The Guardian

A couple times a week, Patty stopped by on her way to work at the bank. They had coffee and talked for a few minutes. Now that Patty was married, they didn’t get to spend as much time together as they had when Patty had been single and sworn off men, and Sara had been widowed less than a year and newly relocated to Tillman. Sara would never begrudge her friend happiness, but she did miss those days when they’d spent so much time together. Much of that time had been spent convincing themselves that they did not need or want male companionship of any sort. She’d actually believed that for a long time.

“The highlights look good,” Patty said.

Sara patted her tightly restrained hair. “I had it done Friday afternoon. You don’t think it’s too much?” For years she’d worried more than she should about her image. As a Caldwell, as a Vance, as the wife of an assistant district attorney—as mayor. She wore conservative suits that never felt quite right and fashionable shoes that too often pinched her toes. It came with the job, she told herself.

“Not at all. It’s cute.” Patty looked Sara up and down in that way only a good friend could, and her smile faded. “You didn’t sleep well last night.”

Sara sighed. “No, I didn’t.”

“I warned you being mayor wouldn’t be a bed of roses.”

“Many times,” Sara said with a smile as she took a sip of her coffee. She sighed in delight. The coffee from Bubba’s Quick Stop was so much better than the sludge her secretary made every morning. Patty sat in the chair on the opposite side of the desk, and Sara relaxed. This would likely be the most pleasant part of her day, so she might as well enjoy it. “It wasn’t exactly city business that kept me up half the night,” she confessed.

Something in her voice grabbed Patty’s attention. The woman’s eyes sparkled. Aah, yes, there was that hint of the wild child. Her spine straightened. Her lips curved into a smile. “What’s going on?”

Being very careful with her words, Sara told her friend about everything that had happened yesterday. She tried not to make Dante sound too interesting, or even to make him a too-important part of the story. He was ancillary, a necessary evil, no different than any other officer who might’ve been investigating her case. Patty had moved to Tillman her senior year of high school, months after the fiasco with Dante had ended, and there had been no reason to tell her—or anyone else—what had happened. So Sara told the story as if she’d never seen Dante before yesterday.

She did, however, have to end the telling with her looking out of her bedroom window late at night and seeing his car sitting on the street, and she also had to admit that she’d felt comforted at the sight.

“And you didn’t call me?” Patty asked, incensed.

“It was too late.”

“You could’ve called me long before you saw the car on the street. Someone delivers replacement undies, very nice stuff to hear you tell it, to your house and you don’t even call?”

“You have supper at your in-laws every Tuesday,” Sara argued.

“And I’m always happy to be interrupted,” Patty replied. Her eyes narrowed. “There’s more. There’s something you’re not telling me. This Dante Mangino.” She leaned back in her chair and took a sip of coffee.

“Tell me about him.”

“There’s really nothing to tell,” Sara said. “He’s Chief Edwards’s cousin. Apparently he has a lot of experience and has agreed to stay on for a while and help with training and investigations.”

“So why is he sitting outside your window late at night? Was it creepy?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, do you think he’s the underwear thief?”

“No!”

“If this was a movie, he’d be the one,” Patty argued.

“He’s new in town, there’s the underwear theft, sexy stuff is delivered while he’s there, you see him watching your house late at night…”

“If it’s Dante, then who left the box and rang the doorbell while he was standing in my foyer?”

Patty grimaced. “A small detail easily explained away. Somehow.”

“Dante is just…he worries too much, I suppose.” Sara gave a nonchalant wave of her hand, doing her best to dismiss the man in every way. “He sees a shadow and he believes there’s a danger in it. He sees the worst possible scenario in everything he runs across. A couple of unhappy letters and a panty thief, and he’s got me under surveillance.” If not for him, she wouldn’t even be worried about the letters or the underwear. A little bothered, maybe, but not really worried.

