by Lisa Childs
And his reaching out, albeit theoretically, to these victims hadn’t given him any new clues to the killer’s identity. “You be careful, too,” Forrest advised the medical examiner. “I’m sorry you came down here for nothing.”
She sighed. “I wish you had found something I missed,” she said. “Something that would lead us to this monster.”
He nodded. But he had nothing else to say, so he turned to leave. He’d just stepped into the hall and closed the door when the cell in his pocket began to vibrate.
If it was the coroner, she would have just opened the door and called him back. It had to be someone else, so he drew out the cell. But he didn’t recognize the number on the screen. It could have been a reporter; several of them had been calling him to comment on the investigation, especially since they weren’t getting much out of the chief.
He stared down at the screen, though, hesitating before pressing that decline button. Something compelled him to press the accept button instead.
“Colton here,” he said.
“Uhh...” a soft voice stammered in his ear. “This—this is Rae Lemmon.”
He hadn’t imagined that fear this morning. He heard it now in her voice. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I—I need to talk to you,” she said.
“Are you home?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “And my friends refuse to leave until you get here.”
She was definitely in danger.
“Should I send out a police car?”
“No!” she quickly rejected the offer. “Just you. Please come alone.”
Come alone?
He had agreed to that stipulation before—when a potential witness had set up a meeting with him. That witness had started shooting the minute he’d turned up to the warehouse where they’d agreed to meet. The “come alone” stipulation had been the trap that had nearly taken his life, as well as his livelihood and so much else.
But this was Rae, so once again he found himself agreeing. “I’m on my way.” He clicked off the cell but the sound of her voice, with the fear cracking it, still rang in his ears. He tried rushing up the stairs, from the basement to the lobby, but his leg had stiffened up and refused to bend, forcing him to hobble. Maybe it was because it had been a long day of being on his feet, or maybe it was because he needed the reminder—the warning—to be careful.
* * *
Once she was alone, Rae wished her friends would come back. But she was the one who’d convinced them to leave, who’d assured them that Forrest was on his way and she would not be alone for long. But every second that they were gone felt like an hour, an hour of her tensing with fear over every creak of the house and every whisper of the wind outside the windows.
Even Connor had left her alone with her thoughts, since he’d fallen asleep in his crib. He must have forgotten all about the night before. She wished she could forget, too, but that note and that lock of hair would haunt her for a long time.
She held them in her hand now, still sealed in that plastic bag. She couldn’t wait to hand them over to Forrest Colton. Maybe that was why she was so on edge waiting for him to arrive. She was scared to be alone, but her senses hummed with excitement at the thought of seeing him again.
Lights flashed in her windows as a vehicle turned into her driveway. Her pulse leaped. But she wasn’t afraid that her intruder had returned. She doubted he would have just driven up to her house, since he hadn’t done that the night before. She knew who had arrived, and it was why her pulse leaped, why her skin heated, why her heart pounded.
Forrest was here.
She met him at the door. He must have jumped out of his SUV before he’d even shut it off, because he’d taken no time to get from it to her porch despite his limp.
“I thought your friends were going to stay until I got here,” he said. “I would have driven faster if I knew they were gone.”
“They just left,” she assured him as he stepped inside the house. He couldn’t have arrived any faster than he had—even if he’d been at his parents’ ranch where he’d been staying since his volunteering with the Cowboy Heroes had brought him home to Whisperwood. But she suspected he hadn’t been there, since he was still wearing the dress pants, with his boots, that he’d had on that morning. If he’d been home to the ranch, he probably would have changed into jeans.
She closed the door behind him and, with her hands trembling, turned the lock. Locking the door had done no good the night before, though.
“They should have waited for me to get here,” he said. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
His concern touched her—so much that tears overwhelmed her, filling her eyes and her throat. In reply to his questions, she handed him the plastic bag.
“What the hell...?” he murmured as he stared down at the handwritten note.
“I found this lying on my pillow last night,” she managed to say around the emotion choking her.
“And the hair?” He stared at her now, as if trying to see where it had been cut.
“Connor’s,” she said. “I woke up because he started screaming. When I was in the nursery with him, I heard someone walking out of the house and closing the door. I ran back into my bedroom for my cell phone, and I found this.” She shuddered at the memory.
“And then you didn’t call the police to report the break-in,” he said. “And that’s why you also tried to get rid of me in the morning.”
“I want to protect my son,” she said.
“That’s why you should have called right away,” Forrest admonished her. “Or told me when I arrived this morning. We could have checked for fingerprints and for signs of a break-in.”
“I couldn’t find any,” she admitted.
“Hadn’t you locked the door?”
She bristled with defensiveness. “Of course I did.” She hadn’t always, but after he’d found that body in her backyard, she’d checked the lock twice before she’d gone to bed that night.
