Where You Least Expect It

Aidan looked at Penelope walking leisurely beside him. It had been a long time since he’d been with someone who didn’t demand that every second be filled with conversation.

But Penelope…

“What?”

He blinked, realizing she’d grown aware of his attention and was even now playing with her leather bracelet in that way she did when she was nervous.

He shook his head and smiled. “Nothing. I was just thinking that I never did get a straight answer to the question I asked this morning at the shop.”

She seemed to think back to that morning, when they’d shared that heated moment of awareness. But the image of the sheriff eyeing him suspiciously wiped it out of Aidan’s mind.

“What question?”

“Hmm? Oh. Well, since I could really use some help with putting together the Fourth of July town celebration, would you consider coming to the next meeting? It’s tomorrow night.”

Her gaze flitted away and she fell silent.

“At the rate things are going, we’ll end up with something that could have been cut and pasted from the 1950s. I could really use someone to back me up, help me urge everyone into the new millennium.”

She still didn’t say anything.

“Is everything okay?” He leaned forward to capture her gaze.

She smiled, but there was no happiness there. “Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“It’s just that you got awfully quiet there for a moment.”

“I was just thinking…”

What? What had she been thinking?

Aidan refused to speak the question aloud, but he found he was curious about Penelope in a way he hadn’t been curious about a woman in a long time. While capable of walking in companionable silence with her for long stretches, he was filled with a desire to reach out and touch her, to urge out whatever it was she was holding in her mind…in her heart.

They’d come to a slow halt, a block short of the General Store. Max sat down, panting while Penelope turned to Aidan. To thank him for his company? More than likely. But she hesitated when she looked into his face.

What was there? he wondered. What did she see?

He found himself reaching out to cup her chin. Just a gentle play of his fingertips up along the delicate line of her jaw. So soft. She blinked those big dark eyes, appearing startled yet curious as her tongue darted out and moistened her lips.

Lips that Aidan wanted more than anything to kiss.

And in the next instant, he was doing just that.

First there was the welcoming shock of skin against skin, his lips pressing against hers, tenderly, tentatively.

He’d closed his eyes, but he opened them now to see that she watched him through a fringe of black lashes. He read fear, surprise and a wistful yearning that shot straight through him. His throat tightened to the point of pain, and a craving for this woman, so urgent, so overwhelming swept over him, paralyzing him with its unexpected power.

“Mmm,” she whispered. “That was nice.”

Aidan had experienced his share of kisses, and what they had just shared was definitely not simply “nice.” It was honest. It was sweet. And it was hot.

He stepped back away from her even as a voice deep inside him protested the move.

What was he doing?

He’d promised long ago that he would not involve anyone else in his problems. Would not subject them to what he had lived with for so long that it seemed as natural as the shadow that followed him. Especially since everything finally seemed to be coming to a head.

Yet a few minutes with Penelope found him shoving all that aside, left him seeking a bit of something outside himself. Something that called out to him from her.

He remembered her on the bridge when he’d first walked across to stand next to her. Her expression had spoken of a woman with secrets that seemed to run as deep as his. And he found himself feeling connected to her in a way he hadn’t felt connected to anyone in a long time.

Only, Penelope’s secrets didn’t have the power to hurt others.

She laughed nervously. “I’d…better get going before the store closes.”

Aidan blinked at her, wondering how long they’d been standing there looking at each other. What others thought didn’t concern him. But what Penelope thought did matter. Maybe a little too much.

He offered a smile. “You still didn’t answer my question.”

She wrapped the end of Max’s lead around her hand. “What question?”

“Whether you’ll help me out with the Fourth of July celebration.”

She fell silent again, but it wasn’t a companionable silence this time, but rather a tense one. He silently berated himself for making her uncomfortable. Of pressing her to do something she so obviously didn’t want to do. Especially since he didn’t know if he would be here in town much longer.

“I can’t,” she said simply.

Aidan slid his hands into his pants pockets, reluctantly accepting her answer.

“I’d better go,” she said.

Aidan found himself reaching out to lightly grasp her wrist. She looked back at him, curious, questioning.

“I’m…” he began.

The only sounds were of traffic farther up the street and of Max panting patiently at Penelope’s side.

