by Laura Parker
As she maneuvered the stack in her arms back onto the nightstand, a picture fell out of the police handbook. It fell faceup inside the long triangle of light slanting in through the window, the vivid sunlight spotlighting the subjects.
It was a picture of a younger, smiling Joe in a policeman’s uniform. He had flung comradely arms about his fellow officers. To be more precise, he stood between a male and a female officer. The man was taller and heavier than Joe, his broad smile and broken nose giving him the pugnacious air of a boxer. Short and seemingly stocky in her stiff, heavy winterweight uniform, the woman with a cloud of curly black hair stood proudly under Joe’s right arm. Joe looked straight at the camera. The woman’s smiling face was turned up toward his. Was this the lover Joe had once confided in her about?
Halle picked the picture up slowly. Something trembled inside her. Joe in uniform. Laughing, strong, proud, certain of himself and his way of life. The snapshot had captured his joy in the moment. It made her heart swell and her hand tremble.
The dimple was big as life in Joe’s left cheek as he grinned generously at the photographer. He hadn’t smiled with that ease even once since they’d met, or to be more precise, remet. The Joe she had come to know during the past thirty-six hours was a tall humorless man with deeply hooded wary dark eyes. What had happened to make him so bitter, so cold, so angry?
“Oh, Joe. What is our history?”
What if they’d had an affair that had ended badly? Maybe he had walked out, or perhaps she had left him. He was certainly angry enough the night she arrived on his doorstep to suspect she had been the transgressor in a relationship gone wrong. But how could she judge that when she remembered next to nothing about him...except that his friends called him Jag?
“Jag?” Her spine tingled. Now where had that idea come from? Was it a memory or had she been cued by something in the house? She flipped the picture over but there was nothing written on the back. Only the date had been imprinted by the developer. The picture was five years old.
Inexplicably, tears began to gather in her eyes as she tucked the picture back into the middle of the book. She didn’t know who she was crying for, the lost joy on the face of the young man in the picture or her own confused emotions.
Her eyes blurred and burning, she turned abruptly toward the doorway and collided with the figure who was trying to enter.
“Oh my!”
Halle fell back from the intruder who raised hands in a threatening manner. For one wild moment she thought that she’d surprised a thief, or worse. Then her rapidly blinking eyes cleared. She saw a young woman in denim overalls cut off at the top of her thighs staring back at her in equal alarm and surprise.
Chapter 7
“I’m very sorry!” The stranger began backing down the hall. ”I didn’t know Joe was entertaining.”
Halle pressed a hand to her hard-pumping heart and took a few deep breaths. No burglar just a woman. A woman?
She hurried after the woman, who by this time had passed through the living room and was out the front door. Halle pushed open the screen door and stepped out onto the porch. “Wait. Please.”
The woman halted on the drive and turned back to her, her tanned cheeks reddened by an embarrassment to match Halle’s own.
Halle summoned a shaky smile. “Please, won’t you stay a moment?”
The woman tossed back over one shoulder a ponytail swatch of long hair, professionally shaded equal parts ginger and platinum. As she did so, the gap between her hot pink bra top and her bibbed overalls revealed a broad expanse of tanned torso. She was short and sparely built with the muscular thighs of an athlete. Her well-worn muddy sneakers seemed to confirm this assessment. There was a light sheen of perspiration on her attractive face as if she had been out jogging.
“I’m really sorry I startled you, ma’am.” She sounded much younger than she looked, with a high, soft, teenage voice. Her expression was another matter entirely. Surprise had given way to the realization that she had interrupted something, something she didn’t like at all. “I did knock. Twice. Called out, too.”
“I must have been daydreaming,” Halle replied, further rattled by the woman’s statement. What if Joe had returned while she was snooping in his room? The resulting confrontation did not bear thinking about.
The fact that the woman was rapidly regaining her poise was confirmed when she said. “Where’s Joe? And who are you?”
Halle moved forward off the porch and extended her hand. “My name’s Halle. I’m sorry but Joe’s not here right now.”
