After the group session was over, Hank chatted in the lobby of the office building with the group members until he was the last one there. Then he walked back to Rachel’s office.
Looking through the open doorway, he saw her standing at the front of her desk. Her back was to him and her palms were planted on the desktop, as if trying to hold herself up. She now wore a light-blue trench coat over her gray suit and her black leather purse was on the floor beside her, as if she’d suddenly dropped it there.
Something didn’t feel right.
Was she angry about him crashing the group? Or did bringing up memories of her ex-fiancé explain her strange posture and the heavy silence in the room? Was that the reason she’d formed the Lonely Hearts group? To deal with her own loss and heartbreak?
He’d been ready to march into her office and make his case once more, but now he hesitated. What could he possibly say? She knew he didn’t have any problem with impotence or finding women to date, so she’d question why he was there. And he couldn’t tell her the real reason—that he’d been hired to protect her—because he’d given his word to Grandma Hattie.
Hank shook himself. He usually didn’t hesitate to act, but something was holding him back. Maybe it was his concussion, which still throbbed in the back of his head. Or the fact that Rachel seemed immune to his charms. The reason didn’t matter, he had a job to do.
“May I come in?” he asked.
She slowly turned around, her face pale and drawn. “What are you still doing here?”
“We need to talk.”
She looked him up and down, then squared her shoulders. “All right, come in.”
He walked inside, composing his argument in his mind while closing the distance between them in just a few strides. But when he reached her, his plan evaporated. “What’s wrong?”
“I have a stalker.” She cleared her throat. “And he’s escalating. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, other than I feel like I need to tell someone in case…”
“In case something happens to you?” he finished for her.
Rachel nodded, then met his gaze. “I’m probably overreacting, but I found this in my pocket just now.”
She picked up a piece of black-rimmed notepaper from her desk and handed it to him.
Hank looked at the typewritten words. “Is this supposed to be a poem?” Then he read it aloud “I send you no flowers, nor sweet candy hearts. But I’ll never leave you,’til death do us part.”
Hank noticed the fold line in the middle of the note. He turned it over, but the other side was blank.
“This is different than the letters,” Rachel said, filling the silence. “This one is typed instead of handwritten. And a poetic verse instead of a quote from literature.”
“And with an implied threat,” Hank growled. “’Til death do us part? He sounds like a psycho.”
“I wonder if Valentine’s Day coming up has triggered an escalation,” she mused. “It seems to have triggered some of our group members into considering a boycott.”
Hank watched her mouth press into a thin line and could see that she was almost shaking. “Hey, it’s all right.” He awkwardly patted her shoulder. “Anyone would be scared to receive something like this.”
“Scared? I’m not scared, I’m furious. Mostly with myself for not taking action sooner.”
“What action?”
She raked her hands through her hair, dislodging silky red tendrils from her neat bun. They curled around her cheeks and bounced as she began to pace back and forth across the office.
“Until yesterday, I assumed whoever was sending me those letters was a current or former patient who had developed feelings for me. It’s called transference and it’s fairly common in my profession.”
“So what happened yesterday?”
She stopped pacing and turned to face him. “When I begin therapy with a new patient, I usually have them handwrite a letter from their happier future self. It’s a motivational tool to help them move toward the positive changes they want to make in their lives.”
“Okay,” Hank said slowly. “But I’m not sure I get the point.”
“I make a copy of each of those future letters and keep them in my files. So I compared the handwriting of my stalker to all my patients’ letters, but none of them matched.”
Hank nodded. “You’re saying it’s likely that your stalker isn’t one of you patients?”
“That’s right. And I know he lives in or near Pine City, because the letters he sent were postmarked from here.”
“And how can you be certain it’s a man?”
Rachel walked over to her file cabinet and retrieved a folder from one of the drawers. “Because of the quotes he sent me. A few of them refer to a man’s love for a woman. It’s never the other way around.”
“That folder is awfully thick. How long has this guy been contacting you?”
“For about the past six months or so. The letters were pretty infrequent at first, but lately I’ve been getting several a week.” She nibbled her lower lip. “I wonder if something’s changed for him to make direct contact like this. Either Valentine’s Day or something in his personal life or…”
“Don’t you think it’s more important to figure out how he got that note into your coat pocket,” he said, amazed by her composure, “before you worry about his motivation?”
