Finding You

by Carla Neggers

  Give the lady time to sort things out, he thought.

  But he couldn’t let her stop him.

  “So that’s why you’re in Vermont,” she said without drama. She swore out loud, coming to life. “All right. That’s it. Either you tell me what in the hell’s going on here or I’m calling the police and having you arrested for breaking and entering.”

  A cold wind was whipping up strange sounds in the orchard, rustles and creaks and the unfamiliar cries of nocturnal animals. Vermont, Daniel thought, could give a man the creeps.

  “I’m just here,” he said, “to find out if the Vanackerns or your brother know anything about what happened to my helicopter.”

  “You think—” She had to gulp for air. “You bastard—you think Seth sabotaged your helicopter, don’t you?”

  “I haven’t come to any conclusions.”

  “But your partner saw Seth with Julia Vanackern, and the two of you figured he must know something or be responsible. Why?”

  Daniel hung onto his calm. “Not the two of us. J.D. thinks I’m chasing dust. He thinks I’m responsible.”

  “Are you?”

  He knew what she was asking: did he know, in his gut, that there’d been no sabotage? Was he picking on her brother because he couldn’t admit his own guilt? “I was the pilot,” he said. “That makes me responsible.”

  “You don’t like to make mistakes,” she said.

  “Not that kind of mistake.”

  “I know my brother. You don’t. He couldn’t have sabotaged your helicopter. He wouldn’t do something like that.”

  Daniel sighed. It was so cold his breath formed a cloud in front of his mouth. “Maybe he wouldn’t. But I still need to talk to him about what he was doing in Texas.”

  “Fine. Go ahead.” She shoved her hands even deeper into her field coat pockets—probably as much an attempt to control her anger as to stay warm.

  “What are you doing up here?” he asked.

  “Looking at the stars,” she said evasively, turning back.

  The stars, Daniel had to admit, were worth looking at against the dark Vermont sky. But the sky was dark down the road, too. He had the feeling Cozie Hawthorne wasn’t telling him the truth.

  “You walked up?” she asked. “Or do you have your truck hidden in the bushes?”

  “I walked.”

  “Well, I’m not leaving you here to lie in wait for Seth. Get in the Jeep. I’ll give you a ride back to the sawmill.”

  “You’d think you’d busted your head against enough brick walls for one day.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means,” he said, following her to her Jeep, “if I don’t choose to let you drive me back, there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.”

  She cast him a long, unworried look. “Is that a threat, Major Foxworth?”

  “An observation.”

  “I’d call the police.”

  If he let her into Seth’s house. But she seemed pretty confident she could handle him, and Daniel wasn’t going to doubt her. Who knew what else besides skunks and wheelbarrows the Hawthornes had handy. He smiled. “I’d love a ride, Ms. Cozie.”

  He got into the Jeep beside her. She took the twisting dirt road fast. Daniel reminded himself this was her territory. She would know every curve, every rock in the road. Either that or she was really pissed off and scared and just didn’t give a damn if they ended up flipping over a stone wall.

  They didn’t meet a single car out on Hawthorne Orchard Road. Daniel noticed tangles in her hair, thought of himself easing them out with his fingers, one by one. He noticed the slender shape of her hands as they gripped the battered steering wheel.

  As they approached the sawmill, he said, “You can go on to your house and drop me off there. I’ll walk on back.”

  “Why?” She sounded suspicious. “You think Seth’s there?”

  “Cozie, I was with you last night when you found that note on your windshield. I heard your caller this afternoon, I saw your log—I’d like to make sure you get home all right.”

  “None of that has anything to do with my brother.”

  “I didn’t say it did.”

  Silence. She stepped hard on the gas, raced past the sawmill, and shot up her driveway. Daniel got out, patting Zep on the head, but Cozie just marched to the back porch without a word.

  “You shouldn’t stay here alone,” he said, following her.

  She looked around at him. “I’ll be fine. I’ve lived on this road almost my whole life.”

