Wickedly Dangerous (Baba Yaga, #1)(65)
From under lowered eyelashes, she shot a virulent glare at Baba. Baba showed her teeth in a not-very-convincing smile and shot one right back.
“No problem at all,” Baba said. “I barely noticed the inconvenience.”
A sound like a distant wolf growling greeted this blithe statement, and Clive Matthews stopped sputtering long enough to look around for the source of the noise, shivering a little as if the room had suddenly gotten cold.
“Well, that is very kind of you, Dr. Yager,” Liam said in his most official tone. “Miss Freeman, I suggest you consider yourself lucky that Dr. Yager doesn’t want to press charges against you for making a false accusation. I hope next time you will think twice about making assumptions without any facts to back them up.”
He stood up. “Feel free to let me know if you remember anything else about your attacker, Miss Freeman. I wouldn’t want Mr. Matthews here to accuse me of not doing my job.”
“Oh no,” Mariska said sweetly. “I’m sure he would never do that. Would you, Mr. Matthews?”
Matthews and Callahan ushered Maya out, stalking stiff-necked through the crowd of gawking sheriff’s department employees. Nina waved at them gaily from her perch at the dispatcher’s station. Maya’s limp had mysteriously disappeared, and she seemed remarkably healthy as she slammed the door on her way out.
“Goodness,” Molly said, tucking her pen into her pad and heading back to her desk. “Wasn’t that exciting?”
“Yes,” Baba said, one corner of her mouth twitching up. “Wasn’t it?”
Liam’s face was all stern lines and cool composure; his jaw looked like it had been carved from granite. “A little more excitement than I prefer in my day, I’m afraid. It’s a good thing you had an iron-clad alibi, Dr. Yager, or things might have gone quite differently.”
Baba stood up and offered a hand to Mariska Ivanov as she struggled out of the hard metal chair. “A very good thing indeed, Sheriff. Lucky for me the Ivanovs invited me to dinner last night.”
Belinda helped her father up and said to Liam, “I’m just going to drive my parents and Barbara home, and then I’ll be back in to work, if that’s okay with you, Sheriff.”
Liam nodded at her, and only Baba saw Belinda’s tiny wink, like a glittering star in the dark night sky.
*
BABA STRETCHED HER long legs out in front of her and watched the sun set in vivid colors of red and orange behind the nearby hills like a fireball announcing the coming apocalypse. Crickets chorused gleefully along with the more doleful sounds of a mourning dove’s coo, and the evening’s first firefly blinked into view and then vanished again.
She and Liam sat on lawn chairs in front of the Airstream with Chudo-Yudo lying between them, roasting hot dogs over a portable copper fire pit and washing them down with, in Liam’s case, a beer from the local microbrewery, and in Baba’s, a crystal chalice filled with a crisp and fruity Riesling. Chudo-Yudo lapped at a large bowl of Guinness stout; his dragon physiology didn’t even notice the alcohol, he just liked the rich bitter taste.
The outside light by the Airstream’s door cast its warm glow over the encroaching darkness, making their impromptu cookout seem even cozier than it was. Baba felt as close to relaxed as she ever got; a sensation that, ironically, simply caused her stomach muscles to tense and her shoulders to hunch defensively.
Cozy made her uncomfortable. Cozy with Liam made her even more uncomfortable. Maybe because it felt so good. So right. Like something she could do every night, for the rest of her life. Absurd.
“Thanks for the help with the Maya mess,” she said finally, stirring the fire with a cast iron poker and tossing on another branch that Chudo-Yudo had fetched earlier in a fit of playful doggieness. Sparks flew up into the night sky like demented fairies.
She and Liam had barely spoken since he’d shown up about twenty minutes ago. She’d fetched him a chair and put his first hot dog on a stick, and he’d pulled a six-pack out of his car, along with a file folder, which he’d plopped on the ground next to him. Other than that, they’d mostly just sat there in companionable silence, chewing and sipping and occasionally reaching down to pet Chudo-Yudo on the top of his massive, shaggy white head.
Like an old married couple, she thought, shoulders edging up a little closer to her ears. She shook it off, purposely stretching her legs out even further, and snuck a glance at Liam out of the corner of her eye.
He was clearly off duty, since he wore jeans and a dark blue tee shirt that clung to his broad shoulders and chest in a way that made her think thoughts she’d be better off ignoring, but otherwise, he hadn’t said much about his day.
Liam gave her a bad imitation of an innocent look when she thanked him. “Me? I just got my secretary to take notes. You’re the one who conveniently showed up with three impeccable witnesses to prove you couldn’t have committed the crime.” He stuffed the second half of his third hot dog into his mouth with all the enthusiasm of a man who hadn’t eaten all day, and cracked open another beer. The shadows from the flames emphasized the dark circles under his eyes and the deepening lines around his mouth, highlighting the few tiny silver hairs just starting to show in his beard stubble.
Baba thought he looked tired and frazzled and a little bit chewed on, like a favorite old boot that Chudo-Yudo had gotten at when she wasn’t looking. Without conscious intent, she reached out and gently moved a strand of dark-blond hair off his face, making him smile.