Bestselling author Carla Cassidy brings in the Men of Wolf Creek to seek a missing woman

Roxy Marcoli cares about three things—her restaurant, her sisters and her aunt Liz. When Liz disappears, she’s forced to turn to shameless playboy cop Steve Kincaid. Every time the sexy detective turns on the charm, he gets Roxy’s hackles up.

Despite his reputation, Steve is no ladies’ man. His casual flirting hides the pain of an unbearable loss. As they search for clues, he discovers what lies beneath Roxy’s prickly exterior and sharp tongue. As his desire grows, so does his fear. Because it’s not just Aunt Liz the killer wants—but Roxy, too.

“What did my mother say to you?”

Roxy forced herself to look at Steve. “Your mother’s worried. She thinks you’re falling in love with me.”

“I am.”

Those two words turned her world topsy-turvy. “You can’t be. We said neither of us wanted a relationship.”

“I didn’t think I was ready. I thought all my heart could hold was grief, but I was wrong. There’s space for you there, Roxy.”

Roxy’s shoulders stiffened. “Don’t love me, Steve,” she said. “Your mother’s afraid I’ll break your heart, and I will if you love me.”

“If you’re about to tell me that you don’t care about me, then I won’t believe you,” he said.

“I do care about you,” she admitted. “I care about you more than I’ve ever cared about a man, but that doesn’t change the fact that I never intend to invite a man into my life.”

“What are you afraid of, Roxy? Why are you so afraid to love…to be loved?”

Men of Wolf Creek: Small-town lawmen charged with finding the lost...and uncovering true love.

Dear Reader,

Last year my husband and I got the opportunity to take a road trip through Pennsylvania, where we fell in love with the beauty of the countryside, the Amish settlements and chocolate.

The Men of Wolf Creek series was born from the places we saw and the people we met. I’ve taken poetic license in many cases, but hopefully you’ll find these books filled with hot heroes, strong heroines and enough suspense to keep you on the edge of your chair.

Thanks and happy reading!

Carla Cassidy

Cold Case, Hot Accomplice

Carla Cassidy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CARLA CASSIDY

is an award-winning author who has written more than one hundred books for Mills & Boon. In 1995 she won Best Silhouette Romance from RT Book Reviews for Anything for Danny. In 1998 she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from RT Book Reviews.

Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.

MILLS & BOON

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To all the people in Pennsylvania who welcomed us into their homes with love and warmth.

I love you all and hope you find these stories as entertaining as we found all of you!

Love, Carla

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 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Excerpt

Chapter 1

For the first time in three and a half years, Aunt Liz was late. Roxy Marcoli checked her watch for the third time in the past five minutes and tried not to panic.

The older woman had never been late delivering the baked goods that were offered each day to the customers of the Dollhouse. She always arrived at six-thirty, a half hour before Roxy turned the closed sign to Open, signaling the beginning of another day at the restaurant.

It was now quarter till seven and still no sign of Aunt Liz. Roxy had already called her aunt’s house twice, and there had been no answer. She’d also tried Liz’s cell phone, but it had gone directly to voice mail.

“Maybe she’s held up in traffic,” Josephine Landers, Roxy’s manager, said as she checked the quiches that baked in the oven.

“Yeah, because traffic jams are such an issue in Wolf Creek, Pennsylvania,” Roxy replied drily. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard of a traffic snarl in the relatively small tourist town twenty miles up the mountain from the bigger city of Hershey.

“You know she’d never answer her cell phone if she was driving. She’ll probably be walking in here any minute now,” Josie said, obviously unconcerned about Liz Marcoli’s punctuality or lack thereof.

What worried Roxy was that her aunt Liz was the one person in the entire world she’d always depended on, the one person who had always been there for her. She checked her watch once again. Almost seven. This was so out of character for Aunt Liz.

A thousand scenarios played out in Roxy’s head, one worse than the other. Maybe she’d slipped and fallen in the shower. Or she’d been in a car accident and was at the hospital. Half the time she forgot to carry her purse with her, so if she was in an accident and rendered unconscious, it was possible that nobody would know her identity.

Stop it, Roxy commanded herself. Stop thinking so negatively. She’d been told often enough by both of her sisters and her aunt that she was prone to always seeing the bad side of any situation.

Maybe for once in her life, Aunt Liz had simply overslept. But then why hadn’t she heard the phone ring? “Maybe I’ll just give Marlene a call and have her run over and check in at Aunt Liz’s,” she said, more to herself than to Josie.

“Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better do it fast because our first customers should be coming in any minute.” Josie pulled the tray of homemade quiches from the oven.

Roxy grabbed her cell phone from her apron pocket and punched in her middle sister’s number. Marlene picked up on the third ring, her voice groggy with sleep.

“You’d better be profusely bleeding or on fire,” she said to Roxy.

“Neither, and I’m sorry to bother you so early, but I can’t find Aunt Liz,” Roxy replied. She leaned one hip against the large butcher-block island in the center of the kitchen.

“What do you mean you can’t find Aunt Liz?”

Roxy could hear the rustle of bedsheets and could easily imagine her blond-haired, beautiful sister sitting up in her bed in her tiny walk-up apartment bedroom. “She didn’t come this morning with the baked goods, and I’ve tried to call the house and her cell phone, but I get no answer.” Roxy tried to keep the worry from her voice, but it was obvious Marlene heard it.

“You want me to go over there and check things out?”

“Would you mind? I’m just about to open my doors, and I can’t imagine what’s held her up this morning. This has never happened before.”

“It will take me a few minutes to pull myself together and get over there, but I’ll call you back as soon as I know something.”

Roxy released a small sigh of relief. “Thanks, Marlene. And if she shows up here in the meantime, I’ll give you a call back.”

Roxy hung up at the same time she heard a rapid knock come from the front door of the three-story Victorian home she’d turned into a restaurant.

For the past year, the first three customers at the door every Monday, Wednesday and Friday were three of Hershey’s finest who, before beginning their shifts as detectives, started their day with a hearty Dollhouse breakfast.

As Roxy left the kitchen to open the front door, pride of ownership filled her heart. The restaurant consisted of three seating rooms, the large kitchen and a small storage area that had once served as a mudroom.

She was open six days a week, from seven in the morning until five in the evening. She’d initially envisioned the intimate restaurant to be popular with small women’s groups and lunching ladies. She’d never expected the men who showed up for breakfast, and as a result, her morning offerings had become bigger in size, heartier than the lunch menu.

When she reached the front door, she was unsurprised to see the three familiar men standing on the porch. Jim Carmani, Frank Delaney and Steven Kincaid were all detectives with the Wolf Creek police force. As she opened the door to let them in, her stomach twisted into a small knot of tension.

She busied herself turning the sign from Closed to Open in the glass pane of the front door, and the three men seated themselves where they always did, at the round table nearest the front window.

Knowing they would want coffee all around, she hurried to the kitchen to grab a serving pot of the fresh-brewed drink and then returned to their table and placed the silver pot in the center.

Jim and Frank both murmured a good morning. Steve eyed her with bright blue eyes and a sexy smile that should be considered illegal. “Foxy Roxy, you’re looking stunning this morning as usual.”

This was the man who twisted the knot in her stomach. Half the time after serving them, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to pull out his shaggy surfer blond hair or her own black curly strands.

“Don’t call me Foxy Roxy,” she snapped.

“Why not?” he asked. A light of amusement shone in his ocean-blue eyes as his gaze perused her from head to toe.

“Because I told you not to,” she said and then smiled at Jimmy and Frank. Both of them were dressed in black slacks, white shirts and lightweight suit jackets, while Steve was clad in a pair of slacks and a blue dress shirt that emphasized the color of his eyes and the shoulder holster that held his gun.

“What can I get for you this morning?” she asked Jimmy. “I’m afraid I don’t have any cinnamon rolls or muffins. They haven’t been delivered yet.” She tamped down a new burst of worry about her aunt. Where could she be?

“I’ll take your breakfast special, scrambled eggs with bacon and white toast,” Jimmy said.

“And those Belgian waffles are calling to me, the ones smothered with bananas and caramel topping,” Frank added.

Roxy nodded and turned to Steve. He grinned at her, and the knot in her stomach twisted a little bit tighter. “I’d like a plate of your long gorgeous legs and a hint of your pretty smile.”

“Vegetable quiche,” she said as she wrote on her pad, knowing few men ordered the delicate dish.

“No, wait!” Steve released a low rumble of laughter. “Give me the same as Frank.”

“That’s what I thought you said,” she said drily and then twirled on her heels and left the table. “That man,” she exclaimed as she entered the kitchen where Josie and Gregory Stillwell, another employee, were manning the oven.

