DESIRE IS NEVER SAFE. BUT SOMETIMES IT’S WORTH THE RISK.

Secrets he didn’t see coming almost got Jake Vernelli killed once. But he’s dead certain that whatever pretty Tara Thompson is hiding is behind the frightening incidents threatening her. Unfortunately, Tara is determined to stay silent and safe without this temporary small-town police chief’s help. So to win her trust, Jake must uncover her past, reveal her deepest fears—and face his own wrenching mistakes. Now every false clue and unexpected setback is irresistibly drawing Jake and Tara together. And with nowhere left to run, the only way Jake can protect her against a relentless adversary means risking losing her for good.…

“Did he hurt you?” Jake asked.

“No.” Tara’s reply, muffled yet strong, kept him from turning the truck around and killing the man.

“What happened to your leg?”

“Nothing.”

“Honey, you limped all the way to my truck.”

“I know,” she said and then she started to cry in earnest. Jake tightened his hold around Tara. With the tip of his finger, he tilted her chin up and looked at her face. Her small brown freckles looked stark against the paleness of her skin. Her eyes and nose were red and tear streaks stained her cheeks. Wisps of her strawberry-blond hair, wet with tears, clung to her face.

He took his free hand and tucked her hair behind her ears. With the pad of his thumb, he traced the tear streaks.

Tara sighed, her sweet pink lips parting just slightly.

He bent down.

She lifted her chin just enough.

Jake kissed her. And when she wrapped both arms around his neck, pulling him closer, pushing her breasts up against his chest, he thought he might never stop kissing her….

Running for Her Life
Beverly Long

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As a child, Beverly Long used to take a flashlight to bed so that she could hide under the covers and read. Once a teenager, more often than not, the books she chose were romance novels. Now she gets to keep the light on as long as she wants, and there’s always a romance novel on her nightstand. With both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in business and more than twenty years of experience as a human resources director, she now enjoys the opportunity to write her own stories. She considers her books to be a great success if they compel the reader to stay up way past his or her bedtime.

Beverly loves to hear from readers. Visit www.beverlylong.com or like her at www.facebook.com/BeverlyLong.Romance .

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CAST OF CHARACTERS

Tara Thompson—She loves her café and the people in Wyattville, Minnesota, but believes she may have to run again to stay one step ahead of her abusive ex-fiancé.

Chief Jake Vernelli—He’s a big-city cop with temporary duty in a small town. He’s certain that Tara is hiding something. Will he figure out her secret in time or will he once again lose someone important?

Michael Watson Masterly—He’d almost killed Tara once. Has he tracked her down in Wyattville and is he biding his time before he strikes the final blow?

Alice Fenton—She is Tara’s friend and landlord, but she harbors resentment toward Tara for something her son told her.

Donny Miso—An angry, out-of-work man who has lost just about everything. Is he desperate enough to hurt Tara, the one person who has treated him well?

Jim Waller—He holds a prestigious position at the bank, but suddenly he has an unexpected interest in Tara that puts her in danger.

Madeline Fenton—Her past is filled with secrets and she could destroy everything that Tara has worked for. Or is it her brother, Bill, who is the dangerous one?

Bill Fenton—He’s left Wyattville and is supposedly moving on. Is it possible that he’s angry because Tara wanted only to be friends?

For Jim—a wonderful brother-in-law and a dear friend.

You were an inspiration to me and to everyone else who had the privilege of knowing you.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Excerpt

Chapter One

Jake Vernelli flicked his windshield wipers to high and tightened his grip on the steering wheel of his 1969 GMC pickup. On a pleasant summer night, there’d be another hour of daylight but there wasn’t anything pleasant about this night. It was dark and ugly and it matched Jake’s mood perfectly.

When Chase had described Wyattville, Minnesota, his old friend had been characteristically kind. It’s a little remote.

Remote? Hell, all signs of civilization had faded away when Jake had left the interstate for a bumpy, narrow, two-lane road. More than once, he’d considered making one big U-turn and pointing the nose of his truck back toward Minneapolis. But Chase’s telephone call from last week was fresh enough that he could still hear the desperation in the man’s voice.

Please, Jake. It’s only for six weeks. I wouldn’t ask if I had any other options.

And that was fact. In all the years they’d known each other, Chase had never once asked and had offered more times than Jake could count. The most recent offer had come two months ago, just days after Jake had tried to turn in his badge.

He’d told Chase he was fine, that the gunshot wound was healing nicely, and that he’d put Marcy’s funeral behind him. It was the first time he’d ever lied to his friend. But what was he supposed to say? That he thought about his dead partner every single day and wondered just how he’d missed that she was in trouble?

Could he admit that he’d thought about how miserably lucky he’d been that he’d only gotten a bullet in his leg while young Officer Howard, who’d had the bad luck to get caught in the crossfire between him and Marcy, had lost his life? Should he disclose that in the middle of the night, when his soul felt most tortured, that he questioned whether it had been for naught? Marcy had died but there would still be drugs on the street, in the schoolyard, everywhere. Should he confess that he wasn’t sure he could make a big enough difference anymore?

It was better to lie.

And pretend that he was moving on.

Jake stretched and grabbed the flashlight that had slipped into the crack between the bench seat and the passenger-side door. He pointed it at the directions he’d received just that afternoon. Once satisfied that his navigation was sound, he flicked the light off and glanced ahead.

Fifty feet in front of him, a deer stood in the middle of the damn road.

He flattened the palm of his hand on the horn, pressed his foot hard on the brake, and felt his heart jump when the back tires of his truck lost traction on the wet road.

The bed of the truck slammed into the guardrail, and suddenly he was rolling. His seat belt jerked tight and something, maybe the flashlight, struck him a glancing blow on his chin. The truck rolled a second time and then stopped so suddenly that Jake cracked the left side of his forehead on something.

“Damn it.” He fumbled for the interior light, switched it on and took stock. The cab looked fine, and he felt ridiculously pleased that Veronica was built like a tank. The only problem was, she had metal trim around the doors, and he was pretty sure that was what he’d cracked his head against. He flipped down his visor and looked into the small mirror. The area above his left eye was already swelling, and in the dim interior light he could see fresh blood oozing from a thin cut.

He peered out the windshield. His headlights were still on, but all he could see through the driving rain was two-feet-high grass. Everywhere. He’d landed in some kind of gulley. His truck was in Drive and the engine was running, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

He pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket, turned it on and waited. It beeped twice and then the screen went dark. He shook it, turned it on again and met with similar results.

The hinterlands evidently didn’t get cell phone service.

He shoved the truck into Park, pulled the key and unbuckled his seat belt. Using his flashlight, he saw that there was solid earth reaching halfway up the door. He scooted across the seat and looked. Same damn thing.

He opened his glove compartment, retrieved his gun and stuck it into the waistband of his pants. Then he pulled his dark green rain poncho out from underneath the seat, shook out the wrinkles with one sharp flick of his wrist and slipped the thin plastic over his head. Finally, using the butt of the flashlight as a battering ram, he knocked out a perfectly good windshield and crawled out.

Once he stood on Veronica’s hood, he realized that it was a mere foot aboveground. It was going to take a tow truck and somebody who knew what they were doing to get him out of there. The wind took his breath away and the rain beat at him as thunder rumbled and lightning streaked across the dark sky. It was a horrible night to be out, but waiting for someone to pass by wasn’t much of a plan. He hadn’t seen another car for the past half hour.

Before long some animal would probably mosey by and eat him. He pulled up his hood and started walking.

* * *

TARA THOMPSON PARKED her twelve-year-old van in the dark garage, thankful that she’d managed to keep the beast on the slick roads. It had been raining hard when she’d left the café and harder still just seconds ago, when she’d jumped out to open the garage door. Shivering in her wet clothes, she pulled down the heavy wood door and stood underneath the small overhang the roof offered. She could barely see her farmhouse, just thirty feet away.

Taking a deep breath, she sprinted. She took the two steps in one leap, yanked open the screen door, unlocked the interior door and threw herself inside. Heart racing, feeling almost giddy, she leaned against her back door and tried to catch her breath.

