Change of Heart

by Jenna Bennett

  When he came back into the living room a few minutes later, he was mostly dry and wholly naked except for a towel wrapped negligently around his waist. With each step he took, it dipped a little lower.

  “That’s not fair,” I protested weakly.

  He grinned. “Sure it is. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, darlin’. Can’t have you holding out on me.”

  “I’m not holding out,” I managed. Barely.

  Truth was, I’d forgotten all about why I’d been upset in the first place. It’s pathetic, and totally unbecoming a properly brought-up Southern Belle—mother would be aghast—but all he has to do is move close to me, and I go weak in the knees and lose my breath as every coherent thought blows out of my head.

  The first thing he did was take the romance novel out of my limp hand and look at the cover. One eyebrow arched. The fact that he can do that, and I can’t, is a source of constant annoyance to me, although between you and me, I love the look on his face when he does.

  Because he knows me well, he knew exactly what had been in my mind when I bought the book. “Wish you’d married Satterfield after all?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then you don’t need this.” He tossed it onto the sofa and turned back to me. “Let’s try this again.”

  I stopped breathing as hot dark eyes and sleek muscles crowded my vision. I could feel the heat of his skin through my blouse.

  He didn’t smell like smoke anymore. He smelled like soap, and mint toothpaste, and something else—spicy and citrusy—that’s just him.

  When he leaned in, I swear my eyes rolled back in my head. I could hear him chuckle, and then he kissed me.

  “So what have you been up to this weekend, darlin’?”

  It was an hour or so later, and we were still in bed. He had carried me there at some point—I’d been vaguely aware of floating—but nearer than that I couldn’t say. Now we had caught our breaths again, and Rafe wanted to know what had been going on in my life during the hours he’d been MIA.

  Some of my earlier pique returned. “Shouldn’t that be my question?”

  He grimaced and flopped over on his back, throwing an arm up to cover his face. Muscles bunched and the viper tattoo flicked its little forked tongue at me. “I should have told you.”

  “Yes,” I said, “you should have.”

  He glanced at me, slantways, from under the arm. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “How could you imagine I wouldn’t? We’ve been together practically 24/7 for the past two months. Suddenly you’re up and out at the crack of dawn? You don’t call, and when you come back, you make sure I don’t have the opportunity to ask you where you’ve been? And then you do it again the next morning!”

  He made another face. “That’s why.”

  “What’s why?”

  “We’ve been together almost 24/7 since Christmas. I’m going crazy.”

  It was as if the bottom fell out and my heart dropped down to my stomach. Not an easy thing to do when you’re lying down.

  “Oh,” I managed, my lips stiff.

  He shot me a look. “It isn’t you, Savannah.”

  “Of course not.” He was just used to more excitement than I could provide, was all. More women. More exciting women.

  I’d always known it would happen, to be honest. I can’t say I’d thought it would happen quite so quickly, but I had been waiting for it almost from the start. Part of me knew I wouldn’t be able to hold his interest for long. He had assured me that the paltry sex life that Bradley and I had had, had been Bradley’s fault and not mine, but I guess when it came right down to it, I wasn’t woman enough to keep Rafe satisfied, either.

  “I’m sorry, darlin’.”

  “Me too,” I said, blinking away a couple of tears. Crying and clinging would surely be the worst thing I could do right now. Much better to let go gracefully, and have a meltdown later, after he was gone. I wouldn’t be able to pull off feigned indifference—he knew me too well for that—but I could be nice about giving him his freedom.

  “I just needed to do something to feel alive again.”

  “Right.” I nodded, understanding incarnate even as my heart broke in two. I’d felt more alive in the past few months with him than in all my almost twenty eight years so far.

  “I love you. And I like being around you. But it’s just been too much, you know?”

  “Sure.”

  “I need to get away once in a while. Do something different. I’m not used to this.”

  “Of course.”

