Stranger in His Arms
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Charlotte Douglas
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Chapter One
Four months later
Grinning like a man who’d won the lottery, Officer Dylan Blackburn eased his patrol car down the steep drive from Miss Bessie Shuford’s mountaintop home.
His luck that morning had been twofold. First, on his visit with Miss Bessie, the matriarch of Casey’s Cove, he had escaped without having to consume one of her infamous cinnamon buns. Not that he didn’t love good food, but Miss Bessie’s favorite creations had all the grace and flavor of a shot put and sat just about as heavy on the stomach. If he hadn’t been unwilling to offend the sweet old woman, he’d have shellacked one for use as a doorstop at the station years ago.
The second source of his good humor was the latest news Miss Bessie had shared. The ninety-five-year-old spinster had just hired a new assistant, a former summer visitor to Casey’s Cove whom Dylan remembered well. The newcomer was setting up housekeeping in Miss Bessie’s guest house, located a few hundred yards down the mountain from the Shuford mansion, and he was on his way to renew an old acquaintance.
Dylan parked his cruiser in the guest-house drive, checked in with the station’s dispatcher and climbed out of the car. Miss Bessie’s property, which included the entire mountainside, had the best view of the valley, and he paused to take in the glorious fall day with its cloudless blue sky reflected on Lake Casey, spread out below the autumn-leaved mountains. The tiny town of Casey’s Cove edged its western shore.
The mountain air was cool and exhilarating with a hint of the pungent tang of woodsmoke. He inhaled deeply, thinking, as he did several times a day, that he lived and worked in the finest place in the world. Casey’s Cove was a great place to be a cop. Especially if you hated crime. The serene little hamlet deep in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina had the lowest crime rate in the state.
With one fatal exception.
Reluctant to spoil a perfect day, he pushed the bloody memory from his mind, but he knew it would return. It always did. Especially in his unwanted dreams.
He turned his attention to the guest house, a miniature version of Miss Bessie’s grandiose Victorian mansion, nestled beneath two ancient hickories shimmering in golden autumnal splendor. The wide, welcoming front porch with gingerbread fretwork was surrounded by foundation plantings of burning bush, glowing with all the colors of their fiery namesake. With eager anticipation, Dylan climbed the stairs and knocked on the screen door.
Nobody answered.
The front door with its stained-glass panels stood open, and he could see into the sunny front room. With her back to him, a young woman knelt on her hands and knees before the sofa, pushing the attachment of a vintage Hoover beneath the furniture with all the determination of a crusader battling evil.
Dylan knocked again and shouted his presence, but the high-pitched roar of the outmoded vacuum cleaner drowned all other sounds.
He watched for a moment, intrigued by the sight of the small, rounded derriere, nicely shaped and smoothly covered by tightly-stretched denim, bobbing in mesmerizing rhythm with the woman’s sweeping movements as she cleaned.
Then, feeling shamefully like a voyeur, he remembered his business, dragged his gaze from the enticing spectacle, and stepped inside.
“Hello,” he bellowed, but he couldn’t raise his voice above the noise. The woman remained unaware of his presence. Resigned, he strode across the room and tapped her on the shoulder.
With a piercing shriek that overpowered the Hoover’s mechanical growl, she leapt upright and straightened in panic. He reacted quickly, but not fast enough. The crown of her head slammed into his nose. The room dimmed, and he stumbled backwards.
“Careful!” he heard her warn after shutting off the raucous vacuum, her voice honeyed and soft, even when startled.
His vision still clouded, he felt her grab him by the biceps and guide him toward a chair. Sinking gratefully into its depths, he shook his head, attempting to restore his sight and quell his dizziness.
“Stop,” she commanded sharply. “Sit still!”
Too dazed to argue, he complied. Her footsteps retreated. By the time she returned, his vertigo remained, but his sight was restored.
He focused on the woman in front of him, and her enchanting appearance hit him like a kick to the gut. The pretty twelve-year-old of that long ago summer had grown up. And how. Slender with curves in all the right places, she had the greenest eyes he’d ever seen, the color of spring leaves on the mountainside. They matched the green of the long-sleeved shirt she wore, untucked and knotted at her narrow waist, its snug fit accentuating small, firm breasts. Her golden hair was pulled back and tied by a scarf, but rebellious curls fell over her forehead and around her ears. Her pixie-shaped face would have been beautiful under different circumstances, but it now wore a look of absolute horror.
