Winter's Secret (11 page)

Within an hour, it was warm enough to hang up their jackets. Within the next hour, everyone—including two more travelers, a husband and wife—sat down to a supper of a surprisingly tasty tuna-noodle casserole in the church kitchen. As they sat around the table, Tiny recounted storms from the past. In the warmth, Wendy began to relax, chatting with Lolly and the stranded wife.

Rodd had settled into the company too. His deep assuring voice soothed her, overriding the constant bluster of the storm. Her gaze kept straying to him until she noticed Lolly watching her.

The lights went out.

"Oh! More excitement!" Tiny chuckled. "Everyone stay where you are so I don't step on you. I set the oil lamp right here on the counter."

Wendy heard Tiny's footsteps and his fumbling in the darkness for the oil lamp and matches on the counter. A grating, then the golden flare of a match. In the glow, Tiny lit the wick. He settled the glass globe over the flame and placed the hurricane lamp in the center of the table. "Some people put these on shelves and call 'em antiques. My grandmother bought this lamp at the Good Hope Mercantile. That's been years ago. ..." Tiny rambled on.

Wendy realized then that she'd reached for Rodd's hand. Feeling foolish, she tried to let go. For a moment, he gripped her hand, then released it.

She was grateful for the low light that had probably masked her impulsive gesture . But what would it feel like to hold Rodd's hand and know he sought her touch?

In the middle of the night, Wendy woke up, slid off her cot, and tiptoed up the steps. She stood by the doors, looking out at the swirling snow under the scant moonlight. The snow had stopped falling, but it still obeyed the wind, which blew it in broad sweeps. The beauty of its savage wildness touched something deep inside her; even in its harshness the power of the wind and snow could awe her. The Creator had given everything a beauty of its own.

But she hadn't gotten up to stand in the chilly entryway just to contemplate the snow. The question she'd gone to sleep with had wakened her, insisting on an answer. What was going on between her and the sheriff? Was anything going on between them? Could she stop it ... ?

A shadow behind her ... a tingling raced up her spine.

Chapter Six

"Can't sleep?" Rodd had come up behind her. The creaking of the old church and the swish of the wind against the glass must have masked his footsteps.

Stifling a gasp, she glanced at him warily. "I just wanted to see how the weather was. The snow's stopped, but it's drifting." Her voice sounded funny to her. She gestured toward the blue-shadowed snow cliffs and shallows around vehicles slumped all along the empty street.

Rodd made a sound of nominal agreement. "We should have taken off earlier; then I could have beaten the storm home."

His self-scolding tone worried her. "You can't think of everything. God knew where we'd be and what we'd face."

"If the wind stops," he went on without commenting on her observation, "they should be able to clear the highway, and we can get home in the morning." His low voice rumbled close to her ear.

So close, she felt him breathing. His nearness brought her senses to life, and her own breathing became shallow. In her life, she rarely found herself alone with a single man under the age of seventy. But the larger truth was that Rodd Durand made her feel different than any other man ever had. What was she going to do about this? That was the question that had wakened her.

Here, far from Steadfast, it was too easy to forget Veda's watchful eyes and her sharp tongue.

"I know you're worrying, but don't."The sheriff's softened voice curled itself around her like an embrace.

She looked straight ahead. "I'm trying not to."

Rodd rested his hands on her shoulders.

She stilled, her heart thumping out of control. His touch was just a common gesture. Meant to be reassuring. But she fought her own reaction—her desire to rest her cheek upon one of his warm, strong hands. Did he feel a similar pull toward her?

"Don't worry about what people will say." His voice rumbled so near again, making her neck prickle in response. "The unreasonable people or the ones who have their own guilty consciences will think the worst. The good people will give us the benefit of the doubt."

His understanding caught her off guard. Alive to his warm breath against her nape, she nodded. "I know. I just ...hate it ...when people talk." This twisted her heart.
I have to stop letting Veda get to me.
Easier said than done.

"Everything will be okay," he murmured. His lips grazed the skin just below her ear.

