Harlequin Intrigue April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Carol Ericson

  The front door sighed open, and the alarm panel on the wall beeped with two short bursts. Dylan’s familiar footsteps echoed into the living room, but she still found herself sliding her hand around her sidearm beneath comforter that covered her. She’d been taken by surprise once and nearly died because of it. She wouldn’t let it happen again. Familiar steel-gray eyes settled on her, and the pressure behind her sternum released.

  “Perimeter’s clear. No footprints in the mud. No fresh tire marks or evidence someone has come within two hundred feet of this place.” He holstered his weapon at his hip and leaned against the wide opening between the entryway and the living room. He nodded toward her. “You moved the murder board in here.”

  Relief washed through her. No matter how long she’d stared at this board with their two suspects pinned in the center, she couldn’t focus. Not on clearing the perimeter. Not on finishing her official statement to Gresham PD and Captain Paulson. Not on their next move. There was only Dylan. The private investigator who’d somehow managed to leave a piece of himself inside her before she’d left Delaware.

  He’d been right earlier. What they’d had together had started as a conduit to release the stress of the New Castle case, but over a few short weeks had become something so much more. And that kiss... It hadn’t merely been a biological reaction from adrenaline and danger. Not for her. It’d reminded her of everything she’d lost, everything she’d left behind. Everything she’d cared about. And it had changed everything. “I thought if I stared at our suspects’ photos long enough, one of them would pipe up and tell me who killed Del Howe in that cabin.”

  “If they start talking, we’re going to have to go back to the hospital.” A warm, genuine smile tugged at one corner of Dylan’s mouth as he stepped into the room. He unfastened his holster from his belt and set it on the end table. The couch dipped beneath his weight as he took up position beside her. Connected shoulder to hip, his proximity released a string of heat through her she’d denied existed these past six months. Until now. “How’s the head?”

  “Better than the stab wound.” She arched her elbow over the back of the couch and turned into him. Suddenly the thin, oversize shirt and running shorts she’d donned after her shower left her lacking for a layer of physical protection between them. It left her feeling exposed, vulnerable, but if there was one thing in this psychotic mind game the killer had started she could count on, it was Dylan’s integrity. He wouldn’t hurt her.

  She studied the shift of shadows down his face brought on by the television screen. Thick, dark hair curved along the angles of his jawline in perfect precision, and her skin tingled at the memory of his beard brushing against her chin and cheeks. “And the bullet hole in your side?”

  He turned that compelling gaze onto her. “Medium-rare.”

  “You save lives. You know your way around a kitchen. You keep people awake so they don’t die in their sleep.” She lowered her hand to the back of his head and ran her fingers over his neck and shoulders. “I’m starting to think you should be the one wearing one of Reed’s superhero T-shirts.”

  “Not people, Sheriff,” he said. “Just you.”

  Her heart rate sped up, which she wasn’t sure was a good thing considering the amount of force it’d taken to knock her unconscious. Remi slowed the trail she traced back and forth across his shoulder. “Why?”

  “Why?” His expression matched the color of his eyes. Pure steel.

  “You’re one of the most stubborn, critical and idealistic investigators I’ve ever worked with. You keep to yourself, only speak when spoken to and you’ve made it a point to keep your distance between you and every one of your teammates in my division. Everyone except me.” Her mouth dried as something inside reached for the hope she’d stashed at the back of her mind. “Why do you make an effort with me and no one else?”

  Seconds passed, maybe a minute, and that same bit of hope she’d ignored all these years nearly suffocated her.

  “I’ve spent most of my life getting lied to in one form or another. Before I became a private investigator and came to work with you on the New Castle Killer case, I’d lived in almost every state in the country by the time I was fifteen years old.” Dylan directed his attention to the TV screen, his gaze distant. “My parents divorced when I was three, after my father found a letter from my mom at the top of her closet detailing how she was going to leave him. He confronted her about it. I remember a lot of screaming and the police showing up at our house. I was crying. I didn’t know what was happening. But when it was over, my mother packed our bags and we got in the car. We never stopped driving. Not longer than a few months at a time. Whenever I asked her why I couldn’t see my dad or why I had to change schools again, her answer was the same. ‘So he can’t find us.’”

  A pit solidified in her stomach. “He was abusive?”

  “That’s the kicker. He never laid a hand on us. Turned out, she’d only wanted to leave him because of an affair she’d been having with one of the officers who’d come to the house that day. She lied to me about it for almost twenty years, tried to make me believe my father was the villain. That their marriage ended because of his selfishness and not hers.” A humorless laugh escaped him. “She turned me against him, manipulated me to keep me under her control, and by the time I realized what’d happened, it was too late.”

  This wasn’t the man who’d claimed her mouth with wild abandonment less than an hour ago. This wasn’t the marshal she’d hired, or the private investigator she’d asked for help. All of that had been stripped away in an instant. All that was left was Dylan.

  He faced her again, strong hands drawing her legs across his lap, and in that moment, she felt...herself. Not the chief deputy marshal she was supposed to be. It was him and her. No titles. No rules. Bare and exposed. She automatically reached for that emotional protection, the one thing she could use to reject others before they rejected her, but after what’d happened in those caves, she couldn’t find it. There was nothing left.