Patty cocked her head. “You’re already calling this Mangino character by his first name. That’s rather interesting, knowing you and the way your brain works. Hmm. You also very quickly and decisively dismissed him as a suspect. What does he look like? Is he as hot as his cousin?”

Hotter. “I suppose some women would think he’s attractive, in a…different sort of way from Jesse Edwards.”

“Different how?” Patty could be very persistent.

“Just different.”

Patty smiled. “You like him, don’t you?”

“I do not.”

“You do. You’ve got that little twitch to your lips. It’s a dead giveaway. I haven’t seen that twitch since college!” Patty’s grin was insanely wide. “When do I get to meet him?”

Never, if I have anything to say about it. “I’m sure you’ll run into him eventually,” Sara said, cursing the ease with which her old friend could read her. A twitch? Why hadn’t anyone ever told her she had a twitch? “He’s going to be around until I can come up with more money for payroll and Chief Edwards hires more qualified men.”

Patty ignored the subject change to city business. “How serious is it? Are we talking love at first sight?”

Sara sighed and drank more coffee. It was a nice little stall but didn’t last long enough. Finally she said, “There’s nothing at all serious going on here, and even if there were, I don’t believe in love at first sight and you know it.”

“Lust at first sight?” Patty asked without pause.

Again, Sara hesitated. She didn’t believe in that, either, not for a woman thirty-five years old. Not for a woman who’d had her heart broken, first by desertion by choice and later by desertion by death. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “Maybe I was just having an off day.” Maybe, even though she did her best to dismiss it as unimportant, the theft and anonymous gift had rattled her more than she’d realized, and a capable man, any capable man, was a comfort.

Maybe she’d simply been alone too long.

Natalie Douglas, Sara’s secretary and maker of terrible coffee, knocked briefly and then opened the door. The young woman was truly beautiful, with pale blond hair stylishly cut, cool gray eyes and a figure any woman would kill for. She was also a more than capable assistant and a whiz with computers. If they could just get past the bad coffee thing…

“There’s a Sergeant Mangino here to see you. Should I tell him to wait?”

“No!” Patty said with a smile. “Bring him to us immediately.”

Natalie ignored Patty’s enthusiastic direction and looked to her boss for an answer, and after a moment Sara nodded her head. “Send him in.”

Patty’s smile widened, and Natalie cast a furtive and blatantly interested glance over her shoulder. Did Dante have this effect on every woman he met? Probably. She should consider that fair warning where he was concerned.

Natalie opened the office door wider, and Dante stepped inside. He glared down at the cup of coffee he had foolishly poured himself in the outer office. “Good God, you could tar a roof with this.”

Whenever Sara had carefully and kindly mentioned that perhaps Natalie could make the coffee less strong, the woman had been insulted. Now she took the cup from Dante’s hand and promised, in a heartfelt, apologetic voice, to pour it all out and make a better pot. When he added a “Thanks, darlin’,” Natalie actually blushed and bit her lower lip in a coy manner.

Sara was momentarily ashamed of her own gender.

Dante nodded to Patty, who all but dropped her jaw at the sight of him. Yes, he was studly, but really…get a grip.

“Do you have those letters?” he asked without preamble, his attention entirely focused on Sara.

“I gathered them together first thing.” She handed over the thin stack, certain he wouldn’t find anything alarming but not altogether sorry that he was going to check to be sure. Dante shook his head at her as he put on a pair of gloves. Only then did he take the stack of letters.

Patty stood. “I have to go or I’ll be late for work. Don’t forget the sock burning. Saturday night, Lydia’s place, just after dark.”

“I’ll be there,” Sara said.

Patty closed the door on her way out, and when she was gone Dante lifted his head to look at Sara. “Sock burning?”

She gave him a genuine smile. “It’s a tradition a couple of friends and I have. Every spring, we gather up all the mismatched socks we’ve managed to accumulate during the year, and we burn them. Lydia lives outside town on a large piece of property. We build a bonfire and ceremoniously dispose of the socks whose mates went missing in the dryer or just got lost or damaged along the way. Except that year we were having such a drought. We skipped the sock burning that year.”

