“So what do we do now?” she asked, aiming her tone at seriousness.
“Wait.”
“And what do we do if they come?”
“Hadn’t decided on that yet.”
“You’re not going to confront them tonight, are you?” Annie’s eyes widened while a whole batch of less-than-comforting scenarios marched themselves out in 3-D, complete with gunshot sound effects.
“Depends on how many of them there are.”
“Jack!” Her one-word protest echoed disbelief.
“Can’t just let them get away.”
“You’re almost enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“It’s the cowboys-and-Indians thing,” he said, his dark eyes crinkled at the edges.
“Except they’ll probably arrive with a covered wagon full of shotguns, and we don’t have a single tomahawk.”
Jack laughed, and the sound of it sent a thrill of something deeply satisfying right through Annie’s heart. It pleased her, making him laugh. Something so simple and yet reaffirming, a check mark, audible proof of approval.
Sound played out in the night around them. Leaves crunching somewhere behind. A deer, maybe? A tractor from the dairy farm bordering the C.M. land. Cows calling out to one another, their moos plaintive and questioning.
Annie focused on the loading-dock parking lot in front of them, knowing, however, that Jack’s gaze was on her. Like marbles on a hardwood floor, anticipation scattered through her, decimating any strands of logic she might have been clinging to. Did he want to kiss her? Was that the source of the almost-tangible awareness hanging between them like thunderclouds full to bursting?
And she wished, deeply, for the answer to be yes.
“Annie?”
“What?” Her voice was so low she barely heard herself.
“I’d really like to kiss you.”
Gladness grappled for footing, elbowed reason out of the way. “Are you asking permission?”
“I’m asking permission.”
The request should have required, at the least, a little consideration on her part. Some mulling over of consequence.
“Permission granted,” she said, her voice again little more than a whisper.
Across the leaves he slid. Close enough, he angled his head, but made no further move to fulfill the request. Just studied her, long and hard. Annie had never been looked at in quite that way before. As if he were seeking to know her, really know her, take in some part of her she had never allowed anyone else to access. Under his appraisal, some part of her opened, wilted, weakened and out leaked admission of her own need for this, yearning so real, so bone-deep she had no hope of hiding it.
“Annie.” His voice sliding across her name confirmed it. He knew.
Her eyes closed, and he kissed her.
Annie opened to him, realizing, only in doing so, that she’d lived the past year of her life curled around herself like an early-spring flower bracing against one last reach of winter, and here it was at last, a true change in season, warmth, soft breezes, blue skies, a May afternoon.
And wasn’t this what a kiss was supposed to be? Saying a thousand different things at once, that it had been thought about, hoped for, long before it ever became reality.
Everything about it felt like a first, first bicycle solo—look, no hands!—first lick of a double-scoop ice-cream cone on a July day. First kiss. At its edges, relief that it was as good in reality as it had been in anticipation. And at the edges of Annie’s heart, amazement that she could incite such feelings in this man.
A truck growled up the road beside the factory, its descent in gears bringing them both back to the reason they were here. Lights flickered their way, and Annie craned for a glimpse of the gate at the factory’s entrance.
“It’s turning in,” she said.
“Looks like it,” Jack agreed.
There was disappointment in both their voices, the truck’s appearance toppling the walls temporarily erected to the rest of the world.
“Can I say something I probably shouldn’t?” Jack asked.
Annie nodded. Words suddenly seemed to require effort beyond her capability.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since the first night we met when you walked into that diner looking ten kinds of flustered.”
“It showed, huh?”
“A little,” he said, and his smile was amused, but in the way of a man who thinks something is adorable, not ridiculous.
And then she refocused on the first part of what he’d said. He’d been thinking about kissing her since then? Annie’s gaze dropped to her lap. What did she do with that? If she’d been conjuring up her own set of hopeful what-ifs, it would never have occurred to her to start with that.
“And one other thing,” he said, reaching out to tip her chin up, forcing her to look at him.
“What?”
“It was worth the wait.”
Annie wished for a quick wit, for flippancy, but felt neither amused nor flippant. Instead, she felt sobered and respectful of her own reaction to what they had just let happen between them. And joyful, yes, that most intensely, to know that this man for whom she could no longer deny her feelings wanted her. Wanted her.
Her own reply, should she have been able to find one, lost its opportunity when the truck turned in at the factory entrance. The gate was closed. Someone got out of the passenger door, a very tall man it appeared from here, and opened it. The truck pulled through, and he closed it again, then climbed back in.
“Let’s get down,” Jack said and stretched out on his belly.
Annie did the same, twigs snapping beneath her and what felt like an acorn pressing into her thigh.
They watched, silent now, while the truck made a U-turn and then backed up, the loud beep-beep of Reverse ceasing when it eased to a stop against the thick black bumpers beneath one of the loading-dock doors.
Both men got out. One pointed something at the door—a remote control, maybe?—and it opened.
