He held out his hand. “Keys?”
She dug in her coat pocket and placed the keyring in his palm. While he returned to her car, she started to take another step toward the house, but he obviously had eyes in the back of his head because he issued a terse warning.
“Don’t move until I get back.”
“But—”
“But nothing.” He turned to meet her gaze. “You can either wait or forget the suitcase. Your choice.”
“Dictator.”
“So I’ve been told.” He raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll wait,” she acquiesced.
With an agility and speed that she envied, he retrieved her case and hauled it to the porch. “What did you pack in here?” he asked. “This weighs a ton.”
“It does not,” she protested mildly.
“Does, too. How long were you planning to stay?”
“A few weeks. Less if Ned comes back before then.”
“If Ned comes back at all.” He returned to take her arm once again.
“He will.” He had to. Imagining the scene if she had to deliver that depressing news to her aunt, she shuddered.
“I know you’re cold, but we won’t be out here much longer.”
Mark had obviously misinterpreted the reason for her shiver, but it would take too long to enlighten him. “I’m OK.”
“Then let’s go.”
He held onto her arm as she carefully swung herself forward on her crutches. The worn rubber feet slipped on the ice and if it hadn’t been for Mark’s strong hold, she would easily have landed on her backside.
He paused. “This isn’t working. Give me those.”
“Give you what? My crutches?”
“Yes.” He took them and propped them against the porch railing. “We’re going to do this instead.”
Without warning, he hauled her close to him until she was plastered against his side and held in position with one strong arm around her waist.
He was so warm and so solid—a veritable rock of steadiness and stability.
Tucked under his arm, the faint scent of his aftershave was enough to send her hormones into overdrive. It was fresh and clean and carried a hint of spice that mingled with the woodsy outdoor aroma of someone’s fireplace.
Whoever snagged this man would be one lucky woman.
“Ready?” he asked.
No, she wanted to say. “Yes.”
“Then here goes. Just relax and let me do all the work.”
It was like having her legs back again. She hadn’t moved this fast since before her mishap with a patch of snow-covered ice. He half carried her along the sidewalk and the only thing she had to do was hang on.
With her arm around his waist, it certainly wasn’t a hardship. He was lean and hard and fit against her, as if their bodies were designed to be that way. Idly, she couldn’t think of a nicer Valentine’s gift than to see him in swim trunks.
“Were you a Boy Scout?” she asked impulsively.
“No, why?”
“Because I feel like I’m one of those little old ladies that Boy Scouts escort across busy streets.”
He laughed, and she was close enough to feel it reverberate in his chest.
“Believe me, you’re not anywhere close to being a little old lady.”
She grinned at him. “I’m glad you think so.”
He stopped at the steps. “Hold on.”
She hadn’t let go—didn’t want to let go—but she nodded anyway. Inch-thick ice coated the steps, but he managed to take them without any problem.
Although the ice on the porch itself was less thick because the roof had given it some protection from the elements, he held onto her even after they’d reached the door.
“Can you stand on your own?” he asked.
“I think so.” She hated to give up her anchor, but she couldn’t hang onto him for ever. He, too, seemed reluctant to step away, which made her wonder about his reasons…Was he that worried she couldn’t stand on her own two feet, or did he feel the same connection, the same flash of electricity, that she did?
“I’ll get your crutches,” he said, still glued to her side.
For an instant, the idea of a kiss floated through her brain. The only thing needed to make it happen would be to stand on tiptoe.
The expression in his eyes suggested that the thought had occurred to him, too. Something hot, something primal appeared on his face before the moment passed as quickly as it had arrived.
Disconcerted by her own attack of sudden desire for a man who clearly was the least likely candidate she could have chosen, she dropped her arm and stepped back. This time she was grateful for the cold air because she could think of no better way to cool her overheated face.
Telling herself to forget about the incident and chalk up her response to some strange shift in barometric pressure, she once again dug in her coat pocket and removed Ned’s spare key. The door opened easily and she hobbled inside while Mark flicked on the light switch and set her case on the entryway floor.
The closed-in smell greeted her, but so did the central heating, which had been Dixie’s main concern. If the household utilities hadn’t been working, she would have faced the unwelcome possibility of a return trek to her car.
With Mark beside her, the idea of walking back to her vehicle didn’t seem like a horrifying prospect at all.
Her other concern had been the overall condition of Ned’s house. Her cousin wasn’t particularly neat on a good day, and because he’d disappeared on such short notice she could hardly imagine how much penicillin might be growing in his kitchen.
“This sounds crazy,” she began, “but I almost feel like I’m intruding.”
“He’d let you stay here if he knew you were coming, wouldn’t he?” he asked practically.
“Yes, but that’s the problem. He isn’t here to give permission.”
“If it bothers you that much, you can always go to a hotel. Or go home.”
She dismissed his hotel suggestion. She’d been too frugal all her life to spend money when it wasn’t necessary. As for going home, she’d come to do what she could to locate Ned. Until she accomplished her mission, she was staying right where she was.
