“That was quite a welcome back there,” Vic said, smiling. Actually grinning like an idiot. “Aren’t you concerned about your reputation? After all, you are running for mayor, aren’t you?”
Hand in hand, Penny Sue and Vic strolled along on their walk from her shop to her home, Lucky leading the way several feet ahead of them. She shook her head. “I believe Tommy Rutland will withdraw from the race very soon, and he was the only real opposition I had. As far as my kissing you—”
“You practically jumped on me, right there in Penny Sue’s Pretties, with all your customers watching.”
Totally unperturbed by his comment, she replied, “Sometimes a woman doesn’t think her actions through thoroughly, she just does what she feels like doing.”
“And you felt like throwing yourself into my arms and kissing me in front of at least two dozen customers?”
“Yes, I did. Besides, it seems everyone already assumes we are lovers.”
Pausing, Vic inadvertently clamped down on Lucky’s retractable leash, halting the dog in mid-sniff. Sensing something was wrong, he growled, then looked back at Vic.
“How is that possible?” Vic asked. “Was someone peeking in your bedroom window early this morning?”
“No, of course not. It has nothing to do with the fact that we actually made love this morning.” Her cheeks flushed a very becoming shade of pink. “It’s about what happened at the party last night. What you said to Dylan.”
“What I said to Dylan?” Vic mentally went over the events of the previous evening, starting with the moment he had jerked Dylan Redley away from Penny Sue. Recalling his exact words brought a chuckle to Vic’s throat, one he tried to suppress because he didn’t think Penny Sue found it humorous. “Exactly what did I say?”
“You remember what you said and don’t deny it. I can tell by that smirk on your face. And you think it’s funny, don’t you? You implied that you were the lover I would always remember, so everyone assumed we’re involved.”
“Sugar, we are involved.”
“I know that, but we weren’t last night when you said what you did to Dylan.”
“So it’s all my fault that the whole town knows we’re lovers?”
“You’re missing the point entirely.”
Uh-oh, she had that look in her eyes again. The one that warned him she was either going to quote from the Southern Women’s Code or she was devising a plan to punish him.
Penny Sue’s thought processes were totally illogical sometimes, especially when she dealt with emotional situations. But the strange thing—the scary thing—was he found that quality not only amusing but downright sweet.
You’ve got it bad, buddy boy, he told himself. You’re so hung up on this woman that you think even her flaws are wonderful now.
“Will it save me a lot of grief if I just go ahead and say I’m sorry?” he asked. “Or would you prefer I do penance?”
She stared at him, a puzzled expression on her face. “What are you talking about? Oh, you think I’m angry with you because of what you said to Dylan and because everyone thinks we’re lovers.” She laughed. “If we weren’t lovers, I’d be upset that the rumor was floating around town that we were.”
Okay, he needed to backtrack a little because somewhere in this conversation, he’d gotten derailed. Hadn’t she been accusing him of having done something wrong when he’d made his possessive comment to Dylan last night?
“You’re confusing me,” he admitted.
“How’s that?”
“Are you upset with me because of what I said to Dylan?”
“Certainly not.” She wrapped her arm through his and snuggled up to him. Right there on the street, where any passerby could see them. “I thought what you said to Dylan was chivalrous. Don’t you know that you’re my white knight?”
Vic couldn’t keep his smile from expanding from ear to ear. He liked the idea of being Penny Sue’s white knight. “Actually, I’m more of a black knight.”
“You say that because of your background, don’t you? You’ve taken part in some rather terrible things, haven’t you? No, don’t answer that. The way I look at it, everything that’s happened in your life up to this point has helped create the man you are now.” She rose up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “And I, for one, think the man you are right now is pretty wonderful.”
“Penny Sue—”
She kissed him on the lips. And he returned her kiss. God, how he loved the taste of this woman, the feel of her in his arms.
