Protecting Peggy

by Maggie Price

  “A couple of times.”

  “O’Connell has the EPA’s lab at his disposal, and he’s got an almost two-week head start on you. So far, all he’s been able to tell us is what didn’t cause the contamination. I’ve got a town in which nothing’s going to be right again until someone can tell us what the hell happened to the water on Hopechest Ranch. Do you think you can come up with the answer quicker than the EPA?”

  “Probably not.” Rory ran a hand over his jaw. “O’Connell has a problem with high-paid consultants who try to steal his thunder. Because of that, he isn’t forthcoming with me. I’ve got a lot of questions he could answer, but won’t. That means I have to backtrack over ground he’s already covered and come up with those answers for myself. Like you said, O’Connell’s been here nearly two weeks longer than me. It’s more than likely he’ll come back with the answers you need before I do.”

  Longstreet nodded. “Bottom line is I don’t care who comes up with the answers, as long as I get them.”

  “You shouldn’t care,” Rory agreed. “As long as the answers you get are the right ones.”

  “There is that.” The mayor leaned back in his chair and stretched out his long legs. “I’ve always believed in the value of having a backup plan. Maybe if the EPA’s lab misses something, you’ll catch it. And vice versa.”

  “It could happen.” Rory leaned in. “I understand if you’ve got qualms about renting your plane. Our going for a checkout ride with me in the pilot’s seat might take care of that. For a personal reference, talk to Blake Fallon. We go back a long way.”

  “I’ve already spoken to Blake and checked you out with the FAA. You passed.” Longstreet angled his chin. “You ever fly a Bonanza?”

  Rory smiled. “I happen to own one.”

  “Even better.” The mayor rose. “Do you need directions to Prosperino’s airport?”

  “No, I passed it on the way into town.”

  “Meet me there in the morning at seven for that checkout ride. If you pass, you’ve got access to the Bonanza for as long as you need it.”

  “Great. How much?”

  “Just find out what happened to the water on Hopechest Ranch. That’s all I care about,” Longstreet added before striding off.

  Rory pursed his mouth. Instinct told him the citizens of Prosperino had voted themselves in one hell of a mayor.

  “This place is a madhouse,” Peggy said over the din as she slid into the chair beside him.

  “Your town has its fair share of kids,” Rory commented.

  “And if you’re not used to it, all this activity can be overwhelming.” She sipped her latté, her mouth settling into a satisfied curve. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather take off on your own and go through the galleries? We have some wonderful artists in town. You might find a painting or a piece of sculpture that would look perfect in your home.”

  “I don’t have a home.”

  Her smile faded. “Everyone has a home.”

  “I lease a furnished apartment in Virginia. If I had to, I could box up everything I own in a couple of hours, load it onto my plane and never think twice about leaving that apartment. I don’t think that’s most people’s definition of a home.”

  “No, it’s not.” Her green eyes examined his face over the rim of her cup. “What about your family? Do you consider where they are home?”

  “Family is another thing I don’t have.”

  “No one?”

  “My parents are dead. I was an only child.”

  “Surely you’ve got some cousins somewhere. Maybe an aunt or uncle?”

  “An aunt and one cousin. I lost track of them years ago.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  Rory angled his chin. “My not having a family sounds dire to you because your business centers around making a temporary home for strangers. The truth is, there are people in this world who don’t have, or even care about having, what you define as a home. I’m one of them.” He lifted a shoulder. “I’ve never wanted the responsibility or restrictions of one.”

  “What restrictions?”

  He found the look in her eyes too serious for his liking. “You’re tied to one place. You can’t just walk away, come and go as you please. Sounds restrictive to me.”

  “I just think it’s sad not to have a place where you can dig in and know you belong.”

  “I do have one. It’s called a laboratory. They’re all over the world.”

