Читать книгу Stranger In His Arms - Charlotte Douglas - Страница 13

“Soup and sandwiches sound good,” he said. “Can I help?”

She grinned with the impishness he was growing fond of. “If you can open a can.”

“I live alone, remember. Opening cans is my specialty.”

He followed her into the kitchen and perched on a stool at the counter while she removed items from cupboards and the refrigerator.

“Do you like working for Miss Bessie?” he asked.

She nodded as she buttered bread for sandwiches. “I keep her books and the ones at the day-care center, and I also drive her wherever she wants to go. And yesterday we made apple butter for the festival next week.” She paused, as if embarrassed by her chattering. “Anyway, working for her is more varied than the waitressing job I had in Nashville.”

“Is that why you left Nashville?”

Wariness flashed briefly through the green depths of her eyes. She tugged slender fingers through a tumble of blond curls and avoided his gaze. “I was tired of waiting tables and wanted something different. Working for Miss Bessie’s different all right.”

“So you’ll be here for a while?”

She paused and looked at him. “You ask an awful lot of questions.”

“Just friendly curiosity.” He sensed the barriers going up around her. Unwilling to press further, he steered the conversation to neutral ground. “So Miss Bessie’s told you about the Apple Festival next week?”

“A little.” She arranged thick slices of cheddar on the buttered bread, placed the sandwiches on a hot griddle, and handed him a can opener. With a few deft turns, he opened the vegetable gumbo and poured it into the saucepan she’d placed on the stove.

“The festival is the cove’s biggest event of the year,” he explained. “Apples are the main crop here in the valley, and we have the maximum crowds of tourists the three days the festival runs.”

“Miss Bessie didn’t tell me much about the festival except that she always wins the apple-butter competition.” Jennifer turned the sandwiches on the griddle, and the aroma of toasting bread made his mouth water.

“There’s the apple-pie bake-off, crowning the Apple Queen, a relay race where the runners have to carry an apple in a spoon…” He stirred the soup as it came to a simmer, and she dropped in a handful of freshly chopped herbs. “The Artisans’ Hall has a special display of crafts, and Tommy Bennett’s country band plays for the square-dancing and clogging exhibition.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“More fun than the Fourth of July. You remember those celebrations?”

Her slight hesitation would have been lost on anyone not trained to observe as he was. Her glance slid away, avoiding him. “Oh, yeah, the fireworks off the pier. They were pretty spectacular.”

Dylan lifted his eyebrows. “The fireworks were always fired from a barge in the middle of the lake.”

“Right,” she replied too quickly.

“You don’t remember, do you?” Her lack of recall disturbed him. She hadn’t remembered his kiss, but even he had to admit that childish smack hadn’t been as dazzling as the annual fireworks. He wondered for an instant if she wasn’t who she claimed to be, but thrust that unlikely notion aside. Miss Bessie would have seen through a phony at a hundred yards. Maybe Jennie Thacker has suffered from amnesia, lost a portion of her life. Maybe she’d even returned to Casey’s Cove to reclaim what was missing.

He moved the soup off the burner, grasped her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Why don’t you remember?” he asked gently.

Emotions flickered through her green eyes, and he recognized two predominant ones. Fear and shame. She looked so vulnerable, he wanted nothing more than to hold her close, to protect her from whatever demons lurked behind those fabulous eyes. He silently cursed himself for putting her on the spot. “It’s none of my business—”

“No, it’s okay.” She took a deep breath, and he felt the tension in her shoulders ease beneath his hands. “I’m just embarrassed—”

“Forget it. I was out of line.”

“No problem.” With a nod and a forgive-me smile, she shrugged out of his grasp and turned back to her sandwich preparations. She arranged the sandwiches and steaming soup bowls on a tray and handed it to him. “Why don’t we eat in the living room in front of the fire?”

He carried the tray into the living room and placed it on a low table near the hearth. Jennifer touched a match to the kindling, and the logs caught quickly. Folding his legs beneath him, he sat on the floor.

With deft movements, she set a place mat in front of him, then his sandwich plate, soup bowl and flat-ware. She set her own place, sat cross-legged on the floor beside him and took a generous bite of sandwich. Neither whatever had frightened her earlier that day nor her recent embarrassment appeared to have had any effect on her appetite. In fact, her entire demeanor had relaxed as soon as he’d abandoned personal topics, which made him even more curious about her secrets.

Hungrier than he’d realized, he dug into his food. He could get used to this: a cozy supper shared with a beautiful woman in front of a glowing fire. The thought brought him up short. For the first time in almost two years, something warm and agreeable filled what had been a dark, empty vacuum. Not since Johnny Whitaker’s untimely death had Dylan allowed himself to feel anything.

Jennifer Reid had changed all that.

“So—” she flicked a crumb from the corner of her mouth with a dainty swipe of her little finger “—how long have you been a cop?”

He knew she was leading the conversation away from herself, but he was in no hurry. He had the entire evening to discover what was frightening her.

“Almost twelve years,” he said. “I went to the police academy right out of junior college.”