“I’ll be fine,” she commented.
“Are you afraid of what you’ll find?”
Startled by his uncanny assessment, Dixie met his gaze with wide eyes. “Do you know that you have the most remarkable ability to read minds?”
He shrugged and another small grin tugged at his mouth. If he ever deigned to bestow a full, genuine smile on her, he’d be absolutely breathtaking. “It’s a gift,” he teased.
Knowing she couldn’t postpone the inevitable, Dixie took a bracing breath. Mark would probably never know how glad she was that she wasn’t alone on her first walk-through of Ned’s home.
“You realize that he’s not here,” he said kindly.
However illogical, the possibility of finding his body had crossed her mind. “I know. I’m just being silly.”
“Not really. If it will make you feel better, I’ll walk through every room before I leave.”
She squared her shoulders, determined not to show any more signs of weakness to the man who clearly disdained all such signs. “Thanks for offering. I’ll think about it.”
She maneuvered herself through the short entryway and entered the living room. There, she stood and stared in amazement at the sight before her.
“My word!” she exclaimed, hardly able to believe her own eyes. “What happened here?”
CHAPTER THREE
MARK glanced around the room. As far as he could tell, it appeared like most living rooms in the country, including his. Other than a big-screen television set, which he envied, the usual sofa, recliner, a floor lamp and a coffee-table with medical journals stacked on top took up nearly all the space.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Everything looks fine to me.”
Dixie ambled forward on her crutches. “That’s just it.
It looks fine. It shouldn’t.”
He frowned. “You want the place to be trashed?”
“Not trashed,” she corrected. “Lived in.”
Once again, Mark took stock of his surroundings. Adventure paperbacks, medical magazines, several framed photos, the TV guide, and a pair of oversized stuffed pandas—the sort carnival-goers won—were the same things he’d seen the last time he’d been inside Ned’s house.
“It doesn’t look any different than when Ned hosted a pre-hospital Christmas party here during the holidays,” he said. “Of course, the Christmas tree is gone, but it looks to me like Ned lives here.”
She rolled her eyes as if his powers of observation were suspect. “I said ‘lived in’ not ‘lived.’ It’s too clean and neat.”
“Some men do know how to pick up after themselves,” he reminded her.
“Some men, yes. Not Ned,” she insisted. “He doesn’t stack his magazines or papers neatly. They’re usually scattered all over the place. Instead of washing his coffee-cups, he dirties another until he’s used every one and has to wash them. His books are normally shoved every which way in the bookcase. And…” she leaned over to swipe the coffee-table’s surface with a gloved finger “…he wouldn’t know which end of a duster to use if his life depended on it.”
She held up her finger to display the lack of surface dust. “If he disappeared ten days ago, I would have expected to see a little dirt around here. His office certainly had plenty of it.”
“Our cleaning service has strict orders to only vacuum the floors,” he said stiffly. “Our desks are sacred unless otherwise specified.”
“I’m not faulting your maintenance crew or your standards. I’m simply pointing out that this…” she waved her arms “…is out of character for Ned. It’s also out of the ordinary for a man who supposedly hasn’t set foot in this house for over a week.”
“Are you saying that Ned hasn’t disappeared?”
“I’m not saying anything. I’m only making observations.” She picked up an envelope on the top of the neatly stacked pile on the coffee-table. “Here’s something else that’s odd. This is postmarked with yesterday’s date. Unless your postmen give more personal service than they provide in other cities, these letters should still be lying on the floor in the entryway near the letter slot.”
She headed toward the door.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To the kitchen.”
Mark followed her there and watched her go directly to the refrigerator. As far as he could tell from peering over her shoulder, the only things inside were the usual bottles of condiments, an unopened bottle of sparkling grape juice, and a jar of green olives.
She exchanged a worried glance with him. “See?”
“See what? It’s obvious that he’s not hiding out in his own house if the refrigerator is empty.”
“True, but his note said he was leaving town for a three-day weekend, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
She fell silent, as if trying to fit these pieces together into a recognizable picture. “Then, a week later, he called to say he’d run into problems and would be gone for a while longer.”
“More or less.”
“Don’t you get it?” she said, her face alight with excitement. “You don’t clean out your refrigerator if you’re only going to be away from home for a few days. Which means that someone had to come in afterwards and take care of these little details.”
“Unless he knew ahead of time that he wasn’t coming back.”
She shook her head. “Ned doesn’t plan that far ahead.”
Mark disagreed, but decided to let it slide for reasons of his own. “Maybe he didn’t plan to be more than three days, but his refrigerator could be empty because he didn’t have anything in there to start with,” he pointed out. “My fridge doesn’t look much better than his and I haven’t left town.”
“Maybe not, but Ned loves milk. Chocolate milk. He always has a carton on hand. Now, though, he doesn’t.”
“He could have drunk it before he left and didn’t bother buying a replacement.”
She pointed to the waste bin near the door leading to the garage. “Then why is the trash empty? There isn’t as much as a used envelope in there.”