  He turned over and leaned on an elbow to look at me. “You’re saying all the right things. Why do I get the feeling you’re not OK?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  His eyes searched my face. “Nothing happened. I was careful.”

  Sure.

  “I didn’t get hurt. No new scars. Feel free to check.”

  The smile that curved his lips lacked a little of its usual brilliance. It looked almost... tentative.

  “Hurt?” I said. “Why would—?”

  And then the brick dropped. I sat up, my eyes wide, clutching the sheets to my bosom. “What did you do?”

  “I worked,” Rafe said, looking up at me. “What did you think I did?”

  I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t get the words out. My cheeks colored, though, and his face changed. “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said—muttered, really. “It isn’t you. I love you. I trust you. I just... I know I’m not as exciting as some of the other women you’ve been with...”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Rafe said, with a curve to his lips that told me he was thinking about some of the things we’d just done.

  “It’s not like you’ve been complaining or anything. I mean, you’ve seemed pretty happy, actually. With me, anyway. I knew you were getting a little bored with the renovations. But when you left like that, all I could think about was Bradley...”

  “I thought I’d made you forget Bradley.”

  “You have,” I said. “Mostly.”

  “Need a refresher?”

  He looked like he might be inclined to give me one if I said yes. He also didn’t look upset anymore.

  “Um...” I said.

  His lips curved. “I’ll take that as a yes. C’mere, darlin’.”

  He hooked his hand over the top of the sheet I was clutching and tugged. When the sheet dropped, his eyes did too, and he smiled. And when he reached for me, I slid into his arms without demur.

  “I love you,” he said against my cheek.

  “I love you too.” His skin was warm and smooth against my lips when I lingered.

  “Next time I’ll let you know what’s going on.” He pulled me a little closer.

  “Please,” I said, and then I lost my breath when his hands started wandering south.

  Chapter Five

  “So tell me about your weekend,” Rafe said again an hour later. We were still in bed, but considering getting up and going out for something to eat. Or at least I was. I hadn’t had any lunch, and it was a long time since breakfast, and besides, the strenuous exercise we’d just undertaken had further depleted my energy.

  “How about we talk over dinner? My treat?”

  He grinned and drew a suggestive finger down my arm. “You sure you wouldn’t rather stay in?”

  Of course I’d rather stay in. The reaction of my body to just that one finger made it blatantly obvious to both of us. But if I stayed where I was, we wouldn’t eat. And besides, it was difficult to concentrate with so much nakedness staring me in the face.

  “I’m hungry,” I said.

  “I can fix that.” He winked.

  “I know you can. But I haven’t eaten since breakfast. And if you look at me like that—if you look like that—I won’t be able to concentrate on the story.”

  That got his attention. “What story?”

  “When we get to the restaurant,” I said, sliding out of bed. That would give him some incentive
to move that gorgeous posterior. And anyway— “You haven’t told me what you were actually doing all weekend.”

  “At the restaurant,” Rafe said and headed for the bathroom.

  A half hour later we were seated on opposite sides of a table in a dark corner of the FinBar, a sports bar just down the street from the real estate office, and not too terribly far from my apartment. Rafe was tucking into a cheeseburger with onion rings, while I was trying to show a little more restraint and had ordered a salad instead. It tasted pretty good, as salads go, although that didn’t stop me from gazing enviously at his burger.

  “I wish you’d stop ordering food you think you should eat,” he told me around a bite of beef and bun, “and order what you want instead.”

  “If I ate the way you do, I’d weigh as much as you do, too.” I forked up a dainty shred of lettuce and conveyed it to my mouth.

  “I’d still be able to carry you to bed.” He snagged an onion ring from his plate and held it out. “Open up.”

  I opened up, obediently, and took a bite. And went almost cross-eyed as the flavors burst on my tongue. “Mmm.”

  “Yep. That’s what you’re missing.” He popped the rest in his own mouth. “Your mama ain’t here, darlin’. It’s just you and me, and I don’t care what you eat. You might as well make it something you enjoy.”

