The Bride Wore Blue (7 page)

“We had a real nice chat,” J.D. said with a saccharinesweet smile. “And Greene here was just telling me he had to be on his way, weren’t you, Greene?”

The big man ignored him. “Anything you need done around here, Maggie?”

“Thanks, Abel. But you’ve taken care of everything. I’m in good shape.”

J.D. perked up at her friendly dismissal, then deflated like a tire with a fast leak at her next words.

“And just as soon as Hazzard gets on his way, everything will get back to normal.”

The look Greene gave J.D. before he drained his mug and set it on the counter suggested he’d be more than glad to stick around to make sure that happened.

“I’ll slip back around sunset,” he said instead, not needing to add,
and make sure he’s gone.

“No need.” Maggie walked him to the door. “I know you’ve got things to do. And you don’t need to worry about me. I’m fine.”

She seems to be determined to convince everyone she’s fine, J.D. concluded with a troubled frown as Hershey bounded back to the cabin and Greene and his wolf dog disappeared into the forest. So far, she was doing a lousy job of it. The only thing she’d convinced him of was that he wasn’t comfortable with Maggie setting such stake in Greene’s friendship.

J.D. didn’t buy into all of the wild stories bandied about the local pubs that embellished and thrived on the legend of Abel Greene. He believed that every man had to choose his own road and his own company, even though Greene did manage to spook the bejesus out of the locals. If Greene, as native to this land as monstrous Norway pines that stood like sentinels along the shore, chose to walk his road alone, far be it from J.D. to cast judgment. Yet he did wonder about him, and though his gut instinct told him Greene was not involved in the black bear poaching, certain facts could not be ignored.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Hazzard.”

J.D.’s head came up as Maggie slammed the screen door behind her right after Hershey snuck inside.

“What’d I do?” he asked, as innocent as a babe—he figured he might pull it off since he was at least dressed for the part.

She angled him a dark look. “I don’t need you for a keeper
or
a protector.”

He didn’t bother to deny that that was exactly what he had in mind. “And I suppose you think Greene would fit the bill,” he shot back with a nasty glare.

She opened her mouth to say something, closed it, then shook her head. “This is not a conversation I want to have with you. As a matter of fact, I don’t want to have
any
conversation with you.”

She picked up his duffel and shoved it at him.

He caught it against his middle with a grunt.

“The bedroom is in there.”

It was the perfect opening for a little flirtation. “Too bad it isn’t the perfect time,” J.D. grumbled under his breath as he headed for the bedroom to do the only thing she had in mind.

When he was dressed in dry socks, jeans and a maroon University of Minnesota sweatshirt, he walked back to the kitchen. He figured he was pressing his luck, but he refilled his coffee mug anyway.

Maggie was curled up with her own half-empty mug in an easy chair by the picture window. With the coffeepot in hand, he crossed over to her, then filled the mug she grudgingly extended.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said carefully.

She let out a tired sigh. “What is that supposed to mean?”

He sat in a chair opposite hers. Wrapping his hands around the warm mug, he looked out over the placid bay.

“It means that you need to be careful about the friends you choose.”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand his intent. Her eyes sought his, dark and determined and clouded with fierce, protective anger. “Abel is one of the kindest individuals I know.”

J.D. looked away, then enunciated slowly, “I’m just saying you need to be careful.”

“No. That’s not what you’re saying. You aren’t saying anything. But you’re implying a whole lot. What, exactly, is your problem with Abel?”

He hesitated, then decided she ought to know. “It’s not just my problem. It’s a problem around the lake. Poaching,” he elaborated when her brows furrowed.

She shot him an incredulous look. “Poaching?”

He nodded. “Specifically, black bear.”

She blinked, her expression relaying her resistance to the idea. “And you think Abel is responsible?”

“I don’t want to think it,” he said, realizing as he did that it was true. He didn’t want to think the worst of Abel Greene. The tales about Greene’s exploits, J.D. dismissed as part fact, part fiction, a by-product of the hermitlike lifestyle the reclusive man had chosen. Greene’s unapproachable aloofness and mysterious bearing provided fodder for inventive yarns that relieved the boredom of long winter nights in the Northland. It also made him a target for any kind of speculation.