  Because the subject had wedged an unexpected ball of discomfort in his stomach, Rory shifted his gaze to the milling crowd. He caught sight of Kade Lummus, standing at the dart-throwing booth decorated with colorful balloons. Even out of his creased-to-perfection uniform, the guy looked fit beyond reason. A little boy who Rory estimated to be about Samantha’s age stood beside Lummus, gripping one leg of his jeans.

  Rory swept a hand in their direction. “Is that Lummus’s son?”

  Peggy hesitated a heartbeat before shifting her gaze. “No, his nephew. Kade doesn’t have any children.”

  “He married?”

  “No.”

  Rory remet her gaze. “He’s interested in you. I figure you know that.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is the feeling mutual?”

  “Kade and I are just friends.”

  Rory remembered the controlled anger he had seen in Lummus’s eyes last night while Peggy recounted the details of her assault. The cop’s feelings for her went a hell of a lot deeper than friendship.

  “You’re friends for now,” Rory amended.

  “Now and forever.”

  “So, I guess the guy’s just not your type?”

  “He’s a cop.”

  Rory raised an eyebrow. “And?”

  “And nothing. Kade wears a badge.”

  “You have something against cops?”

  “They die.” She closed her eyes, opened them, then set her cup aside. “That sounds awful, but it’s true. My husband was a police officer.”

  “I take it he died in the line of duty,” Rory said quietly.

  “Yes.” She eased out a breath. “Nearly five years ago. Jay was a sergeant on the LAPD. He was killed less than one week after I found out I was pregnant with Samantha. He never even got a chance to see his child. And she missed out on having a father.”

  Rory felt his chest tighten while he watched the play of emotion in Peggy’s face. “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  He glanced up in time to see Lummus laugh, then swing his nephew onto his broad shoulders before heading out of the door of the gym.

  “Some things I’ll never forget. I won’t let myself forget.”

  Rory looked back at Peggy. She was staring into her coffee now, a wrenching sadness in her green eyes. She had spoken the words so softly, he’d barely missed them.

  “What things?”

  “Opening the door at three o’clock in the morning to find the police chaplain and a deputy chief standing on my porch.” The hand she’d rested on the table inches from Rory’s tightened into a fist. “Going through twenty hours of labor without being able to hold the hand of the father of my child. Then, years later, having to explain to that child why her daddy went away.” Her brow furrowed. “No cops. Never again.”

  Rory rubbed a hand over his face. It had to be the height of irony, he decided. Peggy had no idea he was a cop. He’d had no clue the woman he’d almost ravished only hours ago—and had obsessed over since—was a cop’s widow. A widow who had sworn to never again get involved with a man who carried a badge.

  Great.

  The thought of the kisses they’d shared had him clamping down on a hard tug of guilt. Because he’d kept the truth from her, she hadn’t known—couldn’t have known—that by moving into his arms she had stepped into territory she’d forbidden to herself. Then he hadn’t known, either.

  Now he did.

  So, what was he going to do about it?

  He set his jaw. It wasn’t in his nature to take advantage o
f a woman. With those he had involved himself with in the past, that had never been an issue since he’d gone out of his way to choose women with philosophies similar to his own. One didn’t have to factor emotional entanglements into the formula if the parties involved moved freely through life with no regrets, no baggage.

  Rory now knew that the woman sitting in silence beside him had plenty of baggage.

  He had no doubt that, had Peggy known he was an FBI special agent, she never would have let him get close enough to exchange the searing kisses they’d shared. And she sure as hell wouldn’t have encouraged him to ask her again to go to bed with him. Which was a question he had fully intended to ask again. Soon. Maybe even after they got back to the inn that night.

  Not anymore, he decided grimly.

  He had given his word to Blake Fallon, and he would keep it. That meant staying in Prosperino for as long as it took to find out what had contaminated the water on Hopechest Ranch. Since the question of whether Charlie O’Connell was on the up-and-up remained unanswered, Rory knew he needed to stay at Honeywell House until he found out that answer.

  He slid Peggy a sideways look. She had shifted her attention to the face-painting booth; now her mouth curved into a smile as she watched her daughter. Against his thighs, Rory’s hands fisted. He could still taste that lush mouth, still feel the texture of her skin beneath his palms.

