SLOW PLAY (7-Stud Club #4) - Christie Ridgway Page 0,20
hand over hers and then patted it lightly. “If he was truly dangerous, he wouldn’t have been shopping around for someone to do his dirty work.”
She shivered, but pulled her hand off his arm. “Even in little Sawyer Beach!”
“But the number of cases of cousin-marrying is down,” he said dryly.
Her lips pursed in disapproval.
He forced himself not to lean forward and kiss them. Clearing his throat, he returned to the matter at hand. “What aren’t we talking about?”
After a moment, she sighed and gave him the rundown. “Word is running like wildfire around the farms near us that tools are going missing, crops, maybe even laundry hanging on the line.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really? Laundry hanging on the line?”
She nodded. “According to my mom. One of her friends was sun-bleaching some vintage blouses and they disappeared.”
Mad wished he had another beer. “No one’s called the authorities?”
She just looked at him.
“Okay, right.” He rubbed his hand over his head. “I forget your grandfather’s distrust of the authorities.”
“And many of the others in the area hold the same view. Old hippies? Grandpop also has his pride, you know. He’s wanted to handle this himself.”
“How did you get involved then?”
“They tried to keep it from me…but Mom finally spilled a couple of weeks ago. And I didn’t know what to make of it. At first I thought I’d come here, check in to reassure myself, and be back on the road in just hours.” She looked down, then up again. “But Grandpop’s not getting any younger.”
Mad took her hand now, because he knew how much she loved the older man. Her fingers felt light in his. Warm.
“So now I’m getting this…feeling that there could be a real problem. The Cochrans think some avocados have been stolen.”
The Cochrans owned acreage adjacent to Sunnybird Farm. “Agri-crime is a real thing,” Mad told her. “I’m involved with more urban issues, but the county has a unit focused on the loss of nuts, fruits, even fertilizer and pesticides. There are criminal syndicates that—”
“Like the mob? I can’t believe the Mafia wants a linen shirtwaist circa 1912.”
“Maybe not.” Mad smiled.
“Well, I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” she said, her mouth setting in a mulish line.
Now uneasy, he stared at her. “You mean you, personally? I was going to recommend I place a call to the sheriff’s department tomorrow. Or we can go there together in the morning. I know someone—”
“No.” She was shaking her head. “I’m going to get on this tonight. Grandpop thought something might happen with our trees and I won’t let it.”
“Harp.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“You want me out of town, right?”
Well, there was a question with two sides to it. “Uh…” He cleared his throat. “What do you think you’re going to exactly do tonight?”
“A stakeout,” she said. “That’s the word, isn’t it?”
“Stakeout?”
“I’m going to spend the night with the avocado trees, ready to catch anyone red—well, green-handed, I guess.”
He hauled in a breath. His instant decision felt inevitable. “Well…”
“Well what?”
The moment’s stall didn’t send in any second thoughts to rescue him. “You mean we’re going to spend the night with the avocado trees.”
There might have been delight in her gaze. Or perhaps it was dread. “We are?”
Yeah. It seemed the only solution to getting his life back in balance. He needed to solve Harper’s problem.
Without Harper becoming a problem—well, a greater problem, that is—for him.
Chapter Five
With Mad riding shotgun, Harper parked Grandpop’s old truck on a narrow dirt road that bisected the avocado grove from the parcel dedicated to orange trees. Headlights turned off, she cranked her window down a couple of inches, then glanced over at Mad, who now sprawled on his side of the bench seat, his back to the passenger door.
Meaning he was staring straight at her.
Even in the moonlit dark, the regard made her nervous.
“My mom is working hard to convince herself that nothing’s amiss,” she said quickly, filling the silence that yawned around them. “Even though it was she who tipped me off in the first place.”
“I hear a but.”
“You wouldn’t be here without the but.”
He laughed. “Truer words. You have a fine butt.”
“You can’t see my…posterior,” she said, annoyed. “I’m wearing a dress.”
“Yeah. About that…” He shifted, and the air in the cab shifted too.
His scent reached her, clean and sharp, and she clapped her hand over her nose and mouth. Her “About what?” came out muffled.
“Huh?”
She drew her hand away. “What about the dress?” Then tried to pose casually with