Vision of Darkness (2 page)

Christ, that gesture should be illegal. He tried to shift to a more comfortable, discreet position on the stool. Pru scribbled again and, satisfied her pen would work, sent him another bright smile.

“Okay, Boston, you want something to eat with that coffee? We have the best pumpkin pie for miles.”

Alex prayed the counter had enough of an overhang that she wouldn’t see how much her gesture had affected him. “Yeah, uh, I’ll start off with a piece. When I saw the sign out front, I couldn’t ignore it. Pie’s my weakness.” And, apparently, so were dark-haired, blue-eyed waitresses.

“You’re in for a treat then.”

She bent over to remove a pie from the glass case. Her ass was round and lush, made for a man’s hands to grab, and he noticed he wasn’t the only male at the counter looking at it. A surge of protectiveness washed through his blood.

Jesus, he really had to get a grip. She wasn’t his to protect.

“How’d you know I’m from Boston?” He watched her slice the pie with quick, efficient movements and then slide one piece onto a plate.

“The accent,” she said and set the plate in front of him.

“I don’t have an accent. Everyone else does.”

“Classic Boston response.” She laughed and it had to be one of the best sounds he’d heard in a while. He grinned like a fool as she pointed the spatula at his nose. “But even if I hadn’t heard you talk, I could still tell. I lived there for a while during college. All you Boston guys have this air of cockiness about you, like you’re God’s gift to womankind or something.”

He shrugged, picked up his fork and dug in. “You know what they say. Once you go Boston, that’s what you be wantin’.”

“Oh, boy. That
was corny.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t my best line,” he admitted, pleased that he had made her laugh again. “I’m Alex, by the way.”

A male hand shot between them and settled on her arm before she could shake the hand he offered. Alex looked at it, not comprehending where it had come from. For a while, everyone else had faded into the background, leaving him and Pru as the only two people left in the diner.

She shrugged off the man’s hand. “Rhett, relax. I’ll get you guys your beers in just a minute.”

Alex turned on his stool to study Rhett—Big Fish—and felt a distinct threat of violence from the other man. He bit back a groan. Dammit, of course a woman like Pru would be taken. As much as he liked her, he wasn’t interested in starting any domestic disputes, so he smiled as amiably as he could at the other man.

“Good pie.”

“Yeah, it is,” Rhett said, eyeing him up and down. Then he turned away like a prince dismissing a peasant. “Pru, the beers? Now.”

Every protective instinct in Alex roared with outrage as she rolled her eyes and walked toward the refrigeration unit. He didn’t care who she was, a waitress or a princess, Madonna or whore, a woman should never have to put up with that kind of treatment from a man. He wanted to say something. Oh, how he wanted to say something and bit hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from making a remark that would start a brawl. Rhett and his buddies at the other end of the counter had obviously been drinking for a while. One wrong word, they might explode. While Alex was sure he could take each of them separately, they had him outnumbered eight to one. Bad odds even if all eight were sloppy drunk.

Besides, Pru wasn’t his to protect.

He flagged down the other waitress—her nametag read Miranda—and asked for a to-go box. He’d find somewhere else to stop for a bigger dinner, but until then the pie should tie him over.

For a half second, he considered leaving his cell phone number with Pru’s tip, but that was probably just as suicidal as going up against Rhett and company in a fight. He didn’t need that kind of trouble. He had to relax, get his head on straight and figure out a way to talk the powers-that-be into letting him keep his job. He didn’t need to get tangled up with any woman right now.

Even as the thought went through his head, he glanced back at her through the diner’s window.

CHAPTER 2

Pru Maddox watched from the prep area of the kitchen as Alex left, something inside her twisting at the thought of never seeing him again. She slammed his dirty dish on the counter with a thunk.

“God! Rhett is a jackass, you know that?”

“And you’re just now discovering this?” Miranda shouldered through the door with a basin of dirty dishes tucked under her arm and a plate of uneaten food in her hand. “Jones,” she called to the cook, “we need another chicken sandwich and for the love of all that is holy, do something about your hair. If I lose one more tip because a costumer finds hair in their food, you can bet I’m gonna be in here with a razor.”  

