“Since I saw you last? It wasn’t that long ago. You were with that man of yours, remember?”
“Of course I remember.” Laurel’s fingers tightened on the brush. “You spoke at length to Mr. Landry, and he told me you were thinking about going up to the top of the falls and having a look around. You said that, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“And?”
Carter shrugged his wide shoulders. “And so I did.”
Laurel realized he was going to make her drag it out of him. He was no longer looking anxious. It was pure ornery smugness that was shaping his features. “Well?” she asked. “Did you find anything?”
“Nope. I would have come here straightaway if I had.”
She very much doubted that but refrained from telling him so. “I guess that’s that, then.”
“Not quite.”
Laurel stopped washing Abby. She held the brush loosely at her side. “What else is there?”
Carter took his time answering. He looked Laurel over head to toe, nodding to himself as his eyes roamed. His gaze was appreciative and lingered just that little bit longer where her damp shirt clung to her breasts. It was his opinion that a more modest woman would have put up an arm to cover herself or turned a quarter away from him. Not Laurel Beth Morrison, though. She stared straight at him as if she was daring him to take his fill. So he did.
“You’re a handsome woman, Miss Laurel,” he said. “Always thought so. Never had it in my mind that you were much interested in men, though. Not that I thought you hankered after women. Just thought you weren’t interested in anyone. Then that Landry feller comes along and I see how you look at him and that gets me thinking that maybe I should have called on you a long time ago. Is it too late?”
Laurel lost her capacity for speech. Eyes widening fractionally, she could only stare at him.
The sheriff smiled. “Maybe not. I understand you were looking mighty fine when you came calling the other day. Theo told me you were wearing your Sunday best. I sure would have liked to have seen that.”
“Then you should have been awake,” she said sharply.
“Maybe so, but I was feeling poorly, and not so much happens in this town that a man can’t treat himself to drink when the urge is upon him.”
Laurel wasn’t certain that he was sober now, which would explain why he kept some distance between them. “That’s all I care to hear from you, Rayleigh. I answered your question. You answered mine. You need to leave.”
Carter didn’t move or show any indication that he was thinking about it. “I saw him, you know. Up there above the falls. I saw him.”
Laurel didn’t understand. “You’re not making sense. Who did you see?”
“Him. Your man Landry. Pickin’ posies. Did he give them to you?” When Laurel didn’t respond, he went on. “Oh, did I misspeak? Maybe they were intended for some other woman. Desiree, perhaps. He’s spent time with her. I know it for a fact because she told me. She doesn’t like him. I don’t know that flowers would change that, but then a gift sometimes warms a woman.”
“Leave,” Laurel said. Beside her, Abby shifted her weight, sensing her mistress’s agitation. She laid a hand on the mare’s back to reassure her.
Carter straightened. “Not before I talk to Landry. I came here to see him, too.”
Laurel regarded him with narrowed eyes. “Have you been drinking?”
Carter ignored the question. “Where is he? In the barn? The bunkhouse?”
Call put down his pitchfork and stepped into the corral from the barn. “I’m right here.” He didn’t feel the need to mention that he’d been standing in earshot ever sinceRooster told him who’d come calling. There had been several occasions when he’d wanted to interrupt, but Laurel seemed to be holding her own. She hadn’t thrown the brush or the bucket of sudsy water and Call counted that a good thing. He didn’t know if he would have shown as much control in her place. “Something I can help you with, Sheriff?”
Carter got right to the point. “What’s made you so all-fired curious about my rifles that you’d take them off the rack without asking me first?” The sheriff put up a hand to stop Call from replying right away. “In case you’re fixin’ to unravel a yarn for me, think before you speak. I know you were in my office same as Miss Laurel. It looked to Theo like you might’ve followed her since you arrived on horseback and she had the buckboard. Now Theo couldn’t see what the two of you were doing in there, but he told me it accounted for a good ten minutes of his day. A little longer for Miss Laurel since she got there first.”
“You couldn’t go wrong hiring Mr. Beckley as your deputy, what with him living and working right across the street the way he does.”
“Then I’d have to pay him. Right now, his information comes free.”
“That’s practical.”
“So tell me about the rifles.”