“I’m not who you think I am, Penelope,” he found himself admitting.

She smiled as she reached out to hold his hand. “Right now, I’m not sure I know who anyone is, Aidan.”

Chapter Four

Penelope lay awake late into the night, stretched across the twin bed that used to belong to her mother, thinking about Aidan and his words. And, even more acutely, her own words.

What had made her say what she said? That she wasn’t sure she knew who anyone was anymore?

She caught her fingertips lingering against her lips and yanked her hand back to her side, then turned over, trying to ignore the incessant hammering coming from the next room. She’d returned from the General Store with the makings of spinach pasta, but Grammy hadn’t touched a bit of it, too consumed with her house renovations. Penelope sighed.

Life in Old Orchard had always been trying for her. Still, there wasn’t anything she could do to change it, so why bother trying? From what she understood, her mother had fought the same losing battle…until giving up the fight in a very real way.

Suddenly she realized that she could hear crickets instead of a hammer pounding away. She propped herself up onto her elbows, bunching the simple white nightgown she wore around her waist. What was Grammy doing now?

Footsteps in the hall, then the sound of her grandmother’s bedroom door being slammed. Penelope collapsed onto the pillows, glad the old woman had finally called it a night. Maybe, just maybe, she’d be able to get some sleep tonight.

She rolled over to her other side and stared through the open window. The white sheers shifted in the light breeze, creating a ghostly atmosphere.

A drop of sweat trickled beneath the white cotton of her nightgown. The click of her swallowing sounded strangely amplified in the suddenly quiet room. She couldn’t really say if she’d ever actually heard herself swallow before. Or had ever been so acutely aware of herself on every level. From the agitated state of her own emotions, to the trembling of her lips even now when Aidan had kissed her hours ago.

She then rolled over onto her back, wondering if Aidan was having trouble sleeping across town at the bed-and-breakfast. Was he thinking about her the same way she was thinking about him? She honestly couldn’t say. She’d never experienced what she was feeling now. It seemed like a heated awareness swam through her veins along with her blood, making her dizzy and giddy and remarkably…

She fought to put the feeling into words.

Afraid.

She held her breath for a moment, recognizing the emotion for what it was. She was afraid that she had imagined the desire that had passed between her and Aidan. Scared that the feelings growing within her weren’t something she could ignore or explain away. Terrified that she was finally getting a taste of what it felt like to be in love.

Not that she thought she was in love with Aidan. She wasn’t. Not yet, anyway.

She wondered what he could possibly want from her. He was a respected schoolteacher at the most respected school in Old Orchard. And she was the dark girl who lived on the outskirts of town and ran that odd shop across Lucas Square from the sheriff’s office. Always was, always would be.

To date Aidan…

The sheets rustled as she turned over yet again. Wasn’t she putting the cart a bit before the horse? Aidan hadn’t even asked her out. But if he had…

If he had, she would have turned him down. Simply because he had everything to lose by being seen with her. And she…well, didn’t dating someone open up the possibility of marriage somewhere down the road? While not every couple that dated ended up at the altar, certainly they didn’t go into any dating situation knowing they never intended to stand at an altar.

And she’d always known she wasn’t destined for the traditional institution of marriage. Had even begun to guess that she’d inherited a degenerate gene or two from the women before her. All she knew about her own father was that he’d been a traveling salesman and that he didn’t even know she existed. And since her mother hadn’t put his name on her birth certificate, she couldn’t look for him. Her mother hadn’t known her father either. She’d once joked that they could be a long lost branch from an Amazonian tribe. Grammy had not been amused and had said that the reason there were no men around was that they didn’t need any men.

Lucky for all of them, then, that all the children born were female.

Her eyes widened. They had all been female, hadn’t they? There wasn’t a male out there somewhere rejected because of his gender, was there?

She frowned at the stupid idea, a thought she wouldn’t even have considered just yesterday. But in twenty-four short hours it seemed the entire world had gone insane.

Okay, maybe not the entire world. But surely the Moon family had lost a marble or two or three.

Then there was Aidan and his reason for kissing her… She rolled over yet again. She needed to stop thinking about Aidan and get some sleep. She had a feeling she would need it….

