She sipped coffee, noting that her hand had started to shake a little. It matched the uneasy fluttering in her stomach. “It just got bigger, didn’t it? Ray, I mean.”
“I’m seriously wondering about that. I could drive that stretch of road blindfolded. No reason for a truck to roll. Or for a driver to be dead.”
She had to put her coffee down as her heart started to climb into her throat. “What do you want from me?”
“I want two things. The first is to keep an eye on you, because you might have seen the very kind of cargo switch I was supposed to be looking out for. A few people already know what you saw. I’m worried about you. That’s why I told you not to say any more about it. Maybe word won’t get around, but I can’t be sure.”
“What else?” Her voice sounded a little thin even to her.
“Give me cover. People are going to start wondering why I’m hanging around. Like you said, this isn’t a dream vacation spot. So let me hang around, doing the lovesick-puppy thing. I’ll ask you out. You can keep saying no. I’ll look like a fool, but not in a way that arouses any suspicion. In the meantime…”
She turned to face him. “Yes? In the meantime what?”
“Well, you can let me know if you hear or see anything. Just me. I’m going to keep a pretty close eye on that truck stop, but there are other things. For example, the Liston family got an anonymous donation for that fancy funeral.”
Haley gasped. “I wondered. Oh, man, I wondered. They’ve never had any money, and I know how much I had to cut back on my own mother’s funeral last year. I looked at that…Do you know how much it costs to have a two-night wake? Or a coffin like that?”
“Thousands.”
“More than a few thousand. How did you find out they got a donation?”
“I heard somebody talking.”
“Well, I heard somebody talking, too. Apparently Ray had been telling at least one person that he was about to come into some money.”
“Money.” He almost spat the word. “Well, that would tend to confirm it.”
“Confirm what?”
“Where there’s a lot of money, there’s a lot of danger. Money and power are the two biggest corruptors, and when either gets involved, lives don’t seem to matter. I just wonder why they contributed to the funeral. Can’t be much conscience in somebody who would kill to keep a secret.”
“But folks around here do stuff like that. People would have chipped in so the Listons could bury Ray. They would have.” She remembered the offers she had received to help pay for her mother’s expenses. Offers she had been able to turn down because she had just enough. “Maybe that’s all it was, folks chipping in.”
“Maybe. But then you have Ray talking about coming into money.”
She didn’t like the way this was making her feel. She looked around at the familiar quad, in darkness now, and realized her world had shifted hugely. Would she ever see her friendly little town in quite the same way again? She suddenly experienced the most childish urge to close her eyes, as if that would make it go away. Like hiding under the bedcovers when you thought a monster was in the closet. How much protection did refusing to see give you? Zip, she thought unhappily.
One of her neighbors might be involved in something so ugly he was willing to kill. She shuddered. “I don’t want any part of this.”
“I don’t think you get the choice anymore. You saw something. If the wrong person knows…”
She didn’t need him to finish the thought. Another shiver ran through her and she leaned over to throw her coffee into the trash can at the end of the bench. Then she wrapped her arms tightly around herself and looked out at the alien world she had just landed in. If the wrong person knew. She had no idea who the wrong person might be. The Listons, who had asked her if she’d told the police that Ray had seemed fine? Claire or Hasty, who had heard what she told Micah and Sarah when they came in to ask questions? No. She couldn’t believe any of them could mean her any harm.
“Haley…” All of sudden, strong arms wrapped around her, hauling her close. She should have resisted, but that embrace felt so good, and those arms felt so strong and protective. It had been way, way too long since anyone had hugged her, and her throat tightened as she realized how much she had missed that kind of comfort. So much, evidently, that it felt good even from a stranger.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he murmured. “That much I can swear. Not one bad thing is going to happen to you.”
“You can’t promise that,” she said weakly into his shoulder. “Nobody can.” Life had certainly taught her that lesson the hard way.
“I can. It used to be my job. Nobody’s going to hurt you. They’ll have to get through me first.”
“Why? Why do you care?”
“Because I do. Some things I just care about. You’re at the top of my list right now. Besides,” he added in an evident attempt to lighten the moment, “I’ve had my eye on you for months. You’re a temptation, woman.”
A feeble laugh escaped her. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
He moved her back so that his dark eyes stared straight into hers. “It should. It’s been a long time since I had any desire to camp on a woman’s doorstep.”
The words left her speechless. She could see he meant them by the look in his eyes, and sexual heat began to drizzle through her until it pooled achingly between her thighs. Rationally she knew her reaction was foolish, but rationality had nothing to do with it. She’d been noticing this man for months, even daydreaming about him in ways she hadn’t daydreamed about anyone since high school. Every time she saw him, she felt that same pull, that same desire for something to happen between them.
Now something was happening, and it was not at all what she’d imagined. Almost unconsciously, she clamped her thighs together, wishing she wasn’t abruptly aware that every breath she took made her shirt slide over nipples that were suddenly sensitive even through her bra. She made herself look away from him, trying to get her grounding. Trying to think sensibly. Trying to regain her self-control.
As soon as she looked away, his arms dropped from her. The loss of his touch was almost enough to draw an incautious protest from her. She bit it back. There were more important things. This man had just told her she might be in danger. She couldn’t afford to lose sight of that.
“This is hard to take in,” she said after a minute.
“It’s not the usual way of looking at things,” he admitted. “And I could be wrong about you being in any danger. God willing, I am. I just don’t want to risk it.”
That was reasonable, she supposed. She tried to shake off the feeling that the deepening shadows around her might hold a threat. God, she wasn’t used to thinking this way. Life had dealt her its blows right out in the open.
And now here she was, putting in place the first building blocks of a future, and some guy came virtually out of nowhere to tell her that she might wind up like Ray? All because she had glimpsed something in the truck-stop parking lot?
Deal! Her brain almost barked the order at her, and she stiffened. If she could say nothing else about herself, if there was one thing she knew about herself for certain, it was that she dealt with life’s curveballs. All of them.
She sat up straighter, drew a breath and thought, All right. This is how it is. Now what was she to do about it?
There was one thing she knew instantly, of course.