Sugar Creek (3 page)

Well, okay, it was a feeling you got when you came into contact with a sexually attractive man, that was all. It was a hormonal thing—even if she didn’t like knowing some small town Romo could produce that kind of response in her. But it meant nothing. It was time she got that through her head and Mike Romo off her mind. Since the two of them clearly disliked each other, even without a nasty family feud hanging over them to make it official.

Yet as she headed toward the curb, she sensed him catching the door behind her and following her out. And she became aware that he’d smelled…kind of manly. In a different way than men in Chicago smelled. Sort of musky. And rugged.

Oh, stop it, for heaven’s sake. The man smells like sweat, that’s all. It’s August.

But when had the smell of sweat started…turning her on?

And as she made her way around her car, noting the police cruiser parked in front of it, she found herself wondering if he might be watching her—her body, her ass.

When she reached the driver’s side door, she gave him a cutting look over the roof of her 325i. “Um, aren’t
you
illegally parked, too?”

Although she hadn’t been trying to make a joke, Officer Romeo appeared, for the first time, as if he might actually crack a smile. But then he didn’t. “Cops can park wherever necessary in order to uphold the law.”

“Of course they can,” she murmured. Then said,
“Where am
I
supposed to park, Romeo? Since I’d like to come back and see my friends, if you don’t mind.”

He pointed. “There’s an open spot on the other side of the square.”

“Fine,” she snipped, then got in, started the car, and pulled out, careful not to nip his bumper. God, he probably
would
put her in jail
then
.

As she maneuvered her car into in the empty spot, she wondered when on earth Destiny had started having enough traffic to run low on parking. And as she got out, she realized Romeo had circled the square in his cruiser and was pulling up beside her. What
now
? Was he going to criticize her parking in some way? Or…was it possible he just wanted to watch her some more when she walked back across the grassy square? Not that she was
positive
he’d been watching in the first place—but she thought so.

And without quite planning it, she found herself sauntering toward him, even leaning down into his open window. “Is that good enough, Romeo? Did I get inside the lines? Am I close enough to the curb? Am I walking too fast, or too slow? Is there any other way you can harass me? Anything more you want me to do?” Then it hit her—good Lord, was she trying to flash him her cleavage? Surely not.

Like back in front of the bookstore, she almost thought he would smile—yet, again, he didn’t. “Yeah. You can tell Edna I said hi.”

Thoroughly surprised, Rachel raised her eyebrows. “As if she’d want a hello from a Romo.” That’s when she realized his eyes had that bedroom quality to them.
Crap—why did I have to notice that?
Something about looking directly into them had just turned her knees to putty.

“Actually, Edna and I get along just fine,” he claimed. “In fact, she’s the most reasonable Farris I ever met.”

Hmm. Was that supposed to hurt her feelings? Well,
he’d have to try harder than that. “Afraid you’ll have to tell her yourself, because I’m pretty sure you’ll be off my mind as soon as you’re no longer in my face.”
Or would that be in my cleavage?

“You wish,” he mumbled as she turned to go. Or at least that was what it sounded like.

So she spun on her heel. “
What?
” Was he really that arrogant? Even if she
was
putty, she couldn’t stand conceited men.

And
now
, of all times, he grinned. Just a little. In an infuriatingly cocky way that made his eyes sparkle. “Nothing, Farris. Just keep walking.”

And, oh my—they
were
brown. His eyes. Kind of a rich, chocolaty color that made her stomach feel a little hollow. And—oh God—
that
was why he looked even better to her than he had last night. She could see his eyes now. His warm, sexy, bedroom eyes.

Meeting his gaze one last time, just daring him to say another word, she finally turned back around and did what he said—walked across the Destiny town square toward the bookstore. But she was pretty sure she felt him watching her with every step. And it made her body tingle like crazy.

Uh-oh. This was bad. Really bad.

His gorgeousness hadn’t been a figment of her imagination.

And a mean, bossy, small-town cop was
so
not her type.

And, worst of all, he was a Romo.

Damn him for that.

