When Chandler didn’t answer right away, she considered tossing herself out the window. Surely that was better than suffering the humiliation of after-spontaneous-sex, stilted, awkward conversation.
“Your silence is deafening,” she said when she couldn’t stand it another blasted second.
“I’m fairly sure there’s something I should have told you before now.”
Oh, God! Oh, no. Not the I-really-like-you-but-I’mn-ot-looking-for-a-serious-relationship-right-now pep talk. That was worse than silence.
“Please.” She ripped the blanket from the bed, “don’t.” She spun to wrap herself in the yards of fabric. “Say.” She held the edge of the blanket and snapped up her clothing as she headed for the door. “Another.” She stumbled, reaching for her panties, which had somehow landed near the back of his nightstand. “Word.”
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered as soon as she was safely locked in her own room. Allowing the blanket to fall to the floor, she went into the bathroom and ran the shower. Stepping under the stream, she realized it wouldn’t help.
Stupid didn’t wash off.
“Physician, heal thyself,” she grumbled before the warm water drowned out the sound of her own voice.
AN HOUR LATER Chandler was slamming cabinet doors for no particular reason. Unless he acknowledged that he couldn’t think of a single reason why she wouldn’t hate the sight of him by morning.
“I know why we made love,” he mimicked, his tone heavy with sarcasm and self-disgust. He’d actually meant to say he knew why he’d made love to her. What he didn’t know was why he hadn’t told her the most important detail of his life beforehand.
“We made love?” Shane asked as he slipped into the room.
Startled and angry at himself, Chandler dropped his beer. Foam and brew sprayed him as a final, crowning insult.
“Not now, Shane.”
His younger brother whistled. “I take it that it didn’t go well.” Shane’s expression registered shock and horror. “It did…go, though, right?
Chandler grabbed the towel from the handle of the fridge and began sopping up the mess. “When I said I didn’t want to talk, that included my sex life.”
“Don’t take it out on me,” Shane tossed, holding his hands up in surrender while his eyes followed every move Chandler made.
It was annoying. Okay, so maybe deep down inside—way down—he knew his annoyance wasn’t directed specifically at Shane. He just happened to be handy.
“Want a beer?”
“In a bottle or do I have to lick it off the floor?”
Chandler paused and leaned over the open door, feeling the cold air rush out and slip between the open edges of the shirt he’d yanked on. He glared at his brother, who didn’t so much as flinch. “Do you want one or not?”
“Absolutely,” Shane replied. “Can’t let you drink alone during your time of crisis.”
“You’re a regular prince,” Chandler drawled, placing two bottles on the table before swinging his leg over the back of his chair, then settling in.
“I hate to break this to you, Chandler,” Shane began, stopping long enough to pry the top off both bottles by levering them against the table’s edge. “But you aren’t your usual chipper self just now. Nothing else happened with John, did it?”
“I don’t need John. Apparently I’m very capable of slitting my own wrists.”
“What happened?” Shane asked, leaning forward on his elbows and keeping his voice low.
Chandler appreciated the gesture. And, what the hell? Maybe he needed a fresh perspective. “I haven’t been totally honest with Molly.”
“About what?” Shane challenged. “You’re okay on the big one.”
“The big one?”
“You aren’t otherwise attached to anyone at the moment.”
Somehow Chandler didn’t find great comfort in that. “There was something I should have told her and didn’t.”
“So, tell her now.”
“It’s not that easy,” Chandler groaned before taking a long swallow of the bitter drink. “It started out as a private joke. I was amusing myself about this thing at her expense. It wasn’t intentional. I didn’t plan on feeling this way about her.”
“And what way is that?”
Ignoring his brother’s irritating and childishly bobbing eyebrows, he answered, “I’m not sure. By the way, that’s part two of this problem. I should have thought first and acted second.”
“We’re men,” Shane sang. “We’re genetically incapable of thinking before we act when it comes to women.”
“That’s crap.”
“True, but I’m sticking with it, anyway.”
“Shane, you aren’t helping here.”
His brother let out a breath and his expression grew more serious. “Fine. Look, if you aren’t willing to come clean with the lady about…whatever, then keep your fly zipped. And if you know in your heart that you should not have gone to bed with the fetching Dr. Jameson, then apologize and mean it.”
“She won’t be thrilled with either of those possibilities. Is there another option?”
