With the third rap on the door, she firmly reminded herself that serial killers didn’t knock. Neither would robbers or vandals. Crooks probably wouldn’t have the ambition to be out in this storm. So she needed to quit imagining things and go to sleep... A plan that worked for another couple seconds...until a large black shadow suddenly loomed over her.
A scream hurtled out of her lungs, almost loud enough to shatter glass.
“Yikes. Stop. I’m sorry. I’m part of the emergency auxiliary team—I’m not here to scare you. I saw the unfamiliar car in the drive, thought someone might be stranded in this storm—”
“Red?” The scream died the instant she heard his voice. The instant she recognized his voice. She tried to scramble into a sitting position, but she got tangled up in the heap of covers. For a brief, bleak millisecond, she tried to convince herself that this was only a nightmare. She’d be thrilled if this were a nightmare.
The looming shadow hunkered down. “I must be losing my mind. You can’t be Whitney Brennan.”
She heard a switch, then a thunk when he turned on a heavy-duty flashlight and set it on the carpet. The beam lanced at the ceiling, adding enough light for her to really see him. He wore foul-weather gear, enough to make him look big as a bear, but it wasn’t his shoulders and height that grabbed her attention.
It was him. The brush of dark hair, thick and rumpled, framing that square face, the sharp bones, the sexy gray-blue eyes, the mouth softer than butter. A few creases here and there, but being ten years older hadn’t diminished his good looks. If anything, he looked more dangerous, more compelling, more...sexy. In high school, he’d been every girl’s heartthrob. He’d been crazy handsome, but his appeal was more than that. His slow smile made any girl melt. That sudden fire in his eyes could ignite any girl’s hormones.
Heaven knew, she’d fallen. More than fallen. He was the first boy she’d ever slept with, the only man who’d ever stolen her heart.... At least until he’d jilted her out of the complete blue, thrown her over as if she’d never mattered to him.
But she was long over that.
“Whitney—” he repeated.
“I don’t know who Whitney is, but my name’s Jane Smith.”
A grin stole over his face. The same grin she’d melted for when she’d been a stupid, naive teenager. “Good try, but I heard you scream. I’d know your scream anywhere. What on earth are you doing back here, and in this weather?”
He sounded so friendly, so glad to see her. How mean was that?
She finally managed to get the sleeping bag unzipped. Covers were still tangled everywhere, but she could sit up, feel a little more on equal ground—never mind that her hair hadn’t seen a brush in hours, and the circles under her eyes had to be bigger than boats. Still, this was the cathartic thing she’d hoped would happen on this trip. A chance to see him again. A chance to show him that she was strong and happy and doing great. So if he wanted to be friendly, she could cheerily out-chat him any day of the week.
And she started by answering his question—or at least the short version of why she was here. When Gramps died last May, her mom and sister couldn’t face doing anything with all the belongings and land. Translation: she wasn’t willing to do it for them. So they voted to close up the house, wait a full year before making any decisions about the place. In the meantime, though, her mom and Jane still had things of her grandmother’s, including a box full of journals. Several referenced a locked box in the attic, filled with “treasures of the heart.”
“That was the end of any peace at Christmas. For both of them, it was like a hive they couldn’t itch. They had to know what was in that box. Jane and Mom are in Boston now—Jane’s seven months pregnant, so there was no way she could travel at this time of year. And Mom played the nerves card—”
“I remember your mom and her nerves. Particularly when she wanted you to do something.”
Whitney wasn’t about to go down that road. “Anyway, these days I’m living and working in Philadelphia. I took the week off for Christmas, but it was really no hardship for me to take a little extra time. The box wasn’t really a motivation. I mean, I’ll find it, send it back to my mom. But really, it just kind of hit me...how long since I’d been here, how many good memories I had of both Gram and my grandfather.”
“Then this storm blew up out of nowhere.”
She shook her head. “I heard the forecast. I just took it with a grain of salt. You know how much wild weather we get around here in the winter. Even when it’s bad, it’s mostly an issue of being prepared. My flight was cancelled—that was a nuisance. But I just rented a car and stocked it up—candles, flashlights, the heater, food, a first-aid kit....”
She started to relax. He’d always been easy to talk to, and as crazy as the circumstances were, now seemed no different that way. At one point, he popped to his feet and headed outside to his mammoth front-end loader. He shot back inside with a Thermos of coffee and a bag of Oreos. “Breakfast,” he said with one of his infamous grins.
Just like she remembered, he couldn’t sit still, bounced to his feet like the athlete he’d once been. He put a hand on the windowsills, under the fireplace, near the doors. “No draft anywhere. Your grandfather sure built the place sturdy. So what’s in the box your mom and sister want?”
“No idea. I figure I’ll look for it when there’s more daylight.”
“Well, if you find it’s something heavy, don’t tackle it on your own. Through the blizzard, I’ll be covering Route one, from the middle of town north up to Land’s End. I’ll be by here again this afternoon, at least twice tomorrow.”
“I’m not a kid anymore, Red. I can take care of myself.” She didn’t realize that she’d come across defensively until his eyebrows rose and he responded in a gentler tone.
