by Jill Sanders
Nothing she’d ever bought had ever made her feel half as good as Tyler did.
“Eighteen hundred?” Trent asked.
“What about the other shoes? The ones back at the hotel?” Tyler asked.
“Around the same.” She shrugged. “Like your mom said, they were just things.”
Trent whistled, then took another handful of popcorn.
“Whoever broke in could have hocked all the stuff instead.”
“You’re right,” Tyler said, his eyes going narrow. “Whoever did this didn’t break in to steal. They broke in to make a point.” He picked up his phone again, but this time walked out to the back deck to talk in private.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“I’m sure my brother has a hint as to who did this.” Trent took a sip of his beer. “Relax, he’ll take care of everything.”
Half an hour later, Tyler strolled back into the house. “I’m going to head down to the station,” he announced. Kristen started to rise from the sofa.
“I’ll go . . .”
“No, you stay here. Get some rest. The guest bathroom has a nice big bathtub and my mom makes her own bath-bomb thingies.” He looked to his mom for help.
“Yes, you’ll simply love my new lavender and vanilla.” Gail got up and took Kristen’s empty mug from her, then helped her up. “I’ll pour you a nice glass of wine, then show you where everything is. I’ve laid out some clothes that should fit you.” She hooked her arm with hers and started heading down the hallway.
Kristen stopped and looked back at him.
“Will you be coming back?” she asked.
His eyes moved to his mother’s and he shook his head. “No, I’ll stay at my place. Mom’s kind of . . . old-fashioned.”
Suddenly his entire body felt heated. He realized what he’d just admitted to his family. His eyes landed on Kristen and he could see a flush on her face and knew she understood the admission as well. Which only caused him to smile and relax. So, she was nervous about his family knowing they were doing . . . he tried not to chuckle as a memory of the first time Trent had caught Tyler kissing a girl. The childish song, k-i-s-s-i-n-g, started playing in his head.
His mother’s voice broke him from the memory. “No hanky-panky under my roof. At least not until you put a ring on it.” Gail smiled, then turned away and started singing Beyoncé as she made her way down the hallway.
“Doesn’t stop it from happening,” Trent chuckled, earning him an over-the-shoulder glare from their mother.
“I’ll pick you up in the morning,” Tyler said. “You still owe me a breakfast.” He smiled before his mother returned to lead Kristen down the hallway.
“Fill me in,” Trent said, standing up and following him to the door.
“You coming with?” he asked.
“Hell yeah. We might want to pick Trey up on the way.”
Tyler sighed and nodded. “I don’t want to give the update twice. Let’s wait until we’ve got him in the car.”
Ten minutes later, Tyler stopped at the small house at the end of Main Street that Trey had rented, where his brother waited at the curb.
“How is it that you got the only decent place in town to rent?” Tyler asked.
Trey smiled as he climbed in the back of the truck. “I told you, I’m lucky.”
“Talk to us,” Trent said as he turned back around.
“We had a little run-in with Brian tonight,” Tyler said.
“Son of a—” Trent started.
“Hold on, remember who his mama is. That’s Rea we’re talking about.”
“Right. In that case, let’s go with that bastard,” Trey supplied.
“That bastard tried to sucker punch me when my back was turned.” Tyler grew a little angrier just remembering it.
“And?”
“I saw him coming, dodged, and he landed flat on his face.” He held in a chuckle, but his brothers didn’t.
“You think he tore up Kristen’s room?”
“He’s the first on my list,” Tyler replied. “I told Mike and he agreed it was an avenue worth pursuing. He was picking him up and bringing him down for questioning. I figured it might jog Brian’s memory if we just happen to be sitting around.”
“I’ll jog his—”
“We’re not to touch him,” Tyler repeated Mike’s warning. “I promised Mike.”
“You promised him. I didn’t,” Trent said, and Tyler chuckled.
“Sorry, brother, I gave my word that none of us would lay a finger on him tonight.”
“Why’d you go and do a thing like that?” Trey said. “Didn’t Dad ever teach you to not make promises you couldn’t keep?”
“I did make sure to specify tonight.” He smiled back at his brother.
When they arrived at the small police station, every eye turned toward them and a hush fell.
Mike stood up and walked their way. As he walked, he flipped his keys in a move that Tyler knew so well. Mike was a frustrated fidgeter. When the man was agitated, he fiddled with his keys. “Evening.”
“Are we late for the party?” he asked.
“No, Tony’s got him back in interrogation.” He glanced between the three of them, shoving his keys into his pockets. “You’re welcome to wait . . .”
“Mike,” Tyler said softly.
Mike let out an exasperated sigh. “Don’t give me that look.” After a moment, he rolled his eyes. “Since I owe your dad, you can watch from the observation booth, but no interruptions.”
They followed him down a long hallway and entered a dark room. There was a large pane of glass between them and Tony and Brian.
Brian looked smug, sitting on the other side of the table as Tony asked questions.
The three brothers crammed into the small space and listened.
“You know, we’ve already got you for trespassing. We can tag destruction of property onto that.”
