Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [3]
She carried her box across the weeds and dead pine needles that passed for a yard. Elijah kept coming. She saw no sign of a limp—her sister, Beth, had e-mailed her in April after news hit town that Elijah, a Special Forces soldier, had been wounded, badly, in Afghanistan.
It was the day after Devin Shay, a Black Falls High School senior, had found Drew Cameron dead on the mountain named for his ancestors.
Jo stopped at the front door—the only door—to the largest of the dilapidated cabins. It was set up on blocks and had moss growing on its roof, which couldn’t be good, and its board-and-batten exterior needed a fresh coat of dark brown paint. But it was the closest to the lake and the best of the lot. Most of the cabins probably should have been condemned years ago. A.J., the eldest Cameron, supposedly had drawn up plans for expanding Black Falls Lodge down to the lake, never expecting the land wouldn’t one day be his.
Elijah left the dirt road and walked toward her as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He wore a canvas jacket, close-fitting jeans and a navy blue Red Sox cap, and Jo noted the dark stubble of beard on his square Cameron jaw. If possible, he was even more appealing than he had been at nineteen, when he had whisked her off for three nights and four days in the very cabins she had just inherited.
She had never loved anyone the way she had Elijah Cameron.
But that was a long time ago.
He came up to the doorstep with his vase of flowers. They were all lilies—Asiatic lilies in varying shades of cream, apricot and copper.
Jo settled the box onto her right hip. She could have stayed with her sister or brother or in her old room growing up, but she’d opted for space, quiet and solitude. She’d always loved the lake. While she was doing damage control on her career, she figured she could also consider her options for what to do with her lakefront property.
Elijah barely contained a smile. “Rough week, Agent Harper?”
It wasn’t looking to get better anytime soon. “Hello, Elijah.”
“Jo.”
“I didn’t see you—”
“Not a chance. You’re a Secret Service agent who protects the lives of important people. You spotted me before you took the key out of your ignition.”
She sighed. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
His eyes, the same deep blue that had captivated her as a teenager, sparked with humor. “No, ma’am. It’s too good.”
“No one else is making this easy. No reason you should.” She nodded to the enormous vase of lilies he carried in the crook of one arm. “Taking up flower arranging, Elijah?”
“Penny dropped them off earlier. She didn’t want to leave them out in the open. They’re for you.”
Penny Hodges owned the only flower shop in Black Falls and had always had a soft spot for Elijah. She and his mother had been best friends. Drew used to accuse both women of coddling his second-born son and had seen himself as the only one willing to impose discipline on him.
Ancient history, Jo thought, and now both Elijah’s parents were gone.
“Who’re they from?” she asked.
“What makes you think I know?”
“You looked at the card.”
“Ah. Well.” He sniffed an apricot-colored lily. “So I did. Are you armed?”
“Elijah—”
“It can be dangerous, having a badass Secret Service agent next door.”
Just her luck that Elijah would be the first person she ran into in Black Falls. Despite the ordeals of the past seven months—his father’s death, his own near death—he looked fit, as muscular and as physical as ever. But Jo didn’t fool herself. Elijah Cameron wasn’t the same small-town Vermont boy who had stolen her heart and soul as a teenager.
And she wasn’t the same small-town girl.
“If the flowers are a gag gift from one of my colleagues, you can dump them in the lake. Paddle your canoe out to a deep spot and give