“Let me guess,” Josie said as she took the order sheet from Roxy. “Detective Steve Kincaid?” She didn’t wait for Roxy’s answer, but instead pointed Gregory to the waffle maker while she got eggs from the fridge. “I don’t know why you let him get under your skin. Every woman in town thinks he’s hot and sexy and would love to get a little of his flirtation and a taste of his lush lips, but we all know he’s not really the serious type.”

“He looks like some surfer dude who wandered in from a beach instead of a detective on the police force.”

Josie grinned at her. “And you look like a hot, take-me-to-bed-right-now kind of woman instead of the man-hater you really are.”

“I’m not a man-hater,” Roxy grumbled. “I just refuse to buy into anything any of them are trying to sell.”

Josie looked down at the wedding ring that had adorned her finger for the past three months. “Sometimes they’re just selling you love,” she replied, her voice gooey with sentiment.

The honeymoon stage, that’s all it was, Roxy thought. Josie had married her high school sweetheart three months ago. Sooner or later the honeymoon would pass and real life would intrude—and that’s when everything went to hell.

Roxy knew.... She’d lived it with her mother for the first seven years of her life. Men had led her mother to utter destruction, and Roxy wasn’t about to make those same kinds of mistakes. She was good by herself, thank you very much.

It took only minutes for the three meals to be prepared and served, and by that time other diners had entered to get breakfast and enjoy the ambiance of the cozy eatery.

The three dining areas were named by the wallpaper and color theme in each room. The main area was the blue room, papered in a rich blue satin paper with antique glassware and trinkets on display on various shelves. The second biggest room was mauve, also decorated with a variety of antiques, old hats and framed news articles that chronicled the history of Wolf Creek.

The final dining area was the green room, which hinted of an outdoor eating experience with lush plants and the requisite antiques used to flavor the room.

For years this had been Roxy’s dream. She’d worked two jobs since the age of eighteen in order to have a healthy down payment on a place.

The Dollhouse only used the best and freshest ingredients, utilizing local farmers and the nearby Amish community to assure quality in every dish they prepared.

She’d been open less than four years, and already she was functioning firmly in the black. This place wasn’t just her dream; it, along with spending time with her two younger sisters and her aunt, was her very life.

For another half an hour she took orders and served customers. Allie Jenkins, one of her part-time waitresses, worked the crowd, as well.

Roxy was standing in the kitchen doorway waiting for an order to be ready for delivery when her cell phone rang. It was Marlene.

“Roxy, she’s not here. The door was unlocked. I’ve gone through the entire house and she isn’t here, but her car is in the driveway and her purse and all the baked goods are on the counter ready to transport.”

A thrum of thick anxiety shot off in the pit of Roxy’s stomach. “But she has to be there someplace if her car is there.”

“Roxy, I’ve checked every room in the house. I even went down to the basement, and there’s no sign of her.” Marlene’s voice rang with a touch of the anxiety that grew bigger and bigger inside Roxy. “What do you want me to do?”

“Have you called Sheri?” she asked, referring to their youngest sister.

“I did, and she hasn’t heard from Aunt Liz since around two o’clock yesterday afternoon.”

The simmer of anxiety moved into full chest-crunching alarm. “Go home and try not to worry,” Roxy told her sister. “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. I’ll take care of things.” That’s what Roxy did—she took care of things when her aunt wasn’t available.

And why wasn’t she available? Had Roxy’s mother, Ramona, showed up after all these years and asked Liz to go someplace with her? Or had Ramona called and Liz gone running with no thought of anything else?

That could only mean bad news. Where Ramona went, chaos followed.

Liz had a soft and forgiving heart for everyone, and despite everything Ramona had done over the years, Liz would easily want to believe the best of her much younger sister. Liz would definitely drop everything if Ramona had called.

It had now been an hour and a half since she’d expected Liz to show up, and the alarm inside Roxy could no longer be ignored. There was only one thing she knew to do.

With stiff shoulders and the feeling that the world was suddenly all wrong, she went back into the blue room, where the three detectives were just finishing up their breakfasts.

“I need your help,” she said without preamble. “We can’t find my aunt. She’s missing, and I need you all to go to her house and see if you can find out what’s happened to her.”

Jimmy, a handsome Italian, frowned. “How long has she been missing?”

“Almost two hours,” Roxy replied. “My sister has been over to her house and can’t find her anywhere. Aunt Liz’s car is there, but she isn’t. Something is wrong.”

“Roxy, we can’t check out someone who has only been missing for a couple of hours,” Frank said kindly. “She’s an adult. She’s allowed to be missing if she wants to be.”

“I’ll go.” Steve drained his coffee cup and then stood and looked at Roxy expectantly.

Both of his partners looked at him in surprise, and a sinking feeling swept through Roxy.

Of the three men at the table, the last one she wanted to have anything to do with was Detective Steve Kincaid. But at the moment her concern for her aunt overweighed her disgust at having to deal with the handsome devil.

* * *

Steve had no idea what he was doing. Why had he offered to check this out for a woman who had made it clear in a hundred different ways that she didn’t think much of him?

The minute she climbed into his unmarked car, the scent of her filled the confines. She smelled of some kind of fresh floral perfume and a combination of exotic spice scents, and he was glad that the passenger seat hadn’t been covered with the usual fast-food wrappers that normally adorned it.

He knew there were three Marcoli sisters, but he didn’t know any of them well. They had all been younger than him, and the only interaction he’d had with any of them had been Roxy, who both fascinated and repelled him at the same time.

She was slamming hot with her short, curly dark hair, full lush lips and figure meant for lovemaking. But her tongue was sharp enough to slice a tough cut of meat, and she’d made it clear that she didn’t particularly like him.

“So I gather your aunt comes in each morning and delivers baked goods for you to put on the menu?” he asked as she pointed in the direction of her aunt’s house.

“She comes in every morning at six-thirty like clockwork. In the three and a half years that the Dollhouse has been open, she’s never, ever been late,” Roxy said.

“So she’s responsible for that coffee cake I like.”

Roxy nodded. “And the pies and cakes that I serve throughout each day. She’s always loved to bake, so when I decided to open the restaurant we came to an agreement about her baking for me.” She began absently chewing on a fingernail.

“How old is this aunt of yours?”

“A very spry sixty-five.” She continued working the fingernail.

“If you draw blood, we’ll have to waste time at the hospital before we get to your aunt’s house,” he observed with a pointed stare.

She flushed and dropped her hand into her lap. “Aunt Liz always tells me that it’s unbecoming for a thirty-four-year-old to chew her nails, but I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.”

“I’ll bet you were a cute kid,” he replied, the charm easily falling from his lips from long habit.

He felt her glare on him. “You have a reputation for being a great flirt. I don’t find it great—I find it quite tedious.”

“Ouch,” he responded with a mock wince.

For a few minutes they rode in silence, the only communication nonverbal as she directed him where to turn on the winding mountain roads that led to her aunt’s home.

“So what exactly is your relationship with your aunt besides your business arrangement?” he asked, eager to break the uncomfortable silence between them.

“Aunt Liz raised me and my sisters from the time we were little. For all intents and purposes, she’s my mother figure, and she’s always been the most dependable person in my life. That’s why this is so unlike her. She’s never late. She’s never unreliable. That’s why I’m afraid something bad has happened.” She raised her hand up toward her mouth as if to begin to gnaw her fingernail again, but then quickly dropped it back into her lap.

“You said your sister already checked things out at the house?”

Roxy nodded, her rich dark hair gleaming in the late April sun that drifted through the passenger window. “Marlene. I called her when Aunt Liz was almost half an hour late. She called me just a little while ago to tell me she’d checked out the entire house and Aunt Liz wasn’t there.”

She sat forward against the seat belt. “That’s it. That’s her place.” She pointed to a neat brick ranch house with beige trim and a well-manicured yard. “That’s her car in the driveway.”

He felt Roxy’s tension rolling off her as he pulled the car in behind the older Buick and parked. Before he’d shut off the engine, she was out the door and running toward the front porch.

“Roxy,” he called after her, halting her before she could enter the house. Her sister had already been inside, stirring things up. Although there was no reason to believe that anyone nefarious might be in the house, he didn’t want Roxy just bursting through the front door without knowing what might be on the other side.

Even though he believed that nothing bad was going on, he pulled his gun from his holster and motioned for her to get behind him.

“Don’t shoot my aunt,” she said from behind him, and he fought the impulse to turn and stare at her in disbelief. Did she really think him so inept that he might shoot a helpless older woman?

“I don’t intend to shoot anyone,” he said. “I think you’re probably overreacting to all of this.”

“I’m not the one who has a gun in my hand,” she retorted.

Steve gritted his teeth and tried the doorknob, which turned easily beneath his hand. “Did your sister say if the door was locked or unlocked when she arrived?”

“Unlocked,” Roxy replied.