Lucky barked. Vic ended the kiss, glanced down at the dog and grinned. “You’d better get used to that, little fellow, because I’m going to be kissing her every chance I get from now on.” Where the hell had that come from? Vic wondered, two seconds after the words came out of his mouth. He had practically made a vow of commitment.
“Someday, when you’re ready to tell me about your past—if that day ever comes—I’ll be ready to listen,” she told him. “And even if some of the things you tell me are difficult for me to understand, I promise I won’t judge your actions by my small-town, Pollyanna standards.”
An overwhelming sense of relief spread through him, as if somehow, in some way, Penny Sue had absolved him of his sins, of any and all crimes he had committed in the name of safeguarding his country. It wasn’t that he felt any great sense of guilt, not even about Lyssa, but in the real world—outside top-secret, covert operations—killing another human being was a crime. He couldn’t imagine someone like Penny Sue ever understanding how a man could kill a woman he had thought he loved, even if her actions had threatened the lives of numerous others.
“Maybe someday,” he told her. “For now, you’ve got enough problems without listening to me bare my soul.”
She heaved a deep sigh. “Speaking of my problems—did you and Geoff work out a battle plan? And did y’all come to any conclusions about who might be trying to kill Lucky?”
Vic released his tight hold on Lucky’s leash and the three of them continued their stroll up the street. “Since you mentioned it, I did want to go over a few things with you.”
“We’ve got four more blocks until we reach the house, so start talking.”
Before he got a chance to say a word, a lady wearing a floral caftan waved at them from her front porch and called out, “Yoo-hoo. How are you, Penny Sue?”
Penny Sue waved back at the lady. “Just fine, Miss Cora. How are you this evening?” Penny Sue nudged Vic in the ribs and whispered, “Just wait, she’ll tell me all about her arthritis and her migraines and her bad knee.”
“Tolerable,” Cora replied. “Of course my bad knee is acting up. You know it hasn’t been right since Clarence and I were in that bad wreck back in ’92.” The woman rubbed her left temple. “And I think I have another killer migraine coming on. It’s all the stress I live with, what with Clarence thinking about retiring and cutting our income in half, and that brother of his living here and freeloading off us.”
“How’s your arthritis?” Penny Sue asked.
“Oh, child, it’s awful. Let me warn you, the body starts falling apart after you hit forty. Just you wait and see.”
“Forty?” Vic murmured. “She hasn’t seen forty in twenty years.”
Smiling, Penny Sue nudged him in the ribs again, then said to her neighbor, “You take care, Miss Cora. We’ve got to get on home. You know how Aunt Dottie likes to have supper on time.”
“Give Dottie my love, will you, and tell her to stop by sometime.” Cora looked pointedly at Vic. “Penny Sue, aren’t you going to introduce me to your young man? I’ve heard all about him, you know.”
“Oh, forgive me. Miss Cora, may I introduce Vic Noble, from Atlanta. Vic, this is Mrs. Cora Wilbanks. Her mama’s granddaddy fought at Shiloh with my granddaddy Paine’s grandfather and the two men came home from the war and married cousins. So, you see, Miss Cora and I are dog-tailed kin.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Noble.” Cora ran her gaze over him, sizing him up. “I guess you know you’ve got the pick of the litter with Penny Sue. You treat her right, you hear me, or you’ll have half the town coming after you with tar and feathers.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Penny Sue waved goodbye to her distant relative and hurried Vic along. Once they were half a block away, she said, “You do realize she was joking about the tar and feathers?”
Vic grunted. “I’m not so sure about that. You seem to have quite a fan club in this town. And that half the town Miss Cora was referring to—I think they’re all your cousins, aren’t they? No wonder you’re running for mayor, sugar. You’re sure to win by a landslide.”
“I think you’re right.”
They both laughed.
Keeping her arm laced through his and meandering along at a leisurely pace, she asked him, “So what was it you wanted to discuss with me?”
“First of all, do you know anyone in the family—one of the heirs—who owns an old Winchester rifle?”
