Hatfield and McCoy Page 9

  The terror would be for her …

  “Julie! Julie! Are you all right?”

  Her eyes flew open. Petty was on his knees before her, grasping her hands. They were cold and clammy. Timothy was standing right behind the chief, his eyes wide with alarm.

  Even McCoy had jumped off his doubting perch on the desk. Julie stared at him and felt the remnants of her fear send chills dancing down her spine. I can’t see you again, ever, she thought wildly.

  But could that help her? Had what she had seen in that dream already been set into motion?

  And were the feelings she had for McCoy stronger than fear …

  Stronger than destiny.

  “Julie?” Petty said anxiously.

  “I—I’m all right. I’m sorry,” she said. She looked at the artist. She shook her head. “Honestly, I can’t help you. Tracy didn’t see his face. All I can tell you is that he was wearing a stocking over his face, that he’s probably about five feet ten inches, dark-haired—and that he has a scar, like a jagged knife scar, on his left shoulder.”

  She heard a soft explosion of sound.

  McCoy. The sound was one that ridiculed her. Angrily.

  He suddenly strode across the room, leaving the office. The door snapped sharply behind him.

  “You’re sure of this?” Petty asked her.

  Julie nodded. “Petty, I’ve never been more sure.”

  Petty nodded and shrugged to the police artist. “That’s about all we’re going to get. Medium height, medium build, darkish hair.”

  “And that scar,” Timothy said.

  “Yeah, the scar,” Petty said. “Too bad it isn’t on our fellow’s face. It might be kind of hard walking around trying to get the populace to bare their shoulders.”

  Julie grimaced. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve given us plenty, Julie. Thanks,” Petty told her.

  She nodded and started out. “Tracy is doing fine, right?” she asked Petty.

  “Tracy is doing wonderfully,” Petty told her. “No problems at all. It’s great to be young, huh?”

  “Probably. I don’t remember.”

  “Ah, you’re just a babe yourself, Julie Hatfield. Wait till you reach my age, then you’ll know!”

  She smiled and turned to leave.

  McCoy was sitting on the corner of Patty’s desk in the outer office. He was glaring at her, a deep frown imbedded in his forehead. Patty had moved to Timothy Riker’s desk and had her nose stuck in her typing. Joe Silver was trying to look every bit as busy, going through the files.

  Everyone was aware that there was a storm brewing here, and everyone seemed determined to avoid it.

  Well, there wasn’t even going to be a raindrop, Julie decided. She smiled pleasantly, gave an easy wave to Patty and Joe and walked out of the building.

  That was when she remembered she had been driven in by Patty and Joe.

  Well, hell! She had made it out so smoothly. She didn’t feel like ruining her fine exit by going back.

  She gritted her teeth as she stood there. Then the door opened behind her and she knew it was him. “Come on,” he said curtly. “I’ll get you home.”

  It would be rather futile to argue. It was a long walk.

  But still, even as she crawled into the Lincoln and he sat down beside her, she felt as if she were next to dynamite about to explode.

  “All right, McCoy, just what is your problem?” she demanded.

  “Nothing. Nothing! I have no problems, Miss Hatfield. It’s just that we have a psychic here, but funny, she can’t give us a description of a man—”

  “He was wearing a stocking!”

  “He’s of medium height and medium build and probably dark haired. Well, let’s see. That probably describes half the men in the immediate area. Hell, it describes half of the men in our law-enforcement agencies!”

  “It lets out Petty,” Julie remarked coolly.

  “That’s right, it does. And thank God, my hair is fairly light, so maybe it lets me out, too. Except maybe not. After all, you did ask me if I had a scar on my shoulder.”

  Julie stiffened, remembering the occasion. Yes, she had asked him! Because she had seen the scar. She had seen it in the dream, and he had been in the dream. And she had been left to wonder …

  But she knew now that he was the man in her dream. The lover in her dream.

  But he was not the man who brought the awful, shattering sense of danger …

  “You did ask me about a scar, Julie!”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet it seemed in the office just now as if you were seeing that scar on the kidnapper for the first time.”

  Damn, he was still so angry! Well, maybe it did look as if she was a charlatan.

  “I just saw the scar through Tracy’s eyes in the office,” she said. He was never going to understand. He didn’t believe in her to begin with.

  “Where did you see it before?”

  “In a—dream.”

  “A nightmare, huh? And I was in it, right? Before or after we met?”

  There was a tight note of sarcasm edging his voice.

  Julie sat back, gritting her teeth. “If you recall, McCoy, you didn’t answer me about whether you did or didn’t have a scar.”

  “That’s right, I didn’t, did I? Is that why we made love? Were you checking out my shoulder?”

  “Oh, McCoy, you are really something, do you know that? A true prize!” Julie exclaimed furiously. “Stop the car. I’d rather walk.”

  He wouldn’t stop the car. She knew that.

  But he did stop it. He pulled abruptly off the road onto the narrow shoulder and turned to her with a sudden, startling passion. “Did you check out my shoulder? Did you check it out really well? Did you think long and hard about what you were doing?”

  Had she thought long and hard? No, she hadn’t thought for a single second.

