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“Mean dog,” Pete answered. Mariana suppressed a laugh. Toro was a better judge of people than her, and had always growled when Pete’s car had pulled up the long drive to her farmhouse.
Mariana walked out of the building, Jones still behind her. “Sure you’re okay out there?”
A car eased down the street in front of the station. Ty was driving, heading in the direction of her home. Relief bloomed in her chest, edged with a hot thrill of seeing him again. He passed, not looking up at her. Whoever Ty was, whatever he was really doing in her town, she would find out tonight.
She turned to Jones, with Pete within earshot in the lobby. “I’m fine.”
Chapter Three (#u260d2ae5-b5c4-5ae8-a955-c0d6c009d043)
A mile away from the center of town, country dark took over the landscape around Ty’s car. Leaving his headlights on was necessary, but it also made it impossible for him to move stealthily toward the low rolling hills that surrounded Rodrigo. He shifted his weight, reassuring himself that the automatic was still in its holster on his belt. There’d been no time to change into dry clothes while tracking Mariana to the police station, but he’d added the pistol as extra insurance after the assault and firebombing. If anyone was following him, they’d have a clear target on his vehicle.
Not that it would be a secret where he was headed. The Balducci orchard was at the end of Oak Valley Road, a two-lane deal that ran straight to the hills past neighboring vineyards, farms and horse ranches. Some lit windows stared at him in the distance with yellow predator eyes. Mostly, though, he was surrounded by black and gray. Low clouds blocked the stars. A looming oak sped past, made into a monster by his stark headlights and taking him back to the summer visits to his grandparents’ spread, east and inland from the Bay Area. As a child, he’d been afraid of that dark and the countless animals that could be lurking just out of reach of the kitchen window light.
Those creatures didn’t scare him anymore. As a cop in San Francisco, he’d seen the worst of people. He’d seen it tonight and still held a tight fist and clenched jaw.
According to the GPS on his phone, he’d passed the last of the side roads. Ty killed the headlights and brought his car to a crawl. Details in the terrain slowly emerged as his eyes adjusted. The road curved up a small rise ahead. More oaks flanked the asphalt, behind them aging wooden fences. Cresting the rise revealed the first edge of Mariana’s orchards. They spread up another hill and curled around a broad clearing that held her farmhouse and outbuildings.
He rolled the window down, trying to pick up any sounds of trouble over his engine. Approaching the dark house like this, expecting danger, with only the light from nature to find it, brought him closer to his ancestor than he ever imagined. Jack Hawkins had ridden this land in the dead of night and through stark days, a .45 on his hip and justice on his conscience.
The road turned into a single-lane driveway. Easing closer to the house brought the barking of a dog. Ty had read all the police reports, studied internet maps and social media about Mariana and her orchard, but there was nothing about a dog. He pulled off into a wide swath of dirt and turned off the car. The dog kept barking, but didn’t approach farther than twenty yards in front of the main house. Ty got out of the car and immediately regretted it. Summer was on its way out, and the Pacific Ocean a few miles away sent a cool, damp breeze across the hills and directly through his wet jacket.
“Good dog,” he called up to the guard, but the barking didn’t stop. The dog was as black as the shadows, making its size impossible to determine. It could’ve been anything from a mastiff to a Pomeranian. This being the country, and from the depth of the warning bark, Ty figured it to be a reliable threat and wouldn’t risk getting any closer. “At least you’re on the job.” If there was anyone other than Ty skulking around, the dog would’ve gone at them, too.
A hitch in the barking alerted Ty to a change in the action. He could see from his high vantage point that a pickup truck moved along the road toward the orchard. Mariana’s truck. Easy to remember because he’d been slammed into the side of it. Relief washed over him when he saw she wasn’t being followed. Either by the bad guys or the police. There was too much that he and Mariana needed to sort out, one-on-one.
It was clear from her confidence on the curves that she’d driven this road her whole life. In just a few moments, she pulled up beside Ty and his car. Dashboard lights revealed the exhaustion in her face. Her black hair was still back in a ponytail, her clothes unchanged. He wanted to replace the blanket she had around her shoulders with a clean, dry one. Her wary eyes kept him at a distance.
