Free Cold Case Affair by Loreth Anne White

red-handed with his binoculars aimed at her house. Locking eyes with her through those scopes had been intense, sexual, even over the distance. Damn, she’d made him hard just by looking.
    It had always been that way with Muirinn. She sparked the playful in him. The daring. The lust.
    The goddamn pain.
    Easy on the eyes, hard on the heart—that was Muirinn O’Donnell.
    And now that he knew she was available, and that she still clearly wanted him, it raised the stakes.
    Big time.
    He swore softly.
    Going near her again would be akin to touching fire. He’d get burned, and he knew it.
    Even worse, Troy would get burned.
    Jett put the scopes down, and returned to his desk. But he still couldn’t focus on his project. And the more he sat there, the more he felt like an ass for his little episode with the binoculars.
    He grabbed his shirt, yanked on his jeans and scooped up his keys.
    He drove his truck over to Muirinn’s house under the pretext of apologizing for scoping her out; besides, he needed to head into the village anyway, to pick up some supplies. But deep down Jett just needed to see her again. She was his addiction; always had been.
    But as he pulled into her driveway, he saw that Gus’s truck was gone, and Mrs. Wilkie was bustling down the front steps of the porch, bag in hand, looking flustered.
    He rolled down his window, hooked his elbow out. “Lydia?” he said.
    She started. “Jett! Muirinn’s not here.”
    He frowned at the odd edginess in her tone. “Do you know where she went?”
    “That’s the whole thing, Jett—she went to that awful mine! I…I told her she shouldn’t go alone, but you know Muirinn. She never did listen. She left in a real hurry, and she was carrying one of Gus’s guns.”
    “What? Are you sure?”
    “Of course I’m sure. It was a hunting rifle.”
    “I mean, are you sure that she went to Tolkin? ”
    “That’s where she said she was going.”
    Jett thought about Muirinn’s suspicions—the way she’d practically interrogated Chief Moran.
    Had she managed to access Gus’s laptop and found out more? Is that why she’d gone to the mine?
    Damn—she’d said she would call him.
    Angry now, and more than a little concerned, Jett suddenly slammed his truck in reverse, sped backwards down the driveway and spun out into the dirt road.
    He punched down on the gas and headed north to the abandoned mine, a sense of unease digging deeper into his chest.

Chapter 6
    M uirinn sped down the dirt road, fine gray alluvial silt billowing out behind Gus’s truck as she made her way up through the gulley, into the valley of the Tolkin Mine.
    It felt good to drive with the window down, to have the warm summer wind ripping through her long hair, the big fat truck tires under her. The wilderness of this place was whispering through her again, awakening her consciousness.
    After having lived in Manhattan, traveling the world, chasing her image of freedom, Muirinn finally realized how much she’d actually sacrificed. Deep down, she knew that everything she’d ever dreamed of was right here.
    But she’d needed to get beyond those granite peaks, transcend it all, see what lay beyond the horizons just to be able to return on her own terms. When she was ready.
    Except she hadn’t come back on her own terms.
    She’d come on Gus’s terms—the terms of his will.
    Muirinn drew up at Gate 7, the main entrance to the Tolkin property, and checked the odometer—15.4 miles since leaving home. That was how far Gus would have had to have hiked with his heart condition.
    Allegedly he’d done it about a month ago—in June. The weather would very likely have been warm, maybe even hot.
    She didn’t buy it.
    That, in turn, provoked another disturbing question—had someone brought him out here? A cab, maybe? Perhaps his truck had already been malfunctioning.
    But if someone had dropped Gus out here, why had that person failed to come forward right away when the alarm was first raised that he was