a practiced eye for taking in details quickly, she scanned it. Dark hair, olive skin, classic Italian appearance. Six-two, 190 pounds. He’d be thirty-three in two weeks, making him almost exactly a year older than her. The name on it was Jake Vernelli.
She shifted her gaze to the paper. It was a fax sent from the law offices of Chase Montgomery. Chase had been elected mayor the previous year and when she scanned the fax, she remembered the gossip she’d heard at the restaurant just that morning. The mayor had called a childhood friend and arranged for him to fill in for Chief Wilks, who’d had a heart attack and then bypass surgery.
“Do you know Chief Wilks?” he asked.
She nodded. She liked the chief; everybody did. But she’d never really felt comfortable around him. Michael had gotten to the police once before, he could do it again.
“I’m taking his place for six weeks,” he said.
Tara’s stomach tightened. “So you’re a cop?”
“That’s right.” He swallowed deliberately. “Given the circumstances, I would think you might consider that a positive.”
Hardly. She was living way outside the law.
Chapter Two
“You broke into my house,” she accused.
“I did not break in.” He said it so fast his words were clipped. “You opened the door and pulled me in.”
His head injury couldn’t be too serious. “I suppose I did.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She didn’t want to tell him. There was something about this man, something about the intensity of his gaze, the edginess of his attitude. Would he see things that others had simply looked past? Would he find a loose thread and pull at it until her life unraveled?
“Tara Thompson,” she said, as if she’d been saying it her whole life. She got up, walked ten feet to her kitchen counter, pulled out a drawer and felt around for the small box of plastic bags. Then she opened the freezer door and filled the bag with ice. She gently tossed it in his direction. “You’ve got a pretty good-sized bump.”
“Thanks,” he said. He held the ice bag up to his forehead. “Who’s Alice?” he repeated his very first question.
“Alice Fenton. She and her husband, Henry, are my landlords. They live one crossroad over.” She wiped the palm of her hand on her old robe. “Do you think you need to see a doctor?”
“So that I can hear that I’m going to have a hell of a headache for a couple of days?” He smiled and it was such a startling change to his serious demeanor that she was thrown off balance.
She stepped back and rammed her spine against the kitchen counter. He studied her. And while there wasn’t enough light at this distance to clearly see his eyes, the tilt of his head, the subtle thrust of his chin, told her that he was assessing, considering. Wondering.
It was the look of a man who might be interested, maybe even intrigued, by a woman. It made her feel warm and vulnerable in a whole different way and she yanked on the belt of her robe, pulling it tighter. The worn material rubbed against her nipples and she was grateful for the darkness, grateful that he couldn’t see that his look affected her.
She jerked open the kitchen drawer and pulled out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. She grabbed a tissue box and carried both back to the coffee table. She placed them next to the burning candle. “You should probably clean that scrape. There’s no water but this will be better anyway.”
She moved back to her spot in the kitchen. He grabbed a few tissues and tipped the brown bottle to its side. After taking a couple swipes across his forehead, he got up and tossed the bloody tissue into the waste can at the end of her kitchen counter. Her stomach jumped in response. She hated blood. Could never quite forget the sight of it running down her arm, dripping onto the floor.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Sure,” she managed. Think about something else. It was generally good advice. However, when he rubbed his hand over his jaw and, like a crazy woman, she felt the answering response low in her belly—as if he’d rubbed the palm of his hand intimately against her—she realized it was a mistake. He was a stranger. A cop. She had no business thinking about warmth against warmth, about callused skin against absolute softness. About what it might be like to be held again.
“About my truck?” he asked.
She swallowed hard. “Of course. Toby Wilson owns the local garage. He sells gas and does some basic body work. Some nights he works late so you might get lucky.” She reached to dial the telephone just as it rang.
“Hello,” she said tentatively. She rarely got calls.
“Tara, this is Frank Johnson. There’s been some trouble in town.”
She gripped the receiver more tightly. “What kind of trouble?”
“Looks as if somebody damaged your front door, broke out the glass, anyway. It doesn’t look as if they got in but I’m not sure.”
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. She’d been in Wyattville all this time and nothing had happened. Why now?
“Tara?” Frank prompted.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Tara hung up and whirled around, almost bumping into the new chief.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“I own a restaurant in town. There’s been some damage.”
“From the storm?”
“No. At least that’s what Frank Johnson said. He owns the drugstore next door.” She tried to speak slowly, calmly, but it was impossible. Fourteen months ago, in a rage, Michael had shredded dresses and slashed artwork. Had he found a new way to torment her by vandalizing her business?
She didn’t want to have to run again.
“Tara?”
She stared at him.
“You looked as if you were a million miles away.”
Thirteen hundred miles. But was it far enough? “I have to go.” She glanced around the dark kitchen. Where had she dropped her purse? It didn’t matter. She grabbed her keys off the counter and took a step toward the door.
“You might want to get dressed first,” he suggested.
Of course. What she needed to do was stop freaking out. If Michael had found her, she’d need her wits about her. And she needed to get rid of Jake Vernelli. “I can drop you off in town,” she said.
He shrugged. “I think I’ve gathered enough to know that my first day on the job just started early.”
“But what about your truck?”
“Trust me on this. It’s not going anywhere.”
She