Steve gave the door a good look but saw no indication of forced entry. In the back of his mind he knew he was probably investigating a crime that hadn’t happened, looking for a person who wasn’t really missing.

So what was he doing there? Why had he agreed to this? He thought it might have to do with his physical attraction to Roxy Marcoli and an attempt to ease some of the obvious distaste she held for him.

Not that he really cared what she thought about him. The last thing he would ever want was another crazy woman in his life. Been there, done that, and he still paid the price in a shattered heart that found no respite from pain.

It took him only moments to make sure the house was clear, and after that he and Roxy stood in the kitchen, facing each other. “Her purse is here.” He pointed to the brown oversize bag on the counter next to a set of keys.

“She is constantly forgetting her purse, and she keeps her cell phone inside it,” Roxy replied. Her dark eyes held strain and the barest whisper of fear. “Look, the cakes and pies and muffins are all packaged and ready for delivery.” She pointed to the countertop, where the items were in plastic carrying cases. “She obviously had the intention of bringing those things in first thing this morning just like always. Something terrible has happened to her, and you have to do something about it.”

“Officially I can’t do anything about it.” He saw the flash of irritation that darkened her eyes even more. “Roxy, right now all we have is a grown woman who has been missing for less than three hours. There might have been an emergency with one of her friends. Somebody could have picked her up here, and she forgot her purse or to lock the door after her.”

“So you aren’t going to do anything,” she said flatly.

“I’ve already done what I can at this point.”

She stared at him for a long moment and then headed toward the front door. “You’re obviously a better flirt than you are a detective,” she said, and he winced once again as he heard the front door slam shut.

He followed her back outside, locking the door and pulling it closed behind him. She stood at the side of his car, her arms crossed over her voluptuous breasts and her expression mirroring that of a beast from hell.

She got into the passenger seat as he settled in behind the wheel; the silence in the air was as thick as honey turned to sugar. Unfortunately there was no honey in Roxy Marcoli.

She had a reputation for being a tough woman, both in business and in her personal life. He knew that several police officers had asked her out at various times and had always been cut off at the knees.

While Steve found himself drawn to her on a physical level, he wasn’t looking for a woman in his life, and in any case he was certain that Foxy Roxy would shut him down even more easily than she had others.

“Roxy, I’m sorry I can’t do anything more for you at this point. I suggest you call your aunt’s friends, check in with neighbors and see if they’ve heard from her this morning. I’m sure she’ll show up and there will be a logical explanation for her absence.”

Roxy shook her head. “You don’t understand. You don’t know my aunt Liz. She would never just disappear like this and not get in touch with me or my sisters to let us know what was going on. She’s not that irresponsible. She’s just not that kind of person.”

Steve drove her back toward her place of business. For the rest of the ride she chewed on her nails without acknowledging that he was in the car with her.

As he pulled up in front of the Dollhouse, she got out of the car. “Thanks for nothing,” she said and slammed the door.

Steve watched her as she disappeared into the restaurant. He’d done what he could for her at this moment in time, and he hoped that by the afternoon Liz Marcoli would reappear with apologies for making Roxy worry, and all would be right in the Marcoli world.

The last thing Steve wanted to work on was a missing-persons case. He tried to avoid those whenever possible. He might be a shameless flirt, but he was a damn good detective, and along with his partners, Frank and Jim, his solve rate was enviable.

But missing-persons cases usually ended badly, or didn’t end at all, leaving questions that would forever remain unanswered, leaving behind broken hearts that couldn’t even begin to go through the healing process until they knew what had happened to their loved ones.

Steve knew all about the lack of closure when a person went missing. He understood the questions that nagged, the gnawing need for answers. He tried not to tap into the well of pain inside himself, preferring to keep up a superficial ladies’ man mask to keep people at bay.

How could he work a missing-persons case when he had one in his own life, one that he’d been working for the past two years and couldn’t solve?

Roxy just might be right—he was probably a better flirt than detective when it came to finding somebody who’d gone missing.

Chapter 2

At precisely five o’clock that evening Roxy changed the open sign to Closed and locked the front door. It had been a busy afternoon that had kept her jumping from one dining room to another to assure that all her customers had what they needed.

Throughout the afternoon, whenever there was a lull in business, Roxy had been on the phone, calling her aunt’s friends, the nearest hospitals and her sisters, but nobody had seen or heard from Liz all day.

After locking the restaurant, she raced up the two sets of stairs that led to her private quarters. The second floor was strictly storage and the top floor was her personal sanctuary, but as she opened the door to the large apartment she knew there would be no peace at the moment.

She called her sisters, Marlene and Sheri, and then grabbed her purse and car keys. Hopefully by the time they all arrived at the Wolf Creek police station, Detective Steve Kincaid would be off duty. Somebody had to take her seriously about Liz’s disappearance, and if he wouldn’t, then she’d find somebody who would. There was no way she intended the night to pass without somebody official out looking for Aunt Liz. She didn’t care about some stupid twenty-four-hour rule.

She had to stay calm. Nobody would take her seriously if she lost it.

To the outside world Liz Marcoli was a pleasant, kind woman who excelled at baking and quilting, but to Roxy she was the person who had made order out of chaos, security out of danger. She had saved Roxy’s life and the lives of her sisters, and now Roxy wouldn’t rest until somebody was doing something to find her.

Where could she be? What could have possibly happened to her? Since the age of seven, a day had never gone by that Roxy hadn’t seen or spoken to her aunt.

She tightened her hands on the steering wheel as she thought of the handsome detective who had been like a chigger under her skin for months.

She didn’t know how any crime got solved with men like him on the job; not that there was that much violent crime in the area. Still, if he investigated as often as he flirted with all the women in town, they would have no unsolved crimes on the books.

The Dollhouse was at the opposite end of town from the police station, but it only took her minutes to get there, for the business district of Main Street was only three blocks long.

She parked in front of the brick building and sat to wait for her sisters to arrive. They would be a force of three, and hopefully somebody would take their concerns seriously.

Lowering her window, she breathed in the late spring air, trying to staunch the panic that threatened to crawl up the back of her throat and release itself in a scream.

She tapped the steering wheel impatiently. Marlene would arrive first. She rented an apartment above a shop that sold antiques, trinkets and souvenirs. She’d moved there almost a year ago after her divorce.

Roxy frowned as she thought of Marlene. She’d left Wolf Creek as a happy bride to move to Pittsburgh with her new husband and had returned home two years later a different woman, not only divorced, but withdrawn and unwilling to talk about the failure of her marriage.

It would take longer for the youngest of the sisters to arrive. Sheri lived farther up the mountain in a small cabin surrounded by thick woods.

Roxy was in the process of tapping the leather right off her steering wheel when Marlene pulled up next to her. She got out of her car and slid into the passenger seat in Roxy’s.

She met Roxy’s gaze, the frantic worry inside Roxy’s stomach reflected in her sister’s blue eyes. “What do you think happened to her?” Marlene asked.

“I don’t have a clue, but I’m not leaving here until we have a full investigation under way to find out where she is,” Roxy said.

The two sat silently as they waited for Sheri. “How’s business?” Roxy finally asked when she could take the silence no longer.

Marlene and Sheri owned a roadside storefront closer to Hershey that specialized in Amish-made furniture, cheeses and fresh-grown fruits and vegetables.

“Getting better every day now that the weather is warming up,” she replied. “Abe and Jennifer are working this evening. Sheri called them in to take over after we found out Aunt Liz was missing.”

Missing.

The word hung in the air, horrifying...heartbreaking. At that moment Sheri’s black pickup pulled into a parking space nearby. The youngest of the three got out and approached them, her shoulder-length chestnut hair shimmering in the sunshine.

When the three women stood side by side, few people realized they were sisters. While they all shared the same mother, they each had different fathers.

Roxy was short and compact, with dark hair and dark eyes. Marlene was a tall blonde with ice-blue eyes, and Sheri liked to refer to herself as an ordinary mutt, with brown hair and whiskey-colored eyes.

Roxy and Marlene got out of Roxy’s car and greeted Sheri, who looked younger than usual with worry darkening her large eyes.

Roxy knew she would be the one to take the lead here. She’d always been the strong one, the big sister who would take care of her younger siblings at any cost.

“Okay, let’s do this,” Roxy said. She wouldn’t be turned away. She refused to be dismissed like she had been that morning by Steve. She wanted boots on the ground and search parties beating the bushes. More than anything, she wanted Aunt Liz to be found safe and sound.

With a deep breath and her sisters following just behind her, Roxy stepped into the police station, where plastic chairs lined a wall and a uniformed officer she didn’t know sat at a desk. A door to his right led to the room that she knew all the other members of law enforcement called home away from home.

