3

A coppery odor blustered over me on the wind as I crouched over the blood stain. I gagged and coughed, one hand flying up to cover my nose and mouth. My brain refused to process anything I'd experienced since leaving the shop. I squeezed my eyes shut, took long breaths until my ears stopped ringing, and stared at the stain again. The blood proved a corpse had rested here. I hadn't imagined it.

Well, it proved something bled here.

I'd touched the body. Now it had vanished, or been moved. Without a witness to corroborate my story, no one would buy it. I had to report it anyway. Suck it up, Lindsey.

Holstering the derringer inside my waistband, I spotted my phone on the ground where I'd dropped it and snatched it up.

Sirens wailed, muted as if far away. I knew the woods could swallow sounds, tricking the ear into believing the source lay distant. The cops might've been coming for me, or they might be rushing somewhere else, called out on another matter. I punched 9-1-1 into my phone.

The crack of a twig snapping reverberated off the trees. Someone was coming.

My went dry. I pulled in a breath, counting to ten as I released it. A tourist, that's who approached from down the trail. A goofball intent on visiting the vortex.

The breeze kissed my face. A familiar scent teased my senses. Earth and thunderstorms — and blood.

I bit down hard on my lower lip. A salty, metallic flavor seeped onto my tongue and I ran my finger across my lip. Blood slicked my fingertip. Great. I really would have blood on my hands when the sheriff arrived. I licked it off, wiped my hands on my jeans, and flipped my phone open.

Darkness draped over me. I hesitated, my finger hovering over the keys.

"What the blazes are you doing?"

The gruff voice arrowed straight into my chest. I jerked my head up, yet even before my eyes met his, I knew whose face I'd see. My heart pounded against my ribs, the air froze in my lungs, and every muscle in my body turned rigid. I clapped the phone shut.

Sheriff Travis Blackwell towered over me from several feet away, the apex of his shadow engulfing me. The sunlight imbued his dirty blond hair with a harsh glint, like tarnished gold. When he planted his hands on his hips, the dark brown shirt of his uniform stretched taut over his broad shoulders and chest. His tan pants mirrored the color of the dry earth. In one sinewy hand, he held a black box by its handle.

"Were you planning on calling me?" His Texas drawl reshaped the words.

I stretched my neck back to meet his gaze. He squinted his slate-gray eyes at me, head listing to the side, lips compressed. Sunlight glanced off his badge, spearing my eyes. My brain struggled to form coherent thoughts, but my words emerged in disjointed clumps. "Yes. I was. Going to report. Uh, what happened."

"Somebody beat you to it."

One of his deputies raced up behind him. Kal Ruoho was breathing hard, his face red.

"Get back to the shop," Travis told him, setting his black box on the ground. "Interview the staff."

The staff consisted of me, Stan, and Stan's brittle wife who filled in on my days off. Travis knew this, yet he made it sound like his deputy would have a passel of employees to question.

Kal trotted back toward the shop.

Travis settled a hand on the gun strapped to his belt. "Who'd you kill this time, Lindsey?"

Anger seared through me, evaporating my anxiety. Travis must've had magical powers, the way he always turned up at the worst moments in my life. But how in the fires of damnation did he hear about the body?

I heaved myself to my feet and, hands on hips, drummed my fingers. "What are you doing here?"

His mouth twitched downward. His Texas twang thickened a little when he said, "My oh my, ain't this the highlight of my day. Seeing the sweetheart of Mandan County."

Though I didn't overlook the sarcasm in his tone, I did let it go this time. After all, I'd torn him away from the rampant crime in the tiny village of Lutin Falls, the county seat ten miles from here, where right now someone was probably stepping on an endangered wildflower. "Why are you here?"

He slanted his head and rolled his eyes toward the ground. The blood stain. Right. "I assume that's the alleged crime scene."

"It's not alleged. I saw the body." How he knew about it mystified me. "Who called you?"

"Anonymous tip. The caller said you killed a man. That true?"

"Of course not."

"Not like it'd be the first time."

He locked his burly arms over his chest, tilting forward just enough to project menace. I stiffened. Tried not to, but this man had a way of triggering my fight-or-flight instinct. My stomach churned and the sourness of bile rose into my mouth. Dammit. I'd sworn Travis would never intimidate me again.

Yeah. How many times had I vowed that? Ten, twenty, a million?

"The better question," he said, "is why didn't you call it in?"