The woman nodded. “It rained just before dawn. Fish must be really biting and I know how serious he is about fishing.”
Halle smile was noncommittal. So, Joe had gone fishing. Why hadn’t he left a note? “What can I do for you?”
“My name’s Lauren Sawyer.” A significant pause followed as if she expected Halle to respond to her name. She hitched a thumb back over her shoulder. “I live up the highway a bit. Joe asks me to check on things when he’s away. On weekends I park and jog the last few miles for exercise. I didn’t see the truck so I wasn’t certain he was back.”
The woman’s inquisitive gaze appraised the white cotton T-shirt and sweat shorts Joe had begrudgingly loaned her the night before. The contents of her suitcase, silks and linens, proved that she might have expensive tastes but she obviously knew nothing about packing for southern climes. Because the shirt was so big, she had rolled up the short sleeves and then tied the tail in a knot beneath her breasts. Her hair was pinned up at the crown, the loose ends flopping forward over her brow. There was no doubt that she looked like a woman who had just rolled out of bed—perhaps even Joe’s bed.
“Guess now I know why Joe hasn’t been by.” She smiled but it was brittle. “Where did he pick you up?”
Halle answered the insinuation with a cool reply. “I suspect you are misreading the situation. I’m not here as a personal friend. I’m a client. Mr. Guinn is doing a job for me.”
“That so?” Though she didn’t add, “What kind of job?” Halle could see speculation in the woman’s expression as her gaze shifted past her toward the house. She was deliberately reminding them both that she had discovered Halle in Joe’s bedroom. “You aren’t from around here, are you?”
Halle debated her answer and decided to keep things simple. “No.”
The woman scanned her, pausing this time on the diamond bracelet flashing like miniature klieg lights under the sunlight. “You from Dallas or Houston?”
“Neither. I’m from New York.” Halle chose her words carefully. There were only so many questions she could respond to before she ran out of adequate answers. “That’s where Joe and I met.”
She nodded. “Thought you might be a Yankee. So, you’re one of Joe’s old friends.” This time there was no mistaking the reserve in her sharp gaze. “You the one he’s been licking his wounds over?”
“I—no.” Halle’s brain went on alert. So, there was a woman behind the pain in Joe’s eyes. “We were just friends.”
“I see.” Again that weighing judgmental gaze swept Halle as the woman shifted her weight from one sneakered foot to the other. It was obvious to Halle that she didn’t want to leave just yet.
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Ms. Sawyer?”
“No, thanks. I really shouldn’t stay.” Yet she walked toward Halle.
Forced to play hostess, Halle turned and opened the screen door, allowing her uninvited guest to enter ahead of her. As she followed, she looked down and noticed that during her previous entry the woman’s sneakers had left mud tracks on the hardwood floor.
Lauren noticed, too. “Lord! Look at the mess I’ve gone and made.” She sidestepped quickly as if that would prevent more damage. “I’ll get a mop. I know where Joe keeps one.”
“Please, don’t bother,” Halle replied graciously. “I’ll do it later. Once the mud dries, it’ll sweep right up.”
“You’re domestic?” The woman gave Halle the look she m
ight give an exotic animal she had never before seen. “Joe says city women are never domestic.”
“We get dust and spills in the city, too,” Halle assured her. “Won’t you have a seat?”
Lauren shook her head. “I’m a little too musty.” She glanced around the living room and then down the hall.
It occurred to Halle that her guest had come back into the house to do a little snooping, as if she had expected to spy Joe lurking somewhere in his briefs. Her curiosity was piqued. So, this was the woman Joe was sleeping with, the woman who had left him tired but—if his temper was any measure—far from satisfied the night she came here.
When she looked back at Halle she said with a false civility only southern women can achieve, “May I ask how well you know Joe? We’ve been...friends a while now.” Her fractional pauses had in them all the subtlety of a sledge hammer. “He’s never mentioned you.”