  His tough luck, he told himself. He would have to be content with those memories, because it was all of her he would ever get.

  As of this minute, the gorgeous, sexy-as-hell widow Honeywell was off-limits.

  Seven

  Three days, Peggy thought as she shifted linens and towels into the crook of one arm while using her passkey to open the door of Rory’s room. Three days had passed since he’d held her. Kissed her. Three long days and eternally longer nights during which she had spent most of her time wondering what had caused Rory to put up the wall between them.

  It wasn’t her imagination, she was sure of that. She had felt the invisible barrier the instant it had gone up while she sat beside him in the gym amid the chaos of the arts festival activities. After that, Rory had kept the conversation between them light and genial. Friendly. There had been nothing in his voice to suggest he’d had second thoughts about his kissing her until her eyes rolled back in her head earlier that day. Nothing in his steady gaze that hinted he had changed his mind about wanting her. Yet, in one hammer beat of her heart, her senses focused, and she knew he had taken an emotional step back.

  More like a giant leap.

  Pulling in a deep breath, Peggy swung open the door and stepped into his room. As always, she found he’d left things relatively neat. The only things sharing space with the sprawling ivy plant on the desk opposite the bed were his small computer and printer. He never left her guest towels wadded on the bathroom floor. Never left wet rings on the tabletops. The perfect guest.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t stop her gaze from settling on the open bathroom door. No matter that she knew he wasn’t there, no matter that she willed herself not to, she pictured Rory standing in the doorway, a towel hitched low on his hips, his broad chest tanned and darkened by sleek black hair. And his mouth—that hard, firm mouth—lifted into an unrepentant grin.

  The memory sent a pang of desire through her that had her fingers digging into the linens she carried.

  Why, oh why, had he put up the wall?

  The question set her jaw. Dammit, she needed to get a grip. She had asked herself that one question a hundred times and still had no answer. Since Mr. Sinclair was making himself scarce these days, she didn’t figure on getting any information from him.

  She had caught only glimpses of him since the night of the arts festival. Instead of coming down to breakfast the past three mornings, he had left the inn at dawn, presumably heading for the airport where he picked up Mayor Longstreet’s airplane for the flight to San Francisco. When Rory returned at night, it was always well past the time she served wine and cheese in the study. He used the front door and went straight up to his room. And he had avoided setting foot in the kitchen for a helping of the apricot cobbler she had baked. For him.

  Her mood darkened to match the late-afternoon gloom that pressed against the windows of the third-floor room. With nerve-aching frustration pounding in her head, she dumped the linens and towels in the tufted slipper chair that sat in one corner, then stepped to the bed. There, she shoved the star-patterned quilt aside and jerked off the top and bottom sky-blue sheets.

  She was tired of brooding over Rory Sinclair. Sick of wondering if he had built the deliberate distance between them because he’d taken exception to her reaction to his having no home, no family. Ridiculous, she told herself.

  After all, why would the man care what her view was on that subject? It wasn’t as if she had tried to force her opinion on him. If he wanted to spend his life living in an impersonal furnished apartment and calling some sterile laboratory home, more power to him.

  No, she reasoned, as she grabbed the first of the pair of pillows and jerked off the blue-and-white striped case. Rory hadn’t put the skids on the relationship that had begun developing between them because she preferred being rooted to one place and he didn’t. The only other thing they had discussed while sitting at the table in the gym was Jay and the reason she had no intention of ever getting involved with another cop. Since she could see no reason that topic could matter either way to a chemist, all she could think was that Rory had simply changed his mind.

  He didn’t want her.

  So, fine, she told herself as she snagged up the second pillow while trying to ignore the little slashing knives of hurt that snuck through her guard. He didn’t want her. His obvious disinterest in her uncomplicated things to no end.

  The scent of Rory’s subtle, woodsy cologne wafted up from the pillowcase and slid into her lungs. Her hands went still as desire poured through her like heated wine.

