by Tanya Agler
Rachel jumped behind Mike. “He’s big. Does he bite? Can I pet him?”
Mike blinked at how such contradictory sentences could come out of someone at the same time. Of course, he’d heard worse when perps pleaded their innocence in one breath before confessing in the next. Not that Hollydale was a den of criminal activity. The rash of B&Es was the worst wave since Sheriff Donahue had hired him eight years ago.
Georgie looked unsure. “I don’t really know. I’ve never seen him around kids. I’m just taking care of him until his owner is better. Then he’ll go back to his real home.” She stuck her hand in front of Beau’s nose. The dog sniffed and sat on his haunches. When Georgie stroked his head, his tongue lolled out. “I’ll bet he’ll love you, considering how much spunk and go-getter attitude you have.”
Sure enough, the dog loved his daughter, the puppy expression endearing but futile. Beau wasn’t going to be part of Rachel’s life, and she’d be disappointed with someone else not becoming a permanent fixture in her life. He should have put an end to this inside the house. Later he’d have a long talk with Rachel about birthday presents, along with a lecture about asking strangers for favors.
Was Georgie a stranger? After such a long time away, could he count their teenage friendship as a basis for something real, something to build a lasting relationship on? Yesterday’s break-in delivered a cold shock to his system. Every time he examined the evidence and compared it to the other crime scenes, something didn’t add up. All the circumstantial evidence pointed to Georgie. She had motive, means and opportunity. The perfect trifecta.
He and Georgie locked gazes before he averted his. The sad truth crept into him. He didn’t know Georgie Bennett anymore.
CHAPTER FIVE
CURIOSITY BIT INTO Georgie while she stared at the old dilapidated barn in Mike’s parents’ backyard. The peeling red paint had faded to a dull brick color, even darker in the dusky gray of early evening. What was so important here that Mike’s daughter would approach a total stranger?
Tapping her foot, she waited on Beau, sniffing each and every one of Mrs. Harrison’s chrysanthemums. Where were Mike and Rachel?
Her phone buzzed, and she extracted it from her pocket. Brett Cullinan’s name brought a coil of tension to her stomach. If it was good news, he’d have called. Steeling herself, she read his text.
Financing issue delays. You’re still in running for pit crew. Will contact after sponsor confirms deal. Cullinan.
Footsteps came from the upper path. Grinning, she pocketed her phone. Rachel bounded toward her. Mike held up a remote with his free hand, the other locked in Rachel’s.
“Let there be light.”
Brightness flooded the area, and Georgie shielded her eyes. Beau nudged Rachel with his nose. Rachel bent down and scratched him behind his ears.
“He likes me.” Her high-pitched squeal gave away her delight. “I like him, too.”
“Of course. Beau seems to like everyone and everything.”
While Rachel and Beau were getting along, too bad she couldn’t say the same about her and Mike.
Best cut this short and find out why she was here. “What’s in the barn?”
Mike sighed and let go of Rachel, pulling on the barn door. “You’re not going to like it.”
She didn’t like him believing she was a thief, either. Stealing from Max? No way. She owed him so much for giving her a job in high school and all the support he’d given her over the years. Tonight was about Rachel’s request, not her.
“Why don’t I be the judge of that?” She tightened her hold on Beau’s leash.
Mike grimaced from over his shoulder. “Do you want to hear the whole explanation now or later?”
“Later.” No use having her opinion clouded by mere words. Besides, his wife, Ginger, was lurking somewhere in the shadows. She might not like Mike explaining anything to Georgie.
Opening the door, he waved her inside. Goose bumps pricked her arms as she caught sight of something familiar yet not at the same time. She stopped and swallowed the lump in her throat. Ted Harrison’s beloved Thunderbird, once in pristine condition, only two owners ever laying claim to its registration papers, was now the worse for wear.
