Tori Carrington - Where You Least Expect It

Aidan’s chest tightened. Over the past twelve months he’d come to see that this woman had so very much to give…if only she could be encouraged to do so. Her opinions were fresh and unbiased. Her appearance uplifting. Her very presence like a spring breeze.

He hated to watch her go back and forth from her grandmother’s house to her shop, never stopping to talk to anyone, never veering from the well-tread course, never batting an eye when on occasion the town kids would call her the witch that so many of them believed her to be.

He’d thought if he could get her to come out of her shop, upset her normal pattern, force the town to see her for who she really was, he would be doing her—and them—a favor.

And if a small fringe benefit was that he would have an excuse to spend more time around her, he wasn’t going to acknowledge it. Of course, he couldn’t allow himself to get involved with her. Or anyone else for that matter. Not until he could take care of some very important issues on his personal agenda.

She whispered something.

“Pardon me?” he asked.

She blinked at him, seeming horrified. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I could have sworn…” She looked utterly aghast, and he realized that whatever she’d said hadn’t been meant to be heard. He smiled. “Never mind.” He leaned back on his heels and handed her the jars one by one, while she reached up to place them on the counter. “Anyway, the holiday is only a week away and the committee is no closer to agreeing on a theme than they were three months ago. I could really use an ally.” He offered up a grin. “Someone whose vote I could count on. Besides, acting like a member of the community might be a good idea.”

Her eyes narrowed a bit as she continued taking the jars from him. “I’ve been a member of this community my entire life.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He refused to release his grip on the last jar. She held on to it even as he did. He swore he felt a strange warmth climb up his arm and down into his stomach.

“I know,” she said finally.

Aidan moved his fingers until they were covering hers. Her skin was so soft, so warm and inviting under his. He’d forgotten what it was like to touch a woman in that simple yet intimate way. Forgotten how alive it made him feel.

The bells above the door jingled, shattering the moment. He released the jar. Penelope’s flush deepened as she put it on the counter, then she rose.

“Good morning, Sheriff Parker.”

A jolt of fear shot through Aidan as he got to his feet.

He reminded himself that he had nothing to fear from Sheriff Cole Parker.

At least, not yet…

If Penelope had felt restless before, Aidan’s brief touch upgraded the emotion to chaos. A heart-stopping awareness that toyed with her body temperature and cut the bottom out of her stomach, made her feel like a stranger to herself.

Oh, she’d always thought Aidan attractive. Very attractive. But she had never before linked herself to him in the same sentence, as in “Aidan and I.” She hadn’t dared.

Now her mind was going a million miles a minute doing just that.

He smiled at her as if he knew what she was thinking, and her pulse leaped.

“I just came by for some more of that tea you made for me the other day, Penelope,” Sheriff Parker was saying as he took off his hat. “I usually don’t go in for that kind of stuff, but, well, I liked it.”

It seemed to take a great deal of effort to tug her gaze away from Aidan’s face. “Sure. I’ll just put some water on to boil.”

“Sheriff.” She heard Aidan greet the other man as she plugged in her electric teapot, then eyed the tins of herbal teas on the shelf behind her. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember what tea she had fixed for Cole.

“Aidan,” Cole said back.

“How’s everything across the Circle this morning? Any new crimes to report?”

A simple question. But when an answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, Penelope looked over her shoulder to find Cole running his fingers through his hair, obviously troubled.

“Funny you should ask that. Something strange did happen last night.”

Penelope settled on green tea with a hint of ginseng and measured a few spoonfuls into a small teapot. She turned to put some prepackaged raspberry biscuits onto a plate, tuning in to an odd kind of tension emanating from Cole. He seemed to be eyeing Aidan in a curious way.

Cole finally sighed. “Old Man Smythe’s filling station was hit last night. He was robbed at gunpoint.”

Aidan was in the act of accepting a biscuit when—Penelope could have sworn—his hand hesitated. “Nobody was hurt, I hope?”

“No, no one was hurt. But Smythe did give an interesting description of the assailant. He said he looked exactly like you—” The sheriff rubbed the back of his neck, then lapsed into silence as the kettle began to whistle.

Penelope turned to pour hot water into the pot. “Actually, his exact words were ‘that schoolteacher Kendall robbed me.’“

Penelope nearly knocked over the teapot. She turned to watch the two men stare at each other.

Then, finally, Cole chuckled.

“Yeah, I figured the old man was overdue for a visit with the optometrist.”

She handed Cole his tea and offered a cup to Aidan, as well.

“Thanks, Penelope.” Cole blew on the liquid, then took a sip. “Ah, heaven.” He smiled at her. “You wouldn’t happen to have a package of this stuff I could buy, would you?”

“No, that’s my own personal stash,” she said, then laughed. “Of course I do. How much would you like?”

