Deception (Southern Comfort) (26 page)

FROM
beneath the shelter of the down blanket Sam heard the muffled thud of the front door, and her name being shouted over the high-pitched warning that signaled the impending scream of the alarm.  In her kennel, Snickers began to bark. 

For a moment, Sam simply froze. Then the familiar tenor of the voice had her breath rushing out, and she wondered why Josh was shouting.  She was just about to haul herself up when the blanket was whipped from the bed. 

Whatever sarcastic remark she’d been about to make died in her throat when she spotted the gun.  Snickers went crazy in her cage.  Sam scrambled to a sitting position, gaze switching from the weapon to his frantic face.  “What happened?”

Instead of answering, Josh sat the pistol on the nightstand and gathered her into his arms.  He was warm, and masculine, and smelled so damn good that she decided it didn’t matter.  It was so easy to pretend, just for a moment, that this was how things could be between them.  But then reality started to intrude and she realized she was setting herself up for disaster.  These feelings were blooming in fallow ground, and would just end up embarrassing them both.  And aside from all that, Josh had to have had real cause for concern to come busting in here with weapon drawn. 

The alarm cut loose with an ear-splitting shriek, and Josh disentangled himself with a soft curse.

Sam heard him open the front door, make a couple apologies to a neighbor, and she calmed Snickers before she joined him.  He was scowling at a vase of partially crushed roses, setting them on the dining room table as she approached.  With a noise of disgust he tossed a small white card beside the vase.

“Josh?” 

JOSH
blinked, noticing for the first time that Sam was wearing a T-shirt and nothing else.  Her breasts strained against the Savannah College of Art and Design logo, and it took a moment for the words to register.  Hell, it took a moment to remember he knew how to read.  He’d seen her naked before – in drawing class, at Clay’s bachelor party – but seeing her like this was somehow more stirring.  She was sleep-rumpled, bare-faced, and pretty much completely unaware of and unconcerned about her body, suggesting the level of comfort she’d come to feel in his presence.  He knew how very rarely she was truly comfortable around men – how few she’d ever trusted enough to let past her emotional shields – and something inside him ignited.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” he pointed out huskily.

“What?”  Sam glanced down at her chest, and when she looked up her cheeks were pink.  “I, uh, guess I took it with me when I left Savannah.  You loaned it to me – do you remember that night we got caught in the rain?  We were doing a bar crawl along River Street and the sky just opened up.  I wore this while you threw our clothes in the dryer at that twenty-four hour Laundromat.”

Josh remembered.  It was one of many evenings that he couldn’t forget, captured like a snapshot in his brain.  She’d had a fight with Collin, and as she was inclined to do during that time period, anesthetized the hurt with alcohol.  Josh knew it was a symptom of her profound lack of self-respect, almost classic behavior for a girl who’d been the victim of abuse.   

After their clothes had dried that night, he’d pushed Sam home in one of the Laundromat’s metal buggies, because she’d been having trouble walking a straight line.  She’d spent the night on his couch, avoiding Collin.  She’d cried herself to sleep in his arms that night, and it had killed Josh to let her go back to the man the next day. 

Not long after, she left them both. 

“It’s a miracle we weren’t arrested,” he concluded, temporarily ignoring the more painful aspects of the memory.

“Probably.” She smoothed her hand down the front of the shirt.  “I, uh, found it when I went out to my storage unit earlier today.  There were a couple boxes of clothing I’d forgotten about.”

“Oh,” he said absently, watching the way the shirt molded to her body.  And then he realized he was being an idiot.  “God, I can’t believe I’ve been standing here blabbering like a moron.”  He shoved inappropriate thoughts about Sam’s T-shirt to the side.  “Does this look like the same handwriting that was on the outside of the box with the negligee?”  He pointed to the little card on the table.  “The corner of it got wet when I kicked the vase over so the last part of your name’s pretty smeared.  Try not to touch it, although I did a pretty good number on it already.”

Wary, Sam scooted toward the edge of the table and stared down at the words.  “I can’t say for sure about the writing, but it looks like the same thing. Where…” she cleared her throat anxiously, “where did these come from?”

