Harlequin Romantic Suspense March 2016 Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  The first time she’d had occasion to visit was also last Christmas, when her statement had to be taken and filed for her unintentional delivery of flowers from a serial killer.

  This third time certainly wasn’t the charm, she thought, as she sat in a cracked, padded chair in a drab interrogation room, waiting for someone to come take her statement—again.

  She’d already told two different officers her version of events, from when she’d pulled up outside the barn until Rio had arrived on scene.

  As if she was a suspect.

  She felt like one, despite her guilt at not being able to do anything to save Meredith. Meredith, who’d been shot right in front of her, wasn’t much younger than Kayla. She’d been doing her job as the mayor’s assistant and in one horrible evening her life was over.

  Kayla hadn’t been able to do anything to save her own brother, Keith, from the evil that seemed to be invading Silver Valley, either. She’d been stunned when one of the couples from the church had filed a suit against Keith and the town, claiming they’d suffered from the fire and it was his fault. The mayor had said he sided with Keith but still removed him from active duty. He was still on administrative leave from the Silver Valley Fire Department.

  Purposeful steps sounded on the other side of the door before Rio opened it and strode into the room. A smarter woman wouldn’t have looked at him, but Kayla allowed herself a good long glance at the man she’d been unable to shake from her memory. She told herself it was the shock, not desire.

  Rio.

  It would be so much simpler if she hadn’t slept with him. If she didn’t know the passion beneath that rock-solid cop exterior. And he might be her only chance at proving she had nothing to do with this murder.

  Rio was the one man she’d even considered starting a serious relationship with in years, until she realized how dangerous his occupation was. She’d dated a cop before, but with no intention of making it anything more than casual. Cops weren’t available to her. Too risky. They could be killed. She’d had enough loss in her life. Being involved with someone she couldn’t count on around-the-clock didn’t appeal to her.

  He lied to you.

  He hadn’t lied, really. Just left out one little fact about himself until it was too late for it to be an innocent oversight. If he didn’t trust her with his real life from the get-go, she wanted no part of it.

  “Here.” He set a take-out latte in front of her. The sweet almond smell made her groan. He grinned.

  “I thought you’d appreciate it about now. I’m sorry you’ve had to wait for so long.” He took the chair opposite her.

  “Sure you are.” She wasn’t going to refuse the drink, however, and enjoyed several sips before she spoke again. “Thank you for the coffee. Let me guess, you need me to go over everything I’ve already told Officers Ogden and Miller?”

  “No, you’ve given your official statement. I need you to dig a little deeper and think about your clientele. How many new customers have you had in the past few weeks?”

  “You mean since the new mayor was installed?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her tone. Rio’s lips twitched. It would be so easy to reach over and make him smile.

  Would have been, if they were still seeing each other. She really needed to get a grip. They’d barely dated. It had been more like a mutual lust-satisfaction gig. An arrangement Rio appeared to have forgotten.

  “Since whenever. Anyone stick out, anyone seem strange, out of place in Silver Valley?”

  She shook her head. “It’s one of my busiest times of year, between Passover, Easter and springtime in general. Not as busy as Christmas, but it gets close to the same volume over the month. I can’t always tell which new customers will stay and which ones are simply buying their bouquets for the season. But no one struck me as odd.”

  “What about your regular and special event contracts? You mentioned the current mayor is a regular customer?”

  “The previous mayor is no longer on my regular list, of course, but yes, the new mayor picked up where she left off. Actually, his wife, Gloria, is the one who does the ordering.” Ex-mayor Amelia Donner had started the tradition of keeping fresh flowers in the office while she was mayor and had extended it to her home. But these days Amelia Donner had no money for anything but her legal defense. “I do occasionally drop off some fresh flowers to Amelia.”

  “That’s nice of you.”

  Kayla blushed. The latte warmed her fingers and she clung to the paper cup, wanting to drink more but not wanting to lose the source of comfort, afraid that her hands might still shake.

  She risked a look at Rio, who remained his usual gorgeous self-contained “I am a detective, damn it” self. There was that flicker of light in his deep brown eyes, the flicker she missed. A lot.

  He waited for her to think some more, remember something he could use. This was how Rio operated. As if he had all the time in the world. As if she was the only person he cared about.

  “Gloria Charbonneau orders flowers fairly regularly for the same types of affairs as Mayor Donner did. But...” She took a large gulp of her drink.

  “Go on.”

  “She isn’t the friendliest person. She has very expensive taste and never wants the stems I have on hand. I have to go to the Port of Baltimore or Philadelphia for her requests and get the flowers fresh. I even had to go into New York once. I was surprised when she called about flowers for this wedding only because she’s a careful planner, from my brief association with her. She doesn’t do anything short-notice if she can help it.”

  “The wedding is a surprise from what you’ve said. And that corroborates the statements we’ve taken from the owner of the Weddings and More Barn.”

  “Yes, definitely short-notice. And I’ve never met her daughter, Cynthia. If she’s anything like Gloria, the next week is going to be a rough one. Gloria is a perfectionist, to say the least. You should be interviewing her, though, not me. I’m only the florist.”

