Dangerous Refuge

chapter Eight



Shaye still hadn’t decided whether Tanner was good or bad for her when the doorbell to her condo chimed happily. She put down the brush she had been running through her hair and looked at her sturdy, all-weather watch. Twenty minutes before nine.

The peephole assured her that it was Tanner rather than a salesman. She opened the door to her second-floor condo.

“You’re early,” she said.

In the daylight, his eyes were a deep, deep blue. He was looking at her from head to toe and back again.

As far as Shaye was concerned, there was no reason for the utterly male appraisal. She was wearing faded jeans, a plain khaki-colored sweater, and shoes that could take sidewalks or trails. No makeup, hair pulled back. Nothing fancy. Certainly nothing worth a second look.

He met her eyes. “Dressing down today?”

“Cocktail dress for breakfast means the ‘Walk of Shame.’ It’s like wearing an I-did-it sign.”

He laughed and looked at her lips. “I’m hungry.”

Oh my God, she thought as her pulse kicked. “I’m feeling like Little Red meeting the wolf.”

“If you get me fed, I’ll be no more dangerous than a border collie pup.”

“In that case, I won’t take time for makeup.”

“You don’t need any.”

“And you need glasses. Come in while I get my jacket. The wind off Lake Tahoe can have a bite to it even in late summer.”

As Shaye disappeared into a bedroom, Tanner walked in and shut the door. A few glances around the condo told him that she was well organized without being militant about it, liked bold colors more than pastels, and preferred comfort over style. That was more personal information than the Google results he’d read about a white female, thirty-three, five foot eight inches tall, one thirty-two, blond and brown, divorced, reclaimed her family name, no tickets, no warrants, no arrests, no children, no unpaid bills.

Which was more than could be said for her ex, a handsome low-level Major League ballplayer named Marc Nugent who liked wild parties and wilder women. Good thing he had a Dodgers paycheck to cover that.

From the envelope Tanner could see on the entryway table, they were still actively corresponding.

Is that why she isn’t seeing anyone? Still too involved with the ex?

Or did she get burned but good?

The thing about growing up was that there were so many potholes in the road. Some of them were deep enough to swallow you whole.

“I thought you were hungry,” Shaye said, waving a hand in front of his face.

“I am. Who’s Marc Nugent?”

Shaye looked at the envelope. “You mean you haven’t heard of the famous deep bench player for the Dodgers? My ex. He has a high opinion of himself.”

“You could kill scorpions with that tone.”

“If only. What about you? Any ex-wives?”

He smiled slightly, liking her directness. He had never been drawn to coy women. “I stopped collecting at one. I got married too young, before I knew how hard a cop’s life is on a relationship. Way before I’d grown up enough to make it work anyway.”

“Still paying alimony and child support?” she asked sympathetically, picking up her purse. “I was. Alimony, not child support. The court finally decided that my ex could get along without an allowance from me. He wrote me a nasty gram about it.”

Okay. She’s not really corresponding with the ex.

“No kids or alimony for me,” Tanner said. “My ex remarried the day our divorce was final.”

“It’s better that way. No children to grind up between adult realities.” Her voice was matter-of-fact. “Takes a while to stop feeling stupid, though.”

He put his fingers beneath her chin, tilted her head up. “It stops?”

She half smiled and half frowned as she gently stepped away. “Anything else from the deep past that we need to exorcise before breakfast?”

“Not on my side.”

“Then let’s eat.”

“I’ll drive, you navigate. Deal?”

Automatically she hesitated. Then she reminded herself that nothing in her Google-stalk of him before she went to sleep last night had raised any flags.

“Deal,” she said.

Tanner followed Shaye’s directions to a nearby breakfast place. On Sunday morning, the hungry clients should have been lined up out the door, but no one was waiting for a table.

“You sure this is a good place?” he asked before he turned off the car.

“Yes.”

“Couldn’t tell it by the parking lot.”

