Kerry Connor - Stranger in a Small Town

And they did. The eyes watching her weren’t just observing emotionlessly. They were angry. Hateful. She tried to convince herself she was imagining things, but couldn’t manage it. The feeling was too strong.

Pure malevolence.

Doing her best not to let her unease show, she raised her chin and squared her shoulders before slowly turning and entering the library.

Her tension didn’t ease once she was inside. A woman stood at a counter in front of the entrance. As soon as she looked up and caught sight of Maggie, her expression hardened, her frown tightening so firmly into place that it was almost impossible to believe her lips were capable of doing anything else.

It took Maggie a few seconds to recognize her. It wasn’t just the many years since Maggie had last seen her, though they were evident enough in every line and wrinkle on the woman’s face. No, it was her expression. Shelley Markham had been the librarian here when Maggie had been a child, and Maggie had never seen her look at her—or anyone else—with anything but a smile. Just another indication of Maggie’s changed status around here.

Maggie tried to force a smile of her own, something that proved a challenge to maintain the longer she met Shelley Markham’s unsmiling visage.

“Hi, Mrs. Markham. I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Maggie Harper. I used to come here—”

“I remember you,” the woman cut her off, her tone making it sound as if it wasn’t a good thing.

Maggie kept her smile as unmoving as Mrs. Markham’s heavy frown. “I’m sure you’ve heard I’m renovating my grandfather’s old house on Maple. I was hoping to look up some old newspaper articles about the Ross murders.” There was no point in trying to put it more delicately.

She never would have thought it possible, but the woman’s frown actually deepened. “Didn’t that man who works for you find what you were looking for?”

Confusion made Maggie lose her grip on her smile. “I’m sorry?”

“That man working for you. He was here a few hours ago looking up stories about the murders and printing them out.”

Maggie stared at the woman blankly. A few hours ago…This had to be where John had come during his lunch break. She hadn’t asked him to bring her anything, but she’d assumed he’d gone back to the diner, or maybe one of the fast-food places on the outskirts of town.

Instead he’d been here, looking up stories about the murders.

Why?

The woman’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You did know he was here, didn’t you?” Her tone seemed to indicate she suspected the answer was no, and added an unspoken “you idiot” to the question.

She didn’t have to say it. Maggie felt it as keenly as if she had. The information the woman provided had ensured that. She was the one who’d hired the man. She was the reason he was in town, and now he was running around doing things she knew nothing about, giving the impression they were under her orders, or at least with her knowledge.

And she had no idea what he was up to—or why.

Another man doing God knows what behind her back.

You idiot, she heard in her head, and it definitely wasn’t Shelley Markham’s voice doing the talking.

Anger surged from her gut, and every instinct screamed for her to race to her truck and storm back to the house to ask John what the hell he was doing.

Which was exactly what she couldn’t do, of course. She wouldn’t give Shelley Markham and all the people she’d be on the phone with the moment Maggie stepped out the door the satisfaction of knowing what a fool she was.

She had enough people who knew that. Once was enough for one lifetime.

She slowly drew in a deep, silent breath. With some effort, she regained her smile. “Of course I did. As a matter of fact, he didn’t find what I was looking for, so I came to search for myself.” She chuckled, the noise sounding forced to her ears. “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, right?”

The woman simply pursed her mouth and turned away without a word, leaving Maggie to follow her to the files of microfilm and the viewing machine.

And for the next hour, Maggie forced herself to sit there under the force of Shelley Markham’s unrelenting stare, printing every single story on the murder that came up on the screen without really reading them.

When all she could think about was the man she’d invited into her life, and wonder what other secrets he was keeping from her.

MAGGIE bolted from the truck, flinging the driver’s side door behind her and stalking toward the house. Her anger hadn’t subsided in the least on the drive back. If anything, it had only grown the more time she’d had to stew over the situation.

Stomping up the front steps, she threw the door open. “John?” she called.

No response.

The front rooms were empty. Only the echo of her voice interrupted the stillness.

She heard nothing to indicate he was upstairs. Moving through the kitchen to the back door, she spotted motion in the backyard. Pushing through the door, she started to call his name again.

Then she saw him.

The word died on her tongue, every thought in her head vanishing in an instant.

He was standing in the backyard, which had been tall with grass and choked with weeds when she’d left. The lawn was freshly mown now, the scent of cut grass heavy in the air. He must have found the old lawnmower in the back shed her grandfather had used in the days he was trying to keep up with the place, tending to the yards to keep the house presentable for occupants who would never come.

But that wasn’t what grabbed her interest—and held it so tightly her eyes seemed locked into place.

John was raking the lawn clippings into a bag.

He was also bare to the waist.

Perspiration left a fine sheen over his face and torso, so he practically seemed to glisten in the late-day sunlight. The golden rays fell upon his body, illuminating every hard ridge and defined muscle, and there were certainly plenty of both. She watched helplessly, knowing her mouth had fallen open slightly and unable to do a thing about it, as he moved, the muscles shifting, tensing, with every motion.

As she’d seen even when he was fully clothed, he was lean, perhaps too much so for a man with his large build. Somehow it worked on him. The lack of bulk simply left a physique that was perfectly formed, his pecs packed and tight, his belly flat, both dusted with a thin layer of dark blond hair. There was a tattoo on his right bicep, some kind of military insignia that made her think he must have served in a branch of the armed forces. The faint line of hair trailed down from his belly button into the waistline of his pants, the worn jeans hanging dangerously, impossibly low, yet not nearly low enough, the view tempting, tantalizing her with the possibility of what remained stubbornly out of sight.

Her tongue, moving on an instinct all its own, flicked out to moisten her lips, and she suddenly realized her mouth had gone completely dry. She had no trouble understanding the cause, finally recognizing the way her heart was pounding in her chest and an ache had begun to throb low in her belly. It was something she hadn’t thought she’d feel so soon again, if ever, and hadn’t really wanted to.

Awareness. Desire.

Pure want.

Surprise jolted through her, nearly overpowering the rest. It wasn’t like she’d never seen a man’s bare chest before, or a man working without a shirt on, sweat drenching his body.

But she’d never seen this man. And somehow, in a way she couldn’t explain and wasn’t sure she wanted to, that seemed to make all the difference in the world.

Then he turned, putting his back to her.

The flash of libido was instantly forgotten, replaced by shock.