by Joan Hohl
He wanted Megan.
There was only one thing Royce wanted more than to be with Megan: He wanted her safe.
Without conscious direction, his hand again moved toward the phone. Stopping himself short, Royce drew his hand back and laid it flat on the desktop.
She was all right. Of course she was all right. He'd have heard if she wasn't. Hadn't he made a point of having her promise to call the barracks, call him, if there were any incidents, or anything at all, regardless how seemingly unimportant, out of the ordinary?
He had. Before leaving her, Royce had insisted Megan make that promise to him.
And since Megan hadn't called, he had to assume she was perfectly fine, secure in the safety of her parents' home.
Employing an old phrase his mother had chided her sons with whenever they appeared to be getting overanxious about anything, Royce called himself a worrywart, opened the folder in front of him and told himself to get with the program.
Nevertheless, before focusing his full attention on his work, Royce made an anxiety-easing promise to himself.
He shot another glance at the wall clock and stifled a curse of impatience.
Now the hands stood at 8:57. He had two and a half hours to get through before he could leave, but then he'd be out of there, intent on carrying out his promise.
When his shift was over, and before going home, Royce had decided, he'd make a swing by Megan's place...just to check out the situation for his own satisfaction.
Five
Megan started awake at the jarring sound of the doorbell. Disoriented, she glanced around, heart pounding, nerves jangling, adrenaline surging through her bloodstream. The bell sounded again, and she jolted upright, out of the chair.
Who—? Megan shuddered as an image of a large, hulking, rough-voiced man filled her mind.
She was alone in the house, and it was late. How late? Megan shot a look at the gleaming sunburst clock on the wall above the fireplace mantel.
The clock read 12:05.
The bell pealed once more, followed by the unmistakable sound of the doorknob being turned.
Megan froze. Dear heaven! Was it him? she thought frantically. Was it that awful man, trying to get at her to finish what he had started Friday night?
Panic crawled into her stomach, making her feel physically sick, weak-kneed, terrified.
But wait! Think.
The attacker didn't know her name...did he? Megan frowned in concentration. Into her mind stole the faint echo of his voice, nasty-sounding, at first calling a generic “lady,” then, as she struggled, fought him, snarling a guttural command: “Be still, you crazy bitch.”
No, Megan reasoned, he probably didn't know her name. Therefore, he couldn't very likely know where she lived, she thought, exhaling a whooshing sigh of relief that caught in her throat when another summons trilled from the doorbell.
Panic flared anew, causing a flutter inside her chest, but a faint voice inside her mind called for deeper thought.
Obeying the order from her subconscious, Megan drew in deep, calming breaths, and applied her mind to more reasoned, rational contemplation, backtracking, then following the trail of her earlier actions.
Losing track of the passage of time, Megan had labored over her worktable until after nine, and wouldn't have quit then if not for a nagging and painful cramping in her lower back. Weariness had slammed into her when she slid from the stool and stepped away from the table.
Rubbing the base of her spine, Megan had stood still for a moment, gathering the dregs of her strength. A rumble of hunger from her empty stomach had finally propelled her from her bedroom on rubbery legs.
Leaving the lights burning in her bedroom, Megan had turned on the lights in each successive room she entered. In the kitchen, she'd fixed a quick meal consisting of a sandwich and a glass of skim milk.
It was while she methodically chewed the tasteless sandwich that Megan had been swamped by an overwhelming need to talk to her mother. She'd rushed to the wall phone, and been reaching for the receiver before she remembered that her mother, her parents, were halfway around the world, on a ship on the high seas, midway between ports of call.
The realization that she could not bolster her flagging spirits with the comforting sound of her mother's voice had drained the last of Megan's meager supply of energy.
Forgetting the remains of her slapped-together supper, and again leaving the bright overhead kitchen light on, she'd wandered into the living room, flicking on the swag light above the dining room table, the wall sconces, and then every table and floor lamp in the living room.