“They were sitting in front of the door.”

“I guess that explains why you came in brandishing a gun.” 

“Shit.  I’m sorry if I scared you.  I just saw that they were addressed to you and…”  His sentence dangled from the precipice of spent panic, and Josh ran a weary hand through his hair.  He’d hoped there was a rational explanation – that maybe he’d been wrong and simply overreacted – but his instincts told him otherwise.  There was no florist’s name printed on either the card or the envelope, not to mention an identifying signature.  If someone legitimate had sent the flowers, he’d expect to see one or both. 

“Is there any chance these could be from someone you know?  Maybe Karen had them sent over as a thank-you?”

“SHE
doesn’t even know I’m staying here,” Sam pointed out.  “I never told her anything about what was happening.”  And she wished now that she had.  Maybe warned Karen to be careful in the parking lot.  Although if the man who hurt her was indeed the one who’d burned up in that fire then there was no chance her abduction and Sam’s supposed stalker were related.  She made that point to Josh.

“This sort of throws a wrench in the theory, huh, about all this stuff being connected?”

“Looks that way.” He dragged his eyes from hers to glare at the roses. “I’m assuming these weren’t here when you got home tonight.”

“No. And that was…” she glanced toward the kitchen to squint at the clock, “just a little over an hour ago, I think.”

“So you were in before eleven.”

“Must have been, because the front door downstairs was still open.  Plus I walked Snickers, which took about fifteen minutes.  So it was probably ten-thirty, ten-forty five”

“Okay.  At least that narrows down the timeframe, because it’s just after midnight now.  The guy either had to have come in before the door was locked or someone let him in. I’ll have to ask around, see if any of the other residents saw anyone who didn’t belong.”

“What do you think this means,” she asked “in the grand scheme of things?” 

“Well, first and most obvious, someone’s been paying close enough attention to know that you moved in here. Have you told anyone where you’re staying?”

“No.  Although it appears to be common knowledge among your friends.  Justin made a comment a number of days ago.  But other than that, I…”

Her brows furrowed together ominously.

“You’re recalling something now, aren’t you?  Come on, spill it, Sam.”

She glanced up at him uneasily.  “I know how this is going to sound, but you have to believe me that it is not what you’re going to think.”  She twisted her hands together.  “Dane, uh, came back from his trip today and – take that look off your face right now, Joshua Harding, or I am not going to say another word.”

JOSH
did his best to school his features, though inside he plotted Wilcox’s demise.  “No look,” he promised her blithely.  Dude was going to get well acquainted with Josh’s fists.

She eyed him skeptically, clearly not believing the front.  But hell, he hadn’t grabbed the vase and gone out the door to break the thing over Wilcox’s head, had he?  Goddamn hot pink roses.  And friggin’ slinky lingerie.

Did he expect Sam to be flattered by his sleazy overtures?

“You’re scowling again,” she informed him.

“Just tell me,” he said between gritted teeth.

Sam sighed in resignation. “Dane made a comment about the unsavory nature of my old apartment and I told him that I was staying with a friend.  He said that’s great, who is it and then you walked in and I said something along the lines of there he is right now, and then I don’t think you need a play-by-play of the obvious display of mutual antagonism which followed because, oddly enough, you were a participant.”

Josh refused to let embarrassment color his cheeks.  “So he knows where he can find you.”

“Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean anything, Josh.  Dane isn’t the type of man who sends anonymous, romantic gifts to his female employees.  If he wanted me – which he doesn’t – he would just smile and assume I’d fall at his feet.  He only has to breathe to attract women, so what would be the point of all this?”  She waved toward the offending flowers.

Josh had to admit that she had a point.  Dane Wilcox was so supremely confident that this whole secret admirer approach didn’t seem in character.  But he’d seen enough seemingly inexplicable behavior in his career to allow that point alone to sway his opinion.  “Think about it, Samantha.  The guy goes out of town right after you get the mysterious negligee, and then all’s quiet until he blows back in.  You tell him where you’re living now and poof!  Suddenly the hallway’s sprouting roses.”