  “You’re the only one who’s never lied to me.” He smoothed the pad of his thumb over her split lip. The salt from his fingers burned, but she didn’t pull away. The resulting sting meant she was still here, still alive. He cocked his head to one side as another smile wiped the rigidity from his expression. “Well, at least not when it came to anything but your own well-being. Your honesty helps fight all the lies people have told me over the years, and being here with you... I’d give anything to hold on to this feeling of peace a little longer.” He framed her jaw and pressed his forehead to hers as though he intended never to let her go. “I consider you exceptional, Remi. So I make an exceptional effort to be what you need me to be. Because you deserve nothing less.”

  “I don’t deserve your admiration.” Her exhale mixed with his in rapid bursts before Remi pulled away. Heat from his palm tunneled through bruised flesh, igniting the incessant need for her to be good enough, strong enough, to face the truth. He was more than the private investigator she’d hired in Delaware. He was more than the deputy she’d made part of her team. For her, he was everything she wanted to be. Rational, passionate, self-controlled. “I’m the one who got you into this mess. If I’d known there’d been a victim out there who’d survived, who’d target you—”

  “No.” Dylan shook his head, his hand moving to grip the back of her neck as he had in the kitchen but not in intimidation or dominance. In desperation. In need. “I watched you collapse into exhaustion at the end of every single day working the New Castle case. I saw how much you sacrificed to bring those victims home alive and stop Del Howe from killing again. You carried that entire investigation on your shoulders, and the men and women who worked beside you knew it. None of them would blame you if they were still alive, and neither do I. Not ever.”

  “You can’t know that.” The fight drained from her muscles, the past twelve hours since he’d pulled her from that cave catching
up. “I’m the one who lost my job when we couldn’t stop him. I was responsible.”

  “And yet I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” His confidence melted into her, made her believe what he said was the truth. He loosened his grasp on her neck but didn’t move to release her completely. He was giving her a choice. Keep running from the past—from him—or face it like the woman he believed her to be.

  Remi didn’t want to run anymore. Her breath caught in her throat as the answer she’d been hiding from all these years urged her to shove the comforter aside and slid her legs down his thighs. She wedged her knees into the back of the couch on either side of him, careful of their wounds. His fingers slid to her hips, holding her in place as she straddled him. Remi rested her hands on his shoulders and nearly pressed her mouth to his. “I hope you took one of your pain pills, Deputy Cove. I have a feeling this is going to hurt like hell.”

  * * *

  FOOTSTEPS ECHOED down the hall, pulling Dylan from unconsciousness, before her perfect outline filled the door frame. Remi leaned against the wall as he fought to get balance. They’d somehow made it to one of the bedrooms last night after stripping each other bare on the living room couch. But he couldn’t exactly remember how. A smile lit those iridescent blue eyes as morning sunlight streaked across the ceiling. “I was beginning to worry I’d knocked you out for good.”

  “Am I dead?” A jagged tear slit through the collar of her T-shirt. He remembered that part. After years of being deprived of her skin pressed against his, of her addictive taste in his mouth, he hadn’t been able to wait. Her shirt had only gotten in the way.

  Dylan dragged both hands across his face and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. Hell, he should’ve taken her up on her warning before she’d kissed him. He felt like he’d run a marathon with a bullet in his side. He pressed his hand into the corner of the gauze taped over his wound to get a better look at the damage. The gauze was dry, clean.

  “Not quite.” Offering him a steaming cup of coffee, she slid down onto the mattress as he pressed his back against the nearest wall. Bruises marred the smooth skin along her legs and knees, results of her fight with her attacker in the caves. Remi took a sip from her mug and swallowed. “But I’m more than happy to try for a different result next time, if that’s what you’re aiming toward.”

  “Next time? Hell, I’m not even sure I’ve survived the first time.” A laugh broke past the soreness in his chest as bone-deep satisfaction urged him to take her up on her challenge. He took the mug. Where were his clothes? “Did you...change my dressing while I was asleep?”

  She hissed. “Yeah, sorry about that. After you fell asleep, I noticed you’d popped a couple stitches while we were...” Curling her fingers around her mug, she drew her gaze down the length of his chest and abdominals. “You were bleeding again, and I didn’t want your wound to get infected, so I cleaned it and applied new gauze and tape.”

  “How?” he asked.

  Her eyes suddenly diverted to an invisible speck of dust she swiped at with her free hand. “Let’s just say I learned early on I could do anything I want to you after you fall asleep after sex.”

  Realization struck, and Dylan bolted upright. Coffee sloshed over his hand and stained the white sheets. He bit back the groan as pain exploded from his side and the coffee burned its way down the length of his forearm. A half dozen incidents rushed to the front of his mind. Kicking free from the sheets, he set the mug down and jumped to his feet. He pointed straight at her. “You. You’re the reason I can’t grow hair on this leg anymore, aren’t you? You were shaving me while I was asleep.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She took another sip of her coffee, every inch the chief deputy he’d come to admire over these past six months. Calm, confident and absolutely powerful. She was everything he wasn’t and everything he hadn’t realized he’d needed to keep his head on straight. “Besides, everyone knows once you start shaving, the hair comes back thicker and darker. You gotta wax if you want to keep that growth down.”