She could hear the rain pound against the new shingles that her landlord had laboriously laid just weeks earlier. When she flipped the light switch next to the door and saw that the only thing dripping on the kitchen floor was her, she smiled. Maybe Henry had been right when he promised that her bucket days were over.

She kicked off her wet shoes just as a bolt of lightning hit close enough to shake her house. The lights went out without so much as a flicker. She stood in the dark, waiting, hoping. Minutes ticked off and giddiness seeped away, replaced by grim determination.

Reaching into the cupboard above the stove, she grabbed a candle, then matches. It took just seconds to locate the tall glass she’d left drying upside down next to the sink. She righted it, stuck a candle in it and on her second try got the match to spark.

She held the glass above her head and peered into the cupboard. She found four more candles and pulled them all out, hoping they would be enough. In the fourteen months she’d been living in eastern Minnesota, the electricity had gone out at least three times. Six months ago, during a February ice storm, it had been off for almost forty-eight hours.

Hot shower came off the to-do list. No electricity meant no power to the pump on the well, which meant no running water. The best she could do was peel off the clothes she’d been wearing for the past twelve hours. She picked up the glass, and as she walked up the narrow stairway to the second floor, the slim candle swayed from side to side, bouncing light off the pale walls.

In her bedroom, she undressed. Even her bra and panties were wet. She scooped up her clothes and tossed them into the hamper, feeling the pull in her shoulders. It had been three days since Donny had up and quit. She needed to get a new dishwasher hired. The extra work was taking its toll.

In the mirror, she saw the shadow of unpaid invoices and half-completed order forms on the corner of her old desk. She’d planned on catching up earlier in the week and had told herself on the way home that tonight was it. No lights meant no guilt about putting the nagging paperwork aside. She smiled, blew out the candle and flopped down on the bed.

The wind was even stronger now and the lightning and thunder almost simultaneous, telling her that the full brunt of the storm had hit. The rain had turned to hail and it crashed against the windows as if someone was throwing buckets of marbles against the small house.

It was a cacophony of noise—wild and bold and oddly rhythmic. She closed her eyes, content to think of nothing, content to let the strain of the busy day slip away. However, minutes later, more asleep than awake, a pounding on her back door had her jerking up in bed.

Nobody ever came to her back door.

That is, nobody except Henry. She took a breath and felt the tightness in her chest ease up. Her landlord had stopped by the restaurant shortly after the noon rush and promised that he’d be over later to fix the loose tile on her bathroom floor. That was before the sky had unzipped and rained on her parade.

He should not be out on a night like this. She scrambled off the bed and slipped on the pale blue cotton robe that hung on the back of her bedroom door. On the way out, she grabbed the glass and unlit candle off her dresser.

Good Lord. She loved the old fool like the father she’d lost, but this was ridiculous. He’d be soaked. Probably get pneumonia and she’d never hear the end of it. “If you don’t stop beating the heck out of my screen door, you’ll be fixing that, too,” she mumbled. The stairway was pitch-black; she grabbed the railing with her free hand and stepped carefully.

Once downstairs, she stopped just long enough to light the candle and set it on the coffee table. “Hang on,” she yelled. She realized he hadn’t heard her over the storm when the pounding continued. She went to the door and pulled back the curtain on the window. He was hunched over, wearing his ratty rain poncho. She fumbled with the lock and finally whipped open the door. Wind and rain blew in.

“Are you crazy?” she yelled, yanking on Henry’s sleeve. She pulled him into the house. At least the man had enough sense to put his hood up. “Alice is going to skin you alive,” she said.

“Who’s Alice?”

Tara jumped back, knocking into the hall table. And in the next second, when he turned and the light from the candle on the coffee table caught his profile, she knew exactly who was crazy.

She was.

She’d let a stranger into her house. He was big and broad-shouldered, and from what she could see of his face, he wasn’t happy. Then he pushed his hood back and she saw bloody raw skin on his forehead.

She screamed and ran. He managed to catch her before she got through the front door. She had it open just inches when he reached over her shoulder and slammed it shut with the palm of his hand. Whirling around, she thrust an elbow toward his face.

“Calm down,” he said.

She would not give in—not this time. She shoved and kicked but it was like hitting a damn wall.

“Stop it,” he said, using both hands to grab her flailing arms. With one hand, he pinned her arms over her head. With his other free hand, he grasped her chin. “You’re going to hurt yourself,” he warned.

She didn’t want to beg. But fear robbed her voice of strength. “Let go of me,” she whispered.

When he didn’t, she brought her knee up. He managed to twist out of the way. Then he wrapped an arm around her middle, picked her up so that her feet were kicking wildly in the air, carried her five feet over to the couch and dumped her on it.

She expected him to fall on top of her, but instead he backed up a couple steps, practically tripping over the coffee table in his haste to get away. Scooting to the corner of the couch, she pulled her old robe tight. She felt naked and vulnerable, and she thought she might throw up.

Why hadn’t she been more careful? She’d been so cautious for fourteen months and now, in one instant, it was all for nothing.

Never taking his eyes off her, he moved sideways, far enough that he could flip the switch on the wall. When nothing happened, he looked at the candle and she saw bleak acceptance in his eyes. He pulled a flashlight out of his pocket, turned it on and swept the space that served as a combined kitchen and family room. His gaze rested on the sink and she knew he saw the lone clean plate and coffee cup.

It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to make it easy for him. The minute he came closer, she was going to grab the lamp and hit him with it. She was going to use her fingernails, her teeth, anything she could.

But when he moved, it wasn’t forward. He sank down on the love seat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I looked in the garage window and saw a van. I thought somebody might be home.”

“Get out of my house,” she said, her voice low.

“I was in an accident.” He pointed to his forehead. “My truck is in a ditch, a deep one, about a mile from here. I’m not sure how badly it’s damaged. My cell didn’t work. All I want is to use your telephone to call a garage so that I can get the son of a—” he hesitated “—gun out of there.”

Could he be telling the truth? She held her arm to her side, the rough, scarred skin pressing against her ribs, separated only by the thin robe. Rain always made the bone ache. Getting pushed up against the front door hadn’t helped.

She’d run on instinct. She’d fought when cornered.

That brought her some comfort. As hard as she’d fought, however, she knew the stranger was big enough and strong enough that he could have easily hurt her. But instead, he’d backed off and was giving her a chance to calm down. Was it some kind of trick?

Or was it possible that he hadn’t come looking for her, that Michael hadn’t sent him? That he’d simply crashed his vehicle, knocked his head in the process, and her house had been the first he’d stumbled upon? “Where was the accident?”

“A mile or so south. I’m on my way to Wyattville,” he continued. “Please tell me that I’m headed in the right direction.”

She wasn’t telling him anything. Not until she knew why he was here. “What’s your name?” she demanded.

“Jake Vernelli.” He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a wallet. From his poncho pocket, he pulled out what appeared to be a hastily folded sheet of paper. After flipping open the wallet, he tried to smooth out the crumpled paper.

She leaned forward. The picture on the license was of him, sans bloody forehead. With a practiced eye for taking in details quickly, she scanned it. Dark hair, olive skin, classic Italian appearance. Six-two, 190 pounds. He’d be thirty-three in two weeks, making him almost exactly a year older than her. The name on it was Jake Vernelli.

She shifted her gaze to the paper. It was a fax sent from the law offices of Chase Montgomery. Chase had been elected mayor the previous year and when she scanned the fax, she remembered the gossip she’d heard at the restaurant just that morning. The mayor had called a childhood friend and arranged for him to fill in for Chief Wilks, who’d had a heart attack and then bypass surgery.

“Do you know Chief Wilks?” he asked.

She nodded. She liked the chief; everybody did. But she’d never really felt comfortable around him. Michael had gotten to the police once before, he could do it again.

“I’m taking his place for six weeks,” he said.

Tara’s stomach tightened. “So you’re a cop?”

“That’s right.” He swallowed deliberately. “Given the circumstances, I would think you might consider that a positive.”

