Buch lesen: «The Buchanons»

Chapter One

It was now or never. Walk up to that door and knock or drive back to the office and give the case to someone else.

From behind the wheel of her plain white Chevy Cruze, Jade Warren eyed the housing complex next to the smooth green golf course of Gabriel’s Crossing, Texas. She wasn’t a bit surprised that Sawyer Buchanon lived in such a nice place. His family’s construction company had likely built the buff brick townhomes, something she would know if she’d done her computer homework. But the impulse to immediately drive to the river town and face the dragon had overshadowed her usual rigid work ethic.

Do the job. Do it right. Don’t get involved.

Which was exactly why she shouldn’t have accepted this assignment.

She was involved. She’d been involved for years. Being here, accepting this investigation, made her a traitor.

But frankly she was tired of chasing absconding debtors and deadbeat exes. She wanted a case with meat on the bones, something she could sink her investigating teeth into.

Most of all, she was curious about her family nemeses, the dreaded Buchanons.

To hear her daddy tell it, the Buchanons breathed fire and plotted the demise of anyone they didn’t like. And they always won. She’d grown up despising a group of people she’d never met.

Until today.

A pretty redhead exited the front door of number 4, Sawyer Buchanon’s home. Figures. Very little investigative skill was required to learn Sawyer liked women and they liked him back. His social media was loaded with messages and photos from beautiful females.

The shapely, jean-clad redhead hopped into the cab of a bloodred F-150 pickup complete with a big white toolbox across the back.

Jade waited until the woman pulled away, the truck’s mufflers rumbling, before leaving her nondescript car to walk across the lush, manicured grass, up the clean-swept sidewalk past recently groomed boxwood to ring the doorbell.

Before she had time to put on her game face, Sawyer Buchanon, in gray athletic pants and white T-shirt, opened the door.

Jade thought she had prepared for this moment. She’d seen his photos. She knew he was very handsome and was determined not to react, not to become distracted from the case, or worse, become an idiot female and simper.

She swallowed and breathed slowly through her nose in a concerted effort to keep her expression cool and passive.

Photos didn’t do the man justice. Messy midlength hair, vivid blue eyes and a morning scruff as black as his hair.

Every female cell in her body reacted. She held the reaction inside, tightening her mouth to a determined thin line.

Sawyer flashed a movie star smile, a little crooked and a lot breathtaking.

Jade clamped her back teeth against her cheek until pain shot from the roof of her mouth to the top of her head.

There. Better. He wasn’t that good looking.

“Did you forget somethi—Oh, I thought you were Clare.” He poked his head around the door and looked toward the driveway. “She just left.”

Right. The redhead.

Jade stuck out a hand, her words intentionally crisp. “I’m Jade Warren, Paris Investigations. Is this a good time for us to talk?”

His smile faltered, replaced by a look of bewilderment. “You’re the private investigator my father hired?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?” She braced for it.

“Does my dad know you’re...?”

Her hackles rose. “A woman?”

“I was going to say pretty.” He flashed the smile again, eyes alight with mischief, and stepped to one side. “Come in. I was about to have a Coke. Want one?”

She shook her head. “Too early in the morning.”

“That’s what I’ve been told.” He led the way into the living room. The interior surprised her somewhat. Given his reputation, she’d expected a bachelor’s lair but was met with clean, simple lines in tones of gray and white with splashes of maroon. Masculine. Tasteful. Jade settled on the dove-gray sofa. Directly in front of it was a big-screen television mounted above a small tiled fireplace.

While Sawyer disappeared around a wall for his caffeine, she took out a notebook and jotted a few lines.

He popped back into the room. “I have coffee.”

“I’m good, thank you.”

He held up a single-serving coffee pod. “K-cups. Only take a minute. Would you rather have hot chocolate? Cider?” He turned the packet up close to his eyes and pretended to squint. “Caramel vanilla cream?”

She loved caramel vanilla cream. So, apparently, did his legion of girlfriends. Probably including the shapely redhead.

With a soft hum, she scribbled player on her pad. Now he was showing his true colors. “Do you stock every flavor?”

“Never know when you’ll need them.” He grinned. “I aim to please.”

Jade didn’t roll her eyes but she came close. Give it a rest, Romeo. I know your kind. I even have the scars to prove it.

“How nice.” She didn’t smile. “I’d prefer to get down to business if you don’t mind.”

“Okay.” Coke can in hand, he stood in the doorway between the living room and whatever was behind the wall. Kitchen, apparently. “Shoot.”

