Tara kept her smile in place. Upon arriving in Wyattville, she’d realized that young, single women were a rare find in the small, rural town. But she’d politely turned down all offers. First dates led to second dates. Second dates led to relationships. Relationships led to marriage.
Joanna Travis could have gotten married. Tara Thompson couldn’t.
Jim had never asked. In fact, Jim had only recently started coming to Nel’s. When he and Madeline Fenton had been dating, they’d frequented the competition.
People in the know said it was a stormy relationship, with frequent breakups and makeups, which sounded a whole lot like middle school to Tara. Each episode resembled the other. Madeline would tell Jim it was over, he’d grovel and buy a piece of jewelry and they’d be good to go. Until the next time.
A few months ago it had ended for good. Nobody but Jim was surprised. Supposedly he was devastated.
That’s when he’d started coming to Nel’s. Maybe to avoid Madeline?
But he hadn’t been able to completely avoid her mother or father. On Jim’s third visit to Nel’s, Alice and Henry were already at the counter. The other customers took notice, of course. Probably were anxious to see if plates were going to be thrown. Tara had seen Henry put his hand on Alice’s arm, perhaps to remind her that they were in public.
No words had been exchanged that time or to the best of Tara’s knowledge, any time after that. A week later, Alice had mentioned to Tara that Jim Waller wasn’t good enough for Madeline. Tara had let it go. If Alice wanted to look at Madeline through rose-colored glasses, it wasn’t Tara’s job to argue for a good, strong pair of progressive lenses.
Tara was grateful the group had avoided fireworks. She wouldn’t do anything to risk losing Alice and Henry’s friendship, but she did want to keep Jim Waller’s business. Her gross receipts had gone up forty dollars a week between his lunches and afternoon pie.
There’d been another opportunity for a big explosion when Madeline had unexpectedly started enjoying Nel’s coffee. It had begun on Monday, following the Saturday dinner at Alice and Henry’s. Every day since, the woman had come in, somehow always managing to arrive when Jake was there. Tara was sure that Madeline was watching out her window, just waiting for Jake’s squad car to park.
The pattern had been set the first day. Madeline had ignored Jim when she walked past and Jim had shown no reaction. She’d headed straight for Jake and quite frankly, he hadn’t appeared to mind.
Right now the two of them were sitting in a corner booth. Jake must have said something terribly funny because Madeline was laughing like some kind of lunatic.
Okay, maybe she was exaggerating a little. And being just a teeny bit bitchy.
It had been almost a week since the fire, since Jake had kissed her silly, since he’d hovered over her bed, as she’d battled back from a nightmare. They’d had a brief conversation at the restaurant that Sunday morning. She’d been pretty shaken by her trip to Minneapolis and didn’t recall exactly what she’d said. Had noticed that he was a little off, too, and chalked that up to the circumstances. It was the morning-after conversation following an overnight that had happened but not really. Not the way it might have.
After that, he’d been pretty scarce. Had eaten in the restaurant a few times but hadn’t done much more than nod in her direction.
By the looks of things, he’d already totally forgotten about the kiss and what might have come afterward. Perhaps he’d put it in perspective. Heck, maybe he was grateful that they’d been interrupted?
Jake was moving on. She glanced back at Jim. Even he had moved on. She was running a distant third.
“You know, Jim, I’d love to have dinner with you. What time should I be ready?”
* * *
J
AKE OPENED THE DOOR
of his squad car, grateful to finally be away from Madeline. Lori Mae was right. Madeline gave off some strange vibes. She was about as subtle as a flashing neon sign. And no less irritating. But Janet’s comments gnawed at him, and he thought that Madeline might offer some insight into her brother. She, however, shut down the conversation every time he tried to turn it in that direction.
He’d done his research on Bill Fenton. He was living in Chicago, working at a fast-food restaurant. Jake thought Alice’s explanation of
sales
was stretching it a bit, but mothers were allowed to do that. He’d had no unexplained absences from work and had been there the day after Tara’s garage had burned. If he’d started the fire, he’d have had to drive hard that night to be ready for work at five the next morning. It was possible but not probable.
