His declaration, especially with his use of her first name, nearly bowled Chloe over, but before he could change his mind, she grabbed her camera.

While Sarah, briskly sweeping the floor, chuckled softly, Macks mother said, Ill put some pecan sandies in a sack and some milk in a thermos.

Mack barely let his mother kiss his cheek. What was wrong with him?

Now which night are you free to come for supper? Lily asked Chloe.

II dont know, she stammered. Family togetherness wasnt her thing. Ill have to check my schedule of interviews and get back to you through Mack.

Mack looked at her as if shed grown a third eye.

Chloe accepted the bag of cookies and the thermos of milk from his mother and stowed them in her backpack. She slung her camera around her neck, gave Sarah a quick wave, then opened the door to make her way carefully over the hail-strewn yard to the patrol car.

Are you okay? Mack asked, right on her heels.

Sure, she replied. Trying for nonchalant, she aimed her lens at the white landscape. Its obvious your mothers extremely proud of you. She turned the camera on him.

In the viewfinder his eyes were so dark they appeared black. Sometimes its kinder if your parents never know the truth. His head disappeared as he got into the car.

She caught her breath. Sometimes the truth, with all its pain, was impossible to hide. From what Ive been told, she said, sliding in and trying to add to the conversation a lightness she didnt feel, everyone in town thinks you hung the moon.

He gripped the steering wheel. Do you believe everything youre told? Hail crunched and popped under the tires as he drove across the farmyard.

Usually when everyones telling me one thing, she replied, Im standing on my head, looking for the flipside.

Thats what I was afraid of. Pulling the cruiser to a stop beside the defoliated apple orchard, he shook his head. G.o.d, they never catch a break.

Who?

My parents.

I dont know much about farming, she said, safely back in reporter mode. Dealing with facts. But do they have crop insurance?

No, he replied wearily as he pulled away. Lets check on Miss Sarahs property.

Surprisingly, by the time they arrived at the main road, there was scant evidence of hail and almost no storm damage. It had rained heavily, yes, but not much more. Robotically Mack called his mother to let Sarah know everything at her house appeared okay, and that Buster was curled up under the rocker on the porch.

What now? Chloe asked, hoping that the man whod cared enough to protect her from falling debris back in the bas.e.m.e.nt would show up. The man whod been outraged at the bite shed inflicted. The man who showed a spark of warmth, whether kindness or anger.

But the man she got was cold and distant. We listen to the radio and we drive around. You take pictures.

The damage was spotty. It could be severe on one side of the road and untouched on the other. Typical. Less than a mile down the road, they found a motorist who needed a hand. The man had been driving a pickup truck and went off the road into the ditch. Another motorist had stopped to help, but with only one person to drive and one to push, the truck was still stuck. Mack pulled to the side of the road. When he got out of the cruiser, he didnt say a word, didnt look back, so Chloe got out, too. Got behind the bed of the stranded truck and pushed with the two men until she thought the veins in her forehead might pop. After considerable rocking and even more cursing, they were able to free the pickup.

When Mack and Chloe returned to the patrol car, he seemed almost surprised to see her.

On the road again, she daubed at the mud on her pants with a tissue and hazarded a tough question. One shed been wanting to ask for a long time now. What effect has your service in Iraq had on your work?

He didnt answer.

For reasons she couldnt explain, she didnt press. Was it because of the discomfort shed felt when June, Lily and Sarah had tried to get personal?

The day unwound with myriad tasks, big and small. Freeing more cars from ditches, removing downed branches from roadways, checking on elderly residents, making dozens of phone calls, directing traffic around trouble spots, rescuing escaped farm animals and ferrying people without power to the high-school gym where a temporary shelter had been set up.

Mack got a call from the dispatcher midafternoon. Kim gave him an address and a list of supplies he should deliver there. Main Street had been untouched by the storm, so Mack stopped at the Piggly Wiggly. They bought a cooler, some ice, food staples. When asked if he wanted to put it on the department tab, he shook his head. Took cash from his wallet.