“I can’t believe your grandfather let this happen to his car.” She ran her hand slowly over the paint, noting the rust in spots, her stomach sinking at the deterioration. A chill shivered its way through her, and a small moan escaped for the dear old man who’d treated her like a member of his own family. “He didn’t, did he?”
Mike’s gaze, and a single quick shake of his head, confirmed her fears. “How? When?” she asked.
“Heart attack. Middle of the night. Almost nine years ago.” His jaw clicked, and Georgie didn’t press the subject.
“Sorry. I didn’t know.” It must have happened soon after she left town. Her gaze flew over to Rachel, who appeared to be around eight or nine. She must also have happened soon after Georgie left.
Sadness at how much she’d missed ebbed through her. Beau whimpered before coming and sitting in front of her, his head tilting. She scratched behind his ear. Both Beau and this Thunderbird deserved some TLC. For the first time, regret she wouldn’t be sticking around Hollydale for long shimmied through her.
“Miss Georgie, will my twenty-three dollars and fourteen cents be enough?”
“For what?”
“Fixing the car for my daddy’s birthday present.”
“Rachel, a repair job of this magnitude would cost a little more than that.” Georgie shrugged.
Rachel leveled a wise-beyond-her-years look at her, and Georgie turned away.
“Okay, a lot more.”
“How much more?” Mike made his presence known with his question. “After all, if anyone in the world knows the engine and exterior of this car, it’s you.”
Georgie’s lips quirked downward. She could hear her mother from clear across town reminding her of the awful impact a frown had on the skin around her mouth. Might as well check the car out a little while she was here.
She walked over to the front grille and located the flat handle. Pulling once, she propped open the hood and jumped back. Her pulse raced and she threw her hand over her heart before she laughed. An old bird’s nest wasn’t that much cause for alarm.
“How long has it been since anyone’s driven Miss Brittany?” All the mirth escaped her while she tallied a running list of repairs.
“You remember what Grandpa Ted called her.” Mike came over, and his breath grazed the back of her neck.
Shivers cascaded down her spine, and she steeled herself against any reaction to the man she no longer knew, the man who believed she could commit a crime.
“Apparently you didn’t remember to take care of this car.” Straightening to her full height, she imitated her mother’s best glare, the one that could make ice melt.
He offered a weak smile and petted Beau, as if the dog were a magic barrier that would protect him from her wrath. Animals and cars. Her two biggest weaknesses.
“Apparently,” he replied, his stress on the word not escaping her. “You haven’t been around. There might be good reasons for letting this happen.”
“Not going to buy that, Mike.” The crash of metal from the hood snapping down emphasized her point. “While my mother hasn’t kept me up-to-date with your life story, there is no excuse for this, this...”
“Travesty,” Rachel piped up.
Georgie stared at the girl before tilting her head up to meet Mike’s gaze. “Where did you find her? Does her mother have a three hundred IQ or something?”
“When Daddy works late, I read. I’ve finished all seven Harry Potter books. Now I’m halfway through all of his old Hardy Boys stories.” Rachel crooked her finger, and Georgie leaned over. “I like Nancy Drew better. I want to be a detective when I grow up.”
Same
as her father, who investigated crimes with the county sheriff.
Georgie held her breath as she backed away, but her rear came in contact with the Thunderbird. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Rattled, she looked back at the car and then at its current owner. To see the car in this shape hurt more than the accusation about her character. If Mike had let the car deteriorate like this, just like he’d sacrificed their friendship with an easy excuse on his lips, she had to leave. “Beau and I won’t keep you from your dinner any longer.”
She hurried out. Dusk was fading fast, the night sky taking over. Unlike in Salem or Boston or Nashville, stars twinkled in the firmament here, no light pollution blocking them from view. Georgie’s teenage self would have found this romantic. What had she been thinking before prom, hoping Mike might also be sensing a shift in their relationship? She should have known someone like Wendy, with her lustrous hair and feminine hourglass figure, would appeal to Mike. Not a tall clumsy girl without any curves to speak of.
