In the Blink of an Eye

by Julie Miller

  Who was she to begrudge Melanie that kind of grief?

  Still, it hurt to see how Mac held Melanie’s hands in both of his. He wasn’t a man who used soft words and sweet reassurances, but the effort he made to gentle the harsh natural rasp in his voice triggered an embarrassing memory.

  Even fifteen years ago, he had been kind to women in trouble.

  We’ll get a steak from Dad’s shop to put on that lip. The words weren’t suggestive. Not even remotely romantic.

  But the words weren’t what had made the difference that night.

  Julia had hung her head in shame while the tall, gallant son of a butcher had draped his jacket around her shoulders. Mac’s tone had been clearer then, without the hoarseness of damaged vocal cords. But he’d been no less gentle.

  His long supple fingers had touched her chin and lifted her ugly, wounded face up to be studied through his golden glasses. His beautiful gray eyes had looked right into hers. She’d squirmed like a specimen under a microscope beneath that look.

  But then Mac had smiled. It was a half-moon-shaped grin that said everything would be all right. That promised she was all right.

  And she believed him.

  For a few precious minutes that night, she believed she was all right.

  A man like Mac Taylor wouldn’t lie.

  Melanie’s sniffles jerked Julia back to the present. “They can’t do that, can they? Couldn’t you talk to someone?” Melanie probably recognized Mac’s integrity, too.

  Right now he was looking at a spot over Melanie’s right shoulder. Maybe he’d misplaced her position. Or maybe he just didn’t know what to say. “I don’t think I can help you. I’m on leave from the force right now.”

  “I don’t need a cop.” Melanie frowned at his faraway gaze. She reached up and turned his face to hers. “I need a man.”

  Excuse me?

  Julia froze at the brunette’s bold suggestion. She must have made some slight sound because Mac looked her way, dragging his attention away from Melanie.

  But Mrs. Ringlein needed consoling. She demanded his full attention right now. “Mac?” She clutched at the front of his shirt and dropped her voice to a seductive pitch. “Please say you’ll help me.”

  Julia watched, feeling helpless herself, as Mac succumbed to the other woman’s needs. Soon he was promising phone calls and recommending a lawyer’s name. All the while holding Melanie’s hands tight within his own.

  Julia forced herself to look away. Her heart sank in her chest, weighed down by a familiar set of emotions that she had never quite been able to shake. They pressed into her lungs, making it difficult to breathe.

  Loving a man she had no chance with was one thing. Watching him with another woman was a punishment she didn’t have to endure.

  “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.” Julia bid what she hoped was a polite excuse, and hurried out of the room.

  Her company there wasn’t much better.

  “What do you mean it’s off?” Wade snapped the question into his cell phone. But with his mouth full of eggs he was eating straight from the frying pan, his accusation lost some of its punch. “You promised me twenty to one.”

  Julia didn’t know whether to laugh or frown. He made an amusing picture, but something about his phone call upset him. She decided she’d better make her presence known. “I can put that on a plate for you,” she offered.

  Wade spared her a glance over his shoulder. The wild look in his eyes didn’t seem to recognize her. Instead of answering, he turned the width of his formidable back to her and huddled over the phone.

  His intense emotion made his whisper loud enough to overhear. “No. Don’t call her. My money’s good. You make the damn bet.”

  With one hand he flipped the phone shut and slid it back onto his utility belt. With the other, he stabbed a forkful of eggs and shoved them into his mouth.

  His eyes, bleary from a night on watch, nonetheless reflected his charming smile when he finally turned to face her. “Sorry about that. I had to take care of some personal business.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Fine.” Though his face smiled, his big shoulders still radiated the tension he’d displayed during the phone call. Nice cover, thought Julia. If she wasn’t so used to picking up the nuances of her patients when trying to diagnose them, she might have believed his answer. “I’d better get back to my post. Do you mind?”

  He inclined his head toward the table. Julia followed his gaze to the stack of buttered toast that had probably cooled to room temperature by now. “Uh, no.” She picked up the plate. “I could make you fresh.”

