DESI'S RESCUE Page 4

  "Tam? Yeah. I'm looking right at him." She paused. "Why?"

  Desi sighed. "No reason."

  "Do you know him?"

  "Not really. He found a wolf cub and brought it to the center the other day." And then she realized her sister might think she was attracted to Tam. "Seems to think pretty well of himself, doesn't he?"

  "You didn't like him?"

  Desi shrugged, walking down the sidewalk in the sunshine, feeling her spirits lighten the smallest bit. "I didn't say that. He seemed nice enough. Maybe it's just the whole Claude thing—I don't trust charming men."

  Juliet chuckled. "It's possible to be charming and a good guy at the same time."

  "Maybe. But not charming, drop dead gorgeous and a nice guy."

  "I didn't say nice guy," Juliet said. "I said good guy. Not necessarily the same thing at all."

  "Whatever." Desi turned the corner and realized that her feet had taken her right down to the pub. Her heart fluttered painfully as she stood across the street, cars thickly moving by in an endless stream. Her sister was on the phone, sitting in the window of the pub beneath a cleverly painted logo. Juliet's blond hair shone like soft wheat in the sunlight and her curvy figure was draped in a thick red sweater that showed a generous amount of cleavage.

  "You look very pretty today," Desi said, and when Juliet looked out the window, she grinned.

  Juliet waved her inside. "Come in and have lunch!"

  "I will have to cross the street to get there."

  "Not always the easiest task," Juliet said with a chuckle. "Of course, you could go to the corner and cross with the light."

  "Lights are for sissies." Desi stood a moment longer, letting cars swish by on the street. What if Tam thought she was chasing him or something? They'd never met before and she'd never been to the pub, now they'd met and here she was? She had no illusions. She was not in his league. Not at all.

  Which, she thought with sudden enlightenment, she should take as a good thing and quite protective. Especially considering she had not a scrap of makeup on and her clothes were old and worn. With a slight smile, she waited for a break in traffic and dashed across the street.

  * * *

  Tam was ringing up a ticket when the door swung open and Desi Rousseau tumbled inside, blinking like a wild animal come out of the woods. A bolt of sharp, hot awareness zoomed through his body, nape to tailbone, and didn't stop there. It moved down—femur to knee to arches of his feet.

  He realized he was staring and turned his attention to the ticket in his hands, but the pleasure at her arrival was still there. He gave the server her ticket, filled glasses with soda and lime, wiped off the bar, all the while sneaking glances, pretending not to notice.

  Not his type. In a way she reminded him of a sturdy Maori woman, strong and healthy, with lots of curves and strong hands and a no-nonsense way of walking. He tended to go for wistful-looking women, like her sister sitting there in a pool of sunlight with her blond head.

  He frowned. He found himself standing straighter, gathering details about Desi as she settled in. She was absolutely unadorned. A wide brow and large dark eyes, a tumble of thick, very long hair.

  And maybe braless. He shouldn't be noticing, should he, but he was a man, and there was all that luscious, swaying movement. Healthy, high breasts above a narrow waist and rolling hips in a pair of jeans worn to a pale white softness.

  Not his type, but there he was, walking across the room. "Hello!" he said, as she sat down. "How are you?"

  "Not bad," Desi said, settling in the booth. She gave him a cursory glance. Or what was meant to be cursory. She couldn't hide the slight flush on her neck, the faint flare of her nostrils, and probably didn't even realize her gaze slid down to his mouth, that she touched her hair, her cheek, then her waist.

  Still, she gave nonchalance a shot. "Tam, right?"

  He smiled, very slowly. "That's right. And you're…" he tried to think how to get her name wrong "…Desiree?"

  "It's Desi. Short for Desdemona."

  "Ah. Right." He nodded. "Good to have you in my pub. Can I bring you something to drink, cuz?"

  "Please. I haven't had a thing. I need coffee. Coffee and cream and tons of sugar. Please." She looked at him. "And what is your best dish, Tam?"

  For one long moment their eyes locked. He saw beyond the facade, the nervousness, to the natural woman within her. He saw, in that split second, looking into the depths of her velvety, wild-woman eyes, that she didn't know it—and he was sure it was probably a bad idea—but eventually, they were going to have very, very hot sex.

