Kerry Connor - Stranger in a Small Town

Scars, deep and thick, crisscrossed the whole of his back. These ridges were no less hard than the ones she’d admired on his front, although the heat of desire in her belly had died at the sight of them. She could barely see the muscles in his back shifting through the web of them. There was no way scars like that could have been caused by a single incident. No, they would have been inflicted over time. And the pain they must have caused… She could only recoil in horror at the idea of what must have been done to this man.

Before she could control the response, she sucked in a breath, the gasp coming out entirely too loud and painfully clear.

She clamped her mouth shut, but it was too late. The sound seemed to hang in the air, echoing endlessly in her ears.

John froze, his spine stiffening, then slowly glanced back at her. Almost immediately, he lowered his gaze. Not a flicker of emotion passed over his face, and she had no idea what he was thinking. He turned, facing her again. Embarrassment heating her cheeks, she didn’t so much as peek at that incredible view again, keeping her eyes on his face. He stepped over toward the lawn mower she now saw resting a few feet away and reached for the shirt hanging off the handle, quickly shoving his arms into it.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was rude.”

“My fault,” he replied roughly, not sounding the slightest bit as embarrassed as she was. “I kind of forget they’re even there anymore. Should have kept my shirt on anyway.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged a shoulder, not looking at her. “It was a long time ago.”

“While you were in the military?” He glanced at her. “Your tattoo,” she said.

He grunted. “Something like that.”

It wasn’t exactly an answer. The curious—okay, nosy—part of her wanted to press the point, but it really wasn’t any of her business. She’d already been rude enough as it was.

“Sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”

The reminder of her early return brought back the cause of it, along with her irritation. The source of the scars wasn’t the only secret he was keeping from her, and the others certainly were her business. “I didn’t think I would, either. I was going to spend the afternoon at the library doing some research.”

She saw him pause in the act of tugging his shirt over his belly. “Find anything interesting?”

“Besides the fact that you were there over your lunch break doing the exact same thing?”

He finally looked at her, his expression still unreadable. “Is that a problem?” he asked simply, without the slightest bit of chagrin or challenge in his voice.

Hell, yes, she wanted to say. “It’s a mystery, and I have enough of those as it is.”

“Since I’ve gotten to town, I’ve gotten the cold shoulder from everybody I’ve met except for you. Either this is the most unfriendly town in the country, or everybody has a problem with me working for you on this house. I wanted to know why.”

“I told you why. People were murdered here.”

“Yeah, thirty years ago. That’s a long time for people to be bothered by it, isn’t it?”

“It’s a small town. People have long memories, especially when not much new happens to replace the past in their minds.”

He started toward her, stopping a few feet from the bottom of the steps. “Then maybe I ought to know a little bit more about it. I’m guessing that’s why you were there, too.”

She ignored the comment, not about to admit he was right. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Honestly, it didn’t seem like something you wanted to talk about.”

Okay, he had her there. “You still should have told me you were interested,” she said stubbornly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would bother you. Is there a reason you don’t want me reading up on what happened here?”

“It’s not that.” She sighed. “But as I told you—and you’ve already seen for yourself—people aren’t too happy with me and my plans for this house. The fact that you’re running around town doing things I don’t know anything about won’t exactly make me look any better in anyone’s eyes. You should have seen the way the librarian looked at me when she thought I didn’t know you’d been there.”

“If it was anything like the way she looked at me, she probably looked like she’d spent the day sucking on lemons.”

In spite of herself, Maggie had to chuckle at the accuracy of the image. “You’ve got that right.”

“Then I am sorry,” he said. “I never meant to cause you any trouble.”

The sincerity in his voice was unmistakable. Staring into his serious expression, she believed him. Regardless of the end result, he really hadn’t meant to cause her trouble. And considering how few people could say the same at the moment, she couldn’t help but be affected by the words.

Uncomfortable with the sudden, pathetic wave of gratitude that washed over her, Maggie cleared her throat. “So what did you find out?”

“Not much. I didn’t really have any time to read any of the news stories. I just printed out as many as I could and thought I’d read them tonight.”

“Is that really what you want to do with your free time?”

“What else am I going to do? It’s a small town. I don’t really know anybody else and nobody seems interested in getting to know me. What about you? Find what you were looking for?”

She fought the urge to fidget. “I, uh, made some copies of my own. I didn’t really get a chance to look at them at the library.”

The gleam that entered his eyes told her he recognized she’d planned to do the same thing she’d just tried to talk him out of. To his credit, he didn’t bring up her hypocrisy. “Okay, so why don’t we go over those stories?”

Her eyes flared in surprise. “Together?”

“Sure,” he said, as if it was the most logical thing in the world. “It’ll be getting dark soon and I figure we’ll be calling it quits for the day, right? No point in doing it separately if we’re going to be doing the same thing. Besides, maybe one of us found something the other didn’t.”

He was right, of course. If they planned to spend the evening doing the same thing, there was no reason not to do it together.

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