That hurt. “Funny. All I remember is the way it ended. Stay away from me, Jake. I mean it.”
He regarded her for a moment, then nodded. “Don’t worry, I don’t poach on other men’s territory.” His glance dropped to her hand where it was fisted on the roof of the car. “But then, I wouldn’t be poaching, would I? You aren’t wearing a ring.”
For a minute Amy saw red. How dare he?
“Goodbye, Jake.”
“Amy?” he called after her.
She told herself not to listen, but she stopped walking and barely refrained from turning back to him.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the way things ended.”
His voice was low, personal, intimate. Her stomach clenched right along with her fists.
“I’ve waited nine years to tell you that.”
Amy didn’t turn around. “You should have saved your breath.” And she forced herself not to run as she strode away from Jake Collins and her past.
JAKE CLIMBED painfully back into the car and started the engine. He watched her daughter come running back outside, chattering away. Amy listened and nodded, putting a hand on the little girl’s head. The two of them walked up the steps and onto the porch together.
A pain that had nothing to do with physical hurts lanced him more deeply than a cut. If he hadn’t been so stupid, so egotistically certain he knew the right thing to do, that could have been their daughter. Kelsey had his coloring, he thought humorlessly. He wondered what her father looked like. She was a beautiful child, just as her mother was beautiful. He’d been the world’s biggest fool nine years ago.
It wasn’t until he walked inside the Perrywrinkle, lost in recriminations of the past, that it hit him. How old was the child? Seven? Eight?
Was it possible?
He calculated quickly.
More than possible.
Jake thought of what he knew about Amy. She’d been a virgin at twenty-two—and she’d loved him. Maybe it was ego talking, but he couldn’t believe she would have gone from him to another man so quickly.
He’d always listened to his instincts and they were shouting now, loud and clear. If he wanted to see Kelsey’s father all he needed was a mirror.
Why hadn’t Amy told him? How dare she not have told him! Didn’t she think he had the right to know? This was his child. His only child! She had no right to keep that a secret.
“Boss,” Ben Dwyer said, walking up to him, “we’ve got a small problem. There are reporters in the bar to see you and Matt’s looking for you. He says there’s an old lady out by the construction site acting all weird and spacey—his words. He thinks she’s the mayor’s aunt.”
Jake cursed under his breath. He wanted to turn around, go back to Amy and demand answers. But first he’d have to deal with this situation.
“Where’s Matt now?”
“I don’t know. He went back outside when I told him you weren’t here. Is it true what they’re saying?”
Jake waited.
Ben didn’t flinch at his expression. Instead he went on calmly. “Some of the customers heard the cops talking. They said that someone deliberately released the brake and put that truck in reverse.”
Jake stared at his bartender while the hairs on the back of his neck lifted. “I hadn’t heard that,” he said softly.
Jake went back outside, his mind churning. That explained the questions Hepplewhite’s people were asking. He’d wondered why the police wanted to know if he’d seen anyone in or around the truck before it began to roll. He’d supposed it was an accident. If Ben was right, they were looking at an entirely different scenario.
Had someone deliberately tried to dump that load of gravel into the pit to cover the scene of a murder? Why bother? The bones had already been discovered. On the other hand, the gravel would compromise the crime scene, making it much harder for the forensic team to do its job.
Jake looked around as he neared the roped-off area. The truck still canted oddly over the hole. Gravel was everywhere and the crowd had grown. Cindy Lou Baranksi would not be happy if her aunt turned up on national television. Image was everything in an election year and the mayor’s aunt was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia. Cindy Lou had the added responsibility of looking after her aunt. Gertrude Perry was generally monitored closely.
If he hadn’t been so busy thinking about Amy when he returned, Jake would have spotted the older woman hanging around outside. He also would have noticed the network news van on the far side of the building.
Jake had no one to blame but himself for the past. But he needed to deal with the future right now. By the time he got to the end of the parking lot where the workers had exposed the horrible tomb, Gertrude Perry was gone.
No doubt one of the locals had run her home. Everyone knew old Ms. Perry. As a relative newcomer to town, Jake had quickly learned that Gertrude and her brother Marcus were direct descendents of the Perry family who had founded Fools Point. Marcus Perry had been the last to marry and have offspring. Only his daughter, Cindy Lou, had ever felt the need to keep up appearances for the sake of the family name. She was a decent mayor from what he could see. And it wasn’t her fault people had started to refer to the town as Mystery Junction behind her back. Today’s gruesome discovery would only add fuel to the already smoldering talk around town. Cindy Lou wouldn’t want her family featured in that talk, but this was their old family homestead.
Police officials were still at the site. Chief Hepplewhite had called in the support of the Montgomery County Police. His six-man force couldn’t possibly deal with this situation. The county police would deal with the evidence and probably assist with the investigation. But first, someone was going to have to move a ton of gravel.
Jake frowned. He scanned the crowd again, but his nephew Matt was nowhere to be seen. The time had come to do something about the youth. To the locals, Matt was nothing but a wild teen, constantly in trouble. To the aunt and uncle he had lived with since the death of his parents, he was an unwanted burden. But to Jake, he was the reason for the Perrywrinkle and Jake’s presence in the small town of Fools Point.
Jake sighed and returned inside to face the reporters. The after-work crowd had descended by the time Jake finished, then the supper crowd began to arrive and mingle with the curious. The restaurant staff was kept hopping, especially him. He stewed, knowing there was nothing he could do about the question gnawing at his insides until things quieted down for the night and he could turn the bar over to Ben’s capable hands.
The young man was working out even better than he’d expected. Solid, dependable—honest. Jake would bet his military pension that there was a story behind Ben’s presence here in Fools Point. In time he’d learn what it was, but he wasn’t thinking about that as he swallowed a couple of aspirins and, ignoring his car, set off down the path that would lead to the street and ultimately Amy’s front door.
He strode briskly in the cool night air. Maple trees were just beginning to display their colorful fall cloaks. They still obscured most of the houses from the view of the street.
Overhead, the moon was dancing with the clouds so not much light filtered anywhere along his path.
Admittedly his senses had turned rusty in the past year and a half, but not so rusty that they’d shut down completely. Jake slowed his pace as he neared the house. Years of training kicked to life the moment he saw a dark figure dart from behind a tree to scamper surreptitiously behind the house.
Jake flattened himself against the nearest tree, doing his best to melt into the shadows. His white shirt and pale face would act like