  He sincerely hoped it was sooner rather than later.

  He blinked, slowly, and touched his tongue to his lower lip. "I'll surprise you, shall I?"

  The dimple deep in her left cheek flashed. "That sounds just fine."

  Again he felt that bolt of awareness shoot through him. Round his ribs, slamming into palms that wanted to rub themselves across her skin, needling alive other parts of him. "Be right back."

  He swung away and headed to the back room, surprised. Whew. What was that about?

  Ducking into the kitchen, he turned and glanced back out through the circle window in the door. The woman leaned over the table, her magnificent hair catching sunlight, glinting gold and copper. He could tell by their posture that Juliet was admonishing Desi, and Desi was blowing her off.

  "Give me a hefty plate of the roast lamb," he said, then hesitated. It was a house specialty, a stew made from his own grandmother's recipe, and a huge favorite among the hikers and skiers.

  But a lot of Americans didn't like lamb, had never really eaten it much. He held up a hand. "Wait a minute." He poured a cup of coffee, filled a pitcher with cream and carried it to the sisters' table. "Here you go, love," he said, putting a little spin on the pitcher.

  "Wonderful!"

  "I was going to bring you out our house specialty," he said, "but thought I should ask if you eat lamb."

  Juliet leaned forward. "Yes," she said. "You really have to try it. There's nothing like it. And roast potatoes."

  "Oh, like I need roast potatoes!" Desi said with a scowl.

  "Nothing wrong with all those curves," he said, and winked.

  She shook her head. "Didn't we already have this discussion about trying to charm me?"

  He laughed. "I'll be right back."

  * * *

  Desi was charmed. It was impossible not to be. That wide grin, the twinkle in his eye, the sense of broad good humor.

  Juliet noticed. "It might be a little soon, sis."

  "Soon for what?"

  "Another man. A new guy. Claude has only been dead three months."

  "Our marriage was dead quite a while before that." Desi stirred cream into her coffee, watching the swirl rise in curlicues from the bottom, turning the mixture exactly the color of Tam's skin. "He's way out of my league, anyway," she said, and took a sip too fast. The hot coffee burned her tongue. "And, even if that were not true, I would not need my little sister to tell me when to get involved with somebody."

  "Ooh, prickly!" Her blue eyes flashed. "You must like him!"

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him returning with two plates. "Here he comes. Please stop. Don't embarrass me."

  "I would never!"

  With a flourish, he put a slice of quiche and some roasted orange vegetable in front of Juliet, and a steaming pile of meat and vegetables in front of Desi. Her stomach growled at the beauty of it. "Wow. This seems pretty fancy for a pub."

  "We aim to please," he said. "Can I join you, girls?"

  "Of course." Juliet scooted over toward the window. "Come sit by me."

  "Sure?" he said, sliding in. "I don't want Josh punching my eye out, now." He grinned at Desi over the table, his pale green eyes direct and almost too probing.

  And for a moment she was lost in the look of him, the high cheekbones, the alluring shadow on his jaw, his wide mouth. She could smell him, strongly, very specifically, a hint of cinnamon and mo
rning sun. His eyes were extraordinary, the pale green of new pine needles, so unusual in his dark face.

  Food, she told herself. Eat. She picked up her fork.

  The meat was hot, tender, exquisitely perfect. "Oh, my gosh," she said after the first bite, and took another. "Oh, that is so good!"

  "Toldja," Juliet said, nodding. "Tam learned to cook at his grandmother's knee, isn't that right?"

  He nodded. "My grandfather had a restaurant on the tourist road to Cape Reinga. They put me to work very early."

  "What's Cape Reinga?" Desi asked. She wanted him to keep talking, so she could keep eating. She wasn't sure if it was the fact that she'd skipped breakfast, or that the food was just simply spectacular, but she hadn't tasted anything so delicious in ages.

  "The northernmost point of New Zealand," Tam said. "The Pacific and the Tasman Sea meet there. It's beautiful."

  "I'd love visit New Zealand," Desi said.

  "It's a beautiful place."

  "So why are you here instead of there?"

