At some point he became vaguely aware that their conversation wasn’t providing any useful information, but he didn’t care. How long had it been since he had enjoyed a dinner with a beautiful, interesting woman? What harm could it do if they had a lively discussion about the therapeutic properties of chocolate as they sampled each other’s desserts? As the evening progressed the tentative friendship they had established the day before deepened.
This was exactly what he had hoped for. Yes, it was all going according to plan...except for the growing discomfort Bruce felt each time Emma smiled.
How could he be jealous of his own character? He was in the middle of an investigation. It was complete idiocy to wish he could drop his disguise so that when she looked at him she would see him as he really was. It would be sheer insanity to open up the rest of his past to her, to tell her about his tragic marriage and his obsession with his job and his crazy pangs of conscience over what he was doing here tonight.
He had to keep reminding himself that this wasn’t merely Emma Cassidy, the reclusive beauty who happened to hunt with a bow and fly a plane. This was Emmaline Duprey, who had been charged with assault, and whose record was tainted with a cloud of suspicion. Even if there was a possibility of her innocence, it was still just a possibility. Despite his personal feelings, he had to consider her his suspect. Damn!
There was no more than a scattering of cars on the town’s main street as he walked Emma to her truck. A shaded spotlight fixed high on the wall of the hardware store was the only illumination in the parking lot. The cool night breeze ruffled her skirt and she shivered a little, crossing her arms and rubbing the bare skin below her short sleeves.
It would have been natural to offer her his sweater, or to put his arm around her and draw her close to his side for warmth. But the sweater concealed his gun, and if she touched his body, she would know that he wasn’t the soft weakling he portrayed. So instead of doing what came naturally, Bruce clenched his jaw and did his job.
Emma stopped when they reached the blue pickup and dug through her purse for her keys. “Thanks for dinner, Bruce. I had a great time.”
“It was my pleasure, Emma.” Hunching his shoulders, he kicked at a piece of loose gravel. “I know this is a lot to ask, seeing as you probably have plenty of other things to do, but I was hoping that I might be able to hire you and your plane once more before I have to leave. Even though I didn’t have much luck fishing, yesterday was the high point of my entire vacation.”
She paused, her keys dangling from her hand. “Oh. I'm not sure...”
“I'm sorry. I forgot about your brother. I guess he'll be using your plane for a few more days, right?”
“No, he’s due back tomorrow morning. He'll probably get in around 9:00.”
“He'll be staying with you for a while, won’t he? I wouldn’t want to butt in.”
“Simon will be hauling his crates of samples to the assay office, as he always does. I'm not sure where it is, someplace near Bangor, I think.” She flipped her keys into her palm and closed her hand over them, then looked up and smiled. “Why don’t you call me tomorrow once I've had a chance to check out my plane? I'll let you know then.”
“Thanks, Emma. That'll be great.”
“And if my brother remembered to fill the tanks, I might not need to charge you for the fuel this time.” She shifted her keys and the bag with the new thermos to her left hand. “I have to go.”
“Thanks again for having dinner with me. Vacationing alone can get lonely sometimes.”
“I know.”
“Well, I'll call you tomorrow.”
She was silent for a moment, as if debating something in her mind. Her smile faded as she studied his face. Slowly, almost deliberately, she extended her right hand. “Good night, Bruce.”
He stared at the delicate hand she was offering. He should have anticipated this. How else would they have said good night? For a split second he considered not responding—since that handshake at her front door, he had been careful not to touch her. He couldn’t risk letting his persona slip, especially now that he had a solid lead to pursue with respect to her brother. He could still avoid it. He could stumble over his feet, or knock the bottle he had given her to the ground, or produce any number of clumsy distractions to avoid physical contact with her.
Yet he did none of those things. Until now he’d suppressed his own needs and desires so that he could do his job. Was it so wrong to want this one moment for himself? The impulse was reckless, and possibly dangerous, but he couldn’t seem to stop. Bruce Prendergast might have made her smile all evening, but it was Bruce Prentice who reached out and clasped her hand in his.
The shock traveled through Emma’s skin and lodged somewhere in the center of her body. The tingle she had experienced that first time was back, and it was too strong to be an illusion. She felt his male energy surge against her, as if a switch had been thrown somewhere inside him and he no longer tried to shut off his masculine aura. She’d been watching for it all evening and had managed to catch glimpses, when he held his head a certain way, or when she surprised him into meeting her eyes, or when he was distracted and moved with a smooth, controlled grace instead of his usual clumsiness. He wasn’t clumsy now. The way his thumb slid over her skin was turning her knees to jelly.
His soft blond hair glowed molten beneath the harsh light on the wall. Everything about him seemed to suddenly come into focus. The muscles of his face lost their slackness, lean hollows shadowed his cheeks. He was transforming, like a skilled actor dropping his role.
Her pulse thudded, her breathing grew shallow. My God, she thought. He’s more than handsome, he’s gorgeous. Why would he want to conceal that? The bland facade he had been projecting cracked wide open, and the expression in his eyes held her spellbound. He was looking at her, really looking this time. His gaze held a compelling swirl of emotions, from vulnerability to regret. He leaned closer, and she could clearly see the longing.