Back by the grill, Jones grunted in reply. Pru glanced over her shoulder at him and grimaced. The blond beard that hid half his face was extra fluffy today and his hair hung in greasy hanks over his eyes. He was an amazing cook, but if his hygiene and attendance didn’t improve, she’d have to find another. “Jones, please put on a hairnet.”

He grunted again but grabbed a hairnet from the box on the prep counter, snapped it on his head, and shuffled back to the grill.     

Miranda sent him a narrowed-eyed scowl, dumped the rejected sandwich in the garbage and the dishes into the sink. With a sigh, she leaned against the counter. “What a day. You know what? I can’t wait for winter. No baseball games, no football.”

“Hockey,” Pru suggested.

“Ugh! Someone should tell them this is a diner, not a bar.” She rolled the kinks out of her neck, and then yanked the band from her slipping ponytail. Straight blonde hair tumbled down, brushing her shoulders without a flyaway or even a kink.

Pru scowled at her. “I hate when you do that.” She could never pull out her ponytail and have her wavy locks look like they were just styled. After a couple hours of work, she usually had to throw on her ball cap to keep her mane under control.

“What can I say?” Miranda grinned, flipped her head upside-down and gathered her hair into another tail. “I was blessed in the hair department. But you got the body.” She snapped the band back into place and straightened. “So Rhett scared Mr. Boston away, huh? He probably wasn’t worth it then. If he was really interested, he would’ve fought for you.”

“Miranda! Jeez, it wasn’t like that. He’s just a nice guy passing through. I don’t blame him for backing off when Rhett started pulling his macho bullshit. The man is ridiculous. Like a rooster strutting around the henhouse.”

“And he’s not even all that good in bed.”

Pru stared at her best friend, jaw hanging open. “You’ve slept with Rhett Swithin?”

“Oops.” She bit down on her lower lip and glanced around to be sure nobody else was in earshot. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Yes. And I can’t believe it. You never told me that.”

“It’s just a … thing that started after you left for school and got engaged. He was heartbroken; I was horny. These things just happen.”

“An ongoing thing?”

Miranda turned away and started running water over the dirty dishes. “Uh… maybe sometimes. It’s no big deal.”

Pru laughed and looped an arm over her shoulders. “Oh, honey, you can do so much better.”

“I know, right?” She plunged her hands into the soapy water. “I’m a slave to my hormones. You have to admit, the man’s hot. Not as hot as Boston…”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Whatever. Rhett went on his macho trip because you and Boston were shooting sparks off each other like a Fourth of July show.” She flung her hands out and soap bubbles flew. “And he left you a ten dollar tip for a slice of pie. I wonder if he still would’ve done that had he known you’re rich.”

Pru shook her head. “I’m not rich.”

“You had enough to buy and start restoring that creepy, old lighthouse.”

Jones hit the little silver bell indicating an order was up, and Pru walked over to the serving window to retrieve the chicken sandwich. “Yes, but it was Dad’s money and it’s what he would’ve wanted.”

“I don’t know how you can live up there.” Miranda gave a dramatic shudder. “All the ghost stories and then Cappy Putnam hanging himself from the tower last year… Ugh. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.”

Pru shrugged and headed toward the door with the order. “I do hear footsteps sometimes, but I figure The Green Lady was there first. It was her home before it was mine.”

“Still, a ghost as a roommate? No thanks. I’ll take my dumpy trailer over a haunted lighthouse any day. That’s going to table six, by the way.”

Pru took the order out, placed two more, and cleared off all the booths along the back wall before the lunch rush began to calm and she could take her break. She grabbed a sandwich from the kitchen and decided on a stroll down Main Street to get the smell of fried fish out of her nose.

