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They were a block from home when she heard a car coming up the street behind her. Without headlights—not a good sign.
She scanned the area, judging the distance back to the Shuellers’ place. In this part of town, the homes were mostly old story-and-a-half clapboard structures with clotheslines and large gardens in the back. Few of the yards were fenced. She could cut through them if she needed to.
Preparing to run, she glanced over her shoulder as the car eased up behind her. Her heart sank when she saw the light bar on the roof and the reflective graphics emblazoned on the side—Aspen County Deputy Sheriff.
If this was Nathan Roswell, he’d already seemed suspicious of her the first day she’d arrived. What would he think at two-thirty in the morning? Worse—she was licensed to carry, but how would she explain the Beretta if he searched her?
The car rolled smoothly past, then stopped. The door swung open and, sure enough, Nathan stepped out. The frown on his face didn’t bode well.
“Kinda late to be out walking, isn’t it?” His gaze swept her from head to foot, then settled on her bulging backpack.
She smiled up at him and lifted one shoulder. “Insomnia, I guess. I worked night shifts while I was in college and never did get my sleep straightened out.”
Accustomed to mentally recording minute details about her surroundings and the people she encountered, Sara remembered that his eyes had appeared green when she’d run into him downtown. Now, in the darkness, they appeared hazel, with an almost eerie intensity that made her think he could see right through to her deepest thoughts.
She’d bet a nickel that most suspects probably folded and confessed on the spot when faced with an imposing guy like this one.
“Where did you work?” he asked casually, though she bet he’d be following up on the reference first thing in the morning.
She used the company that she and her colleagues often used when undercover. “Allied Computer Systems, Dallas.”
“Even in a small town like Ryansville, it isn’t always safe for a woman to be out alone this time of night.”
“I suppose things have changed since I was a kid.”
A corner of his mouth briefly tipped up. “A few people even lock their doors.”
He’d been sent away to boarding school as a kid, she recalled. Before that she’d occasionally seen him in elementary school, as he was three years older than she was. Such an age difference when they were kids had been akin to living on different planets.
But even though she’d despised boys at that age, she remembered Nathan, with his dimples and his coal-dark wavy hair falling over one eye. He’d been quiet and nicer than the little toads who made spitballs and told crude jokes at recess.
The fates that had given him those cherubic dimples as a child had definitely smiled on him as an adult. In the light of a street lamp overhead, his sharply sculpted cheekbones shadowed a lean, hard face. Where once there’d been cute little dimples, slashes deepened in his cheeks when he grinned.
Not that he’d smiled at her much. Right now, his dark brows were lowered and he seemed particularly interested in her backpack. “I noticed you coming up Oak. Have you been walking long?”
He wanted more than a simple answer—he wanted to know exactly where she’d been. “We covered a lot of backstreets,” she said with a vague wave of her hand. “We’ve been out a couple of hours, maybe.”
“Happen to wander through the trailer court south of here?”
“Nope.”
“Not even close?”
“Nope—we didn’t go that far. Why, was there some trouble?”
“See anyone cruising around?”
“Not for the last hour or so.”
He waited quietly, an age-old tactic designed to spur people into nervous chatter just to fill that awkward silence. When she didn’t, he sighed. “Do you always carry a heavy backpack when you walk in town?”
“I take night photographs sometimes. When the light is just right.”
His brow lifted.
“Of nature, not someone’s open window. I’ll show you some of the photos on my digital camera right now, if you want proof. I also do some stargazing when I get away from the streetlights in town. I’m carrying a small telescope and a blanket, as well as a camera.”
“Into the constellations, are you?”
