Wakefield College 01 - Where It May Lead

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “I hope you get in the mood one of these nights soon.”

  “Once this weekend is over,” she promised. “I should warn you I don’t eat much meat.”

  Troy glanced at his plate. The burger was gone, but he was still working on the fries. “I’m not exclusively a meat and potatoes guy. It just sounded good tonight.”

  “I wasn’t trying to make you feel guilty.”

  “Wouldn’t have worked if you were. But I’m happy with a vegetarian meal, too.”

  “Good,” she said, pleased.

  Eventually the waiter took away their plates. Troy ordered blueberry cobbler à la mode and asked for a second fork. They split it and kept talking. It seemed as if there was never a lull in conversation. Madison found she wanted to know everything about him, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. She was getting way more tingles than were justified, given that he hadn’t touched her since laying a hand on her back to steer her to the table. It had to be anticipation. Every so often she lost track of what he was saying because she was watching his mouth instead. Or his hands. He had great hands—big, strong, with long, blunt-tipped fingers. They weren’t hairy like some men’s. She tried to imagine them shaping clay into a delicate piece like the spout of a teapot, and then envisioned one wrapping the butt of his gun.

  Or touching her. She kept imagining that, too.

  Every so often his eyes would narrow or she’d see a flicker of heat in them. Either he could tell what she was thinking, or he was doing some imagining of his own. She had the giddy thought that the night felt like magic.

  She couldn’t possibly fall in love this fast, but it felt an awful lot like a beginning. Or at least it didn’t feel like anything that had ever happened to her before.

  She flushed with the realization that she had no idea what they’d been talking about and that Troy was watching her with amusement and something more electric.

  “Where’d you just go?” he asked.

  “Oh, I...” She could say her mind had wandered and leave it at that. But she felt unaccustomedly reckless. “I was thinking about you,” she heard herself say. “How glad I am you were assigned to work with me. We might never have met otherwise.”

  “Unless I pulled you over for speeding.” His voice was a little gritty. He reached across the table and took her hand. “I’m glad, too.” He looked around. “I think they’d be glad if we left.”

  Madison was shocked to see that the tables around them were empty. She hadn’t even noticed other people leaving. At the moment, they were completely alone, although she could still hear voices downstairs. “Oh, no! We’re lucky they didn’t whisk the tablecloth off while we were still sitting here.”

  Troy laughed, stood up and tugged her to her feet. He kept pulling until she bumped into him. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you all evening, Madison Laclaire.”

  “I have no objection,” she managed to say.

  “Good,” he murmured, and bent his head.

  She rose on tiptoe to meet him, gripping his shoulders for balance. Their mouths connected, and it wasn’t the tentative brush of lips she’d expected. The kind that asked, do you like this? and that she’d answer with a nibble that said, oh, yes. This was a full-out, hungry demand. Apparently John Troyer wasn’t a tentative kind of guy.

  Washed away by sensation, Madison discovered she felt demanding, too. Her fingers dug into the sleek muscles in his shoulders and she parted her lips to accept the thrust of his tongue. Her knees wanted to buckle. She leaned against his solid frame and tasted beer, salt and something distinctly him. His thighs were so strong, his hands powerful but still careful as he positioned her to suit him. She was melting, too aroused to remember where they were.

  He was the one to stiffen and lift his head. Only belatedly did Madison realize she’d heard the scrape of furniture on the floor behind them. Oh, heavens—she sneaked a peek to see that a waiter was upending chairs and putting them on tables. He very tactfully had his back to them as he worked, but he must have seen them kissing.

  Troy gently kissed her again then eased her away. He was smiling, but the heated glow in his eyes told her he hadn’t liked having to let her go any better than she did. “Didn’t mean to get so carried away,” he said.

  “It’s probably just as well we were interrupted.” Madison wasn’t sure she meant it. “I’m usually, um, a little more cautious than that.”

