Rachel Gibson: True Confessions

Dylan was thirty-seven, the sheriff of Pearl County, and he had a son to raise. He was respectable, but Dixie would bet her last bottle of blond hair dye that beneath the uniform, he was as wild as ever. Dylan Taber was a big man in the community now, and the rumor around town was that he was big where it counted, too. It was time she found out for herself.

While Dixie schemed, the object of her fantasies pulled his black Stetson low on his forehead and stepped off the warped porch of the sheriff’s office. Heat rose in waves from the black asphalt and the hoods of vehicles parked up and down Main Street. The smell of it filled his nostrils.

“The hikers were last sighted about halfway up Mount Regan,” Dylan informed his second-in-command, Deputy Lewis Plummer, as they moved to the sheriff’s brown-and-white Blazer. “Doc Leslie is already on her way up there, and I’ve radioed Parker to meet us at the base camp with the horses.”

“A trek into the wilderness just isn’t how I wanted to spend my day,” Lewis complained. “It’s too damn hot.”

Usually, Dylan didn’t mind helping in the search for missing backpackers. It got him out of the office and away from the paperwork he hated. But he’d been kept awake most of the night by Adam’s puppy, and he wasn’t looking forward to a nine-thousand-foot climb. He walked to the driver’s side of the Blazer and shoved a hand inside the pocket of his tan pants. He pulled out the “cool” rock Adam had given him that morning and stuck it in his breast pocket. It wasn’t even noon yet, and his cotton uniform was already stuck to his back. Shit.

“What in the hell is that?”

Dylan glanced across the top of the Chevy at Lewis, then turned his attention to the silver sports car driving toward him.

“He must have taken a wrong turn before he hit Sun Valley,” Lewis guessed. “Must be lost.”

In Gospel, where the color of a man’s neck favored the color red and where pickup trucks and power rigs ruled the roads, a Porsche was about as inconspicuous as a gay rights parade marching toward the pearly gates.

“If he’s lost, someone will tell him,” Dylan said as he shoved his hand into his pant pocket once more and found his keys. “Sooner or later,” he added. In the resort town of Sun Valley, a Porsche wasn’t that rare a sight, but in the wilderness area, it was damn unusual. A lot of the roads in Gospel weren’t even paved. And some of those that weren’t had potholes the size of basketballs. If that little car took a wrong turn, it was bound to lose an oil pan or an axle.

The car rolled slowly past, its tinted windows concealing whoever was inside. Dylan dropped his gaze to the iridescent vanity license plate with the seven blue letters spelling out MZBHAVN. If that wasn’t bad enough, splashed across the top of the plate like a neon kick-me sign was the word “California” painted in red. Dylan hoped like hell the car pulled an illegal U and headed right back out of town.

Instead, the Porsche pulled into a space in front of the Blazer and the engine died. The driver’s door swung open. One turquoise silver-toed Tony Lama hit the pavement and a slender bare arm reached out to grasp the top of the doorframe. Glimmers of light caught on a thin gold watch wrapped around a slim wrist. Then MZBHAVN stood, looking for all the world like she was stepping out of one of those women’s glamour magazines that gave beauty tips.

“Holy shit,” Lewis uttered.

Like her watch, sunlight shimmered like gold in her straight blond hair. From a side part, her glossy hair fell to her shoulders without so much as one unruly wave or curl. The ends so blunt they might have been cut with a carpenter’s level. A pair of black cat’s-eye sunglasses covered her eyes, but couldn’t conceal the arch of her blond brows or her smooth, creamy complexion.

The car door shut, and Dylan watched MZBHAVN walk toward him. There was absolutely no overlooking those full lips. Her dewy red mouth drew his attention like a bee to the brightest flower in the garden, and he wondered if she’d had fat injected into her lips.

The last time Dylan had seen his son’s mother, Julie, she’d had that done, and her lips had just sort of lain there on her face when she talked. Real spooky.

Even if he hadn’t seen the woman’s California plates, and if she were dressed in a potato sack, he’d know she was big-city. It was all in the way she moved, straight forward, with purpose, and in a hurry. Big-city women were always in such a hurry. She looked like she belonged strolling down Rodeo Drive instead of in the Idaho wilderness. A stretchy white tank top covered the full curves of her breasts and a pair of equally tight jeans bonded to her like she was a seal-a-meal.

“Excuse me,” she said as she came to stand by the hood of the Blazer. “I was hoping you might be able to help me.” Her voice was as smooth as the rest of her, but impatient as hell.

“Are you lost, ma’am?” Lewis asked.

She blew out a breath through those deep red lips that on closer inspection appeared to be completely natural. “I’m looking for Timberline Road.”

Dylan touched the brim of his hat with the tip of his forefinger and pushed the Stetson to his hairline. “Are you a friend of Shelly Aberdeen’s?”

“No.”

“Well, now, there isn’t anything out on Timberline but Paul and Shelly Aberdeen’s place.” He took his mirrored sunglasses from his breast pocket and slipped them up the bridge of his nose. Then he folded his arms over his chest, rested his weight on one foot, and lowered his gaze down the slim column of her throat to her full, rounded breasts and smiled. Very nice.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

Was he sure? Paul and Shelly had lived in that same house since they’d first got married, about eighteen years ago. He chuckled and raised his gaze to her face once more. “Fairly sure. I was just out there this morning, ma’am.”

“I was told Number Two Timberline was on Timberline Road.”

“Are you sure about that?” Lewis asked as he glanced across the light bar at Dylan.

“Yes,” the woman answered. “I picked up the key from the realtor in Sun Valley, and that’s the address he gave me.”

Just the mention of that house conjured up some wild memories in people’s minds. Dylan had heard the house finally sold to a real estate property manager, and apparently the company had found a sucker.

“Are you sure you want Number Two Timberline?” Lewis clarified, turning his attention to the woman in front of him. “That’s the old Donnelly place.”

“That’s right. I leased it for the next six months.”

Dylan pulled his hat back down his forehead. “No one’s lived there for a while.”

“Really? The realtor never told me that. How long has it been empty?”

Lewis Plummer was a true gentleman, and one of the few people in town who didn’t outright lie to flatlanders. Lewis had also been born and raised in Gospel, where prevarication was considered an art form. He shrugged. “A year or two.”

“Oh, a year or two isn’t too bad if the property has been maintained.”

Maintained, hell. The last time Dylan had been in the Donnelly house, thick dust covered everything-even the bloodstain on the living room floor. MZBHAVN was in for a rude shock.

“Do I just follow this road?” She turned and pointed down Main Street where it curved along the natural outline of Gospel Lake. Her fingernails had that two-tone French manicure that Dylan had always thought was kind of sexy.

“That’s right,” he answered. From behind his mirrored glasses, he slid his gaze to the natural curves of her slim hips and thighs, down her long legs to her feet. One corner of his mouth turned up, and he fought to keep from laughing outright at the peacocks painted on her silver-toed boots. He’d never seen anything like them this side of a rodeo queen. “Keep driving about four miles until you come to a big white house with petunias in the window boxes and a swing set in the yard.”