“That’s bullshit. You know I didn’t do nothing.”
“Breaking and entering into the hotel, then destroying property, that’s nothing?”
“I didn’t do any of that.” Brian’s eyes narrowed. “Like I told you, I was with a group of friends.”
“Who?” Tony leaned forward. “Give me names.”
“I don’t know their names. They’re part of the protesters.”
“You don’t know the names of your friends you were with?” Tony leaned back. “You’ve got to give me something solid, otherwise we can . . .”
“You can’t do shit. You’ve got no proof. I wasn’t there.” Brian moved to stand up.
“We’ve got a witness,” Tony said.
Tyler looked over at Mike. “Do you?” he asked softly.
Mike nodded his head. “Marg was in the hotel office. She said she saw a dark figure entering the room. Figured it was Kristen until she saw someone leave ten minutes later and realized that the figure was too tall to be Kristen.”
“How tall?” Trent asked.
“Taller than Kristen,” Mike said, his eyes on Brian as he played with his keys again as he thought. “The real question here is . . . why? Why her? Why didn’t he steal anything? Why trash the place, smash the computer instead of stealing it?”
“It’s my fault,” Tyler said and felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. He’d believed he’d sheltered Kristen from Brian, but instead, he’d only shown Brian his weakness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The dreams were so real. Her mind flashed between places. First, she was in her hotel room. In the shower, as someone came into her room, a dark figure hovering just beyond the foggy glass doors. When she wiped the fog away, no one was there, until the fog built up again, then the menacing shadow returned.
Next, she was in the trailer. It was night and the figure was there, stalking her in the darkness and cold. When she ran, the figure was always just a few steps behind her.
In her slumber, her body twitched until a warm hand landed on her stomach, a soft whisper in her ear.
She buried her face into his chest, smelling the sexy scent she’d come to know. She sighed with relief as she melted into a dreamless slumber.
When she woke, she was alone in the soft bed. Chalking it up to another dream, she showered and dressed in the borrowed jeans and sweater.
She took her time braiding her hair and let it lay over her shoulder to finish drying.
When she walked out into the kitchen, she was surprised to see all three of the McGowan boys sitting at the table while Gail served them French toast.
“Morning.” Gail smiled up at her. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you.” She moved over and sat next to Tyler, who had pulled out the chair for her.
She narrowed her eyes, remembering how real he felt last night. Then he winked at her and smiled until that sexy dimple appeared, and she knew he’d snuck into her bed.
“We decided to crash here last night,” Trey added. “The sofa isn’t as comfortable as it looks.” He added, rolling his shoulders.
Gail stopped what she was doing. “Well, it’s better than the floor.” She turned her eyes to Tyler. “Why aren’t you complaining?” Her eyes narrowed.
“I won the coin toss.” He nodded to the two sofas. One had a stack of pillows and blankets piled high. “I got the extra pillows.” He smiled, but Kristen knew that he’d slept in her bed with her. Holding her and comforting her in her dreams.
She doubted she could hide the truth from Gail, so she kept her focus on filling her plate with eggs and French toast.
“This smells so wonderful,” she said as Tyler poured her some orange juice.
“So, did they catch the guy?” Gail asked as she sat down at the end of the table.
“We think so, but they’re still checking on his alibi.”
“Who was it?” Kristen asked, setting her fork down as memories of her ransacked hotel room flashed in her mind.
“Brian Laster,” Trey replied. “His alibi is bull—” His eyes flew to his mother, then he coughed. “He’s lying. After all, he supposedly can’t even remember who he was with.” Trey shook his head.
“Yeah, most likely they’ll ask around. But they’ll need more than a weak alibi to charge him. Unless there is solid proof . . .” Tyler sighed, then reached over and took Kristen’s hand. “We’ll hit the stores today and see if we can replace some of what you lost.”
“I called my boss last night. He’s overnighting me another laptop. He’ll need a copy of the police report.”
Tyler nodded. “I figured we’d stop by the station after some shopping to see if they’d found out anything new.”
“Eat.” Gail interrupted her thoughts. “You’ll need the energy today.” She smiled and handed her a plate of fruit.
Kristen ate as much as her stomach would allow her, then helped clear the table while Tyler and his brothers talked about work and tidied up the extra blankets and pillows in the living room.
By the time they climbed into his truck, she was feeling guilty for dragging him away from a day of work.
“If you drop me off at my car, I’m sure I could . . .”
“Don’t you want to spend the day with me?” he broke in.
“What?”
“It sounds a lot like you’re trying to ditch me.” He smiled over at her.
“No, I . . .” She sighed. “I know you have a lot to do. After all, you are running a business . . .”
His chuckle stopped her. “My dad always said, what’s the use of being your own boss if you can’t play hooky once in a while?” He leaned over and took her hand in his. “It’s one day. Besides, it’s already done. Trent is filling in for me.”
She sat back, silently mulling over her own work responsibilities. Mr. Burnett hadn’t shared with her any new information about the updated proposal they were working on, only that it should be ready early next week.
