Desert Bound (Cambio Springs) (13 page)

“Our loyalties will be divided.”

“Only if there are problems. Plus, our relationship will give us a greater incentive to work together.”

“Oh.” She smiled. “Good one.”

“I just thought of it.”

“Our children might be
wolves
.” Her eyes widened in mock horror. “Poor things.”

“Even worse, they could be
cats
.”

She smiled. It was an old argument, and one that had never been an issue for either of them. As long as their children shifted, that was all that was important. Cambio Springs children who didn’t shift always died young. Cat or wolf, she didn’t care what form her children took, as long as they were healthy.

Her children?

There she went, jumping to the same conclusions she had in her twenties. She went from considering a relationship with Alex to imagining their children in the space of a car ride. She needed to think about it. Consider whether letting him back into her life was—

“Hey,” he asked. “Want to go to the Cave for dinner? I don’t feel like cooking.”

“Are you asking me on a date? A real, honest-to-goodness date?”

“Yep.”

She didn’t allow herself to second-guess it.

“You’re on.”

They picked a booth in the corner of the Cave, out of the way of the local crowd, most of whom gave them either speculative looks or outright smiles. Ted saw Josie on the other side of the room, eating with her two kids and a brown haired man who she guessed was her brother. He was nothing like Ted would have imagined.

While Marcus’s widow had bright blue hair and colorful swirling tattoos, her brother looked like he’d walked out of the L. L. Bean catalogue. They were about as opposite as two siblings could be in appearance. Luckily, Ted saw his arm around his niece’s shoulder as he tried to pry a smile out of one of Josie’s younger boys. Maybe he wasn’t as stuffy as he looked.

“You met him before?” she asked Alex, right after Tracey took their drink orders.

He shook his head.

“Should we?”

“Yeah. You mind?”

“Nope.” She hadn’t seen Josie since she’d done the preliminary exam on her husband’s body. She tried to rid her mind of that image and focus on the man Marcus had been. Laughing. Generous. Whatever shadows had been in Marcus Quinn’s background, he’d been nuts about his family.

Josie looked up as they approached. “Hey, Alex. Ted.” Her eyes widened a little. “You guys just came in?”
Together?
 

It was the unspoken question in Josie’s voice and the quirk at the corner of the mouth that had Ted smiling. “Yeah. How are you doing?”

“I’ll be better after I get my burger.” She nodded at the man across from her. “Alex, this is my brother, Chris Avery.”

“We’ve spoken on the phone, but it’s nice to meet you in person, Chris.” Alex held out his hand, which the other man grasped firmly. “I’m sorry it wasn’t for better reasons.”

Chris nodded, but didn’t smile. Then again, he’d just lost his brother-in-law.

“I’ll be out on the job first thing tomorrow. Just got into town tonight.”

“No problem. Priorities.” He tugged the ponytail of Marcus and Josie’s oldest. “Kasey, did you find the library?”

The little girl nodded. “Your mom’s real nice.”

“
Really
nice, sweetie,” Josie quickly said. “Not real.”

Alex smiled. “I think she’s nice, too.”

Chris cleared his throat. “Good to know a town this small has a library.”

“We try. It’s a fine place to grow up.”

The other man’s smile was tight. “I’m sure you think so.”

She could hear Alex grinding his teeth to keep silent at the insult. She took his right hand in hers and felt his tension ratchet down.

Josie’s smile was brittle as she looked at her brother. “Chris, we talked about this.”

“Marcus
just
…” He glanced at his niece and nephews. “We’ll talk about this later.”

Ted put a hand out. “I’m Dr. Teodora Vasquez, Mr. Avery.”

“Nice to meet you.” He took it, obviously still stewing. “You the vet?”

She cocked her head. “M.D. Family practice.” She smiled at Kasey. “I see a monkey every now and then, but they’re usually little brothers.”

Kasey giggled, breaking the tension at the table. Ted tugged on Alex’s hand to lead him away. “We won’t take up your dinner time,” she said. “Just wanted to say hi, Josie. You’ve got my number if you need anything?”

She nodded and Ted and Alex were just turning when Tracey walked up with a huge tray of burgers. She let Alex’s hand drop to squeeze by. 