The dog continued to bark, voicing the caution Ty saw in her. She tipped her head toward her guard. “You met Toro.”
Ty nodded. “I like him. He’s looking out for you.” A small smile brightened her face, then disappeared. Ty took a half step toward her truck. “You should get into something warm before that chill gets too deep.”
She stared at him for a second, expression opaque. “Leave your car there. I’ll meet you at the house.” She drove off to the house, Toro bounding to follow. He saw in her headlights that the dog was some kind of shepherd mix, medium sized and athletic.
Ty collected a duffel from the trunk of his car and walked up the forty yards to the farmhouse. By the time he got there, several lights were on inside and the front door was open. Toro paced on the other side of the doorway, head low and eyeing Ty. It was best to pause on the broad porch that stretched the entire front of the house.
Mariana’s voice came from inside. “Toro, let him in.”
The dog edged away, not breaking eye contact. Ty stepped over the threshold and into a comfortable living room with mismatched furniture ranging from dark wood antiques to minimalist new pieces. Mariana stood on the far side of the room, next to an open cedar chest. In her eyes was the same caution Toro had. In her hands was a lever-action rifle.
Ty carefully placed the duffel on the ground and showed her the palms of his hands. The barrel wasn’t pointed at him, but it wouldn’t take much for her to swivel it in line with his chest. “I’m glad you’ve got that,” he said, noticing that it wasn’t cocked. Yet.
Her gaze narrowed on his duffel. “Are you planning on staying?”
“I’d like to change.” He brought his hands down. “The sprinklers hit me when I was running through the fire to pull the valuables from your shop.”
She lowered the barrel of the rifle toward the ground and let out a shaky breath, some of the tension releasing from her shoulders. Toro sat near her. “Sorry.” Her grip on the rifle loosened. “I’m just...”
“I get it. I’ve seen it.” He turned and closed the front door. “And I’ve been there.”
She tipped her head at the door. “The dead bolt.”
He threw it, but wouldn’t feel the house was completely secure until he’d gone room to room. “Did you tell them my name? Anything about me?”
“No name, just a vague description.” She walked to a small desk in one corner of the room with a laptop on it. Toro followed. “I’ve never seen you before today.”
“Good. Thanks.” He slowly pulled his badge wallet from his back pocket and held it open. “I’m a San Francisco City detective, out of my jurisdiction and technically on vacation.”
She stepped forward, still gripping the rifle in one hand, and took the badge and ID from him. “I don’t know how things are done up in the city, but you suck at vacationing.”
“I don’t want a vacation.” His wet jacket tightened around him. “I want to help you.”
“And I still don’t know why.” She put his ID down on the desk and opened the laptop.
“Let me get dry first.” He nudged his duffel with his foot.
She hooked her thumb to a wide hallway leading away from the living room. Half of it was taken up by a stairway to the second floor. “First door is the guest bathroom.”
He picked up his bag and walked deeper into her house. Floorboards creaked under his feet. The scent of a woman’s soap drifted down from the top floor, where he supposed the master bedroom was. At the end of the hall was the kitchen, but he turned to the bathroom before he could investigate it or the photos that lined the wood-paneled walls of the hallway.
Once inside, with the door closed, he paused and listened. A chair shifted in the living room. Light typing. Toro’s tail thumped on a rug on the floor. At least Mariana wasn’t waiting with the Winchester outside the bathroom. He pulled off his jacket, peeled off his shirt and piled the heavy material in the narrow shower that stood in one corner. A quick inspection in the mirror revealed no open wounds from the fight.
A hot shower would’ve been heavenly, but it would’ve definitely pushed Mariana’s hospitality. He quickly unlaced his boots, kicked out of his remaining wet clothes and replaced them with dry ones from the duffel. Once his keys, wallet, knife and pistol were secured and covered with an unbuttoned denim shirt over his T-shirt, he stepped back into the hallway.
Mariana met him at the edge of the living room, the wary look in her eyes softened. Behind her, on the laptop, he recognized a San Francisco news story about an abducted girl he’d helped find. Mariana held out his ID. “The article doesn’t say what happened to her dad and uncle.”
