Jennifer Morey – The Librarian's Secret Scandal (страница 9)
He looked at her a moment. “Scared you away again, huh?”
“No, it’s not that.” What a lie that was. Brandon’s release was hurtling her back in time. How could she have a normal relationship with any man if every reminder made her feel vulnerable?
“Then have dinner with me. Tonight. What time do you get off?”
“Oh … that’s sweet, but … it’s just not a good time.”
“You’re shooting me down again.” He said it playfully.
“I’m afraid so.” She couldn’t help laughing. “Besides, did you know I’m forty?”
“Wow, your life is over.”
She shook her head. “You’re only thirty-three.”
“Word gets around. You’re old enough to be my sister.”
“Stop that.” But she laughed.
He grinned and she got the distinct impression that he wasn’t about to give up on her. There was something appealing about that. There was something appealing about a man who wasn’t afraid of rejection. It showed boundless ambition and self-confidence. A humble ego.
There was a time in her life when she would have jumped headfirst into a relationship with a younger man, but things had changed.
He backed away. “I’ll be back.”
“People are going to talk,” she said.
Emily had finished with the person at the counter and now watched them.
“Let them.” He backed up some more.
She wasn’t so sure, but his teasing was infectious. “Easy for you to say.”
He took another step back. “It’ll give them something else to talk about besides you.”
“Oh, yeah? How do you figure that?”
“I just got a bug in me to start reading more.”
Meaning he’d be stopping by the library more often. Her first reaction was to tell him no, but the delight he’d made her feel stopped her. She didn’t try to sway him.
Wes left the library wondering if he’d misread the back-and-forth emotions from Lily. Sometimes she flirted with him and at other moments she withdrew. Was it their age difference? He wasn’t that much younger than her. And she had good skin. Hell, he’d probably look older than her when he was forty.
He’d been trying to contact the victims’ officer ever since the morning after Lily had plowed into his truck. She’d seemed to know Lily so he’d called a friend he’d made over the years Damien had been incarcerated and asked for her contact information. The minute he learned she was a victims’ officer, he’d gotten more interested in finding out the real reason Lily had gone to the prison. But the officer had gone on a weeklong vacation the day after Lily had wrecked his SUV. He’d planned to wait to go to the library until after he spoke with her, but the truth was, he couldn’t stay away any longer. What if Lily started thinking he wasn’t interested?
He just hoped she wasn’t messed up with an inmate at Montana State Prison. She said she’d changed but …
It’d been a week. He’d call the victims’ officer again.
He drove to the west side of town and pulled to a stop in front of the Honey Creek County Sheriff’s office. Getting out, he walked into the building, passing the front counter and heading to his office directly behind that, and sat behind his desk. He leaned back and let himself stare at nothing for a while, thinking about Lily. Maybe he should start to worry about how much he was beginning to like her.
The legal pad on his desk caught his eye. It was full of scribbled notes about Mark Walsh’s murder case. He’d jotted them down earlier. Some were centered around the money-laundering angle the FBI was investigating, others were on the note found on the body of the man who murdered Jake Pierson’s partner. Jake was the first FBI agent assigned to the money-laundering investigation and Jim Willis had been his partner. Since this whole thing started, Wes had gotten to know both of them. Jim had been a good friend to both him and Jake. He shouldn’t have died like that, shot by a hit man who was after Jake for information the investigation had uncovered.
The note found on Jake’s partner’s body hadn’t been signed, but it was on a special kind of stationary that had bothered Wes ever since he’d seen it. The stationary was expensive. Not just anyone would use it. He’d been all over town tracking down possible sources. One lead had taken him to the Colton ranch, where he’d found some in his dad’s office. Was that significant? Probably not. The stationary could have been ordered from an office-supply catalog. Anyone could have ordered some. It would be tough narrowing down a suspect that way. And of course, there were no prints on the paper other than those belonging to the hit man.
A knock on the open door brought his head up. Deputy Ryan King stood there. He was a six-foot lean-framed man with fine, light brown hair whose light green eyes kept the women coming around, but he never strayed from his wife.
“Come in,” Wes said.
Ryan closed the door and moved closer to Wes’s desk. “Sorry to bother you, Sheriff. I’m not one to give gossip much thought, but my wife told me something I thought you’d want to hear.”
Leaning back in his chair, Wes waited.
“She goes to that quilting group that meets in town. You know the one?”
“Yes. What about it?”
“Well, Terri said there was talk about you and that Masterson woman spending time together. Someone saw her drop you off here at the office and said you looked like you were getting along really well.”
How long before it got around he’d just left the library? Wes chuckled. Didn’t those women have anything better to do than talk about people?
“Some people take offense to you getting messed up with someone like her,” Ryan said. “You’re the law in this town. If people don’t respect you….”
“It’s been fifteen years since Lily left this town.”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s your integrity in question.”
“She isn’t the same person. She’s grown-up now. People will see that after a while.”
“But if you continue to see her …”
Now he was beginning to get annoyed. “It’s just talk.”
“People are wondering where you were with her, where you could have met her.”
“It doesn’t matter how or where I met her.” He looked pointedly up at his deputy. “I could have met her anywhere in town before that.”
“I’m sorry, I know it’s none of my business. It’s just … your reputation.”
“I’ll worry about my own reputation, but thanks for letting me know.”
“Come time for reelection …”
Wes looked up from the pile of papers on his desk and lifted his brow.
Ryan frowned, but relented.
When his deputy had left, Wes couldn’t focus on the mound of work he had to do. Maybe he should pay more attention to what the town was saying. What if something got around that would hurt Lily? What harm would it be to use Ryan as a way of monitoring the gossip? He didn’t care what was being said, but Lily did. And that was reason enough for him.
He picked up his phone and dialed Ryan’s extension.
“You’ve got one of the best pair of blue eyes I’ve ever seen.” Levi Garrison came into step beside her. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
May Masterson rolled those blue eyes that were so like her mother’s and didn’t slow down on her way to her next class. Levi easily kept up with her. He was tall and had a long stride.
“I’m serious. I meant to tell you that the other day.”
“When you were making fun of my mother?” Jerk.
“Yeah, well, about that …”
“Say anything smart and I’ll knock your front teeth out,” she said without looking at him. He was one of the most popular boys in eleventh grade. He was a football player and active on committees. He was smart, too, but not as smart as her. May knew her GPA was higher than this yokel’s.
“I’ve been meaning to apologize for that. You took it all wrong anyway.”
“How else am I supposed to take it when someone asks me if I’m as good as my mother?”
“That wasn’t me. I didn’t say that.”
“No, you said I was prettier.”
“You are.”
She sent him a glare.