“Fine, we can check it out, but I put my foot down at actually eating under the tree stand where they found his body,” Evan told her. “It’s been a long week. I’m hungry and I want to relax with the woman I intend to marry. So we have a look and then we sit down and we enjoy our lunch. I don’t want to think about or talk about Daniel Fisher or the Studers or any part of the investigation. Understood?”
“Perfectly. Let’s talk about something else.” She smiled slyly. “You know, we’re the object of the town gossip. You and I.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “And that’s something new? Since when haven’t you been? Or me for letting you wrap me around your little finger.”
“I don’t wrap you around my finger. I adore you, Evan Parks. And I can’t wait to be your wife. In spite of what everybody says.”
He stopped and waited for her. “And what is it that everybody says?”
It was the opening she needed to tell him about what had happened at Wagler’s the previous afternoon. Because she kept telling herself she didn’t care, but she did. “Coyote says the town is divided on whether or not I’ll get cold feet and not show up at the church. She says everyone is talking about it.”
“I’ve heard it, too. I met some of the guys after work at the pub.”
“You were at the pub?” she asked, not minding, just surprised.
He shrugged. “My last days being single, I thought I should act like it.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Anyway, some of them were razzing me about you skipping out with an Amish guy at the last minute and leaving me at the altar.”
She laughed. “You don’t believe that, do you?”
“No, I don’t.” He caught her hand with his free one. “Should I be worried?”
“About what?” She looked up at him.
“About you getting cold feet.”
“Evan, I told you. I want to marry you.” She squeezed his hand. “I’ll be there. Okay?”
“Okay,” he agreed.
Rachel grimaced. “I think Margaret O’Meara, from church, may be behind this whole town twittering about the state of our relationship. Apparently, she found out where I was getting my dress and kept track of how many bridal gown fittings I missed. Then added a few.”
He stopped and smiled at her, his face creasing in a boyish grin. “And the caterer. You missed that one, too.”
“I had a good reason,” she defended, making a face at him. “And, as I recall, you couldn’t make it, either. That’s why we had to reconsider the whole food thing.”
“I was working. And I don’t care what we eat at the wedding. Chicken. Steak, blueberry pie, bread and water.”
“Which is why just letting my mother and Ada take care of the food was the best solution.”
“I agree,” Evan said. “I’m only interested in hearing the minister say, ‘Do you take this man to be your husband, to love and to cherish . . .’ ”
“Me, too.” She groaned. “Sometimes, I wish we’d eloped. Just gone off to Las Vegas and had Elvis marry us. It would have been less hectic.”
“We still can,” he offered, cutting his eyes at her.
“No, we can’t. We have to make our vows before God and our families. My mother has finally come around and I’m not going to threaten that with a Nevada marriage.”
“A courthouse ceremony would be legal.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It would be, and that’s fine for some, but not for me. And I don’t think it would be for you, either.”
Evan put the basket on the ground in the middle of the path and opened his arms. “Come here.”
She stepped into them and he lowered his head and pressed his warm lips to hers. For a tender moment, they kissed, and a tingling joy spread through her. She pushed away. “That was . . . lovely,” she murmured and stepped back.
He smiled down at her. “Have I told you that I love you?”
She nodded, smiling. “Once or twice.”
He cupped a hand around his ear. “Come again?”
“I love you, too,” she said.
“That’s better.” He caught her fingers and tugged. “I don’t suppose I could have one more of those?”
“No more kissing. Eating our lunch. Talking. The kissing waits until after the wedding.”
Evan clasped a fist to his heart dramatically. “She spurns me.”
Rachel laughed. “She doesn’t spurn you often, and that’s the trouble.”
They laughed together and he pointed ahead. She hadn’t noticed the row of new fence posts and the four strands of barbed wire on the next rise. Behind the fence line was a relatively flat section of ground and the remains of an old orchard stretching to the left and back to blend into the wooded hillside of the mountain ridge.
“No one’s tended the orchard in years, but there’s enough fruit to bring the deer here every fall. Apparently, Daniel, or someone, regularly cut the barbed wire to get in. They take portable deer stands in. You’ll be able to see the tree that Daniel’s tree stand is in from where we’re going to have lunch, but you can’t see much of the actual stand. And I’m not letting you go over there. The crime scene is still taped off.” He picked up the picnic basket. “Not much farther, but I’m not pointing out the deer stand until we have our lunch. First eating, then we satisfy your curiosity.”
She nodded. “All right.”
Evan kept walking. It was rocky ground and uphill. Rachel could manage well enough, but it was more difficult than walking across a flat pasture, the footing uneven. “I’m serious,” he warned. “You’re not going to set foot on Baker’s property. I’m not certain the man’s mentally stable.”
“He wouldn’t hurt me, but I won’t go in there if you don’t want me to.” She considered the information. “Mary Rose Studer seems to think the old
