Stranger in a Small Town

Confusion made Maggie lose her grip on her smile. “I’m sorry?”

“That man working for you. He was here a few hours ago looking up stories about the murders and printing them out.”

Maggie stared at the woman blankly. A few hours ago…This had to be where John had come during his lunch break. She hadn’t asked him to bring her anything, but she’d assumed he’d gone back to the diner, or maybe one of the fast-food places on the outskirts of town.

Instead he’d been here, looking up stories about the murders.

Why?

The woman’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You did know he was here, didn’t you?” Her tone seemed to indicate she suspected the answer was no, and added an unspoken “you idiot” to the question.

She didn’t have to say it. Maggie felt it as keenly as if she had. The information the woman provided had ensured that. She was the one who’d hired the man. She was the reason he was in town, and now he was running around doing things she knew nothing about, giving the impression they were under her orders, or at least with her knowledge.

And she had no idea what he was up to—or why.

Another man doing God knows what behind her back.

You idiot, she heard in her head, and it definitely wasn’t Shelley Markham’s voice doing the talking.

Anger surged from her gut, and every instinct screamed for her to race to her truck and storm back to the house to ask John what the hell he was doing.

Which was exactly what she couldn’t do, of course. She wouldn’t give Shelley Markham and all the people she’d be on the phone with the moment Maggie stepped out the door the satisfaction of knowing what a fool she was.

She had enough people who knew that. Once was enough for one lifetime.

She slowly drew in a deep, silent breath. With some effort, she regained her smile. “Of course I did. As a matter of fact, he didn’t find what I was looking for, so I came to search for myself.” She chuckled, the noise sounding forced to her ears. “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, right?”

The woman simply pursed her mouth and turned away without a word, leaving Maggie to follow her to the files of microfilm and the viewing machine.

And for the next hour, Maggie forced herself to sit there under the force of Shelley Markham’s unrelenting stare, printing every single story on the murder that came up on the screen without really reading them.

When all she could think about was the man she’d invited into her life, and wonder what other secrets he was keeping from her.

MAGGIE bolted from the truck, flinging the driver’s side door behind her and stalking toward the house. Her anger hadn’t subsided in the least on the drive back. If anything, it had only grown the more time she’d had to stew over the situation.

Stomping up the front steps, she threw the door open. “John?” she called.

No response.

The front rooms were empty. Only the echo of her voice interrupted the stillness.

She heard nothing to indicate he was upstairs. Moving through the kitchen to the back door, she spotted motion in the backyard. Pushing through the door, she started to call his name again.

Then she saw him.

The word died on her tongue, every thought in her head vanishing in an instant.

He was standing in the backyard, which had been tall with grass and choked with weeds when she’d left. The lawn was freshly mown now, the scent of cut grass heavy in the air. He must have found the old lawnmower in the back shed her grandfather had used in the days he was trying to keep up with the place, tending to the yards to keep the house presentable for occupants who would never come.

But that wasn’t what grabbed her interest—and held it so tightly her eyes seemed locked into place.

John was raking the lawn clippings into a bag.

He was also bare to the waist.

Perspiration left a fine sheen over his face and torso, so he practically seemed to glisten in the late-day sunlight. The golden rays fell upon his body, illuminating every hard ridge and defined muscle, and there were certainly plenty of both. She watched helplessly, knowing her mouth had fallen open slightly and unable to do a thing about it, as he moved, the muscles shifting, tensing, with every motion.

As she’d seen even when he was fully clothed, he was lean, perhaps too much so for a man with his large build. Somehow it worked on him. The lack of bulk simply left a physique that was perfectly formed, his pecs packed and tight, his belly flat, both dusted with a thin layer of dark blond hair. There was a tattoo on his right bicep, some kind of military insignia that made her think he must have served in a branch of the armed forces. The faint line of hair trailed down from his belly button into the waistline of his pants, the worn jeans hanging dangerously, impossibly low, yet not nearly low enough, the view tempting, tantalizing her with the possibility of what remained stubbornly out of sight.

Her tongue, moving on an instinct all its own, flicked out to moisten her lips, and she suddenly realized her mouth had gone completely dry. She had no trouble understanding the cause, finally recognizing the way her heart was pounding in her chest and an ache had begun to throb low in her belly. It was something she hadn’t thought she’d feel so soon again, if ever, and hadn’t really wanted to.

Awareness. Desire.

Pure want.

Surprise jolted through her, nearly overpowering the rest. It wasn’t like she’d never seen a man’s bare chest before, or a man working without a shirt on, sweat drenching his body.

But she’d never seen this man. And somehow, in a way she couldn’t explain and wasn’t sure she wanted to, that seemed to make all the difference in the world.

Then he turned, putting his back to her.

The flash of libido was instantly forgotten, replaced by shock.

