by Lisa Childs
“You would have fought him off as long as you could,” he said, flinching as if the thought brought him pain.
“Him?” she questioned. “Did you see him when you rushed in?”
“Not his face,” he said. “But from his build, I believe the intruder was male.”
He sounded like a cop. He also sounded as if he was keeping something from her. He might not have seen the guy’s face, but he might have recognized something else about him.
“Do you have some idea who it is?” she asked.
“I am looking into leads,” he said.
“Who?” she asked.
“Is it just a coincidence that the intruder breaks in after your boss visited today?”
“Boss?” she asked, struggling to focus. Maybe it was because his hands were still on her arms, almost stroking her muscles now. Maybe it was because she wasn’t sure what he was talking about. “What...? Oh, Kenneth. He’s not actually my boss.” Which was good because she probably would have had to quit now.
As it was, she wasn’t sure how to handle that situation. If she reported him, would anyone believe that he’d stepped out of line with her? Had he? Or was he just naturally kind of creepy?
“What is he?” Forrest asked, his voice suddenly very gruff, and his deep-set hazel eyes were intense as he stared down at her.
“A colleague,” she said. “Sometimes I work on his cases, but not very often, and he never assigns the work to me.”
“Then why was he here today?” Forrest asked as he continued to stare at her with such intensity, it almost made her think that he was jealous.
Over her?
Did she mean more to him than an assignment, than someone to protect?
“Why do you care?” she wondered aloud.
“I’m investigating murders and those threats,” he said, “so I need to know everything I can about possible suspects, about someone who might have had access to your backyard.”
She pointed out the kitchen window, but the lights had gone out now. The technicians must have finished processing the scene. “I would say anyone, but...”
He glanced out the window, too.
And she shivered. “They’re gone now.”
“The techs, yeah,” he said. “But I have a unit posted at the end of your driveway, and another officer will remain in the backyard.” He glanced out the kitchen door, his brow furrowing with concern. Clearly he felt as bad as she did that the officer had been harmed protecting her.
“I hope he’ll be all right,” she said.
He nodded. “Me, too.”
The wounded officer wasn’t her only concern, though. She didn’t want Forrest getting hurt, as well. “With all that protection, I don’t need you to stay here, too,” she said. “You can go home.”
He shook his head. “No, I can’t.”
“But you said there are other officers—”
He leaned down and brushed his mouth across hers. “I can’t leave you,” he said.
Relief and desire rushed through her, and she reached out, winding her arms around his lean waist. She wanted to hang on to him for comfort, for pleasure—forever.
But she knew better than to plan on anyone sticking around forever. So she would just make herself be happy with another night with Forrest. Keeping her arms around him, she walked backward toward her bedroom, tugging him along with her.
He stumbled a bit, and she worried that he’d hurt his leg. But then he reached down and lifted her into his arms and carried her toward her bedroom. So there was nothing wrong with his leg; he was just as impatient to be together again as she was. After shouldering open her bedroom door, he pressed it closed the same way and carried her to the bed across which law books were strewn.
“Always working,” he murmured, and he stared down at her with something like awe on his handsome face.
“So are you,” she said.
Dark circles rimmed his beautiful eyes, and she knew he’d given up sleep to work his cases. And now he was giving up more sleep to be with her.
He shook his head. “It isn’t work being with you. It’s pleasure.”
That was what he gave to her...when he peeled off her robe and her T-shirt. He pressed his lips to every inch of her body, kissing and teasing with his tongue until she quivered from the ecstasy gripping her body.
He made love to her thoroughly before he even took off his own clothes. Then she kissed every inch of skin he exposed, every muscle, every scar.
She made love to him with her mouth, and with her entire heart—because it was his. He just didn’t know it, and she didn’t want him to know. She didn’t want to be disappointed.
But physically he didn’t disappoint. He teased her nipples into taut peaks and made her throb and squirm with the tension that built inside her. Then finally he sheathed himself in a condom, and he filled her.
He filled that hollow place inside her. He completed her, and she clutched at him, matching his frantic rhythm until finally they came—together. The power of their climax rocked and humbled Rae. She’d never felt so much ever—even with him.
The words burned in her throat, the love she felt for him. But maybe it was just the passion. So she held the words inside even as the feeling overwhelmed her. As he overwhelmed her.
* * *
“Can’t you do anything right?” the voice on the phone asked him.
He flinched at the question—flinched because he already knew the answer. No. He couldn’t do anything right. He never had.
Whenever he’d tried, he usually only made a bigger mess of things. Of his life and everyone else’s.
That was why it was better when he was gone—for all those left behind, but he couldn’t leave yet. He couldn’t leave with the debt being held over his head right now.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he lied.
But the caller—whoever the hell he was—snorted in disbelief. “Yeah, right. You screwed up again and you damn well know it.”
How did he know? Who was he? Did he have eyes and ears everywhere?
