A Creed in Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller [112]
“I hear you’re serving as Byron Cahill’s lawyer.”
“Not exactly,” Steven said, after an inaudible sigh. “As you know, Byron is no longer a suspect. I’m just trying to help out in whatever way I can.”
“It was good of Tom to take the boy in for a while,” Martine said. “Byron and Velda haven’t had it easy, that’s for sure. Do you think they’ll catch Nathan Carter anytime soon?” She stopped for a breath, shuddered slightly. “It gives me the heebie-jeebies, knowing he’s still out there. What if he comes back and tries again, since he didn’t get to keep the money last time?”
“I don’t think he will,” Steven said in parting.
It wasn’t much, but at the moment, it was all he had to offer.
Feeling as if he’d made no progress at all—what else was new?—Steven left the Stop & Shop and drove to his office, passing the Sunflower Café on the way. The place was doing a brisk business, as usual, the parking lot packed with cars, motorcycles and pickup trucks.
Steven cruised on past the courthouse next, casually stealing a glance in that direction, as he did every time he came into town for any reason. Melissa’s roadster was parked in its usual place, with the top up and a reflective shield across the inside of the windshield.
He considered stopping by to say hello—hello?—but soon discarded the idea.
What was there to say? Melissa had made up her mind about him, and about what he did for a living. She was an intelligent woman, a practicing attorney; at least in principle, she definitely understood that under the American judicial system, faulty though it was, everyone—guilty or innocent—has the right to counsel.
It seemed more probable that she was merely using that difference of opinion as an excuse to avoid anything remotely resembling a lifetime commitment. She’d admitted to caring a lot for Dan Guthrie, once upon a time, and Steven had seen what could only be called regret in her eyes when she spoke of Dan’s children, the two boys she’d expected to raise as her own.
She was clearly fond of Matt—a point in her favor, of course. Unless she’d been attracted to Steven because of the child, and only because of him.
He parked alongside his building, got out of the truck and almost forgot Zeke in the backseat. A cheerful yip reminded him that he wasn’t alone, so he retraced his steps, hooked a leash to Zeke’s collar, and lifted the dog out of the truck, setting him on the ground. Waiting.
Zeke sniffed the gravel for a while, checked out various thatches of weeds at the edges of the lot, then lifted a hind leg in front of the weathered log marking the boundary of the property on the Main Street side. Steven was still stumbling around in his own thoughts, too distracted, by his own reckoning, to be good for anything much—that day, at least.
He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, remembering the wild time he and Melissa had shared in his bed. Male egotism aside, he knew she hadn’t been faking her responses—he’d felt the subtle flexing of her body as she’d reached one orgasm and then another, felt the moisture of exertion on her silky skin and thrilled to her uninhibited cries of pleasure.
Steven shifted uncomfortably. Tried to turn his thoughts in another direction.
Zeke finished up and they headed for the side door.
Inside, Steven unsnapped the leash and left the dog to wander around the inner and outer offices until he’d found just the right place to curl up for a morning snooze. This involved some circling, some pawing at the carpet, and a couple of big sighs, but Zeke finally settled himself in a patch of sunlight in front of the window to the street, dropped off to sleep and began to snore.
Steven checked his messages.
Zip from Melissa, of course.
Two from Velda Cahill; she’d been calling regularly since her release from the clinic in Indian Rock a few days back, wanting to know what was being done to find Nathan