“Oh, I already figured that out. The only opportunity for him to have access to my coat was this morning at Bonnie’s Diner, where I stopped for breakfast. I’m a regular customer there and they have a coatrack near the door.”
“So he probably knows your routine.” Now Hank began to pace, worried that Rachel was in more danger than anyone had imagined. Her friends had been right; she truly did need protection. “Which means he’s been following you and could know where you live.”
“I’m sure he does.”
If she was scared, she didn’t show it, which Hank thought was either incredibly brave or incredibly naive. Either way, they had to take action. “I think we should call the police. My brother Nick is a detective and…”
“No,” she said briskly. “I talked to a police officer when I first started receiving the letters, but there’s really nothing they can do until he actually threatens me. And I don’t even know who it is.”
“Well, anyone who would do this is nuts!”
“We don’t use the terms nuts or psycho in my profession, but the man obviously needs help.” Then she smiled up at him. “And that’s where you come in.”
“How, exactly?” Was she about to ask him to protect her until this lunatic could be identified? That would certainly make his job easier.
Rachel reached up to smooth her loose hair, pinning the stray tendrils neatly back into place. “Since he’s obviously been watching me, that means he’s knows I’m single and live alone.” She took a step closer to Hank. “So I need a way to flush him out.”
He bit back a smile. “Does this mean you’ll…”
“Start dating you? No.” Then Rachel held up one hand. “Let me clarify. I want us to pretend that we’re dating. To be madly in love, actually.”
“Madly in love?”
She grabbed his hand and pulled him out the door of her office and into the empty, well-lit lobby, not stopping until they reached the big plate glass window near the entrance. A crescent moon adorned the night sky.
“What are we doing?” he asked her.
“If my stalker is following me, he’s now got a perfect view of us through this window.” She moved closer to Hank and looped her slender arms around his neck. “I want you to kiss me.”
“What?” The way her soft, supple body pressed lightly against his made him feel a little dizzy. “Now?”
“Right now,” she whispered, her warm breath caressing his mouth. “Kiss me like you really mean it.”
Rachel thought she was ready to be kissed by Hank Holden, but the moment his mouth captured hers, she realized she was in way over her head.
Because Hank didn’t just kiss her. He wrapped his strong arms around her and pulled her into his large rock-solid body in a full-fledged assault on her senses. She felt his thick shoulder muscles flex beneath her fingertips and heard the low, guttural moan in his throat. He tasted like honey and made her forget everything but the man in her arms.
Suddenly, a car blasted its horn as it passed by the window, startling them both. Hank abruptly released her and she took a step back from him, wondering what had just happened. He’d kissed her with an intensity she’d never experienced before. Certainly not with Russell. She’d always thought Russell was a good kisser, but he’d never kissed her like that.
Her face warmed when she remembered telling Hank to kiss her like he really meant it. Too bad it was just part of a ruse.
“Do you think that was him?” he asked, breaking her reverie.
She blinked up at him. “What?”
“The car that just honked at us. Do you think that was your stalker?”
“Oh.” Rachel peered out the large window, but the dark street was mostly empty. “I have no idea.”
“It looked like a white Ford Taurus when it passed under the streetlight, but I didn’t catch the license plate number.”
Her excitement over the best kiss of her life started to fade when she realized it hadn’t fazed Hank at all. While she’d been melting in his arms, he’d been checking the cars driving by outside. She took another step back from him, trying to regain her equilibrium. “I can’t think of anyone I know who drives a white Ford Taurus, but I’ll make a note of it.”
He nodded. “So what’s our next step?”
That was a good question. The kiss had been an impulse of the moment, driven by her need to discover who had left that note in her coat pocket. She’d wanted to draw the attention of her stalker and it may have actually worked. Or else the driver of that Taurus just appreciated the show they’d put on through the window.
Heat burned in her cheeks as she looked up at Hank, wondering what he was thinking. Had he even wanted to kiss her? A twinge of guilt rippled through her at the way she was using him to catch her stalker. But maybe she could make it worth his while.
