LITMIR.BIZ

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my arm to make me let go. But that wasn’t going to happen,” she assured him. “When he started dragging me, I wrapped myself around a parking meter and kicked him in his crotch. The last I saw of him, he was limping down the hill holding himself.”

      Greg lifted his chin, slowly nodded. Hitting a sidewalk would explain the scrape on her forehead. The force of being grabbed explained the fingerprints on her arm. The bruising on her jaw could have been caused by colliding with the metal pole of the parking meter, the ground or even the guy’s hand.

      His glance moved from her boyishly short, sassy hair to her running shoes. He figured she was somewhere around five feet four inches, 120 pounds, tops. Considering that there didn’t appear to be a whole lot to her curvy little body musclewise, he didn’t know whether to admire her gutsy tenacity or think her utterly foolish. He’d known gang-types to maim or kill for pocket change. Having worked his residency in an inner-city hospital, he’d treated their victims often enough.

      “Did the police catch the guy?”

      Her glance shied from his. “I didn’t want to deal with the police.”

      “You didn’t file a report? Give them a description?”

      “Of what? An average-size, twenty-something Hispanic, Puerto Rican, black, Haitian, Mediterranean or very tanned white male in baggy black pants and a gray sweatshirt with the hood tied so all that showed was eyes?”

      “What color were they?”

      “Brown.”

      “There had to be something distinguishing about him.”

      “If there was, I was too busy hanging on to my purse to notice it. I’ve had enough of detectives to last me a lifetime. The last thing I wanted to do was put myself in the position of having to answer to them again.”

      Sudden discomfort had her glancing down at a broken nail. “So that’s what happened to my arm,” she concluded, looking back up. “How’s yours? You’re bruised up way worse than I am. Do you want me to drive you over to the hospital in St. Johnsbury or should I take you home?”

      It was as clear as the blue of her eyes that she had said more than she’d intended when she’d mentioned detectives. It was also apparent that she felt a little uneasy with him now that she had.

      His shoulder throbbed. His arm ached like the devil. The discomfort alone should have been enough to distract him. But it was the thought of how he’d felt when she’d held him, those few moments of odd and compelling peace, that made him decide to make it easy on them both.

      He could use an X-ray, but the drive to St. Johnsbury was miserable on a rainy night, and Bess would be available eventually. His house was only a couple miles away.

      He opted for home, and watched her give him a relieved little nod before she walked over to blow out one of the lamps and, now that dusk had given way to dark, carry the other with them to the front door before she blew out that one, too.

       Chapter Two

       T he wipers of Jenny’s sporty four-year-old sedan whipped across the windshield, their beat as steady as the drum of rain on the roof and the road in front of her. Though she kept her focus on what she could see in the beam of her headlights, her awareness was on the man occupying her passenger seat.

      She really wished she hadn’t said what she had about the detectives.

      “You said you live in the last house on Main,” she reminded him, desperately trying to think of how to fix her little faux paux. “Do you mean Doc Wilson’s old house?”

      “That’s the one. He and his wife retired to Florida.”

      “Doc Wilson’s wife always wanted to live in Florida,” she mused. “I just hadn’t realized they’d gone.”

      She glanced over, found him watching her, glanced back.

      “By the way, I’m sorry I doubted you back there. About being the doctor, I mean. Since my mom moved, I don’t hear much of anything about Maple Mountain.”

      “Forget it.” Absently rubbing his shoulder, he distractedly added, “I just appreciate the help.”

      She lifted her chin, kept her eyes straight ahead.

      In the rain and dark, she couldn’t tell if anything had changed along the narrow two-lane road into town. She doubted anything had. Little had changed in the twenty-two years she’d lived there before moving on herself. So it wasn’t likely that much had changed in the four years she’d been gone. Teenagers probably still stole their first kisses under the old covered bridge. The old men who gathered to play checkers at the general store, probably still discussed the weather and farm reports with the same laconic zeal they always had, and regarded anything invented after 1950 as newfangled. The good-hearted-but-opinionated church ladies probably still baked pies for every function. Every season and major holiday was celebrated with a festival or a parade on the town’s four-block-long main street. And with the way the locals loved to talk, something the disturbing man beside her had noted himself, there was rarely such a thing as a secret.

      The uneasiness she felt turned to dread.

      There was so much about all that had happened to her that she didn’t want anyone here to know. And Dr. Greg Reid already knew part of it.

      Her tires hummed on wet pavement as she passed the white scrollwork sign that let visitors know they’d arrived—Welcome To Maple Mountain, Population 704.

      “You should come by the clinic in the morning and let Bess check you over.”

      He had a delicious voice. Deep, rich, like honey laced with smoke and brandy. Without pain tightening it, it also held authority, and thoughtfulness.

      “Why?”

      “Since you didn’t want to deal with the police, I assume you didn’t bother going to a hospital, either.”

      She gripped the wheel a little tighter, forced herself to smile. “All I have are bruises.”

      “Your pupils looked fine, but I should have taken a look at your forehead.”

      He’d checked her pupils? “It’s just a scrape. Nothing a little makeup won’t cover.” Fervently wanting to forget that morning’s incident, wishing he would, too, she cut a quick glance toward him. “You’re the one who needs to be checked over. You could have broken something. Or maybe you hit your head and didn’t even realize it.”

      His only concern had been his arm. Considering the pain he’d been in, and the intense and rather intimate relief they’d shared once his body parts had been aligned, she hadn’t thought to be concerned about anything else herself.

      She turned her attention to the street, mostly so she wouldn’t hit the truck parked in front of the general store, partly because thinking about how he’d sagged against her did strange things to the pit of her stomach.

      “Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to St. Johnsbury?”

      “Positive. I’ll leave a message for Bess to stop by when she gets in.”

      “But what if she’s late? If you did hit your head, you shouldn’t be by yourself. Is there anyone home to take care of you?”

      “I live alone, but I’m fine. Honest.”

      She sighed. “Are you right-handed or left?”

      “Right.”

      It was his left arm he was holding, even with the sling. “At least you can undress yourself,” she concluded, “but I’m still worried about your head.”

      She was worried about him.

      “You don’t need to be,” Greg assured her, unwillingly touched that she was. “I only hurt my shoulder. You’re the one who hit her head.”

      She went quiet at that.

      The

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