  But she knew his shoulders bore no scars. She knew simply because she had been so fascinated by his body, by every minute stretch of bronze flesh.

  “McCoy, obviously, neither one of us gave it long, hard thought, or else last night would have never happened! And it’s probably best if we pretend that it never did happen. And if you don’t mind—”

  She started to reach for the door. If he really meant to let her out on the side of the road, then she’d just get out on the side of the road.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  “I’m getting out.”

  “Here?”

  “Well, you stopped.”

  He exploded with an oath. The Lincoln suddenly roared to life.

  He didn’t speak again until they were in front of her house. Then he leaned over and opened the passenger door for her. “Julie, you go ahead and get as mad at me as you want to, but don’t you suppose that you’d better start thinking?”

  “What are you talking about now?”

  “You don’t ever just get out on the side of the mountain and start walking. And you don’t leave your doors open, and you take care when you’re alone.”

  Her heart suddenly slammed against her chest. “Why?”

  Was he worried? Did he think that just maybe his nephew had been right? That the kidnapper knew about her, that he had worn the stocking over his face because he knew that Julie might be called in on the case?

  “Because every woman in this area is at risk right now, Julie. You can’t behave foolishly.”

  She remembered the force of her dream. Yes, she had been in danger. But the danger had involved him.

  She just needed not to see him again. That was all. And she would be all right. Since he was so angry, so disgusted, that should be easy.

  “I’ll be careful,” she told him, slipping out of his car.

  The Lincoln remained parked in front of her house until she let herself in and locked the door.

  “He’s angry. He won’t come back,” she whispered.

  But he would come back.

  She could refuse to se
e him.

  But already, an ache was growing in her heart. She didn’t want him out of her life. She wanted him back, now. She wanted to sleep beside him again through the night. She wanted to go on discovering more about him. She wanted to go on …

  Falling in love with him. A little bit more every day. Needing him as badly as she wanted him.

  “Destiny is not preset!” she announced aloud. He wasn’t the man she wanted or needed in her life. Once before, she had fallen in love with a doubting Thomas.

  With tragic consequences. From every single direction, it was better to stop this now.

  Three days later, when Julie had convinced herself that he wasn’t going to return to her life, McCoy appeared on her front doorstep.

  It was early, barely eight in the morning. No dream or inner sense had warned her that he might appear.

  She had finally begun to work last night on a story for a mystery magazine and she had stayed up very late.

  When the doorbell rang she barely managed to find an old terry robe and wrap it around her long johns and stumble down the stairs.

  And stupidly, she threw the door open without glancing through the peephole, without even pausing to wonder who it might be.

  “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”

  That was McCoy’s greeting.

  He was freshly showered and shaved, and she could smell the faint and pleasant aroma of his after-shave. His hair was slicked back, still damp from the shower. But he wasn’t wearing his three-piece suit today. He was very casual, wearing cutoff denims and an old football jersey and sneakers that had a few holes in the toes.

  Julie stepped back, rubbing her forehead. “Answering my door.”

  “What did I tell you the last time I saw you?”

  “McCoy—”

  “Julie, damn it—”

  “I saw you through the peephole—”

  “You’re lying!”

  “How the hell would you know?” she demanded. But he did know. Was it because of the expression on her face, or was it maybe true that McCoy did have a hint of second sight of his own?

  “Okay, I forgot. I was working last night—”

  “No good, Julie.”

  “Okay! I’ll be more careful in the future, I promise. What do you want, McCoy, or did you come over just to torture me?”

  “No.” He hesitated a minute, then sighed. “I was at a standstill. Getting nowhere. I thought some time off might help. I came to take you out.”

  She arched her brows, a smile curving her lip as she stared at him from head to toe, indicating his outfit. “Out? Where?”

  “Tubing.”

  “Tubing?” Then she looked past him to his car. Three heavy black tire tubes were strapped on top of the elegant Lincoln.

  “Are you game?” he asked her.

  “Well, you know, McCoy, I might be working. Or I might have had other plans for the day—”

  “Oh, you did not. You told Patty you might go to a movie with her tomorrow night, and if you worked till the wee hours last night, I don’t think that you’re going to slam right back into it this morning.”

  “As a matter of fact—”

  “Yes?”

  She had been going to work. She had proofed her story last night—all she needed was a clean copy. “Can you give me thirty minutes?”

  “I can give you a couple of hours. The sun will be stronger by then.”

  “All right. Can we run by the post office?”

  “Anywhere you want.”

  “All right. You’re on then. Make yourself at home. I’ll hurry.”

  Julie suspected that he might follow her up the stairs and into the shower, but he didn’t.

  She was alarmingly disappointed. She dressed quickly in a bathing suit, T-shirt and shorts and managed to find a pair of sneakers just as full of holes as the pair he was wearing.

  When she hurried downstairs, the coffee was ready, and he had toasted several English muffins.

  “Thanks,” Julie told him, biting into one and pouring herself a cup of coffee. He was on the back porch, at the round wooden table, sipping coffee, reading the paper and looking over the hills and valleys. He looked up, nodded and smiled, and looked back to his paper. “Go ahead. Go to work. You don’t need to worry about entertaining me.”