A kiss? Her breath caught. Had he kissed her? Probably not. Just a chance touch, but if she turned her face toward him, would he? Her face turned of its own accord. The air between them became warm, charged. She couldn't breathe.

Rodd tightened his grip on her shoulders, then rested his cheek against hers. His unshaven skin, roughened from the late hour, sent shivers of awareness coursing through her.

"I'll get you home safely tomorrow; don't you worry," he murmured, tickling her ear with his breath.

She struggled with herself. He had come up here to ease her worries—that was all. They weren't doing anything wrong. In spite of reaction to him, love was too dangerous a venture for her to contemplate—with anyone. She just wanted to help him catch the thief who preyed on her patients. That was all she wanted, wasn't it?

"Let's go back downstairs." She forced herself to step away from his touch. "No use losing sleep over what we can't help."
And no use getting accustomed to being near you
.

In the hush of Thanksgiving morning over a week later, fine snow fell like crushed diamonds. As Rodd walked beside Wendy over the freshly plowed church parking lot, he watched snowflakes frost her hair. When Rodd had stopped at church to see how the Thanksgiving Outreach Dinner was going, Harlan had asked him to help Wendy deliver meals to church members who couldn't come to the church and to nonmembers who had signed up but didn't want to come out on the snowy roads. He'd been more than happy to oblige. He had wanted a chance to tell her his next step in catching the Weasel.

 They stowed the boxes of hot food in the back of the Jeep. "I'm so sorry you got hooked into this." Wendy passed in front of him and slid into the passenger side of his Jeep.

Wendy's abashed tone surprised him. Didn't she want him along? He got in the driver's side. "Did you have a reason for me not to deliver the Thanksgiving dinners with you?"

"Of course not." With both her small hands, she began ruffling the fresh snow from her short hair. "You're welcome to help, but I could have done it by myself." She lowered her eyelashes and her voice. "I just don't like it when Grandfather tries to ...match make."

He chuckled. "Don't let it bother you." Even as he spoke the words, his mind munched on the concept of matchmaking. It had been a long time since any friend had tried to fix him up, mainly because most of his friends' marriages had failed. Unfortunately, too many cop marriages collapse under the unique pressures of being a law officer.

He cleared his throat. "I felt like I haven't been able to do anything to help with the Outreach meal today." He'd have to watch his emotions around Wendy. Somehow she'd found a tiny chink in his bachelor armor and had slipped inside, warming him with her sunny presence.

She sighed, sounding relieved. "Okay. Why don't you just head toward Highway 27 while I check the list?" She glanced down at the handwntten list with its many scribbled notes and fell silent beside him.

And that was just like her—she never tried to catch his attention. She was more dangerous than that. She caught his notice without even trying.

Looking out his window to keep his eyes away from Wendy, he drove through Steadfast past Carl and Patsy's Grill on Main Street. In the quiet, he let his mind drift away from Wendy back to today's first hint of another kind of trouble brewing.

Earlier, as he'd driven through the deserted, snow-blanketed village, he'd experienced a time-travel sensation, as though a century had slipped away and he should be riding a horse through the empty streets. The hush of deep winter had crept inside him, giving him a profound peace.

But whether he'd been a sheriff a century ago or today, one of his duties was to remind everyone that the law hadn't taken the holiday off. Though it seemed ironic, holidays often triggered an increase in police work, with domestic disputes and people overdoing what they called "holiday cheer." So he'd pulled up in front of the only business open on Main Street, Carl and Patsy's. Through the chilly morning snowfall, he'd walked inside the darkened interior.

"Hello, Sheriff!" Carl, a stocky, white-haired man well over retirement age, had called out from behind the bar. "Come on in. I'll buy you a Thanksgiving brew."

Rodd had waved his greeting and sat down on a barstool. A few old men were already at the bar, but they were drinking coffee and watching a muted Christmas parade on the small TV above the bar. Carl and Patsy's place usually gave him no problem. The average age of their customers must hover in the sixties. Carl's was more of a senior center than a bar, completely different from Flanagan's. "Make it a root beer, Carl, and I'll accept."