Hardly. She was living way outside the law.

Chapter Two

“You broke into my house,” she accused.

“I did not break in.” He said it so fast his words were clipped. “You opened the door and pulled me in.”

His head injury couldn’t be too serious. “I suppose I did.”

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She didn’t want to tell him. There was something about this man, something about the intensity of his gaze, the edginess of his attitude. Would he see things that others had simply looked past? Would he find a loose thread and pull at it until her life unraveled?

“Tara Thompson,” she said, as if she’d been saying it her whole life. She got up, walked ten feet to her kitchen counter, pulled out a drawer and felt around for the small box of plastic bags. Then she opened the freezer door and filled the bag with ice. She gently tossed it in his direction. “You’ve got a pretty good-sized bump.”

“Thanks,” he said. He held the ice bag up to his forehead. “Who’s Alice?” he repeated his very first question.

“Alice Fenton. She and her husband, Henry, are my landlords. They live one crossroad over.” She wiped the palm of her hand on her old robe. “Do you think you need to see a doctor?”

“So that I can hear that I’m going to have a hell of a headache for a couple of days?” He smiled and it was such a startling change to his serious demeanor that she was thrown off balance.

She stepped back and rammed her spine against the kitchen counter. He studied her. And while there wasn’t enough light at this distance to clearly see his eyes, the tilt of his head, the subtle thrust of his chin, told her that he was assessing, considering. Wondering.

It was the look of a man who might be interested, maybe even intrigued, by a woman. It made her feel warm and vulnerable in a whole different way and she yanked on the belt of her robe, pulling it tighter. The worn material rubbed against her nipples and she was grateful for the darkness, grateful that he couldn’t see that his look affected her.

She jerked open the kitchen drawer and pulled out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. She grabbed a tissue box and carried both back to the coffee table. She placed them next to the burning candle. “You should probably clean that scrape. There’s no water but this will be better anyway.”

She moved back to her spot in the kitchen. He grabbed a few tissues and tipped the brown bottle to its side. After taking a couple swipes across his forehead, he got up and tossed the bloody tissue into the waste can at the end of her kitchen counter. Her stomach jumped in response. She hated blood. Could never quite forget the sight of it running down her arm, dripping onto the floor.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Sure,” she managed. Think about something else. It was generally good advice. However, when he rubbed his hand over his jaw and, like a crazy woman, she felt the answering response low in her belly—as if he’d rubbed the palm of his hand intimately against her—she realized it was a mistake. He was a stranger. A cop. She had no business thinking about warmth against warmth, about callused skin against absolute softness. About what it might be like to be held again.

“About my truck?” he asked.

She swallowed hard. “Of course. Toby Wilson owns the local garage. He sells gas and does some basic body work. Some nights he works late so you might get lucky.” She reached to dial the telephone just as it rang.

“Hello,” she said tentatively. She rarely got calls.

“Tara, this is Frank Johnson. There’s been some trouble in town.”

She gripped the receiver more tightly. “What kind of trouble?”

“Looks as if somebody damaged your front door, broke out the glass, anyway. It doesn’t look as if they got in but I’m not sure.”

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. She’d been in Wyattville all this time and nothing had happened. Why now?

“Tara?” Frank prompted.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Tara hung up and whirled around, almost bumping into the new chief.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“I own a restaurant in town. There’s been some damage.”

“From the storm?”

“No. At least that’s what Frank Johnson said. He owns the drugstore next door.” She tried to speak slowly, calmly, but it was impossible. Fourteen months ago, in a rage, Michael had shredded dresses and slashed artwork. Had he found a new way to torment her by vandalizing her business?

She didn’t want to have to run again.

“Tara?”

She stared at him.

“You looked as if you were a million miles away.”

Thirteen hundred miles. But was it far enough? “I have to go.” She glanced around the dark kitchen. Where had she dropped her purse? It didn’t matter. She grabbed her keys off the counter and took a step toward the door.

“You might want to get dressed first,” he suggested.

Of course. What she needed to do was stop freaking out. If Michael had found her, she’d need her wits about her. And she needed to get rid of Jake Vernelli. “I can drop you off in town,” she said.

He shrugged. “I think I’ve gathered enough to know that my first day on the job just started early.”

“But what about your truck?”

“Trust me on this. It’s not going anywhere.”

She wasn’t going to be able to shake him. But she couldn’t worry about that now. She lit another candle, kept her keys gripped in her hand while she found another glass and then used it to light the way up the stairs where she pulled on underwear, jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt. When she came back to the living room, he was standing by her back door. She slipped her feet into the still-wet sandals that she’d shed earlier. When she reached for the door, he put his hand on her arm. Heat shot upward, settling somewhere around her collarbone.

“Are you okay to drive?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He didn’t argue. Instead, he blew out both candles. Then they ran through the rain, dodging puddles. He opened the garage door before she had a chance to. “Pull out and I’ll close it behind us,” he said.

* * *

SHE DROVE FAST and they arrived in the small town just minutes later. A police cruiser, its lights flashing, sat crossways in the middle of the street, keeping cars from getting past. The streetlights were on, and lights shined through windows up and down the street, telling Jake that the power outage hadn’t included Wyattville.

Tara jerked the wheel to the right, pulled into a parking spot and bolted from her car. A man pushing sixty, standing in front of the drugstore, saw her and waved. She took four steps before Jake caught up with her.

“Stay behind me,” he said, stepping in front of her.

Jake could see the momentary indecision and thought he might just have to tackle her. Given the curves he’d glimpsed under her thin blue robe, the very same ones that were hugged tight by her white shirt and jeans, it wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice. Knowing his luck, though, she’d bring her damn knee up again and hit pay dirt and he’d start his job walking funny for days.

“Fine,” she said through clenched teeth.

He moved quickly, Tara on his heels. Fortunately most of the businesses had awnings, so they could stay out of the rain as they ran toward the man standing on the sidewalk.

“Mr. Johnson?” Jake asked.

“Yes. Who are you?”

“I’m Jake Vernelli.”

The older man smiled. “The new guy. I’m on the city council and let me tell you, we’re damn glad you were available. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here. Generally, Wyattville is a pretty quiet place.”

Tara stepped out from behind him. “What happened, Frank?”

“Officer Hooper drove by around nine and everything was fine, but when he cruised through at ten, he saw that the front door of Nel’s looked odd. I was at the store late and saw him outside. I called you right away.”

Jake could tell by the slump of Tara’s shoulders that everything definitely wasn’t okay. He adjusted his angle slightly. Nel’s Café had a big door that was wood on the bottom and frosted glass on the top. Two inches above where the wood stopped and the glass began was a round hole. Bigger than a golf ball, maybe the right size for a baseball. Around it, the glass had splintered in a semicircle, with cracks shooting upward. It looked similar to how a first grader might draw the sun on a pretty summer day.

Jake walked closer, leaned down and attempted to peer through the hole. It was dark inside. There were two large windows on either side of the door. Unfortunately, the blinds were down, completely eliminating any assistance the streetlights might have given.

“Crazy night for somebody to be out causing trouble,” Frank said. “Probably just some kids without anything better to do.”

“Oh, sure,” she said. And Jake wouldn’t have thought much about it if she hadn’t followed up the comment with a quick but deliberate look over her right shoulder, then her left. It was her eyes that pulled at Jake’s gut. She had the look of someone waiting for the other shoe to drop.

A young officer dressed in a khaki uniform approached. His brown buzzed hair looked official, but the flushed face and sweat stains under his arms didn’t inspire confidence. Green. That was how Chase had described Andy Hooper. He covered the evening shift and would share call with Jake for the night shift.

Frank Johnson stepped forward. “Andy, this here is your new boss, Jake Vernelli.”

Andy stuck out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you. Mayor Montgomery said good things about you, sir.”

Chase must have left out the part about shooting his partner. Jake returned the shake. “Good to meet you,” he said. “What happened here tonight?”

The young officer flipped open his notebook. “Front door is damaged. Back door appears untouched. There are no witnesses. It does not appear that entry was gained. I was waiting for Tara to get here with a key so I could check out the inside.”