“Well, of course you can. But you’re still no bigger than a sprite, and if there’s one thing I’m good for, it’s brawn. No reason to risk carrying something heavy if you’ve got free labor.”
He clearly wanted to coax a smile from her, so she gave him one, but on the inside, she was kicking herself. Being in the dark house alone with him was stirring emotions she’d locked away, feelings she never thought she’d experience again. After all this time, she should be over him. She’d wanted to come home to prove how totally over him she was.
There was just that one tiny, ticklish problem she hadn’t considered.
The stupid embers were right there, hot enough to burst into flame, just as volatile as they’d been years ago.
Thank God she was grown up enough to cover the awkward moment. “So you’re on the auxiliary emergency team?” she asked cheerily.
“Yup. Have been for a bunch of winters—ever since I bought Betsy. Or, should I say, since Betsy put me in hock to the bank for the rest of my life.”
“Betsy?”
“The John Deere out there, the front-end loader with the back blade.” He chuckled with her, then added, “Roads have turned bad, as you must have experienced. Less snow than ice. And there isn’t much I can see at this hour, but there was a report about a child missing, a little girl. Name’s April Shuster—”
“I used to know the Shusters. They lived a few doors down.”
“Mrs. Shuster and April still do, but I gather there’s a divorce in the works, and somewhere between the dad and the mom, they misplaced their nine-year-old—or she ran away. She’s everyone’s priority. But more mine, because she’s on my route.”
“I totally understand.”
“So if you see her, or, for that matter, if you need any help, hang a towel or something with color outside. I’ll be looking for signs like that, in case people need a hand.” He sighed, popped to his feet again. “And even if it’s still dark, I want to get back on the road. The storm’s too bad to go anywhere on foot yet, but I just want to make a patrol run, see if there c
ould be any sign of her.”
She climbed out of her cocoon to see him to the door—and immediately realized that was a mistake. His gaze slid over her, slow as a summer-sipping bourbon. She knew perfectly well what she looked like—she was wearing the faded jeans and ancient sweater she’d driven in, stuff she should have stashed in a rag bag. But the way he looked at her kindled a hot flush of warmth. The house was freezing, for Pete’s sake.
But not where he was.
And then the devil brought on one of those wicked grins of his.
“Hey,” he said, in a voice suddenly more tender than melted butter. “Don’t tell me you’re married.”
“Okay. I won’t tell you I’m married.”
“Quit teasing. Show me the left hand.”
Her ring finger was naked. Which she didn’t show him. She wasn’t about to show him anything naked.
He wasn’t looking at her hands, anyway. “I’m glad as hell to see you again,” he said quietly, honestly. “You look great, Whitney.”
She remembered that hitch in her heartbeat. It worried her then, and worried her now. “Easy to look good when it’s this dark.”
“I can see enough.” He cocked his head. “And I remember even more.”
Talk about a louse. Just like that, he turned heel and headed out, leaving her flushed and cranky. If that wasn’t a flirt, she didn’t know what was. He acted as if he still had feelings for her, wouldn’t mind striking that ten-year-old match.
Hands on her hips, she watched from the window as he climbed into the tractor cab. Lights flashed like giant eyes when he backed the monster out of the drive. Finally, he disappeared from sight, back into the storm.
He’d left plenty of storm behind him. She shoved a hand through her hair, exasperated with herself.
It was amazing—and annoying—how seeing him invoked all the tediously old insecurities. Growing up, she’d adored her dad, did everything but stand on her head to please him, brought him all As and honors, even in grade school. But her dad had been a fisherman, a hearty Mainer who valued the more athletic Jane. He loved both his daughters, Whitney never doubted that. But she always knew that she didn’t measure up, that she couldn’t be the kind of daughter he wanted.
When her dad died, drowned in a wild storm in the Atlantic, their shortened family moved in with her grandparents. Whitney had had a hard time shaking her grief, spent a long time aching that she’d never made her dad proud. There had to be something wrong with her, that she was so hard to love.
She knew now that she’d brought that insecurity into her relationship with Red. When he dumped her, he broke her heart. But she wasn’t surprised. Deep down, she’d never believed he would stay. She’d known from the get-go that she wouldn’t be enough.
Swiftly Whitney squeezed her eyes closed. Man, it was painful to revisit those old emotions, that old history. But maybe it was for the best. She never wanted to go down those roads again.
* * *
THE INSIDE OF Betsy’s cab was like a cocoon. No one there but him and his thoughts, and Red couldn’t get her off his mind. Whitney was the same in so many ways. She had the same silky fine, sunny-blond hair. The same crystal-blue eyes. She was fine-boned, everywhere from her slender hands to her cheeks.
Describing her wasn’t a simple thing. She never had the looks a guy would notice in a crowd, but once you really saw her, you wondered how any other woman could possibly be as pretty. Or not pretty. Gorgeous wasn’t the right word, either. Whitney was more...lovely. Lovely, in that pure female way, like the scent of vanilla and camellias.
That’s what she’d worn to their senior prom. Camellias. Otherwise he wouldn’t have a clue about that flower or its fragrance. He hadn’t smelled it before or since that prom night, but it was still a scent that had lingered in his head all these years.