He was looking at the lock now, inspecting it from the inside and then from the outside, after he unlocked and opened the door. “Nobody forced it. Do you have a spare key hidden outside?”
She nodded and gestured at the gardenia plant. “Under the flowerpot.”
He studied the pot now, where dirt had spilled over the rim of it onto the porch. Before he touched it, he pulled the sleeves of his suit coat over his hands. Then he tipped it and peered beneath it. “There’s no key.”
“There was,” she insisted. But her head began to pound as she tried to remember the last time she’d seen it. “Bellamy might have left it out when she’d used it earlier.” That was how she had probably let herself in, unless Forrest’s team had left her doors unlocked. “She has her own, though, so she might not have used it. She’s the only one who knows it’s there besides me. And I always use the one on my key chain.” When she remembered to lock the door at all.
Forrest snorted. “A flowerpot next to the door? It’s the first place I’d look if I was trying to get inside.”
Heat rushed to her face as she realized it hadn’t been the best hiding spot. But until recently crime hadn’t been much of a concern in Whisperwood—at least not that she could remember. She wouldn’t have been much older than Connor was when Elliot Corgan had been killing women.
He was dead now, though. He couldn’t be responsible for these murders.
It had been there a long time, and her property was close to Corgan ranch land. He could have buried one of his victims in her backyard.
Forrest touched his hand to the small of her back and guided her back into the house. The heat of his touch warmed her again. He closed the door behind them.
“You need to get your locks changed,” he said. Then a curse slipped out of his lips. “Hell, you need to leave this place. It’s a crime scene.”
She glanced arou
nd the place, but like when she’d returned home earlier, she saw no signs of his search—no evidence of his finding any evidence inside her house. “Did you find something?” she asked. She then shuddered before asking, “Blood? DNA?”
He shook his head. “Nothing to indicate that a person was murdered inside the house.”
She uttered a ragged sigh of relief. “Then it’s not a crime scene.”
He held up the plastic bag. “It is. Do you have any idea who left you the note?”
She shook her head now. “No, no idea.”
He stared at her, his hazel eyes narrowed as if he considered her a suspect. She hadn’t left herself the damn note, though now, like the note’s writer, she was wishing the detective was gone.
“What about you?” she asked. “You’re the one he wants out of the way, so you must have some idea who it is.”
He grimaced. “I wish I had an idea, a suspect, something.” A curse slipped out between his lips. “I’m sorry.”
She wished she could blame the note on him. But he wasn’t the one who’d threatened her. None of this was his fault—except for how he made her feel.
She had been so focused lately on just being a mother and a student and a worker that she’d nearly forgotten she was a woman, too. He’d reminded her, which was probably why he irritated her so much. Or maybe he wouldn’t irritate her so much if he actually returned the attraction. For a moment that morning she’d thought he’d been about to kiss her, but she must have imagined that, because he was all business now.
“You were smart to seal this in a bag,” he said. “I’ll have it dusted for prints.”
“Maybe you’ll find some on Connor’s crib, too,” she suggested. “He must have leaned over it to snip that piece of hair from his head.” Tears rushed to her eyes again as she relived the horror of how close somebody had been to her son, how easily he could have been hurt or worse.
“Is he okay?” Forrest asked, and his free hand moved to her shoulder.
The weight of it felt good, felt comforting somehow, while also unsettling her. She nodded. “Yes, he’s fine. He’s sleeping soundly, while I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep again.”
“Not here,” Forrest agreed. “You need to get out of here. Go stay with Bellamy and Donovan or Maggie and Jonah.”
She shook her head. “That’s not an option.”
“They’re your friends. They would let you stay with them if you asked.”
“I don’t have to ask,” she said. “They already offered.”
“Then—” he glanced around the floor “—where are your bags?”
“I’m not going to impose on my friends,” she said. “Not with a baby who still doesn’t sleep through the night.”
“I don’t think they would mind,” he assured her.
“They wouldn’t,” she agreed. “But I would. I don’t want anyone else losing sleep because of me or my son.”
“Then you need to book a room at a hotel—preferably one with good security.”
Heat rushed to her face. With the costs of day care and law school, she didn’t have an extra dime to spare. She couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel with bad security, let alone one with good. But she was too proud to admit that to him, so she just murmured, “I can’t.”
“Then I’ll stay here,” he offered.
A twinge of panic gripped her heart. “No. You can’t. The note writer wants you out of the way.”
“Yeah,” Forrest agreed. “So he can terrorize you. That’s why I should be here.”
Scared, she shook her head as tears rushed to her eyes again. “No. You can’t. It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s too dangerous for you and Connor to be here alone,” he said. His hand on her shoulder turned her toward him and then pulled her closer. “I will protect you.”
But she had a feeling that he might be the one from whom she needed the most protection—because she wanted him so badly.
His hand moved from her shoulder to her face. His fingers brushed across her cheek and along her jaw before he tipped up her face. “I will keep you safe.”
