As Emily hung up the phone after Savannah’s call, she reflected on how ironic it was that even her long-distance relatives had decided that she and Wade were meant for each other. Why couldn’t they all understand that she wasn’t looking to get permanently involved with anyone?
Not even a man as undeniably special as Wade Davenport.
WADE NEEDED some time to himself late Tuesday afternoon. It had been a hectic morning following a stressful night. Everyone wanted to know when he was going to solve the series of break-ins that had been plaguing their town—as if he and his staff weren’t doing all they could.
He took a break at midafternoon to slip into a coffee shop dose to his office and take refuge in a high-backed booth that offered him the first semblance of privacy he’d had all day. Nursing a cup of coffee and a slice of pie, he lingered as he thought about those increasingly frustrating robberies.
He had some possible suspects in mind—the O’Brien boy and his rebellious crowd of followers high among them. But there wasn’t enough evidence to even think about making an arrest.
He was still shaken from finding Emily lying on the floor of her living room, though he’d done his best to conceal his emotions from everyone else. He could still remember the sheer terror that had flashed through him when he had seen the blood on her forehead, the deathly pallor of her skin. The strength of his reaction to that moment—and the distress the memory still brought him—only proved that his feelings for Emily weren’t casual ones. That they never had been.
The public pressure on his department had been bad enough before the attack on Emily happened, but now the townspeople had begun to panic. Martha Godwin had been standing at the door of Wade’s office even before he arrived that morning, just to add her two cents’ worth. She’d stayed until Wade had wondered if he was going to have to have her escorted away. Half an hour later, one of the two full-time reporters from the Honoria Gazette had called, demanding to know why Wade hadn’t been more visible in his pursuit of the criminals who were, as he put it, “terrorizing their town and brazenly attacking innocent women in their own homes.”
Emily had always implied to Wade that the locals didn’t think much of her or her family. It certainly didn’t seem that way to him, judging from the number of people who’d expressed concern about Emily’s welfare. As far as Wade could tell, most of the Honoria’s townspeople were quite fond of Emily. He couldn’t imagine where she’d gotten a different impression.
It was the sound of Emily’s name that drew Wade’s attention toward a conversation going on in the booth behind him. Knowing the speakers couldn’t see him, he listened as someone continued, “It’s just a miracle she wasn’t raped or killed.”
Wade winced, having spent some uncomfortable hours during the night visualizing both of those horrifying possibilities.
“If I hear someone say ‘poor Emily’ one more time today, I just might be sick,” another woman said scornfully. “I didn’t know being hit on the head qualified a person for instant sainthood, or I might have tried it myself.”
“Oh, April, you just don’t like anyone in the McBride family,” the first woman said.
April. Wade thought back to the fall festival, remembering the unpleasant food fight between the winner of the baking contest and the runner-up—April Penny. The woman who’d accused Emily of unfair judging.
“Can you blame me?” April retorted. “After all the vicious things the McBrides said about my poor brother when he refused to take responsibility for Savannah’s bastard twins? Vince swore he hadn’t fathered those kids, but the McBrides were determined to trap him. If his friends on the football team hadn’t backed him up about Savannah’s promiscuity, the McBrides might have permanently ruined Vince’s reputation in this town. Now Savannah’s married that rich, famous writer and they’ve got more money than God, and poor Vince is working his fingers off selling cars for a living. There’s nothing fair about that, if you ask me.”
“I did hear that Savannah got around some,” the other woman admitted. “But Emily seems nice enough.”
April snorted. “She’s no better than her cousin. Everyone knows she’s sleeping with the new police chief. Why else would he have been driving over to her house at nearly ten o’clock at night? What kind of example is that to set for his poor little boy? And you haven’t been around long enough to know this, but I heard plenty about it when I was growing up—Emily’s mother was the town whore. Slept with half the men in town, then ran off with a married one. He left his poor wife with two young children to raise on her own.”
“That’s terrible.”
“And that’s not all. Emily’s brother is a cold-blooded murderer. He killed Roger Jennings—the son of the man his stepmother ran off with. Roger and Lucas used to fight all the time, and when Roger was killed, everyone knew Lucas did it, though no one could ever prove it. Especially with that silly Lizzie Carpenter swearing he’d spent the entire night with her—though most people thought that was just wishful thinking on her part.”
“I’m still not sure you’re being entirely fair to Emily. I haven’t heard anything bad about her the whole time I’ve been in Honoria. Everyone seems to like her okay.”
“If you ask me, she’s no better than the rest of them. Sam Jennings hinted to me that she was caught in something shady at the bank, but she got off because the police chief had the hots for her. Guess we know how she repaid him?”
Wade had had enough. He set his coffee mug down with a thump and pushed himself out of his booth. His actions drew the attention of the gossips who’d been sitting behind him. At the sight of him, April Penny’s face drained of color.
“Ladies,” he drawled, his tone as cold as ice.
A touch of defiance returned to April’s face. “Chief,” she replied, just as coldly.
The other woman wasn’t as quick to recover. She stammered a greeting that was mostly incoherent.
Several different put-downs lodged in Wade’s throat. He considered and rejected all of them. After just standing there for a moment, looking at the women with narrowed, angry eyes, he decided his most prudent course would be to simply turn and walk away. He left a painful silence behind him, and knew that April Penny was well aware of his disdain for her.
He only wished he knew some way to make sure the woman never spoke Emily’s name again.
EMILY WASN’T surprised when her doorbell rang late that evening. She’d been expecting it.
She started to open the door, then paused to first look out the window to make sure of her caller’s identity. It wasn’t something she’d been in the habit of doing before, but that old, comfortable sense of security had been forever shattered last night.
Confirming her guess that Wade was on the other side of her door, she ran a quick hand over her hair and let him in.
He studied the purple lump, still visible on her forehead, where she’d hit the small table as she’d fallen. “Still sore?” he asked.