  She didn’t worry about him. She took her coffee and muffin into the office behind the parlor on the left side of the house and sat down. She concentrated on making her changes, then sighed with satisfaction as she sat back, delighted with the way that things had fallen into completion. After she turned on her printer, she wandered into the kitchen for a second cup of coffee.

  McCoy was still on the porch, still looking over the mountains. Julie felt a soft warmth steal over her.

  There were so many things against them. One of them being the way he felt about her second sight—or whatever he wanted to call it.

  But there was something nice between them that she hadn’t realized until then. They were both mountain lovers. They loved this region. They loved the foliage and the greenery, and the hills and the curves. They loved the way the sun rose here, and the way it set. They loved the quiet, and the serenity.

  She hadn’t made a sound. He turned suddenly, and Julie knew he had been aware she was there.

  “How’s it going?” he asked her.

  “Fine. I’m just about done.”

  “Whenever. Let me know.”

  Julie went into her house and sipped the rest of her coffee while the printer finished throwing out her pages.

  He did know how to make himself at home here. He’d been into the various bags of coffee beans she kept in the freezer, studying and selecting his choices.

  She had a tendency to add heavily on the various flavors, like cinnamon or nut, while McCoy, she was learning, liked a stronger basic blend of coffee with just a hint of flavor.

  Opposite ends of a pole, she reminded herself.

  But then, opposites did attract.

  Julie let out a sigh of exasperation with herself, collected her long line of paper from the printer and began to tear at the perforations, creating a neat little stack of manuscript. She dug out an envelope, quickly addressed it and hurried from her office.

  She certainly hadn’t had any bad dreams about tubing down the river. And the weather was beautiful; the day ahead looked bright.

  “All set?” he asked her when she appeared in the kitchen.

  “All set. Where are we starting from?” she asked him, as they left the house together.

  “Maryland side,” he said, frowning at her as he slipped on his sunglasses.

  “What now?” Julie asked.

  “The door. You didn’t lock the door.”

  Julie exhaled slowly and hurried back to lock her front door. “Well, it’s your fault, you know. You’re so willing to jump down my throat all the time, I must be thinking inwardly that I need to give you a good reason to do so.”

  “Right.”

  Julie walked by him to the car. She smiled when she saw the ice chest wedged into the one tube. “What are we bringing with us?”

  “A fine, vintage Bordeaux, how’s that sound?”

  “Elegant.”

  “Well, I’m afraid that it goes with unelegant cold fried chicken, potato salad, slaw and chips.”

  Julie grinned. “It will do.”

  The conversation was easy and light enough while he drove to their point of debarkation. It was public ground, not a spot owned by any of the rafting companies. While McCoy brought the tubes down, Julie watched him. She grabbed the first one as he tossed it her way.

  “Hey, McCoy!”

  “What?”

  “Tubing down with the current is going to be great. How are we getting back to the car?”

  He walked up to her and tweaked her cheek. Since she was balancing two tubes, she had no power to stop him. “Oh, ye of little faith!” he said. “I have a friend who has a little coffee spot almost right on the water some
miles down from here. By then we’ll have something warm like chocolate or coffee and tea, and then he or one of his kids will drive us to the car. How does that sound?”

  “Great. Let’s get started,” Julie said. She stripped off her T-shirt and shorts then flushed as she realized McCoy was staring at her. She had worn what she thought was a fairly demure bathing suit. It was one piece and black, but the French cut rode high on her thighs, and the back was very low, falling an inch beyond her waist.

  He wolf whistled. She wasn’t sure whether to thank him or slap him.

  She threw her shirt at him. “You’ve seen me in less.”

  “Yes, but I’m afraid to bring you in front of others in that getup. They might want to see you in less, too.”

  “McCoy—”

  “Don’t worry, Miss Hatfield. We McCoys are the proprietarial type. No one would dare come near, I promise. Want to throw the shorts over?”

  She did so, then she decided that she had to hand it to McCoy—he really was prepared. He had a waterproof sack for them to stuff their shirts and her shorts into, and then a place to set the sack on a wire shelf in the cooler. He had a thin rope to connect the cooler tube with his own tube, and while Julie touched the water—letting out a yelp as its spring freshness touched her skin—McCoy was managing as only a man who had grown up playing with tubes on rivers could do. He was all set and ready while she was still wincing.

  “I thought you grew up here!” he called to her. “Come on, get a move on!”

  “Well, the water just wasn’t quite this cold when I was younger,” Julie assured him. She settled into her tube despite the cold washing over her. “And I did grow up here. And I’ve tubed this very water eighteen trillion times.”

  “Eighteen trillion?” McCoy said, grinning broadly.

  She smiled, glad that she had come with him, wondering how she had managed to get through the days when he hadn’t appeared.

  Don’t, don’t, don’t fall in love, she warned herself. But she was too late. It was already happening.

  She was comfortable in her tube at last, accustomed to the water. A surge came rushing by her, lifting her along. Her feet trailed over the muddy and rocky bottom, but her hole-filled sneakers protected her feet. White caps lifted her over a smooth rapid in the way, bringing her tube crashing against McCoy’s.