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“Neither have I. I wasn’t sure I even remembered how.”
Her eyes widened. “What was that? A test just to see if you could?”
Groaning, he bit back a curse word. “Not hardly. That was pure instinct. A beautiful woman standing next to me in the moonlight. I might seem old to you, Rosalinda. But I’m not dead by any means.”
“Old?” Her laugh was shaky with nerves. “When I look at you, that’s the last thing that comes to my mind.”
“Really? What’s the first?”
Shaking her head, she reached for the door handle. “That you’re a dangerous man.”
The urge to pull her into his arms and somehow convince her that she could trust him completely was so strong it gripped him like a sharp pain.
“Looks can be very deceiving, Rosalinda. I hope you’ll come to realize that.”
“I’ll think about that,” she said, then pulled open the door. “Good night, Tyler.”
Reluctantly, he dropped his hold on her arm and stepped back. As she climbed into the truck cab, a sense of separation washed over him. The feeling not only stunned him, it made him feel like a complete idiot. This woman was practically a stranger and he wasn’t about to get tangled up with a rough-and-tumble female who wore a pistol on her hip and a stubborn look in her eyes.
“Good night,” he replied.
With the door shut between them, she quickly started the engine and backed out of the parking slot. Tyler didn’t watch her drive away; instead, he climbed into his own truck that was parked down the street. But as he drove home to Pine Ridge Ranch, he couldn’t help but wonder how soon it would be before he saw Rosalinda Lightfoot again.
The next morning, Rosalinda was sitting at her desk, putting her notes together from the day before, when Hank entered the small office space.
Not bothering to glance up, she greeted him with a cheery good morning.
“Mornin’,” he replied.
Swinging her chair around, she watched the stocky, rusty-haired deputy walk straight to the small coffee machine situated on a cluttered table in one corner of the room.
“What’s the matter? Late night?” she asked.
“Not very.”
With a foam cup of the steaming liquid in his hand, he turned back to his desk and Rosalinda couldn’t help but notice the slump of his shoulders. The fact that he’d continued to work last night, while she’d had the whole evening off, made her feel a little guilty, even though it wasn’t her fault.
“You sound tired,” she observed.
“I’m okay.”
Rosalinda suddenly decided the tone of his voice was more sulky than anything. More than likely, he was brooding because she was out last night enjoying herself while he’d been working. Well, he could just brood. It had been weeks since she’d had a few extra hours off duty. She deserved a break now and then.
Trying to temper the irritation in her voice, she said, “Look, Hank, I didn’t ask to be off last night. Vance volunteered to fill in for me and I took him up on the offer. If you have a problem with that, maybe we should talk it over with Brady.”
Grimacing, Hank plopped into his seat. The movement caused the coffee to splash over the rim of the cup and onto the thigh of his jean. Cursing, he placed the cup on the desk and directed a glare at her. “I don’t have a problem with anything. Except you fraternizing with a suspect!”
So that was it.
Slowly and purposefully, she walked over to Hank’s chair and stared down at him. “You have evidence that Tyler Pickens set the fire himself or ordered it set? Or for that matter, do you know for certain he’s caused any sort of mischief on the Chaparral Ranch?”
Her questions brought a tinge of color to his cheeks. “No. But—well, it just doesn’t look good. You out with a man like him.”
There were so many retorts rushing to Rosalinda’s tongue that she couldn’t manage to spit any of them out. “Drink your coffee,” she finally muttered. “You clearly need it.”
Turning on her heel, she went back to her desk and tried to focus on her hastily scribbled notes, but the angry steam inside her was fogging her ability to see or think.
After a moment, Hank asked, “What’s the matter with you?”
No doubt, her sharpness had taken him by surprise. Since she’d come to work as a county deputy, she and Hank had been the best of buddies, with hardly a strained word between them.
Swiveling her chair so that she was facing him, she said, “You are my working partner, Hank. Not my keeper. Being seen with Tyler Pickens is my personal business.”
His face turned a deeper shade of red. “So that little scene with you and him last night at the Blue Mesa was personal?”