M
ike Romo sat in his cruiser, just off Meadowview Highway near the Destiny city limits, the car partially camouflaged by a copse of small cedars, his radar gun at the ready. He knew people thought he was a hard-ass when it came to speeding—probably thought he was an overzealous cop bent on meeting some kind of monthly quota. But Mike wasn’t motivated by bringing citation money into the town coffers—he was driven by one sole purpose: keeping people in Destiny safe.

Maybe that made him some kind of stick-in-the-mud, but he didn’t care. And if each ticket he wrote did anything to make someone drive—or live—a little more cautiously…well, then it helped him sleep at night.

Just then, Willie Hargis’s old red pickup came ambling up the road—Willie was an elderly man who took his time at whatever he was doing, driving included, and Mike liked him for that. Willie even lifted his hand in a wave as the truck went past, accustomed to seeing Mike
monitor this stretch of highway, and Mike returned the gesture.

As for Rachel Farris, she was at the opposite end of the spectrum. She clearly had no respect for the law, and people like
her
made it harder for
him
to keep people safe.

And he’d been ready to forget all about her, including his bizarre reaction to her—since he was usually much more in command of his own lust, especially on the job—until, damn it, she’d had to block that fire hydrant today.

And before he’d quite known what was happening, she’d been brushing past him, leaving behind that seductive scent again—something light, fruity maybe—and putting all his senses on alert. After which she’d accidentally touched his arm—with her breast. Damn—soft. Nice. And since when did fruit smell
seductive
?

He’d unwittingly started noticing other things about her, too. Like that even today, in town, she hadn’t dressed like most women in Destiny, who were fond of floral skirts and soft colors. She’d seemed more…sexy, again in dark jeans, with strappy high-heeled shoes and a stylish top that had hugged her long, lean curves. And he’d gotten a closer look at some of those curves when she’d bent down into his window.

Up to then, he really
had
shoved her out of his mind—mostly. But now…hell, what was the deal?

After all, she was the exact opposite of everything he liked in a person: self-righteous, entitled, argumentative, and reckless to boot. Plus it was clear she considered Destiny below her—she didn’t even have to say it, he could see it in her eyes. So…maybe it just pissed him off to be having such a primitive reaction to her.
Me Tarzan, you Jane.
That wasn’t him. Usually.

Not that he planned to respond to his urges. Even if, in an off moment, he’d
almost
flirted with her. Nope, he’d keep his Tarzan-like impulses to himself.

She just had too much going against her. Besides everything else, it bugged the hell out of him when she called him Officer Romeo. And sexy as hell or not, the girl was a Farris on top of it all.

Mike didn’t make a habit of judging people by their families—but a lifetime of observation had shown him that most Farrises were cut from the same cloth: often in some kind of scrape, either financial or legal, and generally out for themselves. He considered it good riddance that most of them had moved away.

And he wasn’t sure what had originally started the feud between the two families, but he
did
know the Farris Family Apple Orchard had once belonged to his grandfather, who’d emigrated from Italy, and that his family had always felt it should be rightfully theirs. Of course, Edna had always refused to sell, which had angered Mike as a boy—but as time had passed he’d tried to let that go, coming to know and like Edna, despite her quirks.

Just then, he realized—maybe he
did
remember Rachel Farris at seventeen. Judging from the birth date on her license, he’d been doing his police training in Chillicothe around that time, but he’d never been away from Destiny for long—and hadn’t there been some cute, rambunctious little Farris girl flitting about town in those days? A cheerleader, if he remembered. And he had the vague sense that she’d driven fast even then—back before he’d had the ability to do anything about it. He suspected she was the same then as now—probably the only difference being that she’d grown from a cute, reckless, over-confident girl in a cheerleading skirt into an attractive, reckless, over-confident woman in jeans that hugged her ass real nice.

But Rachel Farris’s
jeans
and Rachel Farris’s
genes
were two different things—and he could admire one without admiring the other. He could think she was attractive without acting on it. And besides, if he wanted a
woman, he was capable of getting one whose last name wasn’t Farris.

