Harlequin Romantic Suspense March 2016 Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

They sat and discussed colors and theme for the next forty minutes. Kayla would have excused herself, as Veronique had, when the conversation began to focus exclusively on the inn and what it was providing for the reception, but she thought better of it. She might catch a few extra morsels of information by staying.

  CHAPTER 13

  “I’d feel a little better if I could talk to Cynthia one more time before I go ahead with my orders for the wedding.” Kayla knew it wasn’t what Gloria wanted to hear, but Cynthia was a woman with a mind of her own and she had no desire to entertain headaches where she could just as well prevent them.

  “I’m the mother of the bride. Shouldn’t the final decision be left to me?” Gloria’s overly made-up face puckered in a pout. Kayla wasn’t going to be the one to point out that Gloria was at least twenty years younger than most mothers of the bride. She was probably not much older than Cynthia. Or herself, for that matter.

  “Since Cynthia’s the bride, I’d like to speak to her. It doesn’t have to be today, but I’d like to touch base with her before tomorrow afternoon.” Kayla had to have the specialty flowers ordered online by then so that her supplier could place the order first thing Monday morning. Her supplier was flexible and great to work with and she wanted to keep it that way. Changing a huge order like this, so short-notice already, was trouble for everyone.

  “I’ll tell her but she won’t be back in town until late next week. She’s back at law school.”

  Again, Kayla kept her mouth shut. How hard would it be for Cynthia to call her or drive the short distance to confirm details? But did Cynthia really want to get married? It almost seemed to be an afterthought.

  You’re making a good profit from this. Let it go.

  But it wasn’t about the profit. Kayla prided herself on her professionalism, and being forced to plan such a lavish wedding six days out was crazy enough without the bride here to add another demanding client.

  Gloria looked exasperated as she shoved her planning calendar, lipstick—which she’d reapplied no less than three times in the two hours they’d had the meeting—and phone back into her expensive designer bag. “You’re the florist, Kayla.” Was that supposed to keep her in her place? “How different would Cynthia want it? She’s trusted me with all the planning and I’m happy to do it for her. It’s the least I can do for her and her father. They mean the world to me.”

  Sure they do. That’s why you’re doing the horizontal chicken dance with Mickey.

  “Okay, well, if anything changes or you come up with any other ideas you’d like implemented, don’t hesitate to call me. Cynthia, too, please make sure she has my number.”

  “Will do.” Gloria’s spiked heels clicked against the parquet flooring. The soles were lacquer red, of course. Nothing less than Christian Louboutin for Gloria.

  Kayla waited to leave, taking a few extra minutes to look around the main reception room once more, visualizing where she’d place her arrangements and which colors and shades would do best in the subdued lighting. It was going to be an evening affair and Cynthia was adamant she wanted candles. But the fire codes limited their number.

  She texted Rio and let him know she was on her way home. She’d call Jenny from the van once she was on the road. Hefting her tote onto her shoulder, she headed for the back door, closest to the parking lot. The door opened easily and she stepped onto a wheelchair ramp. She was pleased with the inn and all that it offered. It truly was one-stop event shopping. She also appreciated that while Gloria could have come here and had the inn provide everything from the food to the flowers, she’d stayed local to Silver Valley and the metropolitan area of Harrisburg. The gesture kept people like Kayla and Veronique in business.

  It had rained while she was inside and she sidestepped puddles in the parking lot, noting that the clouds were still low, promising more rain. Raindrops glistened on the broad leaves of the shrubbery that was waking up after its long winter nap and she enjoyed the fresh scent of earth and sprouting fauna unique to spring. The parking area was surrounded by carefully pruned hedges that were taller than she was. She did a quick scan to make sure she was alone. The lot was empty save for her vehicle, which made sense as tonight’s event probably wasn’t until dinnertime, two hours away. Still, her hackles went up at how isolated it seemed, just around back from the small town’s main street. She’d have to tell Rio that his warnings had finally sunk in. She imagined the bogeyman behind every corner.

