“She can’t tell yet because of the mess. She said the candy rack was definitely a target, and that they must have been inside for quite some time because the place is littered with empty wrappers.”
“They broke in for candy?” Megan asked in surprise. “Then they must be younger than everyone thinks. Older kids would have gone after cigarettes and beer.”
Camry straightened from lacing her boots. “Great. Pine Creek’s street gang is a bunch of ten-year-olds. Rose also said the store reeks of stagnant mud and rotting vegetation, and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever get rid of the smell. Where do you suppose they found mud this time of—”
The doorbell chimed, and since she was standing right beside it, Camry opened the door and just as quickly closed it again.
“Cam! Who’s here?” Megan asked, opening the door back up. “Wayne.”
“Jack.” He straightened on his crutches and hobbled inside. “I have some questions about what you two may have seen last night.”
“I saw you running as if the hounds of hell were on your heels,” Cam said, hanging her coat back on the peg. “You fell, the brats escaped, and then a man stepped out of the shadows and would have squeezed you to death if Robbie hadn’t shown up. Shouldn’t you be writing this down?” she asked, pointing at the notebook sticking out of his pocket.
“Thanks for your statement, Ms. MacKeage. I see you were just headed out, so don’t let me keep you,” he said, opening the door for her.
“I’ve changed my mind. I’m staying.”
“No, you’re not,” Megan said, handing Camry her coat. “Rose is waiting for you.”
“If you’re helping Rose Brewer clean up,” Jack said, “keep a list of anything else that was taken, would you?”
“Why, certainly, Officer Stone,” Cam purred, slipping back into her coat. “Anything to help Pine Creek’s finest catch the bad guys.”
“You’ll be helping Rose more than me,” he growled, clearly nearing the end of his patience. “She’ll need that list for her insurance claim.”
Cam started another scathing remark, but Megan quickly intervened. “Would you just get going?” She shoved her sister out the door.
Cam stopped on the porch and turned back to her. “Don’t you dare cook him breakfast. And get dressed,” she hissed in a whisper.
Megan closed the door, turned to find her unwelcome guest staring at her belly, and promptly blushed. “I—um—I’ll get dressed,” she said, holding her robe closed as she all but ran to her bedroom.
The moment she shut her bedroom door, Megan slapped her hands to her cheeks with a groan. That short haircut, angular jaw, and smooth, weather-tanned skin made him even more handsome. And God help her, those deep, sexy, intense blue eyes still had the power to turn her mind to mush.
No, turn her mind to lust.
He may have been a bit slow leaving the starting gate, but once he’d gotten going, Wayne had certainly brought magic to their lovemaking. He had been so intensely focused on her that the entire world had ceased to exist. They could have been a speck of dust floating through the cosmos, so immersed she’d been in the sensations he elicited.
She had innocently gone to Wayne’s tent that evening to ask him about something, but when she’d caught him staring intensely at her mouth as she spoke…Well, the next thing she knew, her lips were pressed against his and she was attacking the buttons on his shirt. She’d gotten them both down to their underwear in five minutes. She could have done it in two, but she kept stopping to kiss each spot of his flesh she exposed. He had the most beautiful body…
Once he recovered from the shock of her attack, he’d lowered her to his sleeping bag, pinned her exploring hands over her head, and proceeded to make maddeningly slow, tender love to her.
Megan shivered at the image of their naked bodies twined together, jerking herself back to the present. Okay. Even though the man in her living room was a no-good lying heartbreaker, she couldn’t turn away anyone who looked as pathetic as he did. The guy was a battered and obviously tired mess. She dressed in slacks and a sweater, ran her shaking fingers through her hair, and returned to the kitchen to find Jack sprawled on the couch, his right leg resting on the coffee table, and his notebook in his hand.
“Did you ladies really see anything, or do I get to arrest your sister for lying to a police officer?”
Megan pulled out the frying pan and set it on a burner. “We heard a god-awful scream come from the back of Rose’s store just as we stepped into Winter’s gallery. We ran to the back window and saw the kids nearly plow you over when they came running out. That’s when the man stepped out of the shadows and grabbed you from behind.” She went to the fridge and took out a carton of eggs, a stick of butter, and a bowl of diced ham. “What did you and Robbie talk about after we left?”
“You, mostly. After the guy brought me down, what did he do then?”
“He ran into the woods when Robbie shouted at him.”
“In which direction?”
“Up the eastern shoreline of the lake. What specifically did you and Robbie talk about, about me?”
“I was impressed at how well you and your sister obeyed him. I asked him to teach me how to do that.”
Megan broke the eggs in the frying pan with a snort. “In your dreams. What else?”
“I asked him what to expect when you introduce me to your father.”
“That’s not going to happen, either. What else?”
When he didn’t immediately answer, she turned to look at him.
“I’m not going away, Megan. It doesn’t matter how big a family you have to hide behind, or how large your cousins are.”
She lifted her chin. “I am not hiding behind anyone.”
“Good,” he said with a nod. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“What?”
“Are we having a son or daughter?” he asked, his gaze dropping to her belly. “Did you have one of those tests that determine the gender?”
She turned back to the stove and dumped the diced ham over the eggs. “I don’t know what sex it is.”
“Don’t know? Or aren’t saying?”
She eyed him over her shoulder. “I want to be surprised.”
“Good. Me, too.” He looked down at the notebook in his hand. “You said you saw a bunch of kids run out of the store. Did you see how many there were?”
She shrugged, turned back to the stove, and shut off the burner. “They were in a tight pack, so I couldn’t tell.”
“Did you see where they went?”
She frowned, opened her mouth, then shut it again.
“Or did you hear anything? Maybe an engine starting, like a snowmobile? Or…a small plane? Did you see something flying out over the lake?” he quietly asked.
“I didn’t hear an engine. But I might have seen something flying.” She looked away, opening a cupboard and taking down a plate. “It might have been a flock of geese.”
“In the dead of winter?”
She filled the plate with most of the omelet she’d made, set a fork on it, and carried it over to the couch. “Okay, I have no idea what I saw flying out over the lake. Maybe Camry got a better look.”
“Not that she’d give me a straight answer,” he muttered, then smiled in gratitude as he took the plate from her. “Thanks. I’m starved.”
“After you eat, I’ll drive you to the hospital,” she offered as she returned to the stove, resigned to losing her peaceful afternoon.
“I don’t need a doctor,” he said around a mouthful of food. “Give me a couple of aspirins and a soft bed, and I’ll be good to go by tomorrow morning.”
Megan scoffed up her own eggs directly out of the pan, the silence stretching awkwardly between them. It was disconcerting having him in her house, talking as if they were old friends.
Are we having a son or daughter? By God, he’d had his chance to know his child, and he’d tossed it away. She didn’t care if he threatened to hang around until hell froze over, he was not waltzing back into her life.