“Yeah, Amanda’s great. She’ll stay with Maggie as long as Maggie needs her there. We’ve got a town full of great people, people who rally around one another when there’s trouble.” Again frustration swept through him as he thought of the young women of Mustang, women he apparently couldn’t protect.
She reached across the table, nearly upending his coffee. “Oops, sorry,” she said, a blush coloring her cheeks. “I was looking for your hand.”
“It’s right here.” He touched her hand and she wrapped her fingers around his.
“This isn’t your fault, Jesse. You can’t blame yourself for the actions of an obviously sick person.”
“True, but I can blame myself for not taking the first two incidents seriously enough.”
“There’s a big difference between a kiss beneath the kissing tree and rape,” she said, her fingers sending rivulets of warmth through him. “You couldn’t know that Casanova would move from kissing to this.”
He broke the contact. “That’s what bothers me. The way I see it, there are two possible scenarios. Either Casanova has made the stakes higher, or there’s a copycat at work.”
“A copycat?”
“It’s possible.” A sick feeling roiled through Jesse as he thought of not one, but two nuts preying on the women of Mustang. “Thanks to Amanda’s mother, Millicent Creighton, our intrepid reporter, most of the details of the first two crimes were in the paper. It would have been relatively easy for somebody to duplicate those incidences and take them one step further.” His stomach burned as his mind worked to assess how to catch the culprit before another woman got hurt.
He stopped talking as Trish appeared with their meals. As Trish once again departed, Jesse sighed in frustration. “Let’s drop the subject and eat,” he said.
She nodded and for a few minutes they ate in silence. He watched her acquaint herself with her food, sticking a fork first in the meat loaf, then in the mashed potatoes, as if to orient herself as to where exactly each item was on her plate.
It had been easy throughout the day to temporarily forget her blindness. During the day he’d watched her offer Maggie emotional support, evoking in her the courage to get through the process each victim of a violent crime was required to go through. Cecilia had functioned with confidence and poise during the long hours of the day.
But now, watching her carefully maneuvering her food on her fork, he was once again struck by her utter vulnerability, her total dependence upon him.
The rest of their meal was accompanied by small talk.
They spoke of the weather, and favorite baseball teams. They talked about the trials and tribulations of high school, but no matter what the topic, Jesse couldn’t get his mind off Casanova and the new threat he posed to the women of Mustang.
“Maybe I should try to get in touch with Keller,” he said after they’d eaten and they were lingering over coffee.
“See if he can put you someplace else.” He raked a hand through his hair and his frustration flew free. “How in the hell am I supposed to keep you safe when I can’t even keep the women of Mustang safe?”
“Jesse.” Again her hand sought and found his on the tabletop. “Even if you do call Keller, I won’t leave with him.” Again Jesse felt evocative heat filling him as she tightened her grip on his hand.
“Jesse,” she repeated. She leaned forward, and he felt himself doing the same, as if drawn by a dynamic force too powerful to ignore. “I trust you, Jesse. I trust you with my life. You’ll find and arrest Casanova, and you’ll keep me safe.”
“Sheriff Wilder…just the man I’m looking for.” The strident female voice caused Jesse to snap back in his seat, release Cecilia’s hand and stifle a groan beneath his breath.
“Evening, Millicent,” he replied.
As always, Millicent had on one of her infamous hats. The hats were her trademark, crazy homemade concoctions that were surprisingly fanciful. Jesse tried to focus on her plump face and not on the headpiece adorned with what appeared to be real, growing petunias.
“I just came from Maggie Watson’s house,” Millicent said, her cheeks flushed with color. “We have a madman loose in Mustang and I want to know what I should tell my readers you’re doing about it.”
“Tell your readers that we’re doing everything we can to assure their safety, but they should take some precautions for themselves.” He paused as Millicent scrambled in her purse for a pen and the yellow pad she always carried.
“Shoot,” she said with a curt nod.