She groaned outwardly. “I didn’t say that,” she shot back at him, before letting out a long breath. “Actually, we agreed to meet to talk a little more about the fire. That’s all there was to it.”
The mocking twist of his features said he wasn’t at all convinced by her explanation. “You needed to put on a skirt for that?”
No matter if she had deliberately dressed up for Tyler’s sake, Hank was crossing into private territory. And she wasn’t going to be shy about pushing him back to where he belonged.
“What I wear or don’t wear is my concern. Not yours or any man’s,” she said bluntly.
Faint surprise flickered across the deputy’s face; then he shrugged and grinned as though he realized just how much he’d ruffled her. “Sorry, Rosa. But you’re a rookie. I feel protective of you.”
A strained breath eased out of her. “Forget it, Hank. Let’s just get to work and see if we can figure out who was playing with matches.”
“Right. Between the two of us, we ought to be able to solve this thing and make our bosses happy.”
Glad that the awkward tension between them had dissolved, Rosalinda turned back to the paperwork on her desk. “That would put a few feathers in our caps,” Rosalinda agreed.
To please her superiors and prove to them that she was a capable deputy with enough determination and grit to get things done would fill her with confidence and pride. But oddly enough the idea of making Tyler happy by finding the culprit felt equally important to her. And that was crazy. Just downright crazy.
She’d only known Tyler Pickens for little more than a day. Yet the man was continuing to consume her thoughts to the point where she could hardly make sense of the statements she’d taken yesterday from the Pine Ridge Ranch hands. Even though hours had passed since their meal and subsequent kiss, she couldn’t get any of their time together out of her mind.
From the moment he’d started talking last night, she’d felt herself being drawn to him. The rich textures of his voice and the subtle movements of his body had slowly and surely seduced her and when he’d kissed her, she’d reacted to him like a woman starved for the touch of a man. Dear God, she could only imagine what he’d been thinking about the hungry way she’d responded to him. The only saving grace about the whole ordeal was that she’d been the one to finally have enough fortitude to end the reckless behavior.
A brief knock on the door had her and Hank glancing around to see Brady Donovan walking into the office. A tall, lean man with tawny hair and handsome features, he’d worked as a deputy for several years and along the way been wounded in the line of duty before he’d eventually been promoted to undersheriff. Since his brother-in-law owned the Chaparral Ranch, she knew that solving the arson case was of utmost importance to him.
“You two have anything new to report?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Hank spoke up. “I still have several more people to interview on the Chaparral. The employee roster for that place is huge. You want me to include the women working in the business office, too?”
Brady said, “Everyone means everyone.”
“Seems like a waste of time to me. I can’t see a secretary or file clerk dragging a jug of gasoline into the forest and setting the place ablaze.”
“Maybe you can’t envision it, but I can,” Brady told him. “Anyway, women gossip. The office workers might have overhead remarks that could be helpful.”
The undersheriff leveled a pointed look at Rosalinda. “And before you say anything, men gossip, too. So have you uncovered anything interesting yet?”
“I’m about to type up my notes and go over them a second time. So far I’ve not found anything suspicious concerning the Pine Ridge Ranch hands. But I need to cross-reference all their statements to see if I can pick up any inconsistencies. And I’ve not interviewed the cook yet.”
“He should have been the first man on your list. The one person who can tell you the most about a group of men is the one who feeds them.”
“Oh, you mean the bunkhouse cook.” She tapped a pencil on her open notebook. “I’ve already had a lengthy discussion with him. I’m talking about Ty—er, Mr. Pickens’s house cook. Gib is his name. I’ll have to make another trip out there, I suppose.”
“No supposing about it. You’re going this morning.”
Rosalinda looked at him with surprise. “This morning? You think Gib is that important?”
“I’m not sending you out there to talk to him. I want you to take a look at the spot where the fire originated.”
Another trip to the Pine Ridge Ranch today. The order had Rosalinda unconsciously bracing herself. “I thought the fire marshal and his team had gone all over that area. What can I do?”
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