The kid had needed to consult his notes for that? It was going to be a long six weeks.

With her keys in hand, Tara started toward the door. Jake knew it was unlikely there was any danger. An intruder would have needed to manage getting his or her arm through the hole, enough to flip the lock from inside. That would have been difficult to do with without causing more glass to break. However, he’d seen a lot of odd things in his career.

Jake held out his hands for her keys. “Not until Officer Hooper and I check it out,” he said. He pulled his gun from the waistband of his jeans and he saw the immediate question in Frank Johnson’s eyes: Is that really necessary?

Hell, he had no idea. But it hadn’t been that long ago that he’d been almost too slow to pull his gun, and he didn’t intend to make that mistake again. When Officer Hooper hurried to get his own weapon, Jake fought the instinct to duck and run.

Jake unlocked the door and kicked it open with his foot, wide enough that they could enter. With the door open, there was enough light that he could quickly scan the dim interior. There were tables on one side, booths on the other. An aisle down the middle led to a long counter with six stools. Behind the counter were the pop machine, milk machine and stacks of glasses. “I’m going to check the kitchen,” he whispered. “Stay here.”

He walked toward the swinging door at the rear of the restaurant. However, instead of opening it, he veered behind the counter and walked toward the service window that was cut into the rear wall. It was chest high, three feet long by eighteen inches high, perfect for getting the hot food from the stove to the table in an express manner. He peered through the opening.

Toward the back, a light burning over a three-compartment sink made it possible to see the grill, stove and steam table on one side, refrigerator and worktable on the other. Across from the sink, behind a half wall, was the dishwasher. Beyond it, a rear entrance that looked undisturbed.

“It’s clear. Tell Tara that she can come in.”

By the time he got to the front of the restaurant, she was standing next to the cash register. The drawer was open and the slots were empty. “You keep any money in here?” he asked.

Tara shook her head. “After we close up in the afternoon, I make a deposit at the bank. I hold back enough to start the drawer out in the morning but I keep it in the kitchen.”

“Freezer, right?”

She smiled and it reached her eyes—her very pretty moss-green eyes. They went nicely with her hair—a rich, more strawberry than blond mix that touched her shoulders.

“Too obvious,” she said. “I use a mixing bowl.”

“Go check it and make sure it’s all there,” he said.

He flipped on a light and looked around. The place wasn’t fancy but it looked spotless, and the combination of colors—blues, greens and browns—made it welcoming. He picked up a menu, scanned it and almost laughed at how reasonable the prices were. Okay, there was one good thing about small towns.

It took him about fifteen seconds to find the baseball lodged underneath one of the wooden booths. “Andy, you got an evidence bag in your car?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Chief Vernelli is fine. Go get it.”

The kid was back so fast with a bag, gloves and a camera that Jake was pretty sure he’d run. Had he ever been that eager to please? God knew he’d loved being a cop. Had never contemplated that he’d walk away from it.

He snapped a few photos before putting on the gloves and carefully picking up the ball. He’d just put it in the bag when Tara returned. “We’ll dust it for prints but if it was kids, they likely won’t have a record,” Jake said.

“This is the kind of stuff kids do, right?”

She sounded almost hopeful. The last teenager he’d arrested had stolen a car. The one before that had stabbed his mother. “Anybody in particular who might be pissed off at you? Fired any high school help lately?”

She shook her head. “No. I did have a dishwasher leave, but I didn’t fire him—he quit. And he wasn’t a kid. Probably in his early thirties.”

“Why did he quit?”

“I don’t know. I would have appreciated some notice but he just left a message on my voice mail that he wouldn’t be back. I hope he found a better job. He took this after he lost his position when his company outsourced their manufacturing to China.”

Dishwasher. He hadn’t contemplated that as a career choice when he’d been up at two in the morning, wondering just what the hell he was going to do if he couldn’t be a cop anymore. He could go from scraping garbage off the street to scraping food off plates. “Name?”

“Donny Miso.”

Easy enough to remember. Jake walked to the front door and snapped a couple more photos. He handed the camera back to Andy. “I’ll finish up here,” he told the young officer. “I think you can probably move the squad out of the street now,” he added.

Jake watched Officer Hooper lope down the sidewalk. When he was almost at his car, Jake turned toward Tara. “Something tells me that he doesn’t get to use the lights and siren very often.”

She smiled. “He means well.” She squatted and grabbed a piece of glass and promptly sliced open the tip of her index finger. Blood welled up from the cut. He moved to her side and grabbed her wrist to get a closer look.

“Go wash that out,” he said. “I’ll take care of this.”

“That’s not necessary,” she protested weakly. She was looking at the blood on her finger. Her face had lost its natural color, making the freckles on her nose stand out.

She started walking back to the kitchen. He followed.

“What are you doing?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Making sure you don’t fall over,” he said, deciding truth was the best option. He’d noticed her reaction to the bloody wipe earlier and had better understood why she’d freaked when he’d pulled back his hood and she’d suddenly been up close and personal with the blood streaking down his face. Everybody had their Achilles’ heel.

She squared her shoulders. “I am not going to fall down.”

Soft curves and a rod of steel up her backbone. Hell of a combination. “Okay.” He turned back toward the dining room. He picked up the larger pieces of glass, all the while listening for unusual sounds in the kitchen. He was almost done when there was a shadow in the doorway. He looked up and saw Frank.

“I got a piece of plywood to nail over the window,” he said.

“Perfect.” Jake walked outside and it took only a couple minutes for the two men to nail the covering in place.

Frank shook his hand when they were finished. “Welcome, Jake. By the way, my daughter Lori Mae is your daytime dispatcher and department secretary. If you want to know anything, she can tell you. And if I can be of assistance, let me know. In fact, if you’ve got the time tomorrow, we could meet for a cup of coffee here at Nel’s, say ten?”

“I’ll see you then,” Jake said. When he stepped inside the restaurant, Tara was standing near the door.

“You’ve been busy,” she said, motioning to the floor and the window.

“Frank helped. Seems like a nice guy.”

She nodded. “When I opened the restaurant fourteen months ago, he was my first customer, and he’s eaten lunch here every day since then.”

“Did you grow up in Wyattville?”

She shook her head. “I moved here from Florida.”

He’d spent five of the worst weeks of his life in Miami, working undercover, sniffing out drug dealers. “Where at in Florida?”

It might have been his imagination but he thought she pulled back a little. “We moved around a lot,” she said. “You know, I’m really tired. I should finish up here so that I can get home at a reasonable hour.”

She didn’t need to hit him over the head with a baseball bat. And it wasn’t as if he really wanted her life story. No matter how cute she was, he was a short-timer, and in six weeks he’d have paid his debt back to his friend. Then he was driving back to Minneapolis and forgetting about this wide spot in the road.

“I still need to get in contact with Toby Wilson about Veronica. My truck,” he added quickly.

She didn’t bat an eye that he’d named his truck. Just grabbed the pen that was next to the cash register, tore a napkin out of the two-sided dispenser on the counter and scribbled a number down. “There’s a phone in the kitchen.”

For a second time, he yanked the directions to Chase Montgomery’s house out of his pocket. “By my calculations, Chase’s house should be just a couple blocks from here. I’ll call from there.”

“I heard he was out of town, visiting his parents. Something about his mother being ill.”

“That’s right. He’ll be back in a couple weeks. I’m going to stay at his house while I’m covering for Chief Wilks.” He walked toward the door. “By the way,” he added, “watch out for the deer when you’re driving home.”

Once again her eyes flicked toward the street. He got the strangest feeling that whatever or whoever it was that Tara Thompson was watching out for, it didn’t have four legs.

Chapter Three

It was still dark when Tara woke up. The light was blinking on her alarm clock, telling her that sometime during the night the electricity had come back on. She reached for the switch on the lamp and glanced at her watch. Ten minutes before five. In one smooth movement, she stretched and rolled out of bed. She pulled on a running bra, shorts and a shirt, and sat on the edge of the mattress while she laced up her shoes. After a quick stop in the bathroom, she bounced down the steps, grabbed a bottle of water on her way past the refrigerator and was out the door. The sun had not yet crested the horizon but night had faded, leaving the quiet countryside bathed in a soft blue-gray.