  Rio hadn’t replied to her text yet. She knew she shouldn’t look forward to anything from Rio except the safety he and the SVPD were providing her. But after their complete lack of self-control had led to the most spectacular sex, she’d thought of little else. Except for the murder of Meredith.

  As she neared the van, she clicked the key fob in her hand and heard the loud snap of the locks and saw the rear lights wink on and off. The familiarity of the normal, everyday action didn’t soothe her anxiety, though. She still felt the weight of the past week on her.

  The same sound she’d heard for the first time only several days ago reached her ears a nanosecond before she felt something whiz by her ear.

  A gunshot. A bullet.

  She dropped to the gravel and dialed 911. Fast footsteps sounded on the gravel, footsteps Kayla hoped never reached her as she threw herself into the bottom of the arborvitae hedge. She scratched and clawed at the lower branches as she worked her way on her stomach into the middle of the border until she was safely hidden from view.

  She needn’t have worried as the shooter never appeared and she heard fast footfalls on the gravel, moving away from her.

  “What’s your emergency?” The dispatcher’s request cut through her fear and disbelief.

  “I’ve been shot at. I’m at the Serenity Inn in Amittstown. Please tell Detective Ortega at Silver Valley PD. It might be related to a case he’s working on.”

  “Are you injured, ma’am?”

  Dazed, Kayla reached for her ear. Her hand came away wet and in the dim light under the bushes she made out a red hue.

  “Yes, but I don’t think it’s a big deal.”

  * * *

  As she allowed the EMTs to tend to what they deemed was a minor abrasion due to being grazed by a bullet, Kayla saw Rio’s car pull up into the lot. A second person was with him, another SVPD officer. Unlike Rio, this officer was in uniform. She watched as Rio angled his long body out of the seat and realized she couldn’t be mortally wounded or else she wouldn’t be getting aroused as quickly as she was just by looking at Rio. He was at her side in a few short strides. He flashed his badge at the EMT before he put his hand on her upper arm opposite the side where she was injured and looked into her eyes.

  “You okay?” His eyes were full of concern, and maybe, just maybe, was that a flash of guilt?

  She nodded, but her lower lip started to jerk and without further warning she was blubbering like a baby.

  “Can I have a minute with her?” Rio asked but he’d already moved in between her and the first responder.

  “Yes, sir, of course.”

  “I’m, I’m f-f-fine.” She hated how out of control she sounded. It was like when she and her brother had just missed being victims of a terrorist bomb on the Tube in London, when they’d been teens. The reality of how close they’d come to being hurt or worse hit her only after she was back at home and her parents’ concern had underscored their near miss.

  “Yes, you are.” Rio’s arms were around her and she leaned into his embrace, still sitting on the back end of the ambulance. “You’re more than fine, Kayla. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you.”

  “How could you have known you needed to be?” She sniffed but didn’t miss the way he stiffened at her question.

  “I’ll tell you about it later.” He lifted her chin with his finger. “Did you see anyone?”

  She shook h
er head.

  “No. I heard some steps right before the gunshot, but that was it. I was so frightened and didn’t see a way out except to try to hide in the hedges. That’s what’s got me so scratched up—probably more than the bullet.” She allowed him to tilt her head and examine her ear. He brushed her hair back just as the EMT had but she felt Rio’s touch down into the deepest, scariest parts of herself. His nearness chased away the fear that had terrorized her only minutes before.

  “You’re right. It’s not much more than a scratch. It looks like he butterflied it up nicely for you, but I’m sure you’ll need to have a doctor look at it.”

  “You’re kidding, right? I don’t need to go to a doctor. It’s stopped bleeding, I don’t have a headache or anything and I have a wedding to get planned.” Not to mention the other orders waiting for her at the shop. She hadn’t even been able to touch base with Jenny yet.

