Secrets Of Bella Terra (21 page)

“His mother’s on her way. We’ll get
DNA
and a positive ID, but I’d bet that it’s Hernández. The coroner confirmed that the body had been buried for some time, at least a week, and then dug up and deposited in the Dumpster.” DuPey’s hangdog face never changed expression, but Rafe thought he was pleased with the results of his investigation. “I say the body was buried somewhere close.”

“Because otherwise, why bring it back here?” Rafe looked between the two men. “But why not leave the body where it was?”

“It’s spring,” Noah reminded him. “The vintners are plowing around the vines.”

“Right.” Rafe followed the logic to the next fact. “The killer figured the body would come to light. He was better off if everyone thought Hernández had merely quit.”

“The good news is”—DuPey didn’t quite grin, but he looked damned pleased—“all the vineyards test their soils all the time for information on the best nutrients to use to maximize the grape yield.”

This was better news than Rafe could have anticipated. “So you should be able to figure out where the body was buried by testing the dirt clinging to the flesh.”

“Exactly,” DuPey said.

Rafe knew how difficult it was to haul a body, especially a decomposing body. “So possibly the vineyard on resort grounds.”

“Probably.” Noah sounded disgusted and perturbed. “This is bad for business. I’ve already got guests checking out because they’re freaked by—”

“Shh!”
Rafe held up his hand and looked toward the house. He heard it again, a call muffled by fear and distance, and plunged toward the cottage.

As he ran, he heard DuPey say, “I dunno, Noah. I’d say he’s going to pay his debt one way or the other.”

B
rooke was sitting up, eyes wide, covers pulled up to her chest.

Rafe walked into the room, making enough noise to alert her to his presence, making sure nothing seemed weird or supernatural. “Hey, there, Brooke.” He kept his voice low and soothing. “You’re awake. Do you need to go to the bathroom? How about a drink of water?”

She watched him suspiciously, as if she’d never seen him before.

Going to the bed, he presented his palm.

He had hoped to ground her with his touch, to take her away from the shadows of night and death and bring her back to the mundane and bearable.

She considered him, then placed her hand in his.

And when her fingers wrapped trustingly around his, he found her touch worked on him, too, that she took him away from his worries about his team and the mysteries that haunted his visit to Bella Terra and pulled him into some kind of normal all-American middle-class life.

Some people would call that life a nightmare.

He knew better. That life was everything a weary, disillusioned warrior could ever desire.

He helped her into her bathrobe—he’d found it, a short blue silk robe, hanging on a hook on the back of the door—then escorted her to the bathroom. He asked if she needed help, and when she shook her head, he left her alone and went into the kitchen.

When she came out, he had food on a tray beside the bed: artfully arranged appetizers, fruits and vegetables cut into bite-size pieces, finger foods and dips. “The chef sent these over from the restaurant kitchen with a note hoping that you’re doing well.”

“He’s a good guy.” She looked shaky, but her voice sounded surprisingly natural, and she seated herself on the bed and looked over the food with mild interest.

“After a day like today, you need some fuel.” He kept chatting, treating the afternoon’s events casually, then moving on. Pointing to the radish roses, he said, “Check that out. How do they make them look like that?”

“More important, why do they make them look like that?” A smile played at the edges of her lips. “I’ve always thought a vegetable that masquerades as a flower is faking it.”

“Here. Let me put it out of its misery.” He popped the radish into his mouth.

She chuckled and spread a cracker with pimento cheese. As she ate, he continued the smooth, bland, nonthreatening conversation until she abruptly leaned against the pillow and said, “That’s enough.”

“Sure.” He handed her an open bottle of water. Picking up the tray, he headed back toward the kitchen.

“Rafe!” she called, stopped him in the doorway. “Is Madelyn okay?”

“I haven’t checked.” He’d been busy with other things. With her.

She reached for the phone. “I’ll find out.”

While he put the food in the fridge, he listened to her speaking to someone on the other end, and when silence fell, he went back in the bedroom and found her sitting on the bed, staring at the half-empty bottle in her hand.

“Everything okay with Madelyn?” he asked.

