Jodi Thomas - Twisted Creek

I could tell Luke had never taken a walk for pleasure in his life. He marched down the beach as if on a mission.

“Slow down.” I tugged my hand away from his grip.

He stopped, retraced his last two steps, and placed an arm on my shoulder. “Sorry.”

“I don’t see your place,” I said as casually as I could.

“It’s in the trees. After dark, unless I light a lamp, no one would ever find it.”

“Do a lot of entertaining?” I tried to sound funny.

“No.” He laughed. “Last week I did have a possum. She ate all my crackers and left.”

We moved at my pace for a while before I blurted out, “I opened the letter.”

He stopped and turned me toward him but didn’t say a word. The night was cool and a gentle wind whispered in the pines that marked the property line between my place and his. They made a whining sound.

“Garrison Walker wanted to inform me that there would be an inquiry about Jefferson Platt’s will.”

Luke relaxed and took my hand again. “He probably had to notify you.” We walked on.

I followed for several steps before I gulped back a cry. “She’s going to take it away from me.”

“No she’s not.”

I wanted to pound on his chest and make him understand. My mother always got what she wanted. Nana never stood up to her. Even when she’d dropped by for the funeral of Henry, Carla had talked Nana into giving her half the cash we had so she could cover her gas.

“Allie,” he said with more caring than I’d ever heard him use. “She’s not going to take Jefferson’s Crossing away from you and Nana.”

I stopped, not able to look up at him even in the shadows. “Nana will give it to her.”

Luke rubbed his warm hand against the cold side of my cheek. “Nana doesn’t own it. You do. That may be why Jefferson left it to you. Maybe he guessed that you’d be the one taking care of Nana and you’d need a place. Maybe he figured you might be strong enough to hold on to it.”

“How would he know that?”

Luke laughed, his breath close against my face. “Carla said she came by and talked to him. Thirty minutes with that woman would teach a man a lot about what not to do.”

“But she is pretty. She’s always looked like a dress-up doll to me. Everything matching. All fitting perfect. All smelling of roses.”

He hugged me close. “There are a lot of men who don’t care for that kind of pretty.”

“Yeah, Willie.” I laughed against his shirt and hugged back.

“And me,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss the top of my head.

When his hug tightened, I moved into his warmth, needing the solid feel of him tonight.

My arm connected with the cold steel of a gun just below his armpit.

I jumped back. “You’re wearing a gun.”

Luke swore.

He reached for me, but I took another step backward. No lake bum, no fisherman wore a gun strapped around his shoulder.

“It’s not a gun, Allie, it’s a Glock 9mm automatic.” He swore again, realizing he wasn’t calming me down by being more specific. “I told you I planned to go out by the dam tonight and look for our nervous drug dealer.”

“You didn’t tell me you planned to shoot him.” I took another step backward. The man I cared about, the quiet drifter with the bluest eyes in Texas, wasn’t the kind of man who went hunting for another. “I don’t know you at all,” I said, thinking of the dumb kissing game we’d played earlier. Maybe I should have asked if he’d killed anyone lately or what side of the law he walked on.

The pieces of him began to fit together. Willie said he was shot once. He lived out here all alone. He avoided the sheriff. He carried a gun. All he needed was a neon sign saying OUTLAW and I might be able to figure it out.

“Allie. Let me explain.”

I headed back toward the dock. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.” I didn’t think I could handle learning that he’d killed before, or that his picture was in every post office.

If I left now, if I moved fast enough, maybe I could outrun the heartache that I’d fallen for a criminal. The first man I’d been attracted to since college and he had to be a Glock-toting, unemployed drifter. How many “wrong for you” signs did I need?

It took me a few breaths to realize he was matching my steps.

I glanced over. He wasn’t even breathing hard. The guy was in shape, and for the first time it dawned on me that he might not keep so fit just so he could race the moon at night.

“You going to slow down and let me explain?”

“No.” I didn’t want to hear anything. Every time I’d been interested in a man I’d hung around until he cut me up into little pieces. This time I was getting out while I could still stand. What would there be next-pills in pockets, a picture of his kids in his wallet?

“Allie?” His voice was cold, hard. “You will listen.”

