A Marked Man. Stella Cameron

would be Michele Riley, the woman Max had mentioned hoping to hire for the new clinic.

      “Of course I’m worried,” Max said. “Look, I’m gonna have to come in and have a chat, but not today.”

      While he listened to Spike his color deepened. “Kelly’s the detail man,” he said. “He dealt with the employment information we need to have on file for her. He knows what’s happened. I’ll have him call you…okay? We’ll get back to you.”

      Slowly, Annie turned her eyes toward Max. While he listened to Sheriff Spike Devol, a pale line formed around his mouth. When he spoke again, even his voice sounded different, with no trace of the warmth she expected.

      He shoved the phone onto his belt. “I want to get away from here, now. Annie, I could use your company. Or can’t you do that?”

      She paused. A quick explanation that she had to get back to work would set her free. Only she would rather be with him. “I can take a little while.” She wouldn’t pry. If he wanted her to know about his problems, he would let her know.

      Max moved quickly, his strides long enough to press Annie into a trot. He aimed his key, and the lights on his gray Boxster blinked. He didn’t slow down until he took a moment to see her inside the car and close the door. Within seconds he got behind the wheel, and sat swiping water from his face. He turned on the engine and drove from the lot, too fast for the slick conditions.

      Without looking at her, or saying a word, he grabbed his phone again and pressed a button. “Come on, come on. Kelly? Yeah, hi, it’s Max. Just got off the phone with Spike…No, dammit, I told him what I found out from the Hibbses, nothing else. Get Michele’s information. Home address, contract, whatever you’ve got. Take it to Spike at his office.” He stopped talking and his attention seemed to wander. “Spike can find out if she was on her plane back to New York today. I forgot to ask if he’d already done that.”

      He looked at her. She got another mouth-only smile and pushed a fist into her stomach. This was panicking her and she’d already been through enough in the past twenty-four hours.

      “Did you sleep last night?” he asked, pressing the mouthpiece against his shoulder. He figured he already knew the answer. Annie looked sick. She blinked rapidly as if her eyes stung.

      “Of course I slept,” she said, sounding defensive and not like the Annie he was trying to know.

      “Is that why your eyes look like black holes and you’re so stressed you’d probably break if someone touched you. What did you do to yourself?” He had noticed before, but never mentioned several small, silvered areas on both sides of her hands. Old, insignificant burn scars. Severe burns, taking away the disfigurement they caused, were part of his life, but Annie’s weren’t even near his league. However, today she did have a new gauze dressing on the left side.

      “I’m fine,” she protested. “Never been better. Mornings aren’t my favorites, that’s all.” She didn’t explain the bandage.

      Max didn’t believe her. Absently, he heard Kelly’s muffled, angry voice.

      Annie didn’t intend to talk about what had happened at the church. She returned Max’s blue stare. “Do you think I’m lyin’?”

      The road curved but he took the bends with absent ease.

      Annie felt every turn of the wheel, the frequent corrections the car made, and looked doggedly at her lap.

      “Have you finished?” Max said into the phone, repeatedly glancing back at Annie. “Oh, yes you have. No, I’m not telling you the details—let Spike tell you. I can’t face it. Not yet. Hell, I don’t know but it’s all too familiar. I’m going for a drive…Because I need to.”

      He turned off the phone—all the way off—and headed north. Annie wanted to know where they were going but didn’t ask.

      Yellow and brown leaves fell from deciduous trees. Some caught in the windshield wipers and slapped back and forth. The rising fog layer steamed as if the rain falling from misty skies were boiling. Billowing vapor rolled from the road and coiled away between trees on either side. Patchy visibility cleared for brief moments before disappearing into ghostly clouds that took the car in a suffocating embrace.

      If she asked him to slow down, or even to wait for the conditions to improve, would he turn his strange hostile voice on her, and allow his face to look as it had outside Pappy’s?

      Max leaned forward slightly. His damp knuckles were white, the tendons on the backs of his hands and wrists, distended.

      “I’m sorry,” he said suddenly and glanced at her. He heard himself swallow. “Really sorry, Annie. I don’t know what got into me, bringing you with me like this. I’m not good company.” This was probably the only appealing woman he had known who didn’t feel her own power over a man. Reticence hovered behind her eyes. Yet she was lovely, her shoulder-length hair smooth and fair, her eyes remarkable for their catlike, almost amber color and her mouth soft, full and inviting. And Annie was slim with gentle curves and long legs.

      But Annie Duhon, a thoughtful, gentle woman, had a tough side. She ran Pappy’s with an ease he admired and he had witnessed how she used humor to cut through difficult encounters. Max didn’t think he would enjoy being on the wrong end of Annie’s displeasure. He smiled slightly at the thought.

      “Me, I kind of like wild days like this,” Annie said, feeling silly but desperate to break the tension. Each time he glanced at her she felt as if he touched her. Her breathing grew shallower, her lungs tight.

      “I can tell I’m upsetting you,” he said. “I’ll go back.”

      “Don’t,” she said. “You said you needed my company. I’m here for you. If you want to talk, I’m ready to listen.” She had never been able to walk away from someone in need. Sometimes that had been a mistake but it couldn’t be with Max…could it?

      “Thanks,” he said and drove on more slowly.

      He thumped the steering wheel and Annie jumped. Her hands trembled and she wound them tightly together. If things did get sticky, she would find a way to bail out. She’d learned the hard way about not allowing a man to trap her where she could be overpowered.

      Max wasn’t the type to overpower anyone.

      She touched his arm. “It’s none of my business, but you’re worried. Is somethin’ wrong with the person you interviewed yesterday? Michele?”

      “I don’t know.” He didn’t, and he didn’t want to talk about it—or think about it, for God’s sake.

      “Okay.” She wished she hadn’t asked.

      “You’re shaking,” he said. “I’ve scared you. Dammit! This isn’t like me. Those bastards are getting what they want, they’re turning me into a madman.”

      “Who?” she said automatically.

      “Let it go.”

      If it might not turn out to be a really bad idea, she would tell him what she thought about being a captive audience for someone in a foul temper.

      “Bail,” she said, not meaning to speak aloud. She cleared her throat.

      A strong hand settled over both of hers. “There’s no reason for me to bail. I’m going through a rough patch is all. And I’m getting ahead of myself. Do you like bagels?” He continued to hold her hands. “Remember a little restaurant in St. Martinville called Char’s Bagels?”

      “No.” She looked around. St. Martinville? The weather, the fog, had disoriented her, if it hadn’t, she’d have asked him to go somewhere other than St. Martinville—anywhere but there. The town where she’d grown up wasn’t so far from Toussaint but she’d left a long time ago and never returned since.

      “You’ll love it. Every kind of bagel and every flavor whipped cream cheese you can think of. Smoked salmon. Capers. Paper-thin onions. Great coffee.”