Reflection Point: An Eternity Springs Novel (8 page)

It needed clearing after dealing with the Georgia peach.

Sweaty, he ducked into his house for a quick shower, and if he lingered for a moment trying to decide which shirt to wear, he chalked it up to having an overflowing laundry hamper rather than any desire to look nice.

“I wish you would learn to do laundry,” he said to Ace, who displayed his lack of interest in the idea by padding to his bed and settling down for a nap.

Back at the meeting center, Zach taped a note on the door instructing Savannah to come on in, then he made his way to the small storage room, where he prepared to make copies on what he guessed might be the only ditto machine still in use in America.

As the first few printed pages rolled out, Zach absently brought a sheet up to his nose and inhaled the scent of the purple ink. He forgot all about Savannah Moore and his SARE to-do list as the fragrance catapulted him back to third grade and math tests. His mom used to wonder why he scored so poorly when he was a whiz at numbers. He’d never confessed that he spent too much time sniffing the paper and too little time doing the work.

The machine, ink, and paper had been one of the treasures stored in the basement at Angel’s Rest, and when Celeste offered to donate it to the meeting center, he’d been happy to take it, primarily for nostalgia’s sake. The center did have a state-of-the-art copier, but as luck would have it, it was currently out of service until a replacement
part arrived, so the ditto machine was coming in handy.

As the machine produced pages for his packets, memories of grade school drifted through his mind: reading groups, dodgeball at recess, cursive writing. Did they still teach handwriting in schools? He wondered if teachers still used that tool with five sticks of chalk to draw equidistant lines on the chalkboard. For that matter, he wondered if they still used chalkboards.

That thought led him to recall his after-school punishment in the fourth grade—writing “I will not fight” on the board one hundred times. It had been a fair price to pay for the joy of pounding on Barry Hill after he’d taunted Zach because “your real mother hated you so much she gave you away.” His adoptive parents had agreed with the punishment—then they’d taken him out for pizza, a real treat.

When the last of the purple-inked pages rolled from the machine, he gathered up the stack and exited the room just in time to see Savannah Moore’s car pull to a stop in front of the center. Zach drew in a deep, lung-clearing breath. It wouldn’t do to have the drug dealer walk into the room and accuse him of being high on the solvents used in spirit duplicators.

He walked through the front door to the porch and gazed out at the old Ford sedan she drove.
Bet that ride is a big step down for a drug dealer
. She switched off the engine and opened her door. His gaze fastened on the bright red polish on toes slipped into heeled red patent leather sandals. Sexy. Thin ankles, long, tanned legs, and a flirty skirt on a yellow sundress. Very sexy.

Zach set his teeth and watched her walk toward him.

Very felonious.

He tried to smile, but when her eyes widened, then went narrow, he suspected it came off more like a snarl. But dammit, he’d spent five years of his life working
undercover to help disrupt the flow of drugs into schools and parks and lives. He didn’t care how hot she was—the woman was drug-dealing scum.

After he’d finally read her rap sheet, he’d made some phone calls to Georgia. He’d yet to hear back from the messages he’d left at the department that had made her arrest, but a cop in the small rural town where she’d been born had remembered her well. He’d been downright chatty relaying information about her youth. Apparently Savannah Moore had been quite the juvenile delinquent before being sent away to live with her grandmother.

The Moore family had been moonshiners, and Savannah had been sixteen when she was arrested for two counts of sale of non-tax-paid whiskey resulting from purchases made by an undercover cop. The cop also recalled shoplifting and check-walking accusations. Of course, those were minor infractions when compared to what had sent her to prison.

She’d served six years for cultivation and trafficking. Sexy Savannah was an ex-con.

Who’d moved to Eternity Springs.

Who’d cozied up to his friends.

Who planned to sell soap.

Soap? Really? Or maybe some other kind of crystals?

As she approached the porch, he greeted her with an inadvertent bite to his tone. “Hello, Ms. Moore.”

Her chin came up, and he knew he’d inadvertently put her on the defensive.
Dial it back, Turner. You want to observe and learn, don’t you? You won’t manage that if you alienate her right off the bat
.

