Daniella felt the burn of tears as a vision of Samantha filled her head. “I’ve never seen somebody like that…dead…murdered.” She fought against a shudder as Macy came into the kitchen clad in her pajamas.
She jumped up from her chair and pasted a smile on her face. “All ready for a tuck-in?”
“Yeah, but I want Mr. Sam to tuck me in, too.” She grabbed Sam’s hand and tugged at him. “Come on, I’ll show you my princess crown.”
Sam looked shocked, but rose to his feet, obviously understanding that Daniella wanted Macy in bed as soon as possible and not out here when the sheriff arrived or where she might get a peek at Samantha’s body.
Macy pulled Sam through the doorway that led to their private quarters. There was a sitting room, a bathroom and two small bedrooms. She followed them into Macy’s bedroom where the little girl crawled into the twin bed, pulled up the pink flowered sheet and patted the mattress beside her. “Here, have a seat, Mr. Sam.”
Sam looked at Daniella, obviously uncomfortable with the whole scene. Still, he eased down on the mattress as Daniella nodded. Macy opened the drawer in her nightstand and withdrew her glittery princess crown.
It was a surreal moment, her daughter proudly showing off her crown while a dead woman lay in the yard. Samantha Walker wasn’t the nicest woman in the world, but Daniella couldn’t imagine somebody wanting to murder her. And why had her body been left here?
“You want to see me wear my crown and do my princess walk?” Macy asked Sam.
“It’s bedtime now,” Daniella said firmly. “There will be another time to show off your princess walk.”
“It’s a pretty crown,” Sam said, as he stood.
“Thank you. It keeps away monsters,” Macy replied.
Daniella took the crown from her daughter and placed it back in the drawer. “Good night,” she said, then kissed Macy’s sweet cheek. “Sleep tight.”
“Good night, princess,” Sam said. A moment later he and Daniella left the bedroom and went back into the kitchen. “Will she get out of bed again?” he asked.
“I doubt it.” Daniella sat in one of the chairs at the small oak table and wondered what was taking the sheriff so long. “Macy has always been one of those unusual kids who loves to sleep. Bedtime has never been a problem with her.”
As he sat in the chair next to her, she was over whelmed by myriad emotions. “I’m so sorry that this has happened,” she said. “This isn’t business as usual for the bed-and-breakfast.”
He smiled, and once again she was struck by his handsomeness. “I didn’t think you arranged this scene strictly for your guests’ entertainment,” he said.
“I just can’t believe this is happening.” She felt sick, as if she’d never be able to dispel the vision of Samantha from her brain.
At that moment a knock came from the front door, and Daniella steeled herself not only for the investigation to come but also to deal with Sheriff Jim Thompson, who she thought was a cranky incompetent.
She was grateful for Sam’s presence just behind her as she opened the door to let Jim inside. “I hope this isn’t some sort of wild goose chase,” he said as he stepped into the foyer.
“I doubt if the dead woman beneath the tree on the side of the house considers this a wild goose chase,” Sam replied.
Jim drew himself up to his banty-rooster height and narrowed his eyes. “And you are?”
“Sam Connelly. I’m a guest here.”
“Jim, she’s been stabbed,” Daniella said. “It’s Samantha Walker.”
Jim’s grizzly gray eyebrows pulled together in a frown. “There’s going to be hell to pay with the mayor. Point me in the right direction and let’s get this investigation underway.”
They were all silent as they walked through the kitchen and Daniella pointed out the door. Sam followed Jim outside while she remained in the kitchen, the horror of the situation back in the center of her brain.
She sat at the table and closed her eyes, but instead of thinking about poor Samantha Walker she found her head filled with thoughts of Sam Connelly. Maybe because it was easier to think about how hot he was instead of how dead Samantha was.
And he was hot. It wasn’t just the fact that his tight jeans showcased slim hips, long legs and a tight butt, and his shoulders appeared wide enough to shoulder any trouble that might come his way. His electric blue eyes held a keen intelligence and a whisper of darkness that was daunting but also intriguing.
