Page 4 of Killer on the Homestead
But it was still weird back here, where he felt more like a kid with big dreams than the adult who’d achieved them. Then lost them.
When she addressed him, her smile was bland, and any reaction she’d had to recognizing him was hidden behind an easy smile. “What can I do you for?”
“I don’t suppose Rosalie Young is here?”
“You know Rosalie?” the woman replied, studying him carefully.
“Sort of. We’re neighbors. Or were, growing up.”
“Huh.” She shrugged. “Rosalie’s out, but I can leave her a message for you.”
Duncan considered. Would leaving a message get back to Dad? Bent County itself wasn’t a small town, it was a large, sprawling county made up of ranches, mountains, and a handful of small and almost medium-size towns, but he knew the way information snaked through those places. One to the other.
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
The woman looked up at the wall behind him, so he did too. There was a big old clock up on it. “Sometime this afternoon.”
“Maybe you could give me her phone number.”
The woman’s expression hardened a little. “I can give you her extension. You’re welcome to leave a message on her work line.”
Duncan considered that. It would be private if it was her own extension. But before he could decide what to do, a bell on the door tinkled. He turned and watched as a redhead whirled into the lobby.
“If that lousy SOB had talked instead of giving me the runaround, I wouldn’t be caught in a damn downpour,” she muttered as she wiped her boots on a mat by the door.
Sure, she wasn’t the only person in the world with red hair and blue eyes that leaned toward violet, but he knew it was her.
And that on an adult woman all those little details landed…differently, in a kind ofjolt. Because she didn’t have skinned knees and falling-out braids any longer. She was dressed in tight jeans, heavy boots, and a black T-shirt. He didn’t know much about guns that weren’t meant for hunting, and even then, he’d never been into it. But he knew she had one strapped to a holster on her hip. She was short, with a medium build, but something about the way she carried herself gave the aura of someone taller, someone who could kick ass.
But her face somehow looked delicate on that tough package. Maybe it was the raindrops in her hair and on her face that seemed to tease out the little smattering of freckles across her nose.
Something about the whole of her was surprisinglyattractive. Not that he had the time or presence of mind to be noticing just how attractive. Even if ithadbeen a while in that department, and he—
No. He was here to help out his parents. Not flirt with the neighbor girl.
Who, as his mother had pointed out, was not agirlanymore.
He saw the recognition on her face right away, and in the slight pause in her stride. But her expression didn’t give away much more than that. Just that she recognized him.
He didn’t know what possessed him then. He hadn’t seen her in something like fifteen years, and it wasn’t like they’d been friends or even enemies. They’d been neighbors. Their parents had been friends. And they’d had to take the same interminable bus ride into school for the years they’d been going at the same time, which was quite a few since the bus ran ranch kids in kindergarten all the way up to seniors in high school.
But an old memory struck him, of someone calling her Rosie, and her coming unglued. And no doubt it was abadinstinct, but he leaned into it anyway.
“Heya, Rosie. Long time, no see.”
Chapter Two
Rosalie Young stared at the outrageously handsome man standing in the lobby of Fool’s Gold Investigations and didn’t let any of the feelings rambling around inside of her show on her face.
His dark hair looked a little windswept, and longer than he kept it during the season. He’d grown a beard, but she wondered if that was more because of the sling his arm was in rather than any choice in the matter. His dark eyes were focused, intelligent, and a little amused. His mouth… Well, his mouth was an interesting mix of all sorts of things that might have normally had her offering a flirtatious smile.
But this was Duncan Kirk. Hometown boy turned baseball superstar.
Even though she’d watched his career with interest—who wouldn’t cheer on the hometown kid?—she still had the mental picture of him as the grumpy little cuss who’d lived on the ranch next door.
Maybe grumpy wasn’t fair, she could admit, with years of growing up under her belt. She didn’t know much about professional sports, but she knew for anyone to get out of a ranch in the middle of nowhere Wyoming and become a professional athlete took a lot more than luck.
Maybe he hadn’t been so muchgrumpyas focused, she had amended a few years back.
