Courted by the Texas Millionaire. Crystal Green
rested one arm on the open window, welcoming the morning air as it hit his face. It didn’t do much to cool him off, though.
Davis had just finished telling Violet more of the details he’d culled from his research last night when she brushed a few pancake crumbs from her blouse.
“I think that a break-in at the sheriff’s home the same week that Tony died under mysterious circumstances is worth looking into,” she said, all business. “I don’t know, it could be my imagination getting spooked, but—”
“We could have some kind of a lead about how Tony Amati really might’ve died?”
“Could be.”
“I even wonder if our stranger, Jared, has come here to find out about Tony, too. If he’s his descendent or something and he’s on a fact-finding trip.”
Violet turned toward him, and Davis glanced at her. A few dark red hairs had escaped from her ponytail. Her brown eyes had a gleam—that unmistakable sign of the thrill of the chase that used to light her gaze in their high school days.
Outside the window, white fences and green pastures rushed by. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she asked.
“What—this story, or having you in my car, riding along with me?”
She blushed, and it stirred him right back up again. It also warned him that he needed to back off, because it probably wouldn’t take much for her to shy away from him.
“It has nothing to do with your four-wheeled toys.” Now Violet had that lost expression on her face he’d seen so many times before. “I meant to say that you seem to like the possibility of chasing a real story. More than the usual ‘Fireman Rescues Cat from Tree’ sort of thing.”
“We get a little more action than that in St. Valentine these days. Last month, we actually covered a knockdown-drag-out fight between Maura Stosser and our own Wiley Scott. She’d bopped him on the head in the general store with an umbrella from the sale rack when he’d given her the wrong look.”
“What look was that?”
“Cross-eyed. I don’t know. Wiley and Maura fight like a dog and cat. He’s always straddled the line between the miners and the townies, but Maura’s a …”
He wasn’t sure how to put it without offending Violet.
“Devoted east-side girl who doesn’t think anyone should straddle?” she supplied, laughing, letting him know that she didn’t live by all the labels. She never had.
“Really,” she said, getting back to the previous topic, “you don’t mind the slow pace of this town?”
He steered onto Ranger Street, which bypassed the newer part of town and led to the old section. “Believe it or not, I’m perfectly content here. Even when I took a break from St. Valentine after high school, I never did get comfortable with skyscrapers and concrete. I like the open blue. I like the sound of silence in the morning just after the sun rises. I’m merely simple at heart, I guess.”
“You’re not simple at all.”
She said it as if he’d never been that way.
Would he have been enough to keep her interested? He didn’t know what the hell he’d do with an answer, but not knowing was eating away at him. He’d spent a lot of time finding himself after she’d left.
Why did it seem so damned important for her to acknowledge that he would’ve never disappointed her?
He pulled the car into a spot behind the newspaper office in a plume of dust. As the cloud hovered, they closed up the windows, then alighted, going inside through the back entrance, past the printing equipment and into the main room.
After he snapped on the light, Violet put her hands on her hips and glanced around. She was wearing a crisp white blouse, creased dark blue shorts and Keds, and Davis took a moment to appreciate how her legs seemed to go on forever.
Finally, she said, “Every modern convenience known to man, even air-conditioning. This doesn’t feel like the same place Wiley owned.”
He pulled out a padded leather chair so she could commandeer a computer. She sat right down as he turned on the unit.
He brought her some bottled water from the office fridge and sat at a neighboring computer station to search the digitized archives for other relevant past editions. Every once in a while, though, he couldn’t help glancing at her. He liked how she bit her bottom lip when she was concentrating, liked how she tilted her head, as if that helped her thought process, too.
Something in his chest got all warm. She was serious; he wasn’t all that much. She was a mining kid; he was a Jackson.
But would that matter so much anymore?
“Look at this,” Violet said.
She was pointing to her screen, and he leaned in to her, looking over her shoulder.
His cheek was only an inch away from her hair, and he could feel the light brush of it, plus the warmth from her skin. He could smell more subtleties in the lotion or shampoo she used—cherry laced with … almond. Something that burrowed deep into him.
It took him a second to gather his wits, but he eventually forced himself to read the article she’d indicated.
It was dated a day after those other articles he’d found about the break-in at the sheriff’s house and Tony’s death.
“Sheriff Hadenfield’s daughter, Tessa …” he said, skimming. “… Hospital … resting comfortably …”
He backed away before he could do something foolish, like bend down and press his mouth to Violet’s. “This is about as vague as the rest of what we have.”
“Isn’t that weird? I’ve been reading other articles from this era and they’re not as haphazardly researched and reported.”
“I hate to say the word conspiracy, but it’s flashing in my mind like neon.”
They kept looking at each other for a second, then broke into tentative smiles that disappeared all too soon.
“Right,” he said. “Some kind of conspiracy here in little St. Valentine. Now that would be something to capitalize on. A great legend that outside news stations could report on, making us a countrywide vacation destination, just like Tombstone or Dodge City.”
But Violet was already tilting her head. “Davis, what if the sheriff had enough power to keep whatever happened under wraps?”
“Why would he want to do that?”
“I’m not sure. And there are no Hadenfields left in St. Valentine to enlighten us.”
But she was already out of her chair, the wheels turning, and he couldn’t help feeling the same excitement that was setting her in motion.
“Do you think the new hospital would have Tessa’s records either in hard copy or online?” Violet asked. “Unless some kind of privacy laws stopped us, could we find out what sort of injuries she had?”
“When the old hospital burned down in ‘63, all the paper went with it. They wouldn’t have had the chance to digitize their files.” In spite of this setback, he grinned at her. Whether she’d admit it or not, she was working with him again.
She rolled her eyes. “So I’m a little invested already.”
Then, with a soft smile, she went back to her computer, printing out the article. He didn’t ask her when she’d like to show up to work with him next. He wished he could just offer her a salary, put her on staff full-time, but he expected that would only make her bristle. Getting her to consider doing something freelance had been tough enough.
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