“Uncle Douglas does,” she replied. “Actually, since it belonged to my granddaddy Paine, it’s a family heirloom. Why did you—oh, no, don’t tell me that the bullet Doc Stone took out of Lucky came from that old Winchester.”
Vic nodded. “We can’t prove it came from your uncle’s rifle without checking the rifle.”
“We’ll have to ask Uncle Douglas to see the rifle. But even if the bullet was fired from Granddaddy’s old Winchester, I refuse to believe that Uncle Douglas shot Lucky.”
“Would anyone else have access to the rifle? Does he keep it under lock and key or—”
“Not that I know of. I believe he keeps it in a cedar chest in his attic.”
“Does everyone in the family know where he keeps the rifle?”
“Probably.” She frowned. “That means anyone could have used it.”
“And that’s what we’ll tell your uncle when we ask to take a look at the rifle.”
“I’d appreciate your taking that approach. Uncle Douglas has enough to deal with right now without being accused of shooting Lucky.”
Vic paused, looked at Penny Sue, and shook his head. “Were you born this way or—”
“Born what way?”
“So caring and kind and loving.”
Instantly, tears glistened in her eyes. “What an incredibly sweet thing to say.”
“You’re not going to cry, are you?”
She batted her eyelashes and several teardrops adhered to the tips. “You know there is such a thing as happy tears.”
He caressed her cheek. “Doesn’t take much to make you happy, does it, sugar?”
“Sometimes it’s the little things that matter the most.”
Their conversation was getting a little emotionally heavy for him. He cleared his throat and grunted. “Some other things Geoff and I discussed were the toy dog and the blood that was smeared on it. The blood was cow’s blood, from a fresh piece of beef. Both the toy and the blood are items anyone could have—”
“Phyllis collects toy animals,” Penny Sue said. “I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that before now. Her house is filled with them. They’re on every bed, in several curio cabinets and she even has a couple of stuffed toy birds in a cage in her kitchen.
“Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean the toy dog that was left on my front porch belonged to Phyllis. I really can’t see her doing something as gruesome as stabbing one of her prized stuffed animals and smearing it with blood.”
“I think I should question Mrs. Dickson, see if any of her toy animals are missing. It could be that another member of the family stole the toy dog from her collection.”
“I don’t think anyone else, other than Clayton, could have taken it,” Penny Sue said. “I doubt another member of the family has been in their house in years, not since Clayton became such a religious fanatic. And if Clayton did it, that means a member of my family—a blood relative—is the guilty party.”
“I hate to say it, but the guilty party might well turn out to be a blood relative. You can’t be certain that it’s not, just because you don’t want to believe it.”
“You’re pooh-poohing my instincts, aren’t you? You think I’m silly to listen to what my heart tells me.” Her bottom lip trembled.
“Don’t do it,” he told her. “Don’t cry. And don’t blame me for daring to consider that someone you’re blood related to might be capable of committing all the crimes against Lucky.”
“In your line of business, I’ll bet you rely on your gut instincts all the time, don’t you?” Penny Sue pulled away from him, planted her hands on her hips and issued him a challenging glare. “So why are your instincts better than mine? Because they’re male?”
“No, sugar, because they’re logical.”
Her lips puckered.
“Penny Sue…” Why was it that a woman’s tears had never affected him before, never garnered the least bit of sympathy from him, and all Penny Sue had to do was look like she was going to cry to have him on his knees, begging?
“You just wait and see, Vic Noble—whoever the culprit is, he or she will turn out not to be a Paine blood relative.”
“Are you forgetting that Chris kidnapped Lucky last night?”
He could see the wheels turning furiously in her mind and knew she would come up with an explanation that made perfect sense to her. “Chris didn’t harm Lucky.”
“He knocked Tanya over the head and rendered her unconscious.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to hit her so hard. Besides, if Tanya’s skull is as fragile as her brain, then even a light tap would have knocked her out.”
