Scarlet Nights: An Edilean Novel Read online

  She stood there, her arms folded against his chest, and was glad for the security of him. When had Greg done this? she wondered. He was always at the shop, so when had he had time to go to Merlin’s Farm?

  And why? Just because he wanted the place? Did Greg think that Mr. Lang was the reason Rams wouldn’t sell it to him? Or was the reason because Sara, the woman he loved, wanted it?

  Mike put his hand under her chin and lifted her face up to his. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Shocked, but I’m all right. What about you?”

  “Not shocked,” he said quickly and looked around them. “Even though I’d like to stay here all day, just like this, I think we should get down and go.”

  Sara didn’t want to leave either. Besides, she knew that when they were back on the ground she’d have to face the truth about the man she was to marry.

  “Sara?”

  “I know,” she said as she reached up to hold on to a branch.

  Mike started to move away, but then turned back and sweetly kissed her cheek. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said and tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it.

  Mike jumped down from the low branch, and got Sara to fall into his arms. He tried to make a joke about her nearly knocking him down, but when he looked at her expression, he stopped.

  He quickly led her around the hedge and back past the house to get to his car. He unlocked it and held the door open for her. When he saw that her hands were shaking, he fastened her seat belt for her, then got in the driver’s side.

  They were halfway back to Sara’s apartment before either of them spoke. Mike wanted to give Sara as much time as she needed to digest what she’d heard. For him, he wanted to call Lang and thank him. From here on, Mike would start the process that would end in his telling Sara the truth, that the man she planned to marry only wanted her because … He hadn’t yet figured that out.

  He glanced at her, sitting silently in the seat next to him. Her pretty dress was covered with leaves and twigs, and there was a tear at the shoulder.

  “Sorry about your dress,” he said.

  “Do you think Greg was trying to get Merlin’s Farm for me?”

  “You can answer that better than I can.”

  “Greg might have done what he could to get Mr. Lang to leave, but he wouldn’t kill the dogs. I think that must have been a coincidence of timing and Mr. Lang put them together without any evidence.”

  It was too soon for Mike to tell her what he knew. When he was younger, he’d learned the hard way not to tell too much too soon. On his first undercover case, right away, he’d gleefully told a woman her husband was an arms dealer and that he had two mistresses. In his naïveté, he’d thought the woman would be grateful for the information. But she’d had the opposite reaction. She’d called Mike a liar and had stood by her husband to the very end. When she was being led off to prison, she spit on Mike. Yes, he’d learned to be cautious. “Are you sure you know him well enough to be able to say that?”

  “Greg may not be the most honorable person on earth, but he is a good man.” Sara was silent for a moment. “I know Greg does some things I don’t like, but—”

  “Like what?”

  She told him about Greg switching the dress sizes. “But that was just to make the women feel good. It’s a far cry from poisoning dogs.”

  “I didn’t say they were poisoned, and I don’t know that they were. What made you say that?”

  She hesitated for a full minute. “The owner of Edilean Drugs told me to remind Greg to be careful with the rat poison he bought.”

  Mike gritted his teeth, as this was something she hadn’t told him. “I take it you don’t have a rat problem?”

  “When I asked him about it he said there was a nest of them in the back wall of the store. It made sense that he’d buy poison.” She took a breath. “Even though I still don’t think Greg would do something like that, I wish I could replace Mr. Lang’s dogs.”

  Mike grinned at her. “Now there’s where you’re lucky.”

  “Why?”

  “On this case, I’m working for the federal government, and you know why we put up with their delusions of their own grandeur?”

  “No.”

  “Money. They have lots and lots of greenbacks. Tell me what kind of dogs Lang had and we’ll replace them.”

  “I was only a child when I saw them so I don’t know what breed they were. But I thought they were beautiful. My mother once said that they were Irish.”

  “Would you recognize them if you saw a picture of them?”

  “Maybe.”

  He handed her his phone. “Text Tess to send you photos of Irish dogs.”

  “You always remember your sister but you forget that she’s married to my cousin. How about if I text Rams to tell me what kind of dogs Mr. Lang had?”

  “Even better.” He smiled at her.

  “What’s that look for?”

  “I was thinking how much you’re like all the other women I’ve worked with.”

  His sarcasm made her feel good. “They didn’t hide with you in trees?”

  “No, and they missed a lot. I liked holding you.” When Sara kept looking straight ahead, he added, “And they didn’t want to replace the dogs of some old man they disliked.” Mike had to look away to hide his pleasure at the way the day had gone—and at the way Sara was sitting there frowning. It was the first real dent that had been made in the myth of Greg Anders.

  “How about if we take the night off from the case?” he said.

  Sara’s eyes brightened. “Watch more movies together?”

  “I was thinking that maybe we could go to your apartment and fix dinner over there. You haven’t even shown me your place yet.”

  “I guess you forgot that I have no kitchen sink.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You want to search through everything I own, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he said, but in such a lascivious way that she laughed.

  “Fine with me. You can not only look at the jewelry Aunt Lissie left me, you can try it on.”

  “I’d rather you model it for me.”

  “After what I heard today about my fiancé, I just might do that.”

  Mike’s grin almost cracked his face.

  13

  EVERYTHING ABOUT SARA’S apartment said “family.” Whereas Tess’s place was like Mike’s, with furniture that had come from stores—preferably in preplanned rooms—he didn’t think Sara owned so much as a dish that hadn’t come through her friends and relatives. And what she’d bought had been carefully chosen because it looked old and worn in that romantic way that women liked.

  As soon as she opened the door—unlocked, of course—she ran to her bedroom. But Mike stood in the doorway and stared.

  Even though Sara’s living room was shaped like Tess’s, they couldn’t be more different. Sara’s room looked like something off the History Channel titled “Furniture Through the Ages.”

  She had a big peach-colored couch with huge rolled arms. Mike wasn’t much of a historian, but he could imagine ladies in long dresses taking tea on that sofa. The chair next to it was nearly as plush and was covered in a flowered fabric. On the other side was a big chair upholstered in old brown leather, and he was sure he’d seen one just like it in some World War II movie.

  Around the room were little tables and knickknacks that ran the gamut of years from Thomas Jefferson’s time to the 1980s. Nothing he saw was new.

  And everywhere, there were photos in frames. They ranged from so old it looked like Matthew Brady had taken them, to one of Tess on her wedding day. Mike smiled when he saw she was dressed in a dark blue suit that she’d probably later wear to work. He and Tess had been taught frugality and recycling long before it became fashionable. He remembered how hard he’d tried to be there that day, but he’d been tied up—literally.

  “So who gave you all of this?” he called to Sara.

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