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www.millsandboon.co.uk
VICTORIA PADE
is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted chocolate lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. For information about her latest and upcoming releases, and to find recipes for some of the decadent desserts her characters enjoy, log on to www.vikkipade.com.
To Jill Megan Morian, acupuncturist extraordinaire.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 1
MEGAN BAILEY DOUBLE-CHECKED her treatment room to make sure everything was ready. Her muscle testing vials were in order and all ac counted for. The Soft Sounds Of Nature CD was in the CD player. There was a crisp sheet over her treatment table and she fluffed the pillow at the head of it just for good measure. Her needles were in the drawer of the corner cupboard where cotton balls and alcohol were also amply stocked. The dimmer on the light switch was working.
She was all set. All set for her first client in her new office. Hope fully the first of many. Not that she was expecting a sudden surge of business, because she wasn’t. She was realistic. She knew she was only breaking the ice in the small town and that it would take a while to build any kind of practice here.
After all, Elk Creek, Wyoming, was about as old fashioned, traditional, and conservative a small town as anyone could find anywhere. Which probably didn’t make it the wisest choice for a place to open an office for Megan to practice acupuncture and her sister Annissa to do massage therapy.
But Elk Creek was the site of the sole piece of property that the Bailey family owned—the twenty acres on which sat the old farm house Megan’s and Annissa’s maternal grandfather had built. It was also the place Megan and Annissa had lived for the longest amount of time—from birth until Megan was twelve and Annissa was eleven.
That made it seem like home. Like the place to come to when she and Annissa decided they wanted to finally put down roots.
So that’s what they’d done. They’d moved back to Elk Creek, into the old farm house that was costing them a fortune to get into livable condition, and they’d set up shop in this store front on Center Street.
But the office had been open for two weeks now and so far Annissa hadn’t had a single call for her services as a massage therapist and herbalist, and Megan’s days had been filled only with putting up posters and a single meeting with the town doctor to introduce herself, lay out her credentials and talk about the uses and success rates of acupuncture and how it might be applied in conjunction with Western medicine or when Western medicine failed. Particularly her specialty—allergy elimination acupuncture.
We knew it wouldn’t be easy, she reminded herself as she checked the clock on the wall and realized she had less than fifteen minutes until her appointment.
She and Annissa realized that introducing non-traditional forms of health care was bound to meet some resistance. But after being raised by two eternal hippie-flower children, neither Megan nor Nissa were unfamiliar with being considered out-of-the-norm weirdos and they were determined to make a go of it here no matter what.
And today could be the start of that, Megan thought. The start of establishing them selves in their old hometown. Especially since Megan’s appointment was with Josh Brimley.
She had only the vaguest memory of who he was. All she really recalled was that the Brimley family lived on a small ranch down the road from her family’s place and that there had been a lot of them. Six brothers, if she wasn’t mistaken.
She wasn’t sure in what order they came but she did know that Josh had not been in her grade in elementary school or in Nissa’s class one year behind hers. Nissa had known a Devon Brimley and Megan thought it was Scott Brimley who had been her age, but beyond that neither of them was sure where in the pecking order Josh Brimley fell. Or anything about him. Except that he was now Elk Creek’s sheriff.
Their paths hadn’t crossed in the three weeks Megan and Annissa had been in town but they were hoping that the very fact that he was the sheriff would carry some weight. Getting a man who held a respected public position to come in for acupuncture seemed like a good way to get word out that she and Nissa could provide valid services to the community.
At least that was what they were counting on and why Megan felt as if there was a lot riding on this single appointment, and why she’d accepted it for five o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.
When she was satisfied that she was prepared for her client, she left the treatment room and went into the bathroom to check her appearance. She wanted to make a good first impression so she’d opted for a loose cotton jumper that went nearly to her ankles and covered the white crew necked T-shirt she wore underneath it. She also had on her best clogs and her lucky bracelets—ten thin copper bracelets she wore on her left wrist.
