Unforgettable

He put the pot down, jutted one hip against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “If you’re hungry I can get you something from the pastry case. Anything more complicated, you’ll have to wait for Mavis to get back.”

She shook her head, her ponytail waving girlishly. She had her hands around the mug, as though warming them, and was inhaling the aromatic steam before taking the first sip. Derek grinned. “Enjoying our weather, Ms. Millman?”

She shrugged visibly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen fog like that. Do you have many days like this?”

Derek shrugged. “It’s the price we pay for living along the river, especially in spring. But if the sun comes out it’ll burn off the fog and it’ll be as though it had never happened.”

“Gone, but not forgotten,” Stacy muttered, shuddering again.

Derek frowned. “It’s only vapor. It couldn’t have bothered you that much, surely?”

She leveled a strange look at him. “You weren’t there.”

“Something spook you, Stacy?” He made an effort to put sympathy into his tone, hoping she’d relax and open up to him.

She put her cup down and shook her head again. “Just my own imagination, I guess. But I had the weirdest feeling of being lost and...followed.”

Derek refilled her cup. Perhaps he was better off not knowing what had shaken her up.

“Pretty hard to get lost in a town this size.” He hesitated a moment and then added, “And how could someone follow you in that pea soup? Hard to see a foot in front of you this morning.”

Her laugh was mirthless. “Yeah. Like I said, my imagination.”

“Unless...?”

Stacy stared at him as the word hung in the air between them. He could see the belligerence rise in her, making her eyes steely, jutting her jaw, thinning her lips.

“Unless what, Sheriff?”

“Unless you’ve made an enemy in town?”

The absurdity of his question struck him the moment the words were out. She’d been in town less than two days and had spent one of them in a hospital. He laughed, embarrassed.

She, apparently, didn’t see the humor.

“So far you’re the best candidate in that department, Derek Chancelor.”

He sobered.

“I’m only an enemy if you get on the wrong side of the law.” He waited a beat and then added, “Or if you’re a threat to my community.”

Irritation rose in Stacy. Was this guy always so suspicious, always looking for threat where there was none? Did it go with the territory or was it paranoia, a facet of his personality?

“Listen, Sheriff,” she snapped, “I’ve told you why I’m here, who I am, what I do. Which part of that didn’t you understand?”

“The part you left out.”

Stacy grinned behind her coffee cup and let her eyelashes flutter flirtatiously. “Oh yeah, I forgot. Well, you see, it’s like this, Derek. I had to come see for myself, because all they’re talking about in New York is this gorgeous young sheriff in the boondocks of Minnesota, secure, single, and...heterosexual?”

The sheriff flushed and Stacy almost regretted her mischievous sense of humor.

His retort proved him equal to her wicked tongue.

“Yes to all of the above and, as to the heterosexual part, well, Ms. Millman, that’s something you’ll have to prove to your own satisfaction.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m off duty at six. Do you want to proceed with your investigation then?”

“Touché,” she said, laughing. She lifted her cup as if to toast his response. On impulse she decided the ice was broken between them, that this might be a good time to enlist his help.

She gestured to the stool on her left. “Why don’t you join me and I’ll tell you the deep dark secret of my mission.”

He looked skeptical for a moment but then nodded. She watched him walk away to replace the coffeepot.

Nice butt. She smiled, thinking of how Beth would react to him. Beth would notice the broad shoulders, too, and the way he sort of swaggered when he walked.

But you’re not Beth, so give it up, Millman. This guy could go either way, friend or foe, and mixing it up with him could definitely get you into trouble.

He went around the counter to retrieve his own coffee mug and newspaper before joining her.

“Why don’t you start by telling me why the Hunter family is in a snit over your arrival in town,” Derek said, as he sat down on the adjacent stool.

“The Hunters?” She had to think a minute. “You mean those senior citizens who did the twenty-questions routine at the hospital?”

“The same.”

“Why...I don’t know...what do you mean?”

She was thoroughly taken aback. Or she’s a hell of an actress, Derek thought.

“I can’t imagine why anyone would be concerned by my arrival.” Stacy hesitated. An image of Pam’s reaction to her signature came to mind. Could her name, alone, be raising questions in the locals’ minds?

“But on the other hand, maybe it all makes sense.”

She told him why she’d come to Hunter’s Bay: the images she’d painted into her pictures, the dreams, the feeling that she had unfinished business in the town in which she’d been born but had lived for only the first three years of her life.

“And I guess I need to know something more about my parents’ life here,” she finished.

Derek was still sifting through all she’d told him. “Your parents. The Millmans?”

Stacy nodded, holding her breath.

Derek shook his head. “I was born here. I don’t recall ever hearing that name before.”

Stacy expelled her breath on a sigh, disappointed. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-two.”

She figured in her head. “You’d only have been about seven years old when we left. Maybe you’ve just forgotten.”

Derek shrugged. “Maybe. But why the big mystery? If what you’ve told me is true, why should the Hunters react to you as a stranger and make no mention of recognizing your name?”