting to stay in the truck. I don’t much like this place, either. But we do what we gotta do, don’t we, sweetie?”
Jones watched her slender fingers work around Mick’s ears, rubbing just the way the dog liked. Hell, Jones liked a pretty woman rubbing him the same way, and Reece certainly was pretty crouched there, her khaki shorts hugging her butt, her white shirt shifting as her muscles did. For the first time since she’d climbed out of her car a few hours ago, she looked almost relaxed, and he doubted he’d ever seen her look that trusting.
Did she ever offer that much trust to a human being? To a man?
“He’s usually not that stubborn,” Jones remarked, leaning against the truck while Mick offered a toothy smile. It was almost as if the mutt was gloating: I’ve got her attention and you don’t.
“Animals are sensitive.”
“You have dogs?”
“Three. All throwaways. Like me.” The last two words must have slipped out, because her gaze darted to him, guarded and a bit anxious, and a flush colored her cheeks. He knew from Glen that she’d had abandonment issues that summer. Her father hadn’t chosen to die in that accident, but the end result was the same: he was gone. And her mother had preferred Europe with her friends over taking care of her daughter.
Jones could sort of relate, except from the other side of the matter: he was the one who’d done the abandoning. Had it cost Reece’s mother as much as it had him? Did she share even a fraction of his regret?
“Mick was dumped near a job site. When he got tired of waiting for his owners to come back, he decided to live with me.”
“Lucky you. After I fed the first stray outside the store where I work, he brought two more with him the next day. They’ve been living with me ever since.”
“Too bad you couldn’t bring them with you.” Traveling with dogs could be a hassle, but their company was worth it.
“Dogs in Grandmother’s house? And not even purebreds?” She scoffed as she stood.
Reaching into the bed of the truck, he took out his suitcase and laptop, then started for the porch. To his surprise, the rustle of plastic told him she’d taken out the grocery sacks and was following.
Mick jumped onto the low porch while Jones and Reece went to the steps in the center. He propped open the screen door, unlocked the door, then stood back so she and the dog could enter first.
The door opened directly into the living room, with the kitchen a few feet to the right. To maximize space, there was no hallway, just a door off the living room that went into a bedroom. He guessed the bathroom could only be reached from that room.
“I always wanted to see this place.” Reece set the grocery bags on the kitchen counter and automatically began unpacking them.
He laid his own bags against the wall. “You lived here and never came inside?”
The refrigerator, a recent model, closed with a thud after she put the milk and eggs inside. “Did I say I lived here?”
The undercurrent of wariness to her voice stirred its own undercurrents in Jones. He, who’d always been cautious of what he said to country people, never should have made such a stupid slip. “I just assumed you grew up around here.”
She considered the words a moment as she crumpled the plastic grocery bags together, then shrugged. “I stayed here for a few months when I was thirteen. My cousin Mark was here, too, that summer. This cottage was off-limits to us. Grandmother said it was for guests, not hooligans who ran wild.”
He forced a grin. “Hooligans? She actually called you hooligans?”
Her own smile was half-formed. “She did. Grandmother had—has—very exacting standards that we often failed to meet.”
Jones didn’t know about Mark, but apparently Reece was still something of a failure in Miss Willa’s opinion. The old woman certainly didn’t approve of Reece’s long absence or missing her grandfather’s funeral. That was the sort of thing that got a person disinherited by a prideful woman like Willadene Howard.
Was that why Reece had come now, because her grandfather was dead and her grandmother was nearing eighty? Did she want to get back in Miss Willa’s good graces before she passed and left everything to cousin Mark?
Or maybe she’d heard about Glen’s stuff being found. Maybe she wanted to make sure there was no suspicion, no effort to find out what happened to the boy who’d saved her life and, apparently, lost