  His hands momentarily tightened on her arms. The next moment he loosened them very deliberately. With a nudge he started her between tables toward the top of the staircase. “I don’t suppose you have a lot of spare time the next few days.”

  “You think?”

  “I’m meeting with your head of security tomorrow. Can we have coffee if I stop by your office afterward?”

  Madison discovered she hated the idea of not seeing him at all tomorrow. “Yes. If we can make it iced coffee. It’s supposed to top a hundred tomorrow.”

  His hand moved in a gentle circle on her back. “Far as I’m concerned, we can go sit in the shade and do nothing but hold hands.”

  This feeling, as if champagne bubbles were popping in her bloodstream, was an entirely new sensation for her. “That works, too,” she admitted and made sure she had her hand on the railing as she began to descend the stairs. Her legs still weren’t quite steady.

  By the way he hovered, Madison felt fairly certain Troy wouldn’t let her fall. Modern woman that she was, she ought to be disgusted to discover she felt reassured and even...cherished.

  Knowing he couldn’t see her face, she frowned. Wow. Getting swept away like this might make her giddy, but it was more than a little scary, too.

  So what? she thought with an unaccustomed feeling of boldness, already looking forward to tomorrow. In her opinion, she was past due to take some risks.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I SAW A PICTURE of your dad,” Madison said.

  Troy made a lazy sound in his throat that she took as an inquiry.

  He lounged next to her on a stone bench in the shade beside the duck pond, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. The shade wasn’t doing an awful lot of good. Leaves hung limply. Even the usually aggressive ducks hadn’t stirred themselves to beg for handouts. Conversation had been desultory at best. Each of them had been sipping at the iced coffees he’d brought, as promised.

  “I studied some of the reunion photos,” she explained. “Putting faces to names. Think how impressed they’ll be if I recognize some of them as they arrive.”

  Troy turned his head and smiled at her. “I’d be impressed.”

  She sighed. “Of course, the last reunion of our fathers’ class was five years ago. Everyone has probably gained weight or lost hair or something. I probably won’t recognize a one of them.”

  “Dad was definitely losing his hair.”

  She’d noticed. This morning, Madison had squinted for some time at her computer monitor. Eventually she’d zoomed in on the faces that interested her, including Joseph Troyer’s. His hairline had undeniably receded. What hair he had left was graying, but she thought he’d been blond. At the time the picture was snapped, he was still a solid, well-built man.

  “He looked like you.”

  “More accurate to say I look like him.”

  “Well, I guess that’s true.” She hesitated. “Your mother was in the picture, too.”

  He grunted, looking uninterested. “What about your dad? Was he there?”

  “No. He’s never bothered with a reunion.” He’d come to her graduation from Wakefield, but she had a feeling that might have been the only time he’d returned to Frenchman Lake since his own graduation day. She hadn’t visited the campus prior to applying to Wakefield College. Moving-in day still stuck in her mind. Most of the incoming freshmen had arrived with parents who helped settle them into their dorm rooms. Her father hadn’t seen any reason she needed him. He had seemed surprised when she timidly asked whether he intended to bring her. She had a car, after all, and would s
urely want it, he’d pointed out.

  Troy was watching her now. “You close to him?” he asked.

  “Yes and no.” She shrugged as if the subject wasn’t a sensitive one. “I mostly lived with him after my parents divorced. But he’s not what you’d call warm and fuzzy.”

  Troy’s arm had been lying along the back of the bench behind her. Now his big hand gently squeezed her shoulder. “Your choice to live with him?”

  “Yes.” She gazed ahead, where a mallard duck dived midpond. “Mom remarried right away and started another family. I felt like the square peg. It was probably my fault more than hers.” She’d said that so many times, she almost believed it.

  “You see much of her?”

  “Very occasionally. I hardly know my half sister and brother.”

  “Hmm.”

  She chuckled to relieve some of her tension. “You sound like a therapist.”

  “I’m lacking the goatee to stroke.”