“Why, Miss Penny Sue, what an unkind thing to say about someone.” Vic grinned.
Penny Sue’s lips twitched, then curved into a smile. “See, I’m not always sweet. I can be rather catty at times.”
He reached out and laced his arm through hers. “Why don’t we shelve this discussion until after supper. If we’re not home soon, Miss Dottie will send out a search party for us. Right before Lucky and I left to come to the shop to meet you, she informed me that she had something very important to tell you this evening.”
“I wonder what it could be. The thought of Aunt Dottie having important news to share unnerves me just a little. With her, you never know.”
Like aunt, like niece, Vic thought. He figured if he spent a hundred years with Penny Sue, she’d still say and do things that both unnerved and surprised him.
The minute she finished eating her banana pudding, Dottie Paine glanced around the table at each person—Geoff Monday, Vic Noble and Penny Sue—then with a wide smile on her face, she said, “If y’all are finished with dessert, I’d like to share my wonderful news with you.”
Penny Sue pushed aside her half-eaten pudding. Vic had already finished his and was drinking the last drops of his iced tea. Geoff hurriedly gulped down the final spoonful from his bowl.
“We’re all finished,” Penny Sue said, her stomach tied in knots. Please, Lord, let this really be good news and not something that will mean Aunt Dottie has set a new blazing fire that I’ll have to put out.
Dottie reached inside the pocket of her frilly white blouse and pulled out a ring, then hurriedly placed it on the third finger of her left hand. As she held out her hand and dangled her fingers in a look-at-this gesture, she announced, “I’m engaged to be married.”
Geoff grinned. Vic’s eyes widened. Penny Sue’s mouth dropped open.
“Well, somebody say something.” Dottie looked directly at Penny Sue.
Ruby, who had just come into the dining room with the silver coffeepot, said, “Give ’em a minute to recover from the shock.” She went from person to person, pouring after-dinner coffee into their demitasse cups.
“Who? When? Aunt Dottie…?” Penny Sue couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the news. Dottie Paine engaged? Again? At seventy-five?
“His name is Hal Esmond. He’s a widower from Birmingham. And he’s a totally charming gentleman.” Dottie wiggled her fingers again. “Isn’t this ring to-die-for? Two carats. Hal’s a retired banker. He’s loaded. Imagine me marrying a rich man, someone who could care less that I don’t have a dime to my name.”
“Hal Esmond? I don’t know him, do I?” Penny Sue asked. “How did you meet him? How long have you known him? Why haven’t you ever mentioned him to me?”
“I’ll reply in reverse order,” Dottie said. “We were keeping our romance a secret, that’s why I didn’t tell anyone about him. And I’ve known him for months. We met shortly after Lottie died and…”
“You’ve known him for only two months?” Penny Sue realized that she, of all people, shouldn’t be criticizing her aunt for falling in love so quickly. It had taken her days, not months, to know that Vic was the man with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life.
“Two hours, two days, two months, two years, what’s the difference?” Dottie sighed. “Falling in love is just one of those unpredictable things, isn’t it? I mean, just look at you and Vic.”
Geoff Monday cleared his throat. Vic gave him a harsh glare. Geoff shrugged. Penny Sue glanced from one man to the other, settling her gaze on Vic. He looked downright uncomfortable.
“How did you meet Mr. Esmond?” Geoff asked.
Dottie flopped her right hand in a limp wave. “Oh, that’s the most exciting part. Hal and I met online, in a chat room. We’ve been e-mailing for two months and falling more and more in love with each message. Finally, we decided we should meet in person, so he came to Alabaster Creek last night and I met him downtown at the Castle. Then this afternoon, we went for a ride out in the country and he popped the question.
“He’s coming for Sunday dinner tomorrow and I’m introducing him to the rest of the family. Won’t everyone be surprised? Hal and I want a May wedding. At our age, you don’t want to put things off. Neither of us is getting any younger.”