She wished he would sit down. From her place on the couch she had to look up and it made her feel inferior. At a disadvantage. He was a good six feet tall but not particularly broad. Just fit and lean with the right amount of shoulders. Strong and muscular as she’d expect of a man who made his living with a hammer and his hands.

Not that she noticed shoulders. She’d never known any worth leaning on.

Nor did she allow herself to be intimidated. Maintaining a businesslike tone, she held his gaze and absolutely refused to blink first.

“I’m here to investigate the vandalism plaguing Buchanon Built Construction projects. Your father shared some background with my boss and I have the police reports, but I’ll need you to fill me in on details from your perspective.”

“You’d do better to discuss this with Brady. He’s the site manager and COO of Buchanon Built.” A pair of eyebrows, as black as sin’s underbelly, twitched with a hint of amusement. “But he’s in Italy on his honeymoon. Lucky duck.”

Jade flipped through her notes. “Brady. Your older brother. A pet project of his burned to the ground on New Year’s Eve.”

The handsome face darkened. “Arson. Abby’s house. He was building it for her as a Christmas makeover.”

“Abby. Brady’s wife.”

“Fiancée at the time of the fire.”

She scribbled a note. “Interesting, but your father is more concerned about the photo recently found after a break-in.”

Sawyer made a noise deep in his throat. “Dad has it in his head that Dawson or me—Dawson’s my twin—is somehow to blame for all this trouble.”

“Why would he think that?”

“Beats me. You’d think he’d focus on Brady. After all, Brady’s project was torched, not mine, but someone leaves a picture and Dad suddenly points at us. Me in particular.”

“Why you over Dawson?”

“The hair. His is different.”

“And this was apparent in the photo?”

Sawyer emitted a frustrated breath. “Yep.”

“I’ll want to see that photo and speak to your brother, of course.”

He jacked a thumb to the south. “He lives next door.”

“Yes, I know.”

He looked discomfited. “Exactly how much do you know about us?”

She curved her lips for the first time, a cat’s smile that had nothing to do with humor. “The more I know, the faster I can solve this case.”

“Buchanon Built has dealt with a vandalism problem off and on for going on two years.” He pushed away from the wall, his body language clearly indicating he doubted her. “Do you seriously think you can discover something the police and fire investigators can’t?”

He had no idea how much fuel his doubts added to her determination. “They have other cases. You have my full focus.”

The smile appeared again. He was good at that. Flashing those white teeth against Texas-tanned skin with stunning effectiveness. “And you’ll have mine.”

His entire focus? She doubted that, not with gorgeous redheads coming and going at random. Women crawling out of the woodwork.

She held his gaze and refused to acknowledge the zip of energy caused by staring into eyes that flashed like blue lightning and were every bit as mesmerizing.

Cam was like this, charming and magnetic. And dangerous.

She ducked her head, annoyed at the direction of her thoughts. The ugly business with Cam was eons behind her and that’s where it needed to remain.

During her four-year stint as a police officer, before joining Paris Investigations, she’d interviewed plenty of nice-looking men and dozens of creeps. A pretty face and infectious smile did not sway her. Not anymore. Cam had taught her a painful lesson she wasn’t likely to forget.

So save your smiles for someone else, Mr. Buchanon. I know your kind.

“Do you have anything to hide? Anything you’d rather the rest of the world didn’t know?”

He blinked, startled by the vehemence of the question. Good. She’d knocked the grin off his face.

After sipping at his soda in contemplation, he ambled across the living room and sank onto a chair across from her. Lanky, agile and oozing manly appeal.

“Are we exchanging secrets?”

She cocked an eyebrow at him, keeping her stare as cool as November. Get this straight, buster. I know the ploys of a handsome man and I will never, ever fall for that again.

“Okay.” He lifted a hand in surrender. “I guess that would be a negative. In which case, my answer is no. No secrets. No skeletons. Except for a couple of speeding tickets and maybe that one other time.”

She sat up straighter. “What other time?”

He chuckled and pointed his Coke, clearly trying to rile her. “Got you interested, didn’t I?”

Jade’s insides did a slow burn. Mr. Playboy refused to take her seriously.

“Mr. Buchanon, this is a legal investigation, not a contest, and certainly not a joking matter. Do you, or do you not, want to find out who is sabotaging your building projects?”

He sobered. “Sorry. It’s just that the whole idea of hiring a PI is ludicrous. A waste of money.”

A red flag rose. Did he indeed have something to hide? Some reason he didn’t want her to discover? “You object to the investigation?”

“I object to wasting time and money.”

Maybe. But Buchanons had plenty. Maybe the money comment was a smoke screen. “Will I have your cooperation?”

“You will, but I don’t know anything that’s not in the police reports.”