She found a spot to sit on a bench by the little brick building that served as town hall. At the intersection, Mrs. Helen Mallory, the mayor’s wife and town events planner, stood in the middle of the street directing her poor son, Kevin, to raise one side of the Halloween banner, only to have Josiah Wilson lower the other. Traffic was at a standstill, but Helen paid no attention to the flashy Lexus that hadn’t known enough to take a side road. She crossed her arms over her ample chest.

“Kevin, it’s too high now! It’s all crooked. Do I need to come up there and do it myself? It needs to go lower!” She whirled around as Josiah snickered. “Don’t you laugh at him, Josiah Wilson. Your side’s too tight. I want it to flow.” She swayed her hands whimsically to demonstrate.

Josiah groaned, sent Pru an exaggerated eye roll, but climbed back up the ladder to loosen the rope. Nobody dared disobey the formidable Mrs. Helen Mallory.

Pru hid her smile behind a bite of her sandwich. Home. Just what she needed after the horror show her life had turned into this past year. Why had she ever believed there was anywhere better than home?

She wondered what Alex had seen when he’d drove into her town. If he didn’t get out of the city much, he had to be a bit culture shocked. Her first trip to a big city as a teenager fresh out of high school had left her feeling both alive and strangely claustrophobic. Would the aspens, pines, and mountain ashes close in on him as the skyscrapers had her? Or would he see the quiet beauty that she saw in the trees and ragged cliffs? She hoped he saw the beauty. He looked like a man in need of something beautiful in his life. His smile hadn’t come at all easily and when it did, it never reached his broody eyes.

Pru scoffed at herself even as she pictured him again. The faded jeans, the brown leather bomber jacket, the sunglasses shoved back on his head. As Miranda had put it, he was hot—if you went for the devil-may-care type and Pru didn’t. Or at least, not usually, but thinking about him now brought a warm flush to her skin.

A day’s worth of stubble shaded his square jaw. His coffee colored hair hinted of red highlights—natural, she’d guess since he didn’t strike her as a metrosexual manscaper type who highlighted his hair—and the cut was short and neat. His body… Oh, yum. All long and lean with toned legs that looked chiseled out of stone under the denim of his jeans. He probably looked damn good in just his shorts. Or in nothing at all.

“Stop,” she told herself. Not going to go there.

Tourists were off-limits when it came to naked fantasies. The last thing she needed on her plate was another broken heart with a side of guilt, and Alex had all the right ingredients for a serving. Good thing she’d never see him again.

But…then why did it feel so wrong?

Pru didn’t dare analyze that question, even in her own thoughts. Appetite gone, she folded what was left of her sandwich into a napkin. She stood with every intention of returning to the diner, when a raised voice drew her attention to Helen and company on the road. Her heart bumped once with shock, then skittered around in her chest. Alex stood beside an idling Lexus looking fatigued and pained as Helen shook her finger at him.

He held up his hands in surrender. “Lookit, ma’am, I just want to get by. I’ve been on the road all day and I’m tired.”

“You city people,” Helen chided. “Always rush, rush, rush. The road’s not going anywhere.” She turned and studied the banner with her hands on her hips. “These decorations are important to this town, young man. Pumpkinfest is a to-do around here and they have to be perfect.”

“It’ll be Halloween before you get them up,” he muttered and rubbed a hand over the lower half of his face.

Pru saw the lecture brewing on Helen’s pursed lips and decided to take pity on him. She walked over. The subtle straightening in his posture when he spotted her made her grin. He was obviously exhausted, but still trying to be a macho man. She wished she could read his eyes through the lens of those dark sunglasses.

“Mrs. Mallory?” Pru positioned herself between him and Helen and infused her voice with excitement. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but I just had to come over and tell you the decorations look amazing. I especially like the lighted pumpkins on the lampposts. Are those new this year?”

Helen beamed. “As a matter of fact. Richard didn’t want to spend the extra money, but I talked him into it.”

“You can assure Mayor Mallory it was well spent.”

“Thank you.” She fluffed her hair then brushed imaginary lint off the lapel of her powder blue jacket.

A moment of silence trickled by.