“Congratulations, Miss Dottie,” Geoff said.
“Congratulations go to the groom,” Dottie corrected. “You must offer me your best wishes.”
“Oh. Yes, ma’am.” Geoff grinned. “May I offer you my best wishes.”
“Thank you.”
“I hate to ask this, but—does Mr. Esmond know you’re one of the heirs to your sister’s twenty-three-million-dollar fortune?” Vic asked. “And does he know that Lucky is the only thing standing between you and your inheritance?”
Gasping, Dottie clutched her throat. “You’re implying something unthinkable. I told you that Hal is a very wealthy man. If you have any doubts, feel free to check him out.” Shaking her head, Dottie whimpered. “I’m surprised that you, of all people, would ask such questions.”
“Why is that?” Vic looked at her curiously.
“Well, I’d think it’s obvious. You’re in love with our Penny Sue and no doubt plan to marry her, so what if I were to imply that you were interested in her simply for her money? Can’t you see how insulting that would be?”
Geoff covered his mouth with his hand, but the action did little to muffle his chuckle.
Penny Sue looked nervously at Vic. Oh, my. What must he be thinking? She offered him a smile that she hoped conveyed a message—my aunt’s just a silly old woman, please ignore her. Then she turned to Aunt Dottie. “Of course we all wish you every happiness. But it’s only natural that Vic…that anyone…would be concerned, considering how you met Mr. Esmond, and because none of us know him personally.”
“As I said, he’ll be coming for Sunday dinner tomorrow, along with the rest of the family. Once you meet my Hal, you’ll adore him. Simply adore him.”
Penny Sue hoped and prayed, for her aunt’s sake, that Hal Esmond was who and what he professed to be. But the odds were not in Dottie’s favor. After all, her track record with men was dismal. Three engagements before this one, and not one had ended at the altar.
“You’ve met the other members of the Paine family, haven’t you?” Geoff Monday asked as he stood on the front porch with Vic, the two of them looking out over the yard bursting with springtime blossoms. The scent of flowers hung heavily in the evening air. “What’s your take on things?”
“I’ve met with all of them only once and got the impression that they’re pretty much your typical eccentric Southern family.”
Geoff’s brow wrinkled. “You might want to clarify that for me a bit. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Vic grinned. “Neither. All I meant was that there’s a mixture of oddballs in the family, so trying to zero in on one who might be just a little too far over the edge isn’t easy.”
“You think they’re all peculiar, even Penny Sue?”
“Oh, most definitely Penny Sue.”
“But I thought you two…well, you know.” Geoff studied Vic for a moment. “It’s not as if you and I know each other all that well, but we’ve been around each other enough that I’ve noticed you seldom smiled and never laughed. Since I arrived in Alabaster Creek this morning, I’ve seen you smile and heard you laugh, both in the same day.”
“Penny Sue has that effect on me. It’s impossible to be around her and not… It’s just that I find her… She’s different, in a good kind of way.”
“You find her delightfully amusing.”
Vic chuckled. “Yeah, to say the least.”
“Hmm…”
“Look, it isn’t that I’m not enjoying our little chat, but you didn’t ask me to come out here on the porch to inquire about my intentions toward Penny Sue, did you?”
“Sorry, old man. I got sidetracked.” Geoff braced his backside against the banister railing and crossed his arms over his chest. “Miss Dottie told me that her brother owns an old Winchester rifle, one that belonged to their father.”
Vic nodded. “Penny Sue told me the same thing.”
“Then we need to get our hands on that rifle. If we ask the uncle for it, he could refuse, but if he does that, it’s as good as admitting he’s guilty.”
“So, tomorrow, after Sunday dinner, we’ll take him aside and ask him.”
“Miss Dottie gave me another interesting bit of information,” Geoff said.
“When did you have such a lengthy conversation with Penny Sue’s aunt? She was gone nearly the entire afternoon.”
