The Ranger Read online

  She could easily see herself getting…attached to him.

  In the first place, she didn’t want to be attached. Too much emotional insecurity in investing personal happiness in another person for her comfort. And in the second place, were she to develop any sort of lingering interest in him, she instinctively knew she’d scare him to death. Like her, she sensed he wasn’t looking for anything permanent.

  Which should have made him perfect. And yet she hesitated….

  Having consumed enough eggs to send his cholesterol into the danger zone, Will merely leaned back and shook his head. “No problem,” he said. “Same bed, different room.”

  “Any updates this morning?” she asked. “Any news on that cell tower?”

  He nodded. “He was still in town.”

  “Damn.”

  “Any other hits?”

  “None,” he said. “Which means he’s probably turned it off.”

  She grimaced. “Or let the battery go dead. He’s horrible about that. But at least we know we’re on the right track,” she reminded him.

  The freshly cut flowers they’d found on Theo’s relatives’ graves yesterday had his signature thoughtfulness written all over them. The ground was unbroken, indicating that he hadn’t found what he was looking for there, but she had no doubt that it was he who had placed the relatively new blooms on those plots.

  And then there’d been the penny, of course.

  She smiled, remembering. Because he shared his thoughts with people whether they asked for them or not, Theo always had a pocketful of pennies to give to those with whom he shared his opinions. Sarah’s headstone, in particular, was always covered in pennies.

  “So what do you think our next move should be?” Will asked her.

  She blinked with exaggerated wonder. “You’re asking me?”

  “I wouldn’t have had any idea to look for Theo in Soddy-Daisy, much less that the flowers and coins left on those graves were his doing.” He took a sip of water. “So, yes, I am asking you.”

  Self-satisfied pleasure expanded in her chest. “Because you need me?” she pressed. “Because I am helpful? Just like I said I would be.”

  “You’re a helpful distraction,” he conceded, his cheek lifting in a too-charming half smile. She couldn’t get over his eyes, Rhiannon thought, once again struck by their unique shade. A bright silvery-gray.

  She chuckled and leaned forward. “How exactly am I distracting you? By offering my assistance? By being your navigator? By telling you that you’re eating too many eggs and not enough fiber?” She determinedly scooped up another bite of oatmeal, setting a good example for his benefit.

  She knew exactly how she was distracting him, of course. She was equally distracted, and for the same damned reason.

  Lust.

  He frowned at her plate. “Oatmeal is nasty. I’d rather eat a cardboard box.”

  “We should pick up some fiber bars when we stop for my toothpaste.”

  “I don’t mind sharing,” he said. There was an undercurrent to his voice she didn’t fully understand.

  She shook her head. “I prefer my own brand.”

  He snorted and rolled his eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with yours,” she said.

  “Most people like their breath minty fresh.”

  He slid her a sardonic look. “And you don’t?”

  “Mint makes me gag. I prefer oranges and cloves.”

  “Mint makes you gag?” he asked, slightly in credulous. His lips twisted. “Bet that made for some interesting kissing sessions, huh?”

  Her gaze involuntarily dropped to his lips and she felt her own mouth tingle in response. She’d bet he was one hell of a kisser. “Only when a guy dosed up on something strong. Usually the taste is too faint to trigger the reflex.”

  “Little favors, eh? That could definitely give a guy a complex. Finally build up the courage to make his move and you gag on him.”

  She chuckled at his analogy. “It’s not like I can help it, you know,” she said. “It’s just…too strong.”

  “It’s supposed to be,” he told her. “How else is one supposed to fight bad breath?”

  She narrowed her gaze in playful censure. “Are you saying my breath is bad because I don’t use minty toothpaste?”

  He fought a grin and his gaze drifted over her lips. “I won’t know until you’ve tried it, will I?”

  “Fine,” she said drolly. “Tonight after I brush my teeth, I’ll be sure to breathe on you.”

  This line of conversation could so get her into trouble. It felt too much like flirting and not enough like harmless banter.