“I talked to Ebrillwen. She took Madelyn home and is staying with her and her daughter.”

“Madelyn has a daughter?” That surprised him. Madelyn, with her tats and her shaved head, looked too young and tough to have a kid, especially a daughter.

A daughter . . .

“Nice girl. She’s been through a lot lately, too.” Brooke’s voice shook.

He scrutinized her. The color rose and fell in her face, and her eyes were haunted. Not too much longer, and the memories would overwhelm her and she would be lost to the storm of emotion.

Then she took a long breath and was calm once more.

Yes, a storm of emotion hung ominously on the horizon. But not yet. Not yet.

“Ready for bed?” he asked, and kicked off his shoes and peeled off his shirt.

As he unbuckled his belt and dropped his pants, her eyes grew wide and startled.

“How do you do that?” She stared at the erection that lifted his boxers. “You’ve been hard half the day, and here you are again.”

“Happens every time I’m near you.”

She pulled a long, disbelieving face.

“You’re thinking you haven’t seen me walking around with the little general standing at attention. There’s a reason for that.”

“Do tell.”

“Since I got home, I’ve spent so much time in the shower trying to get rid of my permanent hard-on, my toes are wrinkled and pruney.”

Brooke gave a spurt of laughter. “You mean you’ve been—”

“Slapping the salami? Yeah.” He grinned at her. “Why do you think I have such a firm handshake?”

She laughed harder. And harder.

Abruptly the laughter turned to tears.

He reached for her, pulled her into his arms, and she cried until she had sobbed herself into exhaustion.

W
hen the sun came in the window, Brooke woke. There was no comfortable, fuzzy moment of amnesia, no leisurely stretching or moment of sexual satisfaction. Instead, she remembered immediately: the Dumpster, the body, Rafe, DuPey, the shower, the sex, the laughter, the tears. Everything that had happened yesterday was branded into her mind, now an integral part of her character. But although the sorrow and horror still weighed on her, she was at peace. A little sore between the legs, but at peace.

Yesterday and last night, Rafe had helped her. He had washed her, distracted her, fed her, entertained her . . . held her while she cried and while she slept.

This morning, the monsters were gone. Maybe they would return; probably she’d have nightmares; certainly for all her life she would recall looking into a corpse’s eyes and knowing he had once been a man she had known and liked.

But she was herself once more . . . and she was, perhaps, a little more in love with Rafe than she ever had been before.

Rising, she used the bathroom, then donned her robe and wandered out to the kitchen, following the smell of bacon.

The front door was open, letting in the fresh morning air. The screen door was shut, closing out the bugs. Rafe stood before the stovetop, barefoot, bare-chested, clad in a pair of jeans and a leather belt. When she stepped into the kitchen, he never turned his head, but he called, “Bacon and eggs, because you need protein to get you through. Today’s going to suck, what with DuPey bugging you for details and everyone asking if you’re all right.”

He was right. It was going to suck. “Protein sounds good.” She eased herself onto her stool at the breakfast bar.

“One egg or two?”

“One. You want me to make the toast?”

“I want you to sit right there and let me wait on you.” He shot her a laughing glance. “Enjoy it. If you’re lucky, it’ll only happen once.”

“Because a day like yesterday will only happen once, you mean?”

“Right.” He put the plate in front of her. Cantaloupe, crisp bacon, wheat toast, marmalade,
two
eggs.

“High-handed,” she said mildly.

“Orange juice?” he asked.

“Milk.”

“You bet.”

A glass of skim appeared at two o’clock on her place mat. “Thank you.” She ate with appetite, not like last night, when she had nibbled, feeding an unsteady stomach. Today she ate with the full knowledge that she couldn’t change the past and today was going to be, as Rafe predicted, difficult.

Glancing up, she watched Rafe pull on a clean black T-shirt. “Where’d you get that?”

“Before daybreak this morning, I took the walk of shame to my cottage and picked up a different outfit.” He leaned on the counter and grinned at her. “I figured you wouldn’t want me traipsing out of here dressed in the same stuff I wore yesterday. Might sorta make people think something went on here last night.”