Honesty. She valued it. If she was being honest, it wasn’t so much the last-minute cancellation that had set off her temper when she found the two of them together. It was losing the chance to tell him how she went all quivery around him.
She tugged on Beau’s leash, kicking herself for not making some excuse to leave when Mike answered the door. Mike had moved on and was married with a daughter. Holding a grudge was pointless, especially after Kevin’s betrayal.
The familiar itch acted up. After residing in seven states over the last nine years, she always listened to that itch, the one the led her to her next adventure waiting around the corner.
With any luck that adventure would come thanks to a brand-new career on the racing circuit.
“Wait a minute.” Mike jogged over with Rachel in hand. “Hey, kiddo, run ahead, but stay in my sight while I talk to Miss Georgie.”
Georgie withstood the urge to stand behind Beau. Instead, she jerked her thumb toward her Prius. “My mother is expecting me.”
“Uh-oh. I’m in big trouble if you’re invoking your mother.” Laughter crinkled the edges around his eyes before a serious expression overtook his handsome face. “Is there any hope?”
Chills shot down her spine at Mike’s question.
“For the Thunderbird?” he asked.
That breath she’d been holding wiggled out, along with a chuckle. What had she expected? That he’d pined for her all these years? That her return would make him confront feelings so deep he’d need a chisel to release them? Rachel skipping ahead in the distance was proof he’d moved on, and how.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see the bond between Mike and Rachel. This Ginger, the same one who didn’t want Beau around, was one lucky woman. The years had changed Mike, and for the better.
Mike touched her arm. “Does your silence mean Miss Brittany’s too far gone or you don’t want to help me? There’s more to the story than meets the eye.”
Georgie stilled, the slight wind picking up and going straight to her bones. How did Mike do that so well? Read her mind and be on the same wavelength?
“It means nine years is a long time. Long enough for a beautiful Thunderbird to obtain the equivalent of dry rot. Long enough for you to doubt my integrity.” Long enough for her not to have a hometown anymore. Long enough for Kevin Doherty to pin his cheating ways and their breakup on her.
Suddenly, the weight she’d been feeling on her shoulders felt heavy and burdensome. Relationships should be based on equality and mutual respect. Things lacking here tonight, as well.
“Give me a reason to believe in you again,” she said. He winced and held up his hands in surrender. A wry smile enveloped him.
Her breath caught in her chest at the sight of how his face lightened and became—dare she even think it?—more handsome.
“That was wrong of me, Georgie. Besides, if either of us has a reason to be skeptical, it’s you. I’m not perfect, and you have no reason to believe in me.”
Rachel ran into the house, and Georgie turned her full attention to Mike. “This talk might have done some good before I left town nine years ago. But now? Why?”
“I should have apologized for the way I treated you when it happened.” Mike stared down and scuffled the dirt with his sneaker. “I stayed away out of guilt. And the kicker was I lost my best friend.”
“Finding you with Wendy MacNamara wasn’t easy.”
“I should have run after you then.”
“Hard to do with your pants around your ankles.” Thank goodness Rachel hadn’t heard that. She stopped and exhaled. Guess that grudge went deeper after all. The past was in the past, she told herself. It deserved to stay there.
Mike faced her. “All those years ago, I made you cry. I’d never seen you cry before. I hated myself for that. It took all of my willpower to listen to you and stay away.”
“You certainly listened well enough. Why didn’t you ever try to talk to me after that?”
He frowned and stepped back. “Didn’t your mother tell you?”
She shook her head. “Tell me what?”
“I came to your house twice. Both times your mother took great pleasure in telling me to go away. The first time she said you didn’t want to speak to me. The other time she scowled and told me I was the reason you left Hollydale. Then she slammed the door in my face.” His jaw clenched, and then he blinked. “Can we start over? Be friends?”
Did friendship die? Or did it just sit in a dusty barn waiting for ignition one day?
“Do friends think friends commit burglaries?”
