Grayson sat down to a pretty tasty lunch on a thick paper plate. Of course, it consisted of the stuff he’d bought, nothing even hinting at gourmet. Even so, Savannah had put it together in a way that looked appealing.
And that was what he told her. “This all looks really good,” he said as he placed a second half sandwich onto his plate.
“It looks like what you brought here,” she said dismissively, although he caught the smile on her face as she scooped up some salad.
“Ah, but your serving skills added a lot.”
She laughed as she aimed her green eyes at him in an expression that seemed both amused and appreciative. “Taste it first,” she said.
He finished filling his plate and went to sit down at the table. He savored the food, such as it was, partly to keep her amused—and because he wanted to hang out here a while longer. He intended to discuss her situation and what he could do to help her not only survive, but end what was happening to her—and how he could help her uncover the truth about Zane.
She was most likely being hunted now by the cops. In their phone call yesterday, Chad had indicated that was in fact the case. Chad had heard that the cops, including the few who had K-9 partners, were mostly occupied with checking out damage, though a warning had been issued for people to be careful not only of potential looters, but also of a murderer who might be loose among them.
He also assumed from what Chad said that there hadn’t been time to look for her...yet.
Now he took a significant bite of sandwich, watching Savannah watch him as he did so. It actually tasted pretty good, probably because he was hungry.
“So what’s your favorite food when you aren’t in the middle of nowhere helping an innocent prison escapee?” Savannah asked him. Although the tone of her sweetly feminine voice was light, the expression on her pretty face remained wry.
“Oh, I like sandwiches, though I’m fondest of really good, thick burgers. Roast beef sandwiches, too. Steaks and—”
“I get it,” Savannah said, interrupting him with a laugh. “Beef and you are buddies.”
“You don’t like my faves?” He tried to sound as though his feelings were hurt, and he squeezed his mouth into a pout. He liked the idea of keeping this conversation light. For now. But soon they’d have to start discussing what was really on their minds.
“In moderation,” she responded. “Along with good, healthy food, like salads and other veggies. Fish and chicken, too.”
“You sound like a health nut,” he said, shaking his head.
“Guess what, I prefer healthy.”
“Well, I actually like sides along with my meats, and that can include the salads and veggies you mentioned. Good fruit, too.”
“Then maybe your family did bring you up right,” Savannah said. “Even though from what I’ve heard you can afford to eat anything, anywhere, that you want.” Her turn to put down the plastic salad fork and take a bite of sandwich.
“That’s what I gather about you and your family, too,” Grayson said, and as she stopped chewing and looked down, he knew he’d made a mistake even mentioning them. Even though she had brought up his.
He had understood, meeting her at elite parties before, that her family had money, too. She was essentially a socialite, he believed, although he knew she helped to raise money for organizations that helped people who were less fortunate.
But his bringing up her family now wouldn’t call into mind charitable events, or even just her parents and siblings, difficult or not, but also a particularly nasty, wealthy ex who was now apparently framing her for murder.
Family. Grayson, at age thirty-six, was the youngest of three from Payne’s first marriage to Tessa. He had an older brother, Ace—the one to whom it now appeared he might not be biologically related—and an older sister, Ainsley, plus adopted brother Rafe.
Ace was still a Colton, genetically or not.
Then there were three more siblings from his dad’s third marriage, to his stepmother, Genevieve: twins Marlowe and Callum, and Asher. In between his late mother, Tessa, and Genevieve, Payne was married to the sinister Selina Barnes Colton. Although they had been divorced for years, Selina still remained in a prominent position at Colton Oil, leading the siblings to wonder what she held over their father.
Grayson’s second phone call earlier had been with Callum.
Callum had confirmed to Grayson that Payne remained in a coma. They still didn’t know who’d shot him. And couldn’t Grayson get a little more involved with helping to figure that out, or working with the authorities more, since he knew them better and interacted with them as a first responder?
