Lover Beware 03 - After Midnight

custody, but the hairstyle had been wildly different from his.
    For some reason no one had seen fit to tell Tucker that while the murderer did have long hair, it was distinctively styled: cropped short on top, with rat tails hanging around his shoulders.
    On the evidence of the sketch alone, Tucker's case was shaky, because there was no way Michael could have grown his hair back to full length in the two and a half days that had passed since the murder and rape had taken place. When they'd finally confirmed that his prints didn't match any of those found either at the Dillons' residence or any of the other sites of the recent wave of home invasion crimes, Tucker had had no choice but to let him go.
    Michael watched while his guns were unloaded and depos-ited on the lawn beside the drive, his cold gaze on Parker as the nervous officer nearly dropped the Ruger again.
    When the cruiser accelerated down his driveway, leaving behind a cloud of dust, Michael took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Welcome to Tayler's Creek."
    Sonovabitch.
    Sometimes he wondered why he bothered to come back.
    Although, he'd seen the reason today, and her expression had been so blank, he had to wonder if she even knew he existed.
    Broodingly, he surveyed the house, and what land he could see. The paddocks weren't in great shape, because he'd leased them for grazing for years, but that was nothing he couldn't fix up with hard work, sweat, and herbicide. In contrast, the rambling old colonial farmhouse was in good condition be-After Midnight
    197
    cause he'd systematically renovated and repaired it every time he'd had leave to burn. He'd scraped paint, replaced weatherboards, repainted, and replaced the roof. He'd built a deck off the family room and, when he'd finished on the house, he'd put in a lot of time renovating the stables and the imple-ment shed. He'd kept his hands and his mind busy; otherwise he would have gone crazy wondering what was happening over at the O'Reilly place.
    The house had originally belonged to his parents, who had bought the property fifteen years ago, but when his father had died, his mother had decided to move to a tidy little two-bedroom town house in Winslow, rather than cope with the large, sprawling homestead. Michael and his ex-wife had bought the place because at the time it had suited their needs—
    the farm was large enough that it would provide enough in-come that he could quit the SAS and they could start a family.
    The second he'd laid eyes on their new neighbour, Jane O'Reilly, that plan had crashed and burned.
    He'd toyed with the idea of selling up and moving else-where with Clare, but he'd known instantly that that wouldn't work. Normally, he was disciplined and focused—a real pain in the ass to most people. He was used to controlling every area of his life, including his libido, but no matter how hard he'd tried he'd found he couldn't make himself want Clare.
    He'd wanted Jane, it had been that simple.
    He hadn't wanted to hurt Clare, but as hard as he'd tried not to, he had hurt her, although from all accounts, she hadn't taken too long to get over him, and was now happily married to a barrister in Auckland.
    Eyes narrowed, Michael surveyed the sky, which had turned leaden; the clouds churned and clotted, and were struck through with molten shafts of light as the sun dipped into the west. The air was thick with moisture and tasted like brim-stone. After weeks of drought, there was going to be an unholy bitch of a storm, and the bad weather suited his mood.
    Michael went down on his haunches beside the guns, picked up the Ruger and examined the walnut stock. There was no evidence of a scratch, which meant Zane could live, although he wasn't making any promises about Tucker. If he ever turned up on his property again in an official capacity, 198
    FIONA BRAND
    Michael was likely to put a hot round in his butt and the jail term be damned.
    Jaw tight, he began carting the guns and ammunition into the house and securing them in his gun safe. When he was finished, he took a shower, changed into fresh jeans and a T-shirt, and grabbed the keys to his truck. Jane's driveway was situated a kilometre north on the main road, although as the crow flies her house was a lot closer, the walking distance from his house to hers, less than half that.
    He could walk over there now, but it was ingrained in him not to take that casual an approach. He'd always taken pains to keep his distance and preserve a