Scars, deep and thick, crisscrossed the whole of his back. These ridges were no less hard than the ones she’d admired on his front, although the heat of desire in her belly had died at the sight of them. She could barely see the muscles in his back shifting through the web of them. There was no way scars like that could have been caused by a single incident. No, they would have been inflicted over time. And the pain they must have caused… She could only recoil in horror at the idea of what must have been done to this man.

Before she could control the response, she sucked in a breath, the gasp coming out entirely too loud and painfully clear.

She clamped her mouth shut, but it was too late. The sound seemed to hang in the air, echoing endlessly in her ears.

John froze, his spine stiffening, then slowly glanced back at her. Almost immediately, he lowered his gaze. Not a flicker of emotion passed over his face, and she had no idea what he was thinking. He turned, facing her again. Embarrassment heating her cheeks, she didn’t so much as peek at that incredible view again, keeping her eyes on his face. He stepped over toward the lawn mower she now saw resting a few feet away and reached for the shirt hanging off the handle, quickly shoving his arms into it.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was rude.”

“My fault,” he replied roughly, not sounding the slightest bit as embarrassed as she was. “I kind of forget they’re even there anymore. Should have kept my shirt on anyway.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged a shoulder, not looking at her. “It was a long time ago.”

“While you were in the military?” He glanced at her. “Your tattoo,” she said.

He grunted. “Something like that.”

It wasn’t exactly an answer. The curious—okay, nosy—part of her wanted to press the point, but it really wasn’t any of her business. She’d already been rude enough as it was.

“Sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”

The reminder of her early return brought back the cause of it, along with her irritation. The source of the scars wasn’t the only secret he was keeping from her, and the others certainly were her business. “I didn’t think I would, either. I was going to spend the afternoon at the library doing some research.”

She saw him pause in the act of tugging his shirt over his belly. “Find anything interesting?”

“Besides the fact that you were there over your lunch break doing the exact same thing?”

He finally looked at her, his expression still unreadable. “Is that a problem?” he asked simply, without the slightest bit of chagrin or challenge in his voice.

Hell, yes, she wanted to say. “It’s a mystery, and I have enough of those as it is.”

“Since I’ve gotten to town, I’ve gotten the cold shoulder from everybody I’ve met except for you. Either this is the most unfriendly town in the country, or everybody has a problem with me working for you on this house. I wanted to know why.”

“I told you why. People were murdered here.”

“Yeah, thirty years ago. That’s a long time for people to be bothered by it, isn’t it?”

“It’s a small town. People have long memories, especially when not much new happens to replace the past in their minds.”

He started toward her, stopping a few feet from the bottom of the steps. “Then maybe I ought to know a little bit more about it. I’m guessing that’s why you were there, too.”

She ignored the comment, not about to admit he was right. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Honestly, it didn’t seem like something you wanted to talk about.”

Okay, he had her there. “You still should have told me you were interested,” she said stubbornly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would bother you. Is there a reason you don’t want me reading up on what happened here?”

“It’s not that.” She sighed. “But as I told you—and you’ve already seen for yourself—people aren’t too happy with me and my plans for this house. The fact that you’re running around town doing things I don’t know anything about won’t exactly make me look any better in anyone’s eyes. You should have seen the way the librarian looked at me when she thought I didn’t know you’d been there.”

“If it was anything like the way she looked at me, she probably looked like she’d spent the day sucking on lemons.”

In spite of herself, Maggie had to chuckle at the accuracy of the image. “You’ve got that right.”

“Then I am sorry,” he said. “I never meant to cause you any trouble.”

The sincerity in his voice was unmistakable. Staring into his serious expression, she believed him. Regardless of the end result, he really hadn’t meant to cause her trouble. And considering how few people could say the same at the moment, she couldn’t help but be affected by the words.

Uncomfortable with the sudden, pathetic wave of gratitude that washed over her, Maggie cleared her throat. “So what did you find out?”

“Not much. I didn’t really have any time to read any of the news stories. I just printed out as many as I could and thought I’d read them tonight.”

“Is that really what you want to do with your free time?”

“What else am I going to do? It’s a small town. I don’t really know anybody else and nobody seems interested in getting to know me. What about you? Find what you were looking for?”

She fought the urge to fidget. “I, uh, made some copies of my own. I didn’t really get a chance to look at them at the library.”

The gleam that entered his eyes told her he recognized she’d planned to do the same thing she’d just tried to talk him out of. To his credit, he didn’t bring up her hypocrisy. “Okay, so why don’t we go over those stories?”

Her eyes flared in surprise. “Together?”

“Sure,” he said, as if it was the most logical thing in the world. “It’ll be getting dark soon and I figure we’ll be calling it quits for the day, right? No point in doing it separately if we’re going to be doing the same thing. Besides, maybe one of us found something the other didn’t.”

He was right, of course. If they planned to spend the evening doing the same thing, there was no reason not to do it together.

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