That wasn’t the first time Callum had suggested it. Or had prodded Grayson to get more involved emotionally, too—though he didn’t phrase it that way. Callum had recently uncovered the nurse who might have swapped her own newborn son with a sickly Colton baby forty years ago. That woman, Luella Smith, might be Ace’s biological mother. Callum had also fallen in love with a charming single mom, Hazel Hart, and adored her daughter, Evie.
But although Grayson was okay with the fact he was a Colton, he wasn’t really close to the family and didn’t intend to change that even now, partly for fear they would try to twist his arm to get involved with Colton Oil.
Although, close or not, he was really concerned about his father and how he was doing—and whether he would survive.
With his mind off on that tangent, Grayson had been looking more at his nearly empty paper plate than at Savannah, even though he had last mentioned her and her family.
While his family and their father’s situation might be important, they weren’t why he was here.
Or involved with what he wanted to do here.
He tore his gaze from the boring plate he’d not really noticed as his thoughts flew around. He looked up at Savannah.
She, too, appeared to be studying her empty plate. Her face was pale, her expression pensive but leaning toward sorrowful. Maybe even distraught.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She looked up at him. “Of course. It’s just that you mentioned my family. They’re a good group, my mother and brother. And yes, we have some money. But my father’s gone now.”
The thought clearly, and understandably, made her sad. It was time to put this lunch behind them and do something else. Something that hopefully would be productive—in improving Savannah’s mood, if nothing else.
Better yet, they could discuss a bit of the past and hurl it into what they could do in the near future to change things drastically for the better for his lunch companion.
“Hey, Savannah,” he said. “You ready to take a walk outside? We need to take a bit of a hike to work off some of the calories from this enormous, filling lunch.”
Her family.
Ignoring the fact that it recently had included—been usurped by—that jerk Zane, Savannah briefly let her mind wander further as she stood up and cleared the table, tossing their plates into the plastic bag she was now using for trash. She also picked up the bottle of water she had been drinking from and placed it beside, though not in, the refrigerator. Why bother?
She wondered what her mother and younger brother, Randy, were thinking now. Her dad was gone, and of course she was sad about that—but he’d been a major reason she had wound up marrying Zane.
Oh, she’d had an elite upbringing, despite there being no private schools good enough around Mustang Valley for the Murphy children. Her parents, Randolph Senior and Eleanor, had imported live-in tutors to work with them while they also attended those public institutions, like the local high school, part-time, to ensure they learned everything privileged children of their ages should learn. And their mansion at the fringes of town had plenty of room for live-in help. That had been largely due to her father’s income as chief executive officer of a highly profitable manufacturing company, as well as his inheritance.
Her dad was gone now, but Savannah had not worried about her mother and brother after the earthquake. Neither would have been affected. Randy had moved to Phoenix to join a highly successful stock brokerage firm. Her mom was on an extended trip to Europe with some friends.
Savannah had lived in the family mansion until she married Zane, partying and enjoying her life, including getting involved with all the charitable events she could. She’d continued to help throw fund-raising events, which wasn’t much of a career, she realized, but she’d enjoyed it.
And she didn’t give a damn about what, if anything, was now left of the other mansion she’d lived in, her ex’s. While, apparently, he was enjoying multiple affairs.
Well, she wasn’t going to talk about any of those things as she took her walk with Grayson.
Still, she appreciated his company. And his apparent intention of helping her get through this and finding the truth so she would be exonerated. She didn’t know what she’d do with her life then, but she would definitely be out of prison.
Or so she hoped.
Since they had eaten everything she had prepared as their small lunch, she just checked to ensure that she had encased the remaining meat and salad fixings as well as possible in the plastic wrap Grayson had brought. She put them back with the rest of the food, knowing they wouldn’t last long with no power in the refrigerator, then turned back to him—only to find him right behind her.
Or maybe she wasn’t so surprised after all. He certainly hadn’t startled her.
“Are we ready to go?” she asked.
“Absolutely.” He held out his right elbow, as if inviting her to latch onto it with her own arm, which she did—for the few seconds it took them to reach the front door.
