Flirting with Disaster. Victoria Dahl

sold her last restaurant for a bundle, and her cookbooks sell nicely. People still love cookbooks, apparently, even in this age of ebooks and internet recipes. It’s the pictures, I think.”

      “And you? You must be a pretty great artist. Jackson is hardly a cheap place to live.”

      “I do all right.” She didn’t elaborate. She was clearly more comfortable telling him about Jill than speaking about herself.

      “I read some stories about the judge,” she said as they trudged up the steepest part of her drive. “Do you really think he’s in danger?”

      “Obviously, we take any threats seriously, but these guys associate with some groups that have strong feelings about the federal government. And they already killed two troopers.”

      “I know.”

      “Better safe than sorry. And the judge is isolated out here. You should be careful. I mean it.”

      She nodded and stopped at the foot of her steps. “Okay. I guess I should thank you for walking me home, then.”

      “You should, but I’m not sure you will.”

      “Aren’t you supposed to say something gracious like ‘Just doing my job, ma’am’?”

      “I would, but you didn’t actually thank me yet,” he reminded her.

      “I guess I didn’t.” She smiled before she jogged up the porch steps. “Have a nice walk home, Marshal.”

      Tom rolled his eyes when she opened her door. “You didn’t lock the door?”

      “Oh.” She paused halfway in and winced. “I meant to, but I’m not in the habit.”

      Tom shook his head. “Listen, I don’t want to piss you off, but could I take a quick look around before I leave?”

      “Is this a ploy to come in for a nightcap?”

      “No.”

      “Peek at my etchings?”

      He kept his mouth flat.

      “Find out more about that internet porn?”

      “Now you’re definitely doing it on purpose.”

      She shrugged. “Maybe. Are you complaining?”

      He hadn’t been complaining, exactly. It wasn’t that he minded her talking about sex. He just wanted to be prepared for it so he could act like a seasoned and stoic officer of the law instead of a blushing teenager.

      “I’m not letting you in my house,” she finally said. She was haloed by the entryway light, and she wasn’t smiling anymore.

      “Please?” he tried.

      “I might have left my laptop open,” she said drily.

      Okay. So she didn’t want to be alone in her house at night with a strange man. He could certainly understand that. “You could wait here. Watch from the doorway.”

      Her head tilted as if she were confused by the suggestion. “Oh,” she finally said. Her forehead creased. “Look—”

      Whatever she’d been about to say, it was cut off by a loud thud from somewhere behind her. Her eyes went wide, and Tom put his hand on the gun at his hip. “Step outside, please, Ms. West.”

      She actually did as he’d asked, her hostility forgotten in the fear of the moment.

      “There’s no one else staying here?”

      “No,” she whispered.

      Tom drew his gun and stepped slowly in, switching off the light to make himself less visible from the dark rooms deeper inside the house. “Stay out of the doorway,” he said to Isabelle, relieved when her shadow disappeared and left a clean rectangle of moonlight on the wall.

      He was reaching for his cell to call for backup when something shot from the darkness and moved toward him. Before he could aim, it was past his feet and still moving.

      Isabelle shrieked when the shadow flew out the doorway. He spun and ran toward her.

      “Oh, my God,” she gasped. “It was just Bear.”

      “A bear?” He scanned the porch and driveway.

      “My cat, Bear.”

      Tension fell from his shoulders like a weight tumbling off. “Your cat.”

      “You scared him. He doesn’t like people.”

      “Big surprise. But we don’t know that he made that noise. Wait here.”

      She didn’t object. The strange man you knew was better than the one you didn’t, apparently, so she let him move past her back into the house.

      Enough light came through the front window to let him navigate the living room. It didn’t take him long to discover a framed photograph lying facedown on the carpet. It appeared to have fallen from an end table that held a small plate with half a sandwich on it. He picked up the metal frame. It was heavy enough to have made the sound they’d heard.

      Tom switched on the light and saw that some of the meat had been pulled from under the bread. He put the gun away. “I think I discovered the crime. You didn’t finish your lunch, and your cat was cleaning up for you.”

      She poked her head around the door frame. “Oh. Sounds about right.”

      She switched on the overhead light, revealing the rest of the room. It was simpler than he’d expected for an artist. A couch and chairs and a flat-screen TV along with a bookshelf stuffed full of paperbacks. And the laptop sitting dark and seemingly harmless on a desk that was crammed into a corner.

      He looked at the photo in his hand, hoping for a little more insight into this woman. It was a picture of her with two other women, their arms around each other. Sisters or friends, maybe.

      He glanced around for more photos, but only found two paintings on the walls.

      One was a man, turned away, his eyes focused somewhere distant. His hair curled over his ear, and wind blew his shirt tight to his back. Pine trees rose up in front of him.

      If not for the signature across the bottom corner, Tom would’ve thought it was a photograph at first glance; it was that stark and crisp.

      The other painting was a completely different style. It was a watercolor of a golden field with shadows of mountains rising far away and storm clouds rolling closer.

      “Is one of them yours?”

      “Yes, the portrait. I suck at landscapes. And watercolor.”

      “The portrait is striking. Really spectacular.”

      “Thank you,” she said simply, not offering any protest. She knew she was good, and he liked that. He was about to ask who the man was, but Isabelle’s mouth tightened as if she was waiting for just that question—and resenting that he’d ask it—so Tom tipped his head toward the dark doorway on the other side of the room. “May I please check the rest of the house? Just to be sure?”

      Her eyes narrowed. She watched him for a long moment then looked around the room, as if trying to see what he was seeing. “If you really think it’s necessary. Watch out for the laundry when you get to my bedroom. I haven’t quite kept up with it this...week.”

      “Got it.” He flipped on the hallway light and moved to the right toward two open doors. The first was a small bedroom with no piles of laundry and no intruder. He checked the closet and moved on.

      The second door was clearly her bedroom. A king-size bed was piled high with silver-and-blue pillows on top of a rumpled gray comforter. Despite the massive size of the thing, it looked as though she used the whole big mattress. There wasn’t a smooth spot of blanket on it. Or she’d had a guest sometime recently. He couldn’t rule that out.

      Other than