“You’re bleeding all over yourself and my living room.” She thrust a cold damp towel into his hands.
A downward glance revealed she was right. Her head-butt to his nose had created a gusher that had spattered his white uniform shirt with blood.
“Sorry,” he mumbled into the towel he pressed to his nose.
“A bloody nose is no more than you deserve.” She sounded winded as well as angry, as if she hadn’t recovered from the fright he’d given her. “Even if you are a cop, you have no right barging in and scaring a body to death in her own home.”
“I knocked. Several times.”
As if unsatisfied with the job he was doing, she took the towel from him and dabbed at his nose. Even over the coppery smell of blood, he could detect the delectable scent of honeysuckle and sunshine. She smelled as good as she looked.
She stopped wiping his face and stepped back, evidently confident his bleeding had ceased. “Take off your shirt,” she ordered.
“What?”
“Bloodstains. If I don’t rinse them in cold water now, they’ll never come out.”
His uniforms weren’t cheap, so he didn’t have to be persuaded to do as she asked. With a few swift movements, he unbuttoned his shirt, shucked it off and handed it to her.
“T-shirt, too.”
He yanked the bloodstained garment over his head and tossed it to her.
“I’ll be right back,” she said in her take-charge fashion. “Light the fire, so you don’t get cold. Or I can bring you a blanket.”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
After his unusual confrontation with the most attractive and unnerving female he’d ever met, cold was the last thing he felt. However, he obligingly knelt by the fireplace and touched a match to the ready-laid logs and kindling. He could hear water running in the adjacent kitchen and the clink of dishes.
He returned to his chair, and she re-entered the room with a tray. “Thought you might like some coffee to warm you up. It’s a fresh pot.”
He took the mug she offered and declined a cookie from the plate she passed.
“They’re ambrosia cookies. Made them myself. Unless you’d prefer some of Miss Bessie’s cinnamon buns—” Her amazing green eyes twinkled with mischief.
“Cookies are fine, but I’m really not hungry,” he said hastily.
She smiled, an expression of such unparalleled beauty it almost took his breath away. “I see you’re acquainted with Miss Bessie’s specialty.”
He returned her grin. “I keep a large bottle of Maalox in my patrol car for my visits to her house. Only time I ever had a worse bellyache was from eating too many green apples when I was a kid.”
She took her own mug and curled long, slender legs into the corner of the sofa nearest him, graceful as a feline. “Is this an official visit, Officer—?”
“Blackburn.” He silently cursed his own thick-headedness. What kind of cop was he that the sight of a pretty woman could make him forget his duty? “Dylan Blackburn.”
He watched for a sign of recognition at the mention of his name, but none registered on her pretty face. Evidently he hadn’t made the impression on her that she had on him that summer long ago.
“And you’re Jennifer Thacker.”
As if he’d startled her again, her head snapped up in alarm, and he was glad this time his battered nose was well out of range.
“Jennifer Reid. Thacker’s my maiden name. How do you know that?”
“Miss Bessie gave me a copy of your employment application.”
“Why?” Her eyes had taken on a hunted look, like those of a wild nocturnal animal caught in a sudden light.
“Just routine. As Miss Bessie’s assistant, you’ll be helping out occasionally at the day-care center she sponsors. Our department runs background checks on everyone who works with children in this town. Just a precaution.”
“What kind of background check? I already gave Miss Bessie references.”
“We run a search of state and national computers to see if you’ve ever served time or have an outstanding warrant.”
She relaxed at his explanation, but not much, and he wondered if she had something to hide.
“The stains should be out by now.” She jumped to her feet and rushed back to the kitchen as if happy to end the conversation. Again he heard water running, the slam of a door and the sound of a clothes dryer. She returned with the coffeepot and topped up his mug.