“What did happen here last night?”

“We found each other again.”

She put down her fork. She reached across the counter, grabbed his shirt, and pulled him close. “Sometimes I remember why I like you.”

His blue eyes turned a dark, greedy gray. “Why do you?”

“You’re not always a jerk.”

“Damned with faint praise.”

“Sometimes you’re pretty smart.”

“Your flattery stings like a slap to the face.”

“You want flattery? You’re great in bed and you have moments of thoughtfulness.”

“I’m great in bed because you’re between the sheets.” His voice was a solemn breath.

To be so close to him, to know what he’d done for her, how he’d understood and cared for her . . . The two of them shared so much history. She breathed in the scent of his soap, watched his lips grow closer, and today, this moment, felt like sex and love and two souls in union.

With a thunk, the front screen door snapped open.

The two of them jumped and swung to face the newcomer.

Kathy Petersson, her mom, dark haired, blue eyed, leaned on her walker and glared coldly. “I came by because I was worried about you, Brooke, but I see I needn’t have bothered.”

Brooke suffered a moment of disorientation. She had been here before. They had all been here before. In high school. In college.

How did it always come back to this?

Brooke let go of Rafe’s shirt, and of the moment.

Rafe straightened.

Brooke felt herself redden.

No one else on earth could have made her feel guilty. But her mother could, and did.

Brooke cleared her throat. “Mom! Did you hear about—”

“The murder? On the news this morning. Yes.” Kathy pushed her walker into the cottage. “I knew Rafe would be at the crime scene. I didn’t expect him to be in your kitchen after being so clearly in your bedroom.”

Brooke expected Rafe to say something. Help her out. Explain.

But he stood and watched her mother move slowly into the living room in seeming astonishment, as if he didn’t understand why she was perturbed.

Brooke tried to think of the best way to explain. “Rafe stayed with me last night.”

“Obviously,” Kathy said forbiddingly.

Brooke was an adult. She had had sex. So what?

Why was she feeling obliged to explain?

Oh, yeah.
Because this was her mother. And although they lived their own lives, the two of them had been and always would be family.

“Rafe is here because he understood the kind of trauma I went through.” Taking her fork, Brooke poked him in the arm to make him talk.

He jumped. “I do understand Brooke’s trauma. So do you, Mrs. Petersson. I guess I should have thought to call you.”

If this wasn’t such a desperately embarrassing and significant moment, Brooke would have grinned. He sounded as he’d sounded when they were in high school: nervous, tentative, hopeful.

Her mom wasn’t buying any of it. “That would have been pleasant.”

He continued. “But I had to help Brooke through the trauma because . . . well, because after all the times she helped me, I owed her. And I wanted to pay my debt.”

R
afe didn’t understand what happened next. But he knew that Brooke went from happy to angry.

He knew Mrs. Petersson went from angry to amused.

Somehow—he didn’t understand how or why—he had totally screwed up.

“What?” Brooke slid off the stool. “What? You helped me last night because you owed me?”

“Yeah. I owed you. You helped me through my trauma. You know.” He lowered his voice, speaking only to her. “After I came back from Afghanistan.”

She stood straight. She looked at him as if she’d never really seen him before.

Red alert! Red alert!
She was furious. She was hurt. He tried to think what he’d said wrong. He started backtracking. “Not that what I did for you could ever compare to what you did for me. You saved my life, my mental health. If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been sidelined by the military and been forced back into civilian life.”

Mrs. Petersson crowed with laughter.

Oh, God.
Brooke had her hand on her chest as if her heart hurt. He hadn’t fixed anything. But he still didn’t know what he’d said in the first place and why she wasn’t responding to his explanations.

“So you stayed with me last night because I helped you when you came back from Afghanistan?” Brooke’s voice rose.

It was like she was rearranging the words, but saying the same thing, trying to grasp his meaning.

Maybe she was angry that he hadn’t mentioned how much he’d enjoyed the night with her. That made sense. No woman wanted to think of herself as a pity fuck. “I was selfish, too. I wanted to help you, but I also wanted to have . . .” He glanced at Mrs. Petersson.