  He tried to imagine it. “I guess you’re in no mood to listen to me right now. I don’t blame you. But if you need me, you know where to find me.”

  “Thank you.” Stiffly polite. As if she couldn’t ever fathom needing him.

  “And if you do see your brother—”

  “I’ll tell him everything.”

  “Go ahead. Then ask him about his trip to Texas.”

  Daniel could tell it galled her that she hadn’t known about it. She straightened. “Good night.”

  She grabbed Zep’s dish off the landing and tore open the back door, and Daniel waited, not moving, as she dug into a monstrous bag of dog food just inside the porch. She came back outside and plopped the dish unceremoniously onto the landing, to Zep’s apparent disinterest.

  Strands of hair had fallen into her face. She was breathing hard as she squinted at Daniel in the darkness. “You’re still here?”

  “I’m waiting until you’re inside.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know I don’t. Zep staying out here?”

  She shook her head. She seemed calmer, or at least not as angry. “I’ll bring him in with me.”

  “Good.”

  “I—thank you for giving a damn that I’m okay up here.”

  “I do give a damn. But you might not want to thank me for it.”

  He climbed onto the landing with her, and he could see her confusion of emotions, felt his own. Stars glittered overhead and nearby trees creaked and groaned in the sharp wind. Cozie could have ducked onto the porch and slammed the door in his face. But she didn’t. Nor did she jump back when he touched her mouth, first with two fingers, then with his lips. The taste of her warmed him. He almost didn’t feel the wind.

  She brushed his cheek with her fingertips.

  Her mouth opened into his, and he eased his tongue between her soft lips, tasted even more of her. A thundering ache swept through him. He wanted this woman. Badly. Her quick wit, her unfettered anger, her optimism, her wild hair and the soft swell of her breasts and the changeable eyes—everything about her captivated him, aroused him.

  But she didn’t trust him.

  How the hell could she?

  “It would be easy,” she whispered as if reading his mind, “so easy just to invite you inside. But I can’t. I don’t trust myself right now.”

  He understood. The temptation was to dive into the physical. To let herself be carried away with it. To avoid thinking. But Cozie Hawthorne was a woman who resisted temptation. She would have to think. Before she climbed into bed with him, she would have to know it was right.

  And knowing that about her made Daniel want her all the more.

  But he said, “Good night, Cozie,” and started back down her dark driveway. He heard her soft call for her dog, the creak as she pulled her back door shut, and he wondered what rock he’d turned over in her life by coming to Hawthorne Orchard Road.

  Chapter

  8

  A hard, killing frost always came earlier than Cozie expected, and before she could get to work the next morning, she had to dig her scraper out of the toolshed to get the frost off her windshield. Her Hawthorne forebears—even the car owners among them—had never seen fit to build a garage.

  Because she refused to wear gloves until November first, she kept switching back and forth between hands as she scraped her windshield. She kept the free hand in the pocket of the teal-colored wool blazer she’d t
hrown on over a matching silk sweater. She was using her short-handled scraper. The long-handled scraper with the attached brush she didn’t break out until the first measurable snow.

  She wondered if there was a commentary in these mindless little pre-winter rituals.

  “Yes,” she said aloud, “the brain is working again.”

  There had been no anonymous message waiting on her answering machine when she got in last night. That had helped calm her down. So had drinking a glass of milk and taking an objective look at what she’d had thrown at her on one long, trying day. Her new tenant was a rich Texan out for blood—possibly her brother’s blood. Seth had been in Texas when said rich Texan’s helicopter went down, nearly killing him and his partner.

  Seth and Julia Vanackern had some sort of relationship that had prompted him to go to Texas in the first place.

  He hadn’t told either of his sisters about his trip.

  The Vanackerns thought he might be stealing from them.

  On top of which, her tormentor was in Vermont and getting frighteningly bold.

  Cozie could admit her brother’s behavior did provoke questions, but they were questions, she felt, that he’d be able to answer, given the chance.