Sam frowned
.  “Yes, but think about this, Detective Hardhead.  Dane was at the bar with me from the time you came in this afternoon until he sent me home a little after ten.  So he rushes out, finds a couple dozen roses at those ever popular twenty-four hour florists, and then delivers them all before eleven.”

“He could have had someone let him in later,” he pointed out.  “And picked up the flowers at one of the local supermarkets.”

She made a small noise of disbelief.  “Why pick the best lingerie store in the entire city, yet settle for bargain basement roses?  Definitely not in character, if I were crazy enough to buy this theory.  And these roses look like one of those special hybrids.  Not something you’re likely to find just any old place.”

He begrudgingly allowed her another point.  Her hand snaked over and slipped into his. 

“Look, I know you’re only trying to protect me because you’re a male and it’s etched in your DNA, but even if Dane were interested in me in a romantic fashion, this is not the approach that he would take.  Whatever he may be, he’s not… cowardly.  Nor is he menacing.  And this stuff is partly one, and a whole lot of the other, I just haven’t quite figured out which is which yet.”

Josh squeezed her fingers gently between his, thinking that Clay had been accurate in what he’d told him.  When someone you cared for was being threatened it was almost impossible to maintain perspective.  “I’ll grant that you’ve raised good questions, but please accept that I’m not convinced.  I won’t embarrass you and confront the man flat out, but I’m keeping him on my short list.  Unfortunately, the connection between the negligee and the break-in is even more tenuous when you factor in the roses, so any chance I had of getting a warrant for Intimate Expressions’ sales records is pretty much a pipe dream.  But I’ll still head by there tomorrow and see if I can find out anything that might help us.”  He glared at the roses again.  “I’ll take the vase and the card into the station tomorrow, see if they can lift any prints.  Other than mine.”  He rolled his eyes.  “Then maybe I’ll call around to some different florists.” 

Sam glanced at the roses, then looked away.  “So you’re still convinced this is somehow criminal?”

“Legally, at this point… not technically.  Even with today’s stalker laws there isn’t enough here to prove any threat has been issued or even implied.  But it’s creepy, and insinuating, and it really pisses me off.  So until I get some answers I want you to continue to be extra careful.  What are your plans for tomorrow?”

“Well, Dane forced me to take the day off so I’m going to be making the rounds at the hospitals – visiting Karen and of course with Donnie.  Then… I usually volunteer at the center, but I think I’m going to do something female and pointless.  Maybe bake something or… I don’t know.  Paint my nails.”

She looked so adorably mystified by the prospect that Josh had to rein in a grin. 

“And I’ll be doing the cop-slash-irate-and-overprotective-male thing,” he sent her a bland look, “and then I have the, uh, wedding so I’m not sure exactly when I’ll see you.”

“We could always rendezvous for coffee and breakfast.  I’ll even volunteer to cook.”

“Pancakes?” He perked up.  “With butter and real maple syrup?”

“You have some real maple syrup, Mr. Picky?”

“No, but it sounds good, doesn’t it?”

Sam laughed, and leaned in to kiss his cheek.  “I’ll run to the market in the morning.”  She pulled away slowly and for the briefest of moments their breath mingled in the space between them.  Hers was sweet, minty from her toothpaste, and Josh figured screw it, moved in for the kiss.

But Snickers barked, and Sam jumped, bringing her forehead solidly against his chin.

“Ouch.” He tasted blood. 

“I’m sorry.”  But she was laughing again.  “Poor baby.”

“Yeah, you really thound like you mean it.”

She bit her lip to preclude laughing at his lisp.

“Great.”  He stuck his injured tongue out.  “You’ve given me a thpeech impediment.”

She clamped her hand over the lower half of her face, but her eyes were dancing with amusement.  Josh decided that some minor maiming was small recompense for her happiness.  “Before I do any more damage, I’ll go get Snickers settled and get back into bed.  Goodnight, Josh. Sleep well.”