Murder in the Smokies - By Paula Graves Page 0,59
list of names. “See if we can get addresses and any background on any of these guys before we come back at ten.”
“Maybe this is just a big ol’ red herring. Shouldn’t we start looking at other names on the list, too?”
He was probably right. Nothing about Bramlett Nurseries had pinged her radar. Since they were doing busywork at the moment, routine stuff, there was no reason they couldn’t split up and get the job done twice as fast. “Tell you what. I’ll drop you off back at the station so you can start making phone calls. Set up some interviews with the people on the list. I’ll come back here and talk to the guys at the nursery, then we can regroup at the end of the day.”
“Good idea. We should be able to get through this list in no time if we do it right.” Antoine had never been a big fan of down-and-dirty legwork. He liked the puzzle aspect of solving crimes, which made Ivy wonder why he’d stuck around Bitterwood rather than heading for a bigger city, where he’d get more chances to play Sherlock Holmes rather than Barney Fife.
Maybe for the same reason she’d never left Bitterwood. Life in this sleepy mountain town, good or bad, was all she’d ever known. She knew who she was when she was here. She didn’t worry about who she could be.
But maybe it was time she expanded her horizons. Maybe it was time to find out who she could be outside of Bitterwood, Tennessee.
And how much of your newfound wanderlust, taunted an inner voice, comes from knowing that sooner or later, Sutton Calhoun’s going to dust this little town off his boots and never look back?
* * *
THE SOUND OF KEYS IN the door roused Sutton from a light slumber. He hadn’t bothered with the bed, since Ivy’s overstuffed sofa had looked too inviting to pass up, and it was a hell of a lot more comfortable than the hard sofas in the hospital waiting room.
By the time Ivy entered, he was sitting up, shaking off the stupor of sleep. She stopped in the doorway with a soft gasp. “You scared me. What are you doing in here?”
“Napping.”
She looked at the sofa dubiously. “Isn’t it a little small for you?”
He shook his head, stretching. “Just right.” He caught her gaze dropping to his midsection and looked down to see his T-shirt had slipped upward as he stretched, baring his stomach. Amused by catching her staring, he shot her a teasing smile and stood up, taking a deliberate step toward her. “You’re home awfully early in the day. Miss me that much?”
Her cheeks turned deliciously pink. “J-just came to pick up some notes I left here.” She seemed to have trouble getting the words out past her suddenly tangled tongue. “I, um, I have to go do a couple of interviews soon—”
Amazing, he thought, how the room could heat up so suddenly. He still wasn’t touching her, still stood a few feet away, too far from her to even feel the heat of her body radiating toward his, but he would swear he could hear her heart pounding from where he was.
Or was that his own heart he was hearing?
“I did miss you.” Her tone was soft. Helpless. He could tell she hadn’t meant to say the words, that making herself vulnerable to him with her confession scared the hell out of her.
It scared him, too, because hearing her admission of need sent a wave of pleasure rocketing through him, as powerful as if she’d reached out and touched him.
He wasn’t a man who felt things deeply. He didn’t let himself, preferring a hard-shelled cocoon of distance and solitude to keep him from getting hurt again. His memories of childhood all shared a common thread of pain, from losing his mother young to learning, revelation by revelation, just what it was his father did to keep food on the table and clothes on his back. He’d watched in silent agony as his friends and their families suffered from his father’s sins, hated but understood the inevitable distance that grew between them and him.
Apple didn’t fall far from the tree, after all....
“I missed you, too,” he admitted, closing the gap between them until he touched her, a light brush of his fingertips against her cheek. “Not just today, either. I missed you when I left. All the time.”
She closed her eyes, leaning into his touch. “I figured you’d forgotten me