In silence he and Chloe drove across the train tracks on the same road hed taken the first night she was in town. He pulled to a stop in front of the same tired house. Stay in the car. The way he said it brooked no disagreement.

He lugged the heavy cooler and a couple of full grocery bags up the front steps. A child, a toddler, let him in the front door.

In a few minutes, Mack was back in the car. Without explanation.

Who lived here? And what was the connection to Mack? Chloe felt conflicted. Should she pursue the matter? Or was it something best left untouched like the Whittaker-family dynamics? How much of Mack was a legitimate story, and how much of the story was an invasion of his privacy?

Her editor claimed secrets were not what couldnt be known, but what couldnt be acknowledged.

After their own family tragedy, Chloes mother always said the truth stays independent of hurt or help.

Around six in the evening when all theyd had to eat were the pecan sandies Lily Whittaker had given them, Chloe began to feel woozy. Part of a group of people who were filling sandbags in the parking lot of the sheriffs office in case the creek that ran behind Main Street should rise even farther, she put out her hand to steady herself against the brick building. Felt herself sinking.

Mack caught her before she fell. Im taking you back to Junes.

I just need something to eat. Ill go next door to the diner.

You need more than food. You need rest. Im driving you to the bed-and-breakfast. His arm around her waist, he guided her to what she now considered her second home. The cruiser.

Its only a couple blocks, she protested. I can walk.

Do I have to make a scene and carry you? A glimmer of heat danced in his eyes.

Okay, Ill take the ride. He opened the pa.s.senger door, and she practically fell inside. The interior smelled of dirt, sweat, motor oil and stale coffee. She wrinkled her nose. Your car needs a good cleaning.

Thatll be the first thing on your agenda tomorrow morning.

You wash your own cars?

Hey, this is a small county. We have a small budget.

Then it hit her. Youre asking me to work with you tomorrow?

Yeah.

Wait! She fumbled in her backpack for her tape recorder. Let me get this on the record.

He actually chuckled, and she was disappointed, seconds later, to see the sign for Junes B and B.

Stopping out front, he turned to her. Go inside. Let June fuss over you. Type up your notes. Whatever. But get some rest. Youve earned it.

I didnt take any notes all day, she said in surprise. Normally at the end of the day her hand was cramped from living life in the third person.

The intensity of his gaze reminded her of the strength of his arms, the solid bulk of his chest, his warmth during the worst of the storm. Ill pick you up at eight, he said.

Ill be taking notes tomorrow.

I consider myself warned, he said as he leaned across to open the pa.s.senger door. For an instant he was so close the hair on the top of his head tickled her chin. His scent was masculine and very real and threatened to break through her detachment.

Get going, he ordered, sitting upright again. His voice was rough but no longer forbidding.

She stepped out onto the sidewalk with the unnerving realization that after her article was done, shed still want to learn more about Mack Whittaker.

Mack resisted the urge to get out of the car and help Chloe as she stumbled up the steps of the B and B. She wouldnt appreciate his help. Stubborn woman. Yesterday at this time hed wanted to throttle her. Run her out of the county for being a tabloid bottom-feeder. Todayhe didnt know what he wanted.

He did know how good shed felt in his arms. In the middle of a storm. In his parents bas.e.m.e.nt.

He shook his head. He was losing it. Or was he? For the time they were huddled under the quilthe glanced down at his thumb where the teeth marks were beginning to fadeuntil shed bitten him, there was nothing but an elemental human connection. Physical touch. Without words. Without expectations. Without complications. Without a future or a past He headed toward Tanyas house. When hed delivered the cooler and supplies earlier in the day, shed said the baby had banged his head on an end table during the storm. The two middle kids, cooped up after being sent home from school early, were driving her nuts. Hed give her a break for a couple of hours. Play with the kids. Give them baths. Read them a story. Put them to bed.

Although it was painful being around children.