“They were put away.” He reached forward and took hold of the ID wallet. For a moment, she didn’t release it. The two of them balanced, he felt her strength. The power of her body had been clear when they’d tumbled on the hard parking lot, but that hadn’t been as quiet as this intimate moment in her living room. Their gazes locked. He was close enough to see flecks of gold in her brown eyes and wanted to step closer and search the depth of her darkness. She released her hold on the ID, and the two of them moved apart.
“Do you drink, Detective Morrison?” She drifted to a side table next to the hallway. A few bottles of liquor stood at various levels. Two glasses had been poured with a light amber liquid.
“Ty.” The drink was so inviting. Heat in a glass. “Please call me Ty.”
She picked up one of the drinks and presented it to him. “Do you drink tequila, Ty?”
“I won’t refuse you.” He took the glass.
She took the other. “Ms. Balducci.”
An embarrassed flush heated his cheeks. “Sorry if I used your name, I...” Telling her about all the files and information he’d read on her wouldn’t help to undo the awkwardness.
A smile, tilted wicked, crossed her face. “A joke.” She laughed incredulously. “You did so much. Of course you can call me Mariana.” She raised the glass and he clinked his against it.
“To surviving another night.” Their eyes held again. The tequila was forgotten as he was drawing a new heat from a growing connection with Mariana. The first spark had started when he’d seen her in her shop. But his purpose couldn’t be chasing down this possibility with a woman he’d just met. It wasn’t fair to her and it wasn’t fair to his mission. He blinked, then threw back the tequila. The burn wasn’t strong enough to shake the fire he felt in his veins standing this close to her.
She drank hers quickly and put the empty glass down, not making any more eye contact. “I have to change.” Rifle in hand, she moved into the hallway and up the stairs, followed by Toro. The door at the top closed and a lock was thrown.
Ty set his glass down and stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening to the ceiling creak with her movement. His investigator’s mind always drew pictures, scenarios and possibilities based on details he collected. But that mind usually kept a cool distance so it could observe cleanly. The imagination that saw Mariana in her room, pulling the wet clothes from her body, was not at all professional. He shook the images from his head and brought himself back to task.
“One of the police officers was acting sketchy.” He pushed his voice up the stairs and hoped she could hear through the door.
“Really?” She wasn’t very muffled. The old house had gaps.
“He was unfocused, like he was carrying a distraction.” It still made Ty mad to think of how unthorough the initial investigation was. “Could he be in on this harassment?”
“Which cop?” Her footsteps creaked closer to her door.
“The taller one. White. Blond. Built like a baseball player. A pitcher.”
The door at the top of the stairs opened, revealing Mariana’s silhouette. Her hair was down, making her look mythical as she descended the stairs. The ground-floor light slowly showed that she wore jeans and a button-down flannel shirt. Toro remained at her side and she still held the rifle. “That’s Pete,” she said with a smirk. “My ex.”
That made sense. “There’s the distraction.”
“He played third base.” Dark hair framed the dusky skin of her face. All the lights in the house seemed to have dimmed to a sultry glow. “What position did you play?”
Toro finally ventured close, and Ty put the back of his hand out to sniff. “Wide receiver on the football field, forward on the basketball court.”
“Double threat.” She observed his interaction with Toro, then poured another two drinks of tequila.
“I didn’t mess with baseball.” He ventured to pet Toro’s head and the dog leaned into it. “You were a point guard, right?” It hadn’t been in any file he’d read. She raised her eyebrows as if asking him to explain. “I can see that you like to call the shots. Your orchard, your house, your rifle.”
She quirked a smile. “You should ask Pete about that.”
“I’d like to ask him why he didn’t spend another two hours scouring that parking lot for clues.” Even if they were exes, it was no excuse for shoddy police work.
“Small town.” She shrugged. “They don’t know how to handle this kind of stuff.” Her face darkened. “Or they don’t want to.” She handed his drink over and swirled hers in the glass. “I sell my spread to the developer, they put in a resort hotel, property values go up, property taxes go up, the town does better, the police department does better.”
“That price is too high.” He waited until she sipped at her tequila to taste his. The liquid fire couldn’t override the anger he felt at her situation.