He groaned and ran his hand through his short hair, highlighting his high, angular cheekbones. “I’m doing my job, Georgie, but the burglaries started before you returned to Hollydale, so that’s a point in your favor.” His facial muscles softened with his sigh. “Where have you kept yourself all these years?”
“When my mother called, I was living in Nashville.” Where a friend of a friend had connected her with Brett Cullinan. With any luck, a move to Charlotte, North Carolina, would be in her future. “Before that, I spent two years in Atlanta.” She couldn’t leave that town soon enough after the Kevin debacle. “Before that was Boston. Couldn’t handle the winter. Didn’t even make it a whole year. Spent some time on the West Coast, too.”
“You’ve moved quite often.”
She shrugged. Not everyone had parents like Diane and Carl Harrison. Moving suited her. She stood in front of Mike’s house, his home. Something she didn’t have. Something she wasn’t sure she could have.
“It’s past Beau’s bedtime. I have to go.” She tugged on Beau’s leash and started off at a clipped pace. “See you around, Officer Harrison.”
Best to remind herself of his official capacity and distance herself now before she found herself wanting to do something stupid, like put down roots in Hollydale, where she’d lose her sense of herself forever.
Mike dashed by and halted smack-dab in front of her. She couldn’t keep her forward momentum without running into him, so she applied the brakes hard. He reached his arm out, placing his hand on her forearm. Shivers of awareness rocketed to her fingertips, and she glared at the traitorous spot where her skin sold her out for his warm touch.
“Mike. Just plain Mike.” Only the right side of his mouth quirked up, and for the briefest of seconds, she glimpsed the teenager who’d opened the door and scooted past her for the first soft serve cone of the season from the Dairy Shack, a literal shack on the side of the road. “No one has ever kept me from getting too big for my britches like you did. I miss that. Between being a cop and a single dad, it’s hard to find someone who will keep me in line.”
A single dad? She licked her lips, trying for any moisture to wet her parched mouth.
“Wait a second. Who is Ginger? Isn’t she your wife? You mentioned her yesterday and how you were worried a
bout her reaction to Beau. I just assumed...”
The left side of his mouth lifted, and that full smile threatened to stop her heart, right now, in front of his house. “Ginger has a hold on my heart, that’s for sure. She’s my cat.” His grin widened, and he moved closer. “So you were hanging on my every word, huh?”
Mike was single? She had to wind this up before she did something stupid, like drown in those brown eyes dancing with mirth.
“Don’t you wish.” She pretended to scoff while backing up to the Prius. “My job involves more listening than you might think. I have to get an idea of what’s wrong based on people imitating their engines with whistles and clicks.”
Meanwhile warning bells clanged all around her. “Cars can be tricky machines to fix, you know. And if you don’t operate them, they break down, and they’re no use to anyone. But you know all that... Did I mention that I spent a year restoring cars at a great body shop and then kept that up as a side business? Give me a classic car show, and I’m in heaven.” She sent a backward glance toward his parents’ house, the barn no longer in sight. She was rambling, but she couldn’t stop. “So many put their hearts into restoring a car down on its luck, and you should see the pride on people’s faces when the cars are finished. For those folks it’s about bringing cars back to life.”
Beau circled his leash around her legs. Georgie twisted and flailed.
Mike landed his hand on her elbow. “Careful, now.” His strong voice shouldn’t be that comforting, but it was. “Want to come inside? Talk about the Thunderbird. Catch up on each other’s lives. Let’s bury the hatchet. I won’t play bad cop, I promise.”
He made an X over his heart.
Tempting didn’t even begin to describe his invitation. But the last thing she needed was another person hurting her heart, another machine that could get rusty all too quickly.
“My mother is still recovering. I... I need to check on her, relieve Kitty.”
“Running away from a challenge that fast?” He shook his head and planted one hand on her Prius. “Tsk, tsk. That’s not the Georgie Bennett I remember.”