Tanya met him at the door, dark circles under her eyes. G.o.d, Im glad you came back, she said, leading him into the small living room dimly lit with battery-powered camp lanterns. My sister called. She has electricity. If, right now, I was given only one wish, itd be to put my feet up and watch a whole TV show, start to finish, without someone needing something from me.

Go. Watch two shows, he said, pushing her to the door as Emma, Pete and Wayans plowed into him with glee. Is Duke home?

Staying next door with his buddy J.D. tonight.

Mack tried not to let the relief show. He could handle Dukes rebelliousness. But he could barely handle the fact that the boy was growing up to be the spitting image of his father.

You kids listen to Mack, Tanya admonished as she shrugged into a light jacket.

Yesm! the three shrieked in unison, turning his pockets inside out, looking for candy.

I dont know what Id do without you, Tanya said, blowing him a kiss and heading out the door He did. Without him, she wouldnt be in such a mess. Every day was a struggle for her. Because of him.

He shrugged off his morbid thoughts to turn his attention to Emma, Pete and Wayans. He loved kids. Not, however, the same way he had before hed gone to Iraq. Still, he could play a credible bucking bronco, make an edible PB&J, give three baths without flooding the bathroom, then tell a whopper of a bedtime tale. By the time Tanya came home, the kids were asleep, the dishes washed and in the drainer, and hed repaired the lock on the back door.

Thank you, she said, leaning against the kitchen counter. You want a soda?

Did her eyes ask if he wanted something more? He couldnt read signals anymore. Didnt have the desire to relearn them.

No, nothing for me. Ive had a long day, and its not over yet.

Hows that thing with the reporter going?

Shes only half a pain in the a.s.s. Now why had he said that? It was unkind. And it wasnt true. The woman had shown herself vulnerable today. And then shed shown herself to be strong and full of heart.

Call me if you need anything, he said to Tanya.

Like another pair of hands?

You can count on mine.

I do.

Her trust unnerved him.

All the way back to the barracks, where he planned to catch forty winks, then hit the road again on patrol, he thought about Tanya. And Nate. His parents.

Then there was Chloe.

Working her way under his skin.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

T HATS NOT A NEWS ARTICLE , Deirdre Kinkaid said. Thats blatant hero-worship.

Sorry shed mentioned yesterdays events at all, Chloe held her phone to her ear as she searched under the inns bed for her shoes. The storm had taken out the power at the Sun s offices in Brevard, but Chloe would have much preferred the annihilation of a cell-phone tower. In particular, the one that serviced her editor.

Deirdre, Im not setting Mack Whittaker up as a hero. In the wake of the storm, the entire department pulled together heroically. I happened to be riding with Whittaker. Who was supposed to have picked her up fifteen minutes ago.

Remember your unbiased observation. Your Gravitas, I know. She found one very muddy penny loafer, then the other. Poor June hadnt given even a peep of concern for her floors when Chloe had dragged in last night, disheveled and dirty. She stuck the shoes in a plastic Piggly Wiggly bag. Shed take them out to the backyard later and see if she could clean them. Today shed have to wear her black lace-ups. You dont have to hold my hand through this a.s.signment, she told her editor.

I hope not. The article isnt for the Living section. Were not looking for warm and cuddly here.

What if the truth is warm and cuddly?

Now I know youre trying to tick me off.

Chloe heard a knock at her door. Would Mack come up to her room to get her? If so, things certainly had changed from yesterday.

My rides here. Gotta go.

She opened the door, not to Mack, but to June Parker.

Sorry to bother you, June said, but Mack is waiting for you downstairs.

I have to find my shoes.

Dont hurry. I put him in the parlor with a cup of coffee and a plate of biscuits. June delicately picked a minuscule piece of lint off her sweater sleeve. How isthe article going?

Chloe peered up from tying her shoe. I think its going okay. Though Im sorry it took the storm to get it on track.

Sometimes adversity brings out the best in us. Andsometimes its nice theres someone to chronicle the best in us when we cant see it for ourselves.