“Have you always worked in Casey’s Cove?” Her eyes sparkled with genuine interest, and he found her refreshing, a woman who seemed truly curious about him. Either that or she was purposely steering the conversation away from herself. Whatever her motive, he decided to humor her.

“Always. Never wanted to work anywhere else.” He sipped his soup, found it remarkably tasty for a canned product and decided the difference had to be the fresh herbs Jennifer had added.

“Don’t you ever get a hankering to travel, to see the rest of the world?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I’m a homebody. I’ve visited other places, but I’m always happy to return here. It’s where I belong.” He paused, then took a chance at a question of his own. “You didn’t feel that way about Memphis?”

She laughed. “I’ve discovered I have an incurable wanderlust. I always want to be where I’m not. With no family or other ties, I’m free to go where I choose.”

“So you’ll be leaving here soon?” He watched her intently, gauging her reaction.

A hint of uncertainty flickered across the delicate planes of her firelit face. “I don’t know. Casey’s Cove has a homey feel to it, but—”

She pushed to her feet, went into the kitchen and returned with the pan to fill his soup bowl. He accepted the refill with thanks and backed off his questions. She obviously wasn’t ready to divulge any confidences.

When she had settled beside him again, she turned the conversation back to him. “What’s the most memorable case you’ve ever worked?”

“It wasn’t really my case, but it’s one I can’t forget.” The emptiness yawned within him once again, threatening to suck him into its blackness. She must have noticed his change of mood, for her expression sobered.

“I’m sorry.” She placed her hand on his sleeve, and he felt her warmth through his sweater, contrasting with the coldness inside him. “Looks like I touched a nerve.”

He shook his head.

“If you’d rather not talk about it—”

He gathered his courage. “The department counselor says it’s good for me to talk about it, if I can.”

She nodded, her face veiled with compassion, and scooted so that her back rested against the front of the sofa. She didn’t prod him, and her sympathetic presence eased his reluctance.

He shifted back against the sofa so that their shoulders touched, and he could feel the warm length of her against his body, comforting, easing the icy core that remembrance had formed deep inside him.

“Johnny Whitaker was my best friend,” he began, forming his words carefully, fearful he would lose control and break down in front of her. He sucked in a deep steadying breath and continued. “We grew up here in the cove together. His family lived up the mountain from our farm. His daddy made moonshine whiskey, and his older brothers were bootleggers. Johnny’s mama was terrified of all of them. But not of Johnny.”

Jennifer reached for his hand and laced her fingers through his, but said nothing to interrupt his story. He was grateful. If he stopped, he might not be able to begin again.

“Johnny might have turned out rotten like the rest of them if it hadn’t been for Miss Bessie.” He smiled, recalling the old woman’s devotion. “When he was seven, Miss Bessie approached his mama and offered to send him to a boarding school in Asheville, but only on the condition that Johnny live with her on his holidays.”

“His mother agreed?” Jennifer asked in surprise.

“Mrs. Whitaker was a good woman, God-fearing, but she feared the Whitaker men more. She wanted what was best for her youngest child, and she wanted him away from the bad influence of his father and brothers. As long as Miss Bessie allowed Mrs. Whitaker to visit Johnny on his holidays, his mama agreed. His father was glad to be rid of the boy. He was too young to work and just another mouth to feed.”

A log burned through and crashed in the fireplace, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. The only other sound in the room was the antique grandfather clock, ticking loudly in the corner.

“Johnny liked his boarding school. It was safe—his father couldn’t beat him while he was there—and he had plenty to eat and a warm place to sleep. Not always the case at the Whitaker house. But his favorite time was school holidays.” Dylan smiled. The pleasurable memories eased the grip of the icy center in his stomach. “We spent all our time together, fishing, swimming, picking blackberries.”

“Sounds like an idyllic childhood,” Jennifer murmured.

“It was. And when high-school graduation came, Johnny and I went to junior college together, and then the police academy. We came back to Casey’s Cove and joined the department here. On our days off, we returned to the pursuits of our childhood. Things couldn’t have been more perfect.” Bitterness crept into his tone. “I should have realized at the time, things were too perfect.”

She snuggled closer to him and slid her arm through his, and he was grateful for her nearness.

“Three years ago, numerous bombings of government buildings and facilities occurred in the southeast. Nothing on the scale of Oklahoma City, but deadly nonetheless. Several people were killed and millions of dollars in property were damaged.”

“I remember. There was an explosion in Atlanta—” She broke off suddenly, as if sorry to have interrupted.

“They were terrible, but like so many things, the bombings didn’t seem real here in the cove, just something that we saw on the evening news that didn’t touch us.”

He shivered violently, an involuntary shudder. “We had no idea how close to home it all really was.

“For several weeks after the last bombings, news reports kept announcing that the FBI and ATF had no clues to the identities of the perpetrators. Then one October day two years ago, a group of FBI and AFT agents arrived in Casey’s Cove. A witness had spotted someone at the scene of the last bombing before the explosion occurred. The witness worked with an artist to produce a composite sketch, and the computer tentatively matched the sketch to Johnny Whitaker’s dad.”