“I don’t want to think it,” he repeated for good measure, “but I can’t dismiss the fact that Greene has both opportunity and motive.”

She stared solemnly into her mug. “Opportunity?”

J.D. leaned forward, knees bent. Propping his forearms on his spread thighs, he dangled his mug between them. “His cabin sits in the middle of some of the most heavily populated colonies of bear in the north woods.”

“So does mine,” she said heatedly. “That doesn’t mean I’m out with a flashlight and a shotgun mowing them down.”

“You’re forgetting motive.”

She inched her knees closer to her chest and rested her chin on them. “By all means, enlighten me about his motive.”

“There’s a huge profit to be made from the killing of black bears. A segment of Asian culture values their gallbladders for their aphrodisiac powers.”

She shuddered in revulsion.

“Yeah,” he said, agreeing with her silent commentary. “It’s disgusting.”

“Abel is not a man who would be motivated by money.”

J.D. studied her profile as she stared stubbornly out over the bay. Sunlight shimmered down through the quivering birch and the high bows of the Norway pine, highlighting, defining, playing with the natural beauty of her features, tipping her hair with gold.

“I agree,” he said, making himself concentrate on the ugly business at hand. “Revenge, however, can be an even stronger motive.”

Her eyes snapped toward his. “Revenge? Are you talking about his scar?”

He shrugged. “The stories are as original as they are varied—ranging from Greene being bushwhacked by a thousand-pound renegade boar, to an attack by a sow protecting her cubs.”

“I don’t suppose anyone’s ever bothered to ask him how it happened.”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “I don’t suppose anyone’s ever had the guts.”

That brought a small smile of concession.

“Look, Stretch, I meant it when I said I don’t want to believe Greene has anything to do with this, but the fact is, he’s on the DNR’s list of suspects. That makes him a threat to you in my book.”

“Yeah, well, your book has a plot full of holes.” She took a long swallow of her coffee. “What have you got to do with all this, anyway?”

“I was patrolling for signs of the poachers when I set down here yesterday.”

“Patrolling? What are you, some weekend warrior or something?”

“Not if I can help it. It’s just that manpower and machinery are scarce up here. So I volunteer when I can to help out in any number of projects.”

“Like?” Her raised brow prompted him.

“Like fire spotting. Sometimes blast patrol south of here on the Iron Range. And sometimes, like now, a little aerial surveillance.”

“So you were checking out Abel’s place yesterday.”

“I was just checking out the area,” he clarified. “Abel’s place just happens to be in it.”

“You’d do well to remember that. Just like
I
happen to be in the middle of it.” She gave him a steady look. “Abel isn’t responsible for any of that cruel and horrible waste, Blue. He couldn’t be.”

J.D. let out a deep breath, taken by her loyalty, impressed by her conviction. “I hope you’re right. In the meantime, just…just exercise a little judgment where he’s concerned, okay?”

She snorted. “This from a man who wouldn’t know better judgment if it walked up and announced its presence with a bullhorn.”

He let go of a reluctant grin. “You’re referring to my plane again, aren’t you?”

“I’m referring to your plane.”

He smiled confidently. “I’ll have to take you up in her someday.”

She made a sound of denial. “When the sun sets in the east.”

“That sounds like a challenge to me, Ms. Adams.”

“Then something’s wrong with your hearing too,
Mr.
Hazzard, because what it was was a no, never, not in this lifetime.”

He sat back in the chair, taken again by the swift revival of the stubborn, determined Maggie he remembered. “We’ll see.”

She angled him an exasperated look. “Don’t you have some place to be?”

“Other than here, you mean?”

She closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Other than here.”

She was weakening. He could see it in her face. It was becoming harder and harder for her to repress a full-fledged grin.

And it was becoming harder and harder for him to dismiss what was happening here as simple flirtation. Ever since he’d spotted her on the dock and his heart had broken
into a Minnesota two-step, he’d been in a rare and radical frame of mind. It had taken a dunking in the bay, a night on her sofa and Abel Greene’s unexpected appearance to group his thoughts together.