“We’re here to file a missing-persons report,” Roxy said, relieved that her voice sounded strong and confident, even though she wanted to melt into a puddle of worried goo.

“Then you need to speak to one of our detectives.” There was a sound of a buzzer, and he gestured toward the door. “They’re at the desks on the right side of the room.”

Roxy nodded and pushed through the door. Her gaze automatically went to the three desks on the right, and her heart sank to her toes as she saw that the only one occupied was by her shaggy-haired nemesis.

An attractive long-legged blonde in the traditional blue police officer uniform leaned over his desk, and they were laughing as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

Roxy was vaguely aware of other people in the room as she cleared her throat with the force of a snorting bull. The smile on Steve’s face fell as he turned partway in his chair to see the three of them standing there.

He said something to the blonde, who sauntered away with a sexy swing of her hips. Roxy marched toward him, trying to balance temper and fear.

She wasn’t sure why it irritated her that he’d obviously been enjoying the company of the blonde bombshell, but it did. “We hate to mess with your social life, but we want to file a missing-persons report,” she said as he got up from his desk.

He frowned. “You still haven’t heard anything from your aunt?”

“Not a word, and I don’t care that it hasn’t been twenty-four hours. She’s in trouble, and you need to put out an Amber Alert.”

“That’s for kids. A Silver Alert is for adults and is usually put into effect when an elderly or disoriented person goes missing.”

“She’s disoriented,” Roxy exclaimed. “She has a touch of early onset dementia.” Sheri gasped at the blatant lie, while Marlene merely released a small groan.

Roxy would do whatever it took to get somebody to look for her aunt, even if it meant telling a little white lie, even if it meant Aunt Liz would kill her if she ever heard what Roxy had said about her.

Roxy raised her chin as Steve’s eyes narrowed in obvious disbelief. “Early onset dementia. Well then, if that’s the case I guess we’d better file a report,” he finally said. He pulled up two more chairs to join the one that sat before his desk and gestured for the three to have a seat.

“I don’t just want to file a report,” Roxy said as she sat down in the chair directly opposite him. She leaned toward him. “I want a search party started. I want a full investigation going. I want...I need...” To her horror, tears burned at her eyes.

“How about we start with some paperwork,” Steve replied with a hint of kindness in his voice.

“Fine, and then we’ll start a search party,” Roxy exclaimed as she quickly reined in her emotions. The last thing she wanted to do was show weakness in front of her sisters. Still, Sheri placed a gentling hand on Roxy’s arm, and Roxy drew a deep breath and leaned back in the chair.

For the next hour and a half Roxy held on to her patience as Steve asked question after question about the missing woman. Even though she was screaming inside for some kind of action to be taken, she knew that each and every question he asked and the answers they could all provide might hold a clue as to where Aunt Liz might be.

Twilight had fallen when Steve finally asked for a picture. As Roxy pulled a photo of her aunt out of her wallet, the encroaching darkness of night crept deep into her soul.

“So what happens now?” Marlene asked.

“You all go home,” he said.

Roxy stared at him in stunned surprise. “Go home? How can we just go home? We haven’t found her yet.”

“I suggest you go home and continue to contact friends and acquaintances, and let me know if you hear any information that might help me in the investigation.” He stood, and it was obviously a dismissal.

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to fit an investigation into your busy social life?” Roxy asked as she noticed the blonde pointedly looking at her watch and then at him from across the room.

Marlene shot her an elbow in the side. Roxy’s cheeks warmed as she realized she was insulting the very man she needed to help her, to help them.

* * *

It had been the most frustrating hour and a half Steve had spent in recent years. While he’d found Marlene and Sheri to be simmering with anxiety, yet calm and cooperative, Roxy had been like a bomb on the verge of explosion.

She’d bitten her nails, snarled out answers and insulted his work ethic, but looking into the depths of her beautiful dark eyes, with lashes that were sinfully long, he could tell a panic screamed inside her and he knew that feeling intimately.

When the three of them left, it was as if Roxy sucked all the energy out of the room with her. He leaned back in his chair and only looked up from the notes he’d taken when Officer Chelsea Loren sidled up to the side of his desk once again.

“I thought maybe you’d like to head out of here and get a drink with me,” she said, her sexy smile attempting to lure him in. She’d been trying to entice him into a relationship for months without success.

He grinned at her. “Ah, Chelsea, how many times do we have to go through this? You know you’re utterly irresistible, but I don’t do workplace romances.”

Her enhanced lips puffed into a pout. “Obviously I’m not that utterly irresistible if you always turn me down.”

“Go find somebody else to play with, Chelsea. I’ve got work to do,” he said, his mind instantly filling with a vision of dark eyes and that barely suppressed panic that had lit them from within.

Chelsea flounced back across the room, and within minutes she had left with a couple of other uniforms getting off duty. Steve looked toward the window, where darkness had completely fallen.

The first night of dealing with a missing loved one was the absolute worst. There would be little or no sleep for the Marcoli sisters tonight. It would be the most agonizing night they’d probably ever suffer.

They would jump at every phone call and hear every creak and groan of their homes, anticipating some answer, a sudden appearance of their aunt Liz. By morning they’d all be exhausted, and still the fear would be like a living, breathing entity eating at their insides.

He shoved aside those thoughts and got up from his desk. There wasn’t much he could do this late at night as far as a real investigation, and he still wasn’t sure that any foul play was involved or that Chief of Police Brad Krause would even issue orders for an investigation.

But it was time for Steve to get out of there, and it wouldn’t hurt him to take a drive for the next hour or two and look for a woman who had somehow gotten lost from her home. Most nights he either met with his work buddies for a few beers or drove around, putting off returning to his own house until the very last minute.

He left the building and got into his car, and he thought of Roxy telling him that Liz Marcoli had early onset dementia. It had obviously been a lie, but he’d forgive her, as he knew the forces that were driving her at the moment.

The woman who for the past three and a half years had been responsible for the luscious cakes, pies, pastries and muffins at the Dollhouse didn’t suffer early onset dementia or anything else, except maybe a touch of arthritis. The sisters had mentioned no other health issues, but rather had insisted that Liz was in perfect health.

He was just about to start his car engine when Officer Joe Jamison pulled his patrol car in next to Steve’s car. As Joe got out, Steve rolled down his window and grinned at the bear of a man.

“What’s up, big man?”

Joe shrugged broad shoulders. “The usual, writing warnings and tickets for folks who can’t read speed limit signs. Later I’ll be looking out for the usual Friday night drunks. What about you? Who’s the lucky lady tonight?”

Steve laughed. “You know my reputation is mostly based on rumor and fiction, but actually there is a lady on my mind this evening, and I’m going to do a little hunting for her.”

Joe raised a dark eyebrow. “Hunting? Since when did you ever have to hunt for a woman? It seems to me that every time we’re out together, there are a couple of hot women throwing themselves at you.”

“You don’t do so bad yourself,” Steve replied with a grin. Joe often joined Steve, Frank and Jimmy for Saturday night drinks at the Wolf’s Head, a popular local tavern.

“For me it’s got to be the uniform. We all know women like guys in uniforms, even if they do look like grizzly bears.”

Steve laughed. “You don’t look like a grizzly bear. You look like a big guy who can take care of any trouble a damsel in distress might have. And speaking of damsels in distress...”

Steve quickly explained about Liz Marcoli. “I’m planning on driving around a bit now before heading home to see if she’s anywhere on the streets. I’d appreciate you and anyone else who’s working the night shift doing the same on the nightly patrols. There’s a photo of her on my desk.”

“Will do,” Joe agreed. He backed away from Steve’s car. With a wave Steve pulled out of the parking lot and headed slowly down Main Street.

He’d learned from the sisters that Liz Marcoli had been a young widow; she’d lost the love of her life in a car accident when she’d been only thirty. According to the sisters, Liz had never dated again, had never expressed any interest in marrying or having any kind of a romantic relationship.

But would Liz share the details of a man in her life with her nieces? Wasn’t it possible that Liz might have a secret lover? That she’d been whisked away for a spontaneous romantic couple of days and hadn’t told her nieces anything about it?

Still, that didn’t explain the baked items neatly packed for delivery and her purse on the kitchen counter. Although walking away from responsibilities was not a crime, it was also not normal, and anything abnormal like this had the potential to be a crime.

However, a friend the women didn’t know about might have needed emergency help, and the possibility of a spontaneous absence because of a man in her life was equally plausible.

He knew how busy Roxy stayed at her restaurant, and from what he’d learned talking with Marlene and Sheri, they were business owners, as well. Running the roadside building near town would require a lot of time and energy on their part.

So how well did they really know their aunt? What he needed to do tomorrow was talk to the friends and neighbors the ladies had provided him with in a list and see what Liz Marcoli did when she wasn’t with her nieces.