A quick check in the mirror told her she looked all right but still she ran a brush through her hair until the pale-blond straight strands lay smoothly all the way to the blunt-cut ends that fell about six inches below her shoulders.
She didn’t wear makeup but she had used a henna mascara to darken her eye lashes so her blue eyes didn’t seem too washed out and she decided it didn’t need any freshening. She was also grateful that her skin had always been good—some thing she attributed to a healthy diet—and that her cheeks had a natural rosiness to them. It helped boost her confidence to see that she appeared fresh-faced even though she hadn’t really done anything since early that morning.
She did apply an organic moisturizing lip balm to add some gloss to her lips, and she blotted a bit of shine from her thin, straight nose before she judged herself pre sent able and went out to the desk she and Annissa shared in the waiting room of the office.
Not that they were sharing it at that exact moment. Nissa was doing free chair massages at a Ladies’ League meeting and potluck dinner—again in an effort to spark some interest in their services.
Two huge windows made up the waiting room’s front wall, leaving it exposed to the street and the street exposed to Megan as she sat behind her desk to gather together the packet of papers she would give the sheriff on his way out after their initial appointment. There were two articles—one explaining acupuncture in general and the other outlining the merits of allergy elimination acupuncture. There was also a brief biography that listed her education and experience, a pay schedule, and another sheet that touted Annissa’s services, along with coupons for a ten-percent discount on either an acupuncture treatment or a massage.
Megan tapped all the pages into line, added one of her cards and one of Annissa’s to the top left hand corner and stapled the whole packet together just as a rotund man who looked about her age paused outside.
She smiled at him through the window and he inclined his head, clad in a cowboy hat.
Was he Josh Brimley?
There wasn’t a badge of any kind in sight and he wasn’t wearing a uniform. At least not an officer-of-the-law uniform. Instead the man had on what seemed to be the uniform of Elk Creek—cowboy hat and boots, blue jeans and a Western shirt.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t the sheriff. And since he was lingering outside the door, Megan thought it was possible he might indeed be Josh Brimley. And that maybe he was having second thoughts. That maybe he wouldn’t come in at all without some encouragement.
But if that was the case, she wasn’t going to let him get away. So she got up and went to the door, opening it to smile again at the man with the hooked nose and the very small eyes as he took a flyer out of the basket she and Annissa had set out when they’d opened for business two weeks ago.
“Hi,” she greeted him warmly.
“’Lo,” came the gruff reply.
She held out her hand. “I’m Megan Bailey.”
The man looked from her out stretched hand to her face and back to her hand again before he accepted it. But he didn’t offer his name.
So Megan said, “You wouldn’t happen to be Josh Brimley, would you?”
The man gave her a look that said it was a dumb question. “No, I wouldn’t be. Name’s Burns,” he finally informed her.
“Ah. Well, I’m happy to meet you, Mr. Burns. Can I help you with anything or answer any questions you might have?”
“Wife’s curious about this hooey. Wanted me to bring ’er home somethin’ about it.”
Not a warm welcome or a hearty endorsement but Megan didn’t let it daunt her.
“You lookin’ fer the sheriff?” the man asked then. “’Cuz he’s down on the corner there, keepin’ an eye on this place.”
Mr. Burns’s tone was suspicious but it was the news that Josh Brimley was standing off in the distance, watching the office as if he were on a stakeout that really dismayed Megan. It didn’t seem like a good sign.
She glanced in the direction Mr. Burns had indicated with a pointing of his nearly nonexistent chin and discovered that there was, indeed, another man three doors down, leaning a shoulder against one of the many Victorian lamp posts that lined either side of Center Street, his hands in the pockets of a pair of tight blue jeans, one ankle crossed over the other.
But before she could decide how she should handle what appeared to be the sheriff’s reluctance to come any closer, Mr. Burns piped up in a louder voice and called, “Lady’s askin’ after ya, Josh.”