“Hey you two.” Tracey set down the tray and mumbled to Ted as she passed, “He’s a peach, huh?”

“No kidding.”

Before they could say anymore, she felt Alex’s hand on the small of her back, and he ushered her to the booth where their drinks were waiting for them. They sat down across from each other and both took a drink before they said anything else. The day had been hot, and though the sun had gone down, Ted still felt the dust of the afternoon on her neck. She swiped at it and grimaced.

“I could use a shower, too,” Alex said, watching her.

“Do you think he knows?”

“Who?”

“Josie’s brother.”

“About us? I don’t know.” He drank again. “Maybe. Was it odd that he asked if you were a vet?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s not as uncommon as you’d think for people to assume I’m a vet. Don’t know why.”

“Your animal magnetism,” he said with a wink. “Gets me every time.”

“He doesn’t like them living here.”

“Would you? If your brother-in-law had just been murdered, would you want your sister moving to the town out in the middle of the desert where it happened? And where she’d have no family around?”

“No,” she said. “I’d want them close. No matter what town they were moving to. After a loss like that, I’d want my sister close.”

Alex shrugged. “It’s probably that.”

“Yep. Could be.” They both fell silent and Ted picked up a menu, even though she knew what she wanted. She set it down after a minute. “I just feel like there’s something…”

“What?”

“More.” She glanced across the restaurant where Josie and her brother were ushering the kids out of the booth and gathering their things. “I feel like there’s something else.”

“Maybe he knows,” Alex said. “Knows about us and doesn’t like it. He doesn’t strike me as the most open-minded individual.”

“But is that enough for murder?”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. “Possibly. But Josie said Marcus and Chris were full partners in the business, too. If he was involved, it might be prejudice against shifters, or…”

“Or it could be something way more old-fashioned.”

“Money?”

Ted lifted one shoulder. “It’s a classic motive for a reason.”

“It is.” Alex nodded at someone over her shoulder, and Ted turned to look. It was Ollie, hulking behind the bar and polishing glasses during a lull. Ted hadn’t seen him in over a week, and she wanted to pick his brain about more than one thing.

“Be right back.” She hopped to her feet.

“Ted…” Alex’s voice was a warning. “Don’t meddle.”

“It’s cute how you think I’m going to listen to you. Order me a burger, will you? You know how I like them.”

Ted ignored his sigh as she walked over and parked her butt on the barstool right in front of Ollie.

He was a distant cousin on his father’s side, but more than that, he was one of her best friends. 

“Hey,” she said, trying to get him to look at her.

“Don’t ask.” Ollie didn’t look up.

“About what?”

“Don’t ask whatever question you have about how I’m doing, or have I seen her, or what I’m going to do about everything. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Brooder.”

He looked up then, and he was annoyed. “You think you’re funny, but you’re not. Keep pushing, Ted. See what happens.”

“I know what I
want
to happen—”

She blinked when he slammed a glass down so hard that it cracked. Without missing a beat, he tossed it in a trash can behind him, not even looking as it fell in. Then he leaned forward, and Ted was reminded that Ollie wasn’t just an easy-going barman. He was a predator. Quiet… until you pushed him too hard.

“Don’t.” His voice was barely audible.

“Okay.”

At her quiet acquiescence, she saw his face soften.

“I know you want everyone to be happy, sweetheart, but it’s not as simple as that.”

“Can it be?”

His mouth opened, but he didn’t speak for a few moments.

“It’s not simple. It never was. What we want and what’s best isn’t always the same thing.”

“Ollie—”

“Too soon,” he growled. “It’s too soon.”

“For what?”

“For everything I want.”

“Allie—”

“Isn’t ready. Not for this. Not for me. She’s in shock. She doesn’t need…
me
. Not the me I want to be. She needs her friends.”

“You are her friend.”

A defeated look flickered in his eyes, but he quickly looked away and started cleaning glasses again. “I’m not a friend she needs right now.”

Because he’d never wanted to just be her friend. He’d always wanted more. Ollie had hung on for years, never settling down with anyone else, his heart already owned by the girl he’d never have.

“How do you stand it?”