Her lips curved again in a humorless smile.

“Let me be the judge of that.”

* * *

Sawyer squinted at the woman sitting on his couch and rubbed a hand over the discombobulated feeling in his chest while mulling the previous ten minutes.

Jade Warren, for some reason, had decided not to like him, and he tried to understand why. When he’d seemed surprised at seeing her standing on his itty-bitty porch, she’d jumped to immediate conclusions and practically accused him of misogyny.

He bit back a grin. Sawyer Buchanon was anything but a woman hater.

Granted, he’d been surprised at the investigator’s gender considering her profession, but he certainly didn’t object. Just as he didn’t object to women in the construction business.

Take Clare Hammond, for instance. A great trim carpenter, she beat him to the job every morning. Like today, while he’d still been slouching around the town house, Clare had dropped by to return a set of miter clamps he’d inadvertently left behind. She’d been on the job since six. What a work ethic! And she was easy on the eyes, too.

Sawyer also knew Clare took flack at times for being a woman in what was traditionally a man’s world, and being pretty was not to her advantage on a construction crew. She had to work hard to prove she was as good at her job as the men. Even then, some crews frowned on having a female on the job site.

But not Buchanon Built Construction Company. When Dad said equal-opportunity employer, he meant it. If a woman could do the job, do it well in a timely fashion and take the inevitable joking that happened on every crew, she was hired. Dad was no dummy. All he had to do was look around at his own family. The Buchanon women were as strong and independent as they came, and Sawyer respected those traits, just as he respected all women.

He also adored them. A woman like Clare who could work him into the ground fascinated him. Women were, in his view, the most blessed gender. They made the world a happier, prettier, kinder place.

So if he had to hang out with someone prying into his life, he’d rather have the vulnerable-looking blonde with the bee-stung mouth than some trench-coat-wearing, smoke-scented gumshoe with an attitude.

Not that Miss Jade Warren didn’t have an attitude. She did. A very cold attitude that said she suspected him of something heinous, like sinking the Titanic single-handedly.

She sat on the edge of his sofa, as straight and stiff as a planed two-by-four, hand poised over a notebook. Not a cell phone as he would have used for notes. An old-fashioned notebook.

Except for the clipped tone and suspicious gray eyes that seemed to take in every element in his living room, Little Miss Magnum PI looked too soft and small to investigate anything. Maybe that was her strategy to fool the guilty.

If Sawyer was guilty of anything, she’d have had him in handcuffs by now. Her long eyelashes, mysterious and dark against pale cheeks, captivated his attention.

She flicked a glance up at him. His breath stuttered and a moth took flight in his midsection.

Whoa. Weird. Nice weird but still weird. He liked women but he could normally maintain coherent thought in their presence.

Jade Warren was different.

There was no good reason in the world for him to be attracted to her. She was too cold, too tight-lipped, too suspicious. But interest bubbled up anyway.

A mouth like hers was made to smile, and he wondered what it would take to make her laugh.

Not that he saw that happening in the next five minutes. Talk about chilly—and yet somebody needed to remind the woman of the outside temperature. Texas in summer scorched, but here she was in a nifty black business suit, tucked in and buttoned up as if she dared anyone to notice she was female.

Sorry to burst your bubble, lady. Even in long pants and sensible shoes—also black—you are all woman. Above the white button-down blouse was a pair of fascinating gray eyes. The color of his couch. Smoke and mystery.

Sawyer took a stinging gulp of Coke, letting the burn brand some sense into him. At the Huckleberry Addition, he had a massive built-in china hutch waiting for his hammer and expertise. He couldn’t sit here and contemplate the novelty of a female private investigator who’d managed to both insult and interest him. Maybe more than interest him.

He glanced at his watch. “Ask me whatever you need to. But talk fast. I have to meet my brother at the building supply center in thirty minutes.”

“We have a lot to discuss. I need more time with you than that.”

He tilted his head. “Time’s an important commodity for me, too.”

“When can we meet again?”

Sawyer couldn’t help himself. He grinned. “Are you asking me out?”

She glared icicles at him. The temperature in the room fell ten degrees. No wonder she wore a black suit. The chill emanating from her could cause frostbite.

Sawyer rubbed his bare arms and fought back a grimace. Prickly little woman, this PI. Pretty and prickly.

“Mr. Buchanon—”

“Sawyer.” He held up a hand. “Before you pounce, I apologize. Joking around is my style.”

“Not mine.”

Sawyer bit back a sigh.

Well, wasn’t she more fun than a dental drill? Maybe Dad should have hired a smoke-scented gumshoe after all.