strong cheekbones, a square jaw, and lines etched around his mouth. Tall, dark and tough, not pretty. This wasn’t a man you’d want to run into in a dark alley. Or an attic. She felt something curl in her stomach. Not the cold ball of fear she’d experienced last night when she was listening to those footsteps. No, this was something different, something warm…no, hot.
Then she watched, fascinated, as his lips curved in a smile and his eyes lightened to gray. This time he wasn’t laughing at her, but with her, and the warmth inside of her grew. Quite suddenly, she felt as if she’d known him for a long time.
But she hadn’t. Just as she hadn’t really known Billy. Taking a step back, she said, “Maybe I do intend to do it.”
“No.” The man shook his head. “I don’t think so. You’re not the type.”
“Not the type for what?” Hank asked, bagging the coil of rope and placing it on the counter.
“Nothing,” Jodie said, grabbing the package.
“Where’d Alicia go?” Hank asked.
“She—” Jodie and the stranger spoke the word together. When she glanced at him, he was smiling again.
“Ms. Finnerty had a pressing engagement,” he said.
Hank grinned at them. “With her cell phone, I’ll bet. I take it you two have introduced yourselves.”
“No.”
Once again they spoke in unison. This time, Jodie kept her eyes on Hank and said, “I’ll have to take a rain check on that introduction.” She backed toward the door. “My lunch hour is nearly over. I’ve barely got time to meet Sophie and Irene before they head off to their meeting.”
“You going to pay for that rope?” Hank asked.
“Oh.” She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks as she said, “Just put it on the Rutherford House account.” To the stranger, she managed a nod. “Another time. ’Bye.”
She was halfway down the block before she remembered to breathe. The last thing she needed was to be introduced to another intriguing stranger. Especially one who made her feel hot one minute and icy cold the next. Strangers were dangerous, especially tall, attractive ones. Billy had taught her that.
SHANE SULLIVAN STEPPED out of the sporting goods store just as Jodie Freemont paused at the corner to wait for the traffic light. She would be getting her rain check sooner than she expected—in about fifteen minutes to be exact. That was when he’d agreed to meet Sophie and Irene Rutherford at Albert’s Café.
It was just by chance that he’d run into Ms. Freemont in the sporting goods store. But then Shane believed in chance. It had always served him well in the past.
This time, too, he thought. It had given him the opportunity to assess Jodie Freemont before they were formally introduced. He made it his business to get to know anyone who might stand in his way. And right now, Jodie Freemont might be the biggest obstacle to his goal.
He’d come to Castleton, New York, because he had a hunch that she might know more about the five million dollars her ex-fiancé had embezzled than she’d told the police.
Narrowing his eyes, Shane studied Jodie as she stepped up on the curb and walked quickly and purposefully toward Albert’s.
Now that he’d met her, he could see that the picture in her file didn’t do her justice. It hadn’t captured her smile or the light that came to her eyes when she laughed. Her hair was different, too. In the picture, it had fallen halfway down her back. Now, cropped short and framing her face, it made her look exactly like the homeless waif everyone in town thought her to be.
Shane frowned. Why was he so sure she wasn’t just what she appeared to be? And why was he wondering again, just as he had back there in the store, exactly how she would feel pressed close against him?
His frown deepened. The only thing he should be wondering about was whether or not she was mixed up with her embezzling ex-fiancé, Billy Rutherford. In the six months since his arrest, the man had steadfastly maintained his innocence, refusing to reveal the location of the money. And not one cent had been found.
A quick gust of wind set bells jingling overhead, and Shane let his gaze sweep the street, decorated in picture-book fashion for the Christmas holidays.
The money was here. Shane could feel the familiar tingling in his fingers. Billy would make a break for it soon. Castleton was the perfect hiding place, and Jodie Freemont made the perfect cover. Who would suspect her of hiding five million dollars for the man who’d swindled her out of her home?
He did. He shifted his gaze back to Jodie as she ducked into Albert’s Café. Or he had until he’d met her. Shrugging off the thought, he started down the street. This wasn’t the time to start second-guessing his hunches. His job was to recover the five million, and he had just enough time to store his new fishing pole in his car before he joined the Rutherford sisters. Then he’d get his long-awaited introduction to Jodie Freemont.
“DID YOU GET the gun, dear?”
“No. Hank Jefferson flat out refused to sell me one,” Jodie announced as she joined the Rutherford sisters at their regular table in the window of Albert’s Café.
“It’s for the best,” Irene, the younger of the two sisters said as she patted the peach-colored curls that framed her face. “Guns make me nervous.”
“Everything makes you nervous,” Sophie declared. “And Hank Jefferson’s an idiot.” In her early seventies, Sophie Rutherford still dressed with military precision and wore her iron-gray hair pulled back and twisted into a neat bun. Sophie reminded Jodie of a tank, and she had a personality to match.
“It’s your constitutional right to bear arms,” Sophie added. “You could sue him.”
“Hank would probably persuade the jury that he’d saved my life,” Jodie replied.
Irene shivered. “Firearms are dangerous. An accident could happen.”
“I don’t think Hank was worried about an accident,” Jodie remarked dryly. “He thought I wanted the gun to shoot myself.”
Irene stared at her. “Why ever would you do that?”
“Because of Billy,” Jodie said.
“What does he think you are? Some poor Ophelia pining away for her Hamlet?” Sophie demanded.
“He wanted to introduce me to a perfect stranger,” Jodie said. “I think he was going to ask the guy to take me to the Mistletoe Ball.”
“Well, Hank’s got it all wrong. Billy’s coming back to you, dear. He didn’t desert you by choice,” Irene said. “When the police came to the house, he tried to resist arrest. That shows how much he really cared for—”
Sophie set her teacup down with such force that it rattled every piece of crockery on the table. “When are you going to stop defending that good-for-nothing nephew of ours? It’s thanks to him that Jodie lost her house, and we have to turn ours into a bed-and-breakfast!”
Irene clapped her hands over her ears. “I’m not going to