  “So you are.” She liked the way his hand kept kneading her shoulder. She wasn’t nestled close to him, both because this was, after all, her workplace, but mostly because sweat would probably have glued them together if they dared get too close. She’d have been tempted to plunge into the pond with the lone mallard had the water not been so murky. “All roads seem to lead back to our parents,” she commented.

  The skin beside his eyes crinkled. “Then let’s talk about something else.”

  “Did I mention the golf course manager informs me I don’t have the tee times I thought I did? We may edge the lunch back so the golfers have a chance to finish their rounds.”

  “Glad to hear that. I’ll be starved by the time I beat my way out of the rough.”

  Madison laughed. “The caterer for the reception failed to locate the quality of asparagus she wanted and for some reason that made her rethink several of the hors d’oeuvres, even ones that have nothing to do with asparagus. I’ve gotten calls from half a dozen alumni who are miffed because they didn’t make reservations soon enough and now they’re going to have to stay at a hotel not up to their standards. Oh, and the president’s wife is coming down with a cold.”

  “Is it possible to get a cold when it’s this hot?” Troy peeled his polo shirt away from his body. “I’ll bet she could bake the virus crispy dead if she played eighteen holes midday.”

  Madison muffled a laugh. “I’ll be sure to suggest that.” She took the last slurp of her drink and sighed. “I ought to get back to work.”

  His fingers circled the ball of her shoulder one more time. “Sounds like you have everything in hand.”

  “Knock on wood.” She glanced at the iron bench. “Oops.”

  He rose to his feet and looked down at her. “Tomorrow’s the big day.”

  “Yes. You’ll be at the reception at the president’s house?” She knew he was skipping the wine-tasting tour, as was she.

  “Wouldn’t miss it.” He smiled at her. “I’m looking forward to seeing you in action.”

  “Hiding panic at every glitch, you mean.”

  “I seriously doubt that. You’re too well organized to permit glitches.”

  Pleased by his faith and by the fact that he seemed to be more than okay with the idea of her being really good at her job, she said goodbye and parted from him. She couldn’t resist the temptation to turn and watch him stride away. Although he clearly wasn’t in any hurry, he moved purposefully and his head turned to take in his surroundings. It wouldn’t be easy to take him by surprise. Probably that was characteristic of cops.

  Walking back to Mem, Madison speculated on what it would be like to be involved with someone in law enforcement. Did he talk about his job? He hadn’t so far, but then she hadn’t asked. Would he be moody when he came home after seeing awful things? Had he ever shot anyone? She’d read that cops had a high divorce rate and a high rate of alcoholism, too. Troy had made a point out of mentioning that he wasn’t a drinker. The subject of previous marriages hadn’t yet arisen. At his age, it was entirely possible he had a divorce behind him, she thought, not liking the idea.

  Reality check. They’d had one date. One coffee break. She was getting way ahead of herself.

  Still, as the afternoon went on she found herself thinking about both Troy and, perhaps inevitably, their respective fathers. How well had the two known each other? They had surely been in a number of classes together. She realized that it bothered her more than ever how little she knew about her father’s years here. Why it mattered she couldn’t have said, but it felt weird that he would have known all the alumni arriving tomorrow. Chances were that there were former friends of his among them, even girlfriends. Madison’s last name was uncommon, so someone might make the connection. She hated to have to say, “Gee, no, Dad never mentioned you.”

  She gave serious thought that evening to calling him, but he was in Tokyo and she had no idea what the time difference was. He was undoubtedly asleep in his hotel room during her waking hours. He’d be irritated if she happened to get him awake but when he was doing business, which included all meals. And...what would he say, anyway?

  She could hear him irritably admitting he knew Joseph Troyer. What did he end up as? He would grunt when she told him. A small-town banker sounds about right. No ambition. Her father did condescension very well.

  Why, she asked herself, do I even want to call my father?

  As always, she was embarrassed by the answer.

  Because he’s all I have.

