Chapter Six
The library was one of Keely’s favorite places.
She didn’t get much time to spend there, because she was usually on call on the weekends.
But this weekend, the senior vet tech had unexpectedly offered to take Keely’s place.
Her husband was in the military, and his unit had been called up for overseas deployment.
She was blue about it and didn’t want to spend so much time alone.
Keely sympathized with her, but was glad to have the time off.
Or she had been, until her life suddenly became complicated.
She was reading a thick biology text on canine anatomy when a shadow fell over her. She looked up, straight into Boone Sinclair’s dark eyes. Her heart raced. She fumbled with the book and it fell onto the floor.
He picked it up and, glancing at the title with an odd smile, put it back on the table. He pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. Here, in the reading area, she was alone. The librarian was in the back cataloging, so they had the room to themselves.
“I thought you and Clark had a date,” he murmured suspiciously.
She couldn’t think. He was leaning toward her, and she could smell the minty scent of his breath on her face. She bit her lower lip nervously.
“I wanted to look up something,” she stammered inventively. She flushed. She wasn’t good at lying. “He went to get gas. He’s coming back for me.” She forced a glare. “We were going up to San Antonio to the theater when you told him we couldn’t go.”
“San Antonio is too big and we don’t know many police officers there,” he said, unexpectedly somber. “You don’t need to be out of sight of the police. It’s easier to watch you here.”
“You’ve been talking to Sheriff Hayes,” she accused.
He nodded. “Hayes is pretty laid-back most of the time. When he worries, there’s good reason.” His eyes narrowed on hers. “Your mother hasn’t been seen out at Shea’s for a week?” It was a question.
She needed so desperately to talk to someone. Her face was drawn with worry. Clark was sweet, but he was too concerned with Nellie to pay more than a little attention to Keely’s problems. Not that he didn’t care about her. He just cared more about Nellie.
Incredibly Boone’s big hand smoothed over hers where it lay on the book cover. He linked his warm, strong fingers into hers. “Talk to me,” he said quietly.
She actually shivered. It had been years since a man had touched her. Not even a man, really, just a boy she dated. She hadn’t been held, kissed, caressed. She was a woman with a woman’s feelings, and she couldn’t, didn’t dare, indulge them.
Boone knew more about women than she realized. He understood her reaction to him, and was puzzled by it. “For a woman who’s getting regular sex, you sure don’t act as if your needs are being met,” he commented.
She went as red as the book cover and her hand jerked under his.
He smiled, but not in a mean way. His fingers contracted more. “Tell me what’s really going on, Keely.”
His hand was comforting. She didn’t fight the firm, caressing clasp. It felt so good. She wanted to climb into his lap and put her head on his shoulder and cry her eyes out. She wanted comfort, just a little comfort. But this wasn’t the man, or the place or the time.
She took a deep breath. “Something’s going on about my father,” she confessed in a hushed tone. “I don’t know what. Nobody will tell me anything. He’s mixed up in something bad, and he has this friend…” Her soft features contracted and her eyes were full of pain at the memory.
“This friend,” he prompted, squeezing her hand. He was very intent.
“Jock.” The name tasted like poison in her mouth. “My mother thinks he has something to do with whatever’s going on. I overheard her talking to Carly. She won’t tell me anything.”
“This man, Jock,” he persisted. “You look frightened when you say his name.”
“He…hit me,” she confessed, fascinated by the expression on his face.
“I was just barely thirteen. He’d been watching me while I was cooking.
He made me nervous. He’d been in prison.
He said he’d killed a woman. I let the biscuits burn.
” She bit her lip again. “He hit me so hard he knocked me down. My father heard him yelling and came into the kitchen and managed to get Jock out of the room.” She wrapped her arms around her chest, cold with the memory.
“It was just after that when Dad brought me back here to live with Mama.”
“Good God.” Boone’s eyes were soft and quiet with sympathy. “No wonder you’re uncomfortable around men.” He was remembering. His jaw tautened. “That’s why you were afraid of me in my office.”
“I don’t really know you,” she confessed apologetically. “And you don’t like me,” she added uneasily. “You don’t like me being friends with Winnie and you don’t like me going around with Clark.”
“No, I don’t,” he replied honestly. But he looked troubled.
“I understand,” she said unexpectedly. “You know that I’m poor and you think I use Winnie and Clark…”
“The hell I do!” He lowered his voice quickly, looking around to make sure he hadn’t drawn the attention of the librarian.