  “The wedding planning can wait. Where was Gloria when this happened?” Rio’s voice was stern and she heard a steely note of frustration.

  “She’d already left, out the front. The only other person meeting with us was Veronique, the chef, and she left as much as a full half hour before we did.”

  “I need you to come back to the station and file an official report. I promise I’ll make it as painless as possible.”

  “I’ll meet you there. I’ll take my van this time.”

  “Kayla, no. If you want to be in your van, let me drive it. I’ll have my deputy drive my car back.”

  * * *

  Rio listened as Kayla talked to her assistant, Jenny, about the day’s workload and what they had in store for tomorrow. As he took the backcountry roads to Silver Valley, he used the opportunity to look at Kayla as much as possible while keeping his driving safe.

  Except for the nasty slash across her left ear, she looked like the woman he knew and not the victim of an attempted murder.

  Slow down. You don’t know they meant to kill her.

  Kayla’s bleak shock lifted when she spoke with Jenny. Her expression was animated by her enthusiasm for her flower shop and what she loved doing. He liked how she managed to be so personable, but at the same time was definitely the one in charge. It was a skill he’d had to work at, since his inclination as a young officer had been to clean up a mess and ask questions later. Through time, experience and observing that a gentle touch got more answers out of people, he’d learned to do what Kayla seemed to do naturally.

  “Any reason you’re so interested in my work schedule?” She turned toward him, her annoyance obvious.

  “Sorry. I honestly didn’t pay attention to what you were saying. I can’t keep my eyes off you.”

  He quickly looked at her and smiled when he saw the blush on her cheeks. Making Kayla speechless was rare and incredibly satisfying.

  “Oh.”

  “You’ve been thinking about it, too, Kayla. I know you have.”

  “The stairs.” Another thing he adored about Kayla was her straightforward manner when it came to sex. She was as feminine as all get-out yet hadn’t hesitated to ask him for what she’d wanted in bed.

  “Among other things.” He reached over and squeezed her thigh. “Has it occurred to you that we’re not done yet, Kayla?”

  “It doesn’t matter what’s occurred to me, Rio. You’re still the investigating officer on Keith’s case, and we can’t get past the fact that we weren’t entirely up-front with each other when we got together. You didn’t tell me you worked undercover, and I didn’t tell you that I wasn’t interested in getting involved with someone in your kind of work.”

  “Maybe.” He wasn’t willing to tell her about Keith’s case being dropped. He’d been on his way to tell Keith when the call came in that she’d been shot at. Keith deserved to know he was free of the wrongful accusations first, and besides, it’d be his business whether he told his sister or not.

  “You think it’s Gloria, don’t you? You think she snuck around back and shot at me.” Kayla’s tone was rife with the stress of what she’d been through.

  “No, I don’t think that, not necessarily.” Shit. He needed to tell her more. “Look, Kayla, remember, we think there was a second person involved in the murder. There’s evidence that someone left the barn out the other side of the building from where you were.”

  “Then it could have been Gloria, especially if the man I heard was indeed Mickey. It makes sense with them having an affair. But why they’d kill Meredith, together, is what’s bothering me.”

  Rio sighed. “Kayla, you’re not on the SVPD. I asked you to keep your eyes and ears open, and I regret that now you’ve been drawn into it.”

  “If you’re right and if a second person was there, he or she could have doubled back and seen my van, as you said before. They’d both be after me whether or not I agreed to stay on with the wedding.” She looked out the windshield but he doubted she saw the rows and rows of neatly planted apple trees on both sides of the road that wound through the orchards like a ribbon. “It’s too neat, isn’t it? To think that Gloria and Mickey are both murderers. And Gloria seems too, too...” She trailed off and Rio risked a smirk.

  “Too high-strung?”

  “Exactly. I can’t see Gloria handling the stress of a murder conspiracy.”