She jogged for the first quarter of a mile, then picked up the pace. With each step, she felt stronger, sturdier, more confident. She hadn’t been a runner when she’d lived in D.C. She’d rarely exercised, choosing to spend what little free time she had with Michael. But shortly after settling in Wyattville, she’d started jogging and lifting weights. She hadn’t been worried about her jeans zipping. She’d simply been focused on getting strong.

If Michael ever got lucky enough to find her, she needed to be both physically and mentally ready. The head stuff was harder. But she was making progress. It had been months since she’d had one of the nightmares that had plagued her when she’d first come to Wyattville. She knew she’d turned the corner when she’d dreamed that he’d found her and she—dressed like Catwoman, but hey, it was a dream—had kicked his butt.

She tried to get in three miles several times a week, generally before work. If she kept her pace steady, she could get to Wyattville, turn around and be home in time to jump in the shower and still make it to work with ten minutes to spare.

Normally when she ran, her mind emptied out. There was no room to worry about leaky water pipes or a temperamental fryer that had a touchy on-off switch. She was consumed with the cadence of her steps, the harshness of her breath, the pure thrill of pushing herself to the limit. Absolute freedom from thought. It was all good.

But not today. She was tired and edgy and felt stupid because she’d lost sleep over a broken window. It wasn’t as if she’d been robbed at gunpoint. She was getting soft. There’d been a time when crime was part of her everyday life. She’d talked about it, wondered about it and even joked about it. Most every reporter at the paper had.

Not that many would have admitted to the last. After all, everyone knew it wasn’t a joke. But in a city where even murder seemed routine, laughter was the coping mechanism of choice.

That was life B.W. Before Wyattville. Now she talked about the weather, wondered about the price of lettuce and laughed at dumb jokes that her customers told her. It still hardly seemed possible. Nel’s Main Street Café had gone on the market the week before Tara had come through Wyattville on her way to nowhere. She took one look at the cozy little diner and paid cash for it two days later. It had eaten up every bit of her savings. But somehow she’d known it was the right thing to do.

And every day for the past fourteen months, she’d been thankful. She’d had a reason to get up, to get dressed, to work hard. A reason to forget.

Although some memories were harder to shake than others. She extended her arms straight from her shoulders, automatically noting the slight difference in the length. Her arms were covered, like always. No matter how sweaty she got running or how steamy the kitchen became, she didn’t dare let people see the damage. There’d be too many questions, too much speculation. She didn’t need the constant reminder, either. Didn’t need to look at the two scars on her right arm that ran seven inches long and a sixteenth of an inch wide, crossing over each other at the bend in her elbow, to remember the pain, the absolute terror. The orthopedic surgeons had told her the pink, slightly puckered skin would continue to fade until it turned completely white some day.

She supposed that was true. Her arm looked better than it had fourteen months ago, although it was still hideous. And as crazy as it sounded, she was almost grateful for it. The injury had made her realize that ultimately Michael would kill her. It was the push she’d needed to leave her fiancé behind, to leave her life behind.

Otherwise, she’d have been one of the crime stories they reported in the early edition. Maybe one of the ones they laughed about, or shook their heads about.

She’d made a life here in Wyattville. It was a different life than the one she’d left behind, but still, a good life. And most important, she’d felt safe here.

And she still did. She wasn’t going to let a busted window change that.

The summer air was already thick with humidity, and sweat trickled down her front and back. There was barely a breeze on her bare legs. She sipped on her water bottle and pushed herself harder.

She was less than a mile from town when she saw a car crest the hill. Without breaking stride, she edged farther to the side of the road, onto the hard-packed gravel that bordered the blacktop. She’d just lifted her hand in a neighborly wave when the car swerved, gunning straight for her.

* * *

JAKE DESPERATELY NEEDED COFFEE. On his best days, he didn’t generally participate in any real conversation until he’d had his first cup followed by two or three quick refills. And he wasn’t at his best today. He hadn’t slept well. Wanted to believe it was because he’d been in a strange bed in a strange house with six weeks of duty facing him. But he suspected it had less to do with that and more to do with a strawberry-blonde with freckles on her nose and pretty green eyes.

Chase had left a brief note, wishing him well, along with keys to a cruiser that matched the car Andy Hooper had been driving the previous night. There were also a couple sets of uniforms. After waking up, he’d showered, pulled on a pair of khaki pants, a shirt that fit well enough, and buckled the standard-issue duty belt that Chase had left hanging over the door.

Now, fifteen minutes after his feet had hit the floor, he was in the car, headed toward Nel’s Café. The night before, he’d seen the sign on the door, indicating that business hours started at six and ended at three. He parked, got out, and could see that someone had turned the blinds enough that he could see inside.

The dining area was still dark. Through the service window, he could see light in the kitchen and somebody moving around. Female. But definitely shorter and heavier than Tara.

Not that he was looking for her.

He debated returning to his car to wait, but liking the stillness of the early morning, he merely leaned his back against the building. He’d barely taken three deep breaths when an old man walked around the corner.

“Morning,” the man said. He stuck out a weathered, arthritic hand. “Nicholi Bochero.”

Jake returned the shake. “Jake Vernelli.”

“Figured as much. I live upstairs, above the restaurant. Got the lowdown on you last night from my grandson, Andy Hooper. The boy should be along shortly. He meets me for breakfast most mornings.”

The door to the restaurant opened. The woman from the kitchen, wearing a white apron over her navy shirt and slacks, motioned them in. Her coarse gray hair was cut military-short and her face was lined with years of experience.

“Uh…morning, Janet. How…uh…are you?” Nicholi asked. The old man suddenly sounded out of breath.

“I’m all right, I guess,” the woman answered. She turned away, but not before Jake saw a flush start at her neckline and spread its way north, filling in cracks and crevices. And like most cops who’d been cops for any length of time, he was pretty good at knowing when the energy in the air changed. In the past few seconds, it had skyrocketed upward.

Janet had Nicholi’s coffee poured before the old man carefully lowered himself down on the second-to-last stool at the counter. He nodded his thanks and followed her movements with his eyes. Meanwhile Janet was looking everywhere but at him.

Oh, boy. Hormones—albeit some old ones—were shaking off some dust motes here. Jake slid in next to Nicholi, and when Janet held up the coffeepot in his direction, he nodded and practically sighed in appreciation when he took his first sip.

“New police chief?” Janet asked.

“Interim,” Jake corrected immediately.

The door opened and Officer Hooper walked in. His face was freshly shaved and with his ruddy complexion, he looked about sixteen. “Morning, sir…uh…Chief,” he said to Jake.

The kid made him feel ancient. “Morning, Andy.”

The young officer walked past Jake, patted his grandfather gently on the back and took the last seat at the counter. “Where’s Tara?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janet said. “When I arrived and she wasn’t already here, I called her house. There was no answer, so I thought she must be on her way. However, if that’s true, she should have been here at least fifteen minutes ago.”

Jake tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in his stomach but he couldn’t shake the memory of the fear that he’d seen in Tara Thompson’s eyes before she’d so carefully concealed it.

“She’s never late,” Andy said.

Nicholi unwrapped his silverware that had been rolled tight in a napkin. “You’re right, son. Not even when we had two feet of snow in the middle of January.”

Damn. Jake stood up and threw a buck on the counter. “You’ll save my life if you put this in a to-go cup for me.”

“You’re going to go check on Tara?” Janet asked.

He nodded.

She shoved the dollar back toward him and filled a large paper cup with fresh coffee. “It’s on the house.”

A half mile out of town, Jake saw a bicycle on its side. He slowed down to take a closer look and saw a man squatted down in the shallow ditch. Jake slammed on his brakes, swung his car off to the shoulder and got out.