“We chatted while you went to meet her niece. The old bird is a chatterbox. All I had to do was ask this and that and she couldn’t stop talking.”
“About?”
“The brother and their father’s old Winchester rifle, for one thing,” Geoff said. “And about her cousin Clayton, the minister. Seems his wife owns a collection of toy animals.”
“Penny Sue told me about Phyllis Dickson’s collection, but she’s convinced the woman isn’t capable of committing most of the crimes against Lucky.”
“Have you ever considered the possibility that we have more than one culprit?”
“It crossed my mind.” Vic mulled over Geoff’s comment. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Chris Paine had kidnapped Lucky and his sister Stacie had protected him. But Chris had not shot Lucky or torched the clinic. He’d been able to prove his whereabouts on both occasions. “It’s a reasonable hypothesis. It could be that Phyllis Dickson or her husband left the bloody toy dog on the porch, but didn’t do any of the other things.”
“More than one of the heirs is in need of their inheritance now, so it’s possible several different ones have taken a turn trying to do away with Lottie Paine’s dog.”
“If Douglas shot Lucky, that would give us three culprits.”
“I think perhaps we have a fourth,” Geoff told him.
“And that would be?” Vic asked.
Geoff uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on the banister railing, at either side of his hips. “Miss Dottie also told me that their cousin Valerie’s husband, Dylan Redley, used to be a big high-school football star.”
“So?”
“One of his teammates was Freddy Long, the chap who owns the pit bulls.”
“Are the two men still friends?”
“I don’t know, but I think we should find out.”
The front door opened and Penny Sue stood in the doorway. “What is it that y’all should find out?”
Geoff slid off the banister railing, slapped Vic on the shoulder and said, “I’ll leave it to you to tell Penny Sue about our theory.” He nodded and smiled at her, then paused when he reached her side. “I’ll go in and keep an eye on Lucky. You two stay out here as long as you’d like.” He went into the house, closing the door behind him.
When she approached Vic, he turned to greet her. “You should have put on something heavier than that sweater. It’s getting pretty chilly out here.”
“Don’t change the subject. What theory have you and Geoff come up with?”
“Nothing much. Just the idea that it’s possible more than one person is behind what’s been happening to Lucky.”
Penny Sue looked out over the front yard, took a deep breath and exhaled. “I love this old house and the big yard and this quiet street. It’s like a page out of an old magazine, depicting life years ago, when things were far more simple. How did everything get so complicated?” She stood at his side, breathing softly. He knew she was considering the possibility that he and Geoff were right about the attempts on Lucky’s life. “Do you really think that several members of my family have banded together in an effort to kill Lucky?”
“No, we don’t think several of them have banded together,” Vic told her. “We think maybe several have acted independently, the way Chris did. The ones who are desperate, for whatever reason, to get their hands on their inheritance now. Maybe one person shot Lucky, another left the bloody stuffed dog on the porch as a warning, then another set fire to the clinic and yet another—”
“Counting letting the pit bulls loose, that’s five separate incidents.” Penny Sue moaned softly. “For your theory to be correct, that would mean five members of my family are criminals.”
Seeing the hurt and disillusionment in her big brown eyes, he said, “It’s just a theory, sugar.”
“But you and Geoff both think it’s possible, don’t you?”
Vic took her hands in his and led her across the porch to the big white swing in the corner. Thickly padded floral cushions hung from the back and rested across the seat. He sat and pulled her down beside him, then draped his arm across her shoulders and snuggled her against him.
“Are we going to put on a show for the neighbors?” she asked.
“I’m game if you are.” He winked at her.
“I guess you know that you’re a very bad influence on me.”
He leaned down and nuzzled her neck. She giggled and swatted at him.
“You’re trying to distract me and it’s almost working.” She laid her hand on his knee.
“Only almost?”