Channeling his old undercover days, he made his smile genuine. “Am I glad to see you.”

Her look turned wary. “You are?”

“I sure am. I can’t thank you enough for volunteering to help me.”

She studied him for a long moment, as if trying to judge his sincerity. “I wasn’t exactly sure what you needed help with, so I wasn’t sure what to wear. I have old clothes in the car if I need to change.”

“No, you’re fine.”
You’re beautiful. Dammit
. “Honestly, I’ve been so busy with work that I’ve put off preparations for this meeting until the last minute. There’s so much to do, I don’t quite know where to start. I have bags that need to be stuffed and vendors who need to be called. I need to test the AV equipment, process last-minute registrations, and clean the bathrooms.” He shot her his best sheepish, aw-shucks smile. “I’ll do those, of course. They’re not bad, but I wouldn’t ask you to clean bathrooms.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Why don’t I show you around and fill you in on what I’m up against, and we can go from there?” He opened the front door and gestured for her to precede him inside.

She walked to the center of the room. “This is a lovely facility. The view is fabulous.”

A wall of windows showed off the sapphire blue of Hummingbird Lake and the snowcapped mountains beyond. “This building started out as a vacation home for a large family from out of state. When I bought the house next door, Celeste suggested converting it to a corporate retreat.”

“So this is not a city facility?”

“No. It’s private. It’s mine. Well, mine and the bank’s.”

She turned to look at him. “You asked for volunteers to help you make money with your personal business?”

Could she sound more disgusted?

Annoyed, he replied, “No. I asked for help for a non-profit program I care deeply about. The SARE program isn’t paying for the space. In reality, it’s costing me money, but this is an excellent program that does a lot of
good, and I’m happy to help support it. Let me tell you a little bit about what we do.”

He was off and running now, explaining how the privately funded group had been formed a decade earlier with a program similar to the wilderness expeditions of Outward Bound that focused on youth at risk of falling into the drug culture. As he talked, Zach thought,
She was an at-risk youth at one time. She should appreciate SARE better than most
.

She should be impressed
.

She obviously wasn’t.

As he further explained about the program, Zach sensed a peculiar tension brewing in the room, that same sort of anticipatory energy that heralded a summer thunderstorm. The kind of tension that made a man feel alive.

He finished his explanation by saying, “I’ve been a group leader for the past three years, and let me tell you, a week of camping in the Rockies can change the lives of these kids, change them for the better. I’ve seen it myself.”

Savannah lifted both hands, palms out. Her smile was neutral, but her eyes flashed with an emotion he couldn’t quite read. Temper, definitely, but something else, too. What was it?

“No argument here,” she said. “My bad. I misunderstood. It sounds like a great cause. Now, what can I do to help?”

Zach frowned. He’d expected further argument from her. He’d looked forward to it, in fact. He needed to blow off some steam.

I want to kiss her
.

Whoa. Wait just one minute. Have you gone crazy? Your intention was to charm, not be charmed
.

He had to get control of his buttons—all his buttons.
Apparently she had the ability to push them without even trying.

Zach cleared his throat and attempted to steer the conversation back to safe grounds. “If you could knock out the bag stuffing, that would be a tremendous help.”

“Fine. Lead the way.”

He pretended not to notice the insincerity in her smile as he led her into the workroom. A long table piled high with stacks of paper, folders, canvas bags, and tchotchkes stood against one wall. He gestured toward it, saying, “Everything is lined up. I need three folders made for each bag, with pages in the top row going in the red folders, those in middle row put in the yellow folders, and the ones in the bottom row in the blue folders. Each bag gets one of the giveaway items.”

Savannah crossed to the table and picked up a mini flashlight on a locking carabiner. “These things come in handy.”

“That they do.”

“All right, then. I can handle this task. Why don’t you go … clean the bathrooms?”

He hesitated, then nodded and walked toward the door. At the threshold he paused. He knew he should keep on going, one foot in front of the other, mouth zipped tight. But while he still grasped for button control, the storm broke. He turned around and asked, “You don’t like me, do you?”

She shot him a wary look. “I don’t know you.”