“Sure, you can wait for Taylor to find out you hosed her friend, and your problem will be solved.”
His spirits lifted marginally. “Taylor will help me?”
“Nope. She’ll kill you, which pretty much makes everything else irrelevant.”
“I’M STANDING OUTSIDE NOW,” Molly explained. “Can you hear me?”
“I have been worried sick,” Claire complained. “I’ve been reading the papers and watching the news and—wait! First, tell me why hunky news guy isn’t on television anymore. What happened? There’s a redhead on instead and I promise you, he isn’t nearly as much fun to watch as your new friend.”
“Hush,” Molly pleaded. “I’ll tell you if you’ll stop talking for a minute.”
“Sorry.”
“Me, too,” Molly admitted, brushing the hair out of her eyes. “I’m going out of my mind.”
“John?”
“Chandler. We had a…a thing, and well, that was two days ago and he’s practically gone into hibernation since then. He arranged for a deputy to baby-sit here while he goes off to wherever. I’m so bored I could scream.”
“You had a thing?”
“We’re focusing on the boredom,” Molly reminded her dearest friend as gently and firmly as possible.
“I’m not bored now. I want to know about the thing.”
“This wasn’t a good idea.”
“Okay, okay,” Claire relented. “I’ll stop. So long as you promise that exactly one year from now you’ll tell me the whole story. Bring pictures if you have any.”
“You are so bad.”
“No, but apparently you were. So you’ve been banished to the sticks?”
“It’s lovely here, but I need something to do.”
“So go to your office and look at some ink blots or whatever it is you do. Take the deputy with you,” Claire insisted. “Since John hasn’t bothered you in a few days, I think you deserve some early-release time. Just stay with the officer and don’t take any unnecessary risks.”
“Think that would be okay?”
“Well.” Claire paused briefly, then finished by saying, “I think you’re safest right there on the ranch, but I know you. I think so long as you take every possible precaution, you should be able to go to your own office.”
“Me, too,” she agreed, already feeling better. “I can’t see patients, but I can go back through my files to see if I can figure out who John really is.”
“But no heroics, right?”
Molly was touched by her friend’s concern. “I won’t use any of my superpowers on the evildoers. Besides, doesn’t it make more sense to think John is just toying with me but his real target is Chandler?” Molly felt dread settle in her stomach when she voiced her hypothesis to Claire. “He’s more obvious, and we haven’t heard a thing from John since Chandler stopped doing the news.”
“That does make sense,” Claire agreed. “Want me to do a background check on Chandler? See if anything pops up?”
“Nothing will,” Molly insisted. “This family doesn’t have secrets. They have the opposite of secrets. I’m guessing none of them are flashy about money because the real currency in this family is privacy.”
“Are you picking them apart because you’re jealous?”
“Yes,” Molly admitted. “I’ve been trying to hate them, but the truth is, they are the nicest people I’ve ever met. I’m pretty much a stranger, they’ve gone out of their way to make me feel welcome. If one isn’t making me a home-cooked meal, someone else is sending over a magazine or a book. The phone rings constantly. Someone is always checking on me.”
“That is nice,” Claire agreed. “You’re welcome to come up here, you know.”
“I know. I don’t want to put you or Stan in danger.”
“I love you. We can figure something out if you change your mind.”
Molly flicked at a pebble with her big toe, truly touched by her friend’s willingness to sacrifice. But she wouldn’t change her mind. “I’m good,” she insisted. “Gavin offered to let me crash at his place. I told him no, as well.”
“Really? Liking life as a Landry, huh?”
Just liking one Landry in particular, she thought. “Worse things could happen to you.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do? I’m a computer genius, Mol. Let me hack into a few secure servers on your behalf just to check on the Landry brothers. If there’s any gossip to be—“
“No.” Molly was emphatic. Aside from knowing it was futile, there was something inappropriate about gathering information about Chandler and his family that she had no business knowing. Chandler had been very open and honest from the get-go, and she didn’t have a hope in hell of sorting out their relationship if she did something so desperately underhanded.
Relationship. The word played in her mind long after she’d said goodbye to Claire. They didn’t have a relationship, they had a…a what?
Nothing. Especially if she couldn’t get Chandler to say more than polite niceties.
“Why does it have to be so hard?” she asked as she went in search of the deputy to let him know about their road trip.