  Her milk finished, she’d gone up to bed. Imagining Daniel Foxworth under her comforter with her instead of her crowbar had not helped calm her. But she had, eventually, slept.

  Now she had her day planned. She would spend the morning in the office and reacquaint herself with her job and her staff and her life as she’d once known it. She would look up Seth and have a serious heart-to-heart with him about the Vanackerns and one rich Texan who was after his hide. What her brother told her would determine whether or not she marched down to her sawmill and packed Daniel Foxworth’s things for him. She had no intention of bothering with the finery of an eviction notice.

  Leaning over the hood, she attacked the middle of the windshield. Her fingers were red and stiff with the cold. She had refused to drag out her winter coat because it was supposed to get up into the fifties later, even if the thermometer in her kitchen window indicated it was below freezing. She hurried around to the other side of the Jeep, anxious to get the job done.

  Something moved inside.

  She went still, her fingers tightening around the scraper. Zep was off in the fields. Her crowbar was upstairs in her bed. She stepped back away from the Jeep. She could, she thought, run down the driveway and flag a passing car. If she had to, she could beeline for the toolshed and have her pick of weapons.

  But the passenger window creaked down, and Daniel Foxworth said, “You know, Ms. Cozie, there’s a nice little Firebird somewhere in your future.”

  Her relief was immediate and lasted just long enough for him to pry open the door and unfold himself from the confines of her Jeep. She glared at him. “Now what?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, his hair sticking up in odd places, his shirt untucked, his leather jacket open—and the effect unreasonably sexy. “I had it in my mind to protect you from intruders.”

  “I have a dog for that,” she said.

  His mouth twisted, she couldn’t tell whether in amusement or what. “Zep might alert you to an intruder. I’d deal with an intruder.”

  “How long have you been out here?”

  “Just since dawn. Couldn’t sleep.”

  Because he was worried about her—or because he was afraid he’d miss something? “Looks to me as if all your macho inclinations got you was a rough night. Which, I might add, serves you right. Don’t think I’m going to thank you—”

  “Now why would I think that?” His sarcasm was unmistakable. He picked what appeared to be a Zep hair off his chin. Dark stubble had erupted over his jawline, adding to his overall air of earthy sensuality. “I’ll bet you’re hell on men, Ms. Cozie. Any anonymous phone calls last night?”

  “No. Now move aside and let me finish. I’ve got to get to work. Some of us still have to work for a living, you know.”

  Ignoring her halfhearted jibe, he shut the passenger door and leaned against it, one leg bent, arms folded over his chest. “That little ice scraper of yours wouldn’t hold me off for long if I had a mind to come at you. You keep a gun in the house?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “You don’t have locks for your door. What if someone snuck in during the night?”

  “No one ever has,” she said.

  “No one’s ever left nasty notes on your windshield either.”

  She let him stand there while she leaned over and resumed scraping. Despite the clear, cold morning, clouds were due to roll in later in the day, with a forecast of evening showers.

  “Cozie, you’re no longer just a small-town journalist. You’re a national celebrity. Your life has changed. Someone here in this area—very likely someone you know—is trying to scare you. You can’t go on pretending nothing’s happened.”

  “I’m not.” She shook the icy frost off her scraper. “I’ve taken up sleeping with a crowbar.”

  She knew her mistake at once. She could feel Daniel’s presence close behind her. “Well, now,” he murmured, “that’s something we could work on.”

  The man was impossible. Lecturing her with all sincerity one minute and melting her bones with his sandpaper drawl the next. She went around to the driver’s side of the Jeep and tore open the door, determined to stick to her plan. Office, work, normal life. Those were her priorities for the day. And, of course, finding Seth and talking to him.

  “Bugs you, doesn’t it?” Daniel addressed her over the rusting, pitted roof of the Jeep. “Bugs you that in spite of my being everything that scares you, you still wish I’d come over there and kiss you.”