“Do you know who they are?” Annie whispered.
“I can’t get a clear look at their faces. They look familiar to you?”
“Not yet.”
A minute or two ticked by. One of the men hoisted himself onto the dock entrance, disappeared inside, and then lights flared on. He appeared again, saying something to the man still standing beside the truck. From this distance, they couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the light struck his face, and Annie gasped.
“Early Gunter,” Jack whispered.
“But he’s your security guard. Maybe they’re here for something else.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But what?”
Good question. It was after ten o’clock on a weeknight, and they’d just driven in here with an unmarked moving-van-type truck. It was hard not to draw conclusions. “I know Early well. And his family, too.”
Jack sighed, that alone conveying his dismay. “You know, I was really hoping I was wrong on this.”
“Me, too. In fact, I was sure you would be. But I would never have believed Early capable of stealing.”
For the next forty-five minutes, they remained where they were, stretched out flat on the ground, watching while Early and the other man, whom they had not been able to identify, carried product out of the warehouse and loaded it onto the truck. When they’d finished, they turned off the lights, closed the loading-dock door, jumped back inside the cab and roared off.
“We’ve got to see where they’re going with that,” Jack said.
“You mean follow them?”
“Might not get another chance,” he said.
As soon as they had closed the gate and started pulling away, he got to his feet and helped Annie up beside him. “Come on,” he said. “You game?”
“Sure,” she said and then remembered the return trip back through the woods and the snakes that were all surely in hibernation by now.
“Pony Express is still in service,” he said, clearly reading her mind.
She held
up a hand. “No, no, really. A little desensitization will be good for me.”
“Sure you want to start your desensitizing tonight?”
“No time like the present.”
She wasn’t fooling him. She could see it on his face, plain and clear. He knew exactly why she wasn’t hoisting herself onto his back again. That was okay, though. There were some things imminently more dangerous to a girl’s well-being than snakes.
* * *
THEY FOLLOWED THE TRUCK from a discreet distance for an hour and a half, down Route 220 South with its winding curves, across the Virginia border and into North Carolina.
Annie had made the trip through the woods like a hurdler in training, her feet so high off the ground her knees nearly hit chin level. Jack had led the way, and she was grateful for the simple fact that he hadn’t looked back to see how ridiculous she looked.
Now his expression grew more grim with every passing mile. Annie felt the direness of the situation, too; this was a man she knew, whose family she knew, chatted with in the post office, the grocery store. How could he drain the lifeblood from the company that had provided him with a job for so many years?
“They’re going to the first warehouse we went to, aren’t they?”
“Looks that way.” Jack’s response sounded as if it had been dipped in concrete.
“Are you going to confront them?”
He shook his head. “No point in that. I’d like to get some pictures.”
“What about calling the police?”
“I don’t want to do that just yet.”
“But they could catch them in the act of unloading.”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t want to turn them in, do you?”
He ran a hand down his face, forehead to chin. “I don’t hardly remember that place without Early being there. My father hired him because he had honest eyes. I’m having trouble believing he’s in this alone.”
“You think someone else at the factory is involved?”
“If I were betting, that’d be my guess.”
“Any idea who?”
“Just hunches.”
Annie didn’t ask for names. She didn’t really want to know them. It was disheartening to learn that people could be something so different from what they appeared to the rest of the world.
Just as they’d suspected, the truck took the exit they’d taken before, following the turns to the warehouse where they’d nearly gotten caught by the security guard.
Jack cut the lights, and they drove by the entrance, pulled over on a stretch of grass with a side view of the loading dock. Just as it had earlier, the truck backed up, the two men getting out and opening the warehouse door, then setting about the business of unloading.
Jack reached across the seat, popped open the glove compartment and pulled out a camera. His elbow brushed her knee on the trip back.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“That’s all right,” Annie murmured, drawing herself up like a sand crab bent on escape. Only, she had no place to go. Their eyes met for a moment, held, and something sparked between them, jolting through her with kick-start force.
He fiddled with the camera, checked for film. “Wait right here, okay? I’ll be back.”
“You’re not going down there, are you?”
“No. Just close enough to get a few shots as evidence.”
“What about the flash?”
“I’ll take them fast. Can you get in the driver’s seat and be ready to take off?”
“You have sleuthing in your blood, don’t you?”
“Does that mean you think I’m good at it?”
“So far.”
“Wish me luck,” he said and ducked out of the car.
Annie got out and went around, sliding behind the wheel. She set the chronograph on her watch, then sat watching it tick off seconds, each one raising her adrenaline level to another peak. When they’d added up to twelve minutes, the tight little ball of panic in her stomach began to unravel.
She couldn’t see him anywhere out there; the night was tar-paper dark. What if they’d seen him? What would they do? Did they have guns?
Don’t be ridiculous, Annie. Early Gunter may have turned out to be a thief, but he’s not a murderer!