Across town, Aidan was doing the exact same thing Penelope was, although minus one ornery grandmother to make his task more difficult.

The only light in the room came from the glowing computer screen that continued its programmed search for articles matching his search parameters. The windows of his room faced the backyard of the bed-and-breakfast, so no artificial light filtered through the light sheers. And given the moonless state of the sky, neither did any natural light.

A quiet beep. Aidan turned his head where it rested on his folded hands and stared at the computer screen.

He tossed off the top sheet and padded across the bare wood floor to have a look. A newspaper from a neighboring county had uploaded its latest stories, and one of them was on the robbery at Smythe’s gas station. He clicked the mouse and read through it, but found no more information than Cole had offered.

He stretched to his full height and ran his hand through his tousled hair, unable to shake the uneasiness creeping through him like a shadowy mist. Were his suspicions that Davin had found him true? Or was he allowing his imagination to run away with him? But he was a man who never gave much credence to coincidences. Even if Old Man Smythe needed to have his glasses prescription upgraded, one didn’t lightly make the kind of accusation that he had.

He crossed back to the bed and sat down on it, the old springs giving a soft squeak. Of course, his uneasiness couldn’t be blamed solely on his suspicions. No, if he were to be completely honest with himself, Penelope Moon had a great deal to do with his current restless state.

He closed his eyes and groaned, remembering their kiss earlier. She’d tasted so sweet. Her lips had been so soft. Her body as she briefly swayed against him, so inviting.

He still wasn’t altogether sure why he’d kissed her. He’d merely had an urge to press his mouth against hers. Partly because she’d looked like she’d wanted it so much. Mostly because he had wanted it so much.

He reached to switch on the lamp, his hand nearly knocking something over. He quickly caught the object, then switched on the light. A glass of milk and a small plate of freshly baked double-chocolate oatmeal cookies sat next to his alarm clock. He smiled faintly. Mrs. O’Malley must have sneaked in to leave the snack when he was in the shower. He’d been so distracted he hadn’t even noticed until now.

Penelope. Mrs. O’Malley. Everyone he’d met since coming to Old Orchard. He could only imagine their disappointment when they discovered his true identity.

Perhaps it would be best if they never found out….

He glanced around the room that had become home to him in the past year. It had always been homey, but that was more Mrs. O’Malley’s doing than his. Gold-framed oil paintings hung on the walls, the sheer curtains were handmade. The white throw rug with tiny pink and purple flowers complimented the quilt across the foot of the hulking oak bed. The only objects that were his were the computers, the newspapers in a pile next to the rolltop desk, and the dress shirt he’d draped over the back of the chair. Everything else was tucked into the walk-in closet.

It made him sad to know that within five minutes he would be set to leave—which didn’t make much sense since he’d planned it that way.

He got up and stepped to the closet, careful not to make much noise as he hoisted the empty leather suitcase from the top shelf, then placed it across the bed. In went his suits, his clothes and a few other personal items. He left out only those things he would need in the morning.

Ten minutes later he sat on the bed looking at the closed suitcase on the floor in front of him, feeling lonely. Maybe it was because in the past few months he’d come to accept the townsfolk as friends. Mrs. O’Malley as family. And Penelope as…

He caught the thought and purposely ousted it. He never should have kissed her. Never should have given her false hope for a relationship that could not go anywhere. And he knew she felt it, had seen it glistening in her dark eyes when he’d reluctantly pulled away from her. If he hadn’t kissed her, she probably would view his abrupt disappearance much as everyone else would. Mysterious, but nothing to interfere with normal day-to-day life beyond the gossip his actions would generate. But the kiss, well, the kiss had changed all that.

For reasons he couldn’t begin to understand, Penelope Moon and her grandmother Mavis lived in some sort of self-imposed exile on the edge of town, just beyond the bridge where he’d met her during his walk earlier. Nearly every day he watched her open her shop…alone…then close it up…alone…nary a person to help break the monotony of a life that so much resembled his own. But where his reasons for keeping everyone at arm’s length were clear to him, hers weren’t.

For the first time since losing his family, someone had managed to climb into his heart and his head.

