Wolfe Wanting. Joan Hohl

Wolfe, Pennsylvania State Police.” He raised his hand, palm out, displaying his identification as he moved nearer to the bed for her to examine it up close.

      Megan wanted to feel pressured, put-upon, persecuted, but she couldn't. She wanted to scream a demand to be left alone. But she couldn't do that, either. She looked at his face, at the long red scratch from his eye to his jaw, and felt sick inside—even sicker than she already felt.

      “I...I, er...I'm sorry.” Megan felt a hot sting behind her eyelids, and lowered her gaze. Damn! She would not cry. She would not let this man, any man, bear witness to her weakness.

      “Sorry?” He frowned. “For what?”

      The hot sting vanished from her eyes. Her head snapped up. Her eyes narrowed. Was this a trick? What could possibly be his purpose for playing this “For what” game? He knew full well what she was sorry for.

      “Your face,” she said, unaware that her voice had lost a small corner of its frailty. “I've marked you, however unintentionally, and I'm sorry.”

      “Oh, that?” He moved the hand he still held aloft near to his face, and drew his index finger the length of the scratch. “It's surface. I'm not branded for life.” Then he smiled, and damned if his smile wasn't golden brown, as well.

      How could she think of startlingly white teeth as golden brown? Megan chided herself, staring in near-mesmerized fascination at him. And yet it was. His smile lit up not only his face, but the entire room, like a burst of pure golden sunlight through a dark and angry cloud.

      Megan didn't like it. She didn't trust it. But there wasn't a thing she could do about it. She had run her car, her beautiful new car, into a guardrail. And this...this golden-haired, golden-smiled one-up-on-a-Greek-god was the law. He was in charge here. Although he hadn't yet given so much as a hint of flaunting his authority, he was in a position to do so.

       Just get it over with.

      The cry rang inside Megan's head, its echo creating an ache to fill the void of its passing. Suddenly, she needed to weep, she needed to sleep, she needed to be left alone. Distracted, agitated, she lifted a hand to rub her temple.

      “Pain?”

      Megan wasn't quite sure which startled her more, the sharp concern in his voice, or the sudden sound of his ID folder snapping shut. Before she could gather her senses enough to answer, he was moving to the door.

      “I'll get a nurse.”

      “No!” She flung out her hand—as if she could reach him, all the way near the door, from her bed. “I'm all right. It's just a dull headache.”

      He turned back to run an encompassing look over her pale face, his startling blue eyes probing the depths of her equally blue, though now lackluster, eyes.

      “You sure?” One toasty eyebrow climbed up and under the silky lock of hair that had fallen onto his forehead.

      “Positive.” Megan sighed, and nodded. “Please, have a seat.” She indicated the chair placed to one side of the bed. “I'd like to get this over with.”

      “Well...” He brushed at the errant lock of hair as he slowly returned to her bedside. “If you're sure you don't need anything for pain?” The brow inched upward again.

      “I'm sure,” she answered, suppressing yet another sigh. “It'll pass.”

      “All things do.”

      Strangely convinced that his murmured reply was not merely the voicing of conventional comfort, but a genuine and heartfelt belief, Megan watched him lower his considerable length into the average-size chair.

      He should have appeared funny, folded into the small seat, and yet he didn't. He looked... comfortable.

      “In your own words, Miss Delaney,” he said, offering her a gentle smile. “And in your own time.” He glanced at his watch. “I'm in no hurry.”

      Megan felt inordinately grateful for his compassion and understanding. She dreaded the coming purge, the dredging up of details, the accompanying resurgence of fear.

      “I...I...”

      “Start at the very beginning,” he inserted, his voice soft with encouragement.

      “Thank you, Sergeant, I—” She broke off when he raised a hand in the familiar “halt” gesture.

      “Let's make this as easy as possible. Considering the circumstances, I think we can dispense with the sergeant and sir stuff. Okay?” Both toasty brows peaked.

      “Yes, but what should I call you?”

      “My name's Royce,” he said. “Royce Wolfe.”

      Royce Wolfe. Megan tested the name silently, deciding at once that she liked it. “Okay, Royce,” she agreed, “but on one condition. And that is that you call me Megan.”

      “Deal.” His teeth flashed in a disarming smile. Withdrawing a notebook and pen from his jacket pocket, he settled into the chair. “Whenever you're ready...Megan.”

      “I have one question.”

      “Shoot.”

      “Well, you said I should start at the beginning,” she said, frowning. “Where? Of the evening, of the atta—” The very word stuck in her throat.

      Megan drew a breath before trying another attempt; Royce was faster.

      “You can start from the day of your birth,” he suggested, quite seriously. “If that's easier for you.”

      “My birth?” Megan frowned again. “Why, I was born right here, in Conifer. I grew up here, lived here until I went away to college.” The frown line smoothed at the realization that starting from the very beginning was easier.

      “That was probably before I was assigned to duty here,” Royce reasoned aloud. “What college did you attend?”

      “Kutztown State, now University.” She smiled. “It offered a great fine-arts program.”

      “You're an artist?” He sounded impressed.

      “No.” Oddly, Megan hated having to disillusion him. “It didn't take long to discover that I wasn't good enough for that. I'm an illustrator.”

      Royce was quick to correct her. “Illustrators are artists. Norman Rockwell was an illustrator, and so was the first of the painting Wyeths....”

      “Well, yes, of course, but...” Megan broke off to frown at him. How had they strayed from the point, and what difference did it make, anyway? “Does it matter?”

      “Not really.” Royce grinned at her. “But you are a lot less nervous than when I came in.”

      Megan smiled. She couldn't help smiling. “Yes, I am. Thank you.”

      “You're welcome.” His voice was low, honeyed, encouraging. “Ready to continue?”

      “Yes. Where was I?”

      “You didn't return to Conifer after college,” he said, prompting her.

      “Oh, right.” Megan shrugged. “I had decided that to succeed, I would have to go where the action was—that being New York City, naturally.”

      “Naturally,” he concurred in a drawl.

      “I was right, you know.”

      “I don't doubt it.” Royce appeared extremely relaxed in the small chair. “I personally wouldn't like to live there,” he added. “But I don't doubt that you were right.”

      Megan sighed—damned if he hadn't hit the nail directly on the head.

      “After all this time, I finally discovered that I personally don't like living there, either,” she confessed. “That's why I jumped at the excuse to come home for a while.”