He glanced up. “What?”

“Waiting. Not having what you want so much.”

The bear’s eyes flickered over to where Alex was sitting. “Why don’t you ask your date? He knows as well as I do. Maybe better.”

“We were nothing like—”

“You ever wonder, Ted—” Ollie interrupted her with his quiet voice. “—which guy has it harder? The guy who knows he’ll become an alcoholic given a chance, so he never takes a drink? Or the guy who tastes it—fills himself up to the top and still can’t get enough—then leaves it behind, knowing it’s the only real choice he has?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “You comparing me to whiskey, Ollie?”

“No comparison, sweetheart. The right woman’s more addicting than whiskey.” The corner of his mouth tipped up. “And tastes a hell of a lot better, too.”

The next day, Ted sat in her office, spinning idly on her stool, remembering the rest of her date with Alex while she waited for the medical examiner to call her from San Bernardino.

They’d eaten their dinner. Joked around. He’d driven her home and given her another bone-melting kiss at her front door. Then he’d left and she’d all but collapsed from exhaustion. Work, the fight out at Old Quinn’s, shifting. And running through the day was the delicate sparring with Alex as her heart balanced on the edge of pushing him away and falling for him all over again.

If it had been a date with any other man, she’d be ecstatic. She’d be on the phone with Jena, crowing about the hot, funny guy who’d taken her to dinner, kissed her like it was his mission in life, and starred in some very vivid dreams.

But like Ollie had said the night before, it wasn’t simple. For her and Alex, it never had been.

Oh, they’d fooled themselves for years when they were living in LA. When home and family responsibilities had seemed so far away. But they weren’t playing house anymore, and the phone call she’d forced herself to make to her mother that morning only drove the point home.

Lena Vasquez hadn’t thrown a fit like Alex had predicted. It had been worse. She’d been completely silent as Ted related the story of how the blood marker had been drawn, and Old Quinn’s acknowledgement that Ted had been “provoked.”

Lena hadn’t said a word.

“We’ll speak of this later. We both need to get to work.”

Her mother was the principal of Cambio Springs Elementary School and ruled the children of the town with the same loving—and very firm hand—that had raised Ted. Her father had been the jovial softie of the family until he’d been taken by a heart attack when Ted was only a freshman in college. Like most of the female cats, Lena had married a man who catered and cared for her. A strong man who always put his wife and daughter first. The fact that her daughter had formed a relationship with a shifter who had a host of responsibilities other than Ted was something Lena had never liked.

The phone rang, startling her out of the slow spin. She grabbed for the phone.

“Hello?”

“Ted?”

She smiled at the friendly voice of Larry Carlisle, her favorite of the three forensic pathologists who worked in the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner’s office. Larry was an amiable guy, despite the death and destruction he regularly saw. He was old enough to be her father, but had always treated her like a colleague.

“Hey Larry,” she said, nerves twisting her gut. Larry might have been friendly, but he had sharp eyes and a perceptive mind. If there was anything unusual about Marcus’s body—anything unique to his shifting nature—Larry would have caught it. “You have the results back on Marcus Quinn?”

Far from the near-instant results shown on television shows, autopsies and toxicology screens took days, and more often, weeks to get results. If the coroner’s office and lab was backed up, it could take far longer. 

“Autopsy’s done, and it’s what we both expected. Gun shot wound killed him. No question of that. Pretty massive internal bleeding. I can send you a copy of the report, if you’d like.”

“That’d be great, thanks.” Larry didn’t question her interest in the case. He knew Cambio Springs was a small town and she’d known the victim. “Anything… unusual?”

“Nothing unexpected. Except… well, there was one thing, but it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with cause of death. It’s just kind of weird.”

She sat up straight. “What was it?”

“He’d had a recent break in his arm, not unusual for someone in a physical job like he had. The bone was healed, it was the tissue damage that was odd.”

“How?”

“If I looked at the tissue, I’d say the bone broke maybe a week before death. The bruising. The muscle tissue. But the fracture was
healed
. He must have been in a cast for weeks, but there was no loss of muscle. It’s… odd.”

“Yeah, weird.” There was no use denying it. She tried to distract him instead. “Tox?”