After turning back onto Lottery Lane, Jennifer approached the boardinghouse, but was loath to return inside to the loneliness of her room. Gwen was probably busy, the other boarders were out and the last thing Jennifer wanted right now was her own company.
Hoping to shake her homesickness, she turned away from Gwen’s and headed up Main Street. The stores looked exactly as they had when she’d meandered the street window-shopping as a kid. The old clapboard buildings in pioneer Western style with fake fronts that made them appear taller than they really were remained unchanged, except for their window displays. Signs with the week’s specials filled the front glass of the Stop N’ Shop Grocery Store, a display of new cosmetics beckoned from Cozy’s Drugstore and a selection of thermal blankets and winter jackets were advertised on sale at the Mercantile.
Shifting her gaze away from the sheriff’s office as she passed, Jennifer hurried into the Brimming Cup, anxious for a visit with Shelly to cure her loneliness, and equally determined to avoid another encounter with Luke.
Sitting across from Shelly in a booth that overlooked the barbershop and Jester Savings and Loan, Jennifer sipped bottled water and surveyed with dismay the generous bowl of apple crisp with vanilla ice cream that Shelly insisted was on the house.
“I can’t eat all that,” Jennifer protested.
“Sure you can,” Shelly stated. “Besides, you need it. It’s comfort food.”
Jennifer raised her eyebrows in question.
“I was setting empty crates out back,” Shelly explained. “I saw you headed up the hill toward the cemetery.”
Jennifer felt tears threatening again at Shelly’s kindness, and she dug into the bowl of dessert to stave them off.
“I’m really sorry about your grandfather,” her friend said. “I know how tough it is to lose your family.”
“Do you ever get over it?”
Shelly shook her head. “But you have your friends, and eventually you realize that friends are family, and family is everything.”
Jennifer nodded. “And now you have a family of your own.”
The brilliance of Shelly’s smile was blinding. “Who would have thought? I’d figured on spending my days in Jester as an old maid. Now Connor and our baby have changed all that.”
“You’ll have to send me a birth announcement. And a picture.” Shelly reached across the table and grabbed Jennifer’s hand. “Why don’t you stay? You have so many friends here. It’ll be like the old days.”
Jennifer, thinking of Luke, shook her head. “Times—and people—change. Things will never be the way they were.”
“That’s true,” Shelly admitted, withdrawing her hand, “but sometimes things take a turn for the better. I’m walking proof. I was alone, broke and hopeless. Now I’m a millionaire with a wonderful husband and a baby on the way. You’ve got to have faith, Jenny, that life has good things in store for you.”
Jennifer forced a smile. “I’m due for a change in luck, that’s for sure.”
“Thanks to your grandfather, you’re a millionaire, too, now. Maybe your luck has already started to change.”
Afraid to hope, Jennifer shrugged. “I won’t hold my breath.”
CHAPTER NINE
LOUD MUSIC AND THE cacophony of a hundred happy voices rolled over Luke as he entered the spacious basement meeting room of the town hall. The lingering aromas of the favorite potluck dishes of the best cooks in Jester made his stomach rumble with hunger.
Following up on a tip from Dean Kenning, Luke had missed dinner. Even now, folks were shifting linen-covered dining tables against the wall to make room for dancing, and Guy LaRosa’s tuxedo-clad band, bused all the way from Billings, was warming up on the stage at the end of the room.
The formal dress of the band was appropriate for the occasion, since the historical society’s Founders Day dinner dance was one of the premiere social events in Jester. Not even for this auspicious occasion, however, would Luke submit to the torment of a necktie. With a nod toward propriety, he’d donned a black cashmere turtleneck sweater—an outrageously expensive gift from his sister after her lottery win—a camel-colored sports jacket and dark-brown slacks. Catching a glimpse of Bobby Larson across the room, Luke winced at the mayor’s deep purple tux and pleated lavender shirt with rhinestone studs.
