Page 1 of Bachelor Cop Finally Caught? (Hot off the Press! 2)

Chapter One

Twenty-six candles blazed on the birthday cake in front of Lindsey. A roomful of people crowded around the table at her friend Serena’s to watch her blow them out. All too aware of the one person who wasn’t there—Dan Meadows—she drew in a deep breath and efficiently extinguished all the tiny flames. Her audience applauded enthusiastically.

“Happy birthday, Lindsey.” Serena Schaffer North, the party’s hostess, gave her friend a quick hug as she spoke.

Lindsey responded warmly. “Thank you. It’s a great party, Serena.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Visibly satisfied, Serena cast a quick glance around the roomful of chattering, laughing guests. “I’m so glad everyone could make it.”

Not everyone, Lindsey couldn’t help thinking.

As if she’d developed a sudden, disconcerting talent for mind reading, Serena said, “I wish Dan was here. He said he would try.”

“He’s probably out beating the bushes for clues about the firebug.”

“Probably.” With a frown, Serena shook her head. “I hope he catches the guy soon. Dan’s starting to look so stressed lately. Frankly, I think he needs a vacation.”

“So do I.” Lindsey remembered the lines that were slowly carving themselves around Dan’s eyes and mouth. Dan needed more in his life than his work. He needed a reason to go home at night.

So did she.

Serena’s husband of almost three months, Cameron North—Lindsey’s boss and editor at the newspaper—joined them just then, sliding his arm around his wife’s waist. “Aren’t you going to have any of your own birthday cake, Lindsey? You’d better hurry or those vultures will eat it all up before you get any.”

“Someone will save me a slice.” Not particularly concerned about the cake, Lindsey studied the quiet contentment on the faces of the couple in front of her.

Serena and Cameron had met under extraordinary circumstances—she’d found him lying on the side of a road, beaten half to death, with no memory of who he was or how he’d gotten there. Just about five months later they were married. Cameron had recovered most of his memories of his past, but he had told Lindsey without embarrassment that, as far as he was concerned, his life hadn’t really begun until he’d awoken in a hospital room to find Serena leaning over him.

Though she’d teased him about being a sentimental softie, Lindsey had actually been touch

ed by Cameron’s confession. She’d also been aware of a ripple of envy. Serena and Cam had known so quickly that they were right for each other. How could it have been that easy?

Okay, so she knew it hadn’t been that easy. She had seen the way Serena suffered during the weeks that Cameron had gone back to Texas to rediscover his past, before he’d come to the realization that this was where he wanted to spend his future. But it certainly hadn’t taken him twenty years to learn to appreciate what had been right in front of him.

Determined not to waste any more of her birthday moping over Dan, she pasted on a bright smile and playfully demanded that someone bring her a slice of her birthday cake. She laughed when at least six people immediately thrust plates of cake in front of her. She had lots of friends, she reminded herself. A job she enjoyed. The freedom to pursue her dreams wherever they led her. And if the romantic dream that had led her back here wasn’t meant to be—well, she’d find a new dream somewhere else.

Twenty years was long enough to invest in a fantasy that she was beginning to believe was never meant to come true.

The following morning, as she did on the rare Saturday mornings when she wasn’t working, Lindsey made a haphazard attempt at housework, zipping through the house in which she’d grown up, a dust cloth in one hand and a broom in the other. She’d inherited the three-bedroom house three months ago, when her father had passed away after a lengthy illness. He’d died on the Monday after New Year’s Day, a sad holiday this year—just as Christmas had been, since he’d been becoming weaker and weaker. Lindsey’s many friends in Edstown had made sure she’d spent little time alone during the holidays.

Her older brother, B.J., a career military man, had insisted that the house should be Lindsey’s as she’d spent the past two years living there and taking care of their father. Even though she’d argued that she’d done so only because she wanted to, B.J. had refused to accept part ownership of the house, settling, instead, for a portion of the modest insurance settlement.

During the past couple of weeks, Lindsey had been thinking about putting the house on the market. When it sold, she would insist that B.J. accept part of the proceeds. She could take a job in a bigger market— Little Rock, Atlanta, maybe Dallas—where she could start a new life. She had the credentials, the ambition, a few connections. There was nothing holding her here now.

Nothing at all, she thought with a wistful little sigh.

Her doorbell rang just as she finished running the vacuum cleaner in the living room. Glancing down, she wrinkled her nose at her appearance. Oversize green T-shirt, baggy denim shorts, fuzzy purple house shoes. Her hair stood in messy red spikes around her smudged face. She looked like an orphan from the cast of Annie, she thought with a shake of her head. Hoping her caller was a salesperson or a close pal rather than her minister or the mayor’s wife—neither of whom she was expecting—she opened the door.

As it had for the better part of twenty years, her heart tripped when she saw Dan Meadows on her doorstep. As she had since she’d gotten old enough to understand the meaning of the word “pride,” she hid her reaction behind an impudent grin. “Well, hey, Chief. Whazzup?”

Dressed in an oatmeal-colored cotton sweater and a pair of faded jeans, he eyed her skimpy attire. “Lose your calendar? It’s the first week of March, not the middle of summer.”

“I’ve been cleaning,” she said with a shrug.

“Ah. That explains your new perfume. I thought you’d switched to Eau d’Pine.”

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