to them about it.”
“Without condemning them with premature conclusions,” she said as if it were a condition she was applying.
“I’m not condemning anyone and I don’t have any premature conclusions. I’m just beginning at the be ginning.”
She couldn’t refute that reasoning, even though the contrary part of her still wanted to. Besides, she knew when she’d lost a fight.
But that didn’t mean she was just going to roll over without getting a little some thing in return.
So she said, “Say please.”
“Say please?” he repeated, sounding partially amused again and partially in disbelief of what he was hearing.
Then he leaned across the corner of the table, putting his extraordinarily handsome face within inches of hers. They were almost nose to nose and he was near enough for her to smell the lingering scent of his after shave and a sweet ness on his breath as he said, “In case it’s escaped you, I’m the law around here. I don’t have to say please when it comes to this. If you don’t do what I tell you to do I can charge you with obstruction and put your little fanny in jail.”
Megan angled her chin upward in answer.
It was an act of defiance. But what she hadn’t factored in was that that act of defiance also accidentally put her mouth in close proximity to his. So close that it suddenly occurred to her that he could kiss her without much more effort.
And the trouble with that realization was that once it was there in her head, it left her unable to think about anything else.
Until she reminded herself that they were in the middle of a tug-of-war.
“Say please anyway,” she insisted.
Josh smiled. A slow, lei surely smile that was oh-so-sexy and made her wonder if he’d just read her thoughts.
Or maybe he was on the verge of arresting her and looking forward to it.
Then he said, “Please,” in a husky whisper that gave her goose bumps.
She rubbed her arms as if she’d caught another chill, worried that he might see the goose flesh.
“I’ll do what I can,” she finally conceded as if she didn’t have a single other thing on her mind.
But Josh didn’t back away even after he had her word. He stayed leaning across the table.
And the longer he did, the more those thoughts of kissing gained strength. Strength and potency and vivid ness as she began to wonder what it might be like to have him actually do it. To have him kiss her…
Then, abruptly, Josh stood and went to the door.
Megan didn’t move to follow him, to walk him out, because she was struggling to regain the equilibrium she seemed to have lost in those thoughts of him kissing her.
“I’ll need to talk to your parents right away so make sure you get on it ASAP. Please,” he added with the hint of yet another smile.
“I’ll put in the initial call tonight,” she told him without a fight this time because she was locked in her own internal battle against this wholly in appropriate and unwarranted reaction to the man.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”
Oh great, now she was thinking about him touching her, too….
Megan managed a nod as she watched his big hand close around the knob to open the door again.
Then, as if he’d just had a flash of memory, he said, “Don’t do anything to the grave site. I’ll need clearance from forensics before it can be tampered with or filled in.”
Once more Megan nodded, not speaking as she marveled at all he was still inspiring in her even now.
He hesitated a moment as if he had something else to say. But in the end he went out the way he’d come in, closing the door behind him and leaving Megan alone in the kitchen again.
When she was, she breathed another sigh, this one a deep sigh of relief to be out from under the powerful effects of his presence.
And that was when rational thought kicked in again.
Was there anything dumber than getting carried away by a man who not only thought she was some kind of oddity, but who also seemed to think her parents were capable of some thing as awful as killing someone? she asked herself.
No, there wasn’t anything dumber than that.
But that’s what had just happened, hadn’t it? In the middle of him questioning her and trying to find information that in criminated her family, she’d been imagining Josh Brimley kissing her. Josh Brimley who had accused her of practicing hocus-pocus and voodoo.
It was worse than dumb. It was insane.
And it wasn’t going to happen again, she told herself firmly.
Josh Brimley was not just some nice guy she’d met in passing. In a way he was the enemy and she’d better not lose sight of that fact.
She’d better not lose sight of what kind of man he was.
Because while she might have faith that she could win over Elk Creek’s citizens to the benefits of acupuncture, she knew better than to put any effort whatsoever into trying to convince a man who viewed her as an oddity that that wasn’t what she was. And when that man also suspected her parents of a horrible crime on top of it, she really knew he was someone to stay away from.
The trouble was, loitering around the edges of her mind was the last view she’d had of Josh Brimley walking out the door.
The view of a rear end to die for.
And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake off her appreciation of that….
Chapter 3
“WHEN’RE YOU GONNA DO somethin’ ’bout them allergies, boy?”
Josh held up his hand in acknowledgement of his mother speaking to him as he sneezed three more times. Merely walking into the kitchen the next morning and being in the proximity of the mudroom where his brothers hung their work coats was enough to send him into a paroxysm of sneezing.
When it finally subsided, he said, “I don’t have the time to do some thing about it now.”
He hadn’t told even his mother about his appointment the previous day with Megan Bailey and her needles. And certainly now there were more important issues that needed to be dealt with.
“You got in awful late last night and you’re up even earlier than usual this mornin’,” Junebug observed then, as Josh poured himself a cup of coffee. She sat at the kitchen table with her own mug and the romance novel she read a few pages of each day since she was up before the news pa per arrived.
“Something’s happened,” Josh answered as he joined