Gazing at her up close, he had a hard time reconciling the vivacious woman before him with the image of his summer sweetheart from the year he turned twelve. Young Jennifer Thacker had been cool and distant. In retrospect, he suspected her attitude had been the result of extreme shyness. But there was nothing shy about Jennifer Reid, the widow Miss Bessie had recently hired.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked.
Her hand shook slightly as she filled her own mug, and she seemed to avoid his gaze on purpose. “Should I?”
“Maybe it wasn’t as big a deal for you as it was for me.”
“It?”
“You were the first girl I ever kissed.”
She retreated to her corner of the sofa. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I was twelve years old and thought you were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. Especially since you wouldn’t have anything to do with us locals.”
“Aunt Emily was very strict. I wasn’t allowed much latitude. How did you manage to kiss me?”
For a fleeting second, he wondered why she hadn’t remembered. Her forgetting what, to him, had been a momentous event, tweaked his ego. He leaned back in the chair, enjoying his recollection. With logs popping and hissing in the fireplace, the aroma of coffee filling the air, the spectacular fall colors visible through the bay window, he couldn’t remember a more perfect day—except the one that long-ago summer when he’d kissed little Jenny Thacker.
“You used to sunbathe on the dock of the place where you stayed down by the lake,” he said. “Like clockwork. I knew exactly when you’d be there.”
“And you just ran up and kissed me?” She raised her feathery eyebrows.
He couldn’t judge whether her expression was astonishment or amusement, but the delectable curve of her lip made him long to kiss her again. A kiss she would remember this time. Realizing he was still on duty, he squashed the urge. “I was only a kid, remember? And besides, Tommy Bennett bet me a dollar I was too chicken to try.”
“You kissed me on a bet?” Laughter tugged at the corners of her luscious mouth, and again he experienced the irrepressible desire to kiss her. “I should have pushed you in the lake.”
“You just sat there, stunned. Didn’t say a word.”
“And you?”
“I took off. But I bought you candy with my winnings. Left it on your doorstep the next day. Then I learned you’d gone home to Memphis that morning. You never came back to Casey Cove. Until now.”
She shook her head sadly. “Aunt Emily—my great-aunt actually—couldn’t stand the trip from Memphis after that. Her arthritis crippled her toward the end.”
“Why did you come back now?”
“This was her favorite spot.”
“Whose?”
Jennifer seemed flustered, and what looked like fear flickered briefly in her eyes. “Aunt Emily’s, of course. We had many happy times here, so naturally I wanted to return.”
His policeman’s instincts went on alert. Something about her answer rang off-key, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Besides, why would anyone lie about something as innocuous as why she chose to live in a certain place?
Unless she had something to hide.
Dylan pushed the suspicion from his mind. Maybe the blow to his nose had scrambled his brains. He sensed nothing sinister about the delectable Jennifer Reid. Quite the contrary.
“I have a few more questions,” he said, “then I can let you get back to your cleaning.”
She scrunched her face in a charming grimace. “It’s a nasty job, but somebody has to do it.”
“The inquiry or the cleaning?”
“Both.” She laughed with a rich throaty sound and seemed to truly relax for the first time since his arrival. “Fire away, Officer Blackburn.”
Dylan had left her employment form on the clipboard in his car, but he recalled all the pertinent details.
“You stated that you’re a widow?”
She nodded. “My husband died almost a year ago.”
She exhibited a significant lack of grief. Maybe her marriage hadn’t been a happy one. “Is that when you left Memphis?”
“There were too many details to take care of right after he died. But by June I had settled his estate, and I wanted to get away to escape the memories.”
He wondered briefly whether those memories had been good ones and why she had omitted saying so. “You mentioned references earlier. Why no references from Memphis?”
The glimmer of alarm returned to her eyes, and she clinched her well-manicured hands tightly in her lap. “I have no living relatives. And I was never employed until after I left Memphis. If you have Miss Bessie’s form, you have the name of my employer in Nashville.”
“Why Nashville?” His question was more personal curiosity than official. The grown-up Jennifer interested him even more than she had as a pre-teen.
She shrugged. “It was close. And I love people and country music, so it seemed like a good choice.”
“You worked as a waitress at the Grand Ole Opry resort?”
“I married right out of high school and never learned a profession or trade.”