And while he knew his leaving would bring her pain, a selfish side of him was glad that she had made him feel something beyond the numbness with which he’d grown so familiar.

And the long months, perhaps years ahead of him would be filled with something in addition to despair.

Hope.

Hope that maybe life could be normal for him again one day.

A soft sound came out of Penelope’s mouth. The part sigh, part moan was so unlike any sound she’d ever heard herself make before. The shadow blocking her vision moved, then Aidan was grinning at her, amplifying the sounds around her, sharply contrasting colors, until just merely being alive seemed too much to bear.

She reached out for him, somehow realizing this was a dream and that she was free to do what she would for these precious few moments—

“Get…up!”

Something beneath Penelope’s feet trembled. She’d heard of the ground shaking before, but this—

She awakened with a start to realize it wasn’t the ground that was shaking beneath her feet as a result of Aidan’s kiss, but rather the sheet being yanked from underneath her.

Mavis was staring at her wild-eyed. Penelope gasped, then watched as the old woman resumed trying to strip her bed while she was still in it.

“Get up, I said!”

Penelope quickly gathered her wits and scrambled to stand on the other side of the narrow bed. The abrupt movement caught her grandmother off guard. She stumbled backward as the bottom sheet easily gave way, nearly knocking her flat on her butt on the hard wood floor.

“Now, what did you go and do that for?”

Penelope reached for her robe, squinting against the sunlight spilling into the room from the window. “Why are you trying to strip my bed while I’m still sleeping at the ungodly hour of…” The face of the electric alarm clock looked black, so she picked up her wristwatch as she shrugged into her robe. “Of nine.” Her eyes widened. “Nine?” She stared at her grandmother. “Is it really nine o’clock?”

“What are you asking me for? Does anybody ever really know what time it is?” She cocked her head as she stripped the remainder of the bed linens. “That’s a Chicago song, isn’t it? I’d get my cassette, but, oh! I threw out all my cassettes.”

Penelope stepped into her path, tamping down her anxiety about having overslept and stopping her grandmother from leaving the room with the sheets. “What do you mean, you threw out all your cassettes?”

Mavis squinted her dark eyes. “I don’t believe my comment needs explanation.”

“And my cassettes?”

Mavis tried to go around her. “You don’t have any cassettes.” She smiled at her. “Not anymore.”

“Mavis!” she shouted, catching the bony woman by the shoulders. “What is the matter with you?”

“Me? What’s the matter with me? This from a woman who has never been out on a single date? At least, not any that I know about. And seeing as I know everything about you, I know you haven’t been out on a single date.”

Penelope opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with everything,” Mavis countered. “And, by the way, it’s Grandmother. Not Mavis,” she said.

Penelope stepped to block her again. “Give me the sheets.”

“I will not.”

“I said give me the sheets, Grammy.”

They stood like that, locked in silent combat, until finally Penelope gave in.

“Okay, then, tell me what you plan to do with them.”

“What do you think I plan to do with them?”

Penelope could only imagine.

“I’m going to wash them, of course.”

Penelope wished she could believe her. She sighed and stepped aside.

“I’m going to soak them in a mild lye solution, you know, to get rid of any DNA evidence, then I’m going to burn them.”

“What!”

Penelope rushed after her, but halfway down the hall Max leapt at her, nearly knocking her down. Oh, God. What was the dog doing in the house? Mavis hated the dog.

Penelope caught Max’s mammoth paws in her hands and looked him straight in the eyes. “Now is definitely not the time.” She gently released his paws, and he stood there considering her. “Outside.”

“Gram, what’s Max…?”

Her words trailed off as she realized exactly how Max had gotten into the house. The doors, both the screen and the wood, were missing from their hinges. She marched to the back of the house to find the same there.

She stood, dumbstruck, in the middle of the kitchen, watching through the open doorway as Mavis stuffed the sheets into a large old oil barrel that had been cleaned and filled with water. Wood burned underneath.

She closed her eyes, wondering if she was still dreaming.

No, not dreaming. This would definitely fall solidly into nightmare territory.

She opened her eyes again, but unfortunately everything was as it had been when she closed them.

She looked at the wristwatch still in her hand. She didn’t have time for this. She really didn’t.

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