Page 15 of Threat of Danger
He grinned. “I didn’t fall in love with her.” The ridiculously handsome grin widened. “OK, maybe a little. But everybody who meets her does. On my end, the love was for her way with words.”
Why Jess should feel relief was beyond her.
“After my team shipped back to the US, we all spent various amounts of time at VA hospitals. I was in the same room with two of the guys I came back with, Kyle Robson and Mike Hargrove. Mike’s sister visited almost every day.”
“The author.”
He nodded. “She used to run ideas by us. The way her mind worked fascinated me. I fell for writing. Now, Kyle, he fell hard for her.”
She almost asked for the story before she caught herself. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to hear about his friends. She didn’t want to get to know Derek or his life better. So she simply nodded, and kept silent.
After the sofa table, he helped her with a grandfather clock that hadn’t worked for as far back as Jess could remember. Her father had restored the clock cabinet, but he hadn’t been able to wrestle the mechanics into submission.
The towering clock stashed safely in the garage, two overstuffed armchairs that had always been ridiculously uncomfortable marched to their new resting places next. When Jess returned to the house, she stopped on the stoop, dusting off her hands as she turned to Derek.
“We’re done.”
His gaze searched her face. “Are you sure? There’s plenty left. We could do the whole living room tonight. I have time. Let’s just finish.”
He wanted the job done, thinking then she would leave. The weird thing was, she didn’t really want to be here; she wanted to be back in LA with Eliot as soon as she could manage it. But Derek’s obvious desire to have her gone rubbed her the wrong way and, perversely, made her want to stay.
“Done enough for tonight. It’s been a long day for me. You go get your stew from Zelda.” Jess paused for a second, then another and another, letting her eyes tell him how much she meant every word of what she was about to say next. “I appreciate the help, Derek. Thank you. But, for as long as I’m here, I’d prefer if you didn’t come back over.”
He watched her with a fathomless look in his slate eyes, standing too close, focused too sharply on her. Why was he even taller than before? Shouldn’t he have stopped growing at eighteen, as she had? Why could men grow the kind of insane, intimidating muscles that women couldn’t? And why did all that have to look so good on him?
A sharp Technicolor memory hit her in the chest, hard enough to hurt.
Ten years ago, after having driven her home from the movies, he’d kissed her on this very stoop. And then he’d said,So...wanna go out to the old cabin?She’d been deliriously happy. She’d been a different Jess then.
That was before. And this was after.
As Derek watched her now, his expression seemed to take in all of her. His gaze sliced into her like ground-penetrating radar. She had the uncomfortable feeling that he could see all her dark and hidden places, that he was weighing what lay at her depths. And she could tell there was a speech coming, probably about how he wanted her to go back to LA.
Maybe he didn’t want her here because she made him remember and made him feel guilty.
Tough shit.
She turned on her heel and walked away from him, into the house. She marched straight to the back, into the laundry room, even if she didn’t have anything to do there. She organized the detergent boxes while she waited for him to leave.
She didn’t return to the front of the house until he was saying good night to Zelda, walking out with a plastic container of stew. He nodded at Jess from the edge of the porch. She locked the door behind him without saying a word.
Zelda shuffled into the living room. “We had two feet of snow last week. He came over without needin’ to be asked and shoveled off the roof for us. It’s a sturdy roof, but two feet of snow’s a lot of weight. He’s a good boy, that one. His mama sure raised him well.”
Derek Daley was neither good nor a boy, but Jess didn’t contradict Zelda. “How are Mr.Daley and Mrs.Daley?”
Zelda sank onto the couch. “Doin’ much better than they used to. Bob quit drinkin’ a while back. They moved last year. Didn’t Derek tell you?”
She put her feet up on the ottoman before adding, “Helen and Bob are livin’ in town now, in one of those fifty-five-plus ranch-home communities. Don’t have to do a thing. Lawn mowin’, snow shovelin’, all done for them. Not that there’s a lot to do with them tiny lots. But there’s a clubhouse with an indoor heated swimmin’ pool and a gym. They got bingo every night.” A wistful tone crept into her voice at that last bit.
“Why is Derek living at the farmhouse? Why not lease that too?”
“For one, the folks leasin’ the sugar bush and the outbuildings don’t want to live here. They have their own place, another hundred-thousand-tap operation up north.” Zelda pulled a blanket over her lap and arranged it to cover her feet. “Derek says he likes the quiet. Good for writin’. He got hurt in the service, you know.”
“I saw.”
Zelda sighed. “A young man like that. Hardly fair. He jokes that I could outrun him.”
Jess doubted that. He did have a limp, and maybe he was slower than he used to be, but he was strong and in shape. He’d lifted furniture she wouldn’t have been able to budge, and she was in the best shape of her life.
