spend the dark hours of his life? These questions drifted into his head, unwelcomed and disturbing.
Jesse had made the decision years ago to walk out of his best friend Paul’s life, knowing his presence would forever be a reminder of the tragedy Paul had endured.
Damn Bob Sanford for handing him this particular assignment, and damn Cecilia Webster for making him remember what he’d spent so many years trying to forget.
He paced the living room restlessly, his thoughts on Cecilia. Hysterical blindness. Jesse had never heard of such a condition, but he knew the mind was capable of many things.
He froze as he heard the guest room door open.
“Jesse?”
“I’m right here,” he replied as Cecilia entered the living room.
Slowly she made her way across the room to the sofa and sat. “I think I owe you an apology,” she said as she folded her hands in her lap.
“No, I owe you one,” he countered. He sat down opposite her. “You were right when you said I have no right to judge you or comment on where you are in your life at the moment. I don’t know what’s happened to you, and it’s none of my business. My business is to keep you safe.”
“Okay, you’re right. You owe me an apology.” For the first time since she’d arrived, a small smile graced her lips. “And I accept, but only if you accept mine, as well.”
“Done,” he replied. She was pretty without a smile, but with her lips curved upward, she was more than pretty, and a stir of pleasure coursed through him.
“So, tell me…what do the good people of Mustang do in the evenings to pass the time?”
Jesse shrugged, then remembered she couldn’t see the gesture. “We don’t have a movie theater, no bowling alley or shopping mall, so entertainment is pretty limited.”
Jesse realized that while he talked, he was studying her features. Society taught people that it was impolite to stare, but in this case, there was no need to look away or avert his gaze for politeness’ sake.
Whatever sleep she had gotten before the interference of her disturbing nightmares had been enough to erase the circles beneath her eyes. He assumed she wore no makeup and marveled at the length of her dark lashes. She had the smoothest skin he’d ever seen, broken only by a tiny mole just above the left corner of her lips.
“Jesse?”
He realized he’d stopped talking and wondered if she’d sensed he was staring at her. “I was just gathering my thoughts,” he said. Then he continued. “Most of the adults of Mustang are porch-sitters. Almost everyone has a porch swing or chairs, and on nice evenings you can hear neighbors calling back and forth to one another. Then, at about seven-thirty or so, a lot of people drift down to the diner for dessert and coffee and gossip.”
“Quite a different life-style from—” She caught herself. “From where I come from.” She shifted positions on the sofa and he caught a whiff of her pleasant floral perfume.
She obviously didn’t trust him yet and was afraid to let him know what city held the secrets of her past and the events that had brought her to Mustang.
“Without movie theaters or shopping malls, what do the youth of Mustang do for entertainment?”
“The town holds a lot of dances and social gatherings, but most of the time the teens gather at a little stream just outside of town. There’s a tree down there they call the kissing tree and legend has it if you kiss a girl beneath that tree, her heart will belong to you through eternity.”
She smiled. “Have you ever kissed a girl beneath the tree?”
“Nah. Came close a couple of times in my youth, but the idea of eternity always loomed larger than any desire to steal a kiss.” He frowned. “At the moment, the kissing tree and the surrounding area is off-limits to everyone.”
“Why is that?”
Jesse stood, restless as he thought of the latest criminal case to strike the small town. It was the craziest crime he’d ever had to deal with. “Two weeks ago a woman was kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night.” Jesse paced from the chair to the window. “She was bound, blind-folded and gagged. Apparently she was taken to the kissing tree, kissed, then left there. She was found by a couple of teenagers.”
“How horrible. Was she hurt?” She spoke first to the chair, then toward the window, as if unsure exactly where he stood.
“Physically, no. But she was terribly traumatized.” He left the window and again sat in his chair, realizing it was easier for her to talk to him if he remained static. “At first we figured it might be a bad joke, some sort of prank or bet carried out by some kid. Then last week it happened again to another single woman.”
“You still think it’s kids playing jokes?”
“No.” Jesse threaded a hand through his hair and forced himself to remain seated. “If the females were teenagers, then I might still think another teen was responsible, but these women aren’t teenagers. The first is twenty-six and the latest is twenty-eight. They aren’t kids.”
“You certainly didn’t need the extra responsibility of a blind woman in your care right now,” she said, only this time he heard no tinge of self-pity in her voice. She was merely stating the obvious.
“I wouldn’t have mentioned this to you at all, but if you’re going to be here for any length of time, you’re sure to hear about it from other sources.” Jesse rubbed his stomach, where he thought he might be trying to develop an ulcer. “Mustang’s intrepid social reporter has decided to take it upon herself and become the reporter detailing the case of Casanova.”
His stomach burned as he thought of Millicent Creighton, who at the best of times could be an irritant, but lately had been a veritable pain in the rear. Twice in the last week, he’d caught the older woman snooping around the kissing tree, looking for clues to the “madman who held Mustang in his grip of terror.” The last time he’d caught her there, he’d threatened to arrest her if he found her there again.
“Casanova…is that what you’re calling him?”
“That’s what our friendly reporter, Millie Creighton, has dubbed him.”
She released a sigh and twisted a strand of her hair between thumb and forefinger. Jesse noticed that her hand trembled slightly. “There’s really no place in this world that’s truly safe, is there?”
She didn’t wait for his reply, but rather continued. “You think you’re safe in your own home, or in a family member’s home, but there are no guarantees. You think you’re safe in your own bed, but that isn’t necessarily so, is it?”
Her unseeing gaze found him, her eyes luminous, yet holding the shadows of whatever nightmare she’d endured. “Tell me I’ll be safe here, Jesse. I just need to know that for a little while I can let go of the fear inside me.”
As Jesse saw the haunting of her eyes, felt both the tragedy and the fear that emanated from her, he wished he could reassure her, promise her sanctuary, but Jesse had never been one to make false promises.
He