Staring at his handsome features, at the intensity in his hazel eyes, Rae felt anything but safe. She felt everything...a desire she hadn’t felt in so long, if ever.
His eyes darkened, and he suddenly lowered his head to hers. But he paused—with just a breath between their lips—and she was the one who rose up on tiptoe, who pressed her mouth to his.
A jolt shot from her lips straight to her heart, making it pound madly against her breast. His lips were still—for a moment—before they moved hungrily over hers. He kissed her with a passion she hadn’t suspected him to be capable of, that she hadn’t expected that she was capable of feeling until it coursed through her. She raised her arms and threw them around his neck, holding his head down to hers—holding his long, tense body against hers.
A kiss had never affected her as much, had never made her want as much, as she wanted Forrest Colton—and not just for protection.
* * *
What the hell is she doing?
Hadn’t she heeded the warning at all? The note had specifically said to get rid of the detective. Maybe she hadn’t called Detective Colton out to the house, but she hadn’t thrown him out like she had the last time he’d showed up, that morning.
And with the way their shadows moved behind the curtains, she had no intention of getting rid of him. She held him as if she never intended to let him go.
And that wasn’t good. It might wind up costing her so much.
So damn much.
Chapter 9
Who was in the most danger? The baby? Rae? Or Forrest? He wasn’t sure. While the threat had been made against little Connor, Forrest wasn’t as worried about the baby as he was about himself.
But he had a job to do—at least that was his excuse for staying at Rae’s house. It had also been his excuse for pulling away from her earlier that evening, when everything inside him had been urging him to lift her up in his arms and carry her off to her bed. Then he’d remembered that if he’d tried, his leg would have probably folded beneath their combined weights and sent them both crashing to the floor.
Embarrassed and angry at the thought, he’d pulled away from her then.
Her face flushed with embarrassment, she’d stumbled back and murmured, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” he’d said, correcting her. He’d started to kiss her first—before he’d stopped and waited to make sure she’d wanted this, too. But even though she’d closed the distance between them and pressed her lips to his first, he had been taking advantage of her—of her fear and vulnerability.
“I’m sorry,” he’d repeated. “I know the only reason I’m staying here is to protect you and Connor.”
And he couldn’t do that if he was distracted with his desire for her. He’d gone into the nursery then to stand guard over her son, and she’d gone to bed.
Alone.
His body tightened at the thought of Rae, tangled in her sheets, wearing only the old T-shirt that molded to her curves. She’d looked so sexy in it, so sexy that he couldn’t help but imagine how she would look out of it, with nothing but the flush of desire on her skin. She had seemed to want him as much as he’d wanted her.
So maybe he hadn’t been taking advantage of her vulnerability. But he had been neglecting his job, which was to protect her and her son.
From the killer?
That had to be who had left the threat. Who else would want him out of the way? Besides Rae? She hadn’t been happy to see him the past couple of days—until earlier tonight. Tonight she had been relieved when he’d showed up, but only because she was afraid.
That was why she’d kissed him. Out of fear and maybe gratitude. She couldn’t actually be interested in him; that would mean that she was willing to take on another re
sponsibility for her already overburdened shoulders. Shannon hadn’t wanted the responsibility of caring for someone with an injury, and she’d once loved him. Why would Rae want to deal with his disability?
Not that he saw a future with her—with them. He wasn’t sure he was even going to stay in Whisperwood after he solved his case or cases. He wasn’t sure yet if the murders were connected or not.
Hell, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
What the hell was he even thinking by staying here, trying to protect them? He should have called in a uniformed officer for that duty.
But Rae had been so frightened...
That he hadn’t been able to leave. And so he stood watch in the nursery now.
Connor had been sleeping peacefully, just a whisper of breath escaping his little nose and rosebud lips. But a soft cry slipped through them now, and the baby tensed in his crib.
Forrest glanced toward the doorway. He didn’t want to wake up Rae, didn’t really want to see her wearing only that T-shirt, or he was going to wind up in more trouble than if the intruder attempted to get inside again. So he reached inside the crib, slid his hands beneath the little body and lifted Connor from his bed.
The baby blinked open bleary eyes and stared up at Forrest. His mouth opened, but instead of letting out a louder scream, a little burp slipped between his lips. And a little bubble floated out.
Forrest chuckled. “A little gassy, huh?”
Those little rosebud lips curved into what looked like a smile, but that was probably just gas, too. Forrest found himself smiling back anyway. Then his palm grew damp where he cupped the little guy’s pajama bottom, and he swallowed a groan. The baby was wet.
He needed a diaper change, or he was probably going to start crying for real.
Forrest glanced toward the doorway again. Maybe it would be better for Rae to handle this. Forrest wasn’t squeamish—not after all of the crime scenes he’d investigated—but he had never changed a diaper before.
How hard could it be, though?