She opened it, but Grayson stepped in front of her. “Me first,” he said. Which she appreciated, especially when he began looking around, his head raised as if he was listening, too.
He was undoubtedly checking for intruders to the area.
“Okay,” he said after a few seconds. “No obvious problems, but we’ll stay alert.”
“Of course,” she agreed. Without even thinking about it, she, too, stopped for a moment to listen for anything that didn’t belong there. But other than the breeze flowing through the leaves and branches of the fir trees around them, she heard nothing except for an occasional bird call, mostly crows.
Nothing that sounded like people stalking her. No cops on her trail...but she knew she had better expect the worst eventually.
Still, she also might as well enjoy her freedom for the moment and attempt to figure out a way to guarantee it in the future.
Grayson didn’t offer to take her arm again as he walked slowly around the cabin on the narrow, uneven path. “Have you walked around this way before?” he asked.
She nodded, staying at his side as they strolled along. “Yes, partly just to get out of the cabin, partly for a touch of exercise—and mostly just to think as I walked.”
“I can guess what you were thinking about. Did you reach any conclusions?”
She sucked in her lips as she considered the circumstances—as if she wasn’t thinking about them all the time anyway. “I want to get out of here. But as much as I’d like to find a way to flee the area, what would I do then? I’d need a new identity, and I’d always be looking over my shoulder for someone to recognize me and drag me back here to stand trial.”
“Not if you could prove that the only crime committed was your ex framing you for his murder.”
Savannah stopped abruptly and looked at Grayson. He’d described what she really wanted. And of course he knew that, since she hadn’t exactly kept it to herself.
But his mentioning it here and now felt—well, as if he had somehow handed her a key to the future she really craved.
Not that he’d offered any guidance about finding that proof.
Still, she had an urge to hug him for his understanding.
Heck, she had an urge to hug this kind man again for more than that.
This amazingly handsome, sexy man who could have just obeyed the law and turned her over to the authorities.
And as she looked straight into his intense blue eyes, even more striking beneath his thick, sculpted brows, she had an urge to do even more with him—like drag him back into the cabin and seduce him.
Possibly the last passionate encounter she would ever experience if she was, in fact, recaptured and thrown back into prison.
Instead, she turned and restarted their walk. She inhaled the fresh, April-cool air of the woodlands. “Yes, that’s the current goal of my life. I really want to dig up the truth. Find my ex and show the world what a horrible man he is. And find out for sure why he decided to frame me, although I think it’s just because I refused to stay married to him while he did what he wanted, like seeing other women.”
“Okay, let’s start trying to figure out how to do that.”
“How?” Savannah blurted. Since escaping and hiding in this place, she had been racking her brain for ideas—and hadn’t come up with any good ones.
“Good question.” This time Grayson stopped, and Savannah immediately halted again, too. He looked down at her with an expression that suggested he was attempting to see into her mind.
To judge whether she was actually innocent?
She wasn’t about to ask.
“I want to hear it all,” he said. “From the moment your ex disappeared and the world started to believe he was dead—but you didn’t. What happened? Maybe, if we brainstorm after we discuss it, we can come up with an idea or two.”
Or hundreds, Savannah thought, since it might take that many to clear her. But she appreciated this man’s concept.
She appreciated him.
And if—when—she did get out of this, she would do what she could to repay him.
At the moment, though, as they exited the path to walk farther into the woods, onto hard ground covered with clumps of leaves—and fortunately no visibly big cracks after the earthquake—she again tamped down any idea she still retained about having sex with him.
That could lead to...well, caring.
And she didn’t intend to care for any man again for a long time, if ever. Not even one as kind as this guy.
“Okay,” she said. “Although if I get choked up—well, it’s a pretty emotional tale for me. And it’s one I’ve had to repeat multiple times after I was arrested. I told it to the cops, to my attorney and to nearly anyone who asked, but if anyone believed me it still didn’t help me get released.”
“I get it.” And damned if, as they continued forward, Grayson didn’t reach over and take her hand—possibly for stability in their walking and possibly for emotional support.