Steve knew better than most that you could think you knew somebody, that you could love and trust somebody, and in the end realize that person had secrets and that you really didn’t know them at all.

A thick band of pain inched around his chest, and for a moment it felt like an old familiar friend. There were now days at a time when he stayed so busy that he didn’t feel the ever-present heartache—minutes in time when he almost forgot, but not quite.

He shoved away thoughts of his own issues and instead focused on the street he slowly cruised, looking for a sixty-five-year-old woman who might be walking in the dark after suffering a head injury or some other medical issue that might have her disoriented.

The streets were nearly deserted. The small town of Wolf Creek closed up early, with most stores shutting down by eight in the evenings. Although many of the businesses were geared toward the tourism the town enjoyed, there were also the normal stores found anywhere.

He drove slowly, occasionally using his high beams to peer into an alley or a recessed storefront.

At this point he didn’t feel the frantic panic over the missing woman that he’d seen in Roxy’s eyes. It was too early to panic.

As he passed the Dollhouse, his gaze went up to the third floor, where lights appeared to glow from every window, like beacons calling out in the night to the missing woman.

He couldn’t help but think of the woman who lived on that third floor. Roxy was a wildcat, driven by her emotions, and while he found himself impossibly attracted to her, at the same time she scared the hell out of him.

Right now what he felt toward her was an empathy born in a common trauma. Hopefully Liz Marcoli would be found soon, alive and well, and this vanishing would have simply been some sort of miscommunication.

His own missing-persons case was an ongoing heartache that he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. The pain of the absence of a loved one had built a shell around his heart, forcing him to pull on the facade of a carefree, flirtatious, shallow man in order to survive his emotional pain.

He hoped Roxy and her sisters never had to deal with days, weeks, months of such ongoing agony. He knew better than anyone that the lack of closure in such an event transformed a person—and, in his case, had the power to completely break a man emotionally.

Chapter 3

Roxy jerked awake just after five in the morning. She was on the sofa, still dressed in her clothes from the day before and appalled that she’d fallen asleep at all.

She’d spent most of the night before on the phone with her sisters and then checking and rechecking with Liz’s friends until it had gotten too late to make any more calls. Then she’d paced the floor, waiting to hear something, anything, about Liz’s whereabouts.

Her body’s need to rest had apparently finally overwhelmed her panicked fear, and even though she’d only been asleep a couple of hours, she felt guilty for sleeping any length of time while her aunt was still missing.

As she roused herself from her awkward position on the sofa, muscles ached and protested the time spent on the sofa and not in her comfortable bed.

Coffee, her brain screamed. Coffee and then a long, hot shower. Although she’d like to call Detective Steve Kincaid and see what he’d done the night before to find her aunt, she knew it was an unreasonable thought at an unreasonable hour of the morning. She doubted that much work had been done overnight, and, in any case, if he’d found out something pertinent, surely he would have called her.

She turned on the kitchen light and stumbled across the room to the coffeemaker. This was her usual time to get up in the mornings, and she normally enjoyed the half hour or forty-five minutes she gave herself before heading downstairs to start the prep work for the day.

Even though it was Saturday, the busiest day in the Dollhouse, Roxy had told Josie to make arrangements for extra help, as Roxy wouldn’t be working. She couldn’t work with her head in utter turmoil, with the fear that had already begun to possess her entire body as she thought of the one woman in the world who had always managed to center her.

It was too early to call her sisters, too early to do anything but sit at her table and sip her coffee and think, but she quickly realized she had no viable ideas about where Aunt Liz might be or what might have happened to her. She’d already considered most of the possibilities, and they’d proved fruitless.

She leaned back in the black-cushioned chrome chair and gazed around the kitchen. It was funny, really, that she’d decorated her restaurant with antiques and kitschy items, but her personal domain was sleek and modern, from the stainless steel kitchen appliances to the glass-topped tables and black-and-white decor of her living room.

Even her bedroom was simple, a king-size bed covered in a black-and-white patterned spread, a dresser holding a couple of bottles of perfume, a jewelry holder and two nightstands with small black-and-silver lamps.

She’d always found the rather austere, impersonal aura of her private quarters comforting and peaceful, but this morning was definitely an exception.

She rarely cooked up here, given the industrial kitchen in the restaurant, where she usually nibbled and picked her way through the day from whatever was on the menu.

The last thing on her mind was food, either for herself or her customers. What she really wanted to know was what time Detective Kincaid began his day at work, or if he was off on Saturdays.

Since the three detectives usually had their first meal at the restaurant around seven and were always on their way out the door within forty-five minutes, she assumed their daily schedule began at eight.

Steve Kincaid didn’t strike her as a man who would be on time. He probably lollygagged to his desk sometime between eight-fifteen and eight-thirty. Roxy had never been late for anything in her life, and she wouldn’t have a hard time believing that Steve Kincaid had never been on time for anything in his life. His laid-back aura was in direct opposition to her driving energy.

She frowned and got up to pour herself a second cup of coffee, her mind still filled with the shaggy-haired, blue-eyed detective, who for some reason irritated her by his mere existence whenever she saw him.

It was, for the most part, an irrational reaction, and that’s what made it all the more irritating. Despite his outrageous flirting with her, he would never mean anything to her in life. No man ever would. Besides, she knew his stupid flirting was just for show.

But she was aware of the fact that she needed him right now, that she was depending on him to fix her world and make it right. She just wasn’t used to needing anyone.

She also realized that in all their talk about Aunt Liz and her friends and acquaintances the day before, they hadn’t mentioned Ramona and the potential that Liz might have run off to meet her young sister somewhere. In fact, Roxy thought perhaps they’d given Steve the impression that their mother was dead, and as much as she hated it, she needed to be clear about the woman who was their mother.

After finishing her second cup of coffee, she left the kitchen and headed for the bathroom, where she took a long, hot shower and then dressed in a pair of jeans and a navy T-shirt that advertised the Dollhouse in bold pink letters.

By that time she knew Josie had arrived in the kitchen downstairs, for the scent of boiling chicken and simmering roast drifted up the stairway as Roxy headed downstairs.

When she entered the kitchen, Josie stood in front of the stove, her feet moving and arms flailing to the music coming in from her earbuds.

She nearly jumped out of her shoes when Roxy tapped her on the shoulder. Roxy might have laughed on any other day, but today there was no laughter to be found anyplace inside her.

Josie yanked out her earbuds, her cute features instantly transforming into concern. “Roxy, how are you doing?”

It took a moment for Roxy to reply. How was she doing? “I think I’m kind of numb right now,” she finally said.

“So there wasn’t any word overnight?”

Roxy shook her head. “No, nothing. Are you going to be okay here without me today?”

“I’ve got it covered.” Josie stepped back to the stove and turned down the flames beneath the boiling chicken that would later be deboned and prepared as chicken salad for the lunch fare. “I’ve called in Allie and Nancy to waitress. Greg will help me out here in the kitchen, and Gus said he’d try to show up a little early this afternoon to help with anything we need and with closing up.”

She moved closer to Roxy, her brown eyes soft with sympathy. “We have this, Roxy. For as long as you need us, we’ll all pull together and keep this place running just as if you were here snapping the whip.”

Roxy smiled faintly, knowing that she was, indeed, a tough taskmaster. She was first and foremost a businesswoman, driven and determined to succeed.

“You know I have full confidence in you to keep the standards high and service impeccable,” Roxy said. “Besides, I’m hoping we’ll figure things out this morning, or at least by the end of the day, and Aunt Liz will be home and I’ll be back in the kitchen in the morning.”

“Are you meeting up with your sisters?”

“No, I insisted they open the store today as usual. There’s no point in all three of us running amok trying to find answers. Besides, Marlene hasn’t been herself since her divorce, and Sheri would be too shy and polite to demand things get done unless somebody threatened one of her woodland creatures.”

Josie shot her a wry grin. “And we know you don’t have that problem. Actually, Marlene called me a little while ago and said she’d been up all night and had baked some pies and pastries to bring in this morning.”

Roxy looked at her in surprise, although she supposed she shouldn’t be startled. Marlene had always been at Aunt Liz’s side when she baked goodies and had at one time dreamed of opening her own bakery, a dream that had seemed to die along with her marriage.

“She said she’ll bring in the baked goodies every morning until your aunt can do it again,” Josie said.

Roxy’s heart expanded with love for her sister, who had probably been up all night worrying and had used that time to make sure Roxy had what she needed for her business.

Josie looked at the large clock on the kitchen wall. “Actually, she should be here anytime.”

It was just after six-thirty, and so Roxy sat at the prep table to wait for her sister and tried not to focus on how wrong everything felt.

She should be cooking, waiting for Aunt Liz to arrive, while Marlene should be in bed, snoozing until heading into the roadside shop at noon. Roxy should be cutting up vegetables or adding a secret herb to a soup or planning new specialties.

