Heart thudding, she turned slowly, the penlight falling from suddenly nerveless fingers. “I was just 1-looking.”
Great. She sounded guilty even to herself.
The tall, broad silhouette loomed to enormous proportions with the torchlight in her eyes. She caught a glimpse of some metallic official insignia on the car that was pulled up in front of hers.
The man must have realized that the light was blinding her because he lowered the beam fractionally. “Come down off the porch.”
She scrabbled for the wandering penlight, grabbed it and hurried down the steps to the street, trying to pull herself together. Really, she was overreacting. The man couldn’t be as big and menacing as she was imagining.
But at ground level with him, she realized that her imagination wasn’t really that far off. He must have stood well over six feet, with a solid bulk that suggested he was as immovable as one of the nearby hills. In the dim light, she made out a craggy face that looked as if it had been carved from rock. A badge glinted on his chest.
She rushed to explain. “Really, I didn’t mean any harm. I understand this building is for sale, and I just wanted to have a quick look. I can come back tomorrow with the real estate agent.”
She turned toward her car. Somehow, without giving the impression that the mountain had moved, the man managed to be between her and the vehicle.
Her heart began to pound against her ribs. She was alone in a strange place, with a man who was equally strange, and her cell phone was in her handbag, which lay unhelpfully on the front seat of the car she couldn’t reach.
“Not so fast,” he rumbled. “Let’s see some identification, please.”
At least she thought he said please—that slow rumble was a little difficult to distinguish. She could make out the insignia on his badge now, and her heart sank.
Crossroads Township Police. Why couldn’t she have fallen into the hands of a nice, professional State Trooper, instead of a village cop who probably had an innate suspicion of strangers?
“My driver’s license is in my car,” she pointed out.
Wordlessly, he stood back for her to pass him and then followed her closely enough to open the door before she could reach the handle. She grabbed her wallet, pulling out the California driver’s license and handing it to him.
“Ca-li-for-ni-a.” He seemed to pronounce all of the syllables separately.
“Yes, California.” Nerves edged her voice. “Is that a problem, Officer?”
She snapped her mouth shut before she could say anything else. Don’t make him angry. Never argue with a man who’s wearing a large badge on his chest.
“Could be.”
She blinked. She almost thought there was a thread of humor in the words.
He handed the ID back. “What brings you to Crossroads Township, Ms. Flanagan?”
“I’m looking for a house to buy. Someone from the real estate office mentioned this place. I got a little lost, or I’d have been here earlier.”
She shifted her weight uneasily from one foot to the other as she said the words. That steady stare made her nervous. He couldn’t really detain her for looking in a window, could he?
She looked up, considering saying that, and reconsidered at the sight of a pair of intense blue eyes in a stolid face made up entirely of planes. Don’t say anything to antagonize him.
“I see.” He invested the two words with a world of doubt. “You have anyone locally who can vouch for you?”
Finally she realized what she should have sooner. Of course she had someone to vouch for her. She had a whole raft of cousins. Family. Not a word that usually had much warmth for her, but maybe now—
Ted Rittenhouse saw the relief that flooded the woman’s face. She’d obviously come up with a solution she thought would satisfy him.
“I’m staying with a cousin, Gabe Flanagan.” She was so relieved that the words tripped over each other. She snatched a cell phone from her bag. “Look, you can call him. He’ll vouch for me. Here’s my cell phone. You can use it.”
“Seems to me I’ve heard of those newfangled gadgets,” he said dryly, pulling his own cell phone from his uniform pocket. “You have his number?”
Even in the dim light provided by the dome lamp of her car, he could see the color that flooded her fair skin at that. He assessed her while he punched in the number she gave him. Slim, erect, with a mane of strawberry-blond hair pulled back from a heart-shaped face.
A pair of intelligent gray eyes met his directly, in spite of the embarrassment that heightened her color. Something about the cut of her tan slacks and corduroy jacket suggested a bit more sophistication than was usually found in Crossroads Township, where the standard attire was jeans, except for the Plain People.
“Mr. Flanagan? This is Ted Rittenhouse, Crossroads Township Police. I’ve got a young lady here who says she’s staying with you. Fiona Flanagan, her name is.”
“Fiona? She’s my cousin.” Quick concern filled the man’s voice, wiping away some of Ted Rittenhouse’s suspicion. Potential housebreakers didn’t usually come equipped with respectable-sounding relatives. “Has she had a car accident? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing wrong. She maybe got a little lost is all. I’ll guide her back to your place all right.” The Pennsylvania Dutch cadence, wiped from his voice during his years in the city, had come back the instant he’d moved back home to Crossroads. “If you’ll just give me directions….”
As Flanagan gave him the directions, Ted realized he knew exactly where that farm was. The next township over, but he knew most of the back roads and landmarks in the county, even if that area wasn’t his jurisdiction. Somehow you never forget the land that meant home when you were a kid. Maybe that was especially true of a place like this, where the same families had owned farms for generations.
When he slid the phone back in his pocket, he realized Ms. Flanagan was watching him with wariness in those clear eyes.
“It’s not necessary for you to guide me anywhere. I can get back to my cousin’s on my own.”
“No problem at all. It’s not out of my way. I’ll guide you there.”
“I’d prefer to go alone.” She enunciated the words as if he was a dumb hick who couldn’t understand.
Well, fair enough. In her eyes, he probably was. But he wasn’t going to let her just disappear, not until that last faint suspicion was cleared up. As the law in the township, he was responsible and he took it seriously.
“Sorry, ma’am. You heard me tell your cousin I’d guide you home, and I’m not about to let you get lost. Again.”
For a moment longer she glared at him, sensing he was poking mild fun at her. Then she jerked a nod, as if to admit defeat, and rounded her car to slide into the driver’s seat.
He paused, flashing the light around the old Landers place and then over Ruth Moser’s general store next door. Be a good thing if someone bought the Landers place. It had been standing empty too long. But Ruth wouldn’t appreciate it if someone up and put a phony Pennsylvania Dutch tourist trap right next to her shop.
Course he didn’t know what the Flanagan woman had in mind for the building. He didn’t think anyone who dressed like she did would sell plastic Amish dolls made in some third world country.
No sign of life in the general store, and everything looked locked up tight. He’d advised Ruth to put in an alarm system, but so far she hadn’t listened. Folks liked to think this was still the quiet countryside it had been fifty years ago, but that wasn’t so.