Holly Grove Homecoming (7 page)

His eyes narrowed slightly. So slightly that if she hadn’t been looking for signs, she might not have noticed. “Does your writing have anything to do with why you’re still in Holly Grove?”

“To some extent, yes. Right before I moved here, I signed a three-book contract. I needed a place where I could hide from my stalker and at the same time concentrate on my writing. Holly Grove turned out to be perfect. I’m almost finished with the second book in my contract. My deadline is three months away, but I like to stay ahead of schedule. That way, if something comes up to delay me, I have a little leeway.”

The muscles in Trooper’s face appeared to relax a bit. “Makes sense. And thanks for telling me. I’d begun to have my suspicions, and that was making me uncomfortable. So, am I keeping you from working now?”

“I needed a break, not to mention lunch. Besides, I had more than my daily quota of words written. I can play hooky the rest of the day.”

“Then why don’t we play hooky together?”

Carly’s heart rate accelerated a bit. Okay, she’d admit it to herself. She found Trooper Myers attractive, which meant she should probably keep her distance. But she was tired of always playing it safe. “What did you have in mind?”

“A swim. Interested?”

“I’d love a swim, but I haven’t seen a swimming pool in this entire town. Is there an indoor pool somewhere?”

“Not that I know of, but there’s a lake on my uncle Roy’s farm. And don’t screw your nose up like that. It’s a great lake for swimming. Clean. Fairly warm. Very few snakes.”

Carly shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. “Snakes. Oh my God. If you think for one minute—”

His laugh, deep and full, alerted her to his mischief even before he spoke. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. Not after the way you reacted to the word
lake.
There are no snakes, at least none that I’ve ever seen, and the lake really is clean.”

“How do you know? You haven’t been there in twenty years, have you?”

“As a matter of fact, I swung by there this morning before I picked up lunch at the diner. Uncle Roy was always one of my favorites, and while I hadn’t seen him in a while, I’ve kept in touch. Knowing that Myrna’s house isn’t air conditioned, he made a point of inviting me back for a swim to cool off any time I wanted to stop by.”

“And you’re welcome to bring guests?”

“Absolutely. Do you have a swimsuit?”

“Yes.”

“That was a decidedly unenthusiastic response. Did I scare you away with the snake story?”

“Maybe,” Carly admitted.

“I swear to you that you don’t have to worry about snakes.” Trooper grinned and crossed his heart with the forefinger of his right hand.

“You really, seriously cross your heart?”

“Absolutely. Uncle Roy assured me that the gator does as excellent job of keeping the snake population under control.”

This time Carly joined him in laughing out loud. “Okay, I know when my leg is being pulled. At least when it’s being pulled clear out of the socket. Alligators don’t live in waters this far north.”

“Then you’ll come with me?”

“Sure. Give me a minute to get my suit, some sun screen, and my Glock, just in case you weren’t kidding about that gator.”

Trooper laughed again. “Okay, I guess I deserved that. I’ll get my own swim stuff and my car, then swing back over to pick you up. Will fifteen minutes be enough time for you?”

“That should be fine.”

“Okay. See you soon.” He stood, gave her a quick smile, and took off down the hallway to the front of the house.

Carly crammed the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth, then hurried up the stairs to her bedroom to dig her swimsuit out of the bottom of a drawer. After she’d pulled everything together and headed back down the stairs, she realized that she’d had a rather silly smile on her face the entire time she’d been getting ready.

T
rooper grinned all
the way back to his aunt Myrna’s house. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so much. He admitted to himself that he really enjoyed being around Carly Morrison, aka Callie Morris aka Marcie Malone. He supposed he ought to be freaked out by her aliases, but somehow he wasn’t. He was, however, more at ease with her after she’d told him that she was working on more than a revision of her dissertation because he’d known there was something off about that story.

He found Myrna dozing in her recliner in front of the television, so he wrote a note telling her where he was going and propped it up on top of the TV. Then he eased upstairs, grabbed his trunks, a tee, and a couple of towels and headed out.

Carly was waiting on her front porch when he pulled into her drive. She had changed from jeans into shorts and from sandals into canvas shoes. Along with a cloth bag, she also carried a couple of towels.

Trooper got out to help her stow her stuff in the trunk, then went around to the passenger’s side to open the door for her. She smiled her appreciation, and he felt his stomach muscles tightening in response.

He started to give himself a short mental lecture about the dangers of growing too interested in Carly but stopped at the last minute. After all, his shrink had said he needed to take his life in a totally different direction for a while, to forget work and enjoy himself. Right now he couldn’t think of anything he’d enjoy more than a short fling with a pretty woman.

Pretty? Well heck, if he came right down to it, she was gorgeous. He remembered seeing her all made up when she was doing her television reporter gig, and she’d been a real beauty. He could recall thinking how attractive she was but never dreaming that someday he’d be taking her to his uncle Roy’s swimming hole.