  The raw need she had felt when he held her in his arms and his mouth devoured hers came back a hundredfold. That need was deeper and more complex than anything she’d ever known. Clutching the pillow, she reached for the bed’s brass footboard, then closed her eyes. Caught between common sense and feelings, she needed a moment until reason overcame her own choking desire.

  Rory had said he wanted her. He had acted like he did. Yet, for whatever reason, he had decided the hot, searing kisses they had shared on almost the exact spot she now stood were the beginning and the end of any personal involvement between them. She needed to accept that, had to accept it. Why he had changed his mind didn’t matter. What mattered was that he had changed it.

  She knew that once her hormones settled down and she started thinking logically again, she would be grateful he had taken that step back. She had a business to run and a daughter to raise. The last thing she needed was to spend time pining for a man who lived a continent away. A man over whom she seemed to have totally lost her head.

  But not her heart, she countered instantly. That knowledge sent a wave of relief rolling through her. She hadn’t lost her heart to Rory. Thank God things hadn’t gotten that far.

  She took long, cleansing breaths as she made quick work of putting crisp floral sheets on the bed. Just as she leaned to smooth the edges of the quilt, the sound of hurried footsteps coming down the hallway sent her heart into her throat. Rory.

  Peggy jerked around, then went utterly still when Charlie O’Connell’s tall form blocked the doorway.

  For a moment, the shapes and colors in the room seemed to shift out of sync as fear caught her by the throat. She took a step back, halting when the bed’s footboard caught her in the spine. She curled her fingers, then flexed them while telling herself to calm down. The EPA inspector had done nothing to frighten her—she was just still skittish from the attack in the greenhouse.

  “A problem’s come up.” While he spoke, he shoved back the cuff of his green sweater to check his watch. “I need you to help me out.”
/>   “I will if I can, Mr. O’Connell.”

  “I’ve got an appointment in fifteen minutes. It’s important and I can’t be late.” He glanced again at his watch. “I went down, tried to start my car. Nothing.”

  “There’s a mechanic in town. I can call him for you. He’ll come out to look at your car.”

  “Fine, do that. But I don’t have time right now to figure out what’s wrong.” He shoved a hand through his dark hair. “I need to borrow your station wagon for an hour. Two at the most.”

  “My car?”

  “I’ll pay you.” He jammed a hand in the pocket of his slacks, pulled out some bills. “Same rate as I’m paying for that worthless piece of metal parked out in the lot.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “Dammit, woman, I don’t have time to arrange for another car,” he snapped, impatience flashing in his eyes. “This meeting is important. It’s possible I’ll get some answers about the water problems at Hopechest Ranch.”

  Peggy bit back the tart reply on the tip of her tongue. If loaning her station wagon would help O’Connell get the answers the whole town had been waiting for, it was the least she could do.

  “Let’s go down to my office. I keep an extra set of keys there.”

  Three hours after Peggy handed her keys to Charlie O’Connell, Rory steered his own car into the dim, gravel-packed parking lot in front of a dubious-looking brick building. Long fingers of shadow spread across the lot, illuminated only by two neon beer signs in the blackened windows and a bare bulb over the front door.

  Raising a brow, Rory climbed out the car into the cool evening air that hinted of rain. Minutes after he had touched down in the mayor’s plane, Blake Fallon had called him on his cell phone and invited him to meet for drinks and dinner at a tavern named Jake’s. “The pride of Prosperino,” Blake added after he rattled off directions.

  Despite the appearance of the place, Rory was glad Blake had called. It meant putting off returning to Honeywell House for a few more hours. Three days, he thought as he slid his car keys into a pocket of his leather jacket. Three days since Peggy told him she had buried one cop and would never again involve herself with another. Three nights during which he had paced his room, thinking of her, imagining her lying in a bed a few floors below. He carried the taste of her inside him. The need to put his hands on her was killing him, inch by slow inch.