There was a woman lying on the ground. Jake saw strawberry-blond hair and scrambled down the steep embankment. He heard a noise behind him but didn’t bother to look around. Andy Hooper had been following him since the edge of town.

The man was patting Tara’s hand. Her eyes were closed and her head was tilted back slightly. She was holding a bloody handkerchief under her nose. Jake dropped to his knees.

“Tara,” he said, his voice soft. “It’s Jake Vernelli.”

She opened her pretty green eyes and started to sit up. “I’m okay,” she said, her voice muffled by the cloth.

Yeah, right. She had scratches on her legs and torn skin on her right knee. There were splotches of blood on her shirt that he hoped were from her nose. “Don’t move,” he said. Every cop knew some basic first aid. He reached for her wrist. Her pulse was strong and a little rapid but not horrible. He leaned closer and checked her pupils. Both the same. Both the right size.

“What injuries do you have?” he asked.

“Just scratches. Nothing much.” She looked over his shoulder. “Hi, Andy.”

“Thought you might need some backup, Chief,” Andy explained. “You okay, Tara? You look like my dog did the last time he mixed it up with a coon.”

Jake resisted the urge to rub out the pain that was gathering between his eyes. “What happened here?”

“I was running. A car coming toward me lost control, so I took the ditch.”

She said it as if it was no big deal. Jake could feel the coffee churning in his empty stomach. He looked over his shoulder at the man. “Who are you?”

Tara sat up. She pulled the handkerchief away from her nose and set it aside, without looking at it. “Jake, this is Gordon Jasper. He’s a good customer and was kind enough to loan me a handkerchief. Gordon, this is Jake Vernelli, our temporary police chief.”

He nodded at Gordon. “Did you see what happened?”

“I’d just crested the hill on my bike and saw Tara running ahead of me. A car was coming toward us. There was nothing unusual until suddenly the car swerved toward Tara. From where I was, I thought she’d been hit. I have to tell you, it was a relief to find her in one piece when I got here.”

Jake looked at Tara. “Did either of you get a license plate?”

“No,” Tara said.

“Me either,” Gordon added. “I got the hell off the road in case the idiot decided to take a swipe at me. I know it was white. A four-door. Maybe a Buick.”

“Man or woman driving?” Jake asked.

Gordon shrugged. “Sorry.”

Tara shook her head. Andy Hooper stood up. “It ain’t much but I’ll call it in. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Tara started to get up. He reached out a hand to help her, and after just the slightest hesitation she took it. Her touch was warm and soft, and he could feel his own heart start to beat a little fast. It jarred to a sudden stop when he saw the blood on the back of her head.

“Tara,” he said, letting her hand go and reaching to brace her arm. “Slow down. You’ve got a head injury.”

Her steps faltered. “I do?” She reached and patted her head. When she looked at her fingers and saw the blood on them, she turned white, and he was afraid she was going to faint.

He wrapped an arm around her. She felt fragile and vulnerable, and he wanted five minutes alone with the idiot who’d been too much of a damned coward to stop and help her. He stepped behind her and gently parted her hair. On the back of her skull, almost level with her ear, she had a bump and a small cut. There was quite a bit of blood, but he knew that head wounds bled more than almost any other part of the body. “It looks as if you might have sliced it on a rock. You’re going to be fine,” he said, wanting to reassure her. “The doctor may tell you that you don’t even need stitches.”

She turned to look at him. Her green eyes were big. “I’m not going to a doctor.”

“You could have a concussion,” he said. “You should be checked.”

“No.”

Hell. Scratch fragile and vulnerable. “Can I at least drive you home so that you can wash the blood off?” Once there, he’d take another look, and if he needed to, he’d throw her in the car and head for the nearest emergency room.

She swallowed hard. “That would be okay.” She looked at Gordon. “Can we give you a lift?”

“No, thanks. Can’t stand anything with an engine. Just glad to see you’re okay.” The two men, with Tara between them, walked up the hill. Jake kept his hand just inches away from her elbow, ready to catch her if she faltered.

Andy stood next to Jake’s car. “Got a hold of Lori Mae. Officers in the surrounding four counties will be looking for the vehicle.” He smiled at Tara. “I guess it’s a good thing Chief Vernelli decided to look for you.”

Tara stared at him. “Why did you do that?” she asked. Her tone wasn’t as friendly.

He could hardly tell her that from the moment she’d answered the door last night and tried to rearrange some of his favorite parts with her knee, he’d been thinking about her. That would make him seem like some kind of nut. “I’m a cop. It’s what we do.”

It took a minute but finally she gave him a halfhearted smile. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We started off on bad footing and I guess I haven’t regained my balance yet.”

Then they were even. He felt short of breath and a little light-headed himself. He opened the passenger door and motioned for Tara to sit. “Andy, I’ll give Tara a lift home. Go have breakfast with your grandfather.”

They drove the short distance to her house in silence. He barely had the car stopped before she opened the door and got out. He followed her up the steps and waited while she opened the screen door and unlocked the wooden door.

She turned. “Thank you.”

He was being dismissed. And he didn’t like it. She was pale and her hand wasn’t quite steady. “Maybe I should come in. What if you fall over in the shower?”

“I won’t.”

Given that he’d already forced his way into her house once, he stepped back and sat down on the cement step. “If you’re not out in fifteen minutes, all bets are off.”

She chewed on her lower lip. “Fair enough.” She pushed open the door. “Since you’re going to be here and all, could you make sure nobody else comes in while I’m in the shower?” It was an offhand request, made casually. Too casually, perhaps.

“You’re expecting someone?”

“No. But once Gordon gets to town, he might tell the story, and it wouldn’t be that odd for someone to come out and check on me.”

It sort of made sense. But there was something that wasn’t right. “Okay. Nobody gets past me.” He didn’t miss the relief in her eyes before she turned away.

Chapter Four

Thirteen minutes later, she unlocked the door and came out onto the porch. She was dressed in a blue jean skirt that showed off her tanned, well-toned legs—the bandage on her knee and the fresh scratches couldn’t even distract from their appeal. She wore a long-sleeved cotton shirt. She looked young and fresh and innocent, and it made him think that maybe he was crazy for suspecting that she was hiding something. His experience with Marcy had warped his judgment.

“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to the step. He separated her silky hair to take a look at the cut. Her skin, her hair, something, smelled like raspberries and he was afraid to breathe too deep, afraid that it would be a scent that he wouldn’t be able to easily shake.

The cut was a half-inch long. It had stopped bleeding and looked clean. “I think it’s okay.”

“Good.” She stood up. “I need to get to work. Janet has got to be going crazy.”

“While she and I didn’t have much time to get acquainted, I got the impression that Janet is pretty competent. Couldn’t she handle the place for a while so that you could rest?”

“I don’t need to rest. And you’re right. On a normal day, Janet could probably take care of the place with one hand tied behind her back. But we’re short a dishwasher and, more important, tomorrow is the town picnic. The Chamber of Commerce provides the meat and pays Nel’s to make the sandwiches. We’ve got over a hundred pounds of roast beef that needs to be cooked today so that we can slice it tomorrow for Italian beef sandwiches.”

Town picnic. Chase must have been really worried about his mother to have forgotten to mention that. A hundred pounds of beef meant a lot of sandwiches. Which probably meant that a whole lot of people were expected. “So what happens at this event?”

“Everyone gathers for a parade. Then there’s lunch in the park, some games for the kids, maybe some volleyball for the adults. By late afternoon, people drift off. There are lots of people in this community who still have milk cows, so they don’t have the luxury of missing chores.”

Cows. Chores. Town picnic. He was in the middle of a Norman Rockwell painting. All his debts to Chase were definitely going to be paid in full. He couldn’t wait to get home to his apartment, where he knew his neighbors by sight but he sure as hell didn’t spend any time talking to them.

“Any more thoughts about who might have been driving that car?” he asked.

“No.”

“It strikes me as somewhat of a coincidence that you get a baseball through your window last night and this morning you’re almost run off the road. Are you sure there’s nobody pissed off at you?”