Speaking of which, he paused while backing out of her driveway to stare at her. “You
do
swim, don’t you?”

She raised her brows. “Of course. Why? Are you afraid I can’t outrace the alligator?”

Trooper shifted his gaze to the rearview mirror and continued backing out onto Sugar Maple Drive. “Oh, you’ll have no problems outswimming the gator. He’s old and slow. Just don’t decide to grab onto something in the water that resembles a submerged log.”

“Thanks for the warning. I’d never have thought of that on my own.”

Trooper laughed. After so many weeks of wishing he hadn’t lived through his last assignment, laughter seemed both strange and peculiarly liberating. He couldn’t remember feeling quite this lighthearted since…

Come to think of it, he must have been a teenager when he last felt this way. Sometime before his parents were killed.

And young. He felt almost young again. Well, so what? He was having a few laughs with a beautiful woman. He deserved that at least, and by God, he was going to enjoy it.

He filled the time it took to drive to the farm with small talk, mostly about Myrna’s extended family. He figured Carly would need some background about the Johnsons if she was going to spend much time among them.

His uncle Roy, he explained, was one of a set of twins who had been born between Myrna and Mary. Roy’s twin, Joey, lived on the opposite side of town. Joey owned a car dealership and had become one of the wealthiest of the Johnson siblings. He and his wife Nancy had built a mansion north of town on fifteen acres of land.

Roy, on the other hand, had borrowed money when he first got out of high school to buy a rundown farm south of town. He’d worked from dawn to dusk for years and had finally realized his dream of owning a working farm that turned a profit most years. Because he’d devoted his life to the farm, he’d never taken time to date and so today was an old bachelor who seemed totally content with his life.

The trip was a relatively short one, so in less than twenty minutes, Trooper turned into his uncle’s long, graveled driveway. An immaculate white fence bordered both sides of the drive, and three horses grazed in the field on the right. The field on the left was home to half a dozen head of cattle.

Carly swiveled her head so she could look toward both sides of the drive. “What a beautiful place. And everything appears so neat. Your uncle Roy must still work dawn to dusk to keep up with everything.”

“Pretty much, I assume, although he’s started hiring more help in recent years, or so I hear from Myrna. After all, Uncle Roy’s no spring chicken any more.”

When they neared the end of the drive where the fence on both sides turned at a ninety-degree angle, a neatly mowed lawn spread out around a two-story brick house surrounded by shade trees. The gravel drive widened into a large parking area that already held three cars. Apparently some of his cousins had decided this afternoon would be a good time for a swim.

Trooper bit back a groan of disappointment. He’d hoped to have some time alone with Carly. Obviously that was not to be.

He turned to her with a smile that he feared might resemble a grimace. “Judging by the cars, it looks as though you’re about to meet more of the Johnson family.”

Carly returned his smile. “The more the merrier, so they say. But you don’t look especially merry.”

Trooper purposely grimaced this time. “Frankly, it’s been so long since I’ve been around my cousins, they’ll be more like strangers to me than family members. But it’s too late to back out now. They’ve seen us.” He nodded toward a small group of swimsuit-clad adults headed toward his vehicle. He was relieved to see that Karen and two of her kids were among the group.

Trooper immediately opened his door, got out and went around to open Carly’s door. By that time, Karen was within shouting distance. “Hey, cuz,” she yelled. “There’s a welcoming committee coming to greet you.”

Trooper reached to help Carly get out of the car, then took a deep breath, turned, and held up a hand to greet his advancing relatives. “Hi all.”

A few seconds later he and Carly were surrounded by half a dozen of his cousins, five of their spouses or dates, and at least seven children. He didn’t know any of the children except Karen’s two. Although the others hung back, Martha ran up and grabbed Trooper’s free hand. “Come on down to the lake, Cousin Trooper. The water’s almost warm.”

To his relief, Trooper immediately recognized all of his cousins and two of their spouses. The others were not people he’d met in the past. He greeted those he knew and acknowledged introductions to those he didn’t and at the same time introduced Carly to everyone.

There was Phillip, his uncle Arthur’s oldest son, who was a couple of years older than Trooper. He’d married Judith right out of high school. Fortunately, neither had changed much and Trooper readily recognized them.

Then there was Phillip’s younger sister, Kay, who had left Holly Grove to go to college, and—as Myrna had told Trooper in one of her letters updating him on family affairs—had returned married to a city boy named Casey. Casey had fallen in love with Holly Grove and the two had moved into the old Murray house on Marigold Avenue, renovated it, and lived there still with their two children, Diane and Richard.

The other cousins soon turned questions away from their own lives and were inquiring as to Trooper’s health when his uncle Roy strolled up and ordered everyone, in his usual gruff manner, to leave Trooper and his young lady alone so they could change and get in the water before they got fed up with waiting and went back home.

