The Bride Wore Blue by Cindy Gerard

revulsion.
    “Yeah,” he said, agreeing with her silent commentary. “It’s disgusting.”
    “Abel is not a man who would be motivated by money.”
    J.D. studied her profile as she stared stubbornly out over the bay. Sunlight shimmered down through the quivering birch and the high bows of the Norway pine, highlighting, defining, playing with the natural beauty of her features, tipping her hair with gold.
    “I agree,” he said, making himself concentrate on the ugly business at hand. “Revenge, however, can be an even stronger motive.”
    Her eyes snapped toward his. “Revenge? Are you talking about his scar?”
    He shrugged. “The stories are as original as they are varied—ranging from Greene being bushwhacked by a thousand-pound renegade boar, to an attack by a sow protecting her cubs.”
    “I don’t suppose anyone’s ever bothered to ask him how it happened.”
    He gave her a lopsided grin. “I don’t suppose anyone’s ever had the guts.”
    That brought a small smile of concession.
    “Look, Stretch, I meant it when I said I don’t want to believe Greene has anything to do with this, but the fact is, he’s on the DNR’s list of suspects. That makes him a threat to you in my book.”
    “Yeah, well, your book has a plot full of holes.” She took a long swallow of her coffee. “What have you got to do with all this, anyway?”
    “I was patrolling for signs of the poachers when I set down here yesterday.”
    “Patrolling? What are you, some weekend warrior or something?”
    “Not if I can help it. It’s just that manpower and machinery are scarce up here. So I volunteer when I can to help out in any number of projects.”
    “Like?” Her raised brow prompted him.
    “Like fire spotting. Sometimes blast patrol south of here on the Iron Range. And sometimes, like now, a little aerial surveillance.”
    “So you were checking out Abel’s place yesterday.”
    “I was just checking out the area,” he clarified. “Abel’s place just happens to be in it.”
    “You’d do well to remember that. Just like I happen to be in the middle of it.” She gave him a steady look. “Abel isn’t responsible for any of that cruel and horrible waste, Blue. He couldn’t be.”
    J.D. let out a deep breath, taken by her loyalty, impressed by her conviction. “I hope you’re right. In the meantime, just…just exercise a little judgment where he’s concerned, okay?”
    She snorted. “This from a man who wouldn’t know better judgment if it walked up and announced its presence with a bullhorn.”
    He let go of a reluctant grin. “You’re referring to my plane again, aren’t you?”
    “I’m referring to your plane.”
    He smiled confidently. “I’ll have to take you up in her someday.”
    She made a sound of denial. “When the sun sets in the east.”
    “That sounds like a challenge to me, Ms. Adams.”
    “Then something’s wrong with your hearing too, Mr. Hazzard, because what it was was a no, never, not in this lifetime.”
    He sat back in the chair, taken again by the swift revival of the stubborn, determined Maggie he remembered. “We’ll see.”
    She angled him an exasperated look. “Don’t you have some place to be?”
    “Other than here, you mean?”
    She closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Other than here.”
    She was weakening. He could see it in her face. It was becoming harder and harder for her to repress a full-fledged grin.
    And it was becoming harder and harder for him to dismiss what was happening here as simple flirtation. Ever since he’d spotted her on the dock and his heart had brokeninto a Minnesota two-step, he’d been in a rare and radical frame of mind. It had taken a dunking in the bay, a night on her sofa and Abel Greene’s unexpected appearance to group his thoughts together.
    It had taken a deep look inside himself to form a conclusion that now seemed preordained.
    “You really don’t want me to go, do you, Maggie? It’s okay. You can admit it.”
    She closed