The next ten minutes or so were filled with light talk of what else was going on in town and wrapping up Cole’s purchases. Finally, Cole put his hat back on, accepted another cup of tea in a disposable cup and bid them a good day.

The tinkling of the bells seemed to echo through the shop for a long time after he left.

“Imagine, Mr. Smythe thinking you were the one who robbed him,” she said, wiping the counter.

Aidan didn’t appear to hear her. His expression was somber and thoughtful as his gaze fixed on the sheriff’s office across Lucas Circle.

“How much do I owe you for the tea?” he asked absently.

Penelope blinked. “It’s on the house, Aidan.”

He peeled off a couple of dollars and put them on the counter. “I’ll see you later.”

Penelope watched him leave, noticing that Spot followed him out with a brief glance in her direction. She felt more than a little disappointed. Had she imagined what had passed between them before Cole had come in? Dreamed that his fingers had lain on top of hers for a brief moment, making time stop?

She swallowed. Silly, really. Thinking a man like Aidan Kendall could be interested in her.

She opened the storage room door, then took Max’s leash in hand and set about her normal everyday chores, telling herself she would do well to remember the town was divided into two very distinct camps:

her…and everyone else.

And it seemed “everyone else” included Aidan Kendall.

He’d stayed in town too long.

Later that day, after seeing the summer school students off with just enough homework to make them groan, Aidan headed back to his room at Mrs. O’Malley’s.

What a difference one sentence could make in a man’s life. A few simple words said by someone with the power to make them damning.

He should never have come to Old Orchard at all. And he definitely should have left six months ago when the teacher he had temporarily replaced returned from maternity leave.

Aidan let himself into Mrs. O’Malley’s bed-and-breakfast, grateful she was in the kitchen preparing dinner and didn’t notice him come in. She usually wanted to know about his day, and he usually enjoyed watching her face light up as he shared student anecdotes, and reports on how they were all doing.

He hated to imagine what expression she would wear when she found out who he really was.

He climbed the stairs and unlocked the door to his room at the far end of the hall, then closed it behind him. Since he was a semipermanent boarder, he’d offered to look after his own things. At least, that had been his excuse. In reality, he didn’t think it was a good idea for Mrs. O’Malley to know what all was going on in here. He stood in the middle of the large room. To his left two computers were set up on the old antique desk, one running on a separate cable line and doing a continual search on news articles across the country. The other, an older system he used to compile the data he received. Next to the desk were stacks upon stacks of newspapers he subscribed to and picked up from a post office box he rented in a neighboring county.

In one year he’d come up with nothing.

In one day he’d come up with everything.

Davin had finally caught up with him…

Aidan sat down on the bed and dropped his head into his hands as if trying to hold everything in. An image of Penelope Moon’s pretty face flashed across his mind.

Penelope.

He’d been selfish. Selfish to think he’d be safe here. Selfish to make himself a part of a community that could be hurt merely by being associated with him. Selfish to want a woman who deserved so much better than what he had to offer her.

He slid open the drawer in the bedside table and took out a five-by-seven frame. The glass was dusty. He wiped it off and stared down into the faces of his wife and his three-year-old son. Two people lost to him forever. Two people who had also deserved better than him, because he’d been unable to protect them.

He slid the backing from the frame and took out the photo behind the one of his wife and son. It was a studio portrait taken some twenty-two years ago, when he was eight. A picture taken of him and his identical twin brother, Davin. A picture taken before his mother had suffered a beating that had nearly killed her and his father was sentenced to two years in prison for felonious assault. A picture taken before both his parents died in a house fire when he and Davin were fourteen.

Before everything in their lives that had already been bad had gotten even worse.

There was a brief knock at the door. “Aidan?”

He slid the photographs into place, then put the frame back and closed the drawer. Within moments, he stood looking at Mrs. O’Malley from the open doorway.

She smiled at him. “I thought I heard footsteps on the stairs. Why didn’t you come into the kitchen to say hello?”

In the corner the computer made a small beep indicating the search had found something. They both looked at it.

“Always working,” Mrs. O’Malley said.

At one time Edith O’Malley herself had been a ninth grade English teacher. She’d retired ten years ago following the death of her husband, then transformed their family home into a bed-and-breakfast long after her five children had left Old Orchard for busier concrete pastures. Once Mrs. O’Malley had learned that Aidan was certified as a schoolteacher, she had secured the job for him at St. Joseph’s with nary a background check. Mrs. O’Malley trusted him completely, based on instinct, as she didn’t understand computers and never invaded his privacy.

Mrs. O’Malley’s smile slowly faded as she looked into his face now.

“Is everything all right, Aidan? You don’t look well.”

He cleared his throat. “Actually, I am feeling a bit tired, Mrs. O’Malley. Sorry I didn’t say hello, but I had my hands full of class materials and wanted to bring them up here first.”

The smile made a return. “You’ll come down for dinner, though, won’t you? Tonight’s meat loaf night.”