It had taken a deep look inside himself to form a conclusion that now seemed preordained.

“You really don’t want me to go, do you, Maggie? It’s okay. You can admit it.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “You know, in my profession I meet a lot of egos. I don’t believe, however, that I’ve encountered one yet that matches yours. You just don’t get it. I didn’t invite you here. I didn’t ask you to stay.”

“So what’s your point?” he asked with a mock scowl of concentration.

She folded her arms under her breasts and let out a weary breath to keep from smiling. “You’re being deliberately obtuse.”

“One of my stronger suits.”

That little bit of silliness finally earned him a reluctant smile.

“And that’s one of yours. You have a beautiful smile, Stretch. You ought to give in to it more often.” Just like he decided it was time to give in to his urge to touch her.

His smile faded, however, the moment he touched a finger to the corner of her upturned mouth. His smile faded, his world tilted, then shifted and finally settled him into a truth he could no longer avoid.

“Do you believe in love at first sight, Maggie?” His voice had gone rusty with discovery, soft with certainty and intent.

Her dark gaze skittered to his. He loved the way she was trying her best not to act unnerved by his out-of-the-blue question. He loved the way she shook her head and pretended he wasn’t affecting her.

She couldn’t quite pull it off, though, J.D. realized with a satisfaction that waylaid her resistance.

“That line didn’t work when I was sixteen, Hazzard. Don’t count on it working now.”

“There are a lot of things I don’t count on,” J.D. said, inching deeper and deeper into a conviction he’d avoided for the better part of his life. “The weather. The stock market. The Timberwolves making the play-offs.” He searched her face, then held her gaze when she made the mistake of meeting his eyes. “But the one thing I
can
count on is how I feel about you.”

“Oh, please,” she postured with an exaggerated show of impatience but with a wild little spark of hope and panic he found encouraging and heartbreakingly sad.

“Is it really so upsetting Stretch? The prospect that I find you the most fascinating, the most beautiful, the most desirable woman I’ve ever met?”

She shot off the chair and walked with determined steps toward the kitchen counter. “You need to sort the wheat from the chaff, Hazzard. It’s just your hormones talking again. Confusion runs rampant inside that head of yours.”

When he walked quietly up behind her, he saw that her hands were shaking as she tried to pour herself more coffee. He reached out a hand. Covered hers. Steadied it. Then he turned her in his arms to face him. She stared hard at a spot in the middle of his chest.

“I think maybe there’s a little confusion running amok in someone else’s head, too, hmm?” He rubbed her arms in a gesture of comfort when she made herself look at him. “You don’t want to react to me, Maggie, but you do. I can see it in your eyes. No. Don’t look away.”

She drew a brave, thready breath.

“So good at trying to hide your feelings.” He squeezed her shoulders lightly. “So bad at pulling it off.

“We’d be good together, Stretch,” he murmured, touching a hand to her hair. “Think about it. And while you’re at it, think about this.”

Lord knows, it was all
he’d
been thinking about. It was also all he could do to keep from devouring her as he lowered his mouth to hers and breathed a feather-light kiss across her lips. When she didn’t bolt, he nipped her lightly, feeling her reluctantly melt—and guardedly shift—then lean into him with reckless surrender to match her movements with his. With a groan, he deepened the contact and pulled her closer.

“Think about this,” he whispered as he pinned her against the counter with his hips, letting her feel the heat and the length and the strength of his arousal pressed against her belly. “About how much I want you. About how I’ve always wanted you.”

He buried his face in the silk and fragrance of her hair. “And when you’re lying alone in your bed tonight wondering what happened this morning, think about the fact that I could be lying there with you. Touching you…” She shivered but didn’t pull away when he slid his hand around her ribs and tunneled under her sweatshirt. Her skin was hot to the touch, her breast a sweet, delicate weight that made him shudder then smile when her nipple pebbled beneath the satin of her bra.

“Think of me loving you…”

Pressing his mouth to the irresistible hollow of her throat, he dropped his hand to her waist, then lower, tracing the warm flesh from hip to thigh with his fingers, letting her get used to the idea of intimacy before gently but possessively cupping that heated spot he ached to enter.