The Bride Wore Blue by Cindy Gerard Page B

padded barefoot across the worn puncheon floor and peeked inside.
    The bed was made and the woman was gone. He hadn’t any more than let that thought settle when footsteps announced her approach at the back door.
    “Well, aren’t you the early bird,” he said, swinging open the door—and connecting squarely with the glacial stare of eyes as black as midnight—belonging not to Maggie but to a man as big and as unyielding as a mountain.
    Abel Greene topped J.D.’s six-two by a couple of inches, outweighed him by possibly twenty lean pounds of muscle. In attitude, he also had J.D. beat by a country mile.
    His long black hair, which was held back from his face with a dark blue bandanna, added to the drama and the intensity of his predatory glare and supported the story that he was a descendent of a French fur trader and a Chippewa maiden. And J.D. was not happy to see him at Maggie’s door.
    “What the hell are you doing here, Greene?”
    Abel Greene stared back at J.D. with a stone-hard expression that relayed neither intimidation nor compromise. It was Greene’s unreadable facade of impenetrable indifference that had earned him a reputation as an unfeeling loner and had made him the subject of speculation around the lake for years. Behind his back, he was also the target of a guarded ridicule that masked unease about the enigma he’d become.
    J.D. had shared the speculation, but not the ridicule. His inclination, based on his few encounters with Greene, leaned more toward healthy respect and justifiable curiosity. Unfortunately, though, because of Greene’s proximity to the black bear population around the lake area, J.D. was also reluctantly forced to accept the Department of Natural Resources’ theory that Greene might be involved in the poaching ring.
    The question of the moment, however, was what was the big man doing at Maggie’s door.
    “I said, what are you doing here, Greene?”
    Greene answered with a question of his own. “Where’s Maggie?”
    More demand than query rang in Greene’s words. Liking neither his attitude nor the implication that he had a right to ask about Maggie, J.D. crossed his arms over his chest and deepened his scowl.
    His attention shifted abruptly when the dog by Greene’s side—a dog the size of a small pony with the look and demeanor of a wolf—began to whine and scratch at the door.
    “Nashata, quiet.” Greene’s short, soft command was nonnegotiable. The dog settled, sat, then stood again, her long tail tucked between her legs, slowly wagging as Hershey bounded off the sofa to investigate.
    While the dogs pressed their noses to the screen to sniff and size up each other, J.D. and Greene did the human equivalent.
    J.D.’s gaze was drawn to the angry-looking scar that ran the length of Greene’s face from temple to jaw. Word had it a bear was responsible for that scar. It added to Greene’s mystique and the hard fact that Greene could never be mistaken as anything but formidable.
    Neither could J.D. mistake the fact that he and Maggie knew each other. He didn’t much like that conclusion. And when Greene turned to the sound of approaching footsteps, J.D. didn’t much like the way his features relaxed and the wolf dog left his side to accept, without hesitation, a pat from Maggie’s hand.
    Dressed in no-nonsense gray sweats, well-used running shoes and a sheen of perspiration that beaded on her flushed face, Maggie walked past the dog to Abel’s side.
    “My, my,” she said, her speech stilted by the obvious fact that she was winded from a recent run, “seems there’s no end to my unexpected visitors these days.”
    She gave Abel a reassuring smile. J.D. felt something clench in his gut like a vise grip. Just once, he’d like to see that kind of trust relayed in a look she gave him. Just thatfast, he was determined he’d see that look directed at him. Soon.
    “What brings you by this morning, Abel?” she asked as she raked the hair back from her face with her