His grip on her hand tightened. His fingers were long and supple, his palm hard. She felt enveloped by his strength and overcome by a wave of awareness. She was close enough to feel the heat from his body, and smell the clean tang of his soap and the underlying scent of maleness that sent her heart tripping.
He raised his other hand to her face. As gently as the kiss of the breeze, he touched her cheek with his fingertips. “Ah, Emma,” he murmured. His voice had changed, grown deeper. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
His caress tingled over her sensitized skin, sending tendrils of pleasure all the way to her toes. Never had she felt a reaction this immediate. She didn’t try to figure it out or justify it—there was no justifying the chemistry between two people. It was more than his looks, more than his friendly, engaging manner. This was what she had found so fascinating about him, this was the something that she’d known was there.
Warm breath tickled her skin as he leaned closer, his features blurring.
Closing her eyes, she pressed her cheek to his palm.
“Evenin' Miss Cassidy.”
At the loud voice her eyes flew open. Nate Haskin, Bethel Corner’s sheriff, was standing at the corner of the hardware store.
Bruce immediately released her hand and took a shuffling step back. Emma blinked, taking a moment to bring her breathing under control. The connection was broken, the instant of closeness cruelly shattered.
Sheriff Haskin moved nearer. “Everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” she said. Her voice shook, her whole body was trembling from the sudden withdrawal of Bruce’s warmth.
“We haven’t seen you in town lately, Miss Cassidy.”
Defensively, she straightened her spine. This was a cop. She couldn’t let him see any trace of her weakness. Glancing at Bruce, she saw that he had drawn into himself again, refusing to meet her eye.
“Have you seen that brother of yours lately, Miss Cassidy?” Haskin said.
“Not lately.”
�
�Expecting to see him soon?”
“No,” she said without hesitation.
“When you do, you tell him I want to talk to him, okay?”
“Certainly.”
He gave her a glare, then dismissed them both by turning his back and walking away.
Swagger would be a kind way to describe Haskin’s rolling gait. He reminded Emma of a school yard bully, with his close-set gray eyes and the fleshy lips that seemed to be set permanently into a sneer. Hugh had warned her about the sheriff when she had moved here, and so far she had kept out of his way. Of course, she didn’t need any prompting to avoid a cop.
Bruce waited until the sheriff’s loud footsteps had faded before he shoved his hands into the pockets of his loose cardigan and turned toward her. “Why did you lie to him?”
Where was the man who had just sent her pulse soaring with the touch of his hand? Could this really be the same person who had stroked her cheek so sweetly? He was frowning, his bold, straight brows drawn together with displeasure.
Emma crossed her arms over her chest and took a step closer to her truck. “It was a reflex action,” she answered. “An acquired habit.”
A flash of what looked like disappointment tightened his features for an instant. Then he sighed and rubbed his eyes. When he dropped his hand, his bland expression almost veiled his handsomeness once more.
Almost, but not quite.
He lowered his gaze. “I get the impression that you don’t like that sheriff.”
She didn’t want to talk about this. She was shaken by the reaction his touch had once more managed to wring from her body, but now the mood had irretrievably shifted. She wrenched open the door of her pickup and climbed onto the driver’s seat. “No, I don’t,” she said finally.
Bruce seemed to withdraw into himself even further, tilting his head so that his face was completely shadowed. “Why not?”
“I've always hated cops.”
To Bruce, her parting comment was a slap of reality. Motionless, he watched the taillights from Emma’s truck disappear into the night. Fool! He had been about to risk everything, and for what? Simply to hold a woman’s hand, to have her smile?
No, it had been more than that. He didn’t merely want to hold her hand and make her smile. He wanted to pull her against him, cover her mouth with his and make her moan.
What the hell was happening to him? He knew she was strong, and intelligent. Had he thought her to be honest? She could have been playing him along all evening. She came across all sensitive and innocent, but then she had lied to that sheriff without blinking an eye.
I've always hated cops.
And that’s what he was. That’s all he was, and all he lived for. He had felt the pull between them, and had heard her breathless sigh when he’d touched her cheek. He’d seen the warmth in her eyes.
What would he have seen if he’d revealed who he was?
What would she have said if she knew how he planned to use the information she had given him to call in reinforcements who would follow her baby brother and his cartons of rock samples tomorrow?
And just how did he think she would react when she found out he was probably going to send her last living relative to prison?
Whirling around, Bruce slapped his palm against the brick wall of the hardware store. He wished he’d never started to have those doubts about his job. Things were so much simpler when viewed through rigid ideals of right and wrong. The anticipation he had felt at the start of this case had changed to urgency. He wanted this to be over. As far as Emma Cassidy Duprey was concerned, his objectivity wasn’t merely in trouble, it was shot to hell.
Chapter 4
Emma paced to the end of the empty dock and raised the binoculars for what had to be the eighth time in the last hour. She should have spent the morning working on the new prospectus for the fund her group was going to introduce next year, but she hadn’t been able to concentrate. A dull ache throbbed behind her eyes from a sleepless night. Each time she had been about to doze off, she saw Bruce’s face in her mind. Only it wasn’t Bruce’s face. And she heard his voice, but it was deeper and more resonant than she remembered. And he was touching her hand, and the heat that flooded her body had her twisting the sheets until morning.