“I have a similar tradition,” Dante deadpanned. “I throw mismatched socks in the trash.”

Must be a man thing. Robert had voiced the same thought, a time or two, back in the days when the bonfires had been planned around infrequent trips home to see family and friends. He had never understood or embraced the annual sock burning, but he had tolerated the event with a smile. Sara remembered well. She thought of Robert and she smiled herself, and this time his memory didn’t hurt. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“I didn’t know there had to be fun involved in disposing of…” He stopped abruptly and began carefully riffling through the letters. “Never mind. I should know by now never to question a woman’s logic since there usually is none.”

She could argue that point with him, but chose not to. Not now, at least. “What do you do for fun these days?” The question was out of her mouth before she had time to think it through.

He didn’t hesitate to answer. “My idea of fun includes explosives and big guns, or copious amounts of alcohol and loose women.” He glanced up, pinning those dark eyes on her. “And in case you’re wondering, no. The two various forms of recreation don’t mix.”

“Good to know,” she said softly. Her voice took on a different tone as she asked, “Will there be anything else? I have a busy morning planned.”

Dante very gently shook the letters in her direction. “No, this’ll do it. Have a good day.” He dismissed her and turned just as Natalie opened the door. The smitten secretary held a foam cup of steaming coffee in one hand.

“I hope you like this better,” she said sweetly. Too sweetly.

Dante smiled at her. “I’m sure I will, darlin’.”

It took all Sara’s willpower not to snort out loud.

And once the door closed, her first thought was that Dante Mangino had never called her darlin’.

Chapter 3

There was nothing even remotely alarming in the letters Sara had saved. They were all about potholes and city parks, annual festivals and liquor sales. The letters contained no threats, unless you counted the ominous “I will never vote for you again.”

The sexy undies that had been dropped on Sara’s porch were on their way to Bennings’ lab for fingerprinting. Some moron with a sick sense of humor was likely having a bit of fun with the mayor, but when Dante showed up on his doorstep, the fun would end.

The mayor’s office was up one flight of stairs and down one long hallway. Dante was tempted to return the letters to Sara personally, just to see for himself that she was all right. Dumb idea. She was fine. A twisted admirer had stolen her underwear and then replaced it, either because he felt guilty about the theft or because he wanted to envision her in the colorful silk. Either way, there was no danger here, no need for his concern.

Maybe he was overly cautious, but he had one woman’s death on his head and he wouldn’t let that happen again. His internal alarm system was usually accurate, but it had been known to malfunction on occasion. That internal alarm was malfunctioning now, screaming at him because he found himself comparing Sara and Serena in too many ways.

The afternoon was spent training a couple of the newer guys, two cousins not entirely unlike Dante and Jesse, as they had been many years ago. Billy Nance and Sammy Bender were young and eager and more than a little bit competitive. Billy was blond and blue-eyed; Sammy was darker and more intense. They would make good cops if they decided to stick with it.

Training, Dante could handle. He actually relished the work because it allowed him to focus his attentions on someone and something other than the mayor and her panty thief. Since he’d been with Bennings from the beginning, he had often been involved in training. The recruits for the Benning Agency were usually older and more experienced than these guys, but they were no less dedicated. Of course, most of the Benning agents were there for the money, while Billy and Sammy were relentlessly dedicated and hopelessly green, ready and willing to save the world.

Dante enjoyed showing the cousins—the hard way—how ill-prepared they were for physical attack. He liked surprising them with new and unexpected moves, and he really liked it when he saw the ah-ha moment on their faces and knew they’d gotten what he was trying to teach them. If their careers kept them in Tillman, it was possible they would never be in a situation that required these skills. Still, a man could never be too prepared, even if he lived and worked in a town where the last exchanged gunfire left no one so much as scratched, and afterward both men involved had rushed to the police station to file a complaint against the other party. It wasn’t a bad way to live, if you could stand the lack of excitement. Dante wasn’t sure he could. Working for Bennings for so long had turned him into a danger junkie. He needed the rush of adrenaline, the accelerated heartbeat, the uncertainty.