  “This is fine.” He crossed to the table in one long stride, swooped down and left the room, leaving Julia standing with an empty plate in her hand.

  “You’re welcome.” She called the phrase to an empty room and the double click of the front door opening and closing behind him.

  Julia set down the plate, surveyed the damage left by the feeding frenzy of Wade Osterman, and decided she had no other calling in this world than to clean up after a pair of messy men.

  She made quick work of the dishes and countertops, and was drying the last pan when she noticed the utensil drawer to the right of the stove was open an inch or so. She went to close it with a butt of her hip, but something inside caught her eye. In the tiny gap between drawer and counter she saw serving spoons, a tape measure, a can opener, two wooden spatulas, and…

  A key.

  A house key. A spare made from a generic slug instead of one bearing the brand name of the matching lock.

  Julia hung up the towel and the pan before returning to the drawer. Perplexed by the discovery, she opened the drawer farther and simply stared. She had cleaned this place from top to bottom this morning. She’d gone through all the drawers herself to make sure there were no steak knives or other sharp objects for Mac to accidentally grab. She’d run across a lot of junk in these drawers—it was a man’s kitchen, after all, a scientist’s kitchen at that—but she didn’t remember finding a key.

  Wade had gotten into the house last night with no signs of forced entry. It was his word against her memory that she had left the back door unlocked.

  Julia opened the kitchen blinds and gazed out. She saw the back half of Wade’s black and white police cruiser parked on the street beyond the hedge surrounding Mac’s yard.

  Was it normal for a cop to be so hungry while on guard duty? To make himself so at home in a stranger’s kitchen?

  Was it normal for a jovial giant to get so angry and distressed after one phone call?

  A shiver of unease raced down Julia’s spine. She grabbed the key and closed the drawer. Too many things didn’t add up. She might be leaving Mac’s house with her ego in shreds and her heart aching with unrequited feelings. But dammit, she was going to leave with her sanity intact.

  With no desire to rejoin Melanie and Mac, she palmed the key, pulled on her jacket and decided to test the locks herself.

  In the living room, Melanie stood in front of Mac’s seated form and smiled down at him. “If you’ll excuse me a minute, I’m just going to borrow your bathroom and—powder my nose.” The hitch in her voice promised that she was done crying. Julia paused just long enough to see the petite beauty bend down and plant a lingering kiss on Mac’s cheek. “Thank you. For everything.”

  Julia’s pulse stopped, then pounded inside her veins. She had no right to be jealous. No right.

  “It’s just down the hall.” Mac waved his hand in the general direction of the bathroom and Melanie danced off to freshen up. Obviously, their guest was feeling better. Much better.

  Julia tried to make a quick exit, too, but Mac’s voice stopped her from behind. “Jules?”

  She hadn’t made a sound. How did he know? It didn’t matter. Julia shook off her curiosity as he stood. She wanted to spend as little time with Mac as possible until her replacement arrived. Less time meant fewer false hopes. Fewer stirred-up memories. Less chance of certain d
isappointment. “I’m going out for some fresh air,” she answered, already on her way out the door. “Holler if you need me.”

  If Mac had any response, she didn’t give him a chance to say it. Julia closed the door and pressed her back against it, using the recuperative moment to look down the front walk. Wade sat inside his cruiser, on the phone again, caught up in yet another heated discussion.

  Good, she thought. It was just as well he didn’t see her snooping around. After all, if her instincts proved correct, she’d caught him in a lie. Though he’d been more polite than not with her, she didn’t imagine Wade would handle an accusation of lying particularly well.

  Julia quickly slipped around the house to the back door. Holding her breath in anticipation, she inserted the key into the keyhole—and unlocked the door.

  A cool whirlwind whipped the curls of her hair about her face while she stood there with her hand frozen on the key in the lock. “Why?” she whispered, her question carried away on the breeze.