  “Habit,” I said. Mother taught me to always eat like a bird in front of a potential husband. We wouldn’t want him to think I was A) unconcerned with my looks or B) going to be expensive to maintain.

  “You want I should get you something different? The waitress is right over there.” He glanced over my shoulder.

  “That’s not necessary,” I said, but it was too late. The waitress must have noticed him looking at her—she had probably been looking at him—because she materialized next to the table, all long legs and tight jeans and a low cut T-shirt. When she stopped beside us, she leaned forward, oh so casually, to make sure he got a good look into her cleavage. “Can I help you, sir?”

  Her voice was Marilyn Monroe breathy, and I had to focus hard so I wouldn’t roll my eyes. My mother raised a lady, but there are limits.

  Rafe grinned. “I’m gonna need an order of French fries, sugar, when you have a chance.”

  He winked at me. He gets a kick out of watching women react to him. Not because he needs the ego boost—he has a pretty healthy ego to begin with—but because he thinks it’s funny how we forget our names and walk into walls whenever he turns on the charm.

  The waitress stumbled off, and I shook my head. “You shouldn’t do that. It isn’t fair.”

  “Ain’t like I plan to take it beyond dinner, darlin’.”

  “That’s why it isn’t fair,” I said.

  He shrugged. “You gonna tell me about your weekend now?”

  “After you tell me about yours,” I was chasing a Kalamata olive over and under the pieces of lettuce on my plate.

  “Nothing much to tell. I helped Wendell move a witness.”

  “Really?” I had seen scenarios like that in movies and on television, of special agents from one letter agency or another transporting witnesses from the airport to the courthouse to the safe hotel and back. “Anyone I’d know?”

  “Can’t tell you that. But no, prob’ly not.”

  I nodded. “What about the gun?”

  He hesitated, or maybe it was just that he saw the waitress coming. When he smiled, I was afraid that the plate of French fries would end up in his lap. It was only quick reflexes that saved him. “Thank you, sugar.”

  He waited for her to walk away again before he pushed the plate of fries across the table toward me. “Here. Eat.”

  “After you tell me about the gun.”

  “It’s nothing. Standard operating procedure. Most of the time it’s there, you don’t ever need to draw it.” He reached over to grab a couple of fries, dredged them in ketchup, and popped them in his mouth. “Now tell me how you spent the weekend. Eat your fries. And talk.”

  “I spent Saturday morning in the office,” I said, carefully selecting a single fry and dipping it in the ketchup. “Nothing exciting happened, other than that I caught Tim rinsing blood off his hands in the bathroom when I walked in.” I popped the fry in my mouth. Mmmm.

  “Did he cut himself on his tongue?” Rafe picked up his burger again.

  “He said he had a nosebleed. It might even be true.”

  “Sure,” Rafe said. “Why not?”

  “I called Grimaldi.”

  “About Tim’s nosebleed?”

  I shook my head. “To ask her whether she knew where you were. She said no.”

  He nodded, his mouth full. So at least he hadn’t confided in Tamara Grimaldi, and she hadn’t lied when she told me she didn’t know anything. And if that sounds paranoid, I can assure you, it’s happened before.

  “She was working a case,” I said. “Dead man found in Shelby Park, stabbed and rolled in a sheet, left by the side of the road. His name was Brian Armstrong.”

  “Never heard of him,” Rafe said, around another bite of burger.

  “Me either. Until this afternoon.”

  He swallowed. “What happened this afternoon?”

  I told him about the open house, the wake I’d accidentally crashed, and the realization that the Armstrongs were Tim’s clients. I also mentioned that bloody handprint I thought I’d seen on the back of Tim’s car the other morning.

  Rafe, being Rafe, took less than two seconds to see where I was going with the information I had. He leaned back in the booth and folded his arms across his chest. “Did you talk to Tim?”

  “I tried,” I said. “He wasn’t home. His voice mailbox is full. I left a note on his door, but he hasn’t called back.”