Jesse grimaced. The woman had obviously seen too many movies. “Doors and windows should be locked at all times. Unmarried women should arrange to have friends sleep over, or go to somebody else’s house until we resolve this.”
“Thank you.” Millicent placed her pad and pen back in her purse and smiled. “And now that’s out of the way, I want to meet your fiancée.”
“My—”
Before Jesse could protest, Millicent grabbed Cecilia’s hand. “Millicent Creighton, and you’re Cecilia Webster. The whole town has been buzzing all afternoon about you and Jesse. Everyone is so excited that finally somebody managed to snag this wily man’s heart.” She turned and looked at Jesse.
“And it’s good to see the light of love softening your ugly mug.”
“Ugly mug? I guess what they say about love being blind is true,” Cecilia said.
A burst of laughter exploded from Millicent. “Oh, my… He didn’t have a chance, did he?” she said merrily. “Not only beautiful, but a sense of humor to boot.” She rocked back on her heels and looked first at Cecilia, then at Jesse. “So when’s the date?”
Jesse felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. Things were spinning out of control. “The date?” he echoed.
“Everyone wants to know,” Millicent exclaimed. “It’s just what this town needs to take everyone’s minds off the horrible Casanova business. So, tell me, when is the wedding date?”
Chapter 5
“But we aren’t—”
“We haven’t—”
Allison and Jesse sputtered at the same time, but their protests were as effectual as spit on the arid desert against Millicent’s overwhelming enthusiasm.
“Dear girl, you must get Marissa Crockett to do your flowers. She’s our florist and she does absolutely gorgeous work. And Virginia Washington does catering. She’s old and doesn’t do anything fancy, mind you, but her prices are fair and the food is good and hearty. A September wedding would be lovely and would give us just enough time to really do it right.”
“Slow down,” Jesse exclaimed the moment Millicent paused to take an audible breath. “We, uh, we haven’t set a date yet.”
Allison knew things were getting out of hand. In the space of an afternoon she’d transformed from a girlfriend to a fiancée. But she kept her mouth shut, allowing Jesse to handle the crazy situation and the overeager reporter who smelled of lavender and, strangely enough, potting soil.
“Now is a perfect time to set the date. I can put a notice in the social pages.” Millicent once again gripped Allison’s hand. “Honey, you’ll make a lovely September bride. I can just see you with the flush of fall in the air.”
“Okay, how about September 25? Is that all right with you, honey?” Jesse asked, his voice tight with irritation.
Allison sat up straighter in the booth, surprised by Jesse’s question. “Sure,” she agreed.
“Wonderful!” Millicent squeezed Allison’s hand. “You’ll be a lovely addition to our little town.” She dropped Allison’s hand. “And now I’d better get over to the newspaper office and turn in my columns for tomorrow’s edition. Sheriff, I’ll be in touch about these horrid crimes.”
“She’s gone,” Jesse said after a moment of silence.
“Is she always so…so…” Allison fumbled for an adjective.
“Pushy? Maddening? Irritating? Yes. I can’t believe that woman had a petunia on her head.”
“Excuse me?” Allison frowned in conf
usion.
Jesse chuckled. “Millicent wears hats,” he explained. “Hats she makes herself. They’re sort of her trademark and they’re always a little weird and outrageous. Today she had on a hat with a real petunia growing out of it.”
“That explains why she smelled like potting soil,” Allison exclaimed with a laugh, then sobered as she realized how complicated their cover story had suddenly grown. “You didn’t have enough on your mind—you needed to add in a pending wedding, as well?”
“I figured if I didn’t give Millicent a date, she’d never leave us alone. It was easier to just give her what she wanted.”
“So, when it comes time for me to leave, will it be because you sent me away, or because I called off the wedding? In other words, will I have the broken heart, or will you? I’m talking about our cover story, of course,” she said.
“You’ll leave me with a broken heart,” he replied. His voice sounded deeper than usual. “This is crazy…planning pretend weddings and plotting heartache. I should have told Millicent to mind her own damned business.”