She squared her shoulders, determined to put that kiss behind her. “Hank, I have a proposition for you.”
“Absolutely not.”
Hank sat across from her in Bonnie’s Diner, looking more stubborn than usual. The vintage diner had been a staple in Pine City for close to eighty years and was located only a few blocks from her clinic. They specialized in breakfast food, but served a full menu at all hours of the day or night.
“I’m happy to help,” he told her, “but I won’t take a penny from you.”
It was just past ten p.m., but the 24-hour diner was busy with take-out orders and customers kept filling the red padded stools at the lunch counter.
She and Hank sat in one of the booths that lined the perimeter of the diner. A tabletop jukebox sat on each lime-green table and the booths were the same bright red as the lunch counter stools.
They’d each driven over separately from the clinic and now she watched him pick up his fork to dig into his second slice of peach pie.
“I can’t let you help me find my stalker for free,” she told him, wrapping her hands around her coffee cup. “This may take a while and you’ve got your vet clinic to run and your own life to live.”
He cut off a huge chunk of pie with his fork. “Actually, I’m on vacation so I have all the time in the world.”
“And you want to spend it with me?”
He looked up at her, his pie-laden fork poised in the air. “Why not? One of my brothers is a cop and another is a bounty hunter, so maybe catching criminals is in my blood.”
“But they get paid for their work.”
“And I’m a veterinarian, not a bounty hunter. So unless you want me to neuter your stalker when we catch him, you don’t need to pay me.”
Rachel watched him eat the rest of his pie, wondering why he’d volunteer to help her catch a stalker, especially since they’d only met this morning. She worried that he might have ulterior motives. “Hank, if you won’t take my money, then at least let me help you.”
“Help me?” His brow furrowed. “I thought we already cleared up that misunderstanding this morning. I don’t have any problems, especially in that area.”
She suppressed a smile. “No, I’m talking about the secret you revealed to the group tonight—that you’ve never been in love.”
He shrugged. “Well, it’s true, but I don’t consider that a problem. I just wanted to contribute something to the conversation.”
Rachel didn’t believe him, although she suspected he believed it. In her profession, people often said things, even as jokes, that touched on a real issue in their life. “You’re thirty-five years old and have never fallen in love? You don’t find that…unusual?”
He considered the question. “I’ve had a busy life, first looking out for my little brothers, then college, vet school, and starting my business. Now I’m at a point where I can finally start having some fun.”
“And a different woman every weekend is fun?”
He grinned. “I think most single men would agree with me that it’s the definition of fun. And how about you, Dr. Grant? I believe you mentioned something at my appointment about a raft of blind dates.” He chuckled, using his fork to scrape up the last remnants of pie. “Sounds like I’m not the only one playing the field.”
“I’m officially off the field,” Rachel informed him. “Just so we’re clear.”
“Got it.” Then he pulled a quarter from the pocket and of his blue jeans and started scrolling through the song titles on the mini jukebox. “Any requests?”
“I like classical music. How about you?”
“Classic rock. So that’s one sign that we’re not a match, even if you weren’t off the field.” He kept scrolling. “But I’m still going to help you catch your stalker, even if I have to kiss you over and over again.”
Feeling another telltale blush crawl up her cheeks, Rachel quickly went on the offensive. “And I’m going to figure out why you can’t fall in love, even if I have to ask you questions over and over again.”
Aware that he was about to protest, she plucked the quarter from his fingers and dropped it into the coin slot on the tabletop jukebox. Then she pressed B2 on the button panel.
Hank’s blue eyes widened in surprise as the music began to play. “Is that the tune to ‘Don’t Stop Believin'’ by Journey?”
“Yes, played by a string quartet. It’s one of my favorites.”
“Mine too.” He laughed. “I never thought I’d be a fan of classical music, but this isn’t bad.”
“And it’s a sign we can find common ground, so at least give me a chance to dig into that big brain of yours. Unless you’re afraid…” She let the words linger in the air, intently watching his face.
“Afraid?” His steely blue gaze locked with hers. “Not a chance.”
“Good,” she said, hiding her smile as she pulled a notepad and pen from her purse. “Then let’s get started.”