That news did not seem to please the other man.
In fact, even though his face was mostly lost in the shadow cast by the brim of his own cowboy hat, his jaw seemed to clench.
An even worse sign.
“That so?” he called back as if he didn’t have the foggiest idea why Megan might be inquiring about him.
That was when it occurred to her that he might have been waiting to come in for his appointment until the disparaging Mr. Burns moved on so that no one would see him.
So much for hopes of word getting around and having a man who held a respected public position as a client breaking the ice around here and helping to get her started. At that point, Mrs. Burns’s curiosity seemed more promising.
But as Megan stood there she thought that she had two choices. She could say some thing that would give Josh Brimley away and get the word out herself that he had an appointment with her, or she could respect what seemed to be his desire not to have that known and just hope that when her treatments were successful, he’d admit to having had them.
She opted for the second scenario and in a voice loud enough for him to hear, she said, “I was just hoping to have the sheriff check our locks for us at some point, for safety’s sake.” Then, only to Mr. Burns, she added, “I hope your wife will come in and see us.”
And with that, Megan turned on her heels and returned to her office, keeping her fingers crossed that Mr. Burns would finally be on his way and Josh Brimley would feel free to keep his appointment under the auspices of giving his stamp of approval to her office security.
Although she was beginning to worry that he might not keep the appointment at all. That he might just go the other way and be a no-show.
But her fears were un founded. After Mr. Burns had disappeared in the opposite direction and the coast was pre sum ably clear, in came Josh Brimley.
Megan was nonchalantly watering the fern in the corner of the waiting room when he did and it struck her almost instantly that even though the space was large, the sheriff seemed to fill it.
He was a big man, she realized as she set the watering can down and turned to face him. He was probably three inches over six feet tall, with shoulders so broad it was a wonder they’d fit through the door. He wore a pale-gray Western shirt tucked into his jeans and there didn’t seem to be an ounce of fat on him. Instead he was a tower of lean muscle in long legs, narrow hips and a waist that V’d sharply up to those massive shoulders.
But it wasn’t sheer size that was responsible for his command of the room. He had a kind of intangible presence that she thought would cause the phenomenon no matter what room he entered.
Then he took off his hat and Megan’s gaze went naturally to his face.
He was no pretty boy but he had rugged good looks in a face of perfect sharp angles and planes. Perfect enough to cause a little catch in Megan’s breathing as she took it all in.
His brow was square, his nose was straight, and his lips had an intriguing suppleness to them that made her want to see them slide into a smile. His well-defined jawline was shaded by the hint of a thick beard, and to top it all off, he had the most incredible midnight-blue eyes she’d ever seen.
With his hat in one large, adept hand he ran the other over the short bristles of hair the color of antique oak, leaving it slightly spiky on top before he leveled those amazing eyes on her.
And the oddest thing happened. Megan felt a buzzing intensity ripple through her almost as if he’d actually touched her.
Of course she ignored it, held out her hand the same way she had to Mr. Burns, and said, “In case you didn’t know, I’m Megan Bailey.”
But unlike Mr. Burns, Josh Brimley didn’t take his eyes off her face even as he accepted her hand.
“Josh Brimley,” he said unnecessarily in a voice as deep and rich as aged bourbon.
His hand was strong, callused and warm to the touch, and having it wrapped around hers did wild and wicked things to the pit of her stomach. But she ignored that, too, clearing her throat so that when she spoke again her own voice didn’t ring with the effects he was having on her.
“I don’t remember too many people from around here so I assume not too many of them remember me, either,” she explained. “I just thought it wouldn’t hurt to introduce myself.”
“My brother Scott remembers you and your sister from grade school, but I’m two years older than he is and I can’t say that I have much recollection of the two of you. I know your place, though. I was amazed to see anyone trying to live in it again. It’s gotten pretty rundown over the years.”
