Charlotte Douglas - Stranger In His Arms

The setting sun slipped behind the mountains, and the air chilled suddenly. He shoved to his feet and walked down to the river’s edge to join Jennifer and Sissy. “It’s getting colder. We’d better head back.”

Sissy, with her red curls, bright blue eyes, ruddy cheeks and impish expression, looked enough like Jennifer to be her daughter. She hefted the last pebble she’d gathered from the riverbank. “One more, please?”

“Okay,” he relented. “Let’s see how far you can throw.”

Jennifer grinned, but her smile froze as she looked past him to the park entrance. He glanced back to see a black SUV turn into the parking area.

“You expecting someone?” he asked Jennifer.

She shook her head, as if coming out of a daze, but her eyes didn’t leave the newly arrived vehicle until a couple of teenaged boys climbed out and headed to the open field, tossing a football between them.

Visibly relaxing, Jennifer turned her attention to Sissy. “Great throw. You could pitch for the Yankees.”

“Not Yankees,” the little Southerner said with a sour face.

Jennifer shrugged and acted as if she hadn’t turned a ghostly white at the sight of the SUV a few seconds before. “Okay, then maybe the Atlanta Braves. That’s some arm you have, kid.”

“How about a piggyback?” Dylan knelt for Sissy to climb onto his back. “It’s been a long day.”

He carried the little girl to his pickup and strapped her into the child safety seat. Within minutes, the four-year-old was sound asleep.

“Shall I drop Sissy off at her Aunt Millie’s?” He put the truck in gear and pulled onto the highway headed toward Casey’s Cove.

Jennifer shook her head. “She’s spending the night with me. Millie’s going back to the hospital tomorrow, so I volunteered to keep Sissy the whole weekend.”

They drove in silence for several miles through the dark shadows of trees that edged the highway, a narrow road that curved up the side of the mountain, with breathtaking vistas of the valley below before it edged downward into Casey’s Cove.

Dylan hoped Jennifer would confide in him what was frightening her. She didn’t appear a naturally nervous type, and he figured whatever had spooked her might be serious. Her reactions that day had set his lawman’s instincts on full alert. “Something you want to tell me?”

“Thanks for a wonderful day.” She seemed to purposely misunderstand his question. “It’s been great for Sissy, and I had a good time, too.”

“You’re welcome.” With his inquiry squelched, he abandoned his questioning.

For now.

They continued in silence into Casey’s Cove, along the dimly lit Main Street, quiet and deserted on a Saturday night, then headed up the mountain road on the other side of town toward Miss Bessie’s guest house.

Jennifer gazed at the empty street as they passed. “What do folks do around here on Saturday night?”

“The townspeople are a pretty quiet bunch. Most of them stay at home, watch television, go to bed early for church tomorrow morning.”

Jennifer sighed. “Isn’t there anything to do for fun?”

Dylan glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Little Jenny Thacker had definitely come out of her shell over the last twenty years. “There’re a couple of places on the Sylva highway where you can get barbecue and dance to a jukebox. And there’s a movie theater in town.”

“Whew,” she said with a smile, “all that excitement must be hard on the locals.”

“We adapt.” He turned the truck into the guest-house drive, climbed out and gently removed the sleeping Sissy from her carrier. “If you’ll open the door, I’ll bring her in.”

He followed Jennifer into the house, through the living room and into the bedroom. She turned back the bedspread and blankets, and he laid the child on the bed. Tenderly, Jennifer removed Sissy’s shoes and clothes, tugged on her nightgown, tucked her in and left a low light burning.

Back in the living room, Jennifer turned to him. “Would you like to stay for supper?”

“I don’t want you going to any trouble.”

“No trouble. Just grilled cheese sandwiches and soup.”

He started to decline, then remembered how frightened she’d seemed at times during the afternoon. Maybe in the security of her own home, she’d let down her guard and tell him what she feared.

He decided to stay.

“Soup and sandwiches sound good,” he said. “Can I help?”

She grinned with the impishness he was growing fond of. “If you can open a can.”

“I live alone, remember. Opening cans is my specialty.”

He followed her into the kitchen and perched on a stool at the counter while she removed items from cupboards and the refrigerator.

“Do you like working for Miss Bessie?” he asked.

She nodded as she buttered bread for sandwiches. “I keep her books and the ones at the day-care center, and I also drive her wherever she wants to go. And yesterday we made apple butter for the festival next week.” She paused, as if embarrassed by her chattering. “Anyway, working for her is more varied than the waitressing job I had in Nashville.”

“Is that why you left Nashville?”

Wariness flashed briefly through the green depths of her eyes. She tugged slender fingers through a tumble of blond curls and avoided his gaze. “I was tired of waiting tables and wanted something different. Working for Miss Bessie’s different all right.”

“So you’ll be here for a while?”

She paused and looked at him. “You ask an awful lot of questions.”

“Just friendly curiosity.” He sensed the barriers going up around her. Unwilling to press further, he steered the conversation to neutral ground. “So Miss Bessie’s told you about the Apple Festival next week?”