Even though throughout the afternoon the green recruits both ended up in the air and on their backs—multiple times—they remained eager to learn and willing to take whatever punishment was necessary to prepare themselves for what might come their way. When Billy managed to toss his instructor to his back, through the rush of pain Dante felt like a proud papa.

The chief met Dante as training finished for the day. His cousin wore a wide smile. Jesse had always been the golden boy of the family, and that had not changed. He’d married a sweet girl who’d dutifully given birth to two sons and a daughter. He’d been a detective in Birmingham for years before taking the job here in Tillman, coming home like a good son and making his mama proud.

When Billy and Sammy were on their way back to the station, breathless and exhilarated and out of hearing range, Jesse said, “Aunt Debra loves the haircut. She says it makes you look years younger, and maybe now you can get a woman.”

Dante glared. “Where is she?”

“No need to look over your shoulder,” Jesse said with a grin. “Your mom’s still in Florida. We sent her a picture.”

Dante could not remember having his picture taken since getting the haircut required for this job. He could only imagine his mother’s delight. They didn’t speak often, but when they did, his hair, a job she could explain to her friends, the right kind of woman and the grandchildren she did not have were always subjects of conversation. “How?”

“Janice took a shot with her cell phone when you were over for supper last week. She sent it to Aunt Debra by e-mail.”

“I hate technology,” Dante said as he headed for his car.

Jesse laughed and followed. He was likely waiting for Dante to say something, anything, about the mayor. Jesse was the only person in the world who knew about what happened that summer. He was also the only person in the world who knew how Dante had felt about Sarabeth Caldwell, way back when. Dante didn’t alleviate his cousin’s curiosity about the reunion. Jesse had obviously thought it would be a great joke to send Dante in unprepared. He could stew a while.

“Want to come by for supper tonight?” Jesse asked.

“Ethan has baseball practice, but he’ll be finished by six.”

“No, thanks,” Dante said.

“You’re just mad because Janice told you that you can’t use the s word or the f word at a Little League game.”

“Or any of the c words,” Dante added. “Besides, I only slipped up once, and none of the kids heard me.”

“No, but one of the mothers did,” Jesse said with a grin. “She went straight to Janice, too.”

Which is likely why Janice had snapped a photo and sent it to his mother. Revenge. “I have plans.”

“What kind of plans?”

“A run. A shower. A quick supper. Simple.” Maybe not so simple if he worked in an evening stroll with the mayor. He’d probably ride by her place. He’d probably stop if he saw her leave the house. He’d probably drive around the block until he knew for sure that she was in for the night—or not. Maybe he’d just go to her door and forget the sneaky tactics. Dammit, he’d seen too much bad stuff in the past few years. Hard as he tried, he couldn’t write off Sara’s recent troubles as nothing of concern, not without knowing more.

Sara dressed for her walk, then sat in the foyer and placed her hands in her lap. She was not a coward. She would not become a coward. And still, she couldn’t help but remember how anxious she’d felt last night when she hadn’t known Dante was following her. What if the man who’d stolen her underwear and replaced it with teeny slips of colorful silk was out there right now, watching? What if he had been watching for weeks or months? She shuddered.

She’d never minded living alone. She missed Robert, of course—she’d cried for his loss for a long time. But she’d never been afraid to be alone, to make her own way, to live in this big house on her own. Not until now.