He shifted his weight. The .40-caliber Sig Sauer strapped to his hip bounced. I scratched my arm and stared at the white bark peeling away from a birch tree, but my gaze drifted back to the sheriff.

Travis cleared his throat, scowling. "Well? What's your excuse this time, Porter?"

I ground my teeth. Travis had used my last name, like he was interrogating a damn suspect. I cranked my face into a glower of my own. "I don't need an excuse. As usual, I've done nothing wrong." I jabbed a finger toward the blood stain. "I found a dead body there."

He quirked an eyebrow. "An invisible dead body?"

"No. Someone took it."

"Who? The corpse fairy?" His lips contorted, as if he struggled not to laugh. "How much cash you get for tucking a dead body under your pillow?"

Jackass. I choked down the word and said, "I left for a minute and when I came back, it was gone."

"Where in tarnation did you go?"

Aw hell. I ransacked my brain for an explanation, because no way could I tell him the truth. I hugged myself and fixated on the birch tree again.

"Spit it out," he said.

"Um, I… " Took off after a half-naked man I thought might've been the murderer, but he vanished, and then he came back and sniffed my hair. You understand, right? Sure, I'd say that. A straitjacket might flatter my figure. "I thought I saw someone fleeing the scene."

Good. That almost made sense.

He scrutinized me, squinting again. "Hmmm."

I dropped my arms and huffed a breath out my nose. "What do you mean hmmm?"

"Your story sounds like a load of horse shit." He narrowed his eyes. "Ain't like this is the first time I found you standing over a blood stain yammering about a disappearing victim."

My nerves bristled, as if he'd scraped a stiff brush up my spine. "There was a body, goddammit."

His expression blanked. His eyes widened, though only for a second. My glacial tone had shocked me too. Though he tried to frown, his eyes crinkled with a repressed smile. "The ice princess returns. Or maybe she never left, huh?"

The wind rustled the trees and the aspen leaves sizzled with a phantom fire. My hair feathered across my face, tickling my nose. I sneezed.

"Gesundheit," Travis said.

"Thanks." Why on earth was he being polite, I wondered, but discarded the thought. "Can I go, please? I have a job, you know."

He lodged one hand on his cocked hip. "I see a dark patch over there that might be trace evidence. I got a tip there was a murder committed and I find you admiring the crime scene."

A viscous chill oozed over my skin. I can't go through this again, please no.

"Listen up, Porter. Things'll go a lot easier on you if you tell me what you did with the body."

"You really think I could drag a body off by myself?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe you got an accomplice. Or maybe you planted some fake blood here and called in the tip yourself, just to rile me up. The caller had a funny voice that coulda been a man or a woman."

"Don't be ridiculous. There was a body."

"Nobody but you saw the alleged victim."

I clenched my teeth so hard pangs jolted through my jaw. "The body was real. I can't help that no one else noticed the man bleeding to death on the trail."

Travis blew out a breath, his cheeks swelling and deflating. "That's all you got for me?"

"Yes."

"All right then." He whipped a pair of handcuffs from his belt. "I'm taking you in for questioning."

I shuffled backward two steps, checking left and right for an escape route. The trail led to the falls or back to the shop, and tearing off into the woods without a map or GPS terrified me more than a jail cell.

"I got no choice," Travis said, and sounded almost sorry about it. "See, I know you're not telling me everything. There's been a report of a death, so I gotta take some action."

The handcuffs glittered in the sunlight.

I flicked a finger toward them. "Are the cuffs necessary?"

"No, but it's more fun for me this way."

"You're a bastard."

His scowl slackened into a blank expression, his lips parting. His gaze zeroed in on a sight beyond my shoulder.

"Perhaps I can be of assistance," a cheerful Irish voice said.

My heart skipped. Anticipation chased across my skin. Him.

The stranger who'd sniffed my hair traipsed out of the woods behind me to halt at my side. His hand brushed against my wrist. A tingle coursed up my arm and outward into my body, suffusing me with his warmth. The scent of him enveloped me and every hair on my body prickled with awareness. I resisted the urge to glance at him. My strange, bronzed god.

Not that he was mine. We weren't… anything to each other. I didn't even like the guy, really. But I itched to peek at him, and so I risked a sideways glimpse. I choked on a breath. Instead of a loincloth, jeans and a cotton dress shirt cloaked his chiseled frame. The sun glistened on his dark hair, swept back into a conservative style. He winked at me.

Was I still hallucinating? Part of me prayed I was, since that would make the dead body a figment of my mind too.