Jake stepped on the accelerator and left Wyattville behind.
He’d already had a busy morning. He’d barely been out of the shower when Lori Mae had called. Someone had trashed the coin-operated laundry. Fortunately, the psychic who lived across the street, who evidently was comfortable predicting the future, didn’t like to be surprised by unexpected visitors. She’d had a security camera mounted on her house, pointed at the street. That, along with the physical evidence at the scene, had allowed him to arrest two recent high-school grads who were on the fast track to the county jail.
After he’d wrapped that up, he’d stopped at the restaurant specifically to make sure that Tara was there and tied up. He didn’t want her having free time and getting the idea that she needed to run home for something.
It would be more than a little awkward if she interrupted him when he was searching her house.
The idea had taken seed the night before when he’d stopped at Alice and Henry’s. Earlier that day, Henry had left a message with Lori Mae that he was wondering if Jake could help him with the shed on Saturday afternoon. Jake had stopped by to let him know that would work. While he was there, Henry had mentioned that he needed to get to Tara’s house to replace some lightbulbs in the stairwell.
Jake had volunteered to do the job. Henry had been happy enough to turn over a key.
He had permission. From the landlord. To enter the house.
So it wasn’t illegal. But for most of the night, he’d debated whether it was the
right
thing to do. It was her space. She had an expectation of privacy. But she was evasive and had lied about her trip to Minneapolis. At best, she was hiding something of little consequence, perhaps something embarrassing. At worst, she was hiding something that would get her or someone else hurt. All week long he’d watched her at the restaurant, had practically willed her to tell him what was going on, but she’d shown no more interest in him than she had in Nicholi. Less, in fact.
So now he was desperate enough to do things that he might not normally consider.
At Tara’s, he parked behind the house, next to the burned-out shell of the garage. He didn’t want his squad car to be visible from the road. Otherwise, Tara would know he’d been there before he ever got back to town. It was okay that there was spotty cell service in Wyattville. People didn’t need phones. Gossip floated in the air, and if it was especially juicy, it traveled at warp speed.
He let himself in the back door and started upstairs in the bedroom closet. It was very organized. Blouses and pants on one side, skirts and dresses on the other. On the shelf, she’d neatly stacked shoe boxes on top of larger, flatter boxes. He opened every one of them. She had a sewing kit, a box of assorted greeting cards and three boxes of paperback books.
He opened every dresser drawer and felt his throat get dry when one of them contained little bits and pieces of sexy underwear. He ran his fingers across the silk and lace and thought about how incongruous they were to the long-sleeved shirts that Tara favored.
He looked underneath the bed and in between the mattress and the box springs. All he found was a little dust. He moved into the small bathroom, giving it a quick once-over. He looked in all the cupboards, behind the tall stacks of towels. Nothing looked out of place. That is, until he looked up. A corner of one of the ceiling tiles looked as if it had been pushed up. He’d have never noticed it if he hadn’t been looking very carefully.
Standing on the lid of the toilet, he reached up, moved the ceiling tile aside and found a cell phone. He flipped it on. Fully charged. He made a note of the number.
Why the hell did she keep her cell phone hidden above the ceiling of the bathroom? She obviously kept it charged, so it wasn’t as if she’d forgotten it was up there. When he went to put it back, he realized there was a bag. He nudged it. It was heavy so he was careful when he lifted it down.
Inside were jeans, a sweatshirt and running shoes. The weight came from a heavy flashlight. He flipped it on. The beam was very bright. It was the last item, however, that set him back. There was a plain white envelope that had at least two thousand dollars in tens and twenties.
What the hell was she doing with that kind of cash in her ceiling? In what almost appeared to be a getaway bag, something she could grab in a hurry and flee. Was it possible that she was involved in something illegal that would require her to run at a moment’s notice?
Was he destined to keep reliving the same damn nightmare? Was he going to keep caring about bad people who would hurt him?
