way he had always preferred it. Since she hadn’t known he would be here, he wasn’t stupid enough to think she wore it that way for him.
Zach pulled out one of the two empty chairs remaining at the table for her and then sat beside her. He could have sworn that just about everyone at the table grinned in approval at them.
“Chief Tanner?” Margie Atkins, Lamont’s elderly aunt, interrupted Zach’s musings. “Do you have any suggestions for getting Earline Barton to stop letting her dog Posey come over and use my yard as his own private toilet?”
It was often frustrating and sometimes weird, but he couldn’t say being chief of police here was ever boring.
“Have you talked to her about it, Mrs. Atkins?”
“Several times. She just keeps saying that she’ll have a talk with the dog. Now, I ask you, how’s that going to help? I’ve got brown spots all over my yard where Posey has piddled. I know you’re busy, what with the vandalisms and all, but I do think she’d do something if you talked to her.”
The beautiful woman beside him issued a noise that sounded like a cross between a snort and a snicker. He shot a quick glance at Savannah, who had the look of an innocent lamb; the twinkling in her eyes belied the innocence. She was getting a kick out of his Posey-peeing dilemma. Deciding to turn the tables, he said, “Savannah’s been studying law much longer than I have. Do you have a suggestion for Mrs. Atkins?”
Shooting him a “Touché” look, she surprised him and began to make some suggestions. As he watched her, he wondered about the kind of life she led in Nashville. She was obviously successful. The confidence she exuded was so different from ten years ago. The shyness he remembered seemed to be gone, and in its place was a woman sure of herself and her place in the world. He had loved the shy, sometimes awkward Savannah, but couldn’t deny that the new, more confident Savannah was just as enticing.
Did she have someone significant in her life? Their conversation last night had been all about the vandalisms. Things were too uneasy between them to share personal information. Although if she had asked him anything personal, he would have answered her questions. Even if she’d come out and bluntly asked him why he had left town so abruptly ten years ago, he would have spilled everything. But she hadn’t asked. Maybe she didn’t want to know. He’d tried twice last night to bring it up, and each time she’d shot him down. And despite the civil conversations they’d had the last couple of days, hurt and cool detachment lingered in her eyes. She hadn’t bothered to hide her animosity the first time she saw him. Hell, maybe he was living in a fool’s paradise. What if that’s all they had left—hurt and anger?
Odd, but Savannah immediately detected a change in Zach. Even without looking at him, she felt a tension in him that hadn’t been there seconds before. Chancing a quick glance at his profile confirmed her thoughts. The grim set of his mouth told her something had upset him. What could it have been? From what she could tell, the conversations around them had been innocuously pleasant.
“You okay?” she whispered softly.
“Yeah. Fine.”
The terse reply was a surprise. She didn’t know this Zach. This was a harsher, more austere version of the man she’d seen over the last few days. Not sure how to handle him and the ridiculous shiver of arousal that this new Zach gave her, she turned to the man seated to her left. Kyle Ingram had been one of her father’s friends. Out of all the people at the party, she knew the least about him and his wife, Noreen. While everyone else had been a frequent visitor before and after her parents’ deaths, the Ingrams had been scarce.
Before she could come up with some bland comment about the weather, Kyle surprised her and said, “You look almost identical to your mama.”
“Thank you, that’s a lovely compliment.”
“You know, I went out with Maggie when we were teenagers.”
“You did?” Her mother had been from Mobile and had met her father in college. “So did you go to college with Mama and Daddy?”
His craggy face had always looked a little sad to her. Her question made him appear even more melancholy. “No, I knew your mama when she was growing up. Her family and mine were real