Allison remained silent, wondering if Jesse was embarrassed by the whole thing. Due to circumstances beyond his control, he’d been handed a blind woman to protect. The cover story that she was a girlfriend come to visit had snowballed and now he found himself, in the eyes of the town, engaged to a helpless blind woman with a wedding less than seven weeks away.
“Jesse, when I leave here and things go back to normal, you can tell people the truth. You don’t have to pretend to be nursing a broken heart,” she said, wishing for the hundredth time she could see him and watch the emotions play in his eyes. It was so difficult to read people when you only had their voice, their words to go by.
“We’ll see,” he answered without commitment. “You ready to go?”
“Yes.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin, then stood, waiting for Jesse to join her and guide her from the café. For some reason, the brief talk about her leaving here, leaving him with a broken heart, had depressed her. Silly, because she knew it was all just pretend.
“Tired?” he asked when they were back in his car and headed for his home.
“A little,” she replied.
“If you don’t mind, I want to swing by my office and grab a couple of files.”
“Do whatever you need to do. I’m just along for the ride.” She leaned her head back against the seat. The car not only retained the new smell, but also held Jesse’s scent.
Masculine…slightly spicy, it was a fragrance that stirred a crazy yearning inside her, a yearning to feel his arms around her, to feel his breath against her face, to touch the muscled chest that she’d touched only hours ago.
Funny, her mother had taught her to be independent, but she’d never told Allison how to cope with the loneliness that self-reliance brought with it.
She fought against the desire to have Jesse hold her and instead opened her window a couple of inches, allowing in the summer night air laden with the scent of flowers, and a faint whisper of hay. The only sound she could hear was the singing of the tires on the road.
The scents and lack of any other noise only served to remind her of how far away from home she was. Her Camelot was a place with sirens screaming, horns blaring, people yelling—a cacophony of noise that imbued the city with an underlying excitement and life.
Her Camelot was a single-bedroom apartment decorated in her favorite styles and soothing colors, a place too quiet, too lonely.
She frowned. Funny, she’d never thought of herself as lonely before. But now, as she remembered how often she’d left her apartment to visit with Alicia and John, she realized there had been a deep core of loneliness inside her for a very long time.
She pulled herself from her disturbing thoughts. She was just lonely because she was out of her element, away from her home and work. As soon as she got her sight back and could return to Chicago, these strange thoughts and feelings would go away. She straightened in the seat as the car came to a stop.
“You can come in with me,” Jesse said as he shut off the engine. “You didn’t officially meet Vic this morning, and a couple of the other deputies should be inside.”
“All right,” she agreed. Her hand smoothed her hair self-consciously and before Jesse could get out of the car, she touched his arm lightly, a blush warming her cheeks. “I don’t have mashed potatoes on my nose or anything like that, do I?”
For a moment the air was still, thick between them, as he leaned forward, so close she could feel his breath on her face. He touched the end of her nose, then trailed a finger down her cheek. “Nope, no errant mashed potatoes anywhere in sight.” His voice was a low whisper that evoked heat to rise and rush through her.
He sat back abruptly and she heard his door open, then close. She drew in a trembling breath, wondering if he had any idea how the simplest touch from him affected her? She desperately hoped not.
By the time he opened the door to help her out of the car, the momentary flush of heat inside her had ebbed away. She tried to numb herself from the warmth of his hand on her elbow as he led her into the sheriff’s office.
Their arrival was greeted by voices coming from all sides, momentarily disorienting Allison. She grabbed Jesse’s arm for reassurance.
“Listen up, gang,” Jesse said, his voice ringing with an authority Allison hadn’t heard before. “I’d like you all to meet Cecilia Webster. Cecilia, to our immediate left is Rita Smith, my favorite dispatcher.”
“Your only dispatcher,” a robust female voice replied. “It’s nice to meet you, Cecilia.”
“And directly ahead of us is one of my deputies, Sam Black,” Jesse continued.