She frowned and rubbed the center of her forehead where a headache attempted to blossom. Something about Sam Connelly struck her on a strictly feminine level, made her remember that she was not only a healthy woman with desires, but also a very lonely woman.
The loneliness had grown more intense over the last year, when she’d finally given up ever hearing from her husband, Johnny, again. Sure, she had Macy and Frank and Jeff to fill some of the empty spaces in her life, but they couldn’t take the place of warm arms wrapping around her in the middle of the night, of that special smile that passed between lovers, of those moments of knowing you were in somebody’s heart, in their very soul, as they were in yours.
She mentally kicked herself. She didn’t know anything about Sam Connelly other than that he was from Kansas City and he’d paid for his accommodations here in advance with a major credit card. She didn’t know what he did for a living, what kind of man he was at heart, or if he had a significant other somewhere.
She got up from the table, moved to the back door and peered out. Sam and Jim stood to one side. Several other deputies had arrived, along with Dr. Earl Stanton, who in addition to his private practice, also worked as the coroner in the area.
Poor Samantha. Who could have done something so terrible to her? Certainly Samantha hadn’t been particularly well-liked by a lot of the people in town, but she hadn’t deserved this.
Murdered.
She’d been murdered. The horror once again struck Daniella like a fist in the pit of her stomach. It was like a nightmare, and she desperately wanted to wake up.
As she saw Sam and Jim start in the direction of the house, she backed away from the door. Both men looked grim as they came back into the kitchen.
“Earl thinks she was killed sometime early this afternoon at another location then left here,” Jim said. “Did she come out here to talk to you?”
“No, Samantha and I had no business with each other, and she rarely acknowledged me when we’d bump into each other in town. I can’t imagine why she’s here,” Daniella replied.
For the next thirty minutes the sheriff asked her questions about her activities that day, about how she had discovered the body and if she’d seen anyone unusual lurking about the place anytime in the last couple of days. She had no answers for him.
Finally he was finished with her. Within another thirty minutes the body had been removed, and everyone was gone except Sam and Daniella, who once again sat at the kitchen table.
“The sheriff didn’t act like you’re one of his favorite people,” Sam said.
“Five years ago my husband disappeared, and I not only made myself a nuisance to Jim, but at one point I called him an incompetent jerk who should be waiting tables instead of working investigations.”
“Ouch. So, is he incompetent?” Sam asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought he was when I was trying to find my husband, but that was just my personal opinion. I know he’s retiring at the end of the year, which will be a good thing.”
“Macy said her daddy got lost.” Sam leaned forward in his chair, his gaze intent as he gazed at her. “What happened to him?”
She could fall into those blue depths if she allowed herself. She reminded herself that even though he’d been a support, he was simply a guest who would be gone within two weeks.
“I wish I knew,” she answered. As always, thoughts of Johnny brought with them a faint edge of grief and a whisper of unresolved anger. “Five years ago he left here to drive into town to get diapers for Macy and he nev
er came back. At first I thought maybe he’d been involved in an accident, but when I called Jim nobody had reported anything like that. I called Jeff, Johnny’s best friend, to see if he’d heard anything from him. He hadn’t, but he made the rounds of all the bars and hangouts in town looking for Johnny.”
How well she remembered that night. As the hours had worn on with no word from her husband she’d been frantic with worry, certain that something terrible had happened to the man she loved.
She swallowed hard to dislodge the lump that rose in the back of her throat. “When twenty-four hours had passed I went down to Jim’s office and filed an official missing-persons report. Jim told me he’d check around but that it wasn’t against the law for a husband to leave his wife.”
“Were you and your husband having marital problems?”
It was a personal question but Daniella didn’t take offense. Somehow, in the last couple of hours that passed with the investigation of a murder, between them had arisen a strange, false sense of intimacy.