He looked back at Keely, scowling. “You don’t use people,” he bit off.
“You work like a soldier for your paycheck. Unpaid overtime, trips out to old Mrs. McKinnon’s place to give her dog its diabetic injections because she can’t do it, walking dogs at the shelter on weekends so the staff can handle adoptions…
” He stopped, as if he hadn’t wanted her to know that he was aware of her activities.
“Mrs. McKinnon loves her dog,” she replied. “Maggie handles the shelter on Saturdays and feeds and waters the animals on Sunday. There’s this tiny little budget. She already spends twice the hours she gets paid for to do all that. I just help a little.”
His dark, quiet eyes studied her soft, oval face in its frame of thick blond hair, down to her pretty bow mouth. She wasn’t a beauty, but she radiated a sort of loveliness that most women didn’t.
“It’s a pity,” he said, almost to himself, “that you aren’t older.”
“I’ll be twenty in December,” she said, misunderstanding.
“Twenty whole years old.” He looked down at her hand. It was a useful hand, not an elegant one. Short nails, immaculately kept, no polish. No jewelry on those fingers, either. He frowned. “No rings?” he asked. He looked up at her ears where her hair was pushed back. “No earrings?”
She flushed. “I have little silver studs, but I forgot to put them on… .”
“Clark hasn’t given you anything?” he persisted. “He walked out tonight with a huge jewelry case.”
“Oh, that was for—” She stopped at once, horrified.
His eyebrows arched and the corner of his mouth tugged up. “Not for you?”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t like jewelry.”
“Liar.”
She flushed. “I don’t have to be paid to give a man attention,” she said curtly, and then realized how that sounded, and flushed even more. “I mean, I don’t want expensive things from Clark.”
He cocked his head to one side and watched her like a hawk. “In the past few weeks, he’s gone through half the inventory of a jewelry store. I see the receipts, Keely, even if I don’t pay the bills. I have an accountant to do that.”
She was in a quandary now. She couldn’t admit that Clark hadn’t given that expensive jewelry to her, and if she denied it, she’d only get him in trouble.
“Your car is a piece of junk,” he persisted.
His practiced eye swept over the blouse and slacks she was wearing, the coat hung over the back of the chair beside her.
“You’ve worn that same outfit to the house half a dozen times.
You don’t drive unless you have to, so you can save on gas money.
And you won’t let Clark give you a pair of earrings? ”
Her teeth clamped down. She wasn’t telling him anything else. She tugged at her hand.
He wouldn’t let it go. “That waitress he brought to the house,” he said softly, “was looking around between every bite, cataloging paintings and silver and furniture and putting mental price tags on the rugs and the chandelier.”
She was horrified that she might react to that statement. Her eyes were almost bulging.
He pursed his lips and his dark eyes twinkled.
“Clark thinks he’s putting one over on me,” he said in a hushed, soft tone.
“He doesn’t realize that Misty’s father has a private detective agency that I can hire when I need to.
Apparently, Nellie doesn’t realize it, either, or she’d be more careful about going with Clark to motels. ”
She made a soft exclamation and her horror showed.
“You don’t use people,” he continued. “But Clark does. He’s using you. And you’re letting him.”
“You don’t know that,” she protested weakly.
“I’m only surprised that your boss is so forgiving about it,” he added, and his expression hardened. “Isn’t he the jealous type?”
She sank down into her chair. She felt limp. She’d failed Clark. He’d never forgive her. “Dr. Rydel is thirty-two, Boone,” she said gently, and didn’t notice the reaction when she spoke his name. His eyes had flashed.
“Thirty-two.” He parroted the words. He’d gone blank for an instant.
“Thirty-two,” she repeated, looking up. “I’m nineteen. Even if I were a femme fatale, I’d have my work cut out. Dr. Rydel hates women. He only likes me because he thinks of me as a child. Like you do,” she added in a different tone.
His eyes were unreadable. “There are times,” he said softly, “when you seem older than you are.” He frowned slightly. “Why don’t you date, Keely?” he asked suddenly.
She was shocked by the question. “I…my job takes up so much time…” She’d walked right into the trap. She glared at him. “I date Clark,” she said doggedly.
“Clark loves you,” he replied unexpectedly. “Like a sister,” he added almost at once. “He never touches you. He doesn’t light up when you walk into a room. His hands don’t shake when you’re close to him. That doesn’t add up to a romance.”