Read The Gift for Free Online Page B

appeared resigned. “I hope Cecil got that last field hauled.”
    “Speak English, please?” She shrugged. “City girl, born and bred.”
    He aimed his thumb toward the sky. “We were hauling hay today when I heard you…”
    “Ah.” Beth nodded. “Let me guess. You heard some damn Yankee was in town asking questions about Lorilee?”
    His lips twitched. “Something like that.”
    She grinned and waggled her eyebrows. “ ‘Good,’ said the spider to the fly.”
    “You…” Ty threw his head back and laughed, surprising her. “You set me up.”
    Beth didn’t bother to hide her grin. “Something like that.” She held her hands out to her sides, palms up in mock innocence. “Hey, I figured the sooner we got this show on the road, the sooner we’d get to the truth.”
    His expression grew solemn again. “Fair enough.”
    Their gazes met and locked. Something Beth didn’t dare try to define passed between them. She looked away first, breaking the spell, and walked slowly toward the easel. She needed physical distance between herself and Ty. Not only was she sexually attracted to the man, but she found something else about him compelling as well. Just her rottenluck. If only she knew what the hell it was that drew her to the man…
    Focus.
    Dust coated Lorilee’s unfinished painting. Beth mentally anchored herself in the half-finished scene, looked out the long window directly behind the easel, then back at the canvas. “Landscape?”
    “Looks like.” Ty walked to her side and touched the corner of the canvas. “Lorilee loved this place. This farm. This house. And especially her kids. She didn’t run away, Beth. She had no reason to.”
    Beth half turned to face him. He’d left out one very telling piece of the perfect family scenario. “And how about you and Lorilee? Was your marriage solid? Strong? Fulfilling? Happy?”
    His lips pressed into a thin line and a muscle in his jaw twitched. Ah, so maybe everything wasn’t perfect in paradise. Her homicide-detective persona scratched at the door of her brain, asking for free rein. But Beth wasn’t ready to grant that just yet.
    “Lorilee and I loved each other very much,” he said gruffly. His eyes snapped, but he continued to hold Beth’s gaze. “She would never have left me, either. We both said, ‘Until death do us part,’ and meant it.”
    Whose death? The hairs on the back of Beth’s neck stood on end and a chill chased itself down her spine. As appealing as Ty Malone was, she had to remember that if his wife was dead, he might have been responsible.
    Silence stretched between them again, and despite her commonsense warnings, Beth found herself pulled toward him in more than just a physical way now. She wanted to believe him, and that was dangerous.She couldn’t afford to let herself become emotional about her work. Facts, Dearborn. Evidence. Truth.
    “Let’s find the truth, then,” she said quietly.
    “That’s what I want.”
    “No matter what it is?”
    Again, he swallowed audibly. “No matter what it is.”
    “Okay.” Beth walked to the nearest window and stared through the drizzle at the fields below. A stream meandered through the green valley. Cottonwood and hickory trees followed its banks. Mountains ringed the entire area, and she felt as if she’d arrived in a fairy-tale land.
    At least she hadn’t experienced any other close encounters of the eerie kind since leaving the entryway. “Mr. Malone—er, Ty?” She turned to face him. “Is there another way into the house and up the stairs to this room?”
    He furrowed his brow and angled his head, his expression curious. “Sure. Why?”
    Beth rubbed her arms. This was awkward. How could she explain that she was afraid to use the front door again? “I think it might be less disruptive to the household if I come and go through the back door. That’s all.”
    He didn’t seem convinced, but he shrugged and said, “Suit yourself. We’ll leave that way, and I’ll let