The Dark Side Of The Moon

by Margaret Watson

  Gathering her strength, she looked away from his eyes, forcing herself to focus on his uniform. Her fingers lingered almost unconsciously over the place on her arms where he had held her as she said, “I didn’t hear anything last night.”

  “Something happened last night, Tory.” His low voice rippled over her, dark and seductive. “I can tell. What was it?”

  “Nothing happened,” she cried. Jamming her hands into the pockets of her lab coat, she looked again at the broken lock.

  Holt didn’t speak, didn’t move. He stood behind her, waiting. And watching her. She could feel his gaze on her, making her skin tingle. Finally she spun around to face him.

  “It was my first night in a new house. I was restless, all right? I had a dream, and it woke me up.” She spoke too quickly, her voice high and tight. “That’s all that happened. I didn’t hear anything and I didn’t see anything.” Nothing except the trees, and a sense of something waiting for her out there in the darkness. She drew a deep, trembling breath. “I certainly didn’t hear anyone breaking into the clinic.”

  There was a long silence. She avoided his eyes, but she knew he still watched her. After what seemed like forever, he said softly, “I’m not trying to intrude on your privacy, but sometimes our dreams reflect something that’s going on around us. Can you tell me about the dream that woke you?”

  “No, I can’t,” she answered baldly. “It had nothing to do with the clinic, and it’s not something I care to discuss.”

  His silence hung heavily in the crisp autumn air, and almost unwillingly she raised her eyes. When she met his gaze, a flicker of something that could be understanding passed over his face. It was gone before she was even sure it had been there.

  “Can you at least tell me what time it was when you woke up?” His voice was carefully neutral.

  She started to shake her head, then remembered looking at the clock when she’d gone to the kitchen to make her tea. “It was around three o’clock this morning. I was...” She swallowed once, then continued, “I was awake for a while afterward, and I didn’t hear anything then, either.” Trying to pull herself together, she added, “Until you began pounding on my door.”

  He watched her with hooded eyes. “I didn’t see or hear anything when I was out here. You’re probably right. Most likely it was a kid looking for a thrill or looking for something to steal. But since two people have been killed here recently, I can’t afford to take any chances. Anything that’s out of the ordinary could be important.”

  A breath of fear washed over her, followed by a rush of welcome anger. “You’re trying to frighten me into leaving, aren’t you?” She stared at Holt, trying to read his face. “You want to scare me into thinking I’m not safe in this house or this clinic, so I’ll pack up and run. Well, I can tell you right now, Chief Adams, it isn’t going to work. I. didn’t come back to Eagle Ridge to be scared off by some punk looking for drugs in my clinic.”

  He took a step closer to her. “Why did you come back here?” he asked softly, his gaze intense.

  “I grew up in this town. What’s wrong with wanting to come home?” She balled her hands in her pockets, resisting the impulse to back away. “You’re the outsider here. Why did you come to Eagle Ridge, Chief Adams?”

  “I don’t know.”

  His answer startled her, but as she looked at him she realized he was telling the truth. For just a moment, raw pain burned in his eyes. As she took an instinctive step toward him, he shuttered his gaze again and looked away.

  The radio on his belt crackled, and he reached for it with what looked like relief. The voice on the other end sputtered with static, and she had no idea what it was saying. Apparently Holt had no problems understanding it, because he slid the radio into his belt and faced her again.

  “I have to go.” His gaze drifted from her to the clinic, then to her house and back to her again. “I’m not finished here, though. I’d like to check the rest of the locks on both your buildings. When would it be convenient for me to come back?”

  “I’ll be busy for the rest of the day,” she answered. She didn’t want him to return. He made her jittery, and she was far too aware of him. “Teddy and I will check all the locks.”

  “I’ll stop by this evening,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her. “I go off duty around seven o’clock. I’ll be here then.”

  Without waiting for her to answer, he turned and left. She started after him, to tell him not to bother, but stopped when he got into his car. She didn’t want to confront him. When the locksmith came to fix the clinic door she’d have him look at all the other locks. Then she’d call the police station and leave a message that it had been taken care of.

  Pleased with herself, she turned and found Teddy waiting inside the back door of the clinic. Wondering how long he’d been there, she pushed open the door and walked inside. The familiar smell of a kennel enveloped her, surrounding her with the scent of dogs and cats. There were no animals in the cages at the moment, but the smell could never be completely cleaned away. The faint animal odor calmed her, reminding her that here, at least, she was in control.

  “What did Chief Adams say, Doc?” the boy asked anxiously.

  Tory forced herself to smile. Teddy wanted to be a vet and had begged her for the chance to work at the clinic. He was taking a year to earn some money before going to college, and she’d been grateful to get such an enthusiastic employee.

  “He said you did the right thing by having me call him,” she assured him. “We’re still not sure what happened, but I’ll get someone out here to fix the door this afternoon.”

  “I didn’t notice anything missing.” the boy continued, his eyes searching the room. “I checked the kennel, but since this is the first day we’ve been open I wasn’t really sure what to look for.”

  “Thank you, Teddy,” Tory said, wondering why he was so anxious about the incident. “I haven’t found anything missing, either. I’m sure it was nothing.”