She kept replaying their parting handshake over and over in her mind. The sense of connection she’d felt with him had been no illusion. Her eyes might have deceived her at first, seeing only what Bruce wanted her to see, letting him use his gestures and his expressions to distract her from his appearance, but her body had known from the moment he had touched her that he was someone...special.
Why did he want to disguise his good looks? Was it really due to his shyness? Was he unaware of his appeal? Or did it all come down to the eye of the beholder?
Frustrated, Emma dropped the binoculars, letting them dangle from the strap around her neck while she rubbed her eyes. Her thoughts were chasing around pointlessly, as they had last night. Bruce was an enigma, a mystery. Yet whatever he was, beneath his puzzling exterior there was a man who was on the verge of reaching past all her defensive barriers. She liked him, she found him attractive, and the lightest brush of his skin against hers made her tremble. Bruce. The klutz.
Only, he wasn’t, was he? Not all the time.
What would have happened if Sheriff Haskin hadn’t interrupted them? But he had. And he had asked about Simon. What was her brother into now?
“I don’t need this,” she muttered. “I really don’t need this.”
The white speck appeared on the northwestern horizon long before any noise from the engine could reach her. Emma checked her watch. Almost 10:30. Simon usually arrived by 9:00. He was always in a frenzy to unload his crates and get them to the assayer’s. She lifted the binoculars back to her eyes and adjusted the focus, following the progress of the aircraft. It roared overhead as it made a circuit of the lake, dipping a wing in a sliding turn before it lined up for its descent. The pontoons bounced from the water twice before the airspeed reduced enough to eliminate the lift. Emma grimaced at the sloppy technique. Simon didn’t share her natural love of flying. To him, a plane was simply a convenient mode of transportation.
The Cessna taxied toward the dock. Simon cut the engine and stepped out of the cockpit to toss her a line as the pontoon collided with the row of tires. Emma winced at the jolt that shuddered through her plane.
Simon leapt to the dock and gave her a grin. He had the easy charm of their father, with his clean-cut features and sparkling green eyes. His brown hair was brushed back stylishly, the auburn streaks lifting in the strong breeze. He was barely an inch taller than her own five foot six, so he was able to duck under the wing of the plane easily as he came toward her. “I'm glad you're here, Emma. I ran into a bad head wind. Be a sweetheart and help me unload my crates, would you?”
She fastened the last of the lines to the heavy rings in the dock boards. “Did you fill up the fuel tanks?”
“No time, I'm running late,” he said, brushing past her at a jog. “I have to be at the assayer’s in less than an hour.”
“Simon!” She straightened up and called after him. “Simon, you promised.”
He gunned the engine of the Wagoneer that he’d parked in her shed and backed it over the rocky hillside to the dock. He jerked it to a stop and jumped down to open the tailgate. “I'll do it next time, honest. But I was running late today, and I really have to get rid of this stuff.”
Well, what had she expected? Did she think he would actually keep a promise to her? She set her jaw as she stepped onto a pontoon and began an inspection of the plane. Her palm glided along the smooth aluminum of the fuselage as she looked for signs of stress.
“Aw, quit worrying about that thing. It’s only a lump of machinery.” Simon ducked through the open door and pulled out a wooden crate. “I thought you were going to help me unload.”
Only a lump of machinery? Hardly. This plane was like an extension of herself. She always cared for it with the a
ttention a horse trainer gave a thoroughbred, or a biker gave his Harley. This was her freedom, her way of escaping from the world from the time she had realized that the world wasn’t always a great place to be. “Simon, I'm not going to let you use this again.”
Another bulky crate hit the dock with a thud. Simon pushed it aside and swung down another. “Look, I'm sorry, Emma, but I'm really trying hard to do well at this prospecting. I thought you wanted me to succeed.”
He was trying to manipulate her again. God, why was it so difficult to take a stand against him? “Of course, I want you to succeed. I'm very proud of the way you're sticking with this venture, but you have to learn the importance of—” She caught her breath on a gasp. Bending down quickly, she looked at the ugly scar on the pontoon.
The metal had been dented for a span of more than a foot. Two rivets had been sheared off at the head, and a rust red scrape mark extended to the waterline. Anger tightened her hands into fists as she stepped carefully back onto the dock. “What the hell is that from?” she said, her voice dangerously low.
Simon glanced around, then quickly hefted a box and carried it to the back of the Wagoneer. “Oh, sorry about that, Emma. The water was a bit rough where I tied up, and the chain I was using sort of slipped.”
“That’s it,” she stated. “That’s the very last time.”
He maneuvered the rest of his samples to his vehicle and came back to take her hands in his. “I'm sorry, sis,” he said, his green eyes glowing with sincerity. “You're so terrific to put up with me. And I haven’t even thanked you yet.” He leaned forward, aiming a kiss for her cheek.
Glaring at him, she yanked her hands loose. “No, Simon. This plane is now off-limits to you. Permanently.”
True Lies Page 5