The stranger slipped his right arm around my waist. His hand bumped my gun and he ran his middle finger around the outline. His touch teased my skin through the fabric of my shirt. He drew me close, tucking me into the crook of his shoulder. Though I tried to wriggle free, but he kept his arm around me in a hold more supportive than threatening, as if we were intimately familiar with each other.

I flitted my gaze from the stranger to Travis. Wait a minute. Travis saw the other man. My Tarzan fantasy was real? Relief sluiced through me, but panic swept in behind it. There was, after all, the minor matter of the wayward corpse.

His fingers moved over my hip in a light circles. Real. I wasn't totally insane, at least.

Travis eyed my new friend with his best policeman glare. "Who are you?"

"Nevan. And you?"

"Sheriff Travis Blackwell. You got a last name, buddy?"

"I demand to know why you are threatening Lindsey."

Nevan knew my name? Duh, he must've overheard Travis using it. I poked Nevan with my elbow and muttered under my breath, "Shut up and let me go. I can handle this."

He ignored me and spoke to Travis. "While you've been harassing my Lindsey, I've been searching for the body."

Travis's gaze bored into me for a few seconds, then he squinted at Nevan. "You saw the alleged victim?"

"Indeed," Nevan said. "I saw the poor dead fellow. Lindsey's telling the truth about that."

Travis swung his attention back to me. "Is she now."

"Absolutely," Nevan said.

"Did you see an individual fleeing the scene?"

"I did."

Travis rammed his tongue into his cheek. His gaze never vacillated from me, though he aimed his words at Nevan. "Can you describe the suspect?"

"Not really. We saw the back of him, nothing more."

"Uh-huh. And what happened to the body?"

"Not a clue," Nevan said, his expression overflowing with innocence.

Travis glowered at him with such ferocity I expected flames to shoot out of the sheriff's eyes. Nevan matched Travis's eye contact with unwavering intensity, yet managed to hold onto his look of utter innocence.

I waved my hand between the men's faces. When Travis rotated his eyes toward me, I asked, "Are we done here?"

"Hardly," Travis said. "You're still a suspect."

"I didn't do anything."

"Gotta take you in for questioning. None of this adds up and I want some frigging answers. From both of you."

My mystery man bounced on his heels, jostling me against his firm torso. My stomach fluttered, but I coerced a calm demeanor from my traitorous body. His voice took on a decisive edge, though somehow he imbued his words with politeness. "Lindsey has answered enough of your questions."

Travis curled his lip at Nevan.

I jabbed a finger in Nevan's side. He either didn't notice or didn't care. I poked him again and hissed out the side of my mouth, "Cut it out. You're not helping."

He ignored me. Again.

Travis crouched beside the blood stain. He cracked open the black box he'd brought, which held plastic bags and other equipment.

I rose onto tiptoes for a better angle. "What are you doing?"

"Collecting evidence." He donned a pair of latex gloves and set about his work. When he'd finished gathering a sample of the blood-soaked dirt, he closed up his kit and rose. "No tire tracks or drag marks, no footprints other than yours."

No footprints? But Nevan had run past the body. Impossible.

Travis sighed. "You're coming with me, Lindsey."

"But — "

Kal jogged up the trail, halting at the edge of the clearing. Travis held up one finger to me. "Wait here." His lip curled once more as he told Nevan, "That means you too."

Travis retreated to the clearing's edge to chat with Kal, their backs to us, their voices too indistinct to make out.

I murmured to Nevan, "Thank you."

"Are you expressing gratitude to me?" Surprise tinged his voice.

"Yes. Thank you for sticking up for me with Travis."

"You're most welcome." He hesitated, and when he spoke again, I swore I detected a note of anxiety in his voice. "But in the future, take care when thanking me. It may have unforeseen consequences."

"Such as?"

Another pause. "Take my word for it, that's all I ask."

His clothes dissolved. No other way to describe it. They simply evaporated into nothing — save for the loincloth, which coalesced around his hips. His skin burned hot against mine as his arm shifted up to my shoulders and one fingertip traced a circular path on my upper arm, carving a trail of sensation in its wake. It felt so good I wanted to snuggle into him, lost to the tingle his touch ignited.

No. I did not want to.

I could not be attracted to a man I'd just met who had swirling eyes and the ability to poof in and out of view, who was arrogant and annoyed me. Then again, he had lured me away from the dead man because I seemed upset. And he distracted me from the problem until I calmed down. And he saved me from cracking my skull on a huge rock. He stood up for me with Travis too. Maybe I did know a little bit about him.