  “You were waxing me in Delaware?” Who the hell waxed another person while they slept? It took everything he had not to laugh while he stared at her. Two could play at this game. “You’re going to pay for that, and I can think of plenty of ways to make sure you don’t get away with it.”

  Eyes wide and innocent, Remi set her coffee on the floor and faced him, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think he could best her mentally or physically. He had the weight, but she had the skill, even with a fresh stab wound in her side. “Innocent until proved guilty, Deputy. Didn’t they teach you that at Glynco?”

  “Funny how some of the hair started growing back after you took up with the marshals service.” He threaded his hand around her waist and pulled her into his chest. Tipping her chin up, he brushed his mouth across hers in a teasing kiss that ignited only a hint of the desire they’d shared last night. With his luck, he’d be the one taking a cold shower, and she’d get away with making his leg itch for two months straight. Her body heat buried through the thin fabric of his boxers. “I think I’m going to have to start plotting my revenge.”

  “Like I said, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Lifting onto her toes, she pressed her mouth against his and wrapped her arms around his neck. She arched into him, a low moan escaping her throat, and every inch of him caught fire. He’d lied to himself. Two couldn’t play at this game, because the woman in his arms would win at every turn.

  Remi stepped back, her fingers trailing down his chest until she slipped her hand into his for the briefest of moments. Crouching, she hefted her overnight bag over her shoulder, her mouth thinning into a line at the weight. “I’d be more than happy to help you even it out after we review statements from friends and family members of the two New Castle Killer victims. I’ve already run background checks, but it’s possible someone knew their loved one survived the attack and has been helping him stay off law enforcement’s radar all this time.”

  Dylan shook his head. No matter what’d she been through, how much pain she was in, Remi wouldn’t stop. Not for her own health, and not at the expense of losing momentum in the case. He’d kept her awake for the recommended amount of time last night, but after that, she’d taken her well-being back into her own hands. The circles under her eyes had darkened since last night, and concern replaced the knot of desire coiling in his gut. He took a single step toward her. “You didn’t sleep after you were cleared to, did you? You worked the case last night after we were finished.”

  Her smile slipped from her lips, and his nervous system kicked into overdrive. A single muscle in her jaw ticked. “I needed to know which one of them took me to that cave, which one of them has been killing my friends and coworkers for years without me knowing.”

  “You’re biting the inside of your mouth,” he said.

  Her drawn inhale was a sign that she was ready for battle. The hard set of her mouth told him the passionate, vulnerable woman he’d gotten a glimpse of last night had only been temporary. This wasn’t the sheriff he’d come to know, who’d practically admitted to waxing his leg for two months straight a few minutes ago. Squaring off with him, Chief Deputy Remington Barton leveled her chin with the floor. “In case I haven’t made it clear for you, my sleeping habits don’t fall under your purview of this case. We might have slept together last night, Deputy Cove, but I’m still your superior, and we have a murderer to find.”

  She turned from him and headed for the door.

  “You see them when you close your eyes, don’t you?” His instincts had confirmed the truth when he’d had to carry her to the bedroom two nights ago because she hadn’t been able to function any longer. “You push yourself into exhaustion instead of taking the risk of falling asleep on your own. That way you don’t have to see the faces of the victims we failed.”

  Remi froze, her head slightly turned over her shoulder. T
he small, shaved section at the back of her head revealed the stitches her surgeon had sutured less than eighteen hours ago. “You don’t know what you’re talking—”

  “Yes, I do.” Those same faces haunted him every night. “The men you have pinned to your board out there? They’re the reason I started investigating the case on my own. They’re the ones who pushed me to find the connection between the New Castle Killer and Del Howe.” His pulse raced. “I’m the reason the son of a bitch got his hands on Tad Marrow, and the moment I heard the news, I swore I’d never let that happen to another victim.”

  “But I didn’t,” she said, so low he almost hadn’t heard her.

  “I know for a fact you did everything you could to stop Del Howe from killing again.” He’d never been more sure of anything in his life. “Just like I know you’re doing everything you can right now to bring his killer down. But that bastard almost took you from me, Sheriff. You were stabbed. He slammed your head through a window. At some point, your body isn’t going to play by your rules anymore. You need to—”

  “What do you mean he almost took me from you?” She faced him, and the strong, self-confident woman he’d worked with these past six months disappeared. In that moment, he envisioned her on the edge of a blade, trying to find balance between the mask she was compelled to wear in the line of duty and the woman underneath. Her mouth parted as she struggled to control the tremors in her hands, but she couldn’t hide from him. Not anymore.

  “We started sleeping together because we both needed the stress relief during the New Castle case, but that’s not enough for me anymore,” he said. “Not after what we’ve been through these past few months, and sure as hell not after what happened in those caves.”