a witness claimed to have seen a white pickup truck around the time school had been let out and the girl would have been walking home. The driver had stopped along the side of the road to talk to a young girl who fit Sara’s description. The witness hadn’t seen the girl’s abduction, but had noticed a dent on the driver’s-side door.
White truck.
Dent on the side.
Was it possible?
She jumped as Jax appeared next to her.
Just as she smelled something burning, he said, “The eggs.”
She faced the stove and pushed the smoking eggs off the burner. They were ruined.
“Something wrong?” Jax asked.
Maybe. Is that truck in the barn yours?
She glanced over at him. “That girl. The missing girl in the news?” She watched him perk up—in a suspicious way. “What happened to her is disturbing.”
“You’ve been following that story?”
She hoped he couldn’t see her pulse throbbing through the artery in her neck. Already she had to steady her breathing. He frightened her. No, her intuition frightened her. She could stand up to fear when it didn’t involve murder.
“Yes. Haven’t you?”
“No, not really.”
Penny furrowed her brow in confusion. Jax watched the news every morning. Hadn’t the story of a young girl’s disappearance and murder touched him? What kind of person wouldn’t be affected by such a tragedy?
“What do you say we go into town for breakfast?” he suggested.
“All right.” And then she’d head home. He really did scare her right now. His aloofness. His insensitivity to the Sara Wolfe murder. His odd demeanor.
He slipped his arms loosely around her waist. “Then we can come back and do some more exploring.”
Would he take her to the barn and the boarded up house? She highly doubted that, given his suspicious behavior.
Hoping to pull off an act, she patted his chest. “Actually this morning I remembered something I need to do for another project that’s due Monday. I need to get home and work on it.”
Back came his distrust. “You can do that tomorrow.”
She shook her head. “I need tonight and tomorrow.”
“Then you can work here. I’ll leave you alone.” He grinned. “Until tonight, that is. Quinten is going back home soon. You and I can have a romantic dinner together this evening.”
They hadn’t been dating all that long. Just a couple of weeks. She’d had reservations about going to his mountain house. Only his announcement that his son would join them had made her agree, that and his promise that she’d have her own room. Finding out Quinten would leave this morning sealed her decision to go home.
“Haven’t I been a perfect gentleman?” he asked, seeing her hesitation.
“Yes.” He had. But that no longer mattered.
“Then stay. I invited you here to meet my son and spend some time getting to know each other outside work.”
That might have appealed to her prior to making the connection between the truck in the barn and the missing girl. Now she just needed to get away.
“Last night was lovely. Your home is lovely. But my boss has been breathing down my neck lately. I have to get this job done on time.” She thought she sounded sincere.
“What’s he going to do? Fire you?” He smiled crookedly, falling for her pretense. “You’re his best ad executive. My brother will vouch for that.”
As CEO of Ballard’s Sporting Goods, Jax’s brother, Dane, did have significant influence. Jax, too, as president. Penny had met her boyfriend when she pitched her idea for their ad campaign. Handsome and driven, he’d attracted her from the start. She, apparently, had caught his eye for the same reason. They had a lot in common. He’d been the one to tell her Ballard’s would hire Avenue One to do their advertising, a huge boost to her career.
Moving back, she eased out of his arms. “Ever since I delivered that Super Bowl ad, Dane’s expectations have been grandiose.”
“My brother counts on you, for good reason.” He brushed his finger down her nose.
Disliking the affectionate touch, she stepped back.
“Sorry, I just love your nose with those big, sexy green eyes of yours.” He chuckled. “I didn’t mean to treat you like a kid.”
A sick feeling plunged in her stomach. Why had he used the word kid?
Tucking her shoulder-length reddish-brown hair behind her ear, she said, “I’m going to go get ready.” Penny turned to head for the stairs.
“I’ll let you leave on one condition.”
Let her leave? Putting her hand on the railing, she looked back and couldn’t tell if he was joking.
“I get to come over Tuesday night and cook you dinner. Mondays are always a train wreck for me.”
She nodded even though she didn’t feel like it. “Deal.”
That seemed to placate him, to put to rest any concern that whatever Penny had discovered hadn’t spooked her away.
Going up the stairs, she ran into Quinten on the first landing, Jax’s six-foot tall, eighteen-year-old son. Quinten’s mother, only a teenager herself when he was born, had left him with Jax when she was fifteen. Jax had devoted his life to the boy and it showed. Quinten had grown into a well-mannered young man with aspirations to go far in college. She’d loved their conversation at dinner.
“Morning, Penny,” Quinten said with a sleepy smile livening his hazel eyes. He looked a lot like his father, except younger, of course, and with wilder hair.
She smiled back at him. “Morning.”
“My dad down here giving you a hard time?”
She laughed. “Not any more than I give him.”
He passed her on the way down. “He likes you.”
Not responding to that with anything more than an amicable look, she climbed the rest of the way up the stairs. She felt a bit of a kinship to the boy, growing up in a single-parent household like him. When she’d asked if he wanted to find his mother, he said no. She’d seen the love Jax had for him and it reminded her of how her mother loved her.
Would a man who’d raised a son like Quinten be capable of harming young girls? It didn’t seem likely. There had to be some explanation.
* * *
Breakfast passed without incident,