Sheri was probably already outside, filling squirrel and bird feeders and taking care of all the other woodland creatures that brought her far more comfort than people ever had.

Sheri had been a stutterer for the first twelve years of her life, and Roxy couldn’t count the number of times she’d beaten up some ignorant bully for making fun of her kid sister. The stutter had gradually gone away and now only appeared when she was particularly stressed or excited.

A knock on the back door signaled Marlene’s arrival. Roxy hurried to let her sister in, as her arms were filled with pie carriers and boxed pastries.

“Let me take those from you,” Roxy said, noting that Marlene looked utterly exhausted. Dark circles shadowed the porcelain skin beneath her eyes, although the long blond hair that fell to her shoulders was clean and silky. Her lips quivered slightly as she attempted a smile.

“You didn’t need to do this, Marlene,” Roxy said as she and her sister placed the baked goods on a nearby table.

“I know, but I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t just do nothing, so I drove to Aunt Liz’s and used her kitchen to bake. I can do this for you, Roxy, at least until Aunt Liz comes back. It will make me feel useful, and I don’t mind at all.”

“But you can’t get up early in the morning and bake for me and then be at the store all day,” Roxy said.

“Sheri and I have already figured it all out so that I can bake in the morning and work the evening shift at the store. All you have to know is that you can depend on me for the baked goods every morning until things are back to normal.” Marlene’s eyes deepened to a midnight blue and shimmered with a hint of unshed tears. “Things will get back to normal, won’t they, Roxy?”

Roxy grabbed her sister into a tight embrace. “I’ll find her, Marlene. One way or another, I’ll see that she gets home. Don’t I always fix everything? I swear I’m going to fix this, and everything will be back to normal,” Roxy exclaimed fervently.

She released her hold on her sister. “Now go home and try to get some sleep. I’ll check in at the store later this evening, and if I find out something before then, I’ll call either you or Sheri.”

She and Marlene shared a final hug, and then Marlene left through the back door. Roxy forced a smile at Josie. “I’m going to take off, too.”

It was close to seven, and she wanted to be sitting in the police station waiting room when Steve decided to show up for work. There was no way she intended for him to take this slow and easy. She wanted action, and sooner rather than later.

* * *

Steve had awakened long before dawn with thoughts of Liz Marcoli racing through his brain. Thank God it wasn’t winter. The weather in Wolf Creek could be brutal in those months, and she wouldn’t have lasted a night out on the streets or wandering in the woods.

Maybe she had haunted his dreams because she was the same age as Steve’s mother, and he was very close to his mom. Most Sundays he ate lunch at the condo she’d moved into a couple of months before. There had been so much grief in the past two years that he knew his mother worried about him as he did her.

The unexpected death of his father eight months ago from a heart attack had hopefully been the last in a string of tragedies for what was left of the Kincaid family.

At six he rolled out of bed, downed two cups of coffee and then showered and dressed for the day. First thing this morning he intended to talk to Chief Krause and get the okay to pursue the Marcoli case.

He had nothing pressing on his desk, and once he had the chief’s okay, the day would be spent interviewing anyone and everyone who knew Liz Marcoli. What he hoped was that somebody he spoke to today might know something that the three sisters Liz had raised didn’t know about her.

Normally he wasn’t due into his office until eight, but it was just after seven when he pulled up and parked, eager to get the day started.

As he walked in the front door, a rivulet of dismayed shock rode up his back at the sight of Roxy seated in one of the plastic chairs in the outer area.

She jumped to her feet, looking as surprised to see him as he was to see her. “You’re early,” she said.

“And you’re earlier,” he replied with an inward sigh. He’d hoped to get some plan in place, some action taken before he saw her or spoke to her again.

She followed him through the door that led to the inner sanctum and planted herself in the chair in front of his desk. “So the night has passed, and we still don’t have any answers. What’s your plan?”

“The first thing on my agenda is to get a cup of coffee. Would you like one?”

He was unsurprised by the slight flare of irritation that sparked in her eyes, and he wondered if she had any idea how sexy she looked with her T-shirt stretched across her full breasts, a faint pink flush filling her cheeks and her dark hair a curly halo around her head.

She sat back in the chair, and the hint of irritation disappeared. “Sure. A cup of coffee sounds fine. It will help to fortify us as we organize the search party.”

He nodded and got up from his chair to go into the small break room where the coffeepot was located. He hated to give her the news, but he knew there would be no search party. The woods around the small town were too thick and massive and the resources of the department far too small to warrant an official search party in a case where they couldn’t even be sure at this point that any foul play had actually occurred.

He hadn’t asked her how she drank her coffee, so he grabbed the two foam cups, a packet of fake sugar and another of powdered creamer and then returned to the desk. The day had only just begun, and already he knew it was going to be a long one.

“I didn’t know how you drank it, so I brought some cream and sugar,” he said as he placed a cup in front of her.

“Thanks,” she said grudgingly. “Black is fine.”

“Just give me a minute to check in with my chief, and I’ll be right back.”

She half rose from the chair, as if expecting that he intended to pull a disappearing act on her. “I’ll be right back,” he repeated and then headed for the chief’s office.

It took him only a few minutes of conversation with his boss to get the okay to conduct an investigation into Liz Marcoli’s disappearance.

He returned to his chair and Roxy looked at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to wave a magic wand and fix her world.

It was only on closer examination of her lovely features that he saw the shadows beneath her eyes and the overall exhaustion that had her shoulders slumped slightly forward. Despite the obvious weariness, a white-hot energy emanated from her, an energy that warned him to tread carefully.

At least she appeared relatively calm at the moment, but Roxy’s temper was legendary and he didn’t want to be the one who stirred it up. It would do neither of them any good for her to get angry.

“Did you sleep last night?” he asked.

Her dark, well-shaped eyebrows lifted as if she was surprised by his question. “I fell asleep for about two hours sometime during the early morning.” She spoke the words as if disgusted with herself, as though maybe if she hadn’t slept, Liz Marcoli would be where she belonged this morning.

“You need to sleep and you need to eat during this ordeal. No matter how hard it is, you need to try to keep to your normal routine as much as possible. You won’t be any help to me or anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself.”

She eyed him as if expecting a trick and then leaned forward, bringing with her the scent he always noticed around her—a whisper of spring flowers topped with a dash of exotic spices. “Speaking of being helpful, I think maybe we gave you the impression yesterday that our mother is dead.”

“She’s not?”

Roxy shook her head. “She’s very much alive, and probably the only person on the face of the earth who might call and have Aunt Liz running off someplace to her rescue.”

This time it was Steve who looked at her in surprise. “I just assumed by what you told me about your aunt raising you all that your mother was dead.” He pulled out a notepad. “What’s her name?”

“Ramona Marcoli, although who knows at this time what her last name might be.”

“Marcoli? I thought your aunt had been married.”

“She was, but when her husband died she took back her maiden name.” Softness swept into her eyes. It was there only a moment and then gone. “Her husband’s name was Joe Arnoni, and he was the love of her life. When he died she couldn’t stand to hear his name. It hurt too badly, so she went back to being Liz Marcoli.”

“Do you know where your mother lives?”

“The last time I saw or spoke to my mother was when I was nine and she dropped off Sheri, who was a newborn, for Aunt Liz to take care of. Stop by, drop off the unwanted garbage and then get on with your life—that was apparently Ramona’s motto.” She didn’t try to hide her bitterness.

“Do you have any idea where she was living the last time you saw her?” Steve asked.

“At that time I think she was living someplace in Harrisburg, but it’s anyone’s guess where she might be now.”

“And you think that if your mother needed her, your aunt Liz would drop everything and go to wherever your mother might be?” Steve asked, a touch of relief flooding through him as this new scenario came to light.

“Yes, but if that had happened, Aunt Liz would have somehow managed to call one of us by now to let us know she was okay.” Once again Roxy’s eyes simmered with fresh panic. “She would have taken her purse and driven her car. I think we definitely need to get together a search party as quickly as possible.”

So far she’d been relatively calm and reasonable, but Steve knew his next words would probably change all that. “Roxy, there isn’t going to be a search party.”

She stared at him as if he’d suddenly spoken an ancient language she didn’t understand. “What are you talking about? Of course we need to get together a search party. We need to find Aunt Liz.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Roxy.” He drew in a breath as he saw the narrowing of her eyes, and she sat back in the chair as if gathering her strength to throttle him.

He continued at his own peril. “At this point we can’t even confirm that a crime has taken place. The first thing we need to do is locate your mother and see if perhaps your aunt is with her.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” she asked.

“I’ll get Frank on it. He’s the magic man when it comes to finding people through the internet. Do you know if she has any kind of a criminal record?”

