Page 37 of Secret Stalker

Chapter Twelve

She’d forgotten how bright and clear the night sky could be out in the country, the stars sparkling like little gems without the light pollution of a city to compete with them. Bex absently traced a finger on the arm of the white wicker couch in the little sunroom on the back of her mother’s house. Only, it could be more aptly called a moon room right now, since it was past ten at night. She’d always loved this room, which her daddy had converted from a screened-in porch when she was in elementary school. He was handy like that, always doing projects around the house to make her mama happy.

“Are you okay, Bex?”

She let out a squeal of surprise and jerked around to see Max standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the sunroom. She pressed her hand to her chest, surprised her heart hadn’t exploded from fright.

“Max? What on earth are you doing here? How did you even get in?”

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to frighten you. I drove by, saw your lights on and decided to stop. I knocked, loudly, several times. But you must not have heard me all the way back here. When you didn’t answer, I got worried so I used my key.”

He held it up, then pitched it onto one of the little wicker tables scattered around the room.

“Your mom gave me that key years ago. I used to keep an eye on the place whenever she went on a trip out of town. She liked me to come inside, water her plants. But mainly she wanted me to make sure the pipes hadn’t burst or anything else major happened.” He cocked his head, studying Bex. “She never told me outright that she was visiting you in Knoxville. But it wasn’t hard to figure out. Word gets around town when a limo shows up with out of town plates.”

He stepped closer, rounding the couch. Then he stopped abruptly. Even with the room lit only by moonlight she could tell he was looking at her, his eyes glittering as they traveled down her barely clothed body.

Her face flamed hot and she grabbed an afghan off the back of the couch to cover herself. She was only wearing a nightshirt and panties. True, Max had seen her in far less. But that was a lifetime ago.

He sighed and pulled a folder out from under his arm and plopped it onto the narrow table in front of the couch. “We need to talk.”

She waved toward the folder. “About whatever’s in there?”

“That and more. I don’t suppose I can tempt you into a late-night trip to the police station for an on-camera interview.”

“Are you ever going to stop asking me that?”

“Not as long as my boss keeps bugging me to ask you.”

She rolled her eyes again. “The only way I’ll go there is if rocky road ice cream is involved. With fresh strawberries on top.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “And chocolate syrup?”

“You remember.”

“I remember a lot of things.”

She tightened her grip on the afghan.

He gave her a sad smile this time. “This town still rolls up the streets at nine. The ice-cream parlor closed hours ago. Unless you want to grab something from Smiths? Not that a twenty-four-hour convenience store compares well to an ice-cream parlor.”

If they kept skirting around memories of their shared past, she was doomed. She didn’t respond to his ice-cream comments and tried to bring the conversation back to something less dangerous.

“You said you drove by and saw my lights on. I may not have been to your new house, but you said it’s on land that borders your dad’s property. My mom’s house isn’t anywhere near that.”

“I didn’t say I happened to be in the neighborhood. I was hoping you’d be up. Like I said, we need to talk.”

“Okay, well, I guess I’ll try to answer your questions. I just can’t go back to the police station, okay? I’m serious. You have no idea how awful it was. Your boss locked me up in one of those cells for two days. I was eighteen and terrified. The only reason he let me out was because he didn’t have enough evidence to charge me and the judge ordered me released.”

“I know. I was there, remember?” His jaw worked. “Or I would have been, if you’d let me. I had to hear everything secondhand because you refused to let me visit you. The chief would have allowed that if you’d only told him to let me in.”

“What did you expect me to do? You’d asked me to marry you and I turned you down. Then a few hours later I was in jail under suspicion of murder. I was confused, scared and angry. I couldn’t deal with your hurt feelings on top of everything else.”

His eyes flashed with anger. “My hurt feelings? You make it sound so trite. It was a hell of a lot more than hurt feelings. Why did you shut me out? Why didn’t you...”

He closed his eyes, shaking his head. When he looked at her again, the anger seemed to have drained out of him. “This is a conversation we should have had a decade ago. It’s too late to go over all that now.” He flipped the folder open. “This is the reason I’m here.” He spread out some pictures on the table, then frowned. “Mind if I turn on a light? The kitchen light isn’t doing a lot of good out here.”

She adjusted the afghan and cleared her throat. “Go ahead.” She didn’t bother to tell him where the switch was. He knew this house just as well as she did.

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