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“Do I need a reason? Aren’t people free to wander the country anywhere and anytime they please?”
“You just don’t strike me as a wanderer.”
She felt defiance growing in her chest and in the stiffening of her spine. “You are very much a sheriff, however, and if I haven’t broken some obscure law peculiar to Hunter’s Bay, I’d like to get back to my room for a nap.”
The sheriff’s chuckle was a mixture of amusement and menace. “You seem very much on the defensive for someone who’s wandering around and just happened to stumble over our little hamlet.”
“I don’t remember saying that I came here by accident.”
His eyes darkened, piercing her.
“So do you mind telling me just what brings you to Hunter’s Bay, Ms.... Stacy.”
Maybe she was blowing any chance of enlisting his help but Stacy just couldn’t resist. “What else, Sheriff? I’m an artist. I came here for the scenery.”
She didn’t realize she was baldly staring at him until he leaned forward and almost whispered, “And are you enjoying what you see, Stacy?”
She blinked. He was close enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath on her face. His eyes were focused on her mouth, as though he wanted to see her answer. Read my lips, she thought, smiling inwardly at the clichéd expression, so appropriate in this case.
She thought if she ever had a chance to draw him, she’d want to do it in pastels, capturing in the soft chalk, the gold tones in his hair, the blue eyes that seemed to gray with each change of mood, the jut of his jaw, the fullness of his lips. She’d use her fingertips to soften and highlight, to mold the chalk to define each bone in his finely shaped chin and cheekbones, the landscape of his rugged face.
“Would you like to model for me?” she murmured.
He sat back, as if surprised at her request.
“With or without clothing?” he asked with a wry grin.
“With or without,” she said, feeling the breath catch in her throat. She had a feeling Derek Chancelor could be dangerous, both as a sheriff and as a man.
He drank beer and frankly returned her gaze. “I tell you what, Stacy Millman, you tell me, here and now, the real reason you’ve come to Hunter’s Bay, and I’ll take off my clothes for you right out there in the village square.”
Chapter Three
Morning was shrouded in gray, a heavy fog coming off the river to diminish visibility and turn buildings and trees to phantom shapes. Not a day for painting and certainly not for driving. Stacy’s restlessness drove her out of the inn on foot, hoping the damp, fresh air would clear the cobwebs of a dream-haunted sleep.
Not to mention the exchange with Derek Chancelor in the bar. God, but the man was attractive. And wouldn’t I just love to see him stripping in the town square. Talk about your incentive to win a point!
It would be very easy to forget he was the sheriff and concentrate on his earthy maleness. She didn’t meet many men like him in New York, that was certain. The men she knew, were career-absorbed or, the other extreme, looking for a free ride. They didn’t seem to know how to handle the recent liberation of women. Did the city itself bring out the worst in men or had she just been unlucky in her associations?
She realized that as much as she loved New York it had a brutal quality that might rub off on people who weren’t strong enough to resist it. She supposed that a small town like this one might be a good place to find serenity, at least during the day when she was awake.
But walking the eerily silent streets, unable to see more than a few feet in front of her, she began to feel an unease that resonated the same quality as her dreams. She seemed to be the only person out in the fog and yet she had a strange sensation of being observed. She found herself frequently looking over her shoulder, listening for ghostly footsteps. She’d walked only a few blocks but she felt disoriented, not sure in which direction she’d left the inn, nor which way to turn to find her way back.
The promise of a leisurely stroll forgotten, Stacy picked up her pace, desperate to find her way out of the fog, out of the isolation and the silence that seemed as heavy as the fog itself.
A lighted street lamp loomed up suddenly, and though its rays were only able to penetrate a limited stretch of mist, Stacy cried out in relief. She had obviously come to the beginning of the small business section. There would be people, lights, noise.
But the first store that appeared out of the gloom was dark and deserted; a sign in the window read Open June 1. The same was true of the next two shops she passed and she felt a heightening of her discomfort.
“It’s a damned ghost town,” she muttered, peering through a storefront window at the dark shapes within.
“Twilight zone,” she cried aloud in frustration when the next shop turned out to be vacant, a For Rent sign on the door.
She realized she’d come to the end of the block as her foot slipped off a curb. She started across the street, the fog enveloping her like a curtain. She wanted to run but her limited vision made her move warily, afraid of falling, of bumping into something. Or someone.