Some days she thought it wasn’t fair that she had lost so much. Her mother when she was just four; her father not long after she’d turned twelve. She’d had her grandfather, her beloved Papa, of course, and had never felt unloved or abandoned, but now even he was gone. Grandparents, parents, Robert…

When the doorbell rang, she nearly jumped out of her skin. She sprang toward the door and peeked through the glass panel beside it, pulling back the fabric that offered some gauzy privacy. She almost melted in relief when she saw Dante standing there. No suit tonight. He was dressed in a T-shirt and longish shorts and running shoes. There was also no gun, not that she could see.

She opened the door.

“You’re late,” he said simply.

“For what?”

“You said you walk at the same time every evening, so you’re late.”

“I was thinking of skipping my walk tonight,” she confessed.

He took in her attire—tennis shoes and shorts and T-shirt—and lifted his eyebrows.

“All right,” she confessed, “I was sitting here about to chicken out. I wondered if the sicko who left that underwear on my porch might be watching. If that makes me a coward, then so be it.”

“It makes you smart. Cautious,” he added. “There’s nothing wrong with that.” And then he grinned. “Besides, I’m here to keep you company on your walk. I need a bit of exercise myself.”

She doubted her idea of exercise would raise so much as a bead of sweat on his body, but she didn’t argue. “I’ll grab my house keys.”

Yesterday she had been a bit stunned by Dante’s presence on her doorstep and in her usually staid life. Tonight as they walked she was more comfortable. She didn’t wonder if anyone was watching. She didn’t care. They talked about Tillman and how it had changed in recent years, and they talked about Jesse and his family—mostly the kids. Sara felt a bitter pang as they talked about the newest addition to the family, little Olivia. She’d wanted children, at least one child, but Robert had convinced her that they had plenty of time. As an assistant D.A. he worked such long hours, he hadn’t thought it would be fair to her to bring a child into the world when he wasn’t home more to be a proper father. When he went into private practice, the time would be better. They had years to plan their family. He’d been wrong, and now here she was, thirty-five years old, alone, burying herself in politics and charities to make the days fly past.

Suddenly it seemed she didn’t want the days to fly past. What was she missing by hiding so much of herself away? Was it really too late?

“Do you have children?” she asked, trying to make the question sound casual and meaningless.

Dante reacted quickly and with decisiveness. “No. Not my thing.”

He said it wasn’t his “thing,” but Dante would be a protective father, she imagined. Maybe he wouldn’t be involved in Little League and school activities the way his cousin was, but he wouldn’t be neglectful or uncaring. He had taken to protecting her quite easily. She could only imagine how he would be with a child.

She’d be a wonderful mother, if only she had the chance….

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. She wasn’t getting any younger. Sara squirmed in her own skin. Was she hiding here in Tillman where she felt safe? Was she so afraid of losing again that she’d shut down her hopes and desires? She hadn’t been so acutely aware of her ticking biological clock until Dante had appeared on her doorstep. Coincidence? Unlikely. Very unlikely.

“Let me make you dinner,” she said as her house came into view.

“Thanks, but that’s not necessary.”

“I know it’s not necessary.” She stopped where the sidewalk met the walkway to her front door. For a moment she looked into his eyes, not flinching at the power she saw there, not ignoring the potent pull that had not diminished in eighteen years. No wonder she had fallen into his arms so easily, all those years ago. No wonder she had gotten lost in his kiss. Even now, their chemistry was explosive. She’d never known anything like it.

“I want you to stay. I want to talk. I’d like to know what your life has been like since I saw you last.” Would it be too telling to admit that she was tired of eating alone almost every night? Would it be too forward to admit that she simply didn’t want him to go? “Providing a meal is the least I can do to thank you for keeping me company so I can walk in peace.”

Dante did hesitate, but not for long. “Sure. Why not?”

He shouldn’t be here. Sitting in Sara’s kitchen watching her cook and listening to her talk seemed to pull at him, as if she were drawing him into her life one tiny bit at a time. She was a woman now, not a girl, but her movements and the tone of her voice were familiar enough to make that pull seem easy and natural.

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