six feet tall, she hardly came to the center of his chest, especially in bare feet. But that didn’t keep her from wanting to take a swing at him. Especially today.
“The car’s running fine. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really need to finish what I started.”
He shrugged. “Just thought I’d ask.”
When he didn’t make a move to leave, Mattie turned to find him staring at her with an odd expression. She suddenly felt vulnerable with her bare feet and legs, her thin tank top.
After a minute, Mattie accepted that he wasn’t leaving without fulfilling some police quota of small talk. She sighed. “Any news on Christina Wilson?” Christina was a local teenager, just eighteen, who had been missing for almost a week now. Mattie was concerned, as were all the locals, and she figured the neutral topic was as comfortable a one as she’d get with Mac.
“Of course not.” He shoved his hands into his pants pockets, made a kind of hissing noise and looked off into the distance as if the question perturbed him. “She’s a runaway. Her daddy just needs to accept the obvious.”
Whether Christina had run away or had been taken by force was a question being asked throughout Haddes. You couldn’t go to the barbershop or the grocery store without someone engaging you in the debate. The way Mattie saw it, either scenario was heartbreaking, especially for Christina’s father, Rand Wilson, who had been Jack Murphy’s closest friend in school and as underfoot in the Murphy household as Mattie. She had a lot of respect for Rand and she wasn’t the only one in town that felt that way. He’d unexpectedly become a father at nineteen and had raised his daughter alone when his young wife took off in search of a less demanding life. Rand had risen to the occasion and Christina had become the center of his world.
Mattie could only imagine what hell Rand was going through, and Mac McKay’s callous dismissal of the girl was just another strike against him in her book. As if she needed another reason to dislike the man.
Mattie narrowed her eyes and picked up the hose, wishing for all the world that it really was an Uzi. She really didn’t want to start a fresh debate with Mac, but she couldn’t resist adding at least one last word. “Maybe,” she said.
Mac threw his arms into the air, hissing again, like a punctured tire. “The girl left a note. How much clearer can you get? She’s a runaway, plain and simple.”
Mattie supposed he had a point. There had been a note left on her bed, a one-liner saying that she was leaving. But Rand thought she’d been forced to write the note, had pointed out the obvious changes to her handwriting, the cryptic wording. And the way Mattie looked at it, Rand knew Christina better than anyone else in the world. If he sensed something was wrong, it just might be.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything to the contrary?” He eyed her with suspicion, his gaze suddenly dark as it raked over her.
“No, of course not,” she answered. As if she’d be calmly washing her car if she had any useful information for the police. What an idiot.
She squeezed the nozzle’s trigger and the hose jumped to life. Mattie sprayed the car, making certain that the overspray drifted in Mac’s direction. When droplets began to cling to his dark uniform, he got the hint. Backing up, he lifted his hand. It was both a wave goodbye and a dismissal, as if he’d given up on the conversation. Good riddance, she thought as he turned and sauntered off in the direction of his shiny new patrol car.
Since the Crown Vic had gotten way more attention than it deserved and Mattie was ready to throw in the towel on the sorry excuse for a day, she emptied the mop bucket and gathered her sponge and wheel brush, then tossed them inside. She was coiling the garden hose over her shoulder when the chirp of an electronic car lock caught her attention. She looked up to see a man crossing the street toward her.
Good grief, no. Not now. Couldn’t a girl wash her police cruiser in peace?
It was Jack Murphy. Six foot three, two hundred pounds of recently banished adolescent fantasy. And he was walking toward her with the same masculine stride he’d had at nineteen.
She wanted to run. Instead, she threw down the hose. Then instantly picked it up again. Mattie felt like a squirrel dashing about in the middle of the road, looking for the perfect place to hide, the best direction to avoid the wheels of the car. In the end, it was always the lack of a decision that got the squirrel. Taken out by a Michelin on the centerline stripe.
Her next thought as he neared was that he looked more like the old Jack than he had last night. It was strangely comforting. He was ruggedly handsome, like a smiling—and overly tanned—model from a Jeep ad. The tan was a little uneven, but what the heck. He wore faded jeans and a black T-shirt that only accented his dark hair. But gone, thankfully, was the spiky, over-gelled hair, replaced with a top-down, windblown look. Deceit like that should be illegal, she thought. It was false advertising in the cruelest sense.
“Hey, there,” she said when he stopped before her. She heard the friendly lilt in her own voice, marveled at it. Talk about bogus.
“I was hoping to run into you today.” Jack paused, a shy-looking grin lifting one corner of his mouth.
“Thanks. It’s good to see you again.” Liar, liar.
Jack put his hands on his hips and stared at her car rather than her, distracted, no doubt, by its sheer ugliness. He finally dragged his gaze to meet hers, picking up where he’d left off. “I know my appearance was a little weird last night. I hope Della filled you in.”
Mattie bit her lip, not certain what to say. All the bizarre comments that popped into her head were far from politically correct. And she wanted desperately to be supportive. So she nodded and smiled. There was little you could do to offend someone when you nodded and smiled.
But now that he was within detail range, she could see that the self-tanner cut a jagged line along his jaw. More subtle today, true. But still there.
“Kimee should come with a warning label,” Jack said.
Mattie realized, with a start, that the expression on his face was one of embarrassment. “You mean Kimee from the salon?”
“She ambushed me when Della had to leave early.”
“Oh.” She tried to process the information, but the conversation was moving faster than her recently damaged brain. “Uh, yeah. Kimee has half the mothers in Haddes stirred up. She’s very, uh, innovative.” Good, she congratulated herself. Nice benign comment.
“Innovative.” He laughed and rubbed at his jaw. “That’s a nice word for it. I can’t get this crap off. I can’t believe it. I’ve been away from Haddes for years and the first day after I move back, I’m walking around my hometown like a beauty queen. How’s that for embarrassing?”
Mattie frowned. That comment was a little self-depreciating. Not to mention that he used the Q word. A niggling doubt crept in, but the questions that floated through her brain were sure to make her look like a hick, or worse, intolerant. Yet she wanted to blurt out, Are you sure you’re gay? ’Cause I never thought so. Mattie bit her lip instead. She was surrounded by steaming piles of faux pas. And no matter what escape route she took, she’d be ankle deep.
So more nodding and smiling ensued.
“Listen, I was hoping maybe we could get together.” Jack’s eyes were concealed by the shades but his gaze flickered downward