  Rio’s eyes lit up and his dimples, surprising in his masculine face, made Kayla smile.

  “For being ‘only the florist’ you seem to get yourself in the middle of a lot of activity, Kayla.”

  “Spare me the official mumbo jumbo, Rio. You know me. You know it’s all coincidence. It’s a small town, and even if there are twenty thousand citizens of Silver Valley, there are only three other florists besides me, along with several more in the Harrisburg area. We each offer a different type of service.” She shrugged, ready to be done. “You’ve taken my statements, and you know where I live. I’m not a flight risk. It’s after midnight and my day starts in four hours with delivery preps for the local churches. May I go?”

  He held her gaze long enough for her to see her emotions echoed in his expression. Feelings she had no desire to address, not at half-past midnight on a work night. On a night she’d witnessed a murder. On any night since they’d last been together as a couple.

  “Yes, you can go. First let me make something very clear. While I’m confident we’ll clear you of any suspicious activities, that doesn’t mean this is over. We have a murderer out there, someone who probably knew the victim. That means a local, and that means you could be on his radar. Your van was in full view. We’re going to keep a close eye on you. Extra patrols past your shop at opening and closing, and by your home in the evenings. Don’t be alarmed, we’re just doing our job. But I would like you to stay quiet about what you saw last night. Don’t volunteer to anyone that you were there—we told the owner of the Weddings and More Barn that it was a local who called in the report but we didn’t say you were there. For all he knows, you drove up after the SVPD units arrived and went home.”

  “Sure, no problem.” It wasn’t something she wanted to discuss with anyone. “I’m telling you, the criminal never saw me or my van. Even if he made out the van down the drive, it was to
o dark and too far away to see the logo. I’m not concerned.”

  “It’s not your decision whether or not we’re concerned about your safety, Kayla. That’s up to SVPD and we keep the people of Silver Valley safe.”

  “Tell that to Meredith Houseman.”

  His nostrils flared and in another place or situation she might have giggled. Instead immediate remorse made her angry at herself.

  “I’m sorry, Rio. That was horrible of me to say. I know you would have done anything to save her.” She knew that was true.

  Rio said nothing as he yanked open the door.

  “Officer Ogden, show Ms. Paruso out.” His order was sharp and she didn’t expect him to say another word to her.

  But he turned back to her and nodded.

  “We’re not done, Kayla. Expect to see more of me.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Kayla opened the shop at five thirty the next morning. Sleep had been a losing proposition and after a few hours of tossing she got up and left for work.

  The scent of hyacinths and Easter lilies permeated the air and she tried to allow the uplifting scents to raise her spirits. It didn’t seem right to be putting together so many celebration arrangements while she still had the image of Meredith in her mind.

  She sipped her coffee and winced at the bitter brew her stale beans had produced. She’d had no choice but to bring it from home as the local coffee shops weren’t open for another thirty minutes. Her cupboards were bare; flower season left little time to get groceries. She could always run out later or have Jenny pick some up on the way in.

  A solitary light over the workbench illuminated the long list of customers who required fresh flowers for their Passover and Easter celebrations, beginning with the Silver Valley Community Church. The historically significant edifice had almost burned to the ground at Christmas, with Zora and the man who was now her fiancé, Bryce, in the midst of the fire. Keith had been on scene with the SVFD and they’d gotten everyone out and had saved the historic building.

  As Kayla snipped stems and stuck them into damp floral foam for a series of six matching arrangements, she allowed her mind to wander. Anywhere but to last night, which was still too scary to replay.

  Of course Rio’s dark brown eyes were the first image that appeared. Damn him. It would help to talk to someone about her feelings, but her sister, Melody, lived too far away, and Zora was in the midst of planning her wedding. Although even a bride-to-be needed a break, and Zora knew her best of anyone around.

  Zora had been posing as a minister to help ferret out the serial killer who was after female preachers. Why Zora was involved in law enforcement, since she was a therapist, Kayla had never asked. Keith had told her not to, since it could compromise Zora if she was some kind of undercover agent. She’d been in the navy before, so Kayla wouldn’t be surprised to find out Zora led two lives.

  Together Zora and Bryce had brought down the serial killer who had used Kayla to take flowers, and a message, to Zora’s college friend while she was acting as the congregation’s interim pastor. Of course, it turned out that the “college friend” was really Zora, working undercover with SVPD.

  Somehow during the case Zora had found love with Bryce, SVPD’s other detective. Unlike Kayla, Zora seemed to have no issue with dating a cop.

  A scraping noise alerted Kayla to the back door opening—the loading area for the van and incoming shipments. She fought back panic. It might not be an intruder, but she wasn’t expecting Jenny for another two hours.

  She grabbed for the largest pair of shears they kept at the workbench and held them in front of her with her right hand while her left reached for her phone.

  “Kayla?” The familiar baritone washed away her anxiety with relief, followed by a quick, hot surge of anger.

  “What are you doing here so early, Rio?”