But not nearly enough.

I disentangled myself from his hold, scurried a few steps away, and spun to confront him. "Why did you do it?"

He sauntered to the nearest tree, a couple yards away, and leaned his long body against the trunk. "You'll have to be a bit more specific, love, if you want me to answer."

"Are you saying you will answer my questions?"

"Possibly." He raked a hand through his hair and his biceps bulged from the movement. His voice dropped to a husky whisper. "If you're nice to me."

"Nice?" I stomped closer. "What the hell do you mean?"

"If you'd quit swearing at me, that'd be a start."

I clenched my hands into tight fists. My nails dug into my palms and pain shot through my knuckles. "I'm so sorry if my language offends you. I'd think a guy who can poof in and out of sight would have a thicker skin."

"My, but you are fetching when you're vexed."

I scrunched my lips, fuming with an anger rooted in more than this man's sarcastic, blasé attitude. Yet I had seen glimmers of deeper emotions under the surface, which made me wonder if his nonchalance was a cover. For what, though?

He arched an eyebrow. "Are ye all right?"

"Fine." I forced my hands to unclench. "What are you?"

"A man. Has it been so long since ye had one that you're unsure?"

"I — wh — " My thoughts disintegrated, but I gathered the bits and pieced them back together. My brain ached from the effort. "My personal life is none of your business."

He pushed away from the tree. Strode toward me. Stared into my eyes. The molten metal of his irises feathered a tingle down my spine.

I floundered backward. "What do you want from me?"

"To understand," he said in a sultry tone, as his eyes towed me down into their depths. "You intrigue me and I must deduce why."

"Huh?"

His gaze stroked over me from head to toe. "Shall we play, darlin'?"

"This isn't a game."

"It could be. If you'd loosen up a bit."

"Loosen up?" The spell shattered, I shot my best glare at him. "Forgive me if I have trouble relaxing around a complete stranger."

"It was a suggestion, not a command. Though I cannot comprehend how a person could be so tense and not snap like a twig underfoot."

I had the most ridiculous urge to explain myself, but I bit it back. "This conversation is over. Thanks for the assist, but I hope I never see you again."

His face pinched and he glanced away. When he turned back to me, the nonchalance swept in again. "I suppose you'll be returning to the shop then?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but I plan to scarf down an insanely fattening lunch, gain five pounds in the process, and then go back to work and pretend none of this ever happened."

"Your friend the sheriff seems intent on detaining you."

"He's not m — Ugh, forget it. Maybe I can talk him out of arresting me." Riiiight. And then I'd take my pet unicorn for a stroll.

Amusement tugged at one corner of Nevan's mouth. "Good luck with that, darlin'."

I whirled on my heels and stomped toward Travis. I felt Nevan's gaze tracking me, like a warm breeze tickling the back of my neck. Don't look back, just keep walking.

A raven squawked overhead.

I shielded my eyes to spy the bird swooping in front of the sun. Its head angled in my direction, those coal-dark eyes sharp on me. I had the strange sensation the bird was sizing me up.

The raven flew out of sight.

I tapped Travis on the shoulder. He started, half turning toward me. How he missed the weirdness unfolding right behind him baffled me, but I didn't have time to worry about that. I held out my hands, wrists together. Right now, a jail cell sounded like a haven from the insanity around me. The supernatural around me. "Arrest me or let me go, please."

Travis's brows shot up. He nodded to Kal, who set off down the trail toward the shop. Travis hooked the cuffs around my wrists, each locking shut with a metallic snick. My stomach twisted. My fingers grew cold, despite the sweltering day.

"You ain't under arrest — yet." Travis placed a hand on my shoulder to guide me down the path in front of him. "But I am taking you in."

A pang tightened the back of my throat.

Travis's brow furrowed, his gaze scanning the woods behind us. "Where'd your friend go?"

Good question. Nevan was gone, again. "He had to leave. Urgent personal business."

"How the hell'd he get past me and — Never mind." He cursed under his breath. "I'll track him down if I have to comb the whole county to do it."

I bowed my head. A bead of sweat rolled down my temple to splat onto my chest.

Travis gave me a little shove, urging me to move faster. "You won't see the sun again, Porter, till I get answers to every damn one of my questions."

