She pressed a button, the window descended, and his face was only inches from hers, warm in the cold night.
“For the record,” he said, “the name’s Shane.”
“But everyone calls you Carter, right?” Dear God, what was this tiny rush she felt, the sense of intimacy tonight? She caught a hint of aftershave. “Or Sheriff?”
“Oh, they probably call me a lot of things behind my back, none of them worth repeating. But you can call me Shane.”
“Fair enough, Carter,” she teased.
An eyebrow quirked. “That’ll work, too.” His gaze held hers for a second as snowflakes collected on his dark hair and broad shoulders and again she thought he might kiss her. Again she was disappointed. “Later.” He slapped the Jeep’s fender twice and turned toward his rig.
“Take a deep breath,” she whispered to herself as she rolled up her window to watch him fold his big frame into the driver’s side of his Blazer. What had she been thinking, flirting and bussing him on the cheek?
“Nerves,” she told herself as she threw the Jeep into gear. “It’s just that I’ve got a real bad case of nerves.” He represented safety, that was all. It wasn’t that he was sexy as all get-out, or that his smile, beneath warm, dark eyes, could melt the ice around her heart.
Stupid woman! With all the worry that’s going on around here, the last thing, the very last thing, you need is an entanglement with a man—especially Carter. Don’t even think about him like that!
Letting out her breath, angry with herself and her silly fantasies, she glanced in the rearview mirror. As promised, Carter was following her, but beyond the reassuring glow of the Blazer’s headlights, her gaze skated to the theater disappearing rapidly from view.
She felt another chill. Cold as midnight. Something in the ancient church wasn’t right. The lonely building, with its opaque stai
ned-glass windows and sharp-peaked, desolate belltower, stood stark against the frigid night and seemed sinister in the snowfall. That’s ludicrous. It’s all your perception, your imagination. The building has nothing to hide, no heinous secrets. It was a church, for God’s sake, a joyous place for worshippers to gather and give praise.
So why did she feel like Satan himself resided there tonight?
“Because you’re a drama queen, maybe, or an over-the-top paranoid,” she muttered. There was nothing wrong with the building housing the theater. Nothing! “You’ve seen one too many horror flicks.” She was just letting her own fears get the better of her, that was it. Right? Even if there was some horror hidden within the old clapboard walls, it had stayed secreted away for the night and Sheriff Shane Carter, an extraordinary hunk of a lawman, had come to her supposed rescue. Even now he was driving behind her through the snow. Things could be worse. Lots worse.
With one eye on the road ahead, she snapped open her cell phone and tried to call the house. It took several attempts, as the phone seemed to have suffered some damage when it had dropped to the floor in Rinda’s office. Finally, it connected.
Allie answered quickly. “Hello?” Her voice was barely audible over the static.
No reason to beat around the bush. “Hi, hon. Hey, look, I’m sorry, honey, the backpack’s not in the car and it’s not at the theater. I checked.”
“But it has to be!”
“Maybe you left it at school,” Jenna suggested, straining to listen.
“Uh-uh.”
“Or it’s in Jake’s truck or your room or—”
“Mom!” Allie cut in angrily, her voice wavering. “I know where it was. In the back of the Jeep!” She sounded near the verge of tears, but it was hard to tell with the blips in the conversation.
“Listen, don’t worry about it. Call someone in the class, see if they can give you the questions over the phone, or…if they have a fax machine, they can send a copy over.”
“Not if they’ve already done their homework! And I need the book!”
“We’ll talk about this when I get home. If I have to, I’ll call Mrs. Hopfinger in the morning.”
“I can’t hear you.”
Jenna repeated herself, nearly shouting, and Allie tried to argue.
Jenna’s frayed nerves snapped. “Hey, slow down, Allie. I’ve done the best I can do. You can pout and get mad and whatever else you want to do, but it won’t help, now, will it?”
There was a long, brutal silence. Jenna waited it out. Wondered if she’d lost her connection. Finally, just as she was about to hang up, Allie muttered almost inaudibly, “Jake wants to talk to you.”
“Good.” Jenna forced enthusiasm into her voice as she stopped for a streetlight. “Put him on.”