he remarked, scowling. “Where the hell did you get fresh bread? Is there a bakery in town that I don’t know about?”
“Keely made it,” Clark mumbled, working his way through a third yeast roll liberally spread with butter. “Mmmm!” he added, closing his eyes and groaning at the delicious taste.
“Did you get a ticket?” Winnie asked, trying to divert him from the penetrating glance he was aiming at Keely, who squirmed in her chair.
“Ticket for what?” Boone asked, digging in the china cabinet for a plate.
“Speeding,” she replied.
He put his plate on the table and fetched silverware and a napkin. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot and sat down with the other three. Keely’s heart was already doing overtime, and she had to work at acting normal while Boone was so close.
“I got a warning,” he said tautly.
“My friend Nora is the county deputy clerk of court,” she reminded him. “If you get a speeding ticket, it will go through her office and she’ll tell me.”
His mouth twitched. “I got a small ticket.”
“There’s only one size,” she said.
He ignored her. He reached for a roll, buttered it and took a bite. He wore the same expression that was dominating Clark’s face. Fresh rolls were a treat. Their cook, Mrs. Johnston, couldn’t make bread, although she was a great cook otherwise.
“There’s some salad left,” Winnie commented, pushing the bowl toward him.
“Where did you learn to make rolls?” he asked Keely, and seemed really interested in her answer.
“When I lived with my father, he ran a big game park. One of his temporary workers had been in the military and traveled all over the world,” she recalled. “He was a gourmet chef. He taught me to make bread and French pastries when I was twelve years old.”
“What sort of animals did your father have?” Boone persisted.
“The usual ones,” she said, without meeting his eyes. “Giraffe, lions, monkeys and one elephant.”
“African lions?”
She nodded. “And one mountain lion,” she added. No one noticed that her fingers, holding her fork, went white.
“They have mean tempers,” Boone said. “One of my ranch hands had to track one down and kill it when he worked over in Arizona some years ago. It was bringing down cattle. He said it killed one of his tracking dogs before he could get a clear shot at it.”
“They tend to be vicious, like most wild animals,” she agreed. “They’re not malicious, you know. They’re just wild animals. They do what they do.”
“What was your job at a wild game park?” Boone murmured.
“I fed the animals and watered them and made sure the gates were locked at night so they couldn’t get out,” she said.
He finished his roll and followed it with sips of black coffee. “Not a smart job for a twelve-year-old kid,” he remarked.
“It was just Dad and me,” she said, “except for old Barney, and he was crippled. He’d hunted a lion who became a man-killer in Africa and it fought back. He lost an arm and a foot to it.”
“Did he keep the pelt when he killed it?” Boone asked.
She smiled faintly. “He made a rug out of it and slept on it every night. When he left us, he was still carrying it around.”
“The rolls were good,” Boone said unexpectedly.
“Thanks,” Keely replied shyly.
“You could get a job cooking,” he pointed out.
She frowned. “Why would I want to give up working for Bentley?”
His pleasant expression went into eclipse. “God knows.”
Winnie gave her brother a piercing look. He ignored it. He studied her face and frowned. “You’ve been crying,” he said abruptly. “Why?”
She paled. She didn’t want to talk about it.
“Why?” he persisted.
She knew it was useless to try to hide it from him. Someone would tell him, anyway.
“I almost got Kilraven killed,” she confessed, putting down her fork.
“How?”
“I got rattled and forgot to warn him that the man involved in a domestic dispute was armed,” she said quietly. “Luckily for Kilraven, the clip was missing and the man couldn’t figure out how to get the safety off.”
“Luckily for the man,” Clark elaborated dryly. “If he’d shot Kilraven, he’d be awaiting trial in the hospital.”
“That would depend on where he shot him,” Winnie replied.
“Kilraven’s steel right through,” Keely teased. “No bullet could get through that hard shell.”
“She’s right.” Clark chuckled. “They’d have to hit him with a bomb to make a dent in him.”
None of them noticed that Boone was sitting rigidly, with his eyes staring blindly into space. There was a look in them