She stared into the distance, eyes unreadable. “Hungry?” Without waiting for his answer, she walked into the hallway and down to the kitchen. Toro remained at her heels. Ty followed. The kitchen was larger than he expected, with a broad center island covered in a warm wood butcher block. One wall was dominated by a stove and vent hood that stretched to the high ceiling. Mariana slid a wire bowl of apples to the center of the island and picked two out. “We have plenty of apples. Can’t sell any of them without harvesters to get them off the trees or customers to show up at the shop.”
She pulled a gleaming knife from a block and quickly segmented the apples. Her hands paused as she pushed some of the slices toward him. He saw her eyes fixed on his hip. His gun. She asked, “Why didn’t you pull that on the guy in the parking lot?”
“I didn’t have it on me.” He reached forward and dragged the pieces of apple to him. “I didn’t know it would be this bad.”
She set the rifle on the corner of the island. “Neither did I.” They silently ate pieces of the apple, drank tequila, then chewed on more apple. Toro glanced between the two of them, like he was looking to see who would give him a handout. Mariana used a piece of apple to point at a slice Ty held. “Do you taste it?”
He’d been eating automatically and slowed down to search. Savoring it this way strengthened the connection he’d been feeling with her all night. Her work, part of herself, was in his mouth, intimate and close. An apple had never made his blood rush like this. “It’s...salty.” A surprising flavor within the balance of sweet and tart.
Her face lit up with a smile, then changed to something more serious as she examined his face. “We’re only a couple miles from the Pacific. The mist comes in from Monterey Bay, bringing the sea salt with it. There are no other apples like this.”
“That’s why I’m here.” She needed to know only part of the reason for now. “There’s too much history here to lose. Your history is here. Your family’s. And if you want to stay, I will help you.”
“With those ghosts from the past?” She nodded out to the living room, where the old photos lay on a table.
“After the Civil War, the West expanded. People tried to carve out lives for themselves. But the law wasn’t always on their side.” Shame and anger shook him, knowing that even as a police officer now, the same injustice occurred. “Money was power. My ancestor joined with others to form a group to protect people who couldn’t protect themselves. Vigilantes. They rode mostly in California. Black, Chinese, Native American, Mexican. Other immigrants. Men and women. They called themselves Frontier Justice.”
Mariana held his look. “You can’t be a cop and a vigilante.”
He stared deeper into her, hoping she saw his vow. “I can if they don’t know. I have to be if no one else will help you.”
Her eyes narrowed, cutting him open for dissection. “Do you ever lie?”
“Yes.” He was no superhero in a cape.
She loosened her posture, resting her hip against the island. “If you’d said no, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
He propped his elbows on the thick butcher block. “We live in a difficult world.”
Despite her casual attitude, her gaze still held steel. “Are you lying now?”
“No.” The night was black and silent outside the kitchen windows. For now, it was just the two of them. In her home. With an unexpected, electric connection stretching between them.
“And you’re going to help me.” She leaned forward. Heat prickled across his chest. Did she feel it, too? “No strings. No motive other than justice.”
“I will.” It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t all of the truth.
Her gaze fell to her hands and she seemed to wrestle with a thought. She glanced at her rifle, then Toro. A long breath shook through her. She made a fist, released it and looked him in the eye again. “Stay the night.”
Even though he knew the invitation was just for the sake of her safety, the words in her low voice, in that quiet kitchen, fired quick heat through him. The circumstances of his visit to her house tried to ice the flames, but only brought them down to a deep red smolder close to his bones. This job of protecting her had started out feeling important because of the ties to his ancestor. Standing here with Mariana, feeling how hard it was to ask for help and knowing how much she needed it, the job was now very personal.
Chapter Four (#u260d2ae5-b5c4-5ae8-a955-c0d6c009d043)
Mariana had never shared her bedroom with the rifle before. The door was locked and Toro was curled up next to the bed. She sat on the edge of a reading chair, very aware that Ty was in the guest room below her feet. The rifle wasn’t for protection against him. As crazy as his story was, he’d proved she could trust him to help her. Whether or not he could fight off the Hanley Development Group was a different question.
She spoke low into her phone, knowing he could still hear her through the old house. “Hi, Brenda, I couldn’t find an after-hours number for you, so I’m leaving this message.” Her voice was tired and shook as she recounted the minimum details to her insurance agent. “My shop on Pacific was firebombed tonight. Fire department did a good job, but I don’t know how much I can salvage. Call me back and let me know what to do next. Thanks.” She hung up and let the phone slip to the rug.
