“What? No, I didn’t.” She walked over and stood next to Denise. There wasn’t a lot on her dresser – a metal dish for loose change, a small crystal vase with a single porcelain rose she bought while in Italy, a small wooden jewelry box her grandfather had made her, and a few pictures of her and her grandparents. They had all been rearranged. Before the pictures had been on one corner of the dresser. Now they were spaced evenly along the length of the dresser, the other items placed between the photos.
“That’s creepy,” Denise said.
“I told you.”
“Do you think the cops should dust for prints or something?”
“Maybe? I’ll get Jase to call Tim and ask.”
The phone call to Jase, already on his way to the dump, was brief. In less than five minutes, Tim called Bree to let her know a crime scene technician was on the way and Tim would be joining them after he finished at the station.
Denise went to answer the door when the doorbell rang, leaving Bree to examine the rest of her bedroom and office. She was in the closet when Denise led the tech in.
The tech set his kit on the floor and knelt next to it. “Is the dresser the only thing you noticed was out of place?”
“And my closet. A few of my clothes are out of place.”
He paused with a canister in one hand and a large brush in the other. “How can you tell?”
“She color-codes her closet,” Denise said. “Also arranged by style.”
Bree made a face at Denise. “Whatever. At least now I know whoever did this rummaged through my clothes as well.” She watched the tech flicking the brush across her dresser, leaving a fine layer of dust in his wake. “Although I’d prefer you not dust my clothes.”
“No problem. Really hard to get prints off clothing anyway.” He returned the canister and brush to his bag, then took pictures of the surface before using large pieces of tape to lift the prints from the dresser. He pulled a portable biometric scanner out of his kit to take Bree and Denise’s prints.
“Are you able to access the military system?” Denise asked.
“We can,” the tech said, while taking a scan of her prints. “But it’s honestly easier to have your prints already handy and not have to waste time searching through the database for them.”
“How long will it take to run the prints?” Bree asked.
“A couple of weeks, probably.”
“So it’s not like on T.V.? You’re not going to be able to solve this case in fifty-nine minutes with commercial breaks?” Denise asked.
The tech laughed. “No, unfortunately, it’s not that easy. I hate it when I tell people how long it will take and they say, well, that’s not how they do it on CSI. Crime dramas are the worst thing that ever happened to my job.”
Denise and Bree walked the tech out and finished cleaning the living room, vacuuming the floor to make sure all the glass shards were up.
“What do you want me to do with the pictures?” Denise asked.
“Toss ‘em.” Bree pulled the fridge open. “Do you want a sandwich? I have chicken salad or egg salad.”
“Chicken salad.”
A knock sounded at the laundry room door as she set the containers on the counter. Jase smiled behind the glass.
“Why did you knock?” Bree asked.
Jase stepped close as he came in and leaned down to kiss her. Open mouthed with just a hint of tongue. Much too brief for her liking.
“I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about me just walking into your house,” he said.
“We’ve had sex. I’m think I’m okay with you walking into my house.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “We’ve had sex in my house and bed. This is your house.”
She smiled. She liked that - the respect he was giving her and her space. He wasn’t taking anything for granted, no matter how intimate they had been.
She leaned up and kissed him gently. “You can come in without knocking.”
Jase grinned down at her. “Thanks.”
“Do you want chicken or egg salad?” Denise hollered from the kitchen.
Bree grabbed his hand and tilted her head toward the kitchen. “Come on, let’s eat, then I need to get a new mattress.”
At the furniture store, Bree waited for Jase to round the hood and open her door. He slowly lowered her body down against his, giving her a hot, opened-mouth kiss. Bree grinned against his mouth as he kissed her.
He lifted his head. “What’s funny?”
Bree ran a hand over the curve of his ass. “I can feel your happiness.”
“You can feel more of it later.” He pulled her away from the truck and shut her door. He laced his fingers with hers as he led her through the door of the store.
Tucked into the far back corner of the large showroom, a low, half wall separated the bedding section from the rest of the store. Subdued lighting attempted to create a relaxing, boudoir feel in the space.
A salesman approached them as soon as they entered. “Good afternoon, folks. Can I help you find something today?”
“Do you still carry the Sealy Posturepedic Hybrid Elite?” Bree asked.
“We sure do. One of our best sellers. It’s right over here.” He led them over to the display bed.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” she said. “Do you have it in stock or does it have to be delivered from the warehouse?”
“I need to check the database, if you don’t mind waiting for a few minutes.”
Bree sat on the end of the bed after the salesman left and flopped back. Jase joined her, but lay down on his side with his head propped on one hand. He rested his other hand on her stomach, his fingers teasing the bottom of her t-shirt.
“That was quick,” he said.
“What?”
“Picking out a mattress.”
Bree shifted her gaze from the ceiling to Jase. “I liked my mattress. I don’t need a different one, I just need a new one. Why waste time looking for something else when I’m perfectly happy with what I had?”
“Not too many people think that way. They always want bigger and better.”