  “I hope so, Doc.” He shifted from one foot to the other and wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I guess I’ll go mop the floor up front.”

  “Thanks, Teddy.” She frowned as she watched him hurry out of the room. Why was he acting so peculiar? If she didn’t know better, she’d think it was guilt she’d seen in his eyes. But that made no sense at all. Teddy desperately wanted to go to veterinary school, and he didn’t seem stupid. He would certainly know that breaking into a vet clinic was the quickest way to insure he would never get into vet school.

  Telling herself that an attempted break-in was enough to make anyone nervous, she walked to her office and reached for the files on the patients she’d seen that morning. She wouldn’t think about Holt Adams and the possibility that he would return to her house this evening. She especially wouldn’t think about the fact that Teddy would be gone by then, and she’d be alone with the police chief. This was her clinic and her house, and she wouldn’t let anyone intimidate her here.

  Except she wasn’t sure that what she felt around Holt was intimidation. Pushing away from her desk, she stared at her trembling hands. After a moment she shoved them into the pockets of her lab coat.

  No, what she felt was something far more powerful and frightening. The tension between them hummed like a live wire, crackling with both attraction and repulsion. The sight of his uniform made her stomach instinctively clench with terror, even though she knew rationally that Holt was not the policeman in her dreams.

  But something in his eyes and his face, something about the too-quiet way he held himself, made her want to take a step closer to him. It made her want to discover his secrets. God help her, it almost made her want to tell him hers.

  She couldn’t do that. Gripping her desk, she stared out the window but didn’t see the trees and the blue sky. Only the fear swirling around inside her was real.

  She didn’t need anyone in her life, especially not a cop.

  Tory didn’t know how long she’d been sitting, staring out the window, when a c
ar pulled into the parking lot. She roused herself with an effort when a man removed a cat carrier from the back seat of the car. She had patients to see this afternoon, and if she wanted to make a success of this clinic, she’d better snap out of it. Pulling herself to her feet, she walked into the reception area.

  “Hi, I’m Dr. Falcon. Can I help you?”

  Tory looked out her kitchen window at the rapidly darkening night. Her hands stilled over the sink as she watched the vivid pinks and purples fade from the sky, replaced by the faint light of stars. It was a sight that never failed to awe her. The years of living in Chicago had made her forget how many stars there were in the sky.

  Her gaze stole to the clock above the stove before she could catch herself, and she forced her attention to the dishes in the sink. Would he come anyway? a tiny voice inside her wondered. Would he ignore the message she’d left for him?

  It didn’t matter, she told herself. She was an adult. She could tell him politely that she didn’t need his help, and thank him for coming out. She didn’t have to spend any time with him. And she wouldn’t. Being around the new police chief made her feel raw and exposed, as though he had the power to ferret out her secrets merely by looking in her eyes.

  The crunching of gravel on the other side of the house made her tighten her grip on the dish towel. She stared out the window at the darkening sky for another moment, then carefully smoothed the towel onto its hook. Taking a deep breath, she headed toward the door.

  She opened it before he knocked to find him poised on her porch with his hand raised. He lowered it slowly.

  “Don’t open the door unless you know who’s on the other side of it.” He spoke sharply, and she took a step backward.

  “I heard your car.” She glanced past him to the black Blazer parked in front of the house.

  “You heard a car,” he corrected. “You didn’t know it was my car. Look out your window before you open your door.”

  “I knew it was you.” She heard the conviction in her voice and felt a wave of red sweeping up her neck. She hoped the dim light of dusk would hide it from Holt. “Who else could it have been?” she added hurriedly.

  “A lot of people.” He didn’t elaborate. Instead, he took a step forward. “Should I begin with your house?”

  “Didn’t you get my message? The locksmith is coming by tomorrow, and he can check all the locks for me.”

  He watched her steadily. “And what would you have done about tonight?”

  “There’s a dog in the clinic tonight. If he heard anyone trying to get in, he would bark and scare them off.”

  “What about your house? Do you have a dog here, too?”

  “I checked all the locks when I moved in yesterday.” Her hand tightened on the doorjamb. “They were all fine.”

  He stood watching her for a minute, and she shifted uneasily beneath his gaze. Finally he said, “I’m not trying to scare you, but you don’t seem to understand the seriousness of this. Two women have been killed. Why won’t you let me check your locks? Do you want to be the third?”

  Her stomach fluttered as she looked at him. If she kept resisting, he’d wonder why she was acting so strangely. Slowly she stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind her. “Why don’t we start at the clinic, since that’s where the lock was broken?”

  Her nerves hummed when she brushed past him. It was easier to feel in control when they were dealing with the professional part of her life. And right now she desperately needed to hold on to that little bit of control.

  His footsteps slowed as they walked toward the darkened building. When she glanced at him, she realized he wasn’t wearing his uniform. She tore her gaze away, not sure if that was good or bad. His faded jeans hung low on his hips, hugging him in all the right places. The sleeves of his worn plaid flannel shirt were rolled up to his elbows, revealing sleekly muscled forearms with a sprinkling of dark hairs covering them. His masculine appeal was far more potent without the uniform to hide it, and as they walked toward the clinic she almost imagined she could feel an energy coiled inside him, barely held in check.