  "I was a rugby player, once upon a time," he said, pointing out the jerseys on the wall, lifting an eyebrow. "When I got cut, I looked around for something to do, and I took up smoke jumping."

  Desi laughed. "Just a little sideline, huh?"

  "Something to do while I saw the world." He shrugged. "I had a thing for explorers when I was a kid. I wanted to—" he used his big, graceful hand to illustrate in the air "—circumnavigate the globe, like Magellan."

  Desi blinked, the food forgotten in front of her. "No way."

  Juliet laughed, slapping Tam's shoulder. "I think you might need to let me out. I'm sure I can't stand to be stuck here with two explorer geeks."

  Tam's face brightened. "Did you like explorers, too?"

  "'Like' is an understatement," Juliet said, despite the look Desi shot her. "She had an actual picture of Marco Polo on her bedroom wall. You know, like where most girls would hang a picture of a rock star or something?"

  Embarrassed, Desi kicked her sister under the table, and got Tam instead. He laughed and covered her hand with both of his. "Don't be embarrassed! When you're finished here, you have to come see my apartment."

  "To see your etchings?"

  "To see my maps." He wiggled his eyebrows. "I have the maps of Magellan, Vespucci and Marco Polo on the wall—and there are others in my files. I just haven't had them framed yet."

  Desi grinned. She couldn't help it. "I do want to see them!" She took a bite of the lamb. "After I eat."

  "Who is your favorite?"

  Spearing a perfect medallion of carrot, she narrowed her eyes. "I don't know. Cook was pretty interesting, with the diet stuff. But one hates to say that to a Maori."

  He chuckled. "They were all bastards if you want to look at it from the perspective of the indigenous people."

  "Wait," Juliet said. "Captain Cook is a real person?"

  "He is," Tam said. "Discovered New Zealand and Tahiti and Hawaii."

  "And got conked over the head and died in a Native fight," Desi added.

  "Which is also pretty much how Magellan died," Tam said.

  "I need to get out of here," Juliet said. "Age of Explorers left me dead asleep."

  Tam met Desi's eyes across the table, and there was a distinct, powerful zing. Scary. Thrilling. Exciting.

  "An adventure," he said. Quietly.

  "But how," Desi asked, "did you end up in Mariposa? It's a little out of the way."

  "Hayman fire." It had been an enormous fire that devoured millions of acres of Colorado forest a few years before. "I had a bad landing and busted up my leg, so I spent a bit of time recovering around here." His gaze shifted toward the window, to the craggy San Juans visible against the cerulean sky. "Something about this place just grabbed me."

  "The Mariposa claim," Desi said, grinning herself. "They say the Lady of the Shrine calls certain people to the area."

  "Yeah? I haven't heard that one."

  Desi looked away from the jutting angle of his Adam's apple in a strong throat. Don't want it, she told herself. Don't want anything. "She must have called you."

  "Something did, that's sure." He shifted direction. "How's the pup?"

  "Pup?" Juliet asked.

  "Tam found a wolf cub." The whole morning crashed back into her world. "He's okay," she said. "But Fir—the surrogate mother—she escaped. I don't know where she is."

  "Oh, no!" Juliet cried. She'd had a special affinity with the fearful she-wolf. "What happened?"

  So Desi recounted the miserable story of her morning, ending with the encounter at the sheriff's office. "I've got to get someone more sympathetic up there to look around before all the evidence is gone," she said, "but if I have to, I'll live with Nordquist."

  "Who would do that?" Juliet asked. "I mean, it's so bad for the ranchers and the tourists and everybody else to have the wolves wandering around."

  "Most of them won't go anywhere," Desi said. "They've been around long enough they'll just stay there. So it's somebody who doesn't really understand that—or somebody who is just harassing me." She mopped up the last of the gravy with a white roll and sat back with a sigh. "I should feel guilty, but I don't. I have to work on that fence this afternoon."

  "You don't have any idea who would do it?" Juliet asked. "Maybe that would help."

  "I have ideas. I had another offer from Bill Biloxi, the developer who wants to open a spa next to my land, and I refused it. I guess his girlfriend is pretty upset about it."

  "Wife," Tam said. "They got married."