After securely closing the drapes over the wide living room windows, Megan had sunk into her father's favorite, deeply cushioned recliner and shut her eyes...just to rest for a few minutes.
She had been lost to the world within seconds.
That had been over two hours ago. Now, the last foggy wisps of sleep banished from her mind, Megan stood, taut and wary, her brain working at near full capacity.
Except for the draped windows in the living room, the house was ablaze with lights, indicating to any and all friends, neighbors and passersby that somebody was not only at home, but awake and aware.
Yet how many friends, neighbors or passersby came visiting after twelve o'clock at night?
Megan went stiff as a board as the doorbell trilled again, hard, quick, as if from the impatient stab of a finger stiffened by anger.
Get a grip, Megan told herself, fighting for all she was worth against paralyzing terror. Even if the attacker had somehow gotten her name and address, would a potential rapist announce himself by ringing the doorbell?
Not hardly, Megan chided herself bracingly, exhaling another whooshing breath of relief.
The bell rang yet again, immediately followed by a rapping tattoo against the wood-encased steel panel and a low-pitched, sharply concerned call.
“Megan, are you in there? Are you all right?”
Royce!
As his name exploded inside her mind, Megan was off and running to the door.
“I'm here!” she answered, raising her voice in case he had turned away. “Don't leave!” she cried, mentally cursing as she fumbled with the security lock.
“I had no intention—” the lock clicked, and she swung open the door “—of leaving.”
Sergeant Royce Wolfe did not look like a very happy man. In point of fact, decked out in his smart state police uniform, he looked intimidating as hell.
Megan thought he was the best-looking thing she had seen in...well, in forever.
“You having a party or something?” Royce asked in a terse, clipped voice.
“A party?” Megan blinked. “Of course not! Why in the world would you think that?”
“You want an immediate answer,” he fairly growled, “or may I come in out of the rain?”
“Oh! It's raining again.” Megan backed away from the doorway. “I didn't know. Come on in.”
“Thanks.” Royce stepped past her into the flagged foyer, and only then did she notice the damp patches on the shoulders of his uniform jacket. “It's more a heavy mist than a rainfall,” he said, raising his hand to remove his stiff-brimmed hat. “But the temperature's dropping, and it's beginning to freeze on the ground.” He passed the hat to her.
“Don't you have a slicker or something for protection?” Megan asked, watching as he unfastened the buttons on his jacket. “And I thought you guys were issued plastic thingies to cover your hats.” She ran her hand over the stiff, damp brim.
“Thingies?” The light of anger in Royce's glittering blue eyes gave way to a gleam of amusement.
“You know what I mean,” she retorted, reaching for the jacket as he shrugged out of it.
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Royce surrendered the jacket to her, along with a smile. “The thingie is in its bag, which is in the car, on the seat, beneath the slicker.”
“Oh.” Megan stood there, holding his jacket and staring at him in bewildered admir
ation.
In the gray police-issue shirt and pants, Royce was a sight to behold. Of course, Megan mused, bemused, at least in his case, the smart-looking dark gray uniform did not make the man. Quite the contrary. With his so-tall, muscularly trim physique and his sharp-featured, sun-kissed good looks, Royce most decidedly made the uniform.
He'd said something.
“Huh?” Megan shook herself out of distraction and into awareness.
“I asked if you were feeling all right.”
“Yes, fine,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you're staring at me,” he answered, frowning. “And you've got a strange look on your face.”
“Oh.” Upset with herself for becoming distracted by his masculine appeal, Megan raked a hand through her already tousled hair, and searched her mind for an intelligent response. “Really?” was all she could come up with, which sounded pretty lame, even to her own ears.
“Yes, really,” Royce replied. “Something bothering you? Something about me, I mean?”
“Oh, no,” she told him, giving a sharp shake of her head to reinforce her falsehood. “I had dozed off on the recliner in the living room, you see,” she babbled. “The doorbell startled me, and I guess I'm still not quite awake yet.”
