Have a nice—”
“Wait,” he said, jogging to catch up to her. He put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. But the moment his hand landed on her warm skin he realized his mistake. Looking at her had affected him. Touching her nearly stopped his heart.
Her skin was smooth. Silky. Warm and supple under the sun’s strong summer rays. And though she probably should have smacked his hand away, given that he was a complete stranger, she didn’t. She simply watched him, her eyes leaning more toward blue now, slowly shifting colors like one of those old-fashioned mood rings girls had been so crazy about when he was a kid.
“Yes?” she asked, her voice sounding thick, more throaty than it had before, which was when he knew what mood her blue eyes indicated: Awareness. Interest. Heat.
Definite heat. It was instantaneous. It was mutual. And it was also entirely unexpected considering the woman was a complete stranger…a stranger in need.
Finally, after a long, thick moment, Mike pulled his hand away, noting the whiteness his touch had left against her sunpinkened skin. Her pale, creamy complexion wouldn’t do well for much longer in this heat. He cleared his throat, wondering why his mouth had gone so dry. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”
She hesitated, as if still affected by his touch, before replying, “Thanks, but I’m not that desperate. I don’t get into cars with total strangers.”
Smart. He didn’t blame her at all, especially considering some of the stuff he’d seen on the job. Still, he didn’t want the woman to keep stubbornly walking down the road until her feet blistered and her soft skin turned apple-red. “Do you want to use my cell phone to call for help?”
She paused, pursing her lips as she thought about it. Then, with a sigh, admitted, “There’s nobody to call. AAA wouldn’t come out unless my car was actually here. And the only family I have in town are the ones who stranded me.”
“The old ladies.”
“My aunts.” Still frowning, she added, “I don’t think I’d want the police to come help me out considering I am planning to kill those two when I get back to town.”
That startled a one-syllable laugh out of him, which he immediately halted. He also made a mental note not to tell her he was a cop. “Don’t you know anybody else in Trouble?”
“Nobody I could call, except maybe just an elderly friend of my aunts’, who we ran into at the store yesterday. I can’t even remember his whole name. It’s Ports, Potter…something like that.”
“Potts. Mortimer Potts.”
“You know him?” she asked, sounding surprised—and hopeful.
“I’m on my way to his house.”
A relieved smile finally appeared on her pretty face. “Are you, by any chance, one of his grandsons?”
“Yeah.” He put out his hand. “Mike Taylor.”
She reached out and put her hand in his, and again he couldn’t help noticing how damned soft the woman was. As if she regularly bathed in some milky lotion that made her skin constantly feel like silk.
“I’m Jennifer Feeney. Jen. Your grandfather mentioned you were coming into town today. He seems like a…nice old man.”
Mike noted the hesitation. No doubt, Mortimer was a nice old man. But that obviously hadn’t been the first word that had come to the woman’s mind. No. People usually described Mortimer as many things other than nice—eccentric, wild, dashing.
Nutty.
Not that Mike or his brothers much cared what other people thought of their grandfather. They knew him; they’d lived with him, traveling around the world on one adventure after another. There wasn’t a single thing any of his grandsons wouldn’t do for the man. Including taking down anyone who ever hurt him.
Though now eighty-one years old, Mortimer was remarkably healthy, except for some arthritis that had limited his physical activities. Anyone who saw him would think he was a sturdy seventy-year-old, with his shoulder-length white hair, tall and lanky frame, and blazing blue eyes. Of course, if he was in one of his moods, and happened to be wearing a 1940s military uniform, an Arabic thobe or chaps and a holster, they might go right back to that nutty part.
“You’re the one who lives in New York?”
He nodded.
“Me, too. I’m just visiting.”
“Small world.” Only, not. Because New York was one big city and he was constantly amazed when traveling by how many people he ran into from there. “So does this mean we’re not strangers, and you’ll let me give you a ride into town?”
She hesitated, then glanced down at her bare feet. She didn’t have much choice—if she stayed on the gravel shoulder, her feet would be torn to shreds. If she moved to the hot blacktop, they’d be fried.
Turning her head to look over her shoulder at the long road winding toward Trouble, she finally nodded. “Okay.” Then she narrowed her eyes and stared at him, hard. “But be warned, I’m keeping the tire iron. I can defend myself.”
The fierce expression was such a contradiction to the soft, silky rest of her that Mike had that unfamiliar impulse to smile again. Instead, he merely murmured, “Consider me warned.”
JENNIFER FEENEY HAD NEVER liked the town of Trouble. Not since the first time she’d laid eyes on it as a little girl. Her parents had brought her here twenty years ago, to visit her father’s reclusive sisters. She’d heard stories about the town of Trouble, and her elderly aunts Ida Mae and Ivy, since she was small. They had come to visit once or twice, but nothing had prepared Jen to visit them in Trouble.
Even as a child, she’d felt the strangeness of the place. From the wary watchfulness of the residents to the tangled bramble where parks had once stood, the town laid out an Un-welcome mat that urged visitors to leave. It was hard to imagine her cheerful, teddy bear of a father had grown up here.
Worst of all had been the two shadowy buildings where the aunts resided. The old Victorian homes hovered over the north end of town, side by side, two dark birds of prey on vigilant watch for fresh meat. Though she’d only been eight during that visit, Jen had already had a good imagination. When she’d seen the two houses, with their sagging facades, shuttered windows and worn siding, she’d immediately thought of them as the sisters.
Ida Mae’s house was dour and forbidding, what was left of its paint the color of a stormy sky, angry and wet. Its jagged railings and the spiky bars over the windows had given it the appearance of a prison. The black front door seemed like an open mouth waiting to swallow anyone who ventured onto the crumbling porch. Unadorned, ghostly against the clouds, the place had perfectly matched its owner, the dark and stern Ida Mae.
Ivy’s was even worse.
It had apparently once been a gentle yellow, but any cheery gentility had long been eradicated. Tangled vines crawled like garden snakes up toward the roof. Cracks in the water-stained walls revealed odd shapes that had looked too much like spiders and monsters to her eight-year-old eyes. And the whole foundation had appeared slightly sunken on the right, as if the house were a stroke victim whose face hadn’t quite recovered.
Where