“I have no idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“If she has a record, then we’ll find her fairly easily. In the meantime, today I plan to speak in person with all of your aunt’s friends to see if maybe they know some information about her personal life that might explain this absence. Finally, I’d like to take another look around inside your aunt’s house. You said she had a cell phone that was probably in her purse. What about a computer?”

“She doesn’t own one.”

“I need to get her cell phone and see if maybe there’s something on it that will help us.”

Roxy’s eyes blazed with the anger and helplessness he’d expected. “I don’t know how you’ll find my mother, but I’ll take you back to Aunt Liz’s house and you can see what we might have missed yesterday that might help figure this all out.”

He nodded and started to speak, but she didn’t give him a chance. “And if you’re planning on interviewing Aunt Liz’s friends, then I’m going with you.”

“I already have two partners,” Steve said.

She leaned forward, getting right in his face. “And now you have a third,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument.

Chapter 4

Despite Roxy’s desire for immediate action, it was almost nine by the time they finally left the police station. Frank had arrived and agreed to work on hunting up an address for Ramona, and he also planned to upload Liz’s information into the missing-persons database.

The thought of Aunt Liz officially being part of a national missing-persons pool made everything more frightening and real than it already had been.

She opened the door to the passenger side of Steve’s car to return to her aunt’s house, and tossed the fast-food wrappers that were on the seat to the floor. “I should have figured you for a messy man,” she said, at the same time trying to swallow against a newfound terror.

“Actually, you caught me on a good day. Usually there’s at least five times more trash in the car than there is now. That’s the evidence of my dinner last night.” He slid behind the steering wheel and cranked the engine while she tried to find a place for her feet amid the wrappers.

“You know that kind of food will eventually kill you,” she said.

He cast her a quick smile. “Ah, Foxy Roxy, I didn’t know you cared.”

“I don’t. And stop calling me that.”

“It’s just a little pet name,” he said.

She glared at him. “Do you have pet names for all your girlfriends? Let me guess...there’s Lucky Lucy and Boobsie Betty.”

“And don’t forget Willing Wendy,” he supplied, and as he smiled at her again she realized exactly what he’d done. He’d taken her terror and transformed it into an aggravation toward him, an emotion that felt safer and far more familiar than the stifling fear.

She rolled down her window and for a moment they rode in silence. “Thank you,” she finally said.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, apparently not needing an explanation for her gratitude. “I know it’s tough, Roxy,” he added softly.

She didn’t reply. There was no way he could know all the feelings that she was experiencing at the moment. Aunt Liz had been missing for an entire day and night.

Even Marlene and Sheri wouldn’t be feeling the full ache of emptiness, the utter horror that continuously tried to crawl up her throat. Sure, they’d be worried and afraid, but they weren’t as emotionally tied to Aunt Liz as Roxy was. They didn’t have the memories of what life had been like before Aunt Liz.

Horrific memories.

A childhood that no kid should have to suffer.

Roxy had spent her entire life making sure that Sheri and Marlene had only happiness in their lives. She had made caretaking for her sisters her number one priority, and she’d always known that while she was her sisters’ emotional support, Aunt Liz was hers.

There was no way surfer dude knew the ache of absence, the fear of the unknown that had Roxy’s emotions simmering with anxiety and terror. Probably the worst thing he’d ever suffered was a painful hangnail.

Still, as she gazed out the window she couldn’t help but smell him, the scent of minty soap and shaving cream and a whisper of sandalwood cologne.

She shot him a surreptitious glance and then looked back out the window. There was no question that she found him more than a little bit attractive, as did most of the single and married women in town, although she’d never heard any gossip about him with any married woman.

That perpetually mussed, sun-streaked hair of his begged for fingers to dance through the shaggy length, and his eyes were the blue of Caribbean waters. He had a sensual mouth with a fuller lower lip that held the promise of kisses that could buckle a woman’s knees.

With a new flash of irritation, she nibbled on her thumbnail until they pulled into Aunt Liz’s driveway. Roxy dug a set of keys from her purse, and then together they got out of the car and approached the house.

Roxy unlocked the front door and shoved it open; the absence of sweet baking scents shot a stabbing pain through her center.

When they had been here the day before, they had only done a cursory search, looking for her aunt. She knew that today Steve would be looking for other things or the lack of items that might provide a clue as to what had happened yesterday morning that had kept Aunt Liz from her usual schedule.

He stopped her before she walked from the entry into the living room. “I want you to stand here and look around. See if anything looks out of place or is missing,” he said.

She nodded and studied the living room as if seeing it for the first time. The sofa was a floral print, slightly worn and matching the overstuffed chair nearby. Behind the chair, a floor lamp sat to provide Liz additional light as she quilted or embroidered in neat little stitches. Her quilting material was all in a blue-flowered tote next to the chair, an embroidery hoop visible with a pattern half-completed by colorful threads.

The bookshelves that lined one wall held a variety of items, including photos of her and her sisters, mementoes from the time Liz had worked in Hershey at the Hershey factory and plenty of books.

“Nothing missing and nothing out of place,” she announced. Nothing except her aunt, who wasn’t in her chair with her quilting in her lap and her glasses propped down on the lower end of her nose.

“Okay, let’s move into the kitchen.” He placed a hand at the small of her back as they walked through the living room. Roxy wanted to protest the touch, but she found it oddly comforting.

When they reached the kitchen it was just as they’d left it the day before, the baked goods still on the countertop along with Liz’s purse and car keys.

After looking around and seeing nothing else amiss, Roxy opened the pie containers. Lemon meringue and chocolate silk. “These need to be thrown out,” she said, and he watched as she tossed the pies into the trash container. She opened the cake pan to see a black forest cake. “I can’t serve this at the restaurant, but it’s still good. Do you want to take it home with you?”

He looked at her suspiciously, as if perhaps she might be offering him a poisoned apple. “Why can’t you serve it in the restaurant?”

“Because it’s a day old. I promise you it’s perfectly good. I just won’t allow day-old desserts to be served at the Dollhouse.”

“Okay, then I’ll take it to Sunday lunch tomorrow at my mom’s.”

“Oh, your mother lives around here?”

“Yes, and I have lunch with her every Sunday. My father passed away eight months ago from a heart attack. Where did you think I came from? Under a rock?”

“Actually, I thought maybe you crawled out of a seashell. You’ve got the surfer dude attitude down pat,” she replied honestly.

“Surfer dude?” His amazing blue eyes stared at her blankly.

“You know, the shaggy sun-streaked hair, the laid-back attitude, the chicks that follow you around everywhere...” She allowed her voice to trail off, wondering how they had gotten so far off track.

“You obviously know nothing about me or my life, whatever your impression or my reputation might indicate.” There was a touch of irritation in his tone as he gestured her out of the room and down the hallway.

His cell phone rang, and he dug it out of his pocket and checked the caller identification. “I’ve got to take this. It’s a private call.” He ducked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

Probably one of those girlfriends of his, Roxy thought. She walked into the first bedroom that used to belong to Sheri and Marlene when they’d all been growing up together. It still held twin beds with pink spreads, two matching upright dressers and a single nightstand between the beds.

Rather than an array of clothing for two growing girls, the closet now held quilts already made and boxes of material and thread, along with a large standing hoop.

The bathroom door opened, and Steve rejoined her. “Sorry about that,” he said.

“There’s nothing missing.” Roxy thought they were wasting time and was irrationally irritated by his private phone call.

The second bedroom had been Roxy’s, but it had since been transformed into a storage area with shelves that held baking items, storage containers and utensils the small kitchen couldn’t hold.

By the time they reached Liz’s bedroom, Roxy had a mere finger grasp of patience left. Seeing the neatly made double bed where Roxy had often spent stormy nights snuggled with her aunt and younger sisters nearly cast her to her knees in worried grief.

She turned to Steve, who stood just outside the door in the hallway. “It’s all the same. Nothing is missing, so whatever happened to her didn’t involve a robbery. There are no signs of a struggle anywhere in the house. We’re wasting time here. It’s obvious she isn’t here, and there’s nothing to point to where she might be right now.”

“Roxy, this is all going to be a process of elimination. We had to check the house in order to eliminate any clues that might be here.” He spoke in slow, measured words, as if explaining something to a two-year-old.

Before she could respond, a knock sounded from the back door in the kitchen. Roxy started down the hallway to answer, but Steve grabbed her by the arm and pushed her behind him at the same time that he pulled his gun.

It was at that moment that Roxy realized two things—that Steve was taking this far more seriously than she’d thought he was, and that there was absolutely no guarantee of a happy ending.

* * *

The man at the back door wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, and a beard that instantly identified him as one of the Amish from the nearby settlement. The older man’s eyes widened as he saw Steve with his gun through the door window.

