Chapter 16

The sun was hot on her back, but she felt too drained to move. Roan’s hands, stroking and gentling her, felt the warmth.

“You’re gonna get burned,” his lion’s purr voice rumbled as he nudged her forehead with his chin. Getting only a contented murmur in reply, he chuckled and rolled her over onto the blanket, then eased himself away from her and stood up.

Sunk deep in blissful lethargy, she watched from under a sheltering forearm as he walked naked to the edge of the creek, the hard muscle of his back and buttocks gleaming like marble in the sun. When he dropped to one knee and reached to scoop water from the creek with his cupped hand, she thought of statues of ancient Greek athletes, and didn’t even consider it strange to be daydreaming such romantic nonsense when for so many years she hadn’t allowed herself to dream at all. Today, her life was filled with wonder and magic, and even miracles seemed possible.

He splashed the crystal-clear water over his face and neck, shoulders and body, then turned to her, smiling, and held out his hand. Droplets of water clung to his hair and eyelashes and gleamed like oil on his cold-flushed skin. She rose to her feet and walked to him in a daze, too deeply under the spell of his warm and worshipful gaze to feel any self-consciousness at all. She was thinking only of him and how beautiful he was, and of how much she loved him and how much she wished they could be like this forever, just the two of them in a perfect little universe of happiness. Like Eden, before the Fall.

The icy water took her breath away, but didn’t shatter her fragile joy…only made it shiver and shine more brightly. He gently bathed her face and body, smoothing the crystalline water over her skin like lotion, and she did the same for him, shivering with delight and learning his body with all the fascination of a child with a new toy, until both their bodies glowed rosy pink all over.

A black-and-yellow butterfly flitted past, and Mary uttered an enchanted little cry and reached for it.

“Uh-uh,” Roan said, “come here…I’ll show you how to catch a butterfly.” Dipping water again from the creek, he stood behind her and brought her close to him, then dripped the water from his hand into hers. “Stand still,” he murmured against her ear. “Hold out your hand.”

She did as he told her, hardly daring to breathe. Moments crawled suspensefully past while she waited, and then…the butterfly fluttered drunkenly out of the sunlit sky…dipped and floated and swayed around her like a small plane trying to land in a high wind, and came to rest on her shoulder. She made a tiny sound, too overcome to move or speak as the butterfly slowly fanned its wings. Its legs tickled her skin.

“They like the water,” Roan said softly. He captured it gently and placed it on her outstretched finger.

Tears rose to sting her eyes and clog her throat. This is it. Happiness. This is how you find it. Not chasing after it recklessly, heedlessly. Standing still…letting it find you.

All her life, it seemed, she’d been chasing that elusive butterfly, only to have it always dance away beyond her reach. And now, when she wasn’t even trying, hadn’t been looking for it, never expected it…happiness had come to sit on her shoulder.

The butterfly fluttered away, and Mary drew a happy, shivering sigh. Wondering if a day could be more perfect.

“You’re gonna get burned,” Roan said again, dropping a tender kiss onto her shoulder, just where the butterfly had been. “Better get your clothes on.”

They dressed without urgency, helping each other, pausing to lean into lazy, intoxicated kisses. The breeze freshened, and the sun slipped behind a towering pile of clouds.

“Thunderheads,” Roan said, squinting at the sky. “We’d better be heading on back-looks like it’s gonna rain.”

They walked back to the horses through the shade of the pines. Mary looked back over her shoulder for a last glimpse of the meadow, not sunlit now, but darkened by the cloud’s shadow, and felt the shadow in her heart, too.

“It’s such a beautiful place,” she said wistfully. And then, though she didn’t want to ask, the question forced its way past the ache in her throat. “Did you bring Erin here?”

There was only a slight pause while he bent to pick up a blanket and saddle and heave them onto the gray mare’s back. Watching his hands settle the saddle and adjust the cinch, he said in a neutral voice, breathy and broken by the task he was doing, “Nope, never did…only found the place after Susie Grace was born…by that time she was home with the baby and I was busy being the sheriff…times of rambling through the wilderness like a couple of kids were over. Always meant to, though. Someday.”

Mary cleared her throat and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

He threw her a look and a wry smile before he bent to pick up the second saddle. “I’m sure you’ve probably heard all about what happened. The fire, and all…”

She gave a shrug of apology. “It’s a small town, Roan.”

