Stranger In His Arms

“Could be teenagers doing the break-ins,” he said. “Or addicts looking for valuables to sell for drug money. Whoever it was wore gloves, so we haven’t found any prints.”

Dylan’s news, coming on top of Raylene’s information about the curious stranger, made Jennifer shiver. “I thought Casey’s Cove was famous for its lack of crime.”

“A string of incidents like these is unusual—” his grin widened “—but, hey, if we had no crime at all, I’d be out of a job.”

Raylene had appeared at Dylan’s elbow with a mug and a coffeepot, poured Dylan a cup and was filling Jennifer’s empty one.

“You could always help out Jarrett,” the waitress said, apparently unembarrassed at eavesdropping. When Dylan declined to order, she moved to the next table.

“Jarrett?” Jennifer asked.

“My older brother. He inherited the family farm. It’s about five miles up the valley.”

“What does he raise?”

“Christmas trees.”

Dylan sipped his coffee, and she couldn’t help noticing the attractiveness of his long, slender fingers and spanking clean nails gripping the mug, making it seem small in his huge hands, hands that had her imagination spinning before she applied the brakes to her daydreams.

“Christmas trees are big business in this part of the state,” he explained. “Would you like to see how they’re grown?”

She couldn’t risk spending too much time around Mr. Law-and-Order. “Maybe sometime—”

“How about today?”

“I can’t. I promised Millie McGinnis I’d watch Sissy while Millie visits her sister at the hospital.”

“We’ll take Sissy, too. She’ll enjoy the ride.”

Jennifer waffled, knowing how much the little girl needed her thoughts diverted from her troubles. “I don’t know—”

“Afterwards we’ll drive out to Jack the Dipper’s,” Dylan said.

“Jack who?”

“It’s the best ice-cream shop for fifty miles. Every little girl loves ice cream.”

Jennifer felt herself weakening. She knew Sissy needed distracting from her mother’s illness, and she feared bringing suspicion on herself if she made too big a point of evading the lawman’s company.

“Christmas trees and ice cream,” she acquiesced with a grin, hoping she wouldn’t be sorry. “You sure know the way to a girl’s heart.”

“I have a couple of errands to run here in town, but they won’t take long. Then we’ll pick up Sissy.”

“Sounds good.” Once she had made up her mind to accept Dylan’s offer, she was looking forward to it. Anything to keep from brooding over the stranger on her trail.

Dylan nodded at her barely-touched plate. “Finish your breakfast and I’ll be right back.”

Jennifer watched him cross the street to the police station, but she didn’t touch her food. She doubted her appetite would revive any time soon. While she waited for Dylan to come back, she kept an eye on the street, on guard against the return of the black sport utility vehicle and the stranger with a picture that looked like her.

DYLAN LEANED BACK on the picnic bench, crossed his legs at the ankles, and watched Jennifer push Sissy on the park swing.

They’d had a busy day. First a visit with Jarrett at the farm, where she’d fueled Jarrett’s ego and earned his older brother’s admiration with her questions about the Christmas tree business.

“What kinds of trees do you grow?” she’d asked.

“Scotch and Virginia pine and Leyland cypress.” Jarrett pointed out examples of each species. “The cypress does best for us.”

Jennifer inspected a tree carefully. “Do you have to shape them?”

Jarrett nodded. “We prune once or twice a year, depending on the species.”

She eyed a tree that had grown to two feet above her head. “How old’s this one?”

“Six years. It’s ready for harvest.”

She continued with more questions about fertilizers and irrigation. Jarrett was obviously impressed, and Dylan fleetingly wondered how a girl who’d lived all her life in the city of Memphis knew so much about farming.

When Jennifer had exhausted her questions and she and Sissy were gathering wildflowers between rows of immature trees, Jarrett grilled him about Jennifer.

“You serious about this one, little brother?”

Dylan reacted with surprise. “I barely know the woman.”

Jarrett raised his eyebrows and cracked a grin. “And you’re already bringing her home to meet the family? Sounds serious to me.”

Dylan slugged Jarrett playfully on the shoulder. “You wouldn’t know serious if it bit you. When’s the last time you had a date?”

Jarrett shrugged. “You know how it is with farming—early to bed, early to rise and no let-up in between. Doesn’t leave much time for a social life. However, if I’d met a girl like your Jennifer—”

“She’s not my Jennifer.”

“—I’d sure make the time. Don’t let this one get away, bubba.”

Unable to keep his older brother from jumping to conclusions, Dylan had simply shaken his head at his teasing.

After touring the farm, Dylan had taken Jennifer and Sissy to lunch in Sylva, followed by ice cream at Jack the Dipper’s.

Now, in the late-afternoon sunshine, Sissy played happily at the park by the river, halfway home to Casey’s Cove. The little girl shrieked with delight as Jennifer pushed the swing higher, and Jennifer’s own merry laughter blended with the child’s in a sound as pleasant as the river bubbling over its rocky bed.

Try as he might, Dylan couldn’t reconcile the woman with whom he’d spent the day with the Jenny Thacker of his childhood memories. The young Jenny had been shy, reserved and aloof. Stuck-up, Tommy Bennett had called her. Maybe her inhibitions had been caused by the influence of the elderly aunt who had kept the girl under her thumb.

But this Jennifer was almost an exact opposite. As they’d tramped among the Scotch pines at the farm today, Dylan had found her outgoing, talkative, with an unlimited curiosity and a mischievous streak he would have never guessed resided in Jenny Thacker.

The girl and the woman she’d become were as opposite as ice and fire.

He watched as Jennifer grabbed Sissy out of the swing, whirled her around in her arms, then set her on her feet for a race to the riverbank. The two tossed stones at a quiet pool near the center of the river in the lee of a great boulder, and he noticed how Jennifer purposely shortened her throws so Sissy could win.

The woman was a miracle worker with children. He’d heard Miss Bessie lament that Sissy hadn’t smiled since her mother entered the hospital, but today the girl had seemed genuinely happy in “Miss Jenny’s” company and had laughed often.