In the opposite corner of the room, Dean stood with Finn Hollis. When the barber caught Luke’s attention, he raised his eyebrows questioningly. Luke shook his head.
Earlier that afternoon, Dean had hurried into the sheriff’s office.
“Remember how you asked me to be on the lookout for suspicious strangers?” the barber had asked.
Luke stuffed the file he’d completed into the cabinet drawer and nodded. “What’s up?”
“I was busier than a one-armed paperhanger,” Dean said. “Every man in town waited till the last minute for a trim for the dinner tonight. Anyway, this big Expedition pulled up outside the shop and two men climbed out and came inside.”
“For a haircut?” Luke checked his watch. He had barely enough time to shower and change before the historical society dinner, and wondered why Dean was bothering him with news of two new customers.
“Nope. Wanted to know if there was a hotel in town.”
Luke’s ears perked up. Jester was a just-passing-through kind of place. Not many folk actually stayed overnight, not without specific business in the community.
“I told ’em,” Dean said, “that the only accommodations were at the boardinghouse, but that it’s full up. Suggested they try the hotel in Pine Run. They didn’t look too happy about that.”
“Did they leave then?”
“Tried to. Finn stopped ’em. ‘You got business in Jester?’ he asked ’em. ‘None that’s any of yours,’ the bigger of the two told him, real unfriendly like. Then they climbed back in their monster SUV and took off.”
“Toward Pine Run?”
“They were headed the other way, but they coulda turned around. I had too many heads to cut to watch ’em long. Gotta get back to work, but wanted to let you know.”
Dean took off toward his shop at a good clip for a man his age and size, leaving Luke stewing. In spite of his best efforts to control it, his paranoia kicked back in. Another time of year, strangers passing through might have been tourists or hunters. Even agate collectors off the beaten path. But late March? What were two strangers doing in Jester that they refused to talk about? If they’d had business with someone in town, wouldn’t they have asked how to find him?
Unless their business was crime and they didn’t want to leave a trail.
For the umpteenth time since that fateful winning day, Luke pondered the mixed blessing the Big Draw had brought to Jester: millions of dollars for twelve lucky winners and the scent of easy money for every con artist and crook in the country. Were the men in the black Expedition ordinary folks with legitimate business or a threat to the people Luke had sworn to protect?
With a sigh of regret—he’d really been looking forward to the best potluck of the year—he grabbed his suede jacket and hat and took to the streets.
Luke had driven around town, hoping to track the strangers down and find out what had brought them to Jester, but the black vehicle and its occupants had disappeared. Too late for dinner, Luke had changed clothes and headed for the town hall.
Once there, he caught the scent of roses before he saw Jennifer, and was glad for the warning. As it was, the sight of her nearly knocked him off his feet.
In the room darkened for dancing, her golden hair with its feathery shoulder-length cut shone like sunshine, a cloud of light above the elegant simplicity of her black wool dress. The long-sleeved garment with its rounded neckline skimmed her body like a blessing, accentuating every delicious curve and ending well above her knees. Her long, coltish legs, clad in sheer black stockings, seemed to go on forever, and the hunger in his stomach shifted deeper in his body. Her only jewelry was a pair of small pearl earrings.
How could any
woman manage to look so damned proper, so appropriately dressed in mourning for her grandfather, and yet so mouthwateringly sexy at the same time?
“Dean told me where you were,” Jennifer said, “so I saved you a plate. It’s warming in the oven in the kitchen.”
He blinked in surprise at her thoughtfulness, then followed her into the kitchen, unable to take his eyes from the graceful sway of her hips. At the same time he kept reminding himself to cool his jets, that she’d be hitting the road again as soon as Cottonwood Farm was on the market, so there was no point in working himself into a lather, no matter how delectable she looked.
Besides, before he offered body or soul to any woman again, he had to know the reason Jennifer had left him all those years ago. As they passed through the swinging door into the deserted kitchen, he figured the time might have come to pop that unpleasant question.
