I considered calling out, “Who’s there,” but that seemed B movie bad. Instead, I scanned the room for something blunt, anything I could crack the intruder over the head with and yes, you guessed it, run for my life. Nothing but a lamp pole, but those tended be made delicately in my opinion. No one would be felled with such a weapon.
My cell phone. I licked my lips and swiveled slowly in my chair. My purse sat on the desk where I had left it, in direct line with the back of the shop. Not the rear door, mind you, but the back all the same. The view was enough to allow me to see who might have come inside if they had moved from the back entrance to the doorway leading in to where I worked. My heart skipped a few beats. I didn’t want to see anyone standing there.
I leaned forward in my chair, hands on the arms and pushed off in controlled, slow movements. The stupid chair creaked. I froze, feeling the sound explode across the space. Then it occurred to me if I made no noise at all, the person would assume I had heard them. I affected a yawn but then panicked because it plugged my ears. Let’s not put me down for being an investigator. My nerves were not cut out for it.
Standing, I craned to pick up any sound, but there was nothing further. Out front, a car moved down the street. No other noises reached me, but I refused to relax until I had searched the shop again. As soon as I took a step, my cell phone erupted in my purse, and I let out a little scream. A thump against the wall in the bathroom. I spun, halfway deciding between running for the cell phone and hurtling for the door. My feet tripped me, and I went down hard. My hands came up automatically to break my fall, but somehow I cracked my forehead against the floor. Even with carpet, it hurt. This close to the floor, the scent of carpet cleaning products shot up my nose, and I had the sudden horrid recollection of who and what had lain here before me.
I shoved to my hands and knees, my head spinning. One knee raised, I poised to stand, and material rustled behind me. A shadow moved into my peripheral view. I tried to make a leap for the door, but pain exploded through my head, and then…nothing.
* * * *
“Makayla!”
I moaned. A splitting headache rocketed across my skull.
“Makayla, wake up.”
“Stop shouting,” I begged.
“I would if you open your eyes.” Spencer’s tone only gentled slightly. I blinked up at him and noted the creases between his eyebrows. He was angry, no doubt about it. “Can you sit up?”
I took the hand he offered and sat up. My stomach nearly flipped inside out. I slapped both hands over my mouth and swallowed.
“Breathe and stay still,” he instructed. “It will pass.”
I waited. The nausea eased. When I started to stand, he pressed a hand on my shoulder. “I’m okay, Spencer. I’m not going to throw up anymore.”
His gaze burned into mine. “I told you not to come here without me.”
“Then you shouldn’t have given me the key. I have work to do, and every day I can’t get in here, I lose money.”
“How does that compare to you losing your life?” he snapped.
He was right, and the fear I had felt earlier washed over me. Tears threatened, but I blinked them away. “I’m sorry.”
In answer, gentle fingers probed my hair. I winced when he came across a tender spot. “You have a small bump, no blood, but you should see a doctor to make sure you’re okay.” One hand came around to my face and moved up to my forehead where he brushed the spot I’d bumped when I fell. “A bruise here.”
“That was my own clumsiness,” I admitted, his touch taking my breath again. “I probably look a sight.”
“Your hair is tussled,” he said, examining it. “A shame. It was beautiful after you got it done.”
My mouth fell open. “You noticed?”
“I was distracted at the funeral, but I noticed.”
My heart did pound then—until I recalled why I was on the floor. I stood up with his help, and Spencer’s arm encircled my waist.
“What happened, Makayla? When I called and you didn’t answer, I got worried. I rushed over here and found the back door wide open.”
“My files,” I screeched and broke away from him to check my computer. Then I did cry. All of them were gone. The photos on my hard drive as well as on the online storage. Years of collections deleted and the trash empty. “I’ve got nothing, Spencer. Everything is gone.”
“We’ll get it back,” he said, standing beside me.
“How? That’s the only online storage I had. Everything was on there except some newer photos, and they were on my hard drive. That’s empty too. She waited until I came back to the shop to get to them.”
“She?” Spencer frowned at me.
“Yes, she, whoever wanted the photo erased. She’s got what she wanted now. It’s over.”
Spencer pulled me to my feet. “Come on. I’m taking you to the hospital. Don’t touch anything else. I’m having this place dusted again.”
“You’re being too cautious,” I argued.
“So caution hit you over the head?”
He had a point. All my fight drained away. I wanted to argue, but what was the point? I felt deflated, defeated, and most of all vulnerable. Spencer led me to the door. I climbed into his squad car, and he rounded to the other side. While he spoke into the radio, I didn’t hear a word, but another officer pulled up, spoke with Spencer, and then disappeared inside my shop. Spencer pulled off down the street headed, I assumed, in the direction of the hospital.
He touched my hand across the seats, and I couldn’t help grasping his fingers.
“Cheer up, Makayla. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“I know it will, but…”
“We’ll talk to the company you were with. It’s possible they have backup servers that still have your data.”
Hope rose in me. “You really think so?”
“It’s possible.”
“Thank goodness! Let’s call them now.”
“No.”
“Spencer.”
