“She is good at reading people.” Annie frowned, looking around the room. “I’m a little surprised she’s not here checking you out about now. She’s usually really interested in visitors.”
“Probably figured I wasn’t worth bothering about.”
“Everybody’s worth bothering about.”
He grinned appreciatively and pushed his nearly empty coffee cup toward her. “That’s good stuff on a cold night.”
“I’m glad you liked it.” She stood up and picked up the cup, but she didn’t offer him more. “Thanks again, Roy, for coming by. I’m sure I’ll be fine now.”
He looked a little disappointed, but he was polite enough to take the hint.
“Did you find out anything else about your friend?”
“No. That’s what’s so frustrating about all this. If whoever is sending the notes knew how little I actually know about anything, he—or she—would quit. Why try to scare me if there’s nothing to scare me away from?”
Roy shrugged and zipped his jacket up to his chin. “We might never find out why. Or who.”
“In that case, I’m sorry to have wasted so much of your time.”
“Don’t you believe it.” He gave her a wink. “Not a minute of it has been a waste.”
“Thanks. I don’t know why I’m so jumpy lately.”
“Anybody would be, with what’s been going on,” he said as they walked back to the front of the house. “I’d be surprised if you weren’t.”
“I guess you learn a lot about people in doing police work.”
“Oh yeah. You figure out what makes them tick. After a while, it gets to be pretty predictable.”
When they reached the door, before she could do more than unlock it, he turned her toward him.
“Annie, I—”
Suddenly, he was leaning toward her, his lips almost touching hers as she pulled away. Before the shock really registered, he released her.
“Now you know.”
She had an almost uncontrollable urge to laugh. Not because she thought it was funny, but because she didn’t quite know what else to do. But she held it in. She didn’t want to hurt him, even though she knew she would have to. There was no need to humiliate him on top of that.
“Roy.”
That was all she said, but he could obviously read everything in her expression.
“Don’t say anything. You don’t have to say anything right now.”
“I have to, Roy. I appreciate your help with everything that’s going on, but I don’t want you to imagine that there’s any possibility of anything more than that. I told you about my husband, Wayne. There isn’t room for anyone else in my heart right now. There may never be.”
He ducked his head. “I understand how you feel. I just wanted you to understand how I feel.”
“I may not even be here in Stony Point much longer. It would be silly for us to get involved, knowing that I might be 1,600 miles away next month.”
“But you might not be.”
“But that wouldn’t change anything. I still wouldn’t be ready for a new relationship.”
She didn’t want to have to say more, but she knew that, even if she was ready to fall in love again, it wouldn’t be with him. She softened her expression. “Roy, it’s sweet of you, but I don’t want to lead you on. I don’t want you to keep hoping—”
“I guess I can if I want to.” There was a shadow of a grin once more on his face. “You’d get to like me if you gave me a chance. You know you would.”
She smiled too. She did like him better than she had when she had first met him, but liking was all it would ever be. “You’d be better off finding somebody else, Roy. Somebody who’s looking for a guy like you. Somebody who’s going to be here a long time.”
“You can’t leave now, you know. We haven’t solved your mystery yet.”
“No, I suppose you’re right about that. As long as I keep getting these notes, I know there’s something somebody doesn’t want me to find out. And that just makes me more determined to find out what’s going on.”
He leaned one elbow against the door frame. “That’s part of what I like about you. You don’t give up.”
“Roy.” She exhaled heavily and looked directly into his eyes so there would be no mistake. “Sometimes I have to give up. Sometimes what I want just isn’t going to happen.”
“But you don’t give up at the first bump in the road either, or you’d never get anywhere. Look, I’m not asking you for anything. Let me do my job on this case. Let me keep an eye out for you while it’s going on. Who knows where we’ll be when it’s all over?”