“Oh, no.” She gripped his arm tighter against her.

“I confronted Johnny, asked him if he knew whether his dad or brothers were involved in the militant group that had committed the bombings. He swore he knew nothing about it, that there had to have been a mistake, that his dad and brothers were into illegal moonshining, but not bombings.” He drew a long rattling breath. “I made Johnny promise to tell me, to tell the FBI if he found out otherwise. He promised.”

She shifted uneasily beside him as if she’d picked up a glimmering of where his story was headed.

“The federal agents didn’t wait for word from Johnny. They decided to move on the Whitaker place immediately. I looked for Johnny at his place to warn him, but couldn’t find him. I was asked to accompany the feds as the local liaison officer, and we headed into the hills.

“The Whitaker men were waiting for us, and opened fire immediately. Suddenly Johnny appeared out of nowhere, screaming for them to stop shooting so he could rescue his mother. He was out of uniform, and the feds didn’t recognize him—except for his strong family resemblance to the other Whitaker men.”

His words died in his throat, and his pulse pounded in his ears. He could hear again the screams and the rattle of gunfire, smell the acrid stench of cordite, see the blood and Johnny’s sightless eyes staring at the cloudless blue of the Carolina sky while Dylan held his hand as he died.

He stopped, unable to go on. The ticks of the clock thundered in the silence. Jennifer didn’t move.

After several minutes, Dylan continued. “Mrs. Whitaker and Johnny were both killed in the cross fire. Whitaker and his older sons were captured, tried and convicted. They’re all serving life terms in federal prison.”

He shook his head, overwhelmed with a sadness he would never lose. “If Johnny hadn’t lied to me about his family’s involvement—if I’d known the truth, maybe I could have worked out a plan that would have saved Mrs. Whitaker and spared Johnny.”

“It wasn’t your fault—”

“I was there when it happened, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”

“Johnny made his choice, for whatever reason. Maybe he thought he was protecting his mother. Maybe he had a plan of his own he didn’t have time to carry out.”

He hung his head and bit back tears. “But I’ll never know for sure. All I know is that my best friend lied to me, and now he’s dead.”

He felt her move beside him, and in an instant she had settled on his lap with her arms around him, drawing him close in the warmth of her embrace. He yielded to her caress, buried his face in the hollow of her neck, absorbed her heat and used her supple body as a shield against the numbing coldness that enveloped him. The fragrance of honeysuckle scattered the vestiges of gun smoke and blood from his memory. His muscles relaxed. His breathing slowed.

He didn’t know how long they held each other. The clock struck the quarter, then the half hour, and still they didn’t move. Then, gently, she drew back, placed her hands on either side of his face and raised her lips to his. Her kiss at first was comforting, succor to his pain, blissful alleviation of the hollow ache in his soul.

She tasted of sweet herbs and honey, and her scent infused his senses. Her soothing warmth turned to heat, her tender touch to electricity. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, savoring the taste of her, the weight of her in his arms. His heart thudded with excitement, and he could feel her heartbeats pounding beneath the softness of her breasts pressed against his chest.

Suffused with sudden desire, he slid his hands beneath her sweater and felt the heat of her bare skin against his palms, but his touch apparently broke the trance between them, and she pulled away.

The green of her eyes was smoky with desire, her lips reminded him of a bruised blossom and high color stained her cheeks, but he couldn’t read the expression on her face.

“Maybe I should apologize,” he offered, “but I won’t say I’m sorry.”

Unexpectedly, she threw back her head and laughed. “No need for an apology. Not unless that kiss was another bet with Tommy Bennett.”

“No way,” he said. “And no way was that kiss anything like our first one.”

She seemed agitated then, as if in stating there’d been two, he was implying there might be more. She jumped to her feet. “I’d better check on Sissy.”

He heard her rush into the bedroom, then heard the bathroom door close behind her. He probably shouldn’t have kissed her. Not like that. She’d only been showing sympathy, and he’d wanted more.

Dumb move.

But he’d learned a long time ago—and the hard way—that things already done could not be undone and had to be dealt with. With a sigh, he stacked the dirty dishes on the tray and carried them into the kitchen.

When she returned from the bathroom a short time later, hair combed, face scrubbed and fresh lipstick applied, he had almost finished the washing-up.

As if nothing unusual had transpired between them, she took a clean towel from a drawer, removed a soup bowl from the drain rack and began wiping it dry. “Sissy’s sound asleep.”

He nodded, dried his hands. “Guess I’d better shove off then.”

She hesitated, as if debating whether to ask him to stay. He hoped she would. He still hadn’t learned what caused the fear that flitted across her face when she was unaware he was watching.

Then, as if making up her mind, she nodded. “I’ll see you to the door.”

A few minutes later, he was cruising through Casey’s Cove on his way home. He wasn’t sorry he’d shared Johnny’s story with her, and he damned well wasn’t sorry he’d kissed her.

What he did regret was that he hadn’t kissed her again when he’d left, but her barriers had gone up once more, effectively closing off any advances on his part.