“My grandparents lived frugally, even when they didn’t need to. I never knew we had money when I was growing up. Having it makes life comfortable, but I still live well within my means.”
He toyed with a lock of her hair spread out over her head. “Did your grandparents raise you?”
“Yeah. My parents died in a car wreck when I was a year and a half.”
“Shit. I’m sorry. You don’t have any other family?”
She watched Jase twirl the end of her hair around his forefinger. “I have two uncles and an aunt.”
“Why didn’t you live with them?” He seemed fascinated with the way the end of her hair curled around his finger, then let it fall back to the mattress.
“I asked Gran that one time when I was around ten or so. She said, ‘You were my Katie’s, so that makes you mine.’”
“That’s sweet.” Jase’s fingers brushed her neck as he moved the lock of hair off her neck where it had fallen, sending goose bumps down her chest and pebbling her nipples under the light padding of her bra.
“I know now it was more complicated than that. My mom was the oldest. None of them were really in a position in their lives to be able to take me in and raise me.”
“That couldn’t have been easy, though. Losing your parents at such a young age,” he said.
She shrugged. “It was all I ever knew. I didn’t realize until elementary school that not all kids lived with their grandparents.”
“Still. I can’t even imagine.”
“You and Tim seem pretty close. What about your sister?”
“We were really close growing up. She broke my parents’ hearts by marrying an Air Force guy. They live out in Colorado Springs.”
She tilted her head. “Why did it break their hearts?”
“Well, it broke my mom’s heart because they moved so far away. It broke my dad’s heart because she married a
zoomie,” he said, grinning.
Bree pushed Jase’s shoulder, barely budging him. “Whatever.”
Jase leaned forward and kissed her quickly. “I saw your pictures at your house. How long were you in the Air Force?”
“Eight years.”
“What did you do? Something medical, I’m guessing.”
“I was an aerospace medical technician.”
“What do they do?”
“We flew with medical evacuation patients. Made sure they were stable flying from one place to another. What about you? Ranger?”
“What makes you think I wasn’t a mechanic?”
“Well, I can tell you were Special Forces. You’ve got that type-A, alpha-male, door-kicker vibe going on.”
“Type-A, alpha-male, door-kicker?” His eyes twinkled.
She smirked. “Yeah. You know. Badass with a beard. Plus, I saw pictures of you in uniform in your office, so I saw the tab.”
Jase gave her another quick kiss.
“Good news, folks,” the salesman said. “We have a queen size in stock. The manager said he would knock an additional five percent off the price if you’re able to take it with you.”
Bree sat up and looked over her shoulder at Jase. “Do you mind helping me take it back to my place?”
Jase quirked an eyebrow but didn’t bother answering her question.
“Right.” She looked up at the salesman. “We can take it today.”
“This will be easier if we take the plastic off first,” Bree said.
Jase grunted as he tried to get a grip on the protective barrier around the mattress. “If we take the plastic off here, the mattress will get dirty.”
“Then at least cut holes where the handles are on the side to make it easier to carry.”
“Huh. Yeah. That makes sense.”
Bree put her wrist to her forehead and struck a dramatic pose. “Oh, the horror. Common sense has prevailed.”
Jase fought against smiling at her theatrics. “Smart ass.”
She winked and stepped back to give him room to slit the plastic. “I can’t muscle the mattress into the house without some leverage.”
He backed his way up the porch steps, carrying the mattress low so Bree wouldn’t have to lift it up so far. Maneuvering it down the hall took little effort, and he cut off the plastic before pushing the mattress up onto the box spring. He bundled up the covering and took it to the outside trash.
Bree finished tucking the corner of the sheet under the mattress when he returned. “Can you grab the comforter and pillows from the guest room?”
He pulled her onto the bed once she had everything made to her satisfaction. “Did you text Denise my address?”
“Yes. I told her around five o’clock. What time did you tell Tim?”
“Between five and five-thirty.”
Bree glanced at the clock on her nightstand. Four-fifteen. “So we have about fifteen minutes to fool around,” she said.
A slow grin spread across his face. “I can work with fifteen minutes.”
Denise wielded the chopping knife with expert dexterity, dicing the tomatoes into perfect bite-size pieces. “How exactly did the women folk end up in the kitchen?”
“Tale as old as time,” Bree replied.
Denise turned from her salad preparation. “Did you just quote Beauty and the Beast to me?”
Bree grinned. “It seemed appropriate.” She opened the refrigerator and gathered cabbage and carrots for coleslaw.
“You’re awfully comfortable here.” She hacked into the bunch of lettuce.
“It’s a kitchen. How uncomfortable should it be?”
She threw the chopped lettuce into a large bowl. “It’s the kitchen of a guy you met a week ago, and you know where he keeps all his cutlery.”
Bree looked down at the knife she held. She’d known right were to find it. Cutlery drawer to the right of the stove. She might have to hunt for specialty items, but she knew exactly where to find the essentials. She could tell Denise where to find just about anything she needed.