His expression hardened. “I’m taking you to the hospital to let a doctor tell me you’re fine. Afterward, you’re going home to your apartment. You can inquire about the server tomorrow—with me. That’s not happening tonight.”
I have to admit, I liked his concern. A man who put my safety before the job, especially a sheriff, was on my acceptable list. His apprehension might have had something to do with the fact that I hadn’t yet stopped shaking since I woke up, and I still felt a little light-headed and confused.
After the doctor had checked me over and announced that I didn’t have a concussion—hard heads run in my family—he released me with a prescription for a few pain pills. I rode in droopy silence all the way to my place and was only half aware of Spencer guiding me into my apartment building and to my door. Then something soft beneath my head and more darkness.
Chapter Twelve
I woke up in my own bed. My cell phone lying on the nightstand said one in the morning. So why was I smelling Italian? Talia had her habits, but she didn’t cook at this time of night. No, this scent was closer, filling my apartment with an aroma that made my empty stomach growl.
“Garlic too,” I murmured as I left my room barefoot and fully clothed. I scrubbed a hand over my eyes and yawned as I stood watching a man cooking on my stove. “Twilight Zone.”
Spencer turned, chuckling. “I heard that. This isn’t the Twilight Zone just because I’m cooking.”
I didn’t bother correcting him. The strangeness had nothing to do with him cooking and everything to do with me, Makayla Rose, having a man in my kitchen. Oh, I’d dated before, but…well, you get the picture.
“Why are you in my apartment at one in the morning?” I opened the closet door and found a folding chair to sit in the kitchen doorway. “Cooking.”
He eyeballed me and tasted his sauce. An expert flick of the wrist and in went two types of spices, held between the fingers of one hand. Interesting.
“Why don’t you have a
table?” he countered.
“I asked first.”
Amusement lit his gaze. “I was watching over you to make sure you’re okay. In all honesty, I thought you would wake up before now. I got hungry while I waited, so I grabbed a few things to make a snack.”
I stood up and walked over to the stove. In one pot bubbled a thick, rich spaghetti sauce. In another noodles boiled. Meatballs waited for the sauce in another pan, and on the table sat a loaf of garlic bread ready to pop into the oven. “This is a snack?”
He shrugged. “My uncle is a chef in an Italian restaurant. He taught me a few things. The truth is, all I know how to make well is Italian dishes.”
“I’m not complaining,” I said as my belly grumbled again. “I can’t remember when I ate last, but I definitely skipped dinner. If you’re sharing, I’m eating.”
“Good.” He continued preparations for our meal. “Then you can tell me all about what you’ve been up to.”
“Who me?” I tried to look innocent and was sure I failed. Although I baited him, the horror of the night’s events came back to me. Only with teasing did I not give in to my fear and the shaking.
When the sauce was where he wanted it, Spencer added the meatballs and the two simmered together while the bread heated in the oven. To keep from gnawing on my arm, I made sweet tea in a glass pitcher I had found in one of the town’s shops. Soon, we sat down in the living room, each balancing a plate piled high with spaghetti and bread.
“I can’t eat all of this,” I said.
“You said you weren’t complaining.”
“That wasn’t a complaint.” I gave his food a taste and fell in love. “Mm, if word gets out you can cook like this, sheriff, you’ll find every woman in the county chasing after you.”
“Maybe you should be my cover.”
He said it so fast and unceremoniously, I had no time to react let alone consider what he implied. Before I could respond, he had moved on.
“I can tell you’re being brave, but I’ve seen people take it much harder than you are when dealing with murder.”
I choked on my spaghetti. Wiping a paper towel across my mouth, I thought about what he’d said. “Like how I ran out into traffic?”
He frowned at me, and I rotated my shoulders, working out the tension.
“You already know I’ve been there.” He remained silent, so I continued. “Diana—my sister—and I loved the same man from our college days. Colin seemed to be everything I wanted in a husband. Handsome, fun, confident, you name it, and he was majoring in pre-law.”
At the mention of law, a muscle spasmed in Spencer’s jaw, but he didn’t interrupt.
“Diana was everything I’m not. She was the more vivacious one. I guess the best way I can phrase it is, while I was photographing life, she was living it. He chose her. I still loved him so much.”
I curled my hands together in my lap, feeling like a child, ashamed of what I felt in the past. “After a while, I just wanted to bask in his sunshine, just to see him smile and have him say hello to me. I dreaded them getting married, but I was there to support them both. I let myself be satisfied with being his friend and having his attention sometimes, rather than snuffing out my feelings.”
Spencer laid his fork down and reached for one of my hands. I tried to pull away from him, but he drew me from my side of the couch to his, and I settled into the spot beneath his arm, laying my head on his shoulder.
“Did you ever talk to your sister about it?”
“No.” My vision blurred, and I blinked it clear. “She knew, early on when we laughed together like school girls over him. That time…”
He stroked my cheek. His gentleness stirred my emotions all the more, but now that I had confessed some of my dirty secret, I wanted to share it all.
“That time was so good between us despite my secret. I didn’t want anything to get in the way, especially with us being so close. Diana was so good too. Most of the time when I saw them they were together. We had lunch or dinner. Sometimes she and I shopped alone. She seemed happy, and infrequently I was jealous.”