“Howdy, ma’am.” Sam’s voice wasn’t as deep as Jesse’s, but was a nice mellow baritone.
“And seated at my desk, eating a piece of pizza that I’m sure isn’t on his diet, is my right-hand man, Vic Taylor.”
“It’s just one piece, and I’m getting up from your desk right now.” Allison recognized the deep voice from earlier in the day.
“Nice to meet you all,” Allison said, “and please call me Cecilia.” She released her hold on Jesse, feeling more secure now that she knew the occupants of the room.
“I hear wedding bells are going to be ringing soon,” Rita said. “September is a nice month for a wedding.”
“Jesse told me news travels fast in Mustang!” Allison exclaimed in astonishment. “We just set the date a little while ago.”
“The Mustang Monitor’s office is right next door,” Jesse explained.
“And Millie the motormouth stopped in a few minutes ago to fill us all in on the latest gossip,” Sam said.
“Oh, I guess I didn’t mention that Cecilia is Millicent’s niece.” Jesse’s words were met with a stunned silence.
He laughed, the rich sound evoking a mesmerizing heat inside Allison. If he was even half as attractive as his laugh, then he was wonderfully handsome. “Got ya,” he said to the silent, stunned group.
They all laughed as Sam good-naturedly cussed his boss. When the laughter died down, the conversation quickly turned to something far more sobering.
“So, what do you think about Maggie?” Sam asked. “Do we have a copycat or has this creep gone over the edge?”
“It’s too early to tell. We need more information,” Jesse replied.
“I vote it’s a copycat,” Vic said. “Damn the newspaper for printing so much information about the first two crimes.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “They practically gave everyone in town a blueprint to follow.”
“Maybe, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us before we know for sure whether Casanova is now posing a new threat, or if we have another person victimizing the women of our town,” Jesse said. “We know the crimes take place between the hours of midnight and four a.m. Starting tonight, I want a squad car to drive by the kissing tree at least twice an hour throughout the night.”
“Bill and I can take turns doing drive-bys,” Sam sa
id.
“I’d like everyone to be here in the morning at seven-thirty. We’ll go over everything then. Rita, see if you can get hold of Shelly and ask her to try to get to my house by seven in the morning,” Jesse said and touched Allison’s shoulder. “I’m finished here. Let’s go home.”
Allison nodded and stood. “It was a pleasure meeting you all,” she said.
A few minutes later they were back in the car heading home. Allison felt the weight of the day on her shoulders and knew Jesse’s burden must be tenfold. This was his town, his people, and he surely felt as if he had sole responsibility for solving these crimes.
“I wish there was something I could do to help,” she said softly.
“At the moment there’s not much anybody can do,” he replied. “I need to go back and reinterview the first two victims, check the backgrounds of all of them, see if I can find a common thread.” His voice held a wealth of frustration.
“Maybe with your men driving by the kissing tree regularly, it will prevent any more crimes,” Allison observed.
“My biggest fear is that it won’t prevent more crimes, it will just force the perpetrator to find a new location.”
“What’s your gut instinct? The same man or a copycat?” Allison asked.
“My gut instinct is that I’ll probably have ulcers before this is all over.” He sighed, a deep exhalation of breath like the forlorn winter wind that blew across Lake Michigan.
Allison fought the impulse to lean over, curl her arms around his neck and offer him comfort. She couldn’t help him read files, she couldn’t help him to look at crime-scene photos to see if she might spot something that had been overlooked. He was protecting her very life, providing sanctuary for her and she had little or nothing to give him back.
“We’re home.” He shut off the engine, but made no move to get out of the car. Again he released a deep sigh. “Beginning tomorrow, while I’m at work, I’ll have a deputy assigned to stay with you at the house,” he said.
“Oh, no, Jesse. You can’t do that,” she insisted.
“Yes I can.”
“But that isn’t necessary,” she protested. “Surely you need all your manpower to work the Casanova case. I’ll be fine in the house alone. I don’t want to be a burden to anyone.”
Imminent Danger Page 6