Her trust in her boss was beginning to fail. The waiting was driving her crazy. He still wouldn’t tell her what she was doing hanging around there. His only concern seemed to be her digging deeper into Tyler’s family.
Normally, she’d be sent to a potential buyout’s location to negotiate the deal, then move on. Once or twice, she’d been assigned to profile a business with a contingent offer, auditing assets and doing due diligence with any clients or vendors. But she’d never been directed to investigate the private lives of owners and their family.
Sticking around after the business owners made clear their intentions not to sell wasn’t a normal procedure. She felt like a spy, sent there to penetrate the company. She felt dirty.
When they drove into town, Kristen asked to head to her hotel room first. To reassess the damages.
She walked down to the office and got the new key from Marg, the older woman who was always in the office.
Tyler was right behind her as she opened the door.
“Looks like Marg did a little cleaning for you.”
“Yes, she said she did what she could.” She sighed and looked around. All of her destroyed clothes were in large plastic bags on the neatly made bed. Marg had told her they had pulled a new mattress in for her since the other one had been slashed.
Her laptop sat on the desk in pieces.
“You know, I bet they could pull the hard drive from that and . . .”
She shook her head. “It’s a company machine. It’s locked out. Basically, we can’t save anything to them locally, but everything is on the cloud.” She smiled.
She walked over to the closet and opened the safe, then pulled out her iPad. “Thank goodness I have this.” She held up her iPad and hugged it to her chest.
“It’s a good thing you put it in the safe,” he said.
“Yeah, too bad that the safe was too small for the laptop.” She frowned and looked down at the small safe. Then gasped slightly. “He didn’t touch my suitcases.” She pulled out the two pieces and looked them over. There wasn’t a scratch on them, and she smiled up at Tyler.
“Well, it looks like we don’t have much to do here. Shall we head out?” He nodded toward the door.
“I want to check the bathroom. See what things I need in there,” she said.
When she walked into the bathroom, all her items were right where she’d left them. Strange that whoever broke in would spend so much time in the bedroom, destroying everything in there, but not touch anything in the bathroom.
“Looks like you lucked out,” Tyler said from behind her.
“Yeah, strange.” She shrugged, then stopped. “What’s that?” She walked over and pointed to a small silver box in the corner near the bathtub, just under the toilet. The decorative cover had a carving of two dogs taking down a large stag in the woods. The scene looked bloody and horrible, with the stag’s eyes wide open in death.
“Don’t.” Tyler grabbed her hand before she could pick it up. “That”—he smiled at her—“is our proof.”
Tyler stood back as Mike walked into the hotel room. “How did we miss this last night?” he said, looking down at the small silver box. “Damn. We were focused so much on the destruction in here . . .” Mike shook his head. “You know who this belongs to?”
“Yup, and so do half the people in town.”
“That’s one stupid son of a . . .” Mike sighed. “I guess we can’t really blame Rea.”
“Nope.” Tyler sighed.
“Is this enough to convict him?” Kristen asked, biting her bottom lip.
“It’s enough to charge him with criminal mischief. Basically, we’ll get him for trespassing and destruction of property. If you can get us proof that the property he destroyed was greater than a thousand dollars, we can get him . . .”
“It was,” Kristen said, causing both of them to turn toward her.
“Are you sure?” Mike asked.
Kristen walked over and picked up a broken shoe. “This pair alone cost me twenty-five hundred.”
Mike whistled. “Wouldn’t happen to have proof?”
“An email receipt.” She glanced over at him and shrugged. “What? I shop online.”
Mike shook his head and smiled.
“Then it’s a felony. He can get up to ten years or a fifty-thousand-dollar fine.”
This time it was Tyler who whistled. “I always knew he was stupid.”
“Yeah, plus he might be ordered to pay restitution.” Mike bagged the silver snuff box that used to belong to Rea’s husband, passed on to his son when he died.
“If you can email me a list of items destroyed and any receipts you have, we’ll add them to the report.” Mike handed Kristen one of his cards.
“What happens next?” Kristen asked, tucking the card into her pocket.
“We’ll book him, but most likely he’ll be out on bond until it goes before a judge.”
Tyler wrapped an arm around Kristen, who had paled slightly.
“Why don’t you come stay with me until—”
“No.” She shook her head.
He could tell instantly that staying above a strip club was out of the picture.
“I guess not.” He thought about it. “What about staying at my—”
“No,” she interrupted again. “I’m fine here.” She turned to him. “Thank you.” She turned back to Mike and held out her hand. “I’ll send you what I have later tonight.”
They left the hotel parking lot the same time Mike pulled out.
“Where to?” she asked as he drove farther into town.
“There are a few shops along the side streets. We’ll hit them first to see if you can get what you need before heading to Granger’s. I should drive you over to Helena.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s too far to go for a few items.” She sighed as she looked out the window.
“Well, I can’t promise what you’ll get here is as fancy as you are used to, but at least you’ll be warm.” He reached over and took her hand, then carried it up to his lips and placed a kiss on the soft skin along her wrist.
