The Police Chief's Lady. Jacqueline Diamond

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      Jenni listened with a trace of envy. She couldn’t help recalling that no one at the hospital in L.A. had seemed distressed upon hearing of her impending departure.

      “I’m not sure where,” Leah explained. “Next month, I’m going to visit my cousin in Austin, Texas, and then an old friend in Seattle to apply for teaching jobs. It could take a while to land one, so my departure isn’t imminent.”

      “What brought this on?” Karen looked the most stunned of anyone.

      Leah gazed around the table. “Certainly not a desire to leave my old friends. Still, except for college, I’ve lived my whole life in Downhome. If I don’t leave, I’ll grow old here without ever having an adventure. I guess that sounds kind of naive, but it’s what I want. And I’d like to have children, too.”

      “I can relate to that,” Karen admitted. She and Leah were both thirty-two, a year younger than Jenni.

      She understood their feelings. Sometimes when she held a baby or examined a child, she was overcome by a longing to have one of her own. However, her parents had set such a poor example that she wasn’t sure how well she would handle motherhood. She might risk it if she met the perfect guy, but how likely was that?

      “You were always such a shy child,” Rosie said. “Then you turned from a duckling into a swan in high school and scared off the guys.”

      “Is that what happened?” Leah asked ruefully. “They sure steered clear of me. It was painful.”

      “Is finding Mr. Right part of your plan?” Karen asked.

      “Not really.” Her friend gave her an apologetic smile. “I want to do exciting things, get to know new places, do something wild. I can’t act that way here. A guy—well, he might hold me back. I’ve been thinking about adopting a baby from a foreign orphanage.”

      “I had a brief spell of wanting kids when I was in my thirties, but I got over it,” said Gwen. She’d never married, Karen had mentioned.

      “Congratulations, Leah,” Mae Anne said.

      “Because I’m taking a risk?” the teacher inquired.

      “No. Because you got our minds off Ethan Forrest for about five minutes.”

      Chuckles sounded around the table, then broke off as, in the next room, the front doorknob turned. Jenni still hadn’t grown accustomed to the Lowells’ habit of leaving their house unlocked during waking hours.

      Barry entered. Peering through the archway between dining and living rooms, Jenni was startled when she glimpsed his companion.

      “Uh-oh,” Rosie muttered.

      “Well, now, that just blows the whole thing, doesn’t it?” commented Mae Anne, sending them into gales of laughter.

      In the living room, Ethan wore such an endearingly baffled expression at their mirth that Jenni almost sympathized with him. Then she remembered telling him that she’d planned to attend this party tonight. He’d accompanied Barry knowing full well she would be here.

      She reminded herself not to make assumptions. Maybe he had business to conduct. Besides, the warmth with which some of the other women greeted him made her realize how much female attention he must attract wherever he went.

      Determined not to reveal her mixed feelings, Jenni gave the men a lazy grin and stretched like a cat. “Hi, Barry. Good to see you, Chief.”

      Ethan’s appreciative gaze made Jenni blushingly aware that the movement had drawn her knit top tightly across her breasts. Darn it, she’d been trying to act casual, she thought as she shifted to a more modest position.

      “Good to see all of you,” Ethan said. “Carry on, ladies. We have a few things to discuss.”

      With a nod, Barry headed for the stairs. “Want to take some food with you?” Karen offered.

      “No, thanks.” As usual, her brother was in a hurry.

      “Don’t mind if I do.” Ethan strolled to the table, his powerful build inside the tailored suit drawing more than a few pairs of admiring eyes. As he claimed a cookie, he graced them all with a knowing wink that brought a round of smiles. Then he followed Barry up the stairs, leaving behind the sophisticated scent that had plagued Jenni’s senses all week.

      Nobody spoke until, upstairs, a door closed. “That man,” Gwen said at last, “has charisma.”

      Jenni didn’t bother to argue.

      Chapter Five

      For one inexplicable instant downstairs, the entire room had vanished except for Jenni Vine. Ethan didn’t understand it. He’d never been drawn to blondes, and he considered this one an ill fit to the community. Yet he’d battled the urge to stand there drinking her in, as if she cast a sunny spell over him.

      She’d been perfectly aware of the effect she created. She’d stretched provocatively, while he, who made a point of keeping a friendly distance between himself and anything resembling male vulnerability, had stood there verging on meltdown.

      This wasn’t entirely her fault, he conceded. As Gwen had said earlier, men all over town were scheduling their long-delayed physicals for a chance to be around her. Reducing adult males to the level of lusty adolescents had probably become second nature to her.

      He almost wished he weren’t so scrupulous, or so cognizant of his position. If circumstances had been different, Ethan might have enjoyed a fling with the lady before she decamped for more interesting surroundings. Assuming she wanted a fling, of course.

      No, he thought, he wasn’t the love ’em and leave ’em type, or the love ’em and be left by ’em type, either. When he’d fallen in love with Martha, he’d stayed in love. Heaven help him if he ever made that mistake with Jenni.

      “What’ve you got for me?” he asked, following Barry into an upstairs rec room converted to a large office. Amid the file cabinets, desk and computer equipment was a bulletin board covered with old clippings and hand-drawn charts.

      “Although nobody seems aware of it, Ethan, you’ve got an unsolved murder in this town,” Barry replied.

      That caught his attention, all right. “Who’s the victim?”

      “Norbert Anglin.”

      Anglin was the farmer Barry had been convicted of killing. So this was about that case. “Go ahead.”

      “The coroner said the killer struck him three times. I only hit him once,” Barry said.

      “With a shovel,” Ethan reminded him dryly.

      “He attacked me with a pitchfork.” Barry and his friend Chris McRay, Mae Anne’s grandson, had aroused Anglin’s wrath one night when he caught them freeing chickens at his farm. “Maybe I hit him harder than I thought, but I know I didn’t land more than one blow.”

      “I’ve heard this before,” Ethan reminded him, studying the piles of papers in dismay. To see СКАЧАТЬ