  "Ah. You know them?"

  "Her."

  He didn't elaborate, but Desi picked up a vibe that made her look at him a little more closely. "Well," she said, "they're certainly not the only ones. I've had twelve offers on the land in the past three months, and there's something heating up. I'm not sure what's going on, but it's making me nervous."

  "Especially because somebody killed Claude," Juliet said. "As dangerous goes, that's pretty high up there."

  Desi shrugged. "But it doesn't make sense that someone should have killed him to get to the land. We were divorcing."

  "What if they wanted to scare you into selling?"

  "I suppose," she said, but her gut said that wasn't it. "I just think Claude finally crossed the wrong person." She spied the clock and saw the hands creeping toward noon. "Damn! I have to get out of here." She took a big gulp of coffee, dabbed her mouth with a napkin, stood up. "They're delivering my fencing at two."

  Tam stood with her. "You'll have to come see my maps another time."

  "I really will," Desi said, looking up at his face. She hadn't noticed the very small patch of hair he wore beneath his lip, and it gave her a strange, hot buzz of desire. He was taller than she by a few inches, and the solidness of him pleased her. He seemed unmovable.

  "I cleaned out the freezers this morning," he said, "and put aside a box of freezer-burned meats. Can I bring them to you later?"

  Desi knew she should say no, tell him that she had a lot to do, that maybe he should come another day. He was a distraction she just didn't need right now.

  But he regarded her steadily with those pale, waterlike green eyes, his mouth a patient bow. She found herself wondering what it would be like to kiss him, to run the tip of her tongue over that small, exotic patch of beard below his lip.

  She swallowed. "Yes," she said. "Please do."

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  « ^ »

  Back at the police station Desi spied Nordquist driving away, and hurried inside to make her report. With relief she knew she'd be directed to Jimmy Rineheart, a stooped man with a belly round as a bowling ball. His horses were under her care.

  "How're you doing, Dr. Rousseau?"

  Relieved, she sat down next to the metal desk. "Not great, Jimmy. This mess is driving me crazy. How's Pappy?" Pappy was his gentle, ancient paint, a horse that liked nothing more than to munch hay all day long in a sunny meadow.

  "He's fine, fine. '
Bout time for his checkup, I reckon." He tugged out a pencil. "Now what's the trouble today?"

  Again Desi outlined the vandalism, and the deputy scribbled notes on an official-looking form. "Obviously," she said, "I've got to get it fixed today so the wolves are safe, but can you take a look, see if you can find out who did this?"

  He sighed. "We've been through this with the ravens, honey."

  For months, Desi had been finding dead ravens on her land, around the house, even one in her truck once. It had started before Claude died, and she'd believed at first that it was his doing—either trying to scare her or just harass her enough to make her give up the land.

  Died. Odd choice of words. Yeah, Claude died, all right—from a bullet through his chest.

  To the sheriff she said, "I know. But don't you think this seems like a step toward more serious? I'm worried about my wolves."

  "It does," he agreed in his slow way. He tapped his pen on his nose for a minute. "Not likely to find a lot, you know."

  "I know. Maybe a footprint or something?"

  He gave her a wry grin. "Now, we haven't even figured out who killed that worthless husband of yours, have we? If we can't solve a murder, how we gonna solve a vandalism nobody cares about?"

  Desi nodded, all the ease engendered by the good meal now leaking out of her body through the soles of her feet, making her feel like a rag doll, depleted and dull.

  "Well, thank you," she said, and stood up. "At least I've made a formal complaint."

  He tapped the paper. "I've got it all right here, sweetheart. You take care now, you hear?"

  "Thanks, Jimmy."

  "Don't lose heart. Things work out in the end."

  Desi paused. "Do they?" she asked. "I'm not sure."

  He looked sad, but what could he do? He was only one part of the law, not the whole thing. Disheartened, she headed back to her truck and drove to the vet clinic to check in with her staff and the small-animals hospitalized there before she headed back up the mountain to meet the delivery.

  The clinic was her first, and she was proud of it, a smallish building at the western end of town, neatly painted, with a professional sign standing in front: Rousseau Animal Clinic, All Creatures Large and Small…