He was less than enthusiastic.
“I have orders, ma’am. Orders from the sheriff.”
“Then why don’t I just call the sheriff,” she suggested.
Molly returned to the house, grabbed the phone from its cradle and pounded the numbers on the keypad in the order supplied on a sheet of paper in what she now recognized as Chandler’s neat, block printing.
Seth’s secretary put her through almost immediately. “Hi, Molly, is there a problem?”
“Want them in random or chronological order?”
“You don’t sound happy,” he said, his voice calm, reasonable and tinged with an appropriate amount of concern. “What happened?”
“I’m tired of house arrest,” she grumbled without preamble. “I want to go to my office, but the teenage brown shirt you have posted at the door won’t cooperate.”
She heard him muffle a laugh before saying, “He’s almost thirty.”
“Whatever. Look, Chandler gets to go off all day. Why am I cooped up and guarded like a terrorist?”
“For your own safety?” She heard him expel a breath. “I’m sure its getting to you, but I think you should hang on a bit longer.”
“No. I heard you talking to Chandler last night. I know you’ve had my office under surveillance twenty-four hours a day since John left the bomb there for poor Mr. LaBrett to find. I need to go there, Seth. I still haven’t gone through my patient files. It has to be done.”
“I’ll do it.”
“No way,” she insisted. “They’re confidential medical records.”
“I don’t like the idea of you going alone. Can’t you wait for Chandler to finish his…to finish?”
His what? Too bad she wasn’t a real Landry. They didn’t have secrets between them, and she’d have some idea where he was and what he was up to. Thus far she’d gotten little more than vague claims about working on something.
“No, Seth. Even if I have to call old Moe at the filling station to ask for a ride in his tow truck, I’m going to my office.”
“I’ll radio the deputy,” Seth relented, though she could tell he wasn’t happy about it. “He’ll drive you and stay with you.”
“Fine.”
“I mean stay with you, Molly. Not outside, not in the next room, I mean in plain sight at all times.”
Touched by his very genuine concern for her safety, Molly thanked him. “I’ll be good, promise.”
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“When you get to your office, will you give me a call?”
“I have to check in?”
“Yes. But I also need whatever nonconfidential information you have on Jonas Black. I’m still not finding anything current on him.”
She agreed, though she was certain that Seth was barking up the wrong tree. Jonas and John were not one and the same.
It was an unusually warm day by Montana standards so she ran up and changed from slacks to a pair of shorts and a trendy T-shirt she’d borrowed with Taylor’s permission. The clothing she’d bought didn’t even come close to rebuilding a wardrobe.
Besides, this outfit was far more suited to rummaging around in the basement, searching dusty old files.
Deputy pencil neck drove her into town, passed the park where normal people were. Doing normal things like playing ball, sharing picnics and jogging the path that ran parallel to the road. It was a beautiful, sunny day and she was going to spend it stuck inside.
Well, if she was going to be a prisoner of necessity, she was going to make good use of her confinement. After making that decision, she felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Until and if something else happened, she vowed not to let her fear of John control her anymore.
And the same for Chandler. Well, not the same. John’s actions toyed with her mind. Chandler had a direct line to her heart. That was a harder war to wage.
And a stupid one, to boot. They were both adults. So what if they had one lapse in judgment? This cold war was childish and she wasn’t interested in letting it continue. The next time she saw Chandler, she would simply clear the air. Let him know that while it had been a pleasant diversion, she was fine with it being nothing more than that.
Okay, so fine was a stretch. Odd as it seemed, she could be fine with it. Especially if that meant they could go back to being friends. She missed him. Molly would rather have him be in her life than a memory from her life.
Okay, if she suddenly got complete control over the universe, Chandler would be more than her friend. At the very least, he’d be adult enough and brave enough to just see what might happen.
“Men are such jerks,” she muttered.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t hear you.”
Just as well. She’d all but forgotten about the deputy during the drive. “It’s up ahead on the right,” she said as the entrance to the parking lot came into view.
A few minutes later she was inside, with the deputy on her heels, the strap on his holster unsnapped. The heavy scent of industrial cleaner almost smacked her in the face. Then she was hit again by the memory of finding her patient dead. Everything in the room was spotless. The only indication that a brutal murder had occurred was a very faint stain next to the waiting-room chair. Bypassing that section, she moved to the second door and used her key.