Laughing good-naturedly, the cousins complied, leaving Trooper and Carly alone with Roy. After acknowledging an introduction to Carly, Roy pointed out a small building that he described as “the changing building.”

“To tell you the truth,” he said to Carly, “it used to be a chicken coop, but when I stopped keeping chickens, I cleaned it up and added some partitions so that these water-crazy nieces and nephews of mine wouldn’t keep tracking water into the house. It’s worked out good, at least for me.”

“Makes sense,” Trooper said. “Besides, it’s closer to the lake. Carly, are you ready to go change?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Carly responded, giving him a look that said she hadn’t forgotten his snake comment.

Trooper saw his uncle Roy shoot them a puzzled look, and he sure didn’t want Roy to chime in about his snake story, so he grasped Carly by the elbow and started leading her toward the changing building.

* * *

C
arly looked
down into the murky water and thought of snakes. She couldn’t help herself. She suppressed a shudder and glanced at Trooper who stood just to her left. He’d waited for her outside the changing building and walked with her to the end of the dock.

His cousins had deserted the water and were relaxing in lawn furniture situated under the shade of one of the large oaks that grew within a hundred feet or so of the edge of the lake.

She noticed that Trooper had pulled on a navy tee along with his navy swim trunks and she wondered if the purpose of the shirt was to hide his scar. She looked up at him. “Is there any danger of the lake water infecting your wound?”

“Nah. It’s pretty much healed. But it’s still a little ugly and I didn’t want to frighten the children, so I decided to cover up with a tee. In fact…”

He paused long enough that Carly felt compelled to speak. “In fact what?”

The skin around his eyes crinkled a bit as he obviously tried to hide a smile. “In fact, if my shoulder was a hundred percent, I’d pick you up and throw you in the water. But since it’s not, I’ll have to settle for…”

Before Carly could react, she felt Trooper’s hands on her shoulders, and a couple of seconds later she was flying through the air.

She managed to pull her knees up and cannonball into the water, hoping to at least splash Trooper while mentally vowing revenge. One advantage to being so abruptly introduced to the water was that her fear of snakes disappeared. No way, she decided, would a cold-blooded creature willingly subject itself to the frigid temperatures of that lake.

She came up sputtering and was immediately inundated by a wave as Trooper cannonballed into the water a short distance away from her. More water splashed into her face, but she quickly warmed as adrenaline began to pump into her bloodstream. Trooper’s tactics clearly called for retribution.

As soon as he surfaced, she sliced the water with the palm of her hand, sending a plume into his face. He yelped and ducked back under the water. A second later Carly felt something latch onto her left leg. Thoughts of an alligator set her heart to thumping before commonsense told her it was Trooper. He pulled and she went under.

Her instinct was to kick out with her free leg, but at the last minute, she held back, fearing she might kick his left shoulder. Instead, she forced herself to relax, and a second later, her head bobbed above the water.

He came up grinning and seemingly trying to appear contrite. Carly pushed the wet hair out of her face. “You louse.” She ruined the effects of her epithet by smiling.

“You’ll have to admit that this is refreshing.” Trooper raised his brows and gave her a boyish smile.

Carly affected a frown. “Refreshing? If you call frigid refreshing, then I suppose it is.”

“Why don’t you swim for a minute? The exercise will warm you.”

They’d both been treading water. Carly glanced around. The dock jutted out about fifty feet. The nearest bank appeared too steep to allow a swimmer to exit there. Fortunately, she could see under the dock and spied a ladder on the far side leading from the water to the dock. “Good idea,” she said, starting to swim away from the dock. As soon as she was beyond the reach of Trooper’s long arms, she turned to swim parallel to the dock for a few feet and then cut back toward the ladder.

“You surely aren’t getting out yet?” Trooper called to her.

“You surely don’t think I’m going to stay in here and freeze,” Carly called back. She was a fairly strong swimmer and reached the ladder with a few more strokes. She pulled herself onto the dock, stood for a few seconds while the water drained from her suit, and then stepped across the wooden planks to look down at Trooper, who was still treading water. “Are you coming out?”

Trooper grimaced. “I’m not sure I can make it. My darn shoulder is just…” He paused and dropped his gaze while continuing to tread water with just his right arm.

Carly had a pretty good idea that he was pulling her leg again, but she couldn’t walk off and leave him. She glanced around for a life preserver but didn’t spot anything closer than the shore. She looked back at Trooper, who appeared to be sinking a little bit too much for her taste. “Oh what the…” she muttered to herself, then jumped in the lake again.

As soon as she hit, Trooper grabbed her with both arms. The grin on his face and the twinkle in his eyes told her that he had, in fact, been teasing her. But she was half prepared for that eventuality. She pretended to strangle, and when Trooper loosened his grip, she shrugged him off, dived, and grabbed his feet, pulling him under with her.

He pulled one foot free, then reached for her with his good arm and tumbled both of them into an underwater somersault. When they surfaced again, both were laughing and Carly was no longer freezing.