Prom night was the night he’d broken up with her.
Betsy let out a serious screech, forcing his mind back on track—for the dozenth time in the past six hours. He was starting to run on fumes. He’d checked his whole stretch along the coast. Didn’t mind the cold, the snow, the ice—never had—but that raw, relentless wind was starting to get on his nerves.
Whitney was stretching on his nerves, too, but he had to scrub up some discipline, deal with what needed dealing with first.
In an emergency—any emergency—the sheriff claimed a single channel. It worked similar to a police radio, in that the whole emergency team was tuned to communicate that way. The messages were frequent, and filled everyone in on wherever there was trouble.
The little girl, April Shuster, was still missing, her parents beyond frantic. Roger, one of the EMTs, reported a young mom had gone into labor. It wouldn’t be a major blizzard if a baby didn’t show up earlier than expected. Roger called in an update every twenty minutes. The mama was hanging in there, doing fine. The dad had keeled over at his wife’s first scream, knocked his head and now had a lump the size of a golf ball.
Red himself had reported in about the Tuckers—the grandkids of the original Tuckers of Tucker’s Point. The pair were well over 90, not about to be bothered by a plain old blizzard. They had a fireplace set up to cook on, and served him lunch—steak and potatoes. Matthew Tucker believed a little hair of the dog was helpful in weather this bad. Red had never known if Mrs. Tucker realized her husband of 60 years was a tippler, but he wasn’t about to tattle.
The deputy municipal clerk, Delaney Westcott, was part of the team setting up an emergency shelter at the school. She reported whoever came through the doors, so no one would waste time searching for a “missing” person who was no longer missing. Others radioed back to her with the usual questions—did she know where Grayson Whitson was because he wasn’t answering his door, or Martha Beam, who’d broken a leg days before the storm and no one knew if she’d gone to visit kin or could get around on her own.
Will—retired coast guard—wanted Red to move the downed maple tree on Route 1, said he could get in to clear a path, but didn’t have the right equipment to push away the monster. Red said he’d get to it on his next pass, but was doing the people check thing first.
Baker was part of the volunteer fire department. He had the nightmare job. Fires seemed to spring up every darned time there was a power outage, especially in a winter storm like this. People used fireplaces that hadn’t been cleaned in years, or they used a kerosene lantern that should have been thrown out a century before...or they dropped candles. Baker was already tired and reaching the barking stage.
“Red. Need crack-open meals at 401 Pine. Had a fire in the kitchen. Won’t be able to use any of their food stuffs for the duration of the storm. Three people. One dad, two kids. Need water, dry milk, as well as the usual.”
“Got it,” Red promised him. It was like that. At first, fun. Everyone geared up for a good storm. Maine didn’t raise any sissies. But hour after hour added up, and he did what he always did wrong—gulp down too much coffee, which he loved, but which his stomach wanted only in moderation.
He’d never been good at the moderation thing. Which made him think of Snow White again. For damn sure, he’d never done anything halfway with her. When he’d fallen, it had been like a brick. When he loved, he loved whole hog.
The radio lit up, static adding to the sheriff’s crabby voice. “Red. Phone your mother. You’d think she’d know better than to call during a storm, for cripes sake. Especially when she’s from here. But your mother, she’s beside herself. Three calls in the last hour, interrupting the lines—”
Red winced. He knew his mother’s strident voice well. One of her favorite sayings growing up was “You’re just like your father!” He used to hide in the basement with his dad, watching the tube, popping corn, when she was on a real tear. But that wasn’t the sheriff’s problem. “I will. Sorry, Sheriff.”
“Make sure you’ve got the weat
her report on. We’re just getting into this. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.”
“Still. Not as bad as the storm in 2002.”
“Ayuh. Just say it in a whisper. We don’t want to encourage her to get any worse.”
Nor’easters were male. Capricious, evil storms were always female. Red never knew why.
He couldn’t take a break until he’d made one more stop. The Shuster house was less than a quarter mile from Whitney’s. As he pulled into the driveway, he could see two lanterns in the front windows, and a woman pacing in the background.
He climbed down from Betsy, headed for the door—which Mrs. Shuster hurled open before he was close enough to knock. He’d seen her around town, the way you did in a small community. She had brown hair, brown eyes, maybe 40 or so? Jean, he thought her first name was.
Her shoulders sank when she saw his face. “I know you couldn’t have found her yet, because the sheriff would have called.”
“Everybody’s searching. We’ll find her.” He stepped inside, closed the door, but stayed right on the doormat. He was dripping snow. He started to talk, but never had a chance.
“It’s all his fault. April’s only nine. When he left us, April just couldn’t understand it. She doesn’t want us to get divorced. I tried to make sure she never heard ugly things, no fights, no arguments, and I thought she should have regular time with her father. That’s where I thought she was! With her father! How was I supposed to know he’d dropped her off early? He said it was because of the storm, but that’s exactly why I was out getting groceries, because of the storm. I had no way to know he’d dropped her here—”
Red could feel his throat tightening up, as if he’d worn a tie and it was starting to strangle him. He just had a bad feeling the story was going to be long and complicated, with a lot of details that were none of his business.
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