Maybe his wasn’t the only debt this guy had bought. Or maybe he had other means to control and manipulate other people.
“How did I screw up?” he asked. “No cop is working the murder cases right now. Everybody’s trying to figure out who hurt the cop.”
Such a long pause followed his pronouncement that he would have thought the caller had hung up on him if not for his cell screen showing that the unknown number was still connected to his. He hadn’t answered it the first time the number had called his, but then the notes had started appearing under the door of his motel room.
The threats.
“If just a cop getting hurt distracted the Whisperwood PD this much, then what will happen when you kill one?” the caller questioned.
“You want me to kill a cop.” It wasn’t a question. He knew this guy—whoever he was—wasn’t playing.
“The cop or your kid—you choose.”
There was no choice. He’d already cost his kid too damn much to cost her anything else.
Chapter 20
What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he keep his hands off Rae Lemmon? It wasn’t just his hands he needed to keep off her, though. It was his lips and his body and his...
Forrest swallowed the groan burning his throat and resisted—just barely—the urge to turn around and go back to Rae’s bedroom, back to Rae. He still wanted her so badly. But giving in to that desire—again—had been a mistake.
He was supposed to be protecting her and Connor, and he wasn’t doing a very damn good job when he kept letting desire distract him from his duty. He pushed open the broken door to the nursery and crossed the room to the crib.
The baby slept peacefully; his little rosebud lips parted on a soft sigh. His face was flushed, either from the ordeal he�
��d been through earlier that evening or from the heat in the room.
The air-conditioning unit either wasn’t big enough to cool off the ranch house that much, or it was old and needed repairs. It just cut the heat and humidity a little bit, but not enough to really cool off the house, though. The night air might have been cooler than the faint trickle of air emanating from the ducts, but it was too risky to open windows.
Too risky with the intruder determined to get to Connor and Rae.
But why?
What could they have to do with the murder investigation—besides the fact that a body had been found in their backyard? Not that it had been all that accidentally found, like Jonah and Maggie had found the body of the chief’s long-missing sister.
Forrest was pretty damn sure the body he’d found had been purposely dug up. Why? And who would know it had been there besides the killer?
“Do you know, Connor?” he asked the baby as he reached into the crib and ran his hand over the infant’s soft hair. His blood heated with the memory of someone snipping off a lock of that hair to leave on Rae’s pillow with the note.
His gut clenched with anger and guilt that she’d had to go through that, that someone was putting her through a mother’s worst nightmare—someone threatening her child.
His hand trembled a little against Connor’s head, and another little sigh slipped out of the baby’s mouth. Not wanting to frighten him any more than he’d already been that night, Forrest pulled his hand away.
He had to make sure that Connor didn’t get scared again. He had to make sure that the baby and the baby’s mother stayed safe. As he left the nursery, he pulled the door as closed as it could get in the broken jamb and headed into the kitchen. He took out his cell phone and connected himself with the unit guarding the driveway at the street.
“This is Detective Colton. Is everything all right?”
“Except for the chief picking up his vehicle a while ago, there has been no sign of anyone else on the property, sir,” the officer replied.
Heat rushed to Forrest’s face. The chief had been here while he’d been distracted with Rae. Had he looked into the house? Had he seen that Forrest hadn’t been protecting them like he’d promised?
Then the other reason for the chief leaving the hospital sunk into Forrest, and a twinge of guilt struck his heart. “Is Officer Baker all right?” he asked. The chief wouldn’t have left him if he wasn’t—unless there’d been nothing more for him to do.
“He has a concussion and skull fracture and will have to stay a couple of days in the hospital, but the doctor told the chief and Officer Baker’s family that he should be just fine.”
Forrest uttered a heavy sigh of relief. “That’s great.”
He should have checked on him sooner for himself. But he could barely think when he was close to Rae. And when he was touching her, he couldn’t think at all. That was why he needed to stay away from her. “What about the officer posted in the backyard?” he asked as he peered out the door, into the night. “Where’s he?”
“Backyard?”
“At the crime scene.”
“He left with the technicians,” the officer replied. “He thought he was only supposed to guard them while they were working.”
Forrest swallowed a curse. He was such a damn fool with Rae’s and Connor’s safety.
Despite his efforts to muffle his oath, the officer must have heard it. “Really, sir, we haven’t seen anyone lurking around the property, and with the exception of the chief, nobody has come and gone.”
But what if the intruder had still been somewhere on the property? What if he’d hidden somewhere and the officers at the scene hadn’t found him?
Then he could be somewhere close—too close for Forrest’s comfort. He reached for his holster and drew his gun from it. “I think I’ll walk around the house myself, just to make sure everything’s okay.”
“Sir, one of us can come up and do that for you,” the officer offered.
“No,” he said. “I could use the air.” The air to clear his head, and the distance from Rae so that he could stop being so damn distracted with how he felt about her.
With how much he felt for her. Too damn much.