She stopped and wiped dampness from her face with the sleeve of her denim jacket. Being lost in the fog, alone in what appeared to be a deserted town, she mustn’t let her imagination become grist for the mill of fear.
She began to walk again and then stopped, her heart suddenly lurching in her chest. Were those footsteps she heard echoing behind her own? She turned around but could see nothing.
“Hello?” Her voice wavered and she called out again, louder, more authoritatively.
There was no answer. She took a few steps forward. “Is someone there?” Her question met with silence.
Without more thought she turned and began to run, heedless of any danger that might lie in front of her, only conscious of that which might be at her heels.
She stumbled on a curb but righted herself and kept running, positive she could hear footsteps pounding the pavement behind her.
The brightly lit drugstore was like an oasis in the desert. With a last burst of fright-induced adrenaline, Stacy threw herself at the front door and flung it open.
* * *
DEREK RAISED HIS GAZE from his newspaper as the door of the drugstore flew open and Stacy Millman rushed in, looking as if the hounds of hell were pursuing her. Her complexion was ashen, her green eyes darkened to near-black, and strands of her red hair, pulled loose from a ponytail, fell in wet tendrils down her cheeks.
Derek started to rise, to go to her to see if she needed help, but almost immediately she ran forward and sank onto the first stool at the soda fountain, brushing her hair back with one shaky hand, reaching with the other into her jacket pocket for tissues.
Still unaware of his presence, she wiped her face, blew her nose and looked over her shoulder at the front door. As if she were expecting someone to come in after her, he thought.
The damp strands of hair that drifted down her neck and across her cheek were already beginning to dry into curls, softening her profile, giving her an old-fashioned look that was contradicted by her denim jeans outfit and scruffy sneakers.
Contradictions seemed to be her specialty, he mused, thinking of the way she’d arrived in town, the reaction of the Hunters, her answers to his questions. Was she the lost waif she’d seemed in the hospital or the feisty independent big-city gal she’d portrayed in the bar? Was she truly here as an artist, planning to capitalize on the beauty of the Minnesota countryside, or did she have a hidden agenda as the Hunters feared? And did that agenda have something to do with MacroData?
If so, that would make her a threat to the entire county and to his determination to see it regain financial security. So far they didn’t have the problems of homelessness that afflicted the bigger Minnesota cities, but he knew for a fact that the county’s welfare budget was being stretched to its limit, and for the first time in memory, his office was having to serve eviction notices on people who couldn’t pay their rents or mortgages. Maybe that was why he’d never followed through on any of the feelers the other law enforcement agencies had sent in his direction. And maybe that was why he was so anxious to find out if Stacy Millman could bring havoc down on the community. He realized his thoughts had come full circle.
He shook his head. She had an amazing effect on him, stirring his libido one minute, his mistrust the next.
His movement caught her attention and she turned her head, her expression registering recognition, though not warmth.
“You okay?” he called.
She looked hesitant and then nodded, her expression noncommittal. She glanced around and he saw she was looking for a server.
He could have told her that Mavis had run over to the county jail to bring the prisoners lunch. Or he could have called out to Dexter, the druggist who was dozing up on his perch in the pharmacy room at the back of the store. Instead he got up and went around the counter, picking up the coffeepot on his way to Stacy’s place at the other end.
“Coffee?” he asked politely, his tone impersonal.
“Moonlighting?” Her proclivity for sassiness didn’t deter her thirst. She uprighted the mug that sat at the edge of the paper place mat and lifted it to him.
“Just doing a favor for a friend,” he said, taking the opportunity to study her face at close range as he filled her cup. She’d definitely had a scare of some kind. The kind that would be the business of the sheriff? Probably not, or she’d have said something by now. Or maybe, as seemed to be normal for her, he’d have to work through her machinations before he got a straight answer from her on this score, too.
He put the pot down, jutted one hip against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “If you’re hungry I can get you something from the pastry case. Anything more complicated, you’ll have to wait for Mavis to get back.”
She shook her head, her ponytail waving girlishly. She had her hands around the mug, as though warming them, and was inhaling the aromatic steam before taking the first sip. Derek grinned. “Enjoying our weather, Ms. Millman?”
She shrugged visibly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen fog like that. Do you have many days like this?”
Derek shrugged. “It’s the price we pay for living along the river, especially in spring. But if the sun comes out it’ll burn off the fog and it’ll be as though it had never happened.”