  Naturally she found it thrilling.

  The grin that tugged at his lips? Pure sin. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  Perversely, so did she.

  7

  “THEO WAS HERE a couple of days ago,” Mimi Watson said. “I was surprised, of course. Haven’t seen him in years.”

  “Was he just visiting, Miss Mimi, or was there a specific reason he came by?” Rhiannon asked the elderly woman.

  Mimi’s faded blue eyes were warm as she worked the crochet needles between her arthritic fingers. “Oh, he just wanted to chat. Said he was working on a genealogy chart, a new hobby of his, and wanted to pick my brain about some of our relatives.”

  Rhiannon sent him a significant look. “Really? Which ones was he interested in?”

  She corrected a bad stitch. “All of them, really, but he was particularly interested in where Mrs. Amelia Watson was buried. Oh, and little Winston, of course.” She tsked under her breath. “The infant mortality rate was terrible in those days,” she said sadly. “Moving south was not an easy journey for old Uncle Mortimer. Buried a wife and child on the way. The child first, of course. The pox. Amelia grieved herself to death. She’s buried in Kingsport, I believe. Wasn’t sure about Winston, but like I told Theo, I think they lost him somewhere around Roanoke.”

  “That’s terrible,” Rhiannon commiserated softly, and Will could tell the news affected her on a deeper than ordinary level. Almost as if it was her own family.

  A puzzled frown wrinkled her forehead. “Theo has shared a lot of your family history with me over the years. So Mortimer must have been married before then? Sophia was his second wife?”

  “That’s right. He missed his family terribly, you see. The story I’ve always heard was Miss Sophia was a very jealous woman and destroyed all the pictures of Mortimer’s late wife. Guess she knew that Amelia would always have his heart, that she was the substitute wife.”

  Always have his heart, Will thought. That certainly sounded like a significant clue.

  And once again he had to hand it to Rhiannon. She’d spent several minutes going over the atlas this morning, searching for places along their route to Philadelphia that Theo had mentioned. She’d hit pay dirt with Sweetwater, pulled out her BlackBerry and used the mobile phone book to pull up all the Watsons. She’d found Mimi and instantly recognized the name as one Theo had mentioned.

  Mimi Watson had at least a decade on her nephew, but lived alone in a small cottage downtown. She wore a trendy sportswear outfit in shades of lavender and her snowy-white hair was set into a sweeping, puffy style. Her lined cheeks were powdered to perfection and bright pink lipstick painted her mouth. Her white tennis shoes didn’t show the faintest scuff and gleamed against the green indoor-outdoor carpeting covering her front porch. She epitomized a genteel Southern lady and, though they didn’t have the time, he could have listened to her tell stories in her lovely drawl all day long.

  Rhiannon laid her hand on Mimi’s knee. “Mimi, thank you so much for all your help. It’s a relief to know that Theo was here and was fine.”

  “Silly boy,” she said, disapproval coloring her tone. “He should have let you know where he was going. People tend to worry when their old folks just vanish. Poor Tad must be a wreck with nerves,” she fretted.

  Rhiannon delicately avoided answering by a
sking instead, “He was here day before yesterday, you say?”

  “Yes. I insisted that he stay for dinner, of course, and you know Theo.” She gestured to a vase of flowers. “He’s always so thoughtful.”

  Rhiannon grinned. “Yes, he is.” She nodded once. “Well, Miss Mimi, we’d better be on our way.”

  “Good luck finding him, dear. I’m sure he’s fine. You let me know when you run him to ground, you hear?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Rhiannon gave her a quick hug and, feeling strangely out of place, Will merely nodded once.

  “Okay,” she said with a heavy breath when they were once again in the car. “We’ve got our next destination.”

  He backed out of the drive. “Kingsport.”

  “Yes.” She pushed her hands through her hair. “But I don’t think we’re going to find him there.”

  Will didn’t, either. They were only about three hours from Kingsport and Theo had left almost two days ago. If he’d found what he was looking for in that town, then they would have heard from him by now. Clearly he hadn’t, and he had moved on.

