stomach did a little flip-flop.
Steeling herself, she raised her chin and pulled in a cleansing breath. “Yeah. Pesky’s a good word for them.” She adjusted the strap of her purse on her shoulder. “Speaking of pesky, I’m, um…sorry if I came off as nosy or bossy yesterday. It’s just seeing Caitlyn alone like that, running across the street…well, it scared me. For her. I’m a first-grade teacher, see, and I guess I’m a bit sensitive about kids—”
Jack placed a warm hand on her arm to halt her argument. “No apology needed.”
Startled by his touch, Megan darted her gaze up to his. Just as it had yesterday, the heat in his mossy brown eyes burrowed to her core, nudging a purely feminine response…and a quiver of reciprocal apprehension.
“In fact,” Jack said, “I should be thanking you again. My daughter has boundless energy which she uses for getting in to rather…creative mischief. I appreciate your interest in her.”
Megan nodded. “I know her creative mischief is a challenge now, but it also shows her natural intelligence and curiosity. She seems like a very bright little girl.”
“Thanks.” Jack’s grin spoke for his fatherly love and pride.
“Well, I need to run. I’m already late for work.” Mustering another smile for her neighbor, she sidestepped toward the door, only to bump in to Ginny.
“Yeah, I’m running a little late myself.” He inclined his head toward the back halls of the police department.
Megan’s breath stilled. “You’re a cop?”
“No,” he replied, chuckling. “I’m a reporter for the Lagniappe Daily Journal. I’m following up on a story.”
A reporter. Not a cop. But almost as bad.
No doubt he was a pro at asking questions, digging up information. A reporter was not the kind of person she needed to spend much time around if she wanted to keep certain aspects of her past a secret.
Megan felt the blood drain from her cheeks, and she swayed woozily.
Jack’s brow furrowed. “Megan, you okay? You look sort of pale.”
“Yeah. I, uh—”
Again Ginny rose to the occasion. “Well, it was nice meeting you. Tell Caitlyn ‘hi’ for us.”
She took Megan’s arm and pulled her toward the front door.
Jack’s puzzled gaze followed them.
As Megan stepped outside, the Louisiana humidity slammed into her as if she’d walked into a wall. The heat sapped what little energy she had left after rehashing painful details of her assault for the police then losing her breakfast in the ladies’ room.
Ginny gave her curious sidelong glances as they made their way to Ginny’s Jeep Cherokee.
“My, my, my.” Ginny shook her head and clucked her tongue like a mother scolding an errant child.
“What?” Megan drilled her friend with an exasperated glare.
“You’ve been holding out on me.” Ginny colored her tone with an exaggerated note of disappointment.
“Come again?”
“If you want to give that gorgeous hunk of man the cold shoulder, that’s your business. But I thought we were friends. Couldn’t you have sent him in my direction if you didn’t want him? Is that too much to ask?” Ginny gave her a teasing grin and pulled out into the flow of downtown Lagniappe traffic. “How long have you been hiding Mr. Tall, Dark and Dimpled from me?”
Megan gaped at Ginny in disbelief before sighing. Ginny’s teasing normally lifted her spirits. She realized that must have been Ginny’s aim, but the attempt at levity chafed at the moment.
Troubling thoughts about the man sitting behind bars at the police station made joking about anything else difficult. “I’m not hiding him or anyone else from you, Gin. He’s my new neighbor, and I only met him last night.”
“Your neighbor, eh? How convenient.” Ginny’s eyes lit with humor. “So are you blind or did you notice that he’s as attractive as sin?”
Not wanting to encourage her friend on this track, she shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”
“He sure was checking you out.” Ginny cut her glance from the road to give Megan a calculating grin. “I didn’t see a ring. I think you should—”
“Not interested.”
“Megan, he’s gorgeous. And employed! That’s more than I can say for the last bum I dated.”
Huffing her impatience with the direction of the conversation, Megan turned toward the passenger-side window and tried to forget the pathetic impression she must have made on Jack Calhoun this morning. If her bleak appearance wasn’t bad enough, she’d stuttered and jumped at his touch like an idiot.
She studied the buildings as they passed, remnants of a once-thriving downtown. The empty shells of restaurants and banks lined the narrow streets, harkening to a pre-mall era.
On some level, Megan empathized with those dilapidated buildings. Before her attack, she had flourished. But the self-assured graduate student, engaged to her boyfriend of four years and ready to take on the world, crumbled that horrible night.
The trauma left her a ghost of her former self. Graduate school took more effort than she could give while nursing her broken spirit, and she’d dropped out. Like the shoppers who fled downtown for the suburban mall, her fiancé had abandoned her, unable to cope with her withdrawal and impatient with her lengthy recovery. The outgoing, undaunted young woman she’d been now lived behind locked doors and slept with a dog who’d been trained to attack on command.
“May I ask why not?” Ginny’s question intruded on her thoughts, and Megan turned back toward her friend.
“Why not what?”
“Why aren’t you interested in a charming, gorgeous, employed, interested man? Are you planning on living like a hermit the rest of your life?”
Though delivered in Ginny’s typical get-off-your-butt-and-stop-feeling-sorry-for-yourself manner, Megan understood the loving concern behind the sarcastic question.
“I’m not opposed to dating someone. I do want to get some semblance of a normal life back, but…” She paused and chewed her lower lip. An image of Jack Calhoun as he’d looked yesterday, wearing only a towel, filtered through her mind.
Square jaw. Hard chest. Broad shoulders.
Testosterone personified. A tremor raced through her.
“But?”
“But not him.” Megan wrapped her arms around her middle to calm the uneasy quiver.
Ginny frowned and shook her head. “Why not him? He seemed pretty nice, and he’s totally gorgeous. What’s the problem?”
While