“No, you don’t.” He folded his arms and leaned casually against the doorjamb, though he felt anything but casual. “So why don’t you like me? I haven’t done anything to you … other than attempt to save your life.”

She picked up a carabiner and twirled it around her finger. “I wasn’t jumping off Lover’s Leap.”

“I didn’t know that.” Giving up casual, he strode
forward. “I risked my life to save yours and you … you …”

“I what?”

“You called me Barney Fife!”

She went still, then dropped her head and brushed an imaginary speck of something off her skirt. Were her lips twitching?
If she laughs at me out loud, I swear I’m going to blow a gasket
.

Her tongue snaked out and moistened her lips. “When did you hear me say that?”

Zach had to pull his gaze away from her mouth. “You don’t know?”

“It’s possible I might have used the name more than once.”

Zach sucked air past his teeth. She went on the offensive and demanded, “Why have you been spying on me?”

“I haven’t been spying on you,” he fired back. Though he had run a make on her. Did she suspect that? Was that behind this attitude of hers?

“Obviously you
have
spied on me,” she continued. “I wouldn’t use a derogatory term like that in public, only in private. I admit I tend to talk to myself, so if you heard me call you Barney Fife, you obviously eavesdropped on a private moment.”

She didn’t apologize. She didn’t explain. Really, little Savannah the drug dealer shouldn’t look so superior. Zach felt the urge to cut her down a peg or two. He smiled the smile he’d learned from Cam Murphy, a shark’s grin that was all teeth. “If I’d wanted to spy, Ms. Moore, I’d have gone to work for the CIA. Instead, I investigate. I’m an excellent investigator.”

She audibly gasped, diverting Zach’s attention from her mouth to her breasts. Unfortunately, she caught him staring, and when she spoke again, though she didn’t use the words “Go to hell,” they came through loud and
clear. “In that case, Sheriff Turner, perhaps you should investigate the state of the restrooms rather than my chest. I need to stuff your … bags.”

Zach couldn’t allow her to send him away. Since he’d already been caught staring and because she’d chosen to wear that short, flirty skirt, he allowed his gaze to slowly drift down to her long, shapely, sexy legs and told himself he was being insulting rather than feeding his inconvenient attraction to her.

He also had one more question he wanted to ask. “Why did you come here today?”

“I can leave.”

“No, you promised to … stuff my bags.” He looked her in the eye—not without an annoying bit of regret—and asked, “I’d like to know why you volunteered.”

“Because I’m—” She broke off abruptly and sighed, the starch draining from her spine like air from a balloon. “I don’t know. I just … did. It’s Sarah Murphy’s fault. She poked me. That woman is a terrier.”

Relating to her sentiment, this time Zach was the one who sighed. “She is. So are her friends. Still, you could have come up with an excuse for not showing up.”

“I keep my word, Sheriff. And I do not lie.” Her gaze was steady, and sincerity rang in her voice.

If Zach hadn’t known better, he’d have believed her.

Knowing the time had come for a strategic retreat, he left her alone with her volunteer work while he made quick work of cleaning the restrooms, then went outside to the toolshed. Earlier he had noticed that a couple of nails had worked their way loose on the back porch. Pounding nails struck him as the perfect task to do at this particular moment, so he grabbed his hammer and went to work.

Thwack
. Why did she throw him off his game so bad?

You’re attracted to her
.

Thwack. Thwack
. Okay, fine. So what? It was understandable.
She was gorgeous. Sexy. Spirited. He liked a little attitude in his women. And those legs …

Savannah Sophia Moore isn’t your woman. She will never be your woman. You can never go there. It would go against all your principles
.

True. He had to squash this attraction like a bug.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack
.

With the porch nails sufficiently pounded, he reentered the building and commenced his AV equipment check. Once he completed that, he grabbed his cell phone and the folder he’d left on a table in the main room and began making the vendor calls. He was halfway through his list when a noise in the doorway to the office caught his attention and he looked up. Savannah stood in a beam of sunshine, and streaks of burnished fire highlighted the curls in her golden hair. She looked like an angel, he thought, and again, frustratingly, his blood heated.