He knew he wasn’t exactly charming, but despite that, all he usually had to do was buy a girl a drink and she was his for the night. Logan had started calling him the Italian Stallion, claiming it was all in
his
genes. And maybe it was. Everyone always claimed that his late grandfather, Giovanni Romo, had had a way with the ladies, too.

It was just then that Mike caught sight of a vehicle rounding the bend in the distance so fast the car was a blur—an electric shade of purple, but that was all he could tell as he lifted the radar gun and aimed it out the open window. The speeding car blew past in a streak of color—at ninety-two miles per hour!
Shit
. Now
that
he could haul somebody’s ass to jail for.

The only problem might be catching the son of a bitch.

But Mike tore out of his spot just off the road, throwing up mud and grass as he pressed the gas pedal to the floor, committed to trying. He fishtailed but straightened it out, then switched on his lights and siren.

As the car had
whoosh
ed past, he’d identified it as a late model Mustang—which meant catching the bastard would be difficult at best. He didn’t know the car, had never seen it around—but this guy made Rachel Farris look like a Sunday driver.

Mike drove as fast as possible under the conditions, thinking the guy might be slowed down by curves or—God forbid—other vehicles. And he tried to keep an eye toward the roadside—it wouldn’t take much at that speed for the asshole to make a wrong move and go skidding off the pavement into a tree or a ravine—but going ninety, it was hard to concentrate on more much than the road itself.

He drove that way for nearly ten minutes down the country highway, never catching even a glimpse of the Mustang—before he accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to.
Damn it.

Slowing his cruiser, he banged his palm on the steering wheel and cursed. What the
hell
was that idiot thinking, driving that fast on a twisting two-lane highway?

Finally, he located a spot to pull off and turn back—he’d gone well beyond the Destiny city limits, past his own house and out into farm country. It was rural here, but there were plenty of roads crisscrossing each other every few miles—so the Mustang could be headed anywhere now.

Once back in town, he drove toward the police station, every muscle in his body still tensed. It was the first time anyone had ever even
tried
to outrun him, and though he knew it wasn’t his fault the guy had gotten away, the Mustang had put him in a rotten mood. Pulling up in front of the station, he slammed his door shut with too much force.

“Whoa, dude, who pissed
you
off?”

He glanced up to see Logan Whitaker, the person who knew him best in the world. And the truth was, he didn’t particularly like
anyone
knowing all the things about him that Logan did, but it couldn’t be helped—it was the price you paid for lifelong friendship. A fireman, Logan sat outside the firehouse next door in a DFD tee and blue jeans—apparently just soaking up the sunny day and looking far too chipper for Mike at the moment. “Some son-of-a-bitch Mustang just blew by me on the Meadowview going ninety-fucking-two,” he growled.

Logan drew back slightly in his folding chair. “Damn. You catch him?”

Mike raised his eyebrows. “Do I look like I caught him?”

“Oh.” Logan left it at that, since he knew how Mike felt about speeders, and reckless people in general.

Pushing through the door into the station, Mike was glad to see things mostly quiet, empty—only Chief Tolliver sat at his desk doing paperwork, and he lifted his
hand in absent greeting, raising his eyes only briefly. “Mike,” he murmured.

“Walter,” Mike returned—then planted himself at his own desk, where he signed on to his computer to contact the Ohio State Highway Patrol with what little information he had about the car. Who knew what they’d find in the master Bureau of Motor Vehicles database without even a partial on the plate, but on the other hand, how many purple Mustangs could there be in the area?

Half an hour later, it turned out the answer was none. No purple Mustangs anywhere nearby. But there were a considerable number of hits statewide, and when he ran an inquiry through the Law Enforcement Automated Data System, he found out a purple Mustang had been stolen from a Cleveland suburb a couple of weeks ago. Hmm. He’d lay odds he’d just chased that same car up the Meadowview.

Maybe he was assuming too much, but his cop’s gut instincts had told him almost instantly there was something more at work here than just a wild joyride. Something…worrisome. Shit.