  “Did you call Tammy?”

  “Do you think I should?”

  “Yes,” Rafe said. “I think you should.”

  “You don’t think he could just be out with a friend? Or in bed with a friend? Too busy to answer the phone?”

  He hesitated. “Is that something he’d do?”

  It was my turn to hesitate. “I don’t really know him well enough to say. But it could happen, I guess. I mean, if he ever got the chance to spend the night with you, I’m sure he could be persuaded to turn the phone off.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Rafe said. “So it’s possible he found somebody like me, someone who swings his way, and he’s in bed.”

  “It’s possible. Or he could he halfway to California by now. I thought I’d wait until tomorrow morning to start fretting. If he doesn’t show up for the staff meeting at nine, and he hasn’t been in touch with Brittany, then I was going to call Grimaldi.”

  Rafe nodded. We sat in silence for a few seconds until I broke it.

  “You don’t really think he killed that guy, do you? Mr. Armstrong?”

  “I don’t know,” Rafe said. “I don’t know either of them well enough. Do you think he killed the guy?”

  “You’ve met Tim. Can you imagine him killing someone?”

  “I can imagine anyone killing someone,” Rafe said, “if the stakes were high enough. Even you.”

  True. I never have, but there have been times when I’ve wanted to.

  “Any evidence that this Armstrong guy lived a double life?” Rafe wanted to know. “Nice little wife at home, gay lover across town?”

  I wouldn’t call Erin Armstrong a nice little wife, myself, but beyond that— “I have no idea,” I said. “You’d have to ask Grimaldi. And she probably won’t tell you.”

  He nodded. “You gonna eat those fries?”

  I glanced at his plate. While we’d been talking, he’d polished off his burger and onion rings. Now he was eyeing the plate of fries the same way he sometimes looks at me.

  I pushed it toward him. “Knock yourself out.”

  “You don’t want any?”

  “I’ve had some,” I said. And the reminder that my boss might be a murderer had made me lose my appetite. “Let’s go home.
”

  “Works for me,” Rafe said and gestured for the check. While we waited, he ate the rest of the fries.

  Chapter Six

  He was there when I woke up the next morning, his skin warm against my back and one muscular arm wrapped around my waist as if to make sure I couldn’t go anywhere. We spent a bit of time sharing various parts of ourselves with the other, and then I rolled out of bed and headed for the shower. While I got ready for the sales meeting at the office, in skirt, blouse, and pumps, Rafe hit the shower too and then pulled on a pair of jeans.

  “You sure you don’t want me to go with you?” he wanted to know.

  “I’d love for you to come with me.” I perched on the edge of the bed and watched with regret as he yanked a white T-shirt down to cover all that smooth skin and hard muscles I’d just finished playing with. “But I don’t know what good it would do. You’d be bored. And it isn’t like Tim’s going to come in looking like Lady Macbeth, scrubbing at his hands.”

  “Prob’ly not,” Rafe admitted.

  “He definitely won’t come in looking to stab anyone else. I won’t need protection.”

  He nodded.

  “You’re just looking for an excuse not to work on the house.”

  “I don’t mind working on the house,” Rafe said, running a hand over his head. There wasn’t enough hair there to run his fingers through. “We agreed the best thing was to put it on the market. My grandma won’t be back to live there. I don’t want you living there. If nobody’s gonna live there, we may as well sell it.”

  I nodded, even as my heart skipped a happy little beat at that mention of ‘we.’ It was Mrs. Jenkins’s house. He was her grandson. I was nobody in the scheme of things, other than the woman he was shacking up with and claimed to love. Yet he talked about it as if it was both of our decision what to do with the house. As if we were one.

  “The sooner I finish, the sooner you can put it on the market. I don’t mind working on the house.”

  “But?”

  “I wanna know what happens,” Rafe said. “I’ve met Tim a couple times. I’d hate to think of him going to prison. It wouldn’t be a good place for him.”