The last of that sentence slipped out in a rush, and I groaned, hating myself. Once again, Spencer didn’t judge me, or he had nothing to say. I peered up into his face, but the cop was used to hiding how he felt.
I licked my lips. “One day Colin invited me out to coffee—alone. I should have said no. I tell myself now that coffee and nothing else was what I expected, all it would be.”
“But you don’t know?”
I thought I heard a change in his tone, but when I looked into his face, he remained expressionless.
“No, I don’t know.”
“You didn’t sleep with him?”
“I said no, Spencer.” I sat up and moved away from him. He let me go. I was beginning to think he didn’t believe me. “Why should you take my word for it? We haven’t known each other long.”
Spencer set his plate on the table and linked his hands together as he rested elbows on his knees. “I’m not judging you, Makayla.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Aren’t you?”
“The choices you made are yours, and you know what you were thinking.”
“That’s right,” I snapped. “I spent two hours talking to my sister’s husband while she lay dying!”
The dam broke and flooded my face. I shook harder than I had earlier when I was attacked. Spencer dragged me to him, but I gave him a shove. He crushed my hands and arms between us and engulfed me in his embrace. I had no choice but to lay my head on his shoulder and cry it out. This wasn’t the first time, or the second, or the hundredth. I had wept for months over my sister and my own actions. I had blamed myself and even been forced into therapy.
“Feels like it’s starting all over,” I sobbed.
“No,” he insisted, “it’s not. This time you have me.”
I pulled back, but he tightened his hold, and I relaxed against him. Breathing in his scent calmed me a little. Either because of his personality or because of his own past experiences, Spencer felt strongly against what I had done. By his declaration, he was man enough to leave my decision where it belonged—in the past.
When I settled down, he let me go, and I straightened to wipe my nose. Heat suffused my cheeks as I thought about crying to this man, a virtual stranger, and worse, him telling me he was here for me. I wasn’t so innocent as I was then to believe he meant something more serious than friend or as a concerned human being. Gosh, I was pathetic.
As I wiped away the vestiges of my tears, I completed my story. “He had hired someone to kill her. You see, Diana and I inherited some money from our great-aunt Mae. No, don’t look so worried. It wasn’t a fortune. Then again…”
He frowned, and I named the sum. Not because I had to but because I wanted it out of the way. Spencer had already lived with a woman who had money, and I didn’t want to start off pretending my struggle wasn’t self-imposed.
“I’m not rich by any means, and after Colin murdered my sister, I refused to touch the money. I put my half into retirement and hers I gave away to charity, every cent.”
Spencer nodded. “Did you learn his motives, why he would go to such extremes for the money? After all, he was on a pretty good path, obviously intelligent.”
“Does it matter?” I knew I’d been short, but Colin had betrayed my sister and me in the worst way a human being could be betrayed. I still felt the pain and loss of my sister who was my best friend. My part in it, even if I didn’t know I was involved would stick with me the rest of my life. “After the police found a connection between Colin and the man he hired, they turned to me. He let them accuse me of plotting with him to have my sister killed. I wanted to grieve over Diana, but I was kept from it. Not until they had firm evidence against him that would stand up in court did Colin admit that I had nothing to do with the plot.”
I sniffed, shaking my head in disbelief.
“Makayla, do you still love him?”
I gaped
at Spencer. “My feelings for him died the day that my sister did.”
Spencer reached out to me and touched my hand on my lap. I looked at his, big and rough, and turned my palm over to link my fingers between his. He leaned forward, and I met him half way. Our lips touched, a featherlight kiss, and I shied away. His other hand moved to my nape and drew me closer. Another kiss and another. Then he drew back to look into my eyes.
“It’s not your fault.”
I smiled. “You sound like you mean that.”
“You made a bad decision, but you aren’t a bad person. If Diana had lived she would have forgiven your feelings. In fact, it sounds like she understood and accepted them. She shared someone she thought was worthy of the both of you.”
“Hm, that’s a nice way to think of it.”
He ran a thumb over my lips, and I drew in a shuddering breath. “Then think of it like that. Now, that’s as sensitive as I can get at almost three o’clock in the morning.”
I chuckled and then followed him to the door. “Are you leaving? It’s late. You can stay if you want.”
He hesitated. We hadn’t had our first date yet. Technically, our eating spaghetti together constituted the first. “I don’t want you to feel—”
I touched his arm, and the muscles flexed beneath my fingers. “I feel like a woman who would like a man to stay the night. Nothing else.”
His eyes darkened with interest. “Then I will.”
Chapter Thirteen
I woke up to bright sunlight and the scent of a man. Well, the sound of a man too. Spencer snored. Not heavy and loud like a lumberjack sawing a tree trunk. His was softer but definitely snoring. A bare arm thrown over his eyes, lots of armpit hair all long and scraggly as he lay on his back. I stared, unable to help myself. Too much time had passed since I’d had a man in my bed, and I didn’t regret this time for an instant. Spencer was a good and considerate lover. We had both enjoyed ourselves. At this point, he didn’t need to love me, and I didn’t need to love him for the kind of fun we had shared.
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