“Worse than we expected,” she con firmed. “When we decided to come back we thought the house would need a little paint, a little fixing up. But so far it’s needed a whole lot more than that. Today we’re having to put in a new septic tank. When we left this morning there was so much machinery in our backyard it looked like a construction site.”
“I can imagine,” he said, smiling just enough to cut creases down both cheeks and prove just how lithe those lips were. It also in creased the level of his hand some ness by another notch. If that were possible.
Megan gave herself a quick, silent talking-to about the inadvisability of letting herself be distracted by a client’s appearance and cut the chitchat to get down to business before she completely forgot herself and why he was here.
“When your secretary made the appointment—at least I assumed it was your secretary—”
“Millie. She’s the dispatcher and the post mistress, too,” he explained.
“Oh. Well, she said you’re suffering from an allergy that Dr. McDermot thought might benefit from acupuncture.”
“Mmm,” he answered noncommittally, glancing around at the waiting room. “And I’ll take a look at your locks, if you want, too.”
Megan had almost for got ten she’d said that only moments before outside. But now that he’d brought it up, she said, “I’m not really worried about the locks. It just seemed as if you might not be comfortable letting Mr. Burns know you were scheduled to come in for acupuncture so I thought I’d cover your tracks.”
The sheriff’s full eyebrows drew together at that. “I wasn’t worrying about who knew or what anybody thought. I just wasn’t sure I was going to actually do this,” he answered matter-of-factly. “No offense, but it just seems like some kind of hocus-pocus or voodoo or some thing. Not anything that could actually do me any good.”
“Ah, I see. I appreciate your honesty,” she said, not taking offense because it was a sentiment she’d been con fronted with before. “But if Dr. McDermot recommended me he must have told you that acupuncture can be effective.”
“He wasn’t all that convinced himself. But this damn—this allergy thing has just come up recently and the medicines he’s given me make me fuzzy-headed and too tired to think. I can’t have that on this job. So Bax thought I might as well give you a try.”
She couldn’t be sure but she thought there might be a bit of innuendo to the last part of that statement. Especially since the give you a try had come with the tiniest upward quirk to one side of his mouth. But once more she opted for pushing aside the idea and sticking to matters at hand.
“In other words, I’m the last resort,” Megan concluded.
“That’s about it.”
“And you think you’re wasting your time,” she finished what he seemed to have left unsaid. “That’s okay. You aren’t the first person I’ve had to prove myself to and I’m sure you won’t be the last.”
His very attractive mouth eased into another smile, as if he thought he’d gotten her goat and it pleased him.
Well, he hadn’t gotten her goat. And to show him, she put some effort into sounding more professional.
“Have you had allergy tests to isolate what you are and what you aren’t allergic to?” she asked.
“No, but I can pretty much tell. Horses and hay seem to trigger it. And since, besides being sheriff and being around them pretty much every where I go, I need to work the family ranch, I have to do some thing about it.”
“Which is why you’re here.”
He merely inclined his head to concede the point.
“I’ll need to do some testing of my own—” Megan held up her hand when he opened his mouth to protest. “Unlike what an allergy doctor would do, my way of testing is much easier and absolutely non-invasive. It’s simple muscle testing through applied kinesiology.”
“Whatever that is.”
“You’ll see as soon as we get started. But I need to isolate everything you’re allergic to. For instance, if you were allergic to bacon you might have a sensitivity to pork, or it might be the nitrates the meat is cured with that bother you. I’d have to know which it is before you could actually be cleared.”
“For takeoff?”
Okay, so he could make her smile and she liked that in a man, too. She still tried to maintain her perspective, though, by reminding herself that he thought she was a quack. “No, not cleared for takeoff. Cleared of the allergy. That’s what it’s called when I cure you,” she said with exaggerated bravado.
He caught it. “When you cure me. Do you do laying on of hands and faith healing, too?”
“No, just acupuncture.” And she was enjoying their back-and-forth teasing too much, so she amended her tone to a more authoritative one and said, “Shall we get started?”