  “So you’d never heard of the first wife? Amelia?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I can recall.”

  “Do you think Theo knew of her?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, her tone thoughtful.

  “He must have found something. He’s been going through some old boxes, had found them tucked away in the corner of the attic in the cottage there on the plantation. It was the first house, you see.

  The temporary home while the plantation home was being built.”

  Will considered that. “Then why doesn’t Theo live there? Why move to town?”

  She leaned her head against the back of the seat and rolled her neck toward him. A smile played over her ripe mouth. “The official reason? Because his estate manager needs to live on site. The real reason? He’s convinced it’s haunted.”

  Will chuckled. “Haunted? But wouldn’t he be related to this particular ghost?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Rhiannon said. “He still gets spooked.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Interestingly enough…it’s Sophia.”

  A bark of laughter rumbled from his throat.

  “But she sounds like such a sweet, understanding lady.”

  Rhiannon scowled. “She sounds like a bitter old bitch to me, but what do I know?”

  His lips twitched. “Don’t hold back. Tell me what you really think.”

  “Do I strike you as the kind of person who holds back?”

  Will shook his head. “You absolutely do not,” he admitted. “You’re frighteningly…honest. It’s refreshing, actually.” And he meant it. No doubt a person never had to wonder where they stood with her. Furthermore, though he’d laughed at the fact that she was a guidance counselor, he could easily see how kids would readily warm to her. She was frank without being cruel and there was a comforting quality, despite her obvious energy, that literally compelled a person to want to be close to her. To confide in her.

  Mimi was a perfect example. Rhiannon had never met the woman before in her life and yet within three minutes of being in her company, Mimi had acted as if they were old friends. Rhiannon had been able to garner the older woman’s trust with enviable ease. Had he been asking the same questions—alone—Will didn’t think he would have fared so well. Just another reminder of how much she was genuinely helping him.

  Distracting him, too, of course. He could never forget that. Take now, for instance. Her warm citrusy scent—it must be in her shampoo, too, Will thought—swirled around his senses and the yellow-and-white checked top she wore showcased her pear-shaped breasts to absolute perfection. She wore a denim skirt that was long enough to be appropriate but short enough to make him sweat, and a silver chain loaded with star charms dangled around her ankle.

  Because he was a nosy bastard, he’d taken a cursory look at her toiletries in her bathroom this morning and realized that she hadn’t brought a single bit of makeup, only a small tube of tinted organic lip balm. Hell, she’d gone to sleep with her hair in a damp ball on her head and woken up this morning looking as though she could have shot a shampoo commercial. She was effortlessly sexy, and something about that made her all the more appealing.

  And minty toothpaste made her gag. He laughed under his breath, remembering.

  She shot him a look. “Something funny?”

  Just you, he thought.

  And clearly he was an idiot…because while she’d been stocking up on fiber bars and bagged popcorn—she’d had a craving—at the drugstore this morning, he’d snuck to the photo-center cash register and purchased a new tube of toothpaste.

  One that wouldn’t make her gag.

  And a box of condoms.

  FINDING AMELIA WATSON took a bit more effort, but after a vital-records search using various spellings of Amelia’s name, they finally got a hit.

  Rhiannon stood at the foot of the grave and felt a pang of regret for the woman who had grieved herself to death over the loss of her child. Theo’s flowers—only slightly wilted this time—were nestled against the chalky, weathered headstone.

  “Another penny?” Will asked. “Is this the quirk you were talking about? Do you and Theo leave pennies on headstones?”

  Half of her mouth hitched up in a grin. “Nice try, but no.”

  “Damn.”

  “Theo likes to share his thoughts, whether he’s asked for them or not,” she explained. “He’s just being courteous.”

  He arched a skeptical brow. “You mean he talked to Amelia’s marker?”

  She studied the headstone. Beloved wife and mother. “In a manner of speaking.”