  “Your arrogance astounds me, Major Foxworth.” And it did, but it also intrigued her. She’d never met a man quite like him. “You need a shower. And I need to get moving.”

  But he was already around the Jeep, taking her by the elbow before she could get behind the wheel. She thought, that’s it, he’s going to kiss me, and when she whipped her head back to glare at him, she couldn’t quite pull it off. With the dark circles under his eyes, the stubble of beard, the dog hair clinging to him, he seemed even more real, even more desirable. Had he really endured hours in her Jeep on her behalf? Suddenly she wanted to take a shower with him. She wanted to soap up his hard body and feel his hands on her.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said quickly.

  “You’re afraid to fall for me.” His voice was low and intense now, just hinting at the depth of his tenacity. He wasn’t a man who gave up easily. Who gave up at all. He moved in even closer to her. “I’m not what you expected. I don’t need you to rescue me, I don’t give a damn if you try to push me away with your smart mouth or talk of spider legs in the cider. Falling for me, Cozie Hawthorne,” he went on, releasing her elbow but not moving away, “means you aren’t what you think you are.”

  “And what’s that, pray tell?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “The self-controlled, self-contained Cozie Hawthorne. Nothing would get this town talking more than the idea of you and me together up here on this hill.”

  Her throat was so tight she couldn’t swallow. Every nerve ending of her body seemed focused on the thought—the feel—of him. His mouth on hers. His palms on her breasts. His tongue on her heated skin. She didn’t have to keep standing there. She could just jump into her Jeep and stick the key in the ignition and shove the gearshift into reverse and be off.

  But she didn’t. “You just want me in your bed because I don’t want to be there. I know your kind. Once you had me you’d be off like a shot.”

  A thick, dark brow went up. He tried to suppress a grin. Then he gave up and threw back his head and laughed.

  He laughed hard.

  “That does it,” Cozie muttered, offended.

  She scooped her leather tote from where she’d left it in the driveway while she scraped her windshield, tossed it onto the passenger seat, and climbed in behind the wheel. She fumbl
ed for her key. Her fingers were frozen, and she was shaking all over with indignation. Humiliation. The bastard was laughing at her!

  “Darlin’,” he said, leaning in through the open door, unrepentant, “you’ve got me all wrong. You know what I’m afraid of?”

  “Nothing you’d admit to.”

  But his expression was suddenly serious. He reached inside and touched her chin with one finger in a caress so gentle, so erotic, she almost melted to the floor. There’d be nothing left of her. Like the Wicked Witch of the West.

  “I’m afraid once I had you I’d never want to leave,” he said. “And I’m not sure I belong in your world, Cozie Hawthorne. I’m not sure that the answers I’m looking for up here would ever let me stay.” He straightened, leaving her unable to speak. “Have a good day at work. I’ll be seeing you.”

  She pulled the door shut and backed out onto the driveway, and it wasn’t until she was in her parking space at the Vermont Citizen that she finally had her breathing back under control. Even so, when Meg, camped out on the stone terrace at the back entrance, spotted her, she said, “What happened to you? Your face is all red.”

  “I’m cold. I couldn’t get the heat to come on in my Jeep. What’s up?”

  Her sister shrugged. “I’ve still got an hour before the onslaught of little ones. I rode my bike into town.” She unzipped her anorak, a bright turquoise and orange that a passing car would have no excuse for not seeing. “Seth tell you he’s got a guide job? Some hikers wanted to go up in the mountains.”

  “No, he didn’t mention it. When did he leave?”

  “Yesterday, I guess. He told Tom—I wasn’t around. Cozie, is there something going on with him?”

  “I don’t know. I hope not. Why?”

  “He’s just been hard to connect with the last few days. He seems to have something on his mind that he doesn’t want to explain.”

  Cozie sighed, then told her sister about Thad Vanackern’s suspicion that Seth could be stealing. She didn’t mention the helicopter crash and Daniel Foxworth. It was just too complicated, too damned ridiculous.