Tightening her grip slightly, Savannah forced herself not to let her eyes tear up—at least not much.
“It was like this,” she said. She explained that the night Zane had disappeared, she had been out in the evening at a friend’s place near the Rattlesnake Ridge Ranch to talk about a fund-raiser for the Mustang Valley General Hospital’s children’s wing. “Nothing was decided that night, but the group I get together with for that kind of thing has put together that scale of an event before, so we were just touching base and getting the idea started for a new bash.”
“Yeah, I think a couple of my sisters get involved now and then.”
Savannah saw a thick tree limb lying on the ground in front of them, as did Grayson, who still held her hand. “Let’s go this way, rather than climbing over,” he said, and they turned to their right. “Okay,” Grayson said in a minute. “Please continue.”
And Savannah did, hating to relive that night and the next day as she yet again described what had happened.
“We had just finalized our divorce,” she told Grayson. “I didn’t want to move back in with my family, nor did I want to stay anywhere near Zane, but I hadn’t yet figured out where to move. So I was living in a separate guesthouse on the grounds at the back of his house—our house—though he got it back as part of our divorce settlement. I avoided Zane for the most part, and he kept encouraging me to move out as soon as possible, which was fine with me. In fact, I already had someone helping me to look for a new place. Only in retrospect that turned out to be a mistake.”
Savannah almost stumbled as she thought about that particular mistake, and what it had added to the horror of her situation.
“Why was that a mistake?” Grayson prompted beside her.
“The real estate guy’s name is Schuyler Wells,” she said. She tried to concentrate on the crunchy sounds of leaves beneath their shoes to distance herself from the anger and frustration of what came next.
“I’ve heard of him,” said Grayson. “He’s a big-deal developer around here, right?”
“Right. He had ideas and connections and—well, as things went south I was accused of having a long-term affair with him. He even hinted to the cops that we had planned to run away together once my divorce was final, that we’d decided to even before...before Zane disappeared.”
“And you weren’t?” Grayson asked.
Again Savannah stopped, this time just long enough to stomp her foot on the ground. “No way.” She remained quiet until they continued forward again. She hated the way this aspect of the horror etched its way through her mind.
“Go on, please,” Grayson finally said.
Savannah explained how, living in that small back house, she hadn’t kept track of Zane’s comings and goings, so of course she wasn’t aware of whether he’d been home at all the night he supposedly disappeared.
Not that his absence would be a surprise. Even when they were married, he often wouldn’t come home at night, and Savannah assumed he was having an affair or several, although he’d always explained his absence the next day as somehow related to his business. Savannah had never bought that. Why would the owner of a highly successful investment bank need to conduct an all-night meeting? No, she’d heard rumors of his affairs and even caught him once, just before she filed for divorce, with another woman.
Still, as their relationship had deteriorated, Savannah didn’t mind his absences. She’d been irritated, though, when he’d claimed she had been going out, as well—which she recognized afterward was probably his way of boosting the allegations of her affair with Schuyler. And of course Schuyler later claimed they spent a lot of time together looking for someplace for Savannah to move, but he implied there were other, sexier, reasons, too.
“But then—well, that night was one Zane didn’t come home. The next day, late in the morning, I got a call from his office. He hadn’t shown up there, either—and that was unusual. Nor did he show up later that night or the next day. Not that I cared about him that way anymore, but I became concerned, and apparently his staff did, too. Someone called the cops, who showed up and began questioning me about what I knew about Zane and his disappearance, and why was I still living there, and what had our relationship been like recently. And then—and then—”
She had to continue. She recognized that. And if Grayson was aware at all about Zane’s alleged murder, he’d probably heard it.
“And then what?” he said.
“And then—the cops found a knife in my closet, hidden under a box. It was bloody. Of course they grabbed it and took it in and had it tested.”
“I assume the blood had Zane’s DNA in it,” Grayson said, stopping and turning to face Savannah, who also stopped but refused to look him in the face.
“You assume right,” she answered with a sob.