“That’s Mr. Zooker,” Roxy said from behind Steve. “Put your gun away before you give the poor man a heart attack.”

Steve holstered his gun and opened the door. The tall, muscular man was clad in the traditional white shirt and black trousers, and beyond him in the driveway Steve saw the horse and buggy that he’d arrived in.

His blue eyes softened as Roxy stepped in front of Steve. “Good morning to you, Mr. Zooker,” she said.

He nodded. “A good day to you. I have a delivery for your aunt. Could I speak to her?”

“I’m Detective Steve Kincaid.” Steve took control by once again stepping between Roxy and the man at the door.

“Abraham Zooker. Is there a problem with Mrs. Marcoli?” A line of concern deepened in his broad forehead.

“We aren’t sure. When was the last time you saw or spoke to her?”

Zooker frowned and pulled on the end of his long salt-and-pepper beard. “It would have been three weeks ago. I was at the Roadside Stop delivering some of my furniture to Miss Marlene and Miss Sheri when Mrs. Marcoli approached me and ordered a piece from me.”

“Was she expecting you today?” Steve asked.

“Not specifically. I told her I would deliver it once it was ready, and I’d planned a trip into town so I decided to attempt to deliver it today. If she isn’t here, I can always come back another time.”

“You’re here now so you might as well drop off whatever you brought. Have you been paid?” Roxy asked.

Abraham nodded. “I was paid in full when your aunt ordered the piece.” He backed away from the door. “I’ll be right back.”

Steve turned to Roxy. “What’s the story?”

“He’s one of the Amish who have been given permission to work with the English. He makes beautiful wooden furniture that Marlene and Sheri sell at their place, and he also has made several quilting racks for Aunt Liz.”

Steve knew that the Amish community closest to Wolf Creek was a progressive order. Although they used no electricity and continued the old tradition of traveling by horse and buggy, he’d heard that some of them were allowed running water in their homes and many did a brisk commercial trade with businesspeople in town. They had large farms and ran a dairy operation, and their horses and buggies and wide-brimmed straw hats were common sights in town.

Although Steve had been out to the settlement many times in the past, he had never met Abraham Zooker before.

“I get a lot of my cheese and dairy products from Abraham’s brother, Isaaic,” Roxy explained.

By that time Abraham had returned, carrying a beautifully crafted quilt display rack. Steve opened the door to allow the man to set the piece inside the kitchen. “She paid me for two, so there is another one that I should have ready in a couple of weeks,” he said.

“Why don’t you hold off on that one for now,” Roxy said, her eyes a simmering cauldron of emotion as she ran a hand lightly over the smooth wood of the piece. “I’ll get in touch with you when it’s time to start making the other one.”

“Your aunt is ill?”

“She’s missing. She hasn’t been seen since yesterday morning,” Steve replied.

“I will pray for her,” Abraham said.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d ask around your community whether anyone has seen her in the past twenty-four hours,” Steve said.

“Of course. We’ve always cooperated with authorities whenever necessary,” Zooker said. He looked at Roxy, his blue eyes once again softening. “I’m sorry for your worries, and I hope your aunt turns up well.”

“Thank you, Mr. Zooker,” Roxy told him. Steve noted the hint of tears in her eyes.

It stunned him. In the past twenty-four hours he’d seen her combative and rude, anxious and fearful, but he hadn’t seen tears.

As Abraham Zooker left, Roxy closed the door and leaned against it weakly, the glistening tears more pronounced as she stared at the quilt rack.

“Aunt Liz bought a rack and made a wedding ring quilt for Marlene when she got married. I’m guessing this one was in anticipation of whenever Sheri or I get married, even though I’ve told her a thousand times I have no intention of that.” The tears that had shimmered in her eyes released and trekked down her cheeks. “Where could she be, Steve? What could have happened to her?”

Steve knew he was about to take his life in his own hands, but he’d never seen a woman who looked more like she needed to be held than Roxy looked at that moment.

Knowing the danger, but unable to stop himself, he reached out and pulled her into an embrace. She stiffened against him and he tensed, expecting a knee to his jewels or a jab to his jaw, but instead she relaxed into him as a deep sob escaped her.

He tightened his arms around her, trying not to notice the press of her full breasts against his lower chest, how neatly her head fit just beneath his chin.

She felt good; she felt right in his arms, but she allowed it for only a handful of heartbeats and then she stepped back from him and swiped the tears off her cheeks.

“Wow, that won’t happen again,” she said, her voice filled with an appalled regret. “I never cry, and I definitely never cuddle.” She raised her chin defensively.

“Fine, then we’ll just chalk that up to you having something in your eye and we accidentally bumped into each other,” he replied drily.

It was obvious that the last thing Roxy Marcoli wanted was to appear vulnerable in any way. The angry defiance he sensed in her would hold her in good stead in the days to come. Hopefully it would fill up part of the space inside her that otherwise would be screaming in fear, dying of anxiety.

Steve knew very well the maelstrom of emotions flooding through Roxy, and he also knew her body and mind could only endure the high state of anxiety for so long.

She was with him now because she was in the first stages of disbelief and fear. Eventually, if Liz Marcoli wasn’t found, Roxy would have to figure out how to resume her life and work around the hole in her heart until some sort of closure was finally granted.

Steve was still waiting for closure in his own missing-persons case, and in the absence of that closure he’d adopted the laid-back “surfer dude” attitude to hide his own fear and pain. The day that his ex-girlfriend had kidnapped his son had been the moment Steve’s world had shattered. That had been two years ago, and during that time Steve had never stopped looking for the little boy he loved more than anything else on earth.

“So what happens next?” Roxy asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

He gave himself a mental shake. He had to stay focused on this missing-persons case.

He walked over to the counter where Liz’s purse was and looked inside. He pulled out her cell phone, punched a couple of numbers and frowned. “The history of incoming calls has been deleted.”

“So we don’t know who might have called Aunt Liz early Friday morning,” Roxy said flatly.

“We’ll drop the phone off at the station. Frank not only does magic with finding people—he’s also a rock star at getting this kind of information. The calls might be deleted from the phone, but the cell phone company will have the records.”

“And after we drop it off at the station?”

“Next we go talk to Patricia Burns. You told me yesterday that she was your aunt’s closest friend. Maybe she’ll know something about your aunt that you don’t know.”

Roxy shot him a tight grin. “Doubtful, but we have to do what we have to do.”

What was happening? Steve asked himself minutes later when they were back in his car after dropping off the phone at the station and heading to Patricia Burns’s house. What was he doing with Roxy like a mouse in his pocket, gnawing a tiny hole in his sanity?

He should have done the professional thing and sent her on her way that morning in the station. He wasn’t sure exactly how he had become we. He had two perfectly good partners to work with, and he didn’t need another one. He especially didn’t need one who’d felt so right pulled tight against his body, one who sent his adrenaline rushing whenever her eyes snapped with fire.

As soon as he interviewed Patricia Burns, he was taking Roxy right back to her car at the station and carrying on alone. He’d promise her frequent check-ins, but he needed to get her out of his pocket.

Patricia Burns lived two blocks away from Liz Marcoli in a neat ranch house that was identical to Liz’s except for the color.

Their knock was greeted by a petite woman with short salt-and-pepper hair and a worried expression in her brown eyes. She instantly grabbed Roxy’s hand. “No word?”

“No, nothing.”

Patricia nodded to Steve and then gestured them into a living room decorated in shades of blue. Steve introduced himself to her as he sat in a chair next to the sofa, where the two women sank down side by side.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Patricia asked.

“Thanks, but we’re fine,” Steve replied. “I understand you and Liz are good friends, Mrs. Burns,” he continued.

“Best friends, and, please, call me Treetie.” She smiled and patted Roxy’s hand. “When the girls were little they had trouble saying Patricia, and so I became Treetie and the nickname stuck.”

“Okay, Treetie, when was the last time you spoke to Liz?”

“Thursday night. We talked on the phone around eight.”

“Anything unusual going on with her? Anything she was worried about?” Steve took out his little pad and pen, ready to take any notes that might be pertinent to the case.

“No, nothing unusual. The only thing Liz ever worried about was the girls. She worried that Marlene was never going to get over her divorce and that Sheri would wind up being all alone with only the chipmunks for company. And, of course, she worried that Roxy would keep any man from ever marrying her because of her sharp tongue and the scars left from her early life with her mother.”

She patted Roxy’s hand as Roxy’s cheeks dusted with high color. “Sorry, honey, but that’s the truth.” She pulled her hand back from Roxy’s. “Other than that, Liz was enjoying her life. She had her baking that she did for the Dollhouse, she was planning her flower and vegetable garden and she had Edward.”

“Edward?” Steve asked.

“Edward?” Roxy parroted in confusion. “Who in the hell is Edward?”

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