Stranger In His Arms

“A string of incidents like these is unusual—” his grin widened “—but, hey, if we had no crime at all, I’d be out of a job.”

Raylene had appeared at Dylan’s elbow with a mug and a coffeepot, poured Dylan a cup and was filling Jennifer’s empty one.

“You could always help out Jarrett,” the waitress said, apparently unembarrassed at eavesdropping. When Dylan declined to order, she moved to the next table.

“Jarrett?” Jennifer asked.

“My older brother. He inherited the family farm. It’s about five miles up the valley.”

“What does he raise?”

“Christmas trees.”

Dylan sipped his coffee, and she couldn’t help noticing the attractiveness of his long, slender fingers and spanking clean nails gripping the mug, making it seem small in his huge hands, hands that had her imagination spinning before she applied the brakes to her daydreams.

“Christmas trees are big business in this part of the state,” he explained. “Would you like to see how they’re grown?”

She couldn’t risk spending too much time around Mr. Law-and-Order. “Maybe sometime—”

“How about today?”

“I can’t. I promised Millie McGinnis I’d watch Sissy while Millie visits her sister at the hospital.”

“We’ll take Sissy, too. She’ll enjoy the ride.”

Jennifer waffled, knowing how much the little girl needed her thoughts diverted from her troubles. “I don’t know—”

“Afterwards we’ll drive out to Jack the Dipper’s,” Dylan said.

“Jack who?”

“It’s the best ice-cream shop for fifty miles. Every little girl loves ice cream.”

Jennifer felt herself weakening. She knew Sissy needed distracting from her mother’s illness, and she feared bringing suspicion on herself if she made too big a point of evading the lawman’s company.

“Christmas trees and ice cream,” she acquiesced with a grin, hoping she wouldn’t be sorry. “You sure know the way to a girl’s heart.”

“I have a couple of errands to run here in town, but they won’t take long. Then we’ll pick up Sissy.”

“Sounds good.” Once she had made up her mind to accept Dylan’s offer, she was looking forward to it. Anything to keep from brooding over the stranger on her trail.

Dylan nodded at her barely-touched plate. “Finish your breakfast and I’ll be right back.”

Jennifer watched him cross the street to the police station, but she didn’t touch her food. She doubted her appetite would revive any time soon. While she waited for Dylan to come back, she kept an eye on the street, on guard against the return of the black sport utility vehicle and the stranger with a picture that looked like her.

DYLAN LEANED BACK on the picnic bench, crossed his legs at the ankles, and watched Jennifer push Sissy on the park swing.

They’d had a busy day. First a visit with Jarrett at the farm, where she’d fueled Jarrett’s ego and earned his older brother’s admiration with her questions about the Christmas tree business.

“What kinds of trees do you grow?” she’d asked.

“Scotch and Virginia pine and Leyland cypress.” Jarrett pointed out examples of each species. “The cypress does best for us.”

Jennifer inspected a tree carefully. “Do you have to shape them?”

Jarrett nodded. “We prune once or twice a year, depending on the species.”

She eyed a tree that had grown to two feet above her head. “How old’s this one?”

“Six years. It’s ready for harvest.”

She continued with more questions about fertilizers and irrigation. Jarrett was obviously impressed, and Dylan fleetingly wondered how a girl who’d lived all her life in the city of Memphis knew so much about farming.

When Jennifer had exhausted her questions and she and Sissy were gathering wildflowers between rows of immature trees, Jarrett grilled him about Jennifer.

“You serious about this one, little brother?”

Dylan reacted with surprise. “I barely know the woman.”

Jarrett raised his eyebrows and cracked a grin. “And you’re already bringing her home to meet the family? Sounds serious to me.”

Dylan slugged Jarrett playfully on the shoulder. “You wouldn’t know serious if it bit you. When’s the last time you had a date?”

Jarrett shrugged. “You know how it is with farming—early to bed, early to rise and no let-up in between. Doesn’t leave much time for a social life. However, if I’d met a girl like your Jennifer—”

“She’s not my Jennifer.”

“—I’d sure make the time. Don’t let this one get away, bubba.”

Unable to keep his older brother from jumping to conclusions, Dylan had simply shaken his head at his teasing.

After touring the farm, Dylan had taken Jennifer and Sissy to lunch in Sylva, followed by ice cream at Jack the Dipper’s.

Now, in the late-afternoon sunshine, Sissy played happily at the park by the river, halfway home to Casey’s Cove. The little girl shrieked with delight as Jennifer pushed the swing higher, and Jennifer’s own merry laughter blended with the child’s in a sound as pleasant as the river bubbling over its rocky bed.

Try as he might, Dylan couldn’t reconcile the woman with whom he’d spent the day with the Jenny Thacker of his childhood memories. The young Jenny had been shy, reserved and aloof. Stuck-up, Tommy Bennett had called her. Maybe her inhibitions had been caused by the influence of the elderly aunt who had kept the girl under her thumb.

But this Jennifer was almost an exact opposite. As they’d tramped among the Scotch pines at the farm today, Dylan had found her outgoing, talkative, with an unlimited curiosity and a mischievous streak he would have never guessed resided in Jenny Thacker.

The girl and the woman she’d become were as opposite as ice and fire.

He watched as Jennifer grabbed Sissy out of the swing, whirled her around in her arms, then set her on her feet for a race to the riverbank. The two tossed stones at a quiet pool near the center of the river in the lee of a great boulder, and he noticed how Jennifer purposely shortened her throws so Sissy could win.

The woman was a miracle worker with children. He’d heard Miss Bessie lament that Sissy hadn’t smiled since her mother entered the hospital, but today the girl had seemed genuinely happy in “Miss Jenny’s” company and had laughed often.

As he observed the pair, Jennifer glanced toward the highway, visible from the park, and tensed as an oversized SUV sped past. He’d noticed her react that way several times that day to dark SUVs and wondered what she feared. In spite of her carefree attitude with Sissy, he caught an expression in her eyes every now and then when she didn’t know he was watching, and he’d seen that look before.

Wary.

Frightened.

On guard.

She’d had that look in Raylene’s Café this morning, and, in spite of her efforts to hide it, her hands had shaken.

A remnant of timid young Jenny Thacker? Or something more sinister? The woman was a puzzle, one he was curious to solve. It wasn’t just his memories of that idyllic boyhood summer that drew him to her. He watched as she bent, grabbed a pebble and tossed it into the river with smooth, fluid movements. Fitted jeans, sneakers and a bulky sweater of hunter green did nothing to detract from the gracefulness of her slender figure. Her blond curls were wind-tossed, and her cheeks reddened by the chill of the late afternoon. Her green eyes sparkled with delight when Sissy’s throw outdistanced her own, and her enticing lips rounded in a moue of surprise.

Kissable lips.

He jerked upright at the path his thoughts had taken. He hardly knew Jennifer Reid, even if he had kissed her once, almost twenty years ago. He doubted she’d forgive a second kiss as easily as the first. This Jennifer obviously knew her own mind, and if he intruded, seemed entirely capable of giving him a piece of it.

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.

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