She stared at him. “Look, I appreciate the help. Both last night and this morning. But I can’t imagine the two things have anything to do with one another. Last night was petty vandalism, and this morning it was an accident. The driver lost control, swerved, probably didn’t even see me. Now I really have to be going.”

Without another word, she walked to the garage and pulled her van out. When he motioned that he’d shut the garage door, she shook her head sharply, got out and did it herself. Then she waved her hand, making sure he understood that she expected him to leave first.

She couldn’t have made it any clearer. I don’t need or want you watching over me.

* * *

BY THE TIME Tara locked the restaurant’s door that afternoon, she was almost shaking with fatigue. She wasn’t surprised when she closed out the cash drawer that receipts were up almost twenty percent. The broken window had sparked plenty of interest, and by the time Gordon had told his tale around town, the lunch crowd had swelled to standing-room only.

Yes, I’ve got someone coming to fix the window.

Yes, I did take the ditch this morning.

I’m not sure either what this world is coming to.

Tara had refilled coffee cups and offered thick slices of strawberry rhubarb pie. One of her regulars offered her a dog. Said that he had a pit bull that could protect Nel’s and her, but then again, maybe not, because he wasn’t sure if the dog was a jogger.

Midafternoon, Janet had called her back to the kitchen because Chase Montgomery was on the phone. He’d expressed his concern about both the vandalism and the troubles on her morning run. Said that he’d spoken to Frank Johnson. She’d been touched that Chase had taken the time to call when clearly he had his own issues to deal with. She’d assured him she was fine and asked about his mom. “Tough days ahead” was all he’d said. He’d switched the topic quickly and had passed along the news that Chief Wilks was continuing to recover from his bypass surgery. That had led him to Jake.

“I’m grateful that Jake’s there to take care of things. I don’t know a better cop. Nothing gets past him.”

The words had rattled around in her head for the rest of the day. She needed supercop to look past her, to direct his attention on something else.

When she’d started imagining how convenient a bank robbery might be, she’d returned to the dining room and wiped off tables and trays and counters as if a health inspector had been spotted outside.

Now, hours later, she’d progressed from tired to truly exhausted. Her feet hurt and a dull pain had lodged itself in the middle of her back. The kitchen had been extra hot from the big ovens being on all day, making her shirt stick to her back and sweat gather between her breasts. When she cleaned the floor, the mop weighed a hundred pounds. To top it off, when she and Janet washed up the last of the pans, the normally taciturn woman surprised her by initiating conversation. Tara almost dropped the soup kettle on her foot.

“What do you think of the new police chief?” Janet asked.

“Seems nice,” she said. She turned on the water and rinsed the large pan again. She grabbed a clean white towel and vigorously rubbed dry the dull stainless steel.

“He was Johnny-on-the-spot to go looking for you this morning.”

And that had been nagging at her. In less than twelve hours, after Jake Vernelli had arrived in town, her business had been vandalized and she’d almost been killed. Could it really be as simple as just a streak of bad luck? Or had her luck truly run out? Had Michael found her? And was he somehow connected to the new police chief?

Nobody in Wyattville knew about Michael. When she’d first arrived in town, the trauma had been too fresh. Then, as her body healed and her mind cleared, she’d decided that the only way to protect herself was to make sure that no one, especially not the police who had betrayed her once before, could know the truth.

And up until now, it had been easy. Joanna Travis had vanished and Tara Thompson had appeared.

But Jake Vernelli made her nervous.

At midmorning, he’d shown up at the restaurant and had coffee with Frank Johnson. It had rattled her to have him at the counter. He’d watched her. Hadn’t mentioned the accident again, but she’d known that every time another customer had asked about it, he’d listened to her answer.

Had he been trying to see if her story would change?

It hadn’t. She’d told him the truth. The car had swerved, she’d reacted and hit the ground hard. The impact had stunned her, taken her breath away. She’d sat up as quickly as possible but by then the car was already over the next hill.

She’d caught only a glimpse of the driver before taking the ditch; he or she had worn a hat pulled low over the face. Maybe it had been an elderly person. Maybe someone coming home from third shift at the county hospital, and they’d fallen asleep and awakened at the last moment. There was no way to know if it had been Michael.

Michael Watson Masterly, the third. Of the New York Masterlys. Old money. Politically connected. Mean.

But she hadn’t known any of that the night she’d met Michael at the governor’s fundraiser. She’d been working. He’d been friendly and funny, and when he’d relentlessly pursued her for weeks afterward, she’d been naive enough to believe that she was living a fairy tale. Six months after they’d met, they were living together and she’d been planning their wedding. Three months later, she’d been running for her life.

If Jake Vernelli was working with Michael, then he’d stop at nothing short of killing her. If he wasn’t, he was still dangerous. If he looked too close, he was going to see that her life was a house of cards, and she was only one pull away from having it collapse.

* * *

AT NINE THE NEXT MORNING, Tara wiped her face with a paper towel. On her way to work, she’d enjoyed the clear blue sky and brilliant sun. Now, just three hours later, the temperature outside had soared to ninety and was well over a hundred degrees in the kitchen.

The hottest summer in fifty-five years. The television weather forecasters droned on about it. In Minnesota, where summers for the most part lasted about two months and a hot day was in the mideighties, fourteen straight days of over ninety-degree temperatures had everyone’s attention. People didn’t talk about anything else.

Except for the past couple of days, they’d squeezed in a little conversation about the town picnic. Held every June fifteenth for the past hundred and ten years, the picnic brought the town together. Over five hundred people would gather at Washington Park, the two acres of land at the edge of Wyattville. Stories would be retold, recipes traded, new babies shown off and massive amounts of food consumed.

Since early morning, she and Janet had been slicing the meat they’d cooked the day before. The Lions Club would have three large roasters available to keep the meat warm so that it could be piled high onto fresh buns and topped with sautéed green peppers. Other volunteers would have fired up a few grills, and there’d soon be hot dogs and hamburgers sizzling. Each family that attended would bring a dish to pass. There would be lemonade and iced tea and big barrels of cold beer. No one would go away hungry.

The parade would mostly consist of tractors pulling hay wagons—decorated with crepe paper and plastic streamers—that could seat the mayor, city council members or anybody else remotely considered Somebody. Each would have a big bag of candy at his or her side, and they’d throw handfuls out along the way, and small children along the parade route would scramble for the loot.

Boy and Girl Scout troops would march, proudly carrying flags. Wyattville didn’t have its own high school. Kids were bused to Bluemond, twenty-five miles away. The payback came at parade time when Bluemond’s seventy-five-person band showed up. The parade started a block north of Nel’s, so for the past half hour Tara had listened to a haphazard medley of blaring horns, whistling flutes and pounding drums as the kids nervously waited to begin marching.

At 10:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before the parade was to start, Tara locked the front door. Normally on a Friday, the last lunch special wouldn’t be served until sometime around two but no one expected that today. Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day might be national holidays but in Wyattville, it was the town picnic that garnered universal observance.

Under one arm she carried two lawn chairs, one for her and one for Janet. The older woman had left a few minutes earlier to supervise sandwich making.

For most of the morning, Tara had been too busy to worry about broken windows or hit-and-run drivers. Now that her work was done and the rest of the day stretched before her, she was determined not to dwell on what-ifs but rather to focus on sunshine, silly games and the simple pleasure of dangling her bare feet in the spring-fed pond.

At last year’s picnic, she’d been so new and so edgy that the loud, unexpected burps of noise from the tractors had practically had her jumping out of her skin. Janet had been insistent, though, and she’d somehow managed to draw up her lawn chair and while away the afternoon hours with her new customers and neighbors. And looking back, she knew that was the day when the healing had started.

The people of Wyattville had opened their arms and their hearts, and she’d found a place to call home. Day by day, she’d gotten both mentally and physically stronger. She’d started sleeping at night and stopped her steady diet of antacid pills. The small town had healed her.

Tara stopped at the very edge of Washington Park and unfolded her lawn chair. She waved to several customers and they waved back. It wasn’t until she’d sat down that she saw him.

