Marty glared at him. How dare this pig criticize her driving. And her car! He was such a—jerk!
“You know, I think you should just mind your own business—and go back to ogling Calvin Klein ads,” Marty knew the comment was stupid as soon as it was out of her mouth, but she didn’t pause. She turned and got back into her car, slamming her door angrily.
It took her a few moments to locate her keys in her coat pocket. But once she did, she shoved the correct one in the ignition and rolled out of the gas station as fast as the accumulating snow would allow. The car only skidded once.
How dare that awful man even approach her! She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that Nathaniel was still standing in parking lot, watching her drive away. Then she also noticed the police car parked some distance behind him.
“Ah,” she groaned. Nathaniel Peck was a cop! She’d forgotten. Now he was probably going to ticket her for reckless driving. Knowing him, he’d probably put out a warrant for her arrest for evading a police officer. Great!
She drove on, imagining herself stuck in a cell with that wretched man. But after a few moments, she realized something presently more worrisome. In her irritation, she hadn’t turned back toward Route 1. She was still on the snow-covered Gory Boar Road taking the back way to Millbrook.
Damn that man!
Nate cringed as he watched Marty Stepp spin out onto the back road heading toward Millbrook.
What was she thinking? On a night like this, Route 1 was the safest road to travel. Although from what he’d witnessed following her, she wasn’t exactly the most sensible driver.
He shook his head, and after her taillights disappeared around a corner, he headed into the store to pick up a few things, like a toothbrush and something for breakfast.
He’d originally intended to head home after his shift, but there was no way the road leading to his cabin would be passable tonight. A definite drawback to living down a dirt camp road.
When he entered the bright, new convenience store, he saw Greg Tucker working behind the counter. Greg was only sixteen. Nate couldn’t imagine letting his kid work the night shift at a place like this, as isolated as it was. Not that there was a lot of crime in this area.
Of course, Nate was living proof there was some crime, some very violent crime.
“Hey, Chief Peck,” the boy greeted him. “How’s the knee?”
“Not too bad,” Nate answered, although in truth, his knee was killing him. The cold weather. But Doc Hall kept assuring him that his knee would heal completely.
“Pretty wild night, huh?”
“Sure is,” Nate agreed. Too wild for this kid to be out on the roads later. “Is your uncle coming to get you at the end of your shift?”
“Yeah. He’ll come with his plow.”
Nate nodded. Derek Nye, Greg’s uncle and Nate’s longtime buddy, did a nice little side business plowing out driveways during storms. Normally, he would have gotten Derek to plow out his road, but not now. They hadn’t really spoken since his attack.
He limped toward the back wall of glass-fronted refrigerators. A rack lined with colorful, glossy magazines caught his attention. He paused, perusing the covers. Marty Stepp didn’t grace any of them—not this month. But she often did. Nate wasn’t sure what the actual requirements were to be considered a supermodel, but he suspected Marty met them all. She’d been on the covers of all the major fashion magazines. She’d been the cover model for sports magazines’ swimsuit issues. And she had done huge ad campaigns for top designers.
Suddenly, a vague memory started to return to him, lurking at the edge of his mind as if his brain were a sieve and the tidbit of information was just a tad too large to sift through.
Calvin Klein. Marty had made that cryptic comment in the parking lot, and now he seemed to recall that should mean something to him.
Calvin Klein. He’d seen her ads for the designer. Black-and-white photos of Marty entwined with a lean, almost androgynous guy. Beautiful shots of her bare, smooth skin in varying shades of gray.
Smooth skin? Smooth skin? And just like that, the memory shifted and slipped back into his brain. He’d asked Marty about those photos at her oldest sister’s wedding. Asked her if she’d been airbrushed or if her skin was really that flawless everywhere. And would she like to go to his place and show him.
He almost groaned. Sometimes he wished the memories would just stay lost, but it didn’t seem to work that way. They always came back eventually, with the inevitable embarrassment. And he had a lot to be embarrassed by—Nathaniel Peck was an ass. He already knew that, he just wished he didn’t have to remember all the details.
He continued toward the refrigerators and grabbed a half gallon of orange juice and some eggs. He started to reach for a package of bacon, the action automatic, then he stopped. He grabbed a half gallon of milk instead. He located the rest of the items he needed and headed to the counter.
“Man, I saw you talking to that woman with the cool car,” Greg said as he rang Nate up. “That was a Jag, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Man, that thing is awesome.” Greg shook his head, impressed.
Nate nodded absently. He hadn’t been awed by the expensive vehicle. He’d been too busy noting that it was fast and terrible in the snow. She’d be lucky if she didn’t end up wrapped around a tree out there, if she wasn’t already.
He paid and gathered up the bags. He had to follow her. It was more than a feeling of civic duty. In fact, there was a time when he wouldn’t have hesitated in letting her go on her way and he’d have gone his. He would have figured it was her own problem if she was a bad driver and foolish enough to be out in weather like this. He would have told himself that he was off duty, and the woman with her inappropriate car was now the next officer’s problem. When Nathaniel Peck was done for the day, he was done for the day.
But Nate didn’t feel that way anymore. He knew he had an obligation to make sure people were all right, and it had nothing to do with being the chief of police. It had to do with being a human being.
Not for the first time, he found it incredible that he’d had to die to figure out how to live.
Chapter 2
Sheer relief washed over Marty as she finally slid her key into the door and stepped into the old house. Tentatively she reached for the light switch, silently praying that the storm hadn’t knocked out the electricity. This place was notorious for losing its power. Again, relief flooded her as the ceiling light in the center of the large kitchen snapped to life.
She stepped farther into the room, looking around. Despite the house’s uninhabited state, it still felt the same. Homey. Comforting. Safe. If not a little chilly.
Marty let out a long, grateful breath, then headed into the front hallway to the thermostat. She turned the dial to seventy-four. Then, as if her grandmother were right there, admonishing her for wasting energy, she turned it back to seventy-two. That would be warm enough.
And she’d be even warmer once she got her wet shoes off. The deep snow in the driveway had worked up her pant legs and had encrusted and frozen her cuffs and socks. Her ankles and calves burned from the cold.
She sat down in one of the kitchen’s worn ladder-back chairs and tugged off the snow-caked sneakers and icy socks, then rubbed the reddened, painful skin of her feet.
If she was going to stay here any length of time, she’d have to buy some proper winter boots. She glanced over at the two small overnight cases and tote bag, which she’d dropped just inside the doorway. She’d probably have to buy quite a few things. Life in arctic Maine was very different from her life in New York City. And