  She knew the key hadn’t been in that drawer until after Wade’s breakfast visit. Was he so embarrassed by his appetite that he felt he had to steal a key and lie? Did sneaking into the house have anything to do with his angry phone calls?

  Julia relocked the door and pocketed the key. She needed a detective to figure this out.

  Though the man with the obvious deductive skills waited on the other side of this door in the living room, Julia wasn’t eager to ask for his help. Why stir up a mystery when Mac had other things to deal with right now? No one had gotten hurt by Wade’s intrusion. The only thing missing was her caramel apple pie.

  Maybe she would go ask Wade for an explanation, after all. She blew out her breath on a sarcastic sigh. Didn’t that sound like fun?

  Julia took her time returning to the front of the house.

  Though the morning air was crisp with an October chill, the sun beat down upon her face and warmed her. Just like the house, Mac’s yard had a lot of potential. The surrounding hedge was healthy, turning from green to golden yellow. It had been trimmed to a waist-high level, but needed to have the blown trash picked out of it. And though the grass was turning brown with the change of the season, there were still a few mums holding their color in a row along the front of the house. Gold and salmon and crimson red.

  She wondered if Mac had planted those flowers. Had he been able to enjoy their rich autumnal color? Or did visible aesthetics like that even interest him? It was at that moment Julia realized she knew a great deal about Mac’s character, but almost nothing about his personal tastes. His personality. His day-to-day habits in life.

  She still judged him by who he had been that night so long ago. He’d been twenty-two then, a med student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. This Mac was harder and leaner, and a lot less patient than her hero had been. Yet for all his scars, all his resentment, all his rough talk, she still thought of him as that young man who had saved her.

  She still owed him.

  And if she had no other way to repay him, she could at least offer him the truth.

  With the key clutched inside her fist deep inside the pocket of her denim jacket, she headed for the front door.

  She stopped just shy of the porch, though, as the door opened. Melanie Ringlein, with her arm linked through Mac’s, waltzed out onto the top step. “You’ve been great about this, Mac.”

  “Consider it a favor to Jeff.” He stopped short when they left the shade of the porch and stepped into the full sunlight. Mac squeezed his eyes shut and ducked his head.

  Automatically, Julia took a step forward, but Melanie beat her to the problem. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “The light hurts my eyes.” He thumbed over his shoulder. “I need my glasses.”

  “Oh. Well—” Melanie stretched upon tiptoe and pressed a kiss to Mac’s jaw. “Thanks. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  Julia bit her tongue at the other woman’s self-centered inconsideration. Instead of complaining, Julia pushed past them both and picked up Mac’s sunglasses from the kitchen table.

  By the time she returned, Melanie had climbed into her Mercedes and was backing out of the driveway. The woman was as sleek and stylish as her car, but Julia was glad to see her go. “Are you coming in?” she asked.

  “No. The sun feels good.” Though his eyes were still closed, he had angled his head to bask in the clear autumn rays.

  “Here.” She pushed his glasses into his fingers.

  When he had them on, he lifted his face to the sunlight. “Much better. Thanks.”

  Julia blinked as the sun reflected off the lenses. The bright morning light glistened along the remnants of gold in his hair and bathed his skin in a healthy glow. She wondered if he had any idea how handsome he was despite the disfigurement on his face. Probably not.

  “So—” she began, feeling an awkward need to cover her tendency to stare. “You must have said the right thing to Melanie. She sure seemed perky all of a sudden.”

  “The woman’s going through a hard time. If she feels a bit of happiness, let her.” He lowered his focus and turned toward her. “Her husband’s not only dead, but he’s accused of betraying the police department. That could wipe out Jeff’s pension, not to mention his reputation.”

  “Do you think he’s guilty of taking a payoff to destroy evidence?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter. Melanie needs our patience and understanding right now.”

  “Not ours. She’s only interested in yours.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. A dare crept into his voice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Julia bit down on her lip, wishing she’d had the sense to choose a less volatile line of conversation. But the stubborn tomboy in her refused to back down. “She showed up here weepy, needy, unable to cope, she said. The minute you agreed to help her—boom—she got better.”