Brenda was a professional, and had to know the steps for dealing with the nuts and bolts of a claim. Paperwork, phone calls, emails. Impersonal. But that didn’t stop the cold grip that squeezed the back of Mariana’s neck.
Ty had eased that. He knew the violence of the world. And he seemed to understand her. That uncanny perception of his had a way of slipping past her guard. He was probably doing it just then, staring at his ceiling and seeing her rubbing her hands together in an attempt to wring out the tension.
It had been months since the guest room had been used, when Sydney had brought a special bottle of wine and the two had cooked dinner and stayed up way too late. Inviting Ty to stay had taken all her resolve. After all that had happened that night, an empty house would’ve only amplified her anxiety. But when she’d shown him to the guest room, with the made bed against one wall, she was hit with just how intimate the silences between them had become.
Talking about what Frontier Justice had been and what Ty wanted it to be again had occupied her mind like an unfinished puzzle. She’d put the pieces together as he’d spread them out. There were still gaps, like why the old photos had come into her family’s possession, even though none of the people in them had ever been identified as her ancestors. It hadn’t been the time for too many questions, though. Any more information would’ve been overload.
She picked up her phone and walked to the bed, turning what Ty told her over again to see if she could draw any conclusions from what she knew about her own family. The Italian side had come from southern Italy and had started out as farmhands until they could buy their own spreads and plant the kinds of foods they understood. It didn’t take long for them to make ties with the Mexicans in California, marrying into old, established families. Their voices surrounded her, rising up from the earth of the orchard. Her parents had drawn strength and pride from that past, but had passed on only a handful of stories before they were taken from her in a car accident during her first year of college. She’d been so busy growing up, she hadn’t learned what this land had really meant until she’d returned to work it.
Ty seemed to understand these connections. She saw how he felt his own ancestors and their struggle for justice in himself. He acted on it, leaping into the fight for her and into the fire for his own legacy. Thoughts of the assault and the fire kept jabbing into her, making her weary muscles ache. Her mind wouldn’t allow her to go over it again and again. A new thought took over.
Ty’s mouth. Eating the apple she’d grown and picked and cut. He’d taken his time, giving her plenty of opportunities to watch him consider and then savor the fruit. It had almost been like kissing him. Almost. Mariana knew that if she had, she’d still be feeling the power of that man on her mouth. Hell, she might still be kissing him hours later.
She plugged her phone into a charger cord. Sitting on the bed made the mattress groan. She knew he could hear it, too. Her breath caught in her throat with the thought of what Ty’s remarkable perception would find if he turned his attention to her body. Usually people couldn’t identify what made the apples of her orchard so unique. But he’d tasted the salt. He could probably search out pleasures in her body she’d never discovered.
Mariana blew out the hot breath and shook the thoughts out of her head. He might be involved, or married, though she’d noticed no ring. She’d seen his integrity, so it didn’t make sense if he had someone that he’d still be staring so deeply at her. Or maybe it was just her wishful thinking. Throwing too many feelings toward the one man who’d helped her.
She got under the covers, wearing sweats and a T-shirt, knowing her shoes and rifle were close by. Ty’s perception was dangerous. She tried to take comfort in how it was an asset in her fight to keep her orchard, but couldn’t dim the bright flush across her chest and down her legs that he inspired. The man was probably asleep already, thinking only of justice. She turned out the last light in the bedroom. He remained very much awake in her mind. All he’d told her still hadn’t settled into order. But it was the silences between her and Ty she had no defense for.
Stars glittered outside her window. Ty was in her house. Sleep seemed impossible. She closed her eyes and felt him wrapped around her, rolling from danger on the hard ground of the parking lot. Remembering him eating in her kitchen slowed her pulse to a more sensual pace. It was only when she imagined the slow process of handpicking apples from her trees that sleep finally took her.
She woke with a clutch of fear in her throat. The sky was still deep charcoal. It could’ve been hours or minutes since she’d fallen asleep. Toro stood on alert in the middle of the room, staring at a dark window. The unknown danger burned the cobwebs out of her head with icy fire. She slipped from her bed and grabbed her rifle.