But Jennifer had questions of her own.
“Did you find them?” she asked.
“Them?” He struggled to regroup his thoughts.
“The strangers in the black Expedition Dean told me about.”
He shook his head. “They’re long gone. Probably in South Dakota by now.”
Her face crumpled in a thoughtful frown. “So you don’t think they’re a threat to anyone?”
“If I thought that, I wouldn’t be here.” He’d be sitting in his car on the edge of town, shotgun at the ready, pulling an all-nighter.
His concentration wavered again when Jennifer bent to remove a plate from the oven, giving him an up-close-and-personal view of the black wool pulled taut across her shapely behind.
She turned, set the plate on the table, removed its foil cover and waved him into a seat. The steam rising from the platter made his mouth salivate and his stomach rumble. “That looks good enough to eat.”
Jennifer handed him silverware. “It’s the best of everything. Shelly’s chicken cordon bleu and carrot soufflé, and Olivia Mason’s five-cheese lasagna.” She removed another dish from the commercial-size refrigerator. “And this is Sylvia’s seven-layer salad—a day’s ration of vegetables in one dish. For dessert, I stashed away a chunk of Gwen’s Black Forest cake.”
A thought occurred to him. “Why?”
“It was the best dessert on the table and going fast.”
“I meant why did you save all this for me?”
A delightful blush reddened her cheeks. “Everyone else in town was here enjoying themselves. It didn’t seem fair for you to go without supper because you’re looking out for their welfare.”
This was the Jenny he remembered, the woman with the same generous spirit as her grandmother Dolly, the Jenny he’d fallen in love with.
“I appreciate it,” he said.
“You’re welcome.” She poured coffee for both of them and settled into the chair across from him. “Better eat before it gets cold.”
He didn’t need encouraging. The first mouthful was ecstasy, the others mere bliss. While he ate, he and Jennifer sat in companionable silence, like an old married couple, making Luke recall dreams he’d once had of coming home every evening to Jennifer and sharing the events of their day over supper. What had caused that dream to evaporate like morning mist in strong sunlight? Finishing off the last of the cake, he decided the time had come to ask the question that had rankled him for years.
“Jenny…”
She glanced up from her coffee cup and met his gaze across the table, her magnificent blue eyes full of questions of her own.
Before Luke could continue, the door from the meeting room swung inward and Finn Hollis stood on the threshold, looking dapper and refined in his best Sunday suit, his thick white hair brushed to an elegant sheen.
“There you are, Jenny.” He nodded to Luke and looked back to her. “I wanted to claim you for a dance before the band takes their first break. Mind if I steal your date, Luke?”
Jennifer hopped from her chair as if suddenly hit by a cattle prod. “I don’t have a date. And I’ll be happy to dance with you, Finn.”
Taking the arm Finn gallantly proffered, she left the kitchen without a backward glance.
Luke swallowed the last of his coffee along with his disappointment. Music filtered through the swinging door, an old tune that reminded him of another dance, almost ten years ago at the Mason farm, the first time he’d ever held Jennifer in his arms.
He’d picked her up earlier at her grandparents’s place, where he’d squirmed under Henry’s fierce expression, reminding Luke of the promise he’d made the old man about keeping his hands off his granddaughter. When Jennifer entered the room, however, Luke had realized that keeping that vow was going to take every ounce of his self-control. Just the sight of her made him weak in the knees.
She’d piled her long blond hair onto her head, but enchanting ringlets escaped at her ears and the nape of her neck. Designer jeans and a Western-style shirt accentuated her slender curves, and an engaging smile lifted imminently kissable lips. She was happiness personified, and just being in the same room with her made him feel as if he were flying high.