“How did you come to work for Miss Bessie?” He hated having to interrogate her, but it was part of his job. So far, Casey’s Cove had been spared the sexual predators and assorted deviants who had preyed on children of other communities. It was his responsibility to keep the youngsters of his small town safe, even if it meant asking apparently meaningless or even embarrassing questions of newcomers.
The frightened look had disappeared from her eyes. Jennifer unclenched her hands, leaned forward, and helped herself to a cookie from the plate on the tray. “I saw her ad for an assistant in the Asheville paper.”
“Asheville? You mean Nashville?”
She had taken a bite of the cookie, but it must have gone down wrong, because she choked and coughed before answering. “Asheville. I’d come to North Carolina to see the mountains in their fall colors. I had planned to visit Casey’s Cove anyway, so Miss Bessie’s ad seemed like an answer to a prayer.”
Her attitude was too off-handed. The woman was hiding something, but he didn’t have a clue what it might be. He had to be certain she wasn’t a threat to Miss Bessie or the children at the day-care center.
“Isn’t there someone in Memphis I can contact for a reference?” he said.
She shifted uneasily, a movement not lost on his trained eye. “My former in-laws, but I left them off my reference list on purpose.”
“Why?”
“They never liked me. I hate to think what kind of recommendation they’d give me.”
Another indication of a less-than-perfect marriage. But lots of folks had unhappy unions. That didn’t make them unfit for employment. He wished he wasn’t getting mixed signals from his intuition. He liked the woman, and Miss Bessie with her amazing ability to instantly gauge a person’s character had hired her on the spot.
But he’d bet his pension Jennifer Reid was hiding something, something that caused her remarkable green eyes to darken with fear when certain aspects of her past were mentioned.
Stymied by his inability to put his finger on what had frightened her, he knew the interview was over. Jennifer wasn’t going to divulge information she didn’t want to, especially to a lawman sitting shirtless in her living room, whom she’d only just met.
“That’s all I need for now,” he said.
“For now? What else is there?” Her face flushed with dismay.
“Just the computer background checks, like I said before.” He noted the visible easing of tension in her muscles. “Now, if I can have my shirt, I’ll get out of your way.”
“If you’ll wait a few minutes, I’ll iron it for you.”
He shook his head. “I have a fresh one in my locker at the station. I’ll change when I get there.”
She retrieved his shirts from the kitchen and stood quietly while he donned them, still warm from the dryer. He headed for the door, then stopped. “Hope you’ll enjoy your time in Casey’s Cove, Ms. Reid.”
She had followed him to the door and held out one slender, well-shaped hand. “Thank you.”
He clasped her small hand in his own large one, enjoying the warm, soft sensation of her skin against his.
“And I’m sorry about your nose,” she added with obvious sincerity.
He dropped her hand and rubbed his aching nose ruefully. “Guess that comes with the territory.”
“Territory?” She cocked her head to one side in puzzlement, an appealing gesture that made him reluctant to leave.
“That’s what I get,” he said with a laugh, “for sticking my nose in other people’s business—even if it is my job.”
She smiled again, and before he changed his mind and lingered, he hurried out the door to his patrol car.
AT THE SOUND of the police car disappearing down the drive, Jennifer collapsed in the chair where Officer Dylan Blackburn had been sitting. She hadn’t counted on a run-in with the law, not on her first day in town.
She tried without success to will her knees to stop shaking. He’d scared her senseless, touching her shoulder when she’d thought she was alone in the house. It was a wonder her panicked scream hadn’t carried all the way up the mountain to Miss Bessie’s place.
And the sight of him had unnerved her as much as his touch. First, his uniform. Since last June, her defenses went on instant alert at the presence of any law-enforcement officer. Some might call it guilty conscience.
She called it self-preservation.
After the uniform, she had focused on the man. How could she not, when he’d been so big, six-foot-two at least, and muscled in a whipcord-lean way that left no question of his strength? Those deep brown eyes, like heat-seeking missiles, seemed to miss nothing, and she’d felt he could read every secret ever written on her soul, just by looking at her. The feeling wasn’t pleasant, not with the secrets she had to keep.
