The man nodded before heading down the hill to the construction trailer. Rocco cautiously met Mandy’s stunned gaze. He grinned.
“You touched him. You shook hands.” Mandy was shocked.
“How about that? You said I could trust your eyes. Since you didn’t react or warn me, I figured the blood wouldn’t get on him. I didn’t even feel it move on my skin. Maybe it’s gone, Mandy.”
She jumped forward and wrapped her arms around him, burrowing her face in his neck with a triumphant laugh that filled him with a warm contentment. He pulled her in tighter, feeling every curve of her body against his. He buried his nose in her hair, loving the faint scent of jasmine that drifted about her.
He pulled free as soon as he realized what he was doing. She’d made her preferences known. She wouldn’t appreciate being mauled out here in the driveway, in the bright morning sun. Aw, hell. He couldn’t even think about not touching her without getting hard.
He cleared his throat, then sucked in a few calming breaths of air while Mandy got the dogs settled in the SUV.
Once in Wolf Creek Bend, he saw that the vet’s office was across the street from the police station. “Mandy, will you be all right at the vet’s by yourself? I’d like to have a word with the sheriff.”
She gave him a curious look. “About George?”
“Yep.”
“Sure. We’ll meet back at the car when we’re both done.”
Rocco crossed the street and entered the police station. Jerry was at his desk in the front area. He looked up and gave Rocco a distinctly unwelcoming nod. “How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for the sheriff.”
“Come on back.” He opened the gate to the desk area and walked Rocco back to an office. “Sheriff, you’ve got a visitor.”
Sheriff Tate looked up from his desk. “Rocco! Good to see you. How can I help you?” he asked, getting to his feet. He carefully kept his hand to himself, Rocco noticed. Briefly, he considered offering a handshake, but thought better of pressing his luck. He needed info out of the sheriff-info he would not get if he had a meltdown here.
“Did you hear about what happened to George Bateman?”
“Mandy’s construction manager? No, what happened?”
“His house was flooded with carbon monoxide. Almost killed him and his wife-they’re in the hospital.”
“Wow. That’s bad news.”
Rocco watched his reaction closely, but could read nothing in his expression. “Don’t you think it’s odd to have yet another inexplicable thing happen? He’d had his furnace serviced not too long ago.”
“I’m not following. You saying there’s a connection between something at his house and the construction site? ‘Cause I don’t see it.”
“I’d like you to look into the situation. It’s too coincidental.”
“Look, Rocco, not to get you upset or anything, but you ain’t fighting insurgents here. Accidents happen. Sometimes a whole darn string of them-”
“And sometimes they aren’t accidents at all.”
“I’ve got nothing to go on with this and no call to go askin’ questions. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do for you or Mandy.”
Rocco put his hands on his hips. “That a fact? How about I get you some evidence? Will you take it seriously then?”
“If you find something, you bring it to me, you hear me? I don’t need you going off half-cocked, stirring up trouble, scaring people. Bring me some facts, evidence, proof, something, and I will look into it. I’m fond of Mandy. I’ve known her her whole life. Everyone in town likes that gal. We don’t like what’s going on out at her place, but none of it adds up to anything.” Rocco took his leave, frustrated with the sheriff.
He was leaning against Mandy’s SUV, his arms crossed, when she brought the two dogs out of the vet’s a few minutes later. “What’s the verdict? Did the doc recognize them?” he asked as he helped her settled them in the SUV.
“He didn’t. Neither had a chip. He gave me some diet suggestions to help them gain weight back. He said someone might have driven out to the country to drop them off. And then the poor things have been wandering about. That happens more often than you think. I’m not sure we’ll ever know.”
“You gonna keep them? Or do you want to take them down to the shelter in Cheyenne?”
She flashed a look at him. “I’m not taking these boys down to a shelter, Rocco.”
He looked at her, feeling something inside him twist. With hope. Was she this possessive of everything- everyone-she rescued? “Then keep them it is.”
Chapter 12
Rocco sat on the top step of Mandy’s porch after supper. The evening was slowly rolling toward night. The construction site had been secured for the day. Kitano was happily munching his evening meal. The strays, full and sated from yet another small meal, lounged in the last vestiges of sunlight.
Mandy joined him on the stoop, handing him a cup of black coffee. All around them was peace and tranquility, but Rocco couldn’t shake the feeling of a storm brewing, as if what had happened to George was just the first stacked domino in a line of them.
They’d learned from a phone conversation with George’s wife earlier in the day that their furnace had been serviced by the same company that currently was providing plumbing and HVAC services on Mandy’s equestrian center. It was, at last, a link, but Mandy refused to see that there was any connection at all. In fact, they’d argued about it earlier. He didn’t want to continue their discussion, so he stood and walked to the ledge that looked down to the construction site and sipped his coffee in silence.
The accuracy of his instinct was an immutable truth he’d learned long ago never to doubt. Even when his mind was fucked all to hell, his gut held true. And right now, it was screaming a warning he could not ignore.
Mandy could not see the danger-nor could he, for that matter. But it did exist. So how was he to keep her and her dream safe?
He looked where she was sitting on the stairs and sighed. She smiled at him, a gesture he did not return. The world had gone mad, and he alone saw it happening.
“Okay,” she said over the rim of her coffee mug. “Let’s go through it again.”
“It makes no sense, I know.”
“But it’s eating at you, so let’s step through it.”
“Who benefits if you fail to open the center?”
“No one. Not our therapy clients. Not the town that would have gained visitors for restaurants and gas stations and hotels. If I shut down construction until we figure this out, the crew and tradesmen would definitely not benefit.”
Rocco sipped his coffee. A minute passed. A cold feeling settled in his stomach. “We’re looking at this wrong. Instead of who might benefit, tell me what happens if things continue on the path they’re on, with escalating issues and even violence.”
“The cops will have more work to do. The emergency clinic in town and the hospital in Cheyenne will have more clients. My customers will not have a convenient place to come for hippotherapy.”
“Keep going. What else will happen?”
“I will lose this ranch because I’ll have construction loans I cannot repay.”
Christ, it was all right before them, had been all along. “Before that. What will you do before that?”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “Call Kit and cry. I’ll feel like such a failure.” She set her coffee on the step and folded her arms about herself.
“Right. And what will Kit do?”
“He’ll come out, thinking he can make everything right. He hates this town, Rocco. He once said he’ll never come back-when we met over the years, it was never here. But for me, because of this, he would. I know it.”
Rocco looked at Mandy, waiting for her to catch the implication. When she frowned at him, he explained. “This