The Masons’ barbecue and dance was an informal party, unlike the stuffy historical society’s annual affair, and Luke soon found a hay bale in a remote corner of the barnyard, away from the press of partygoers, where he and Jennifer balanced loaded plates on their laps. Foot-tapping tunes from the country-and-western band drifted from the barn, the scents of wildflowers and freshly mown grass perfumed the breeze, and overhead a multitude of stars poked holes in the darkness of a moonless sky.
With her napkin, Jennifer wiped barbecue sauce from her chin, cocked her head and fixed Luke with an inquiring stare. “Don’t you like farming?”
Her question out of the blue surprised him. “Why do you ask?”
“When I was little, I assumed you’d take over your parents’ farm someday. Just wondered why you decided not to.”
“Because I’ve always wanted to be a lawman.”
“Any particular reason?”
At first he thought she was just making small talk, but a closer inspection of her expression revealed genuine interest.
“Ever since I was a little kid,” he said, “I’ve had a respect for laws, for following the rules.”
“Don’t tell me you never colored outside the lines.” Her blue eyes twinkled. Her smile was impish, and he longed to kiss the tantalizing curve of her lips.
Her teasing pleased him, revealing a side to the shy Jennifer that he’d never seen before. “I’m not talking about creativity,” he explained. “I’m talking about justice.”
“Rules are rules, aren’t they?”
Her question was more curious than argumentative, so he gave it serious consideration. “Some rules, like those of artistic conventions, can be broken to good effect, creating new methods of expression. But when laws are broken, people get hurt. That’s the difference.”
“And you don’t like seeing people hurt?”
“No one does, unless he’s a sadist or so selfish he doesn’t think of anyone but himself. What really torques my jaw is when people behave as if they’re above the law, as if the rules apply only to other people, not to them. Those are the kind of folks I want to protect society from.”
He flushed with embarrassment at his own intensity. He’d never before spoken so openly of his feelings, but Jennifer had that effect on him. “Guess I sound like a Goody Two-shoes.”
“Not at all.” Her approving smile reached her eyes and warmed him deep inside. “You sound like Grandpa Henry. He always says the world would be a better place if everybody just followed the Golden Rule.”
“Do unto others?”
“It works for Grandpa.”
“If everyone was like your grandfather, we wouldn’t need sheriffs.”
“But everyone isn’t like Grandpa. Take Dev Devlin, for instance.”
“Dev’s not a bad guy.”
“But he’s always in trouble.”
“But there’s no malice in Dev,” Luke i
nsisted, “just high spirits that get misdirected. He would never hurt anyone. People who don’t hesitate to harm others in order to benefit themselves are the ones I worry about.”
“The crime rate in this county’s pretty low,” she said. “Nothing like Connecticut, where I went to school. The headlines there are enough to give you nightmares.”
“We don’t have the same problems as urban areas,” Luke agreed, “and good law enforcement can help create a climate to make sure those kind of problems don’t develop here.”
She cocked her head and considered him with a seriousness that made her look older than her eighteen years. “Being a deputy where’s there no crime—isn’t that boring?”
“Good community policing keeps us in touch and interacting with people constantly—”
“You like working closely with others?” Her look of approval was a better reward than a month’s pay.
He nodded. “Maybe that’s the real reason I didn’t want to be a farmer. Just me and the land seemed an awfully lonely prospect.”
She gestured toward the barn, where the strains of country music and laughter floated on the evening air. “Farmers aren’t always isolated. Neighbors get together to socialize and help each other.”
“That’s true,” he agreed. “But in my line of work, I feel like I’m helping people every day. And that’s a good feeling.”
He finished off his barbecue and set his plate aside. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What do you want to do with your life?”
An appealing blush, evident even in the dim light, colored her cheeks. “I want to think about it. That’s why I’m taking a year off before going to college.”
“You must have some idea.” He studied her as she sat across from him, perched as gracefully on a hay bale as she would be on a designer sofa. With her looks and intelligence, she could be anything she wanted. A model. A doctor. A teacher. A wife.
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