Free Run Wild With Me by Sandra Chastain Page A

it’s cooler. The sun’s straight overhead now, and you’ll get overheated.”
    “I’m used to the outdoor heat. I’m a carpenter,remember? Some of the places I’ve worked got to a hundred degrees in the shade. But I’d rather be inside with you. I like the indoor kind of heat too.” His eyes sparkled as he rose lazily and followed her inside.
    Andrea looked at him blankly for a moment. He was doing it again, wrapping her in some kind of visual electric blanket fueled by the current in his eyes. She turned around, walked inside, and picked up the phone. “Agnes, ring the station for me.”
    “I thought you were at the station, Andy,” Agnes said in surprise.
    “No, I … came home for lunch.”
    There was a click and a ring, and … “Police station. Buck here.”
    “Buck. Thought I’d better let you know where I am.”
    “Good idea, since I was told by at least two people that you left with Sam Farley.” His displeasure changed into concern. “You okay?”
    “Sure. I’m at the house if you need me.”
    “Now, just a minute …”
    “Bye, Buck. I won’t be long.” Andrea hung up quickly.
    Sam was wandering, curious, around the living room. “You leave your windows wide open,” he remarked. “Incredible.”
    He liked Andrea Fleming’s house. It was warm and happy. The furnishings were an odd assortment of comfortably mismatched pieces. The inside walls were tongue-and-grove pine, stained a soft, creamy white. The hardwood floors were polished and covered with an assortment of braided rugs of soft greens and pinks and browns. Thefireplace was large with a marble inset and a carved-wood mantelpiece, holding a tall windup clock with a sun and a moon on its face.
    In one corner was an upright piano with an arrangement of family pictures on top. He wandered over and examined them. There was one of Andrea at about eight, with a bicycle and a skinned elbow. A high school photograph showed her wearing a basketball uniform, holding a trophy. She was a woman even then, with breasts that strained against the front of her jersey, and firm long legs.
    “Do you live alone?” he asked curiously as he caught sight of a man’s hat on the back of the kitchen door.
    “Of course not. I thought you knew. I live with Buck.”
    He arched one brow at her in surprise. “You still live at home, with Daddy?”
    “Of course, where else would I live?” Andrea’s answer was one of curiosity, not defense.
    “I see. Well, that must be an awful strain on the governor, having to pass muster every time he sees you. Why do you call him Buck?”
    He was making her feel uncomfortable about living at home, something that had always been normal to her. What did he think she wanted to do that she couldn’t? She closed off that train of thought. What she wanted to do was something she wouldn’t even allow herself to think about.
    “Everybody in Arcadia calls my father Buck, and I grew up doing the same thing.”
    She turned and walked down the hallway and into the kitchen, switching on the small windowair conditioner. She wasn’t leaving Sam. She was walking away from … any need for discretion.
    Sam followed.
    “I guess I ticked him off this morning with my answers to his questions,” Sam commented. “But I didn’t know he was your dad. And I’m not exactly comfortable with a man carrying a gun. I’m sorry.” He pulled up a stool and sat down at the counter, watching Andrea work.
    “He’ll survive.”
    “I know. It’s me I’m worried about.”
    From the refrigerator Andrea took a head of lettuce and tore it into small pieces, filling two small wooden bowls. She added a scoop of chicken salad to the lettuce and placed a fan of wheat crackers around the small plate beneath the bowl. Then she went back to the refrigerator for an ice tray and a quart jar of tea. She filled the glasses with ice and tea. A ceiling fan circulated the cooling air, but a sheen of perspiration glistened on her forehead.
    Sam’s