His face was too rugged to call handsome, but the strong lines of his forehead and jaw, the straight perfection of his nose—well, perfect before she’d bashed it with her head—combined to make him as appealing a man as she’d ever met.
And when he’d stripped to the skin, she’d been glad the bloodstained shirts had given her an excuse to leave the room or she might have stood gawking like an idiot in admiration of his powerful biceps and the well-formed muscles of his deeply tanned chest.
Yes, indeed, Officer Dylan Blackburn was one amazingly attractive man, and he had laughing eyes and a sense of humor to boot.
She sprang to her feet. What the devil was she thinking? The last thing she needed was involvement with a policeman, for Pete’s sake. She grabbed the Hoover attachment from where she’d dropped it earlier and was about to restart the cacophonous machine when a car pulled into her driveway.
Her heart thudded with alarm. Had Officer Blackburn returned with more probing questions?
“Yoo-hoo, Jennifer?” Miss Bessie’s soft, drawling voice floated up from the bottom of the front steps.
With a sigh of relief, Jennifer stepped onto the porch to greet her new employer. “Hi, Miss Bessie.”
“Mind if I come up?”
Jennifer descended the steps and assisted the older woman up the steep stairs. For a woman in her mid-nineties, Miss Bessie was extremely agile. She plopped into a wicker chair on the porch, placed her feet, shod in neon-laced sneakers, onto a footstool, and waved Jennifer into a chair opposite.
“It’s warming up.” The little woman, with bones fragile as a bird’s, fanned herself with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “Indian summer.”
“Would you like something cool to drink?”
“No, child, I just came by to chat. Figured since you’re going to be in Casey’s Cove for a while, you ought to know something about the place.” Bessie studied her with bright blue eyes. “How much do you remember?”
Jennifer shook her head. She wished people would stop asking her questions she couldn’t answer. “Not much. My visits here were a long time ago.”
The old woman settled back in her chair, and the wicker creaked beneath her slight weight. She pointed to the panorama that stretched below them like a topographical map. “See how the town hugs the west shore of the lake?”
Jennifer nodded.
“When my daddy came to Casey’s Cove over a hundred years ago as the town’s first doctor, that area was several hundred feet up the mountain from Casey’s Creek.”
“Where was the lake?”
“Didn’t exist. Not until several decades later when one of FDR’s work projects dammed the creek and created Lake Casey. Underneath all that water,” Bessie waved her arm to take in the thousands of acres the immense lake covered, “are the ruins of several farms, homesteads, even a church, all condemned when the creek was dammed for the hydroelectric plant at the eastern end of the lake.”
Jennifer shivered at the thought of the ancient buildings rotting beneath the lake’s surface. Her peaceful retreat had suddenly acquired a sinister aura.
“What happened to all the folks who lived there?” she asked.
“They moved out of the valley or farther up the mountains,” Miss Bessie said. “Casey’s Cove hasn’t changed since then. The population remains pretty much the same. Sparse in winter and spring with just us locals. A few hundred extra summer and fall residents. Halfbacks, we call ’em—”
“Football players?”
Miss Bessie giggled like a young girl. “Yankees. Folks who moved down to Florida from the North then came halfway back, as far as North Carolina. And we also get the occasional passing-through tourists.”
“If there’re only a few hundred year-round residents, how many children are in your day-care center?” Jennifer asked.
“About twenty.”
“That’s a lot for such a small town.”
“Times are hard,” Bessie said, “and the women in Casey’s Cove have to work. Some clean and cook at the inns and hotels around the lake. Others commute to Sylva to work in the shops in town or at the university.” She stared over the lake without looking at Jennifer. “I have a special assignment for you at the center.”
“Bookkeeping?” Jennifer said, remembering her employment interview.
“There’s that, of course,” Bessie said. “But there’s more. There’s a little girl who needs you.”
“I don’t have any experience with children,” Jennifer admitted. “I told you that in my interview.”
“You have a kind heart,” Bessie said. “That’s all you’ll need. And you’ll fall in love with Sissy McGinnis the minute you lay eyes on her.”
“Sissy—?”
“She’s four years old. Her mother is in the hospital, undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. Sissy’s living with her aunt while her mother’s away. I figured since you were orphaned young and raised by your aunt, you’d have something in common with the girl.”