  Kayla was getting tired, no doubt the crash after her adrenaline rush catching up to her. “The comedown from a situation as tense as what you’ve been through today can be a bitch, Kayla. If you need to close your eyes and catch a catnap until I get you home, please do.”

  “I’m okay. We’re stopping at the station first, right?”

  “Only for as long as it takes to file your report. Then you’re going to get some rest.”

  He failed to tell her exactly where she was getting some rest. There was no way he’d take her back to her place, not when her name was on a killer’s list somewhere.

  CHAPTER 14

  It was an Easter Sunday unlike any other Kayla had experienced. She woke up at Rio’s and didn’t have any last-minute deliveries to take care of. Within a half hour she was with Rio in his car.

  “Yes, I’m a little cranky. Wouldn’t you be if you’d been shot at yesterday and had to sleep in a strange bed without your own stuff? And to top it off, the Easter Bunny hasn’t brought me any chocolates.” Kayla pulled her sunglasses out of her tote and put them on as Rio drove the unmarked police vehicle.

  “It wasn’t a strange bed, not technically.” Rio tried to make her smile but she ignored him. “And I’m sorry about your Easter being ruined. Law enforcement works 24/7. You didn’t have anything planned with your brother or parents, did you?”

  “No, my parents are still out of town and Keith and I were going to wait until they were home to go out for a big brunch. It’s too crazy to try to get reservations at Hershey this weekend, anyhow. Thank you, by the way, for keeping your word. I slept so soundly and never worried about a thing all night.” She’d wished Rio was there to hold her, but they couldn’t afford to go there. Not with this case blowing up around them.

  “I’m not going to let anything else happen to you, Kayla.” She saw his fingers tighten on the steering wheel.

  “You always hold the steering wheel on the bottom. Why?”

  He looked surprised.

  “Where do you hold it?”

  “At ten and two o’clock. Like they taught us in driver’s ed.”

  He smiled. “You’re right. I forgot about that. When we go through police training and refresher defensive driving, we’re taught to hold it here.” He nodded at the four and eight o’clock positions his hands were at. “It gives me more control over the wheel. It’s not something that makes too much of a difference until you need to make a quick turn or J-turn.”

  “I hope I never have to pull any of that crazy stuff in my van.”

 
She watched his jaw tighten and his spine go stiff as he drove. “What, Rio?”

  “On the subject of police maneuvers—where we’re going is kind of like a police department. But also very different in a lot of ways.” He hadn’t yet revealed to Kayla where they were headed.

  “Oh?”

  He remained silent and she sensed he was searching for words.

  “Spit it out, Rio. You won’t be yourself again until you do. First you tell me to get whatever information I can, then you’re angry with me because you think I snooped too much. Now you’re looking at me as if you’re taking me to prison or something. We’re not going to the county prison, are we?”

  “No, it’s not a prison. It’s an extra group of law-enforcement folks we work with when we need more help on a case. More often they work their own cases separately from SVPD and use folks like me on an as-needed basis to help with the man hours.”

  “What does any of this have to do with me?” It didn’t surprise her that a man like Rio had his fingers in so many different law-enforcement entities—he was a detective and he’d no doubt had loads of training to do his job.

  “You’ll see. You have to trust me on this.”

  Trust Rio.

  “The last time I trusted you we ended up naked.”

  He held up one hand as he kept his focus on the road.

  “You slept at my house, and that’s all you did. Slept. I know we didn’t plan what happened the other night. Maybe it was because of how abruptly we had to break things off. We ended up in bed together so quickly last year, and then Keith’s case happened and I had to break it off. I’m sorry about that, Kayla, but you didn’t want to pursue a relationship with me, either.”

  “No, I didn’t. I don’t. I mean, hell, I don’t know what I mean.”

  His hand was on hers, where it rested on her thigh, and he squeezed. “Let it go for now. We have to focus on keeping you safe. That’s why I’m taking you to the headquarters for the Trail Hikers.”

  “Trail Hikers?”