Maybe he was going out to the dam to kill the drug dealer because the skiddery guy was moving in on his territory. Maybe Luke had this county sewed up. That would explain a few things, like maybe why he was in my house when we’d arrived. He had to check me out and make sure I wouldn’t interrupt his drug trafficking.

“Allie?” Luke’s hands closed around my arms as I reached for the dock. In one sweep, he lifted me up and sat me down hard on the boards.

I looked down at his blue eyes and waited. At half his weight, I couldn’t fight him, but that didn’t mean I had to listen or believe.

“I should have told you earlier, but I didn’t know who to trust. I’ve been a special agent with the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for ten years. When I heard Jefferson died, I decided to come home and check it out. It didn’t make sense that a man who spent his life on the lake would accidentally fall in one day and die.”

“You work for the government?”

“Yeah, I’m like a cop only I work mostly undercover. I came out here to see what I could find out, not as an agent, but because Jefferson and my grandfather were friends.” He lowered his head and swore. “I couldn’t believe I didn’t pick up the clues that someone was running drugs sooner. I thought they were just using abandoned cabins for meth labs. I didn’t know someone was selling out here. Dillon could have been killed.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I didn’t know who I could trust. Except Willie, of course. He and Mrs. Deals are the only two out here who know what I do for a living.”

“Willie! You told Willie? What about me?”

“I didn’t tell Willie, my grandfather did years ago. But that doesn’t matter. You stood to gain the most from Jefferson’s death. You were my most likely suspect.”

“What?” I scrambled to my feet. I felt his big hands sliding along my body as I moved, but he didn’t try to stop me. “When were you going to finally trust me? When I lost the store and Carla became number-one suspect in your book?”

Luke had the nerve to laugh. He jumped up on the dock and caught up to me. “No, I knew you didn’t kill him. And of course I let Nana off the list as soon as I learned she could make homemade cinnamon rolls.”

He was trying to be funny. I wasn’t buying. How could I even think of getting involved with a man who didn’t trust me? No, worse-thought I might be a killer. I shoo spiders outside.

We reached the door to the store and he whispered, “I couldn’t figure out how to tell you, Allie. Telling people what I do is not something that’s ever come easy for me. My safety in the field depends on it.”

“How did Mrs. Deals find out?” It was a dumb question that didn’t matter, but I asked anyway.

“Her only child was an agent. He disappeared years ago while working undercover.” Luke forced words out as if each came hard. “I met him when I was a boy out here and looked up to him. He got me the job, then vanished a month later. He was a good agent. When he didn’t come in, we all knew he was dead, but officially he was missing.”

I faced him. “She doesn’t act like she knows you.”

“I know. I can’t tell if she thinks it should have been me who disappeared, or if facing me reminds her that her son is gone. Last night, with everyone around, was the first time she’d even looked at me.”

He straightened before me, no longer with the rounded shoulders of a man trying not to be seen. “I’ve made more enemies than friends, and the few people I know when I’m off-duty don’t know what I do.”

I looked at him, needing time to get away and think. “Your secret’s safe with me, Officer Morgan.” My words seemed to freeze the air between us.

“It’s Agent Morgan and it’s time I went to work.”

He shoved away from the door frame and disappeared into the night before I could think of anything to say.

One tear worked down my face. I was going to lose this place, this home I almost believed I had. Nana and I would be out on the streets again. But worse, I’d already lost what I thought I had a chance of having: Happiness.

Luke had been friendly because I was a suspect and I’d been fool enough to think it might be love.

When would I ever stop turning those corners looking for a better world on the other side?

2100 hours

South Shore

Luke stormed through the pine trees to his place, frustrated at the way he’d handled Allie. Or, more accurately, not handled her. A moment before she’d touched his shoulder holster, he’d been thinking about bringing her back to his place and going a hell of a lot further than kissing.

He wanted her so badly he couldn’t sleep. All through dinner, she’d played a game of brushing his leg, then looking away like nothing happened. He’d been so turned on he could have been eating part of the table and he wouldn’t have noticed. When they’d stepped out on the dock he’d known it was time for him to go, but he’d wanted just a few more minutes with her.