“He emptied the trash can before he left.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. Ned doesn’t worry about little details like that. Someone has been here recently—and I’m not talking about us.”
“Then he obviously has a housekeeping service who came some time during the past couple of days. For all we know, he called them after he called me, told them he’d be gone indefinitely and asked if they would clean out his refrigerator.”
A wrinkle appeared on her forehead. “It’s possible,” she grudgingly agreed, “but Ned has never hired a cleaning lady in his entire life. He simply doesn’t consider mundane things like that, much less worry about coming home to sour milk or soggy lettuce.”
“Maybe he’s changed.” Listening to himself, he could hardly believe he’d just defended his colleague. To be honest, up until these past two weeks he would have agreed that Ned flew by the seat of his pants and didn’t concern himself with such petty things as neatness and spoiled groceries. But now…he wasn’t so sure. Yet he hated to see Dixie so upset when, in Mark’s opinion, Ned wasn’t worth her concern.
“Let’s say he didn’t call anyone else,” he went on. “The cleaning service might have been conscientious enough to throw out his perishables without being asked.”
“The point is, he might have talked to someone in town besides you. He or she might know where he is.”
The excitement in her eyes was blinding. He hated to be the one to dash her hopes but, as far as he could tell, she was setting herself up for a major disappointment. “By the time you track down whoever that might be, Ned will have decided to come back on his own.”
She pressed her mouth into a line and he had a sudden urge to kiss it back into its usual smile. Finally, her shoulders slumped ever so slightly. “You’re right. I still want to know where he is, though. I just couldn’t live with myself if I assumed that he was able to return whenever he wanted, and found out later that he was in a situation where he couldn’t.”
“Don’t let your imagination run wild,” he advised. “He’s obviously not injured, or he wouldn’t have been so secretive when he called.” Unless he’d been in jail, and if that was the case…
“As difficult as it is,” he added, “you have to accept his choices and live with them.”
“Part of me says I should wait him out, but I can’t,” she said ruefully. “Old habits die hard. You see, his parents—my aunt and uncle—took me in when I was ten. Being the oldest, I was supposed to keep an eye on Ned. I always did.”
“And you still are.”
She nodded. “My Aunt Cora is frantic. She can’t believe he wouldn’t call and tell her his plans. He always has before.”
“He may have gotten mixed up in something he shouldn’t have.” Considering the shady circumstances of Ned’s disappearance, Mark’s theory was just as plausible as any other.
She sighed. “That’s what I’m afraid of, which is why I came. If Ned is in trouble, I have to do something. For my aunt’s sake.”
He understood completely. Minimizing a loved one’s pain was something one did. Sadly, Ned needed a strong dose of tough love from his family. It was apparent that they wouldn’t give him what he needed or deserved, but Mark certainly didn’t have any qualms about forcing Ned to pay the proverbial piper. If Ned weren’t hip-deep in problems wherever he was, he would be when he got back.
Mark intended to ask for details about her game plan, but stopped as soon as he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. Dixie was clearly exhausted from a day that had been stressful enough to sap the energy from a healthy person, much less someone who’d recently had knee surgery.
“Whatever you do can wait,” he told her as he pulled
out a kitchen chair. “Sit down before you fall down. I’ll make some coffee as soon as I turn up the thermostat.”
“I won’t fall down,” she said indignantly, but Mark noticed that she obeyed.
“If you say so.” He found the thermostat in the living room, adjusted the temperature upwards and then rejoined her in the kitchen.
Fortunately, the coffee-maker and a canister of grounds stood in full view on the counter. Before long, he set a steaming cup of coffee in front of her. “Sugar?”
“No. And I like it black.”
“Good,” he said as he sat across from her. “Because I have no idea where the sugar is and we both know there isn’t a drop of milk in the house.”
She’d slipped her coat off and closed her eyes as she sipped the hot drink. “Perfect,” she said as she licked her lips. “Is this another one of your many talents?”
He forced his gaze off her mouth, wondering how she could turn such an instinctive move into something so provocative.
“Necessity is the mother of invention. If I want coffee, I have to make it myself.”
“Jane doesn’t keep the pot filled?”
He grimaced. “Not if I can help it. Her coffee tastes like dishwater.”
“Hmm.” She grinned. “I’ve never tasted that.”
“Neither have I, but after drinking Jane’s brew I have a good idea.”
“What about Miranda?”
“Miranda is another story. She made it plain that coffee-making isn’t in her job description, which is OK because I need a top-notch nurse more than anything.”
“Has she always worked for you?”
“I inherited her from Dr Richmond. She rules the roost, so to speak.”
“And you let her.”
“More or less,” he said wryly. “Most of the time she has a strong grasp of what will and won’t work in terms of office procedures. To give her credit, she is willing to stay up to date. I’ve just learned not to fight her on the little things.”
“And on the big things?”
“We’ve learned to compromise.”
Her smile reminded him of spring sunshine. “They say that behind every great man stands a woman.”
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