Taking a deep breath, Mike e-mailed the jurisdiction where the stolen Mustang was registered, to let them know of the possible sighting. And upon closing the database, he leaned back in his chair with a sigh, glad the chief was too immersed in work across the room to notice his mood.

Then he caught a glimpse of the picture of Anna he still kept on his desk. It had been taken one Easter—she stood in the yard wearing a lacy white dress.

Somehow, at a moment like this, the very sight of her, looking so happy and carefree, so innocent, stole his breath. She’d had no idea, no idea at all what was coming. None of them had.

And he thought, as he did at some point every single day, of all the bad things happening in the world that he
was powerless to stop. He kept trying—he tried with everything in him—but he just couldn’t ever fix it all.

Where are you, Anna? Where the hell are you?

Despite himself, even after all this time, he never quit wondering.

Rachel turned left at the quaint wooden sign that read Farris Family Apple Orchard and drove across the little stone bridge crossing Sugar Creek. Sunbeams broke through the billowing trees to dapple the ground with light and remind Rachel of time spent here as a little girl. Edna’s house had been the gathering place for the Farris clan back then—Sunday dinners, holidays, it had all taken place at the orchard. A fleeting memory of hide-and-go-seek with her cousins made her envision crouching behind tree trunks, or slipping into the cheerful red barn that had just come into view. She stopped the car far short of the barn, though, parking alongside Edna’s little Toyota pickup and the circa 1940 fruit truck that she suspected hadn’t hauled anything anywhere in at least twenty years.

Edna’s little white house with gingerbread trim was the kind everyone entered through the back screen door more than the front one—so that’s what she did now, letting it slam behind her as she called out, “Hey Edna, I’m home!”

No answer. But no biggie. She might be napping. Or for all Rachel knew, Edna was out picking a few ripening apples on her not-really-so-bad knees—she’d promised to bake an apple pie, since Rachel
loved
Edna’s pies.

Moving through the kitchen to what Edna still called the parlor, Rachel realized the house was filled with furniture from the first half of the last century: an antique sofa and chair, small end tables with spindle legs, a huge wooden radio from the thirties, an old upright piano adorned with old photos atop a white doily. Little had changed since
Rachel had last been here almost fifteen years ago. Except that Edna had gotten older. Which made her a little sad when she looked at the framed pictures on the piano of Edna in younger days—and of
all
of them, all her family, in earlier times.

For some reason, all those pictures together—Edna in her youth, then Rachel’s parents as teenagers, and then Rachel herself, with other cousins, as a small child—made her chest tighten.
How swiftly fly the years.
Maybe it was easier not to focus on that aspect of life in the city, where days were brisk, busy. Here, though, from Amy’s refurbished storefront to that old truck outside, from early twentieth century farmhouses to the pictures spread across Edna’s piano, it was hard not to be aware of the way time passed, of the way each person’s time was…limited. Life didn’t go on forever. For anyone.

“Fleetin’, ain’t it?” Edna said.

And Rachel flinched—then turned, scolding Edna with her eyes for sneaking up behind her. “What’s that?” she asked.

“Life. It flits by faster than you’d expect.”

Edna was like that sometimes—she could read your mind just from the look on your face. Rachel had sort of forgotten that.

“Look at
you
,” Edna went on. “All grown up and with your big city job. And it feels like just yesterday I bounced ya on my knee and wiped chocolate off your face and fed ya Coke over crushed ice when you were sick.”

“I never really got that,” Rachel admitted thoughtfully. “The Coke-over-crushed-ice thing. What is that supposed to do for you?”

“Settles your stomach. Everybody knows that. It’s been a family home remedy long as I can remember.”

“Hmm,” Rachel mused. “Not to burst your bubble, Edna, but…even though Coke settles my stomach, I don’t think the crushed ice adds anything.”

Edna shrugged. “Do you still eat a bowl of it when ya get sick?”

With just a hint of hesitation, Rachel nodded. “Not because I think I’m getting anything extra from the crushed ice, but it’s…well, just what I do when I’m sick.”

“There ya go. If ya do it, you must get somethin’ out of it.”