by Jane Godman
She didn’t stop until his hand closed around her upper arm and even then she considered it a pause.
“You can’t be here,” Sheriff Constantine continued.
Maddy turned slightly to confront him, but she did stop then, completely shocked by the transformation in his appearance. His face was leaner. His eyes still vivid blue, but also red from lack of sleep. He had a five o’clock shadow of golden stubble on his angular jaw and chin.
The tall muscular man had dropped at least fifteen pounds since Gracie had snapped his pictures a year ago.
He wasn’t wearing his hat and his thick hair was rumpled and darker than she’d expected, a blond that hadn’t been touched by the sun. In fact, his skin had faded from the sun-kissed glow of the photographs, as well.
He wasn’t any less attractive.
He was just…changed…more intense, his eyes harder and more harried by some demons she couldn’t place.
“I’m here,” Maddy said.
She looked down at his hand on her arm. She’d left the house in a silk T-shirt and black leggings. She always appreciated those moments when she switched from her gardening coveralls to something soft and pretty. Now, she wished for more of a barrier between the sheriff’s warm, calloused hand and her sensitive skin.
His fingers loosened. Maybe he’d seen her concern and felt her stiffness, and assumed it was because his authoritative hold dimpled her skin when that hadn’t been the problem at all.
It was his touch and her body’s unexpected reaction to his touch when everything else in her was devastated and dark.
“There’s nothing you can do here, Ms. Clark,” Constantine said. His voice had gone low and persuasive and, damn it, empathetic. As if he understood and cared about her pain.
“I can grieve,” Maddy said.
She pulled her arm from his hand and he let it go, but he stepped in front of her at the same time. His broad uniformed chest blocked her from seeing what she would never see again and from what she couldn’t have unseen if she was allowed to go to the base of the scarlet maple where a body bag waited for Gracie’s remains.
“You’re going to go over to my truck and climb inside, and you’re going to wait there for me,” Constantine said. There was flint in his words, hard but brittle. She could shatter his calm control, maybe, if she fought, if she screamed and accused and shattered completely herself.
She tilted her chin. She met his eyes. They had looked so much lighter in her stepsister’s photographs, untouched by forest shadow and murder. Much lighter than Gracie’s other subjects of tombstones and abandoned houses and empty churches.
Her stepsister had been gifted, but when their mother had died, she’d turned her gift to such impossible things—spirit photography, for God’s sake.
And now Gracie was the one beyond the grave.
eISBN: 9781460336328
HARLEQUIN E SHIVERS BOX SET VOLUME 3
Copyright © 2014 by Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
VALLEY OF NIGHTMARES
Copyright © 2014 by Amanda Anders
HIS TO POSSESS
Copyright © 2014 by Delores Fossen
THE GIRL IN BLUE
Copyright © 2014 by Barbara J. Hancock
THE GHOSTS OF CRAGERA BAY
Copyright © 2014 by Dawn Brown
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