But before he could answer, the front door opened suddenly to admit the contractor Megan had hired to replace her septic tank.
It surprised both Megan and Josh. Their focus on each other had been so intense that neither of them had seen him coming despite the fact that anything was hard to miss through the huge windows.
“Never thought I’d find you both in one place,” Burt Connors said by way of greeting. “Glad to see it, though. Saves me a trip.”
“Hi, Burt,” the sheriff answered as if they were old friends.
“Josh,” the excavator countered the same way.
“What’s up?”
Apparently Josh Brimley thought he should take over. But since Megan was still trying to figure out why her contractor had been looking for her and the sheriff, she guessed it was just as well.
“Got that old septic tank out and put in the new one,” Burt Connors informed them both. “But when we were coverin’ it up again we dug a little in another spot for fill dirt and found somethin’ else. Somethin’ that looks like sheriff business.”
“You found sheriff business in my backyard?” Megan said.
“Yes, ma’am. Looks like a skeleton. A human skeleton.”
“Are you sure it isn’t just an old family grave?” Josh asked reasonably.
“Sure enough. He’s not too deep, there’s no coffin and it looks like the guy was planted belongings and all. I think you better come take yourself a gander, Josh. And you, too, Ms. Bailey. This ain’t no kind of formal buryin’. I’m bettin’ we’ve opened up somethin’ somebody thought would never come to light.”
Josh Brimley turned those dark, dark blue eyes to Megan again, this time from beneath one raised brow. “Anything you’d like to tell me?”
“Only that I don’t have the foggiest idea what’s going on.”
But he didn’t look completely convinced of that as he led the way out of her office.
Chapter 2
THE OCCASIONAL CAR ACCIDENT. Reckless driving. Speeding. Mailbox bashing. Minor vandalism. Cattle tipping. Drunk and disorderly conduct. Brawling. A break-in here and there—in the history of Elk Creek that was as bad as it got in the way of crime. Until now.
It was a little hard for Josh to believe that only three months into his run as sheriff he was looking at what seemed to be a murder. But it didn’t take him long after reaching the Bailey place and looking over what had been un earthed to realize that could well be just what he was con fronted with.
“I’ve put up the crime scene tape to cordon off the area. Your men can work around it,” he told Burt Connors when he had the burial site contained.
Chaos reined supreme in the Bailey backyard since Burt insisted that he and his crew had to finish up their work so the Bailey sisters would have use of their plumbing facilities by night fall. And although Josh was fairly certain curiosity in what that same crew had uncovered was the real reason behind their lingering, he didn’t object. He had work of his own to do as he used a whisk broom to care fully and methodically brush away the soil that remained partially obliterating the skeleton so that the entire grave and its contents were visible.
Josh had trained with the Wyoming sheriff’s department and he knew all the procedures, including those for a crime of this magnitude. He knew the procedures by heart. But a murder investigation was the last thing he’d ever expected to actually have to do in his small hometown.
Of course he should have known better than anyone that not many things turned out the way a person expected them to. But still, it was a sobering job that lay ahead of him.
Daylight had disappeared by the time Josh backed away from the freshly cleared hole, confident that he’d done all he should do on his own for the moment. But he did avail himself of Burt Connors’s offer of floodlights to illuminate the area and then hunkered down on his heels at the grave side to get a closer look at what he’d actually exposed while he waited for the sheriff’s department’s forensic team.
Along with the bones that had been discovered, there was a knapsack and the clothes the victim had worn. The clothes were non de script, the same kind of clothes he and most everyone else around these parts wore—a plain shirt, blue jeans, cowboy boots.
The sole of one of the cowboy boots was down to its last layer of leather and the fact that there was a tear in one knee of the jeans and the shirt was thread bare around the edges led him to believe this hadn’t been a prosperous man. Josh was betting that when they got into the knapsack that rested along side the skeleton, they’d find all his worldly goods contained in it.