“Uh-huh,” he murmured, eyeing her speculatively. Then, his voice taking on a note of understanding, he asked, “You afraid to go to bed?”
“Afraid?” Megan repeated, bristling at the mere suggestion of a lack of inner fortitude...even if it did happen to be true. “Why would you think that I'm afraid?”
“Elementary, my dear Megan,” Royce said, dryly paraphrasing a famous fictional detective. “Your falling asleep on a chair in the living room with every light burning in the house would naturally lead one to deduce that you are afraid of placing yourself in the vulnerable position of being in a bed in a dark house.”
All the fight went out of Megan, and her rigidly held shoulders slumped in defeat. “Okay,” she admitted tiredly. “I was afraid to go to bed.” She looked past him, as if seeing the night beyond the closed front door. “It's pitch-black, and I don't know who might be skulking about out there.”
“But I do know,” he said. “There isn't a soul skulking about out there.”
“How do you know?” Megan asked, without pausing to think or reflect.
“I looked.” His lips tilted into a chiding smile. “I peeked behind every tree and bush.”
“I should have known,” Megan confessed, giving him an apologetic smile in return. “You are exceptionally thorough in your work, aren't you?”
“Exceptionally,” Royce agreed, without so much as a shadow of underlying conceit. “Besides,” he went on, shrugging, “I asked the local municipal patrolman to keep a sharp eye on the place while making his sweep of the area.”
“Thank you, Royce,” Megan said, in quiet recognition of his dedication beyond the call. “I appreciate your concern for my safety.”
“Enough to offer me a hot drink?” he asked, arching his burnished brows over eyes beginning to sparkle with inner laughter. “It's cold work beating the bushes and peering behind trees, especially when said bushes and trees are coated with a fine film of ice.” His mouth quirked in an invitation for her to share his amusement. “Bites the fingers, you know.”
As had happened before, Megan succumbed to his whimsical appeal to her sense of humor. Though her gurgle of laughter was faint, it was genuine, unforced.
“Coffee or tea?” she asked, turning to hang up his jacket in the foyer closet.
“Tea sounds genteel, and more suited to the midnight hour, but I'd prefer coffee,” Royce said. “If you don't mind?”
“Whichever,” Megan replied, shrugging to show her unconcern and pivoting to lead the way into the kitchen.
She had no sooner crossed the threshold than her glance settled on the half-eaten sandwich and barely touched glass of milk she had left forgotten on the table.
“I'll just clear away my supper things,” she muttered, crossing the room and sweeping the plate and the glass from the table. “Then I'll start the coffee.”
“That was your supper?”
Megan winced at the note of censure in Royce's voice. “I wasn't very hungry,” she said defensively, moving to the sink. Dumping the milk and the remains of the sandwich, she rinsed the plate and glass, then turned to the coffeemaker.
“Besides nourishment, you need to feed your nerves, Megan,” Royce said, sauntering across the room to stand beside her. “Or else you're going to come unglued.”
A retort telling him to mind his own business sprang to her lips, but Megan held it in check, recalling the emptiness she had experienced on rising from her stool at the worktable, the weakness of needing to hear her mother's voice, the panic that had gripped her at the jarring ring of the doorbell.
“You're right, I know,” she admitted, carefully spooning coffee grounds into the lined basket. “But I never fuss with meals to begin with, and tonight...well...”
“You were more than usually alone?”
“Yes,” she said in a grateful murmur, no longer surprised by the depths of his understanding and insight.
“Well, you're no longer alone,” Royce said, plucking the water-filled glass pot from her trembling fingers and tipping it over the grate on top of the coffeemaker. “And I'm always hungry.” He angled his head to grin at her. “What do you say—should we raid the refrigerator?”
“I'm afraid there's not much to raid. I was planning on doing my grocery shopping on...” Megan's voice faded. She swallowed, then went on gamely, “Saturday morning.”