“What about her father?” Jennifer said.
Miss Bessie grimaced. “Low-down worthless skunk took off as soon as he learned Sissy was on the way. Nobody’s seen him since.”
At a loss as to how she could help the girl, Jennifer asked, “What do you want me to do?”
“Her aunt works days and is bone-tired at night. Sissy needs a grown-up who can help her through this trying time. I figure you’ll do just fine.”
“You’re giving me more credit than I deserve,” Jennifer protested. “I don’t even know how to start.”
“When you go to work on the books tomorrow,” Bessie said, “have Sissy help you.”
“But you said she’s only four.”
“You’ll think of something,” Miss Bessie said breezily and pushed to her feet. “Now, drive me back to the house. You can keep the car for running errands and driving back and forth to the day-care center.”
Jennifer went inside and grabbed her purse. As she stepped back onto the porch and was closing the front door, her gaze fell on the empty mug beside the large chair in the living room, reminding her of Dylan Blackburn’s visit. With the policeman’s prying questions and the responsibility of a four-year-old, Jennifer’s arrival in Casey’s Cove had quickly gone from serene to unsettled.
DYLAN ENTERED the tiny brick building that served as Casey’s Cove’s police station and jail. At the front desk Sandy Griffin, the dispatcher, lifted her eyebrows at the sight of his wrinkled shirt. Her fingers flew over a skein of yarn and a crochet needle as she worked a new afghan between radio calls.
The plump, middle-aged woman appraised him with gray eyes that matched her hair. “How’s your stomach?”
“Fine,” he said with a grin. “Miss Bessie was so excited about her new assistant she forgot to offer cinnamon buns.”
“Lucky you. Did you meet the new arrival?”
“Yeah.”
Sandy dropped her crochet needle and yarn to her lap. “Is that all you’re going to tell me?”
“What else is there?” Dylan answered evasively. He took a seat at his desk and called up a screen on his computer.
“What does she look like, for starters?” Sandy, like every other resident of Casey’s Cove, had an insatiable curiosity where outsiders were concerned.
“Pretty,” Dylan answered.
“And?” Sandy prodded. “What aren’t you telling me, Dylan Blackburn?”
“I don’t know.” He scratched his head in confusion. “Something about her isn’t right.”
Sandy’s eyes widened. “Miss Bessie didn’t hire a crazy woman?”
Dylan smiled and shook his head. “Her mental state is fine, for all I can tell. But I get the strangest feeling she’s hiding something.”
“You ought to know. You’ve got the best nose for trouble in town.”
“In all those be-on-the-lookout flyers you process every day,” Dylan said, “have you ever seen a reference to a Jennifer Reid?”
“Jennifer Reid.” Sandy scrunched her plump face in concentration and accessed her phenomenal memory. “I’ve seen that name before.”
Dylan’s heart sank. He had hoped his hunch was wrong, that Jennifer Reid wasn’t in some kind of trouble.
“It was last June,” Sandy said. “A missing person’s report. Came with a picture and complete description.”
“Is it in the file?”
The dispatcher shook her head. “A couple weeks later a bulletin came through that the woman had been found, so I tossed both papers.”
The missing person’s report didn’t correspond with Jennifer Reid’s story—not unless she’d left Memphis for Nashville without telling anyone. But why would she have done that?
Sandy’s memory of every paper that came across her desk was exceptional, so he pressed for more information, dreading what he might hear. “Did the missing person’s report hint that Jennifer was in any kind of trouble?”
Sandy shook her head and picked up her crocheting again. “Was she wanted for a crime, you mean? No, it was a straightforward missing person’s report. She had disappeared from home. You met the woman. You think she’s trouble?”
Dylan remembered the pixie face, dancing green eyes, and take-charge attitude. “I hope not. But there’s only one sure way to find out.”
He turned to his computer keyboard, checked his clipboard, and typed Jennifer Reid’s name, description, Social Security and driver’s license numbers into the national crime computer search engine. The inner workings of the machine clicked and whirred.
He leaned back in his chair and waited. If she was wanted by the authorities, he’d know soon enough.