Roan gave the cinch one last tug and turned to look at her, one hand resting on the saddle. The sadness in his eyes and in his voice made her throat close. “Mary, Erin’s always going to be here with me. I can’t help that-wouldn’t be right if I tried. You don’t stop loving somebody just because they die.”

She nodded, aching, and whispered, “I wouldn’t want you to.” But she knew…her heart knew it was a lie.

After a moment, he gave an awkward little cough and his eyes narrowed with a frown. “Doesn’t mean when a person loses someone, he can’t ever love someone else again. If a man can’t love, can’t share his life with someone, he’s only half-alive.”

Mary didn’t answer, only stared at him in silent agony while inside her battered heart was screaming at him. What does that mean? Does it mean you think you might possibly…someday…love me? Don’t talk in abstracts, dammit! Tell me what you feel.

Thunder grumbled, not far off. Roan looked up at the sky and said, “Better get moving if we’re gonna beat the rain home.”

They made it to the barn by minutes-and not once during that wild ride home did Mary think to be afraid-though by the time she’d helped Roan unsaddle and rub down the horses and they’d made a mad dash for the house through the downpour, they were both soaking wet anyway.

On Monday morning, Roan went to his office early. He was planning on going back over everything he had on Jason’s murder, hoping to find something-anything-that would lead him to the real killer. In order to clear Mary he knew he was going to have to go back to the beginning, go over all the evidence, photographs, autopsy reports, forensics-everything. But even with the early start, with Boomtown Days activities and aggravations it was late evening before he got around to re-interviewing witnesses.

Monday night of Boomtown week wasn’t the best time to be in Buster’s Last Stand. Roan expected it to be a madhouse and it was, noisy and crowded with a whole lot of people dressed up like cowboys, a few of them maybe even the real kind.

Buster had hired some temporary help to handle the crowd, so when he saw Roan come in he stopped what he was doing to come over and talk to him. Roan asked if he had a minute, and the big man said “Sure,” and flung his bar towel over his shoulder and followed him outside.

“Sorry to take you away from your Boomtown business,” Roan said as soon as he didn’t have to shout to make himself heard.

Buster shrugged. “Ah, hell, I’m glad to get away from the racket. What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

Roan told him what he was doing and why. “I know there must be someone else Jason pissed off besides Mary,” he concluded. “I want you to think back a ways, try to recall if there was anything else Jason said or did that might have got him killed.”

Buster looked at him sideways and rubbed a big meaty hand over the lower half of his face, fidgeting like a schoolboy. Roan’s scalp began to prickle. “Come on, let’s have it. You’ve obviously thought of something.”

“Ah, hell. I been thinkin’ about this-didn’t want to tell you, didn’t think it could have anything to do with Jase’s murder, on account of…well, because the only person it might give a motive to is you, Sheriff.”

Roan narrowed a stare at him and growled, “Tell me.”

Buster held up a hand. “I…all right, look, don’t shoot the messenger, okay?” He shifted, looked over his shoulder, then cleared his throat. “Happened awhile back. Jase was drunker than usual…got to bragging to a bunch of the regulars about how the law in this town couldn’t touch him. He was hinting-more than hinting-about all the things he claimed he’d done and gotten away with. One of them-ah, Christ, Roan-he said he’d had the sheriff’s wife.”

Roan’s world went cold and dark and scary. Somewhere in it he heard his voice quietly asking Buster why he’d never mentioned any of this. And Buster’s voice, nervous and tinny, saying, “Shoot, I thought you already knew, Sheriff. Figured Boyd woulda told you.”

For an instant everything stopped. Then the cold and the blackness began to whirl around him. “Boyd?” he croaked.

Buster nodded, looking miserable. “Yeah, he was in here that night. Couldn’t help but hear what Jase was saying. Thought Boyd might go for him then and there, you know? But the old man just finished up his beer and walked out without sayin’ a word.

“I never did think you had anything to do with killin’ Jason,” Buster called after him. Roan was already striding across the parking lot, the keys to his sheriff’s-department SUV gripped in his ice-cold hand.

It was late. He knew he had to go home sometime. Knew he’d have to talk to Boyd…sometime. Instead he found himself driving aimlessly through the streets of the town he’d lived in all his life, streets as familiar to him as his own backyard. Right now it seemed like an alien planet. His world had blown apart, everything he’d trusted and believed in turned upside down.