He put everything back, replaced the ceiling tile and moved on to the living room. Next to the old television and DVD player, Tara kept a stack of DVDs. He flipped through them but didn’t see anything unusual. Other than the fact that she liked old Jimmy Stewart and Katharine Hepburn movies. There was a stack of newspapers, old editions of the
Bluemond County Press.
Jake had a bad feeling. It was not so much what he found but what he didn’t. Not a single photo album. No stacks of letters or old Christmas cards from friends and loved ones. Everybody had stuff like that. Cops always looked for it. It gave you a sense of who the person was. But it was as though Tara had no past.
Who the hell was Tara Thompson?
Disgusted that he didn’t know any more than before he’d started, he left. He didn’t put the new lightbulbs in. He’d come back another time to do that.
* * *
F
OR HER DATE
, Tara wore a black dress with dark sheer sleeves. It offered just enough cover for her scars without looking too heavy. It was long enough that she didn’t need to bother with pantyhose. She slipped some black sandals on, realizing that she hadn’t worn heels in over a year.
Makeup was minimal. Powder, lip gloss and mascara. Even in the evening the thermometer still hovered around seventy-five. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she thought she looked good. And it was very nice to have something on besides jeans or a cotton skirt.
She was nervous. She’d had a little more than twenty-four hours to think about the date. When Jim Waller had sat down at her counter today, she’d almost cancelled. But she knew that she needed to go. Needed to get on with her life. Otherwise, Michael would have won after all. And it wouldn’t hurt to have something to think about besides Jake Vernelli. He was all hot and cold and making her crazy.
She wondered how long he would have to be gone before she stopped thinking about him. It was funny that she’d been able to walk away from her whole life and not spend too much time looking back. But Jake’s presence was so commanding, his quiet strength so comforting, his touch so soft, that she thought it might take a long time for the memory to fade.
At six-thirty, she closed and locked her back door. The strap of her sandal slipped off her heel as she walked. When she got to her van, she reached down to fix it. She was concentrating on it when she heard a vehicle pull into her driveway. Her first thought was that Jim had misunderstood the plan to meet, but then she realized she had bigger problems than that.
It was Jake in his truck. His window was down and his hair was windblown. He was eating the last of an apple. He tossed it aside. “What’s going on?” he asked. He ran his eyes over her once, starting at her face and ending at her toes. Then he backtracked, taking a long journey upward. She felt very warm and it had nothing to do with the temperature.
“Going somewhere?” he asked. His voice sounded hoarse and she wondered just what he’d been doing.
She shook her head. “Yes. I…I have a date. What are you doing here?”
Jake held up a box of lightbulbs. “Henry asked if I’d replace the ones in your hallway.”
“Oh. Well, you’ll need to do that some other time. I’ve really got to be going. Have a nice night,” she added, hoping he’d move along.
He shut off his truck and got out. He was wearing faded blue jeans and they were covered with dust. His white T-shirt was streaked with dirt and he had a red bandanna wrapped around his neck that looked as if had been used to mop up sweat.
He got close enough to her that she could feel the heat roll off his body. “Who’s the lucky guy?” he asked.
“Jim Waller. He’s a vice president at the bank.”
Jake considered this. “Tall guy. Thin. Almost forty. Eats a turkey sandwich and a cup of soup every day of his life.”
She’d been right. Jake saw a lot more than he let on. “That’s the one.”
“He used to date Madeline Fenton.”
“A while back,” Tara said, dismissing the relationship.
“You can’t go,” he said suddenly. “You need to call him and tell him that you can’t go. You have the flu. You’re contagious.”
“Jake, were you out in the sun too long today?”
“I was helping Henry for a couple hours this afternoon. But that has nothing to do with it. This is not a good idea, Tara. Somebody has been trying to get your attention. This is not the time to be going out with a strange man.”
“He’s not a strange man. He eats lunch in my restaurant every day.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Bluemond. We’re having dinner.”
“What time will you be back?”
“What time is my curfew,
Dad?
”
Jake looked as if he might explode. His nose was already sunburned and his face turned red to match. Too bad. Maybe he should call up Madeline and arrange his own date. She yanked open her van door. “I have to go or I’ll be late.”