“I’m not surprised.” Halle mimicked her smile for smile. A bright pink mantle spread across her face. “I don’t suppose you two talk about much of anything.”
Halle felt an instant stab of contrition and embarrassment. She had been caught in a compromising situation. What could she expect from Joe’s lady friend? If she had been in Lauren’s place and found a strange woman lurking about her man friend’s house in his clothing, she would be furious, too. Under the circumstances, Lauren was behaving well.
She tried to make amends. “Joe has mentioned you. You made the birthday cake, right?”
Lauren warmed for the first time. “Joe told you about that?”
“Yes. I surprised him by turning up on his doorstep on his birthday. The cake was very good.”
“Joe served you my cake?”
“As I said, I just happened by.”
“I see.”
What Halle saw was that she had exceeded only too well in stirring up the woman’s jealousy and that Joe would have the devil’s own time convincing Ms. Sawyer that nothing was going on between her and him. Feeling a little ashamed for having worsened this situation by being found in Joe’s bedroom, she swung a hand toward the sofa in a conciliatory gesture. “Joe should be back anytime. I’m certain he will want to see you. Why don’t you have a chair. Really.”
Lauren again scanned the house, concentrating on the kitchen archway. “So you knew Joe in New York?”
“Yes, we were roo—rumored to be friends.” She smiled weakly over her stumble. Jeez! Was she trying to make things worse or what? “What I’m trying to say is that it’s been a long time since we last saw one another.”
“I see.”
That phrase was beginning to irk the heck out of Halle. As Lauren assessed her yet again Halle started tapping her foot.
“Can I ask you something personal, Holly is it? Woman to woman? You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want to.”
Halle folded her arms, her foot tapping double-timing her pulse rate. She didn’t like the hint of malice in the woman’s expression but she supposed she should try to smooth things over for Joe’s sake. “All right.”
“Since you were such close friends before, in New York, I thought you might be aware of Joe’s little problem.” She gazed at the floor for a moment then raised wickedly shining eyes to her. “I mean where relations with women are concerned.”
Halle didn’t need a thesaurus to suspect that relations as Lauren used the word meant sex. Otherwise, why would the woman have bothered to preface the question so coyly? “I’m sorry but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh.” Lauren cocked her head to one side as Halle began to feel her gaze contained the texture of sandpaper. “I thought you might, being you knew him in New York before the time of his ordeal.”
His ordeal What ordeal? Halle longed to ask but she wasn’t about to reveal her own malady to yet another stranger. “I’m sorry but I can’t tell you a thing about that, either.”
Lauren nodded slowly. “I understand, I do. Joe’s a very private man. It’s only natural you, being a friend, would want to protect him.”
She moved to perch on the arm of Joe’s recliner and began fiddling with the fastener that hooked one shoulder strap of her overalls to the bib. “It’s just that I’ve been so worried about Joe. He was the devil’s own spawn as a youngster. Into and out of everything like his tail was afire. Practically every girl in the county wanted him as their boyfriend. Even me, though I was too young for him then.” She smiled as she demurely lowered her lashes over her eyes.
“Joe was fifteen when his father up and took a job in the north. Didn’t hear much from him for years, then two years ago he shows up again, handsome as ever but touchy as a pig with sunburn, if you know what I mean. He isn’t the boy I remember. He mostly broods and goes fishing.”
Halle shrugged, unwilling to respond when she had no idea what was expected of her.
“He isn’t very—well, motivated, is he?” Lauren offered Halle a coy glance from beneath her lowered lashes. “Not that the man has to be the instigator every time. I’ve read enough self-improvement books to know that’s old-fashioned thinking. But sometimes a woman likes to be pursued, even New York women, I imagine. I don’t mind lighting the wick, so to speak, especially when the resulting flame is so impressive. Still it’s a shame he’s so rarely interested. I read an article in one of those men’s magazine’s the other day entitled, ‘Use It or Lose It.’”
Aghast that a stranger was talking to her about her sexual trials, Halle simply stared. This kind of talkshow purging repelled her.