Carl chuckled. "One sarsaparilla coming up." He served Rodd a foaming mug. "Feel like we're in an old Western on TV. I'm the friendly old barkeep and you're the teetotaling young sheriff."

Rodd grinned. "And I just rode through the ghost town."

Carl nodded.

Rodd sipped his foam-topped root beer. "Just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving and I'll be hanging around town if you need me. I'm wearing my pager. Later I plan to stop by the church for Thanksgiving dinner. If you hear of anyone who wants to get together for a meal, send him there, would you?"

"Will do. But my Patsy roasted two twenty-pound birds and stirred up a vat of cranberry sauce last night. We'll be serving turkey sandwiches all day to customers."

"Sounds like a plan." Then into Rodd's peace, the day's first disturbing note had sounded.

Wiping the bar, Carl leaned close with his head down. "Sheriff, I heard a rumor. Maybe it's something, maybe not. Kids may be planning a kegger tonight. That useless Elroy Dietz might be getting paid by high school kids to set one up."

Rodd had given the barest nod, stood up, and put a dollar down. He'd waved good-bye to the men sitting at the bar and left. Then he'd driven around town once more before he parked by the church. All the while, he turned the word
kegger
over in his mind. A teen drinking party out somewhere isolated was a prescription for disaster. It would take some handling—if it proved to be more than a rumor.

Now leaving Steadfast behind and with Wendy beside him, Rodd concentrated on his driving. The snow and ice-packed roads and all the dishes of food boxed and stowed carefully in the rear of his Jeep made him negotiate the curves and hills more cautiously. He readily understood why some seniors had decided not to drive in for the Thanksgiving Outreach Dinner. But the thought of the possible kegger irritated him like a painful speck in his eye.

Wendy interrupted his thoughts. "We're nearly at our turnoff. The Barnes place is just a mile from here."

Rodd glanced at her. She'd opened her parka, partially revealing her dress, a fine corduroy, reddish brown like oak leaves in the fall. It made her hair look richer, more golden. Was she letting it grow? It looked longer than it had been that first day they'd met at Ma's. Sun glinted in her tiny golden earrings shaped like fall leaves. The same kind of leaf dangled on a gold chain around her neck

He wished he were the kind of man who could say casually, "You look pretty today." But would she welcome a compliment or retreat from him? She'd pulled away from him that early morning in Good Hope....

Wendy wasn't like any of the women he'd dated in the past. He liked women with long hair, classy women who wore makeup and perfume, women who made him want to don a suit for a date. But none of them had kept his interest like Wendy Carey had. Ever since their trip to Duluth, her sincere face had popped into his mind at will. He halted this line of thought. Some men just weren't cut out for it—especially cops. That was one of the reasons that his father had delayed remarrying until he'd retired early from the Milwaukee PD.

"Here's the turn." She pointed the way.

Soon, he parked in front of an old house with peeling yellow paint. Snowflakes blew around as though tired, aimless. In the sharp air he helped Wendy get out the covered tray from the box in the back. He was about to carry it in when his cell phone rang.

"I'll take it in." Wendy lifted the tray from his hands and walked up the short flight of steps to where an old man in a worn green sweater held open the door for her.

Watching her go, Rodd opened his cell phone and climbed back inside his Jeep.

"Hello, Sheriff." The voice of the dispatcher sounded perturbed. "Mrs. Beltziger out on Casey Road wants to talk to you."

"Mrs. Beltziger? What does she want?"

"I'm not important enough for her to tell," the dispatcher said with a sardonic twist. "You have to call."

"Okay." He gave dispatch his location and hung up. Since anyone could own a radio with a police band and many county residents had them, he'd decided that he and all his deputies should be equipped with cell phones and pagers for privacy. Digital cellular messages couldn't be picked up by others unless they had high-powered electronic equipment. The fact that dispatch contacted him via cell phone, not radio, said that Mrs. Beltziger wanted her communication with him kept private. He punched in the Beltziger number and identified himself.