Storm Warning. Michele Hauf
Must be French Canadian. Nix the Miss America idea, and replace it with...hmm... Her tone didn’t seem to possess the rugged edge the Canadian accent offered. Interesting. And come to think of it, he had heard Marjorie mention something about a newcomer sitting in The Moose last week. Why had Marjorie failed to point out how drop-dead beautiful the woman was? Her gossip was usually much more on point. “I’m glad our paths crossed today.”
The waitress set Yvette’s plate and tea before her.
“Mind if I slide over?” Jason asked. “Then we don’t have to yell across the room at one another.”
“Go ahead.” She pulled a strip of bacon out of the sandwich and munched the crispy slice. “Mmm, meat, how I have missed you.”
“You go off meat for some crazy reason?”
“I am a vegetarian,” she said, prodding another bacon strip, then eyeing it disdainfully. “Or rather, was.” She took a big bite of the sandwich. “Mon Dieu, that is so good!”
Miss France, he decided. He’d only been assigned a single two-day Parisian job while serving in the CIA. He knew a handful of French words, but beyond that, his capacity for learning foreign languages was nil.
“You must not order the tea very often, eh?”
She rolled her eyes. “I had a misguided craving. I think this’ll be the last time I get tea here.”
“Stick with the root beer,” Jason said. “Root beer never lets a man down.”
“Sounds like a personal issue to me, but to each his own. I like your snowmobile,” she said. “The one parked out front, yes? It looks like a racing machine.”
“Oh, it is.” Jason’s back straightened, and he hitched a proud smile in the direction of the powerful machine parked outside. “Could have been a professional racer. I love burning up the track. But I don’t have the time. This job keeps me on call 24/7.”
“I suppose there is a lot of crime in this sleepy little town.” She tried to hide a smirk, but Jason caught it. A fall of dark hair hid half her eye. Oh, so sexy. And every part of him that should react warmed in appreciation.
The last time he’d felt all the right things about a woman had been two years ago in Italy.
And that had ended disastrously.
“Someone has to keep the Peanut Gang in line,” he offered.
“The Peanut Gang?”
“Bunch of old farts who think poaching wolves isn’t harming the ecosystem. Idiots.”
“I’m not afraid of wolves. I think they are beautiful animals.”
Jason nodded. “They are. But I’ll leave it to my brother, the wolf whisperer, to kneel on the ground and pet them. It’s always best to be cautious around wild animals.”
Yvette nodded, but then said, “I got a great shot of a moose last week. On film, that is.”
“Is that so?”
“I’ve learned to snowshoe out in the forest behind the cabin. Always take my camera along.”
“You should be careful. Those beasts look gawky, but a moose can run fast.”
“Tell me about it. I was photographing the snow-laced birch trees and out of nowhere a moose charged through the deep snow. It was beautiful. But I’m cautious to check for big critters now when I venture out.”
“You should stick to the trails. Safer.”
“Safe is good, hmm?”
Jason almost responded with an immediate yes, but he sensed by her tone that she was angling for bigger fish. Were those thick lashes as soft as they looked? And did she prefer not so safe? Now that was his kind of woman.
“Depends,” he said. “There’s safe and then there’s, hmm...wild?”
“Wild is not a word I’d ever place to anything in this town.”
If that wasn’t some wanting, repressed sexual desire in her sigh, Jason couldn’t guess otherwise. She had been in Frost Falls a few weeks. Why had he never noticed her before? And could he hope Alex hadn’t already hooked up with her?
“You, uh, like wild?” he asked.
“I do.” She finished off one triangle of the sandwich, but from his side view Jason noticed her smile did not fade.
Oh, he liked the wild, too. In so many ways.
The waitress set his bill down before him. He did not put it on the station’s expense account. He couldn’t see asking the town to pay for his meals. And now with the closure notice hanging over his head, he wanted to be as frugal as possible with the city budget. Much as he didn’t like sharing the investigation with the BCA—yes, Ryan Bay, the looker, had arrived in town—it was a good thing, considering they had the resources and the finances to serve the investigation properly. As soon as the final autopsy report arrived, Jason intended to meet with Bay at the station house and go over the evidence.
Reaching for her backpack, Yvette shuffled it on over her arms. Ready to head out so quickly? She still had half a sandwich on the plate. He couldn’t let her leave. Not until he’d learned more, like where she was staying, and did she have a significant other? And did her hair actually gleam when it spilled across her shoulders?
Briefly, Jason frowned as memories of his early morning stop resurfaced. The deceased had long black hair and a beautiful face.
At that moment, his cell phone buzzed with a text. Elaine had ID’d the victim as Yvette Pearson.
“Yvette,” he muttered and wrinkled a brow. That was a weird coincidence.
“Yes?”
He looked up and was met with a wondering blue gaze. He’d once fallen for a pair of blue eyes and a foreign accent—and life had changed drastically for him because of that distraction.
“You said my name?” she prompted.
“Huh? Oh. No. I mean, yes. Not you. It’s a text.” He quickly typed, Thanks for the info. Forward the final report to me and Ryan Bay. He tucked away the phone and said to the very much alive Yvette, “It’s a case. Not you. Sorry. Police business.”
She nodded. “Yvette is a common French name.”
“You betcha. Lot of French Canadians living up in these parts.”
“These parts.” With a sigh, she glanced out the front window.
Jason noticed she eyed the black SUV parked across the street. The one that hailed from Duluth.
“Friend of yours?” he asked, with a nod out the window.
“You mean the owner of that SUV?” She shook her head. “Despite my sparkling personality, and a desperate desire for good conversation, I don’t have any friends in this town. Other than Colette at the market. She’s the only French-speaking person I’ve run into.”
“You speak French? I was wondering about your accent.”
“I’m from Lyon.”
Lyon, eh? That was a major city in France.
“So, what is there to do in this town that is more interesting than Friday night at the Laundromat slash grocery store?” Yvette asked.
“Let’s see...” Jason rubbed his jaw. “A guy could nosh on some of the amazing desserts they have here at The Moose. I have to admit, I’m a big fan of their pie. You want a slice before you rush off?”
“Much as I would love to, I’ll have to pass. Wasn’t as hungry as I thought I was.” She pushed the plate forward to indicate she was finished. “But I won’t rule out pie in my future,” she said with a teasing tone. “What else you got?”