She raised her gaze to Denise. “This is going really fast,” she whispered.
“Shit, honey. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“It was coming whether you said something or not. I haven’t thought about how fast this was going.” She cleared her throat and turned back to the vegetables. “I think maybe I should back off some.”
“Why?”
She set down the knife and picked up the grater, intent on demolishing the carrots. “What do you mean ‘why’?”
“Bree, look at me.”
She set down the grater and turned to face Denise. She leaned a hip against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Why do you think you need to back off?” Denise asked.
“It’s too fast. I’ve known him for a week and I’m as comfortable in his kitchen as I am in yours.” Bree swept an arm out.
“Who says it’s too fast?”
“Me. You. Anyone who hears how we met.”
“Whoa, I never said it was too fast.”
“You said I looked really comfortable in his kitchen.”
“Right. And you do. It’s not a bad thing. Bree, you need to go as fast or slow as you need to go. And to be honest with you, Jase doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to let you back off, even if that’s what you really wanted to do.”
Bree snorted and folded her arms over her chest. “Yeah. I called him an alpha-male door-kicker today.”
Denise laughed. “It’s an apt description. What did he say?”
“Nothing, he just smiled.”
Denise paused before confessing, “I never liked Chad.”
“I know,” Bree said with a rueful smile.
“He never got you. He was never in the military. Never understood what you went through or why you chose to do what you do now. Jase…” Denise took a breath and gazed toward the back of the house. She looked back at Bree before continuing. “Jase gets it. You can see it in his eyes. The way he carries himself. He’ll never ask you stupid questions that make you want to throat punch him.”
Bree snorted, her eyes stinging.
“He’ll protect you in a way Chad never could.”
“I know,” Bree whispered.
“You need to grab on to that and hold on tight.”
Bree’s head dropped as she brushed a stray tear off her cheek. “I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of everything.” Bree looked up at her best friend. “I’m feeling way more in a week than I’ve felt in a long time. He makes me feel things that…that I don’t actually remember ever feeling before.”
“And?”
“And a lot has been going on. What if, when it all settles down, it’s not so great? What if it goes to shit?”
“What if it does?” Denise asked.
She ran the heel of her hand across her forehead. “I’m not sure I could walk away as easily from Jase as I did from Chad.”
“So don’t walk away. If you decide it’s something worth fighting for, fight for it.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Of course it isn’t.”
Bree held Denise’s gaze. “Say it. Whatever it is you’re holding back.
Denise swept her hair up in a bun on the back of her head. “Brutal honesty?”
“Always.”
“Chad was a safe bet. There was never any chance of you actually falling in love with him. You said so yourself it was easier to stay with him than to break it off. Jase is a risk. You’re going to feel things. There’s a chance you could get hurt. That’s what’s scaring you.”
Bree nodded and looked out the window. “Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
Sometimes it sucked having a best friend who knew you so well. Everything Denise said was true. It was a chance. A risk. Her heart could end up torn into pieces, something she hadn’t risked in so long. Bree blew out a breath and shook her head. “We’re not going to figure
out my love life in the next fifteen minutes, and I need time to stop looking like I’ve been crying.”
“Well, if your skin wasn’t translucent, you’d be a prettier crier,” Denise said.
Bree picked up a carrot. “Bite me.”
“Only if you ask nicely.” She wet a paper towel and wrung it out before handing it to Bree.
Bree pressed the cool cloth over her eyes.
“So when are you going to ask her to move in with you?” Tim asked.
Jase looked up from the grill. “What are you talking about?”
“Really? This is the first girl you’ve been serious about since— Have you ever been serious about a girl?”
Jase flipped a steak over. “I don’t know. Sarah?”
“That was high school.”
Jase shrugged. “So?”
“So, this is the first girl you’ve introduced me to. You’ve known her, what? A couple of weeks?” He took a sip of his beer.
He lifted another steak and checked the underside. “’Bout that.”
“So, what is it?”
Jase closed the top of the grill and picked up his beer. What is it? What was it about Bree that made Jase chase after her? What is it about her that made him want to protect her but still fuck her until she screamed his name?
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It’s like she sees me. She understands without having to ask the question.” He took a pull of his beer. “She hasn’t once asked me about what I did in the Army. She knows I was a Ranger, but it’s like she doesn’t care. She’s not some SOF groupie looking for a little danger.”
“She serve?” Tim asked.
“Air Force. Aerospace med tech.”
“What’s that?”
Jase sighed. “You remember when I came home for a few weeks, middle of my last tour ‘cause I was escorting a guy in my unit back?”
“Yeah, is that what she did?”
“No. I was a non-medical escort. Just someone to help the guy out in Germany. Get him to appointments, that kind of thing.”
“What did she do?”
“The plane we took back was a C-17, configured for medical patients. The aerospace med techs take care of the patients onboard the plane.”
Tim raised an eyebrow. “Like a flying nurse?”
Stitched Up Heart (Combat Hearts Book 1) Page 11