  * * *

  TROY HAD BEGUN to think he wouldn’t like either of Madison’s parents. He doubted she had any idea how much she’d given away when she was talking about her mother. It had been enough to make him hurt for the little girl she’d been. Or had she been older? A teenager, maybe? He would have to ask.

  He’d reserve judgment where the dad was concerned. Somebody had to have done something right, or Madison wouldn’t be the woman she was. Did an unhappy child ever learn to smile with unalloyed delight the way she did?

  Troy put in a few hours at his desk at the station, finishing up reports and making phone calls, but she stayed on his mind. She’d been there since he first set eyes on her, and he wished like hell they were having dinner again tonight. He didn’t like knowing they wouldn’t be able to do more than exchange a few words at the crowded reception tomorrow night, either.

  Patience, he told himself. Madison wouldn’t always be as busy as she was this weekend. He should be glad to have the chance to watch her at work. He’d learn more about her that way than he would on a dozen dinner dates.

  Not a day passed that he didn’t wish his father was still alive. The need to talk to Dad was even fiercer than usual right now. Driving home, Troy thought about everything he wished he could ask. He was curious what his father thought about these classmates, starting with Guy Laclaire. He’d have liked Dad to meet Madison. And he was bugged that he hadn’t pushed harder when Dad said so little about the long-ago murder.

  Damn it, had he really not known Mitchell King very well? For some reason Troy kept thinking back to their conversation. He hadn’t felt dissatisfaction then, but he suspected now that Dad had been holding back. It would be like him to be reticent if, say, he hadn’t liked King. Troy’s easygoing father never wanted to admit he didn’t like someone.

  Troy grabbed fast-food meals more often than he should, but tonight he made the decision to stop at the grocery store—air-conditioned, thank God—and then grill a steak and make a salad once he got home. He cleaned the kitchen then called his mother, as he did a lot of nights when he wasn’t stopping by the house to make sure she was all right.

  But he dreaded these phone calls.

  This conversation was typical.

  He asked how she was.

  “Fine.” She sounded vaguely surprised he’d asked. “Just fine.”

  Of course she was fine. She’d never admit to anything else even when he heard tears in her voice.

  Had she gone anywhere today? Why no, but she’d had to w
ater all the plants on the patio, you know, and that took forever.

  Oh, the time capsule was being opened this weekend? Goodness, she’d forgotten all about it.

  She didn’t want to talk about it any more than she had the last time he mentioned the weekend activities.

  Troy could never pin her down. There was a lot she didn’t want to talk about, including how she felt or the fact that she scarcely left the house. The weight she’d lost since Dad died wasn’t open to discussion. Sometimes he wasn’t sure she’d notice if he quit calling altogether. For a while there, he’d been doing her grocery shopping, but once she discovered one of the stores delivered, she’d opted into the service. Mainly, Troy suspected, so he couldn’t critique what—or how little—she ate.

  And, hell, maybe he wasn’t handling her grief well. Probably because he was male, he’d always been closer to Dad than he was to her. Whether Mom might have found it more acceptable to lean on a daughter than a son, he didn’t know. What he did know was that he was all she had, whether she liked it or not.

  There were days he wanted to give up, but he knew he’d never let himself. He understood his mother’s devastation. She and Dad hadn’t spent a night apart from their wedding day on. They’d had the kind of marriage he wanted. The love between his parents had been so palpable, he’d sometimes been embarrassed by it when he was a kid. Nobody else’s parents looked at each other the way his mom and dad did. He’d never been able to imagine one of them without the other. None of them had expected something so sudden and shocking. There wasn’t even time to say goodbye.

  And yeah, there was a secret part of him that resented her determination to make the grief exclusive to her. She didn’t want to hear that he hurt, too.

  Troy had no trouble imagining her stare of complete incomprehension if he tried to say, “I feel like I’ve lost my mother, too.”

  He gave brief thought to saying, I met a woman who is special, but if that didn’t get a rise he didn’t want to feel the disappointment. It was too soon anyway, he told himself. He hardly knew Madison Laclaire.