“Wait until it snows, or until high summer. Place is buried in people then. It’s only quiet in the shoulder seasons.”

The coffee shop was done in extreme skiing decor. The front-door handles were miniature skis. Signed posters of Olympic ski luminaries lined the walls. Brightly clad ski daredevils shot off cliffs to fly down to snow far below.

Tanner spotted a booth in the back and persuaded the hostess that she wanted to seat them there, rather than at a table with a view of the parking lot.

“She saves this booth for regulars,” Shaye said, sliding in on one side.

“You aren’t?” he asked.

He took the same side of the booth, following her in. He sat down too close to her at first, smelling her shower soap. He made himself ease away, give her room.

“I usually eat at home,” she said, “but I haven’t had a chance to go grocery shopping since I went to the retreat.” Her husky voice said she was feeling the heat of his body close to hers.

“You like to cook?” he asked.

“When I have time.”

“Me, too. Maybe breakfast tomorrow. We can shop for stuff later.”

She didn’t know which assumption to deal with first—her place, breakfast, his presence, shopping together—so she said, “Kimberli will be expecting me at the Monday staff meeting.”

“Not after I tell her that the Conservancy’s best chance of ever seeing Lorne’s property again is letting you soften me up. That will take time. She’ll understand. For her, sex is a sales tool.”

“Do you think she’ll buy it?”

“I’m not selling,” he said with a hard flash of teeth, “I’m telling.”

She blinked. “And the evil twin returns.”

His smile changed, softer now, hotter. Tempting.

Without realizing it, she licked her lips.

He openly watched her response. He didn’t try to tell himself that he wanted to stay close to Shaye only as a way to find out more about Lorne’s last months, the Conservancy, and Lorne’s death. Tanner had given up that kind of self-deception about the time he came off shift early and found his wife energetically shagging her yoga instructor. He’d known something had been off-key with his wife lately, but he had told himself that he was being too much of a cop.

Too suspicious.

That was the last time he ignored his inner voice—the one that had sat up and howled when he first saw Shaye in that little black dress. One look at her and he had decided to work his way into her life using whatever means was at hand.

At least part of him had decided. The other part of him was laughing its ass off. L.A. meets Refuge? Really? You’ll be lucky to stay here long enough to tie up all Lorne’s loose ends without going stir-crazy.

A waitress came with coffee and menus.

Gratefully Tanner took the coffee and gave her his order without looking at the colorful print and cute ski-slope names for eggs, omelets, breakfast meats, potatoes, and granola with a side of yogurt.

“Scrambled eggs and hamburger,” he said. Eggs Benedict cop-style.

Shaye’s order followed on the heels of his.

“No waffles and whipped cream?” he asked when the waitress left.

“Sugar and fluff don’t last until lunch. Eggs do.”

He grinned. “Good. Waffles are a pain in the butt to make.”

“All you do is open the box and pop them in the toaster,” she said with a sideways look.

“Not if I’m cooking. I start from scratch. I don’t pour eggs from a carton or thaw cut-up fruit from the freezer, either. I get enough of that eating out.”

She smiled. “All right. You can make breakfast for me tomorrow. I hope your hotel isn’t too much of a drive.”

“It isn’t.”

Breakfast came quickly. It was hot, fresh, and plentiful. He didn’t bother to make small talk while he neatly demolished his platter of protein.

She concentrated on her food, too. She hadn’t been particularly hungry since she had found Lorne, but this morning her normal appetite wanted to make up for lost time. When she was down to chasing a few stray hash browns across her empty plate, she looked toward him. He was watching her with an intensity that took her breath away.

And he was smiling a hungry kind of smile.

“What?” she asked. “Is there egg on my chin?”

“No. I’m just glad you aren’t a carrot-shavings-and-lettuce kind of eater. After last night, I wondered.”

“I’ve been off my game since I found Lorne.”

“You good now?”

“Better. But still . . .” She shrugged. “Like roots on a trail. Memories keep tripping me.”

