the call he was on. He leaned against his truck, cowboy hat in line with the angle of his head tilt, brow drawn in and a frown darkening his expression.
He was a relative stranger to Nina. She’d caught him at the stream. He’d admitted to knowing the area and the trail by heart. Knowing where she worked and getting access to her email address would have been easy and more than plausible.
And yet...
Nina had believed him.
He wasn’t the person who had taken her picture and, what’s more, he’d been just as surprised at the email as she had been. Angry, too.
She bit the bottom of her lip in thought, watching his concern through the window. Caleb had certainly been a different kind of surprise, that was for sure.
He was handsome. There was no doubt about that. A cowboy who wore the title of detective well. Imagining him sitting behind a computer or sleuthing through a crime scene with a gun at his hip and a badge at his belt was as easy as picturing him out in the fields with the horses or down at the docks with a fishing pole. It was an interesting dynamic Nina hadn’t thought to put together.
Though it certainly fit the attractive, strong-jawed man currently concentrating on a conversation she couldn’t hear.
It was almost a pity when he finished it and headed to the Retreat’s front door, ending the small show he’d unwittingly been giving her.
“I didn’t find any clues other than some footprints and broken twigs and disturbed ground near the stream.” He greeted her as she opened the office door wide. Caleb had already pulled his hat off and had it tucked against the side of his leg. “Whoever they were, once they got back onto the main trail I lost them.”
Nina rolled her bottom lip over her teeth. She didn’t know which she preferred, no clues at all or inconclusive ones.
“Don’t worry,” he continued. “I’m not going to just let this go away. Do you mind if I get on your computer to look up the IP address of the email that was sent?”
Nina didn’t mind in the least. She waved him toward the desk and stepped aside. Beads of sweat ran along his neck. It seemed like morning had turned into late afternoon in the blink of an eye. A hot one, too, by the looks of it.
“Could you also make a list of everyone you’ve given your email address to?”
“I’m not the greatest with names yet,” she admitted, a bit of heat pooling in her cheeks. “But those I can’t remember I’m sure I could point out.”
He fell into the office chair, eyes already narrowing in on the email.
“That works out fine. I can just fill in the blanks,” he said offhandedly. “Overlook is a small town. Everyone knows everyone.”
Nina decided to hold her tongue about the likelihood that someone he knew had no problem spying on women and got to work. It was a tedious task trying to remember the many faces she’d smiled politely at and hands she’d shaken. If only she had been more detail oriented—or, at the very least, invested in creating more than just business relationships—she wouldn’t have had so many question marks in lieu of first names and surnames.
But she did. Something she apologized about when, after he was done with the computer, Caleb finally finished his second call outside the office.
“You do know you’re in customer service, right?” he asked, eyebrow raised and a small smirk turning up the corners of his lips. “Usually that means remembering names.”
Nina resisted the urge to place her hands on her hips.
“Our introductions were brief,” she defended herself. “I just needed to know the basics and say hello. Then, at the grand opening party, I was going to spend more time getting to know everyone. I just didn’t have the time to do that yet.” It wasn’t that much of a lie. Nina knew she’d have to play nice at the grand opening event Dorothy was throwing for the locals and the employees on the ranch.
Caleb snorted but didn’t press. He folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
“Well, I’ll look into the few names you have here and tomorrow we can try to hit up the rest in person. I have a buddy looking into where the email came from until then. He said he can give me an answer tonight or early tomorrow. Does that work for you?”
Nina nodded.
The sky outside of the window was darkening. A feeling of unease started to clench at her chest. Caleb’s expression softened.
“Hey, it’s been a weird day,” he said, voice light. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast and, well, we got off on a really strange foot. I’m going up to Mom’s for dinner. Why don’t you come along? That woman doesn’t make a meal you can’t take seconds and thirds worth of leftovers home with you, so there will be more than enough.”
He smiled. It made the handsome man even more so. Even his eyes, brilliantly blue, held an easy charm.
Her feeling of unease transformed into something else. An ache that was familiar yet just as raw as it had been the day, years ago, she realized her life would never be the same again. Like a switch had been flipped, Nina felt herself shutting down.
“I haven’t even been here for a week and I got caught basically skinny-dipping,” she said, voice hard. “I think it’s best I focus on my work, if your mother decides to keep me around after all of this. I’ve already lost most of the day.” When she wasn’t sure if he was getting the point she was trying to drive home, she added, “I’ll eat here. Alone.”
Caleb’s smile faded, but once again, he didn’t press.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
Nina didn’t watch him go. Instead, she locked the door and walked up to her room. The familiar ache became a bellow in her chest. She sat on the edge of her bed and looked out of the window. In the distance the curve of the mountains held a beauty that did nothing to dissuade the memories about to overwhelm her.
Nina watched darkness veil the field and trees.
It would come for her heart next.
The Wildman County Sheriff’s Department was in need of a paint job. For whatever reason, the previous sheriff had painted the once copper-and red-toned bricks light blue. Since then the weather had changed that to a worn and chipped muck gray. Forget a happy-looking place, the one-story building now looked like a depressed cloud. And that was on its good days.
Yet peeling paint couldn’t squelch the pride Caleb had in the department and the work he and his brother had done during their time there. He still felt it the next morning when he began his day. His metal desk with a perpetual stack of papers in the out tray, a framed candid picture of him and his siblings and the one empty coffee cup that always rested on a coaster felt as much of a home to him as the ranch.
Even on mornings where frustration clung to him like a second skin.
“Hodge said he’d call as soon as he was done talking to his boss,” Jazz reminded him from over the tops of their desks. The fronts were pushed together leaving no space between. It made working together easier than having to hunt each other down. She didn’t look up from the paperwork she was filling out as she continued. “I know patience isn’t always your strong suit but that’s what you’re going to have to wear until he calls.”
Caleb pulled out a stress ball Madeline had given him when he’d been promoted to detective. He squeezed it once, hard.
“Would you practice patience if some creep had sent that email to you?” He shook his head, answering for her. “You should have seen her, Jazz. It scared her and it happened on my land.”
Jazz paused, her pen