Not in a lustful way, but because she knew that being a cop had been his dream, and while that dream hadn’t exactly been taken away from him, he’d had to settle for something less than he’d planned.
She got into the passenger’s seat and immediately caught Gabriel’s scent. Hard not to catch it, considering they were only a few inches apart, but it caused more of that unwanted warmth. Warmth that she blamed on the Texas summer temps, which were just plain hot by anyone’s standards.
“Word about this will get back to your great-aunt Carmen,” she pointed out as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Probably, but she doesn’t always answer her phone, so that’ll mean Derwin or whoever else might have to make a trip out to her place.”
Oh, Derwin would do it even though it was miles outside of town. Carmen lived on the Silver Springs Ranch that she’d bought with her trust fund when she’d been twenty-one. A ranch that Hamish had insisted she buy and then had failed to make work. But the woman was apparently doing financially okay with her teacher’s retirement pay and money she got from leasing the land.
“I’ll go see her later,” Gabriel said, glancing over at her. A glance that he seemed to cut so short that it barely qualified as a glance, and she couldn’t help but think that was because he was feeling some warmth, too. “And I’ll call my folks in case someone gets in touch with them.”
“Are they still traveling around in their RV?” she asked.
He nodded. “They split time between my two brothers and sister, but they’ll add Last Ride to their route now that I’m back here.”
Rosalie knew his siblings, of course, even though they were all older than Gabriel and her. One by one, they’d moved away from Last Ride as they’d graduated from high school.
They drove up Main Street and past the elementary school where Rosalie was a pre-K teacher during the school year. A job that was both a blessing and a curse. She loved the work, loved the kids and loved having the summers off to travel and such, but her chosen profession meant listening to her parents remind her that she should be a lawyer. Or maybe a doctor like her brother. Or a dentist like her ex-fiancé.
Great expectations came with the Parkman surname, and her folks couldn’t see that teaching was a calling for her. One with lousy pay, of course, but she had adjusted, and on the rare occasions when she wanted to travel somewhere that exceeded her budget, she’d been lucky enough to be able to tap into yet something else that came with the Parkman surname. A trust fund. It wasn’t a massive one, but it had come in handy a couple of times.
“FYI, I’m not going to the reunion next weekend,” Gabriel said when they drove past the high school.
She didn’t have to ask what he was talking about. Rosalie knew their fifteen-year reunion was coming up.
She also knew why Gabriel wouldn’t want to go.
The reunion committee had a habit of doing life-size cutouts of key moments from their graduating year. One of those such moments would be of Gabriel and her as the prom king and queen. Rosalie figured the committee would choose the photo of her starry-eyed eighteen-year-old self gazing up at the dreamy Gabriel. Her arms locked around his neck. His arms locked lowaround her back. Their mouths a breath apart, on the verge of a kiss.
And as if the picture wouldn’t be enough, Gabriel and she would be expected to re-create the moment. The starry eyes. The dance. The near kiss. That, in turn, would accelerate the rumors of them reuniting.
Rosalie wouldn’t be going, either.
It only took them a couple of minutes to reach the cemetery, and Rosalie immediately spotted the other vehicles. Eight of them, she counted, and she wasn’t surprised when she saw the crowd now huddled around Hamish’s grave. At least half of them were wearing the Sherlock outfits, and there was even one wizard in the group who’d come along for the nosy ride. They parted like the Red Sea, though, when Gabriel and she reached the grave.
No one said anything, though she figured before their arrival there’d been plenty of chatter and speculation. But while no one who knew Hamish believed Gabriel would be in mourning over this, they appeared to be respectful since he was Hamish’s great-nephew.
Gabriel went closer, peering into the grave and seeing exactly what she’d seen. The empty space and the tiny box.
“You think somebody dug up the coffin?” Derwin asked.
Gabriel glanced around. “No heap of dirt or fresh dig marks,” he said as if talking to himself.
“You might have been able to check for shoe prints,” Derwin went on, “but everybody insisted on having a look, so any prints would have been walked over.” He aimed narrowed eyes at some in the group, apparently ignoring the fact that he was there and had obviously done some walking over possible evidence to get in the position right next to the tombstone.
“Let me use that,” Gabriel insisted when his attention landed on the selfie stick Derwin was holding.
It only took a second for the excitement to light in Derwin’s eyes, and he quickly handed it over. Since Derwin’s phone was already secured on the device, Gabriel lowered it into the grave, and he hit the button on the grip of the stick. He took several pictures from various angles and then had a look. So did Rosalie.
So did everybody else.
At least, the group attempted to cram in closer, but one hard look from Gabriel had them backing away. Rosalie stayed close, though, watching as Gabriel studied each photo. He zoomed in on one shot of the box, and she saw the writing.
“Something’s engraved on it,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” Gabriel agreed. He kept enlarging it until the engraving got a whole lot more visible. Then she frowned. Reread it and frowned again.
Ha Ha, Carmen. I got the last laugh.