“Well,” Helen said in an exaggerated, polite tone, “I have things to do. Can’t stand around chatting all day. You”—she jabbed a lethal fingernail at Alex’s nose—“need to learn some manners.”

Alex let out an explosive breath as Helen trotted off. “Oh, man. I could kiss you for that.”

Please do.
Heat exploded on Pru’s cheeks and she saw the blush reflect in the lens of his shades. She looked away, focused on Josiah and Kevin, now struggling to hoist one of the lighted pumpkins up a nearby lamppost. “You just have to know how to handle her.”

“Still…” He hooked a finger under her chin and brought her gaze back to his. He’d shoved his sunglasses onto the top of his head. “Thanks.”

“I—” With those eyes on her, how could any woman expect to breathe? “You’re welcome.”

There was something…familiar…about him and her heart ached with a longing she couldn’t comprehend. Sure, she’d been lonely since her divorce, but that couldn’t possibly account for such a visceral reaction to him. She rubbed her temple, closed her eyes and drew in a calming breath to ease away the feeling. What she really wanted was to stand on her toes and taste the hard line of his mouth—even imagined herself grabbing two fistfuls of his hair and yanking his lips to hers, which was a perfectly ridiculous thing to want. She didn’t know him and wasn’t in the habit of kissing men she didn’t know. In fact, since her divorce, she had not been in the habit of kissing any men, period. But staring at Alex, at the solid line of his shaded jaw and narrowed eyes, she wished for just one second she could be as reckless as Miranda.

Alex appeared just as surprised by the contact of his fingers on her chin as she was. He dropped his hand, backed up a step, and she watched a shutter slam down over his face. His expression became all hard, suspicious lines again—same as when he first entered the diner before she coaxed a smile out of him. The bizarre intimacy dissipated like the last tendrils of fog under morning sun and the longing in her chest vanished. She mourned it almost as much as she was relieved it had passed.

They were strangers again.

Alex rubbed a hand around the back of his neck and glanced away, but not fast enough to hide the dazed expression in his eyes. “Uh, I need to get going.”

“Of course.” Her voice came out breathless. She wanted to fidget. Instead, she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her coat and concentrated on Kevin and Josiah as they continued to struggle with the heavy decoration. “Have a safe trip.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He stared at her for a second too long then replaced his sunglasses. He walked toward his car, but stopped short of it. He shook his head and turned back. “Pru, listen, I know we just met—”

Overhead, Kevin lost his grip on the grinning pumpkin. The decoration ripped out of Josiah’s grasp and smashed to the sidewalk nearly on top of Alex, its colored bulbs bursting into orange and black shrapnel. Pru swallowed a cry as Alex dove behind his car.

“Oh, God. Oh, shit.” Kevin scrambled from the ladder and over to where Alex was laying on his back by the front tire of his car. “Oh, God. Oh, shit.”

“Kevin!” Helen’s high-heels crunched over the scattered bits of colored plastic as she hurried over. She frowned at the broken pumpkin, then over at Kevin. “What did you do?”

“I-I don’t know. I’m sorry, Mom. One minute I had it and the next….” He trailed off and his hangdog face went green. “We should call the ambulance. He’s bleeding. He’s not moving. Oh God.”

“No.” Alex finally stirred. He sat up and wiped a hand down his face, smearing the blood that bubbled from a little cut over his eyebrow. “No, it’s all right. It’s a scrape. I’m fine.”

Alex climbed to his feet, using the car to steady himself. His eyes locked on Pru and concern flashed in their gray depths. He angled between Helen and Kevin.

“Pru, are you okay?” Alex asked. “You’re white as hell. Here, sit down.”

For a moment, it had been like watching a movie with the comfortable distance of a screen between her and the action. She snapped back at the sound of his voice. Her insides screamed with terror, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t think beyond the fear of what could have happened. In her mind’s eye, she saw Alex still lying on the pavement, unmoving in a pool of spreading blood. A slice of glass had severed an artery and there was no saving him. Blood everywhere, just like in Portland when her life fell apart and two others brutally ended.