“How about in here?” Royce asked, going to the end wall cabinet. “Any canned goodies, soup and such?”
“Sure,” Megan answered, giving him permission to look with a wave of her hand. “Help yourself.”
In the end, what Royce helped himself to was a can of luncheon meat, which he sliced and fried in one pan, six eggs, which he beat and scrambled up in another pan, and four pieces of slightly stale bread, which he put Megan in charge of toasting and buttering.
Megan surprised herself by polishing off two pieces of the meat, a quarter portion of the egg mixture, and a slice of toast, liberally buttered and slathered with strawberry preserves. But she passed on the coffee, sipping a small glass of orange juice instead.
The bits of conversation they exchanged during their meal were general and innocuous, light-years removed from the root cause of their association. After they finished eating and clearing the table, and as if they had known each other for years, Royce jotted down items on a scrap of notepaper, Megan calling out to him as she took stock of the end cabinet and the refrigerator, deciding what she needed to pick up at the supermarket.
It was nearing two-thirty in the morning by the time Royce made his way to the front door. Reluctant to see him go, Megan retrieved his jacket from the hall closet and watched, sad-eyed, as he shrugged into it.
“You're okay now?” Royce asked, settling his hat low on his forehead before reaching for the doorknob.
“Yes.” Megan dredged up a smile for him. “I feel much better, thank you.”
“No thanks necessary, unless it's from me.”
Megan frowned. “For what?”
“For our late-night indulgence, or whatever you might call it—a late supper, an early breakfast....” He grinned.
Megan experienced an unfamiliar, unwanted, but definite spark of response of a sensual nature. Dismissing it as absurd, under the circumstances, she returned his grin with a faint, remote and cool smile.
Royce looked baffled for an instant. Then, with a barely discernible shrug, he turned the doorknob and swung open the door. A blast of frigid air swept into the foyer.
“Whoa!” he muttered, stepping outside. “It's cold as a witch's...” He caught himself up short, shrugged again, then went on. “It's damn cold out here.” He took another step, wobbled, then straightened. “Like a sheet of glass, too.”
“Be
careful,” Megan called, hovering behind the protection afforded by the door. “And drive carefully.”
“I will,” Royce promised. “Go inside and shut the door,” he ordered. “I want to hear that lock click into place.”
“But...”
“Go, Megan, I'm freezing!”
“All right,” she snapped, stepping around the door to glare at him. “But call me when you get home,” she tacked on.
“Me-gan,” Royce groaned. “I'll be all right.”
“I want to know you aren't wrapped around a tree somewhere,” she insisted. “Will you call?”
“Okay, okay, I'll call.” He heaved a sigh. “Now, will you get the hell inside?”
“I'm going,” she grumbled, moving back behind the door. “Good night, Sergeant.”
“Good night, Megan,” Royce responded in a tone of rapidly dwindling patience. “Lock the door.”
“Sorehead!” Megan shut the door with a bang, then bullied the lock into place.
Royce's bark of laughter reached her, even filtered through the wood-encased steel door.
As had happened before—was it once, twice?—Megan could not deny the chuckle that escaped through her smiling lips. And it was the tug on her lips, the very sound of her soft laughter, that brought home to her the realization of how beneficial his unexpected visit had been to her.
By his very presence, his easy manner, his everything-under-control attitude, Royce had effectively chased the fears, real and imagined, from her rattled mind.
Decent? Megan mused, absently drifting from room to room, extinguishing lights as she went. Royce Wolfe was a lot more than a decent individual; he was the genuine article, a man, in every true sense of the word.
Returning to her bedroom, Megan began undressing. Distracted by her thoughts, she was unconscious of the wide, uncovered windows flanking her desk and worktable, the late-winter darkness beyond the panes.
Stripped to the buff, she gathered up her discarded clothing, grabbed a clean oversize navy-blue nightshirt emblazoned with white lettering spelling out Penn State Nitney Lions, and made for the bathroom and a quick, hot shower.