Lauren turned bright red but that embarrassment didn’t silence her. “At Joe’s age, over thirty, a man has to be extra careful. I suppose he’s occasionally desperate enough to accept titillation wherever it is offered. That or else living in the city spoiled him for the gracious side of romance.”
“I was under the impression that ‘slam, barn, thank you, ma’am’ was a western phrase,” Halle answered before she could censor her thought. But, really, the woman had all but called her a cheap lay. “Where I’m from it’s thought that when a man denies one woman it’s usually because there’s someone else he prefers.”
Lauren blushed again and rose to her feet. “That was rude and I’m sorry.” Surprisingly, she did sound sorry. “I know I was speaking out of turn. Please don’t tell Joe I asked about New York... or anything else. He won’t like it. People did enough gossiping when he first came back.”
“Joe is a private man,” Halle allowed, feeling the need to respond in some manner. “I try to respect that.”
Lauren’s eyes crinkled at the corners in her first genuine smile, even if it was tinged with the resignation of defeat. “This really isn’t your fight. Joe and I, well, at least we had a run at it. I think you’re right about there being someone else. None of us local women have been able to draw Joe out of his shell. I thought maybe you were the one he won’t talk about.”
Halle didn’t know how to answer that. “I’m not here to come between you, if that is what is worrying you.”
“No. Well, yes. But I don’t think there’s much to come between with me and Joe. You are staying a spell?”
“A spell? Oh, a while. Yes, a few more days, at least.”
“Don’t let him run you off.” She dusted the imaginary dust of Joe’s life off her hands. “Joe’s a good man, I don’t care what happened to him up north. The way we figure it around here, he wasn’t a Yankee only he didn’t know it until things went against him. He just needs a reason to move on.”
As they moved to the front door, Halle had to bite her tongue to keep from asking Lauren the questions that were bursting to be free inside her. What did gossip say had happened to Joe in New York? Did it involve his job, the police, or his private life? One thing was clear. Joe Guinn’s past seemed as much of a puzzle as her own.
“Lauren was here?” Joe’s head popped through the neck of the clean T-shirt he was donning as he walked into the living room from his bedroom. “What did you say to her?”
�
��Hello. How are you? Won’t you come in? Standard American greeting phrases.” Halle tapped her foot impatiently as she stood with arms crossed. Livid barely described her mood. Joe had returned just before noon, covered in mud and smelling ripe with sweat and fish. Without explanation or apology for his extended absence, he had headed straight for the shower. “What did you expect?”
“That’s not what I meant.” Joe tugged the skintight shirt down over his torso, which was gleaming with a few droplets of water that had fallen from his damp hair. “How did you explain your presence?”
“Oh that,” she said airily. “I told her we were sleeping together.”
He gave her a hard look from beneath his brow ridge. “That’s not funny.”
“Why? She thought it was about time you gave some woman more than the time of day.”
She saw him pause while tucking in his shirt, his face growing as dark as a thundercloud. “You discussed my sex life?” The question was little more than a snarl.
“She discussed it. I listened.”
“Oh yeah? Did you learn anything?”
“Plenty.” Halle hadn’t meant to mention any of this but he was behaving so arrogantly, so callously. “According to rumor, you don’t have a sex life, or at least much of one.”
Something changed in his expression, shifting the moody hunk quality into the desperado column as he slicked back his damp hair with both hands. “Never listen to rumor.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
He turned as if about to leave the room again.
Astonished that he had the audacity to walk out on her a second time, Halle hurriedly stepped between him and the hallway and stiff-armed him in the middle of his chest. “Not so fast, Mr. Guinn. I’ve waited all morning to hear your pearls of wisdom. Aren’t there any others you’d like to share with me?”
“Yeah.” A clump of damp dark hair sprang forward over his brow, Elvis style, as he went back to tucking in his shirt. “Don’t bother to answer my door in the future. If the visitor thinks no one’s here they’ll go away.”