“Johnny and I were high school sweethearts. We got married on the day I turned eighteen, and we shared the dream of buying this place and turning it into a successful bed-and-breakfast. We were married four years when I got pregnant with Macy. That same year my mother died, and we used the money from her life insurance policy to buy this place. Macy was two months old when we moved in, and for the next two months we painted and scrubbed and did everything we could to get this place ready to open.” She realized she was rambling, telling him more than he’d asked for, but it seemed important that he know the details.
“Things were good,” she continued. “We had the baby we wanted and were on our way to seeing our dream come true, and then he was just gone.”
“Was there an official investigation into his disappearance?” Sam asked.
“Eventually, but he and his car were never found. For a long time I entertained all kinds of ideas. He’d been in an accident and had hit his head and suffered amnesia. He was kidnapped at gunpoint and was being held captive for some unknown reason. Jim thought that he’d just walked away from the responsibility of the business, the baby and me, but I couldn’t imagine Johnny doing that. A year ago I finally decided to get a divorce on grounds of abandonment. And I’m sorry. I’ve bored you long enough.”
She pushed back from the table, embarrassed that she’d spilled so much personal information to him. “Thank you for all your support tonight, and now back to your regular scheduled vacation plans.” She stood and he did the same.
“If the sheriff needs to talk to you again and you want somebody there with you, just let me know,” he said.
She smiled gratefully at him. “Thanks, but I just hope you can put all this behind you and enjoy the rest of your time here. But I would understand if you want to leave and stay someplace else.” She froze as she saw her cordless phone on the counter. Suddenly she remembered the strange phone call she’d gotten earlier in the day.
“I’m not going anywhere for now. Daniella, is something wrong?” Sam took a step closer to her and once again she noticed the sexy scent of him.
“It’s probably nothing,” she said. “I just had a weird phone call this morning.”
“Weird how?”
Once again she was struck not only by the rich color of his eyes but by the hard edge of intelligence that shone there. “It was an anonymous call. I didn’t recognize the voice, but it sounded like he said ‘for you’ and then hung up.” A cold chill walked up her spine. “But surely it didn’t have anything to do with Samantha’s death. That just doesn’t make sense, does it?”
Sam held her gaze for a long moment. “Let’s hope not,” he finally said, but the answer did nothing to dispel the cold wind that blew through Daniella.
Chapter Three
For you.
The two words were the first thing that jumped into Sam’s head when he opened his eyes the next morning. The sun was already up, and his first impulse was to jump out of bed. Then he reminded himself that he was on vacation. There was no reason to hurry out of the comfortable bed.
For you.
The phone call to Daniella bothered him and had kept him tossing and turning until nearly dawn. Several things that had happened the night before had kept sleep at bay.
Daniella’s story of the disappearance of her husband had managed to touch the heart he’d thought had died years ago. It was a testament to her strength that she’d continued on here, making a success of this place all alone.
At least she didn’t have to worry about the crime shutting her down. It was obvious that the bed-and-breakfast was merely the dumping site, and the murder had occurred elsewhere. The victim was from town, with no ties to the business where her body had been found.
They could all speculate on why the body had been dumped in this particular place, but at the moment it would be only speculation.
The other thing that had bothered him was the sheriff’s attitude toward Daniella. Obviously he hadn’t gotten over whatever past was between them. His attitude had bordered on rude, and Sam had a feeling the sheriff had a little bully in him. At least he’d agreed to provide patrols in the area.
Still, his mind kept returning to that damned phone call she’d received.
For you.
Had Daniella misunderstood what the caller had said? Was the phone call tied to the murder? And if so, then what did it have to do with Daniella? She’d said she didn’t know Samantha that well, that they’d had no relationship to speak of.
When he had finally fallen asleep nightmares had tormented him. He dreamed of monsters, but they were familiar visions, part of the past he’d spent his adult life trying to forget.