*****

"Couldn't find a body, if there ever was one," Travis snarled. He slammed the driver's door of the vehicle. A sticky breeze surged in through the open windows. I slumped into the backseat, a sour taste infiltrating my mouth. He'd left me here for an hour — inside his Ford Expedition marked with the sheriff's logo, branding me a suspicious character by association — while he, Kal, and Stan searched for the missing corpse.

They found nothing. No body, no tracks, no evidence aside from the blood stain. For a moment, I feared I'd imagined the whole incident. But Travis had met Nevan, which meant I wasn't crazy. Probably. Hormone-addled, yes. Crazy, not so much.

Revving the engine, Travis rolled up the windows as the air conditioner rushed cool air through the car. "I'm sending the blood sample off to the state lab for analysis. If it comes back as porcupine, you're in big trouble for wasting police time."

"There was a body." My attention wandered to the rear of the rock shop and the woods beyond it. I pitched sideways, straining for a better view. "Nevan corroborated my story, remember?"

He twisted around to nail those cool, gray eyes on me. "Yeah, I'm sure your boyfriend wouldn't lie for you or anything."

"Nevan is not — " I'd almost blurted out he wasn't my boyfriend. Don't tell him the truth, dummy, it'll blow your alibi. Yeah, because I had such an ironclad one. "Nevan's not a liar."

But I was. Nevan hadn't exactly lied to me. He refused to tell me much of anything.

Travis's lips flattened into a thin line. He let out an exasperated sigh. "I don't get it. Why'd you hook up with a sleaze like Nivea?"

I clamped my lips between my teeth for a second to avoid laughing. "His name is Nevan. And it's none of your business who I hook up with."

Jeez. For the first time in my life, I'd uttered the phrase "hook up." Not that I'd done any such thing.

"Guess you're right," Travis said. "And I reckon I should worry more about what you'll do to him than what he'll do to you."

"You have no clue what really happened with Calder."

"Enlighten me."

I ground my teeth, which only made my jaw ache.

He draped one wrist over the steering wheel, his fingers coiled into his palm. "No body, no crime. If you won't talk, I can't help."

I fidgeted, the cuffs biting into my wrists. "I didn't ask for your help."

"But ya sure as hellfire need it."

Maybe I did need help, but I positively did not want his assistance. So I changed the subject. "Why did you follow me here?"

"Somebody called in a tip, Porter."

"No. Why did you follow me to Michigan?" I'd moved here to get away from the Blackwell clan and everything I'd suffered in Texas. Six months after I came here, Travis showed up and wouldn't explain why or how he'd found me. "How'd you even track me down?"

He scratched his neck, eyes averted. "I'm a cop, Lindsey, and you ain't exactly an experienced criminal. Tracking you down wasn't that complicated."

"Why bother? You hate me." I'd avoided asking him for three years, because I avoided contact with him as much as possible and I avoided conversation with him at all costs. He might think he wanted the truth about his brother, but he'd never believe me if I told him what Calder had done.

Travis stared into space for several seconds, while I squirmed in an attempt to scratch an itch on my back by rubbing it against the seat. At last, he looked at me over his shoulder. "I gotta protect the good citizens of Mandan County from the likes of you."

He steered the vehicle out of the parking lot onto the highway, taking me back to his office for an interrogation. I glanced behind the car, into the woods. My life had changed irrevocably and I still had no idea how or why.

I wrinkled my nose at a strange odor wafting over me, something like cat urine but not quite. Did Travis never clean this car?

A sensation of pressure slithered down my neck, almost like fingertips closing around my throat. Tighter. Tighter. I fought for breath but couldn't budge a muscle. My pulse thundered in my ears. In the rearview mirror, Travis's eyes stayed focused on the road ahead. The pressure choked my throat and a voice growled in my ear.

"Mine forever, sweet thing, or no one's."

Dark splotches encroached on my vision. I struggled to shout for help, but it came out as a strangled hiccup.

The phantom fingers sprang free of my neck. I sucked in a wheezing breath.

"You okay back there?" Travis asked, studying me in the rearview mirror.

I coughed, rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, and drew in a slow breath. "Just got a little overheated, I think."

He cranked up the AC and cool air flooded into the backseat. The blessed relief of it calmed my nerves, but a lingering doubt niggled at me. Maybe I'd had a panic attack due to the stress of the day, or my mind snapped under the strain of paranormal shenanigans. I might've believed that, except the words I'd heard a moment ago were familiar. Calder Blackwell issued the same threat on the night that destroyed my life.

I tucked my hands between my thighs, my fingers suddenly chilled. He wasn't here. He couldn't be.

Calder had been dead for three years.