“Yeah.” He took her hand and pulled it onto his thigh. “Do you mind talking about it?”

“I thought you were going to the sheriff.”

“Reports can only tell you so much, especially when everyone is taking what they see at face value.”

“What do you mean?”

He watched the hostess walking toward them. Trailing behind her were four people he vaguely remembered from the gala. She seated the group in the booth just in front of Tanner and Shaye.

“You feel like doing the meet-and-greet with anyone from the party last night?” he asked quietly.

“Not particularly. It’s my day off. I haven’t had many of those lately.”

He caught the server’s eye, got the bill, and gave the woman enough cash to cover everything before Shaye could unzip her wallet.

“I’ll be back with your change, sir.”

“It’s yours.”

The waitress brightened. “Thank you.”

She turned around and hurried back down the aisle as if afraid he would change his mind.

“I go Dutch,” Shaye said.

“I’ll keep a tab for you.”

He pulled Shaye out of the booth and headed for the back door. After he tucked her into the passenger side of his car, he got in behind the wheel and turned the key. The engine wasn’t happy about it, but finally coughed to rough life.

Needs more than a tune-up, he thought.

Working overnight made normal chores a pain.

Maybe that’s why our shiny new captain smiled when he changed my hours.

“Would it bother you too much to go to Lorne’s ranch?” he asked.

“It won’t bother me. I was going to check on the animals before I saw your car. I didn’t want to leave Lorne’s body, and then the cops . . .”

“Yeah, we’re heartless bastards until the forms are filled out.”

“They were just doing their job.”

“I know that, too. Doesn’t make it any easier on civilians.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

She leaned back against the seat and watched dark green trees whip by on either side of the windshield. The two-lane road twisted, rose, then dropped down until the solid wall of evergreen needles gave way to stands of aspen and tongues of grass and sagebrush among the pines. Granite boulders polished by long-ago glaciers gleamed in the sun.

Tanner turned onto a dirt Forest Service road that led to an aging asphalt road. Within minutes the road crossed above Lorne’s ranch. A few hundred yards later they were bouncing along the ruts leading to the ranch house.

“You’re going to scrape bottom,” she said. “We should have brought my Bronco. The gas gauge has a split personality, but I could have bought fuel in Tahoe.”

“Long as it doesn’t rain, we’ll be fine. This is a former LAPD squad car. The suspension is a lot better than the car looks.”

And I hope the engine is better than it sounds.

“But if the weather goes sideways, there’s always the ranch truck,” he said.

She murmured a word that could have been Lorne’s name.

Tanner drove into the sunlight flooding around the ranch house. Shaye’s glance intently probed shadows and sunlight alike.

“Looking for something in particular?” he asked.

“I keep waiting for Dingo to come out and investigate.”

“He’s still at the vet, and I’m wondering how he got into that poison.”

That, plus the missing gold, is just too damned convenient for this homicide cop to swallow without choking.

One or two—or even three—mismatched details he could accept. Life was that way. Messy. Death was the same.

“So am I,” she said. “Dingo stayed away from roads and other people. He was as shy as a coyote.”

“I called the vet before I picked you up. Dingo won’t be chasing rabbits for a while, but he’s getting better. We can see him later.”

“I’d like to. He must hate being penned up.”

Tanner parked on the shady side of the ranch house, several hundred feet away from the area where Lorne had died.

Shaye unfastened the seat-belt harness, which had dialed itself up to choke. She had closed the car door behind herself when he reached her side of the sedan. He took her hand and gave it a squeeze that lasted just long enough to remind both of them how much they liked it.

“Dessert with breakfast,” he said, smiling at her.

“Never saw that on any menu.”

“You’ve been going to the wrong restaurants.”

He liked seeing the humor in her eyes and on her pink, naked lips so much that he wished he didn’t have to grill her like a murder suspect. But he knew he was going to just the same.

Some questions just had to be answered.