“Be serious with me for a minute, okay? I need to know if you and Geoff have any suspects, any that you feel reasonably certain about.”
He took a deep breath. “Your uncle owns an old rifle that uses the kind of bullet the vet dug out of Lucky. Your cousin Clayton’s wife collects toy dogs, and someone left a bloody toy dog on this very porch. Your cousin Chris kidnapped Lucky, and all we have is his word that he wasn’t going to kill him.” When Penny Sue opened her mouth to speak, Vic tapped her on the lips with his index finger. “And your former fiancé used to play high-school football with the guy who owned those pit bulls. That’s four possible suspects right there. Douglas Paine, Phyllis Dickson, Chris Paine and Dylan Redley.”
“Hmm… I’ll buy Phyllis leaving the toy dog and maybe Dylan ‘borrowing’ those pit bulls from Freddy, but Uncle Douglas would never shoot Lucky. And I believed what Chris said about not intending to hurt Lucky. So that narrows it down to two probable suspects.”
“No, sugar, what you just did was eliminate your blood relatives. You can’t do that.”
“Why can’t I? They’re my relatives. I know them a lot better than you do and I’m telling you that neither Uncle Douglas nor Chris is capable of hurting Lucky.”
Vic groaned. “You’re not being logical. You’re letting your emotions overrule your common sense.”
“I have plenty of common sense, thank you very much.” She snatched her hand off his leg, then sat up ramrod straight, her whole body going stiff.
“I didn’t say you don’t have any common sense, I just said you weren’t using it in this case. Why you think your blood relatives aren’t as capable of murder and mayhem as the rest of this town’s population doesn’t make any sense. It’s ridiculous.”
“So now you think I’m ridiculous!” She stuck out her bottom lip. Her chin quivered.
“Honey, you have a way of twisting what I say—”
“You called me honey!”
“It was a slip of the tongue. I meant to say sugar.”
God help him, she was pouting. And about what? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“Penny Sue…sugar…” He tightened his hold around her shoulders. “You have loads of common sense. And you’re not ridiculous. I never said you were. And if you believe your uncle and your cousin would never hurt Lucky, then maybe you’re right. Maybe Geoff and I should concentrate on the in-laws first. Phyllis, Dylan and Candy.”
There in the twilight shadows, a cool evening breeze wafting around them, Penny Sue smiled, then turned and laid her head on Vic’s shoulder. “Whatever you think best, Vic.”
Whatever he thought best? If he wasn’t so crazy about this woman, he’d strangle her. But he was crazy about her. Or maybe he was just crazy.
“Am I going to have to talk you to death to get you to kiss me?” she asked.
“The neighbors might see us.”
“Yes, they might.” She lifted her head and smiled. “Let’s give them something to talk about at church in the morning.”
Vic grinned, then lowered his head and took her mouth. His brain turned to mush and his body went rock hard. He should have put more effort into fighting his attraction to her, should have followed through with his initial resolve to get out of this assignment while he still could. But it was too late now. He had to hang in there and let this thing run its course.
He ended the kiss, and when she opened her eyes and looked at him, he said, “Can I interest you in turning in early tonight?”
“Why, Mr. Noble, what a marvelous idea.”
Vic started to get up, but before he got halfway out of the swing, he heard a familiar sound and then something hit the back of the swing and splintered the wood. Instinctively, he grabbed Penny Sue. Another shot rang out as he threw Penny Sue to the floor. Then a third shot hit the wall behind them just as he covered her body with his. The squeal of brakes and the roar of a car’s engine told Vic that their shooter was escaping.
He rolled off Penny Sue, but kept down, just in case.
“When I tell you to, I want you to get up, run inside and call the police,” he told her.
She didn’t respond.
“Penny Sue, did you hear me?” He looked over at her and saw that her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving. “Penny Sue? Sugar?”
He grabbed her and shook her. She moaned. Then he saw the red liquid staining the side of her white cashmere sweater and knew she’d been hit.