  He presented a paper bag and two cups of take-out coffee in a cardboard holder. “I knew you had an early start and wanted to make sure you’re doing all right.”

  “You gave me coffee last night. That was enough.”

  “Still not a morning person, I see.” He set the tray onto the counter and offered her one of the cups. “You can put the scissors down. You’re safe. But I give you points for quick thinking.”

  She grudgingly lowered the makeshift weapon and accepted her second cup of coffee from Rio in less than twelve hours. Biting into the soft almond croissant she’d taken from the bag, she looked at him.

  “These shears are no joke. They’d kill you as quick as a bullet if need be.” He didn’t react to her attempt at humor. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. “This is delicious, thank you. You couldn’t have gotten much sleep, either.” She remembered that he’d said he never slept much once he got into a case.

  “I don’t need a lot. You remember that, I’m sure.”

  The heat that had never disappeared between them suddenly scorched her insides and she wished she had more sense. That she had the wherewithal to tell him to get out of the shop and let the door hit him right on his sexy butt.

  “Hmm.”

  “Hmm, indeed.” His eyes took in everything. With a start she realized she missed this. The quiet morning time together, the intimacy of sharing the day’s first cup of coffee as they woke up.

  It was only three weeks. Get over it.

  “I’m safe, Rio. As you can see, no one’s here to bother me.” Almost as if last night never happened.

  “You’re safe, my ass. I walked right in here. You didn’t even have the back door locked!” His voice was quiet, low, but powered by the ferocity of his concern.

  “I imagine it would be awful for you to lose your only witness.”

  “I’m not going to leave you high and dry, Kayla. You’re not alone in this. We will catch this killer. And I know you’re worried about Keith, and I assure you I’m working on that, too. Not every case takes as long as his has.”

  She didn’t reply. She’d like to believe him that this case wouldn’t languish as Keith’s case continued to do.

  Rio leaned against the bench and took a good long perusal of the work area. “I don’t think I ever got back here when we dated.”

  “No, you didn’t.” He’d come in the first time to order flowers for a colleague who was in the hospital. The next few times had been to pick her up after she closed shop and he’d waited in his car out front until she joined him. They hadn’t wanted to spend time here—there was little room to do what they both wanted. What she had needed from him—his touch—was best experienced in a bedroom.

  “You never answered my calls, Kayla.”

  So they were back to that.

  “There was nothing to say. We’d agreed to stop seeing each other.”

  “And we’d agreed to stay friends. Friends keep in touch.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s been busy.”

  * * *

  Rio chugged his hot coffee as his mind replayed the hundreds of replies he could toss at Kayla in the morning quiet of the shop. They were both tired and on edge. She was probably still scared out of her wits, even though she’d never admit it to him.

  But he saw it anyway, in the fine lines around her eyes, the slightly wild look she’d cast his way as he walked into the shop. If he hadn’t called her name first, those ridiculously large scissors may have been lodged in his chest.

  “It has. I’m glad for you, Kayla. I know how much the shop means to you.” Busy meant that she’d increased her revenue and that the gossip about the serial killer ordering flowers from her hadn’t tainted her business. It was hard to tell sometimes which way the whisper mill would turn in Silver Valley. Like the rumors around Kayla’s brother’s case. Rio still couldn’t bring the case to closure, months after Keith Paruso had been accused of improper fire-inspection techniques and endangering public safety
. Just when he thought he had Keith off the hook, another loophole was presented by the prosecuting attorney, in the shape of a couple Rio believed were being put up to do the dirty business of the cult. The former cult members had arrived just before all the political chaos began, but he had no definitive evidence they were connected to Keith’s case. Yet.

  “Thank you, and thanks for the coffee. It’s a nice treat. With that in mind, I do need to keep working.”

  “Mind if I stay a bit and talk to you while you work?”

  “Not at all.”

  He fought not to laugh. Her words were in direct opposition to the sour look on her face. He was the last person she wanted to spend time with.

  “You know, Kayla, it seems a little silly to me that two people like us are allowing the past to control whether or not we have a cordial relationship until your brother’s case is closed. We’re intelligent adults.” He watched her fingers move with equal parts grace and speed, stabbing pink flowers next to white in some kind of a green foam brick.

  “Well, Rio—” God he loved how she said his name, and the images that refreshed for him “—I find it silly that you are standing here so early in the morning after a very long night in the police station, trying to pick up where we most definitely left off. I told you that it had nothing to do with you, personally. We agreed that we couldn’t date, that it’s a conflict of interest, remember? And I think being friends falls under that category, too.”

  “If I’d been a doctor and not told you what I did for that long, would you have been as upset?” She’d been angry that he hadn’t been open about the fact that he worked undercover at times, and he’d been angry at himself for not putting it together that she was the fireman’s sister.

  Truth be told, he hadn’t wanted to make the connection. All he’d wanted was to be with Kayla.

  Two long spikes of green, maybe palm leaves, went into the middle of each of the arrangements. He wondered how she knew exactly where to place each stem so that the final product looked so perfect.