Six feet of pure muscle. Before her nightmare with Michael began, she’d have appreciated this man’s long legs, trim waist, broad chest. She might even have joked with coworkers about his fine rear end and speculated about other attributes. But now, with his pressed uniform, hat and shiny black shoes, he all but screamed cop, and it made her stomach cramp up in fear.

His stance was comfortable as he confronted a carload of teenagers who’d decided that the barricade across the road clearly didn’t apply to them. But she wasn’t fooled. He didn’t carry himself like a cop who’d gotten soft working a desk and doing the occasional crowd control. No, definitely not. And he’d certainly handled his gun last night as if it was an extension of his arm.

Was it as simple as it all sounded? Had he really come to Wyattville to help his old friend? But who had the kind of job that they could just up and leave at any time for six weeks to go work somewhere else? No. There was more to the story.

And she loved a good story. Got jazzed piecing information together. There’d been few who were as good at re-creating a series of events that made sense.

Whether it was covering a political campaign, a murder trial or the transgressions of the big banks, she’d loved being a reporter. Loved seeing the results of her work on the newsstand. Loved the editorial deadlines, even loved the notoriously bad coffee in the break room.

But that was a long time ago. Now she needed to keep a low profile. She needed to stay out of Chief Vernelli’s way and if she couldn’t manage that, she needed to make darn sure that she was at the top of her game. She couldn’t afford to slip up, to give him any reason to look at her closer.

She angled her chair, just enough that he was in her peripheral vision but not enough that he’d catch her eye. She bought a watery lemonade from two young girls and was relieved when the first floats came by. She was clapping for the Wyattville fire truck and volunteer fire department when a shadow blocked out the hot sun.

She twisted her body so quickly that one side of her lawn chair lifted off the ground, and she would have crashed to the side if a strong hand hadn’t steadied her.

“Careful,” he said.

“Chief Vernelli,” she managed.

He glanced at the bandage on her knee. “Bumps and bruises getting better?”

She nodded and prayed that he’d move along. Instead, he spread his legs, shifted his weight back onto his heels, hooked his thumbs in the loops of his belt and watched the parade like it was Thanksgiving Day and he had a boatload of stock invested in Macy’s.

She ignored him, and he appeared as if it didn’t bother him in the least. When the funeral home director and his family rode by on a float decorated as a coffin, the crowd was peppered with wrapped caramels. Jake reached a long arm up and easily caught a piece. He tossed it in Tara’s lap.

“It’s your candy,” Tara protested.

He shrugged. “I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. I’d arm-wrestle you over a bag of potato chips, though.”

More proof that he wasn’t normal. She unwrapped the candy and popped it in her mouth as the last tractor belched and snorted its way past. Tara stood up and folded her lawn chair.

“What’s next?” Jake asked.

I watch to see what direction you go in and make a mad dash in the other. “Lunch. Then we’ll head for the shade and rest our stomachs until the games begin.”

“I saw the dunk tank getting set up,” he said.

“The chief of police would be a big draw,” she suggested.

“Too bad I’m on duty.” He smiled and she felt the answering lurch in her stomach. He was a handsome man. Might even be charming.

She edged away. “Given how hot it is, there will likely be plenty of volunteers. I may even try it myself.” She turned and started walking. “I better hurry. Janet might need me,” she lied.

* * *

FORTUNATELY FOR JAKE, Tara didn’t get into the dunk tank. Breasts and cold beer were both good things. However, when the breasts were covered by a tight white T-shirt that suddenly became transparent, routine crowd control could quickly get ugly.

She did, however, play volleyball. Jake had stood off to the side, made small talk with those who wanted to get to know the new chief and discreetly watched the game. What Tara lacked in skill, she made up for in enthusiasm. Bending, stretching, lunging. She didn’t do anything overtly over the top to attract attention, but when Jake scanned the crowd he saw several young men with their tongues almost hanging out.

Was it possible that her recent trouble had something to do with a rejected lover? He’d asked who she’d pissed off. Maybe the question should have been, Who have you dumped lately?

When the game ended, he watched to see who approached her. Several of the young men did, but with each she seemed casually comfortable. She didn’t do much more than exchange a quick greeting with any of them until one too-thin, long-faced guy approached. He wore faded jeans and a white wife-beater T-shirt that revealed tattoos spread across both biceps. He was smoking a cigarette.

She looked surprised to see him. Then she motioned for the man to follow her, stopping when they were a distance from the volleyball court and anyone else who might hear the conversation. He talked, she mostly listened.

Then the man dropped his cigarette and with more force than necessary, used the heel of his boot to grind it into the dirt. When Jake saw Tara frown, shake her head and turn away, only to be stopped by the man’s hand on her arm, he moved fast.

“Problem?” he asked, when he reached Tara’s side.

The man dropped his hand and stepped back.

“No. No problem,” she said quickly.

He didn’t buy it. “You two seemed to be having a pretty heated conversation,” he said, staring at the man.

Tara stepped forward. “It was nothing,” she said. She pushed her hair back from her face. “This is Donny Miso,” she added. “Donny, Chief Vernelli.”

The man didn’t say anything and he stared at the ground. Close up, Jake could see that his hair was dirty, he hadn’t shaved for a couple days and the dark circles under his eyes pointed to more than a few sleepless nights.

He looked a little desperate. And normally Jake had some sympathy for people who had reached the end of their rope. But he had no sympathy for a man who used his strength to dominate a woman, to force her.

“Donny, I think you better move on,” he said.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Donny said.

“Then we want the same thing. Tara, I think Janet was looking for you. I’ll walk you back that direction.”

Without another word, Donny walked away. When he was almost out of sight, Jake turned to Tara. “Does he want his job back?”

“No. But the weird part is, he doesn’t have anything else. I don’t know what’s going on with him. I think he’s just so mad that his life isn’t what he thought it was going to be. He probably needs counseling, but he couldn’t afford to keep his health insurance after his real job ended. I’m worried about him.”

“You think he could have had anything to do with the damage at the restaurant or with you being forced off the road yesterday?”

“I don’t think he’s mad at me. Just at life.”

Even so, Jake made a mental note to have another conversation with Donny before the day ended.

“Excuse me,” Tara said. “I need to find Janet.”

She walked back toward the crowd and he waited several minutes before following. He found the women easily enough and wasn’t surprised to see that Nicholi had managed to get his chair next to Janet’s.

Tara had flopped down in the grass next to Nicholi’s lawn chair, her legs stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankles. Sand still clung to her tanned legs and bare feet. Her toenails were painted a bright red, and while he’d never considered himself to have a foot fetish, there was something incredibly sexy about her ten toes.

She leaned back on her arms, her head thrown back, her face raised to catch the sun. Jake pulled the collar of his shirt away from his throat and swallowed hard.

She was a perfect match to bright sunshine and blue skies. To sweet, juicy watermelon and ice-cold lemonade.

“How was the volleyball?” Nicholi asked.

“Exhausting. But I think I worked off your cheesy potatoes, Janet. Thank goodness Alice wasn’t here with her cherry pie. Both would have done me in.”

Nicholi put up a hand to shade his eyes from the bright sun. “I can’t remember a year that Alice and Henry missed the town picnic.”

Tara nodded. “I know. They left early yesterday to go see their son. Bill’s getting married soon, you know.”

Janet made some kind of grunting noise. “I wonder if Alice will finally be satisfied. She’s been pushing that boy to get married for years. Lord knows she worked hard enough to match up the two of you.”

Now that was interesting. Jake moved a step closer.

“Afternoon, Chief,” Nicholi said.

Tara’s eyes flew open and she jerked upright so fast that Jake thought she might have popped a vertebrae. But she was prevented from saying anything by the sudden arrival of Andy.

“Come on, Tara,” the young man said. “It’s time for the sack races. I need a partner.”

She moaned. “Volleyball almost killed me.”

“You’ve been saving potato sacks for months. You’re the closest thing we have to a corporate sponsor.”

The idea of her putting that sexy bare leg up against some other man’s was unexpectedly revolting. Jake took another step forward. “I was hoping Tara would be my partner.”

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