No sooner had doubt waged an assault on that particular assertion than the passenger door popped open and Jack jumped inside.
“Let’s go!” he said.
Annie fumbled at the key, her fingers suddenly their own worst enemy. She turned it—finally!—shoved the gearshift into First and floored the accelerator.
They spun in the grass, then the tires caught the edge of the asphalt and shot them forward. Annie grappled with the wheel, the car veering right, then left.
“Whoa,” Jack said, “you’re good at this. Where’d you learn to drive like that?”
“School of scared spitless.”
Jack made a snorting noise and laughed a good belly laugh.
In spite of the fear that still had her in a choke hold, Annie smiled at the sound. “Did you get the pictures?”
“Enough I think,” he said, exhaling another chuckle and settling back in his seat.
“Do you think they saw you?”
“Pretty sure they did.”
Annie punched the accelerator, hurtling them down the country road, aware of the injustice to the posted speed limit, but at the moment it seemed the lesser of two evils. “Are they following us?” She threw an anxious glance at the rear view mirror.
“Don’t think so. They wouldn’t stand a chance of catching us, anyway.”
She shot him a look. Saw the amusement on his face and let up on the accelerator. “Well, they could have been,” she said.
“Yep.” Another smile.
Warmth settled over Annie. A sense of something good and right. Of gladness for the company of a man who seemed to find things to appreciate about her. She could not remember the last time she had felt this way. Had she ever?
Silence stretched out between them for a mile or a few. It didn’t matter because it was comfortable silence, companionable silence.
“Think they recognized you?” Annie asked after a while, tapping a thumb against the steering wheel.
“I doubt it. Might have gotten a look at the car.”
“Hmm. So what’re you going to do with the pictures?”
Jack sighed. “Wish I’d been wrong on this.”
“What makes people justify embezzling?”
“Maybe they feel they’ve been shortchanged somehow. That they’re owed something.”
“But it’s wrong.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“So what are you going to do?” she asked again, softly this time.
“I don’t have a lot of choice,” he said, regret in his voice.
“They haven’t left you with any. That’s for sure.” The Porsche devoured a few more miles, and then Annie said, “Does this change anything for the future of C.M.?”
“I don’t know, Annie,” he said.
It wasn’t much as hope went, but something inside her lightened with the words. Jack’s answer held something it had never held before. Uncertainty.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT when they pulled into Jack’s driveway. Glad for the flexibility of her babysitter, Annie knew Mrs. Parker and Tommy both had long since gone to bed. The few times Annie had been out late for whatever reason, Mrs. Parker had slept in the guest bedroom, and since Annie didn’t know what time she would be home tonight, they’d agreed Mrs. Parker would spend the night and go home in the morning.
Annie had driven the rest of the way home, the last part of the drive mostly silent, with a few bits of conversation sprinkled throughout.
Now that they were back, awkwardness settled around them, filling even the nooks and corners of the previous ease with which they’d laughed and talked.
The night had served to make her forget about the situation with J.D., if only for a little
while, and she had needed that.
“Thanks for going with me, Annie.”
She reached for her purse, dug inside for her own car keys. “Could have done it on your own.”
“It was nice to have the company.”
The words had the ring of sincerity and something else, too—unspoken though it was, clear reference to what had happened between them earlier.
“I don’t think it’s exactly the right thing to say about a stakeout, but I had fun,” she said.
“So did I.”
They sat awhile longer, let that settle, like cotton tossed to the wind, landing where it would. For Annie, it landed in her heart’s corner, where seeds of happiness seemed intent on taking root in spite of the little voice that kept reminding her what a bad sister she was.
Who would have thought, a week ago when she’d been conjuring up all sorts of personalities for Jack Corbin, the man intent on draining dry a large part of Macon Point’s livelihood, that she would end up here?
* * *
A STRANGE CAR SAT in the driveway of her house. Annie pulled the Tahoe in behind it, frowning. Where was Mrs. Parker’s car? This one had the generic look of a rental. Alarm threaded through her, hastening her steps up the brick walkway. She dropped her keys just as she reached the front door.
She bent down, picked them up and straightened to find the door open and J.D. standing on the other side. Looking as polished and magazine-perfect as J.D. always looked. The L.A. sun had lightened his hair a couple of degrees, and his face was tan against his white shirt.
She dropped the keys again.
He bent to pick them up this time and handed them to her.
She took them from him with a hand responding on automatic pilot. “What are you doing here?” she asked, icicles inserting themselves in the question, even as she fought for neutrality.
“Visiting,” he said. “Come in.”
“Where is Mrs. Parker?”
“I sent her home.”
“You what?” Stunned, she stood there, feet bolted to the porch floor.
“Didn’t see any need in her staying when I was here.”
Outrage sent a flare to her feet, propelling her through the front door and into the living room, where she turned and glared at him, hands balled into fists at her hips to prevent them from shaking. “How dare you come in this house and start issuing orders you have no right to issue?”
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