  “Any good hiking paths through these woods?” The sound of his voice flowed around her, soft on the still evening air, but when she realized what he’d asked she shuddered as she looked at the silent trees that surrounded her.

  “I don’t know.” Her words were too abrupt, she realized, and she tried to soften them. She wasn’t in the mood for questions about the woods. “I haven’t had time to explore them.”

  “Maybe we can go for a hike together sometime.”

  His words were casual, an offer made on the spur of the moment, and she deliberately looked away from the trees before answering. “Maybe so,” she said lightly. As she fumbled with the key in the pocket of her sweater, she felt as if the trees beckoned to her again, their voice a whisper on the faint breeze. Jamming the key in the lock, she pushed the door open and hurried inside.

  Her hand was trembling as she reached for the light switch on the wall. “That door seems fine,” she said brightly, hoping Holt didn’t notice the way her voice quavered.

  He looked at her but didn’t say anything. Pulling a flashlight from the bag he’d brought, he trained it on the front door and played with the lock. From the kennel area she heard the barking of the dog she’d admitted that afternoon.

  “While you’re checking the door, I’m going to check on my patient,” she said, moving toward the back of the building. “He needs more fluids.”

  Holt nodded absently as he continued to review the lock.

  Pushing through the door to the kennel, Tory took a deep breath as she looked at the German shepherd lying in a cage. “Hi, fella,” she crooned, opening the cage door. “Let’s get a look at you.”

  Moving around in the treatment area, she forced both Holt and her silly reaction to the trees to the back of her mind. She had a patient to take care of, and that’s all she wanted to think about.

  She was just settling the dog in his cage when Holt walked through the kennel door. “The front door is fine. I don’t think anyone’s tampered with it. What have you done to the back door?”

  “Since we couldn’t get the locksmith out here until tomorrow, Teddy nailed up a hook and eye that we found in one of the drawers. I know it isn’t enough, but it’s the best we could do.”

  Holt scowled. “Let me see.” He strode to the back door, and after a few minutes turned to her. “This wouldn’t keep out a determined raccoon, let alone a person who wanted to get in. You can’t leave the door like this.”

  “What do you suggest I do?” Tory gestured around the room. “I didn’t have a lot of choice. Putting a chair under the doorknob seemed a bit melodramatic.”

  To her surprise, Holt smiled. It made his eyes soften, turning them to liquid silver that drew her like a magnet. “You’re right,” he said, his voice reflecting the smile on his face. “A chair wouldn’t be much good. Now one of those—” he gestured to a pile of two-by-fours in one corner “—would do the trick.”

  As she watched him, stunned at the way her heart raced in reaction to his smile, he found a hammer and nails and pounded one of the boards into place across the door. “That should take care of the problem until you can get the lock fixed.”

  Seeing the sturdy board holding the door closed, Tory did feel better. “Thank you,” she said, finding herself wishing Holt would smile again.

  “You’re welcome.” He studied her for a moment, and she busied herself with adjusting the bag of intravenous fluids that hung on the dog’s cage. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Yes.” Reluctantly she waited for Holt to walk out of the kennel ahead of her. Switching off the lights, she moved slowly to the front door. He would want to check the doors in her house next. That meant he would have to go into her home. Rationally, she knew she should be grateful that he could make sure everything was all right. But the idea of inviting him into her home had her shaking inside. And she wasn’t sure it was entirely from fear.
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br />   The last vestiges of daylight had disappeared by the time they left the clinic. The sky was smeared with stars, a million glittering points of light above them. As she glanced up, she saw the dark trees out of the corner of her eye. They seemed to press closer, reaching for her as they thrummed with an ominous energy. Involuntarily she looked at Holt. The vibrations were so strong that she was sure he could hear them, too.

  “Is something wrong, Tory?” Holt asked quietly.

  She shook her head, clutching her keys tightly in her hand as she hurried up the steps to the front door. “Nothing.” She swallowed hard. Suddenly she was fervently glad that Holt would be in the house with her. “I’m just a little chilly,” she continued weakly. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “How about instant coffee instead?” he said, closing the door behind them.

  Tory hurried over and closed the curtains, shutting out the sight of the trees. But before she could escape into the kitchen, Holt put one hand on her arm.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked again.

  His hand was warm and hard, and she almost imagined she could feel his strength flowing into her. She took a deep, trembling breath and tried to smile.

  “I guess I’ve been a city girl too long. I’m not used to being surrounded by woods and silence. I’m going to have to get some recordings of sirens and cars to make me feel at home.” Instead of sounding flippant, she just sounded scared, and she tried to pull away from him.

  He held her for a moment longer, and when he finally let her go his words surprised her. “Maybe you should listen to your instincts and get away for a while.”

  His words only increased her sense of uneasiness, so she tried to dismiss them. “I didn’t think you could go an entire visit without trying to convince me to leave.” She headed into the kitchen, determined to regain her composure. “How do you take your coffee?” she called.