“A little.” She arranged thick slices of cheddar on the buttered bread, placed the sandwiches on a hot griddle, and handed him a can opener. With a few deft turns, he opened the vegetable gumbo and poured it into the saucepan she’d placed on the stove.

“The festival is the cove’s biggest event of the year,” he explained. “Apples are the main crop here in the valley, and we have the maximum crowds of tourists the three days the festival runs.”

“Miss Bessie didn’t tell me much about the festival except that she always wins the apple-butter competition.” Jennifer turned the sandwiches on the griddle, and the aroma of toasting bread made his mouth water.

“There’s the apple-pie bake-off, crowning the Apple Queen, a relay race where the runners have to carry an apple in a spoon…” He stirred the soup as it came to a simmer, and she dropped in a handful of freshly chopped herbs. “The Artisans’ Hall has a special display of crafts, and Tommy Bennett’s country band plays for the square-dancing and clogging exhibition.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“More fun than the Fourth of July. You remember those celebrations?”

Her slight hesitation would have been lost on anyone not trained to observe as he was. Her glance slid away, avoiding him. “Oh, yeah, the fireworks off the pier. They were pretty spectacular.”

Dylan lifted his eyebrows. “The fireworks were always fired from a barge in the middle of the lake.”

“Right,” she replied too quickly.

“You don’t remember, do you?” Her lack of recall disturbed him. She hadn’t remembered his kiss, but even he had to admit that childish smack hadn’t been as dazzling as the annual fireworks. He wondered for an instant if she wasn’t who she claimed to be, but thrust that unlikely notion aside. Miss Bessie would have seen through a phony at a hundred yards. Maybe Jennie Thacker has suffered from amnesia, lost a portion of her life. Maybe she’d even returned to Casey’s Cove to reclaim what was missing.

He moved the soup off the burner, grasped her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Why don’t you remember?” he asked gently.

Emotions flickered through her green eyes, and he recognized two predominant ones. Fear and shame. She looked so vulnerable, he wanted nothing more than to hold her close, to protect her from whatever demons lurked behind those fabulous eyes. He silently cursed himself for putting her on the spot. “It’s none of my business—”

“No, it’s okay.” She took a deep breath, and he felt the tension in her shoulders ease beneath his hands. “I’m just embarrassed—”

“Forget it. I was out of line.”

“No problem.” With a nod and a forgive-me smile, she shrugged out of his grasp and turned back to her sandwich preparations. She arranged the sandwiches and steaming soup bowls on a tray and handed it to him. “Why don’t we eat in the living room in front of the fire?”

He carried the tray into the living room and placed it on a low table near the hearth. Jennifer touched a match to the kindling, and the logs caught quickly. Folding his legs beneath him, he sat on the floor.

With deft movements, she set a place mat in front of him, then his sandwich plate, soup bowl and flat-ware. She set her own place, sat cross-legged on the floor beside him and took a generous bite of sandwich. Neither whatever had frightened her earlier that day nor her recent embarrassment appeared to have had any effect on her appetite. In fact, her entire demeanor had relaxed as soon as he’d abandoned personal topics, which made him even more curious about her secrets.

Hungrier than he’d realized, he dug into his food. He could get used to this: a cozy supper shared with a beautiful woman in front of a glowing fire. The thought brought him up short. For the first time in almost two years, something warm and agreeable filled what had been a dark, empty vacuum. Not since Johnny Whitaker’s untimely death had Dylan allowed himself to feel anything.

Jennifer Reid had changed all that.

“So—” she flicked a crumb from the corner of her mouth with a dainty swipe of her little finger “—how long have you been a cop?”

He knew she was leading the conversation away from herself, but he was in no hurry. He had the entire evening to discover what was frightening her.

“Almost twelve years,” he said. “I went to the police academy right out of junior college.”

“Have you always worked in Casey’s Cove?” Her eyes sparkled with genuine interest, and he found her refreshing, a woman who seemed truly curious about him. Either that or she was purposely steering the conversation away from herself. Whatever her motive, he decided to humor her.

“Always. Never wanted to work anywhere else.” He sipped his soup, found it remarkably tasty for a canned product and decided the difference had to be the fresh herbs Jennifer had added.

“Don’t you ever get a hankering to travel, to see the rest of the world?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I’m a homebody. I’ve visited other places, but I’m always happy to return here. It’s where I belong.” He paused, then took a chance at a question of his own. “You didn’t feel that way about Memphis?”

She laughed. “I’ve discovered I have an incurable wanderlust. I always want to be where I’m not. With no family or other ties, I’m free to go where I choose.”

“So you’ll be leaving here soon?” He watched her intently, gauging her reaction.

A hint of uncertainty flickered across the delicate planes of her firelit face. “I don’t know. Casey’s Cove has a homey feel to it, but—”

She pushed to her feet, went into the kitchen and returned with the pan to fill his soup bowl. He accepted the refill with thanks and backed off his questions. She obviously wasn’t ready to divulge any confidences.