Scarlet Nights Read online

  “You look like a disciple of Bacchus. You aren’t actually as civilized as you’ve been pretending to be, are you?”

  “If by that you’re asking if I cook four-course dinners every night, the answer is no. I’ve been trying to impress you. Have I?”

  She wasn’t going to answer that. “So what’s the plan?”

  “I had one all worked out, but you changed it today when you refused to stay home. I think it’s your turn to come up with a plan.”

  “Okay,” Sara said. “First, we have to decide what you and I are to each other.”

  “That sounds good. So what are we?”

  “Friends,” she said quickly. “That’s all we can be, since I’m about to be married. You are going to release my fiancé for our wedding, aren’t you?”

  “Unless your mother finds out where he is and won’t let us.” He looked at her. “Has your mother hated all your boyfriends?”

  “There’s only been one other boyfriend, and no, she didn’t hate him. She’s saved all her anger for Greg. Could we please get back on the subject?”

  “Sure. You’re going to marry a man the town hates and live here in the middle of all that animosity.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “If you want my help, you have to be nice about Greg.”

  “That should be easy, since I’ve never met him. You think I’d like him?”

  “I have no idea, since I know little about you that’s truthful. I think maybe you’ve lied to me about everything.”

  “Haz—”

  “Don’t say it again! Hazards of the job, ha! Could you please stay on the subject?”

  “I thought Greg was the subject.” When she glared at him, he put his hand up. “All right. We’ll tell the town you and I are friends. Will that make you relax around me and stop treating me like your enemy?”

  “Maybe.”

  Mike put the grapes down. “I guess the idea of there being anything between you and me is out of the question.”

  “Completely.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Sara refused to look at him. “If you’re going to try using that voice on me, then you’ll have to leave my apartment. I’m not going to stay with you—or help you—if you try to … to proposition me.”

  “All right,” Mike said and moved onto his back. “We’ll be the best of friends. Chums. Roommates.”

  “Like brother and sister. Like you and Tess.”

  “No. Not like Tess and me. We are brother and sister.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She runs around in her underwear. She has me adjust her, you know, straps. I couldn’t do that with you because you’re the prettiest, most desirable woman I’ve seen in years. Sara, I’ve been working undercover almost since I joined the force, and that means that the women I’ve been around are usually on some drug. Most of them are married, and when it comes to clothes they think that less is more. Except for jewelry and makeup, then more is better. But you …”

  He turned to look at her. “You’re like no other woman I’ve ever seen in my life. You look like you just stepped out of a spring breeze. I find that your clothes that cover up nearly all of you are about as sexy as anything I’ve ever seen in my life. The way you move, the way you talk, I like all of it. I promise that I will do my best to keep my hands off of you, but it’s not going to be easy. Are there any more of those little sandwiches left?”

  Sara sat there blinking at him. “Well, uh …”

  “Sandwiches?”

  “In the basket,” she finally managed to murmur. “I didn’t know you felt that way about me.”

  “How could I not?” He was rummaging inside the basket. “I can’t find them.”

  “Let me,” she said, and as she brushed his hands away, their faces were close together. For a moment, Sara almost bent forward, but then she drew back. “I guess it would make your job easier if you and I were sleeping together.”

  “Oh, so very, very much easier,” he said. “In fact, I truly believe that our being together would help our country become greater.”

  Sara shook her head at him. “It’s not going to happen.”

  Mike gave a big sigh. “Can’t blame a man for trying. Okay, so what’s the rest of your plan?”

  “To do what you said and collect DNA from the women who come to our shop. But …”

  “But what?”

  “Erica.”

  “And she is?” Mike had his mouth full of tuna salad sandwich.

  “The woman Greg got to run the shop. She won’t let me—”

  “Don’t you own that place?”

  “I’m a partner only on paper. Greg and Erica make the decisions.”

  “I’ll make a call and have someone come and break her legs.”

  “How about her arms too?” Sara said eagerly.

  Mike grinned. “You’re not as innocent as you look, are you?”

  “Make up your mind. Do I look like a vestal virgin or am I killer sexy?”

  “Both. Is there any more coleslaw?”

  “You eat a lot, don’t you?”

  “I’ve been crawling all over that farm all day, sometimes barely escaping with my life, and now I’m sitting with a gorgeous dame who says I can’t touch her. Yeah, I’m starving.”

  “If you tell me everything you saw today, I’ll tell you about my two bad encounters with Mr. Lang.”

  Mike’s face lost the teasing look. “You must tell me everything you know.”

  “Not until you tell me at least half of what you know.”

  “About what?”

  She threw a piece of bread at him—and Mike caught it in his left hand.

  “Sara, my lovely, I honestly and truly don’t know what’s going on. I know one of the biggest criminals in American history is or has been living in this pretty little town. Maybe Merlin’s Farm has nothing to do with her, but something has been going on there.” Mike couldn’t tell her that he felt sure Stefan’s wanting the farm connected the Vandlos with either Brewster Lang or the old plantation.

  When Mike looked at Sara, he saw she was waiting in quiet anticipation for him to explain. “This morning when I went to see the farm I expected a derelict old ruin, just as I’d been told it was. What I found was a war zone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He related, in detail, what he’d seen. He elaborated about the traps and how he believed the marijuana plants had been used as a lure. When he got to the recent graves of the dogs, Sara frowned.

  “What about the geese?”

  “I didn’t see any.”

  “Mr. Lang and his father always kept geese. They’re a rare breed called Sebastopol, and they have curly feathers and the sweetest tempers in the world. My mother says that those geese are the secret to Mr. Lang’s great vegetables.”

  Mike looked at her in question.

  “Geese eat bugs and weeds, and they produce manure.”

  “Oh. You know a lot about farming, don’t you?”

  “Hazards of being my mother’s daughter.”

  Mike chuckled at her play on his words. “So what did Lang do to you?”

  Sara told him about Brewster Lang twice making his hand into a gun at her—and Mike grinned at her retaliating hand gesture at the second encounter.

  “And you think he did that because you look like your great-aunt Lissie?” Mike wasn’t about to tell her that he knew a great deal about that particular hatred.

  “I guess so. Unless he despises all children. With him, who knows? One thing I do know is that when I was little the farm wasn’t booby-trapped. That day when I visited, I went inside every building.”

  “Surrounded by geese and dogs,” Mike said. “You must have looked like something out of a storybook.”

  She glanced at him, stretched out full length on the cloth. Already, his black beard had grown back. He really did have nice lips, she thought. As for his short hair and high forehead, she was growing used to it. What she hadn’t accustomed herself to yet wa