“After what happened to Officer Baker, are you sure it’s safe?” the officer asked.
“You said nobody’s come and gone,” Forrest reminded the officer. “So it should be safe.”
But despite the warmth in the house, a chill raced down his spine, raising goose bumps on his skin. And he knew...
The threat was still here—still too damn close to Connor and Rae. Forrest needed to find it and remove it.
“Do you want us to check in with you at a certain time and make sure everything’s okay at the house?” the officer asked.
“Yes,” Forrest agreed. That way, if his suspicion was right, there would be protection for Rae. “And if you don’t hear from me, come up right away,” he advised. “Or if you hear anything suspicious.”
Like his gun firing.
He wouldn’t mind shooting the son of a bitch who’d been terrorizing Rae and Connor. He wouldn’t mind at all.
“Will do, Detective,” the officer replied. “But I’m sure we’ll be hearing from you soon.”
He hoped. But that chill chased down his spine again. He clicked off the cell and reached for the handle of the back door. Maybe he should have woken up Rae to let her know he was going outside. But he didn’t want to worry her if there was no reason for his concern.
After all, the officers at the driveway hadn’t seen anyone coming and going but the chief. And the chief must not have seen anyone either. So really, maybe the fear Forrest felt had nothing to do with something outside and everything to do with what was inside the house.
Rae.
Connor.
And his feelings for them.
If he went back into the bedroom, he wouldn’t just wake up Rae. He would slide into that bed with her, take her in his arms and make love to her all over again.
His body tensed just thinking about it, about her and how damn much he wanted her. But giving in to that desire he felt for her was a betrayal of the promise he’d made to protect her and Connor. And too many people had already broken their promises to Rae.
He didn’t want to be the next man to let her down. So he drew in a breath, unlocked the door and pulled it open. After pulling it closed behind him, he drew the extra key to the new lock from his pocket and turned the dead bolt. Shoving the key back into his pocket, he turned around and peered into the shadows.
The moon hung low in the sky, illuminating much of the dark, but for the shadows near the mounds of dirt around the old grave site. Who was the victim and why had she been buried here, on Rae Lemmon’s property?
Forrest had found out easily enough who Patrice Eccleston was, but the identity of this body was so far eluding everyone. She’d been dead for a long time, though—probably as long as the chief’s sister had been.
Had this woman’s family thought—like the chief’s had—that she’d just run away? Was there not even a missing-person report on her?
Maybe that was why he couldn’t find her—because nobody had missed her. Drawn by thoughts of the mummified corpse, he crossed the yard to the crime-scene tape that fluttered from the poles stabbed into the ground around the hole. More tape had been strewn around another area near the hole, where the officer had been struck. He would be okay, though.
Forrest breathed a sigh of relief for that. He hadn’t wanted to put anyone else in danger, but he sure as hell didn’t want Rae and Connor in danger either. Why were they? Who would threaten them?
He glanced back at the house, and from the corner of his eye, he noticed some movement behind him. He slid off the safety as he turned, but before he could squeeze the trigger, something swung out of the shadows at him. Metal struck his head ri
ght by his temple, and everything immediately went black.
His legs buckled beneath him and he dropped to the ground. And as he did, his last thought was that he’d failed Rae. He’d broken that promise to her.
* * *
Seconds before now he’d stared down a gun barrel; now he stared down at the man who’d held that gun on him. Detective Colton had good reflexes. He was lucky he hadn’t taken a bullet. But fortunately he’d moved faster.
Now Colton wasn’t moving at all. He tightened his grasp on the pipe and considered swinging it again. If he killed him—like the caller wanted—maybe this would end now. Maybe the caller would consider his debt paid in full.
He’d struck the younger cop harder and hadn’t killed him, though. So he dropped the pipe and leaned down to pick up the gun instead.
If he wanted to make sure Forrest Colton died, he needed to shoot him. Needed to make sure there was no way he would survive.
But when he tugged on the gun, he couldn’t get it loose from Colton’s grasp. The man was unconscious, but he still held tightly to his weapon. The only way to stop a guy like Colton was to kill him.
* * *
Rae jerked awake, her body nearly convulsing with the strange feeling that had passed through her. She reached out for Forrest, but her fingers slid across tangled sheets. He was gone.
Again.
Every time they’d made love, he’d left her afterward. Was he trying to make it clear to her that he didn’t want to stay? She wouldn’t have expected him to; she never expected anyone to stay.
But why had she awakened like she had?
She reached for the baby monitor next to the bed and listened for Connor’s cry. Maybe that was what had awakened her. The baby was quiet.
But a strange noise did emanate from the speaker, a strange squeak of the floorboards, as if someone was walking around the floor of the nursery.
A smile curved her lips.
That was where Forrest had gone—to check on Connor. That was where she had found him those other times, leaning over the crib, staring at her beautiful son. She’d even caught him singing that one night.