Crooking her finger, she said, “C’mon. Follow me.” She showed him into the private office, tossing her keys and her purse on the cluttered desk, then moving to the double doors to open them, as well. “There’s soda and water in the minifridge. Probably a few candy bars in there, too.”
She turned to find him standing like a statue in the center of the room. This isn’t going to work. Donning her brightest smile, she asked, “Do you have a first name?”
“Ma’am?”
“A name? Surely your parents didn’t call you Deputy.”
He blushed and grinned all at once. “No, ma’am. Riggs. Harlen Riggs.”
“May I call you Harlen?”
The color on his cheeks deepened. “Bud, ma’am. I go by Bud.”
Who knew it took twenty questions to end up with Bud? “Okay, Bud. Call me Molly. I’m going to work now, so you can do…whatever it is you do. That door—” she paused and pointed to a small door nearly hidden by the large chair angled out from the corner “—that leads down to the basement. I might have to go downstairs in a little while.”
“I’ll be going with you, ma’am. Sheriff was real clear on that.”
She shrugged and went to her chair, falling into it, then scooting over to the first of three file drawers.
It was one of those situations where she didn’t know what she was looking for but hoped she’d recognize it when she saw it. She’d call Seth when and if she did. Though she couldn’t hold the proverbial candle to Chandler’s pathological penchant for organization, she started in the most logical place. The green folders. They were the court-ordered cases dating back two years.
Absently she tapped the eraser end of her pencil on the desktop as she read through the files. All the As, then the Bs, and so on and so on. She reached the letter F before the need to stand and stretch took hold.
Deputy Riggs reminded her of those dedicated soldiers she saw on the television. The ones who stood guard over national monuments. Eyes straight ahead, alert and as stiff as a statue. “Want something to drink?”
On her way to the minifridge, she stopped, placed her hands at her waist and bent from side to side in an attempt to loosen the tight muscles at the small of her back.
“Anything would be fine, ma’am.”
She grabbed two bottles of water and handed one off to him. “Do you want a magazine or something?”
“I’m fine, ma’am.”
After taking a drink, she jumped to sit up on her desk and regarded him for part of a minute. “This is me taking a break,” she explained. “Live a little, Bud. At least take your hat off.”
Somewhat reluctantly he removed the standard-issue Stetson and placed it gently in his lap. It was a start. “So, when you’re not baby-sitting me, what kinds of things do you like?”
“Ma’am?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you’ll stop calling me that. Molly is fine. Really.”
“Yes, Ma— Molly.”
“We’re making great headway,” she told him, ignoring the wary look in his pale eyes. “How long have you been with the sheriff’s department?”
“Going on five years.”
“Do you like it?”
Some of the trepidation drained from his expression. “Yes. Yes, I do. I get to help people. I meet a lot of interesting people in my line of work.”
“Did you always want to be a cop?”
He nodded, giving her a glimpse of scalp through the closely shorn stubble on his head. “Since I was small. My daddy was in the military. An MP. I thought about the service, but it wasn’t really for me.”
“Me, neither.”
There was a long, painful gap in their fragmented attempt at conversation. Molly had pretty much given up on him when he suddenly asked, “Are you a real doctor?”
The temptation to point to the degrees framed on the wall behind her was strong, but she opted not to, instead telling him about her training. “I even spent three months at Quantico working with their Behavioral Science Unit.”
“Like in Silence of the Lambs?” He perked right up then.
“Yes. I learned all about profiling criminals. It was pretty interesting. I liked the—” Her cell phone rang at the same time someone began pounding on the front door.
Concurrent events seemed to throw her protector into a state of confusion. Gently she suggested, “You get the door while I answer my phone.”
As if her cell service wasn’t already a challenge, she heard Chandler’s voice bellowing through the office just as she was trying to navigate around the room in search of a clear signal. “Hello?”
Static.
“Dammit! Hello? Hang on,” she walked out into the waiting room. “Are you still there?”
“Hel…olly…ollege” was all she was able to catch from the garbled connection.
“Gavin?” she yelled, pushing past Chandler—though mentally noting he looked quite handsome—to reach the outside. “Gavin? Is that you?”
“Molly, dear,” Gavin began in a rush, “something dreadful has happened.”