“Gone, but not forgotten,” Stacy muttered, shuddering again.
Derek frowned. “It’s only vapor. It couldn’t have bothered you that much, surely?”
She leveled a strange look at him. “You weren’t there.”
“Something spook you, Stacy?” He made an effort to put sympathy into his tone, hoping she’d relax and open up to him.
She put her cup down and shook her head again. “Just my own imagination, I guess. But I had the weirdest feeling of being lost and...followed.”
Derek refilled her cup. Perhaps he was better off not knowing what had shaken her up.
“Pretty hard to get lost in a town this size.” He hesitated a moment and then added, “And how could someone follow you in that pea soup? Hard to see a foot in front of you this morning.”
Her laugh was mirthless. “Yeah. Like I said, my imagination.”
“Unless...?”
Stacy stared at him as the word hung in the air between them. He could see the belligerence rise in her, making her eyes steely, jutting her jaw, thinning her lips.
“Unless what, Sheriff?”
“Unless you’ve made an enemy in town?”
The absurdity of his question struck him the moment the words were out. She’d been in town less than two days and had spent one of them in a hospital. He laughed, embarrassed.
She, apparently, didn’t see the humor.
“So far you’re the best candidate in that department, Derek Chancelor.”
He sobered.
“I’m only an enemy if you get on the wrong side of the law.” He waited a beat and then added, “Or if you’re a threat to my community.”
Irritation rose in Stacy. Was this guy always so suspicious, always looking for threat where there was none? Did it go with the territory or was it paranoia, a facet of his personality?
“Listen, Sheriff,” she snapped, “I’ve told you why I’m here, who I am, what I do. Which part of that didn’t you understand?”
“The part you left out.”
Stacy grinned behind her coffee cup and let her eyelashes flutter flirtatiously. “Oh yeah, I forgot. Well, you see, it’s like this, Derek. I had to come see for myself, because all they’re talking about in New York is this gorgeous young sheriff in the boondocks of Minnesota, secure, single, and...heterosexual?”
The sheriff flushed and Stacy almost regretted her mischievous sense of humor.
His retort proved him equal to her wicked tongue.
“Yes to all of the above and, as to the heterosexual part, well, Ms. Millman, that’s something you’ll have to prove to your own satisfaction.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m off duty at six. Do you want to proceed with your investigation then?”
“Touché,” she said, laughing. She lifted her cup as if to toast his response. On impulse she decided the ice was broken between them, that this might be a good time to enlist his help.
She gestured to the stool on her left. “Why don’t you join me and I’ll tell you the deep dark secret of my mission.”
He looked skeptical for a moment but then nodded. She watched him walk away to replace the coffeepot.
Nice butt. She smiled, thinking of how Beth would react to him. Beth would notice the broad shoulders, too, and the way he sort of swaggered when he walked.
But you’re not Beth, so give it up, Millman. This guy could go either way, friend or foe, and mixing it up with him could definitely get you into trouble.
He went around the counter to retrieve his own coffee mug and newspaper before joining her.
“Why don’t you start by telling me why the Hunter family is in a snit over your arrival in town,” Derek said, as he sat down on the adjacent stool.
“The Hunters?” She had to think a minute. “You mean those senior citizens who did the twenty-questions routine at the hospital?”
“The same.”
“Why...I don’t know...what do you mean?”
She was thoroughly taken aback. Or she’s a hell of an actress, Derek thought.
“I can’t imagine why anyone would be concerned by my arrival.” Stacy hesitated. An image of Pam’s reaction to her signature came to mind. Could her name, alone, be raising questions in the locals’ minds?
“But on the other hand, maybe it all makes sense.”
She told him why she’d come to Hunter’s Bay: the images she’d painted into her pictures, the dreams, the feeling that she had unfinished business in the town in which she’d been born but had lived for only the first three years of her life.
“And I guess I need to know something more about my parents’ life here,” she finished.
Derek was still sifting through all she’d told him. “Your parents. The Millmans?”
Stacy nodded, holding her breath.
Derek shook his head. “I was born here. I don’t recall ever hearing that name before.”
Stacy expelled her breath on a sigh, disappointed. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
She figured in her head. “You’d only have been about seven years old when we left. Maybe you’ve just forgotten.”
Derek shrugged. “Maybe. But why the big mystery? If what you’ve told me is true, why should the Hunters react to you as a stranger and make no mention of recognizing your name?”
