Unforgettable

The sheriff’s face softened as she’d hoped it would. He returned her grin and then cleared his throat. “Right. Still, I have a few more questions for my report.”

“More questions?” She looked over her shoulder at the rumpled bed cover, the opened suitcase with clothes spilling out of it. The messiness made the room appear even smaller. “In here?”

He looked down at her feet, clad only in ankle socks. “Or you could slip on some shoes and we could go over to my office.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s muddy out.”

“I mean why do I have to go to your office?”

“Are you being deliberately obtuse, Ms. Millman?”

She had figured him for the most likely person to approach to help her begin the search for clues to her past, but now he seemed less approachable. A little more official.

“And if I don’t choose to go to your office, Sheriff,” she teased, “what will you do, arrest me?”

“I just want to ask a few questions, Ms. Millman.” He looked over his shoulder down the long hall that led to the front of the house. “I suppose we could talk in one of the parlors, or the bar?”

“Fine. I’ll meet you in the bar in a couple of minutes.” She shut the door in his face.

And then collapsed against it as her bravado left her on a long, shaky sigh. “You’re off to a great start, Millman,” she muttered aloud.

She crossed to the bed, considered just climbing in and pulling the covers over her head. “And let that Wyatt Earp clone swing in the wind!”

And make an enemy of the one person who would have the greatest access to the secrets of Hunter’s Bay. Not to mention the fact that he’s the first hunk I’ve run into in ages.

She hurried into her loafers, ran a brush through her hair and grabbed her purse and room key.

The bar was adjacent to the main dining room, a dark mahogany cave that was both formal and intimate at the same time. Stacy hesitated in the doorway, wondering if she should have donned something more appropriate than blue jeans and a sweatshirt. But the sheriff gestured for her to come ahead and, from behind the bar, the bartender smiled at her. She crossed the Oriental carpet and joined Derek Chancelor at a small table with banquette seating.

He had a pilsner of beer in front of him. Stacy nodded to the bartender to bring her the same. “I didn’t think law enforcement officers were allowed to drink on duty,” she said while they waited for her beer.

“I’m my own boss.”

The sheriff was slouched back against the banquette, one hand on his glass, the other in his pants pocket. The picture of a man totally relaxed and at ease. Yet he sent out threatening vibes and Stacy bit back one of her smart remarks.

“What have I done to offend the law?” she asked instead, sounding almost meek.

“Nothing that I know of.”

“Then why are we here?”

“There are a few things about your accident that are still bothering me.”

“You don’t look bothered.” She made a frank survey of his relaxed posture. Her hands itched for a sketch pad and a charcoal stick.

“It goes with the territory. I don’t like loose ends.” He sat forward and put two fingers on the back of her hand. “Are you feeling better?”

Stacy shivered at his light touch and nodded. He removed his hand as the bartender approached with her drink.

“So, tell me, Ms. Millman, are you driving through or planning to stay awhile?”

“Do you question all visitors this way? It must be hard keeping up when the town is full of tourists.” A swallow of beer, cold in her mouth, warm in her stomach, sharpened her sense of unease. Despite his casual attitude, her experience with police was that they didn’t just ask questions out of curiosity. Did he know something about her, something that would be a start in her own search?

“I question all accident victims,” the sheriff said, drinking from his own glass. He wiped foam from his lip and his expression grew stern. “I wonder if something crossed the road to make you lose control of your car?”

“Like?”

“Like a deer. They get pretty frisky in the spring and that road is one of their crossings.”

“I don’t remember seeing anything.” What if she told him that the road sign and the old tree had unnerved her to such an extent? He’d think she was short a few marbles.

As if reading her mind, he withdrew a notebook from his pocket and flipped it open with one hand. “You said something very strange when you were in the hospital. Do you remember what it was?”

Stacy shrugged and tried not to stare at the way his hair had fallen forward across his brow, giving him a boyish look. “I can’t imagine. I’d been unconscious and I woke up to a room full of strangers. Anything I said at the moment might have been—”

He interrupted her, reading from the small notebook.

She recalled the words, the thought, but hadn’t realized she’d voiced it aloud.

Still, to someone who didn’t know the whole story, it could be passed off as the mumbo jumbo of a person experiencing post-accident trauma.

“I can’t imagine,” she said, lowering her head so he couldn’t read her eyes in the dim light that streamed through stained glass windows. “Perhaps it was part of something I’d been dreaming when I was unconscious.” She pretended to be absorbed with making sweat rings on the tabletop with her pilsner.

The sheriff nodded. “Mmm-hmm.” She couldn’t bear the silence that followed the enigmatic sound and lifted her head to meet his gaze.

“It really doesn’t make sense, does it?”

“No,” he admitted, “not to me.” He flipped the notebook closed but left it out on the table.

“What do you do, Ms. Millman?”

“Look, if this meeting is going to go on for any length of time, do you mind using my first name? ‘Ms. Millman,’ the way you say it, sounds formidable.”

His blue eyes glinted like steel. Stacy decided he just didn’t have any sense of humor.

“If it will make you take my questions seriously.” He put out his hand. “Derek.”

She was surprised at her response to a simple handshake. His hand was warm and dry, yet once again she felt a chill go up her spine at his touch. She withdrew her hand hastily under the guise of lifting her glass.

“I’m an artist, Derek. A painter.”

He looked surprised, which surprised her. Clearly this wasn’t what he’d expected.

“Um...I see. And you’re here because...?”

The exchange of first names hadn’t reduced the tension; he was still questioning her, still suspicious. Of what?