He finally pulled himself out of bed and padded into the bathroom for a shower. As he started the water he reminded himself that he was on vacation, that none of this was his problem.
Minutes later, as he dried off, his thoughts once again turned to Daniella. He definitely had the hots for her. Even through the stress of the night before his senses had spun with her clean, floral scent. When he’d touched her even in the most simple way his heart had raced just a little faster and a surge of adrenaline had filled him.
As hard as she was to resist, he didn’t intend to follow through on his attraction. He realized the last thing she needed in her life was a dead-hearted bastard nicknamed the Prince of Darkness. There had been enough dark ness in her life. He didn’t need to infect her with any of his own.
It was just after nine when he made his way down to the dining room. He knew he was too late for breakfast but was hoping to find some coffee.
The house was silent and the dining room empty, with no coffee urn set up. He followed the sound of clinking dishes into the kitchen, where he found Daniella standing with her back to him at the sink.
She was clad in a pair of denim shorts that cupped her sexy butt and showcased her shapely legs. Her pink tank top accentuated her light tan, and the burst of adrenaline he was determined not to feel surged up inside of him.
“Am I too late for coffee?” he asked, irritated at his immediate response to her.
She whirled around to face him, her cheeks instantly filling with color. “Oh, you startled me.” She grabbed a towel from the counter and quickly dried her hands. “Have a seat and I’ll pour you a cup.” She pointed to the kitchen table, and as he slid into a chair she got a mug from the cabinet.
“It’s quiet around here this morning,” he said, once she’d poured his coffee.
“Matt is out, and Frank just left to take Macy on a play date with her best friend. Would you like some breakfast? I’d be happy to whip you up some eggs or something.”
He shook his head and wrapped his fingers around the warm coffee mug. “No thanks, I’ll just wait until lunch.” What he wanted to do was take his coffee and leave the kitchen, escape from the warmth of her eyes when she gazed at him, from the scent of her that lingered in the air.
But before he could escape she poured h
erself a cup of coffee and joined him at the table. “I want to thank you again for last night.” She reached up and tucked a strand of her shining blond hair behind a dainty ear. “Not only for supporting me when I talked to Jim, but also for listening to me ramble about Johnny and my past. I promise you I don’t usually burden my guests like that.”
“It wasn’t a burden, and I know that nothing about last night was business as usual.” He took a sip of his coffee and tried not to notice how soft, how silky, her hair looked, tried to ignore the impulse to reach out and tangle his fingers in the strands.
“You have a wife, Sam? Somebody significant in your life?”
Her question came out of left field and surprised him. “No, no wife, no girlfriend, no interest in having either,” he replied. “I like being unattached. What about you? You have a boyfriend? In the market for another marriage?” He wasn’t sure why he asked; it wasn’t like he cared.
“No boyfriend,” she replied. “As far as getting married again, I think you need a boyfriend to even think about it.”
“You and Jeff seem fairly close. Any romantic sparks there?”
She laughed, and the delightful sound of her laughter wrapped around the heart he professed he didn’t own. “Jeff was best man at my wedding, and at that time he promised Johnny that if anything happened to him he’d be there for me. He’s stayed true to his word. He’s like a big brother to me, but there certainly isn’t anything romantic between us.”
Sam would have bet his badge that Jeff felt far more for Daniella than brotherly feelings. The night before at dinner, he’d seen it in the man’s eyes each time Jeff had looked at Daniella.
“I’m not sure how I’d have kept it all together after Johnny disappeared if it wasn’t for Jeff and Frank,” she continued.
He knew he should get out of the kitchen, get away from her, but his body didn’t seem to be listening to his head. “How did Frank come to work for you?”
“Frank worked with Johnny at a factory in town, and they were friends. The plant closed about the same time we bought this place. Frank knew there was a small caretaker cabin on the other side of the pond, and Johnny agreed to hire him as a handyman and let Frank live there. He’s been with me ever since.”
Scene of the Crime: Bachelor Moon Page 3