  “No wonder you’re so close to him. You’re both—”

  She shot him a glare, silently urging him to rethink what he was about to say.

  “Unique,” he finished, smiling.

  She nodded primly. “You’re learning.”

  “We’re closing the gap,” he said. “Getting closer.”

  Which was true, yet she could still feel an unexplained sense of urgency. Rhiannon was by no means psychic—clairvoyance was not her talent—but she knew well enough to trust her instincts, and those same instincts now were telling her that she needed to find Theo before something terrible happened. An unexplained ball of dread sat in her belly, a constant reminder that they needed to push on.

  “So he obviously didn’t dig here,” Will said, inspecting the undisturbed grass.

  “No need if the metal detector didn’t give him any indication there was a reason to.”

  “True,” he conceded. He inspected the sky, in particular the low orange ball of sun sinking to the western horizon. “We’re less than three hours from Roanoke. We should probably get on the road.”

  He was right, she knew. They would need to get an early start tomorrow. She’d also done an online search for Winston Watson’s marker—or records of any sort—and hadn’t found the first thing. Of course, she’d done only a cursory search. It didn’t mean nothing was there—it just meant she hadn’t had time to look properly.

  Unfortunately, if finding Winston’s marker was easy, then she suspected she would have heard from Theo already. He’d had at least a thirty-six-hour jump on them and obviously was still searching. Poor record keeping, lost or destroyed documents…there were so many things that could have gone wrong over the years.

  Rhiannon let go a small breath. “This is going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “Yeah.” He passed a hand over his face. “And Mimi said ‘around Roanoke.’ That leaves a lot of ground.”

  Yes, it did. And Rhiannon wasn’t entirely sure where they should start.

  Will stooped, picked a dandelion from the ground and twirled it between his fingers. “Theo was a librarian, right? He knows those systems better than any of the other more advanced technologies out there now, I would assume?”

  She considered him. “Yes.”


  “Then he’s probably relying on old obits from newspapers stored on microfiche.”

  She brightened. “You’re right. He’s competent on the computer, but he is much more at home in the library.”

  “So we start with the libraries on the fringes of Roanoke and tighten our circle. Work from the outside in.”

  She smiled at him, impressed. “That’s an excellent plan.”

  His lips lifted with droll humor. “I do have them on occasion.” He laid the bloom on the headstone. “Are you hungry?”

  She gave him a duh look. “Do you even have to ask?”

  His chuckle was low and sexy. “We need to find a sandwich bar with Wi-Fi,” he said. “Get a list of libraries and start mapping our route.”

  Rhiannon headed for his Jeep. “You’re on a roll.”

  “Smart-ass.”

  Twenty minutes later Will had his laptop open and had begun the search. He’d ordered an enormous sandwich and waffle fries and was periodically taking bites between searches.

  He grimaced. “There are a lot of little libraries around here,” he said, scrutinizing the screen.

  Rhiannon popped a bite of artichoke into her mouth. “How many?”

  “More than twenty on the fringes, and that’s not including the city.”

  “No wonder we haven’t heard from Theo.”

  “Yes, but I think we can gain some ground. I imagine he’s just wandering from town to town making inquiries and checking cemeteries along the way. We have a plan.”

  “Are we going to check the cemeteries, as well?”

  He shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt. There are a lot of deaths that never make it into the obituaries.

  Particularly if they weren’t local and were simply passing through, you know?”

  Rhiannon’s eyes widened significantly as she digested that. “We’re going to be spending a lot of time in your car.”

  His eyes twinkled and he cocked his head.

  “Mine might not be as economically friendly as yours, but it’s got more legroom.”

  She couldn’t argue there. And he was an excellent driver. He expertly negotiated traffic and, though it was ridiculous, she’d found her gaze riveted on the way his hands rested against the steering wheel—the large palms and long, blunt-tipped fingers, the masculine muscles and veins that made his arms so very different from hers. A breath stuttered out of her lungs as she imagined them wrapped around her, his skillful hands on her body.