  His hands slid to his hips and he leaned toward her. “And you find that unbelievable? Maybe I’m not as washed up as you think, Ms. Dalton. I still have connections. I can make a few phone calls on her behalf.”

  Julia matched his stance. She tilted her face up and refused to accept his flare of temper. “I don’t think you’re washed up for one minute, detective. You could do a lot more than make phone calls, if you wanted. She’s the one I question. Don’t you think a lot of strange things have been going on around here the last twenty-four hours?”

  “You mean stranger than a visit from Internal Affairs or a break-in to steal a piece of pie?”

  Julia reached into her pocket. “How about a spare key in your kitchen drawer that wasn’t there last night?” She set the key in his palm and wrapped his fingers around it. “It fits the back door.”

  “Wade?” Mac’s temper dissipated and a new kind of frustration set in. It was evident in the grim set of his mouth and the almost manic inspection of his fingertips on the key. “I wish I could see it all. Then I could pinpoint what feels out of place.”

  “You feel it, too?”

  His hands stopped. “Feel what?”

  Julia hoped she didn’t sound completely foolish. “Like we’re being watched.”

  EVEN AS SHE SAID the words, Mac felt an uncomfortable sixth sense kick in.

  He was a man of facts. Of reason. The only instincts he believed in were the ones that led him from one clue to the next when evaluating the details of a crime scene.

  So he didn’t completely trust the unnerving sensation sweeping open the pores of his skin. Someone could be watching the house from a distance. Or Wade Osterman might be looking their way as he stood guard over them. Or maybe Mac’s subconscious mind had reacted to Julia’s suggestion, and the only person studying him was Julia herself as she waited for him to answer.

  “Everything feels weird to me right now,” he confessed.

  The only thing that had felt remotely normal since coming home from the hospital was Julia. Her steady reassurance. Her sharp tongue. Her curvy figure.

  But her bag was
already packed. She had no intention of staying with him and helping him sort out the chaos of his dark world.

  So yeah, he was pretty much reduced to flinging around the house on his own without any clue as to what was going on.

  “I feel it, too. And I’m not blind.” He heard a short gasp of air from her lips. Was that an apology? Impatience? A plea? “How well did you really know Jeff Ringlein? Maybe he was in bigger trouble than you think. His wife was driving a Mercedes just now. Either she inherited money or he made a lot more than most cops I know. Isn’t there some way to check that out?”

  Jules was asking the questions he should be asking, searching for answers the way he used to.

  “You’d subpoena the bank records, just like I.A. has. Ask questions of family and friends.” He tugged each answer out of the murky quicksand of his brain. “You check his case logs. I don’t know.”

  Though the dark glasses prevented his eyes from contracting against the sunlight, he still lifted his fingers and rubbed at the tender new skin surrounding them. There was no external itch at the moment, no current pain. But the feeling of useless incompetence ate away at him like a scar that refused to heal.

  “Don’t.” Two strong, gently calloused hands wrapped around his own and pulled them from his eyes. “You might accidentally break open the new skin. You can’t risk any infection if you want a chance at a successful lens replacement operation.”

  Mac latched on to her fingers when she would have pulled away. At first it was for comfort. Touching Julia seemed to have this inexplicable effect on him. She calmed him. Centered him. Took away the panic that seemed to paralyze his thought processes.

  Though he had his fears and doubts, he desperately wanted the healing process to be a success. He pulled her hands up and spread them flat against his chest, capturing them there, soothing himself with her gentle warmth. “We can’t risk that, can we.”

  Then he held on for curiosity. With her pinned to the front of his shirt, he used the sensitive tips of his fingers to explore the shape and size of her capable, caring hands. He recorded the symmetry of short, rounded fingernails. The skin was soft and smooth across the back of her hands, supple and sinewed across each joint and knuckle. Her feminine proportions intertwined perfectly with his larger, longer fingers.