Page 29 of Bachelor Cop Finally Caught? (Hot off the Press! 2)

She remembered the dream in painfully vivid detail.

If she’d needed any further evidence that she was turning into a neurotic, sexually frustrated bundle of nerves, that erotically detailed dream would have ended all doubt. And if she’d had any remaining hope that she’d finally managed to get over Dan, seeing his face—along with the rest of him—so clearly in the dream had evaporated it.

Why couldn’t she have dreamed about playing rodeo with Bo? she asked herself in exasperation. Or getting wild and wicked with Matt Damon or Ricky Martin or Clay Walker—or one of those other unobtainable stud-muffins other healthy women her age fantasized about? Why did she have to keep experiencing these disturbing dreams of making love with Dan?

When it came to him, she was still the foolishly infatuated, daydreaming adolescent she’d always been. She hated herself for it, but she couldn’t seem to get past it. Not as long as she stayed here in this town, she told herself, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Not as long as she could see him every day. Work with him. Talk to him. Touch him. Ache to be touched in return.

These weren’t the feelings of a love-struck teenager, she thought with a low moan. These were the longings of a woman who was desperately, hopelessly in love with a man who would never see her as anything more than a good friend.

She had to get out of this town, she told herself again, burying her face in her hands. Soon.

Leaving couldn’t hurt any worse than staying.

Chapter Seven

Dan opened the door of his office Thursday to find Lindsey standing on the other side, one hand raised to knock. She dropped her arm. “Oh, sorry. Hazel isn’t at her desk….”

Dan masked any awkward feelings he might be experiencing about seeing Lindsey so unexpectedly behind a brusque reply. “She had a dentist appointment. And I’m on my way out.”

“Are you going to see Opal Stamps?”

His left eyebrow shot upward. “How did you know that?”

“She called me. She wants me to come with you.”

He sighed. “As a reporter, I take it.”

Her face impassive, Lindsey nodded. “Of course.”

She was dressed in working clothes—bright-blue sweater set, black slacks and boots. The garments looked new, Dan decided. As did the cool, shuttered expression in her eyes.

“What did Mrs. Stamps tell you?” he asked as she turned and matched her steps to his, nodding to the people they passed in the hallway.

“That her son, Eddie, didn’t come home from school Monday afternoon. She thought he’d gone to his father’s house because she and Eddie quarreled all last weekend. But when she called there today, thinking he’d had time to cool off, she found out that he hadn’t been there all week.”

“That’s what she told me when she called. She was half-hysterical. I told her I’d send an officer to take the report, but she insisted I come myself. There was something else I had to finish here first, but it’s only been half an hour since she called.”

“She must have called me immediately after she hung up with you. She was a little more than half-hysterical by the time I talked to her. She said you aren’t taking her seriously, that you don’t think Eddie is really missing. She knows about me because Eddie used to do odd jobs at the newspaper after school, and he and I always got along well. She wants me to come with you to make sure the information makes the papers. She wants Eddie’s picture and description circulated so readers will help her find him if the police don’t pay enough attention to the case.”

“As I explained to Mrs. Stamps, Eddie is eighteen years old. If he’s decided to quit school and move out on his own, there’s not much we can do about it.”

“And what if something really has happened to him?”

“Doubtful.” Stepping out into the parking lot, he spotted her car in one of the spaces. He motioned toward his truck. “Since we’re going the same way, we might as well carpool. I’ll bring you back here to your car afterward.”

He read the momentary hesitation on her face before she shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

They’d shared rides dozens of times in the past, he reminded himself. Neither of them had ever thought twice about it before.

As fond as he was of Marjorie Schaffer, he wished he’d never had that conversation with her on Tuesday. That friendly chat had planted the doubts that had haunted him ever since. Had Lindsey once harbored feelings for him? Were the changes he had sensed in her somehow related to those feelings, or was he totally off base?

Lindsey waited until they were both belted in to the truck and Dan had started the engine before asking, “Why do you think it’s doubtful that anything has happened to Eddie?”

“It isn’t the first time Eddie’s taken off li

ke this. Every time he gets into a quarrel with one of his parents, he runs away. We usually find him staying at a buddy’s house.”

“Mrs. Stamps said it’s different this time. She said he’s never stayed away this long without calling. She’s talked to the friends he usually goes to when he’s angry, and none of them knows where he is.”

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