Get a Clue (24 page)

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Authors: Jill Shalvis

BOOK: Get a Clue
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“I came here to clear my head.” Lifting a shoulder, he shot her a crooked smile. “I thought maybe I'd meet a few snow bunnies, have a great time.”
“I can put on a ski hat if that would please you.”
“Only if that's all you put on.”
She snorted at that, and got a fleeting smile from him.
“I thought being here,” he said, “that I'd feel better about walking away from my work. My life.”
Her flippancy vanished in the face of his quiet pain. “Oh, Cooper.”
“I thought I'd go home with the answers in my head of what I want to do with myself.”
“Do you have them?” she asked. “The answers?”
“Not a one that you'd want to hear.”
Her heart skipped a beat, and she went very still. “What does that mean?”
He sighed, ran his hands through his wet hair. The muscles and tendons stood out in bold relief with his arms lifted, and her belly quivered. When she was around him, everything within her quivered.
She wanted him. Still.
Again
.
“Remember when we talked about love?” he asked. “You said you didn't believe in it.”
“I remember,” she said tightly.
“Well, I do. I believe in it, Breanne. I want it.”
Oh, God.
“All the time I thought it was my job screwing with my head. And in some ways, it was.” He came close again. “But I can move out of vice and not have to go under for months at a time. I can work regular shifts patrolling, or even going the detective route, and still have a life. I want a life, Breanne. And in that life, I want—”
“Don't,” she said, setting her fingers to his lips. “Don't say it.”
“You.”
“Oh, my God.”
He just looked at her.
Her throat tightened, her eyes burned. And her heart, God, her heart. It took one big tumble. “It's only been a day.”
Reaching up, he pulled her fingers from his mouth, keeping her hand in his. “It's been three, and those were pretty accelerated, intense days.”
“But it takes years to get to know someone,” she said, sounding desperate.
“I'm game.”
She stared at him.
He was game
. “I wrote ‘no more men' in my journal. You saw it. It's in stone.”
“There's always
Delete
.”
If only she could really erase some of her mistakes. “It's my path.”
“Rewrite the path.” He smiled. “That's the beauty of electronics.”
She swallowed hard. “You sure seem to have a lot of answers.”
“You do, too.”
She rubbed her temples and wished that were true. “I'm hungry.
Starving
.”
“No, you're scared and you have to think,” he said. But then he stepped back and finally began to dry off that mouthwatering body. “It's okay. You go eat. You go do what you have to do.”
Yeah, she would. Like a chicken, she took her out and moved to the door. There she glanced back. “Probably in the real world we'd have nothing in common.”
“Date me and find out.”
“Date?” After what they'd done, dating seemed so . . . tame. “Men say they want to be with me,” she said softly. “But they lie.”
“I don't. You know that by now.”
She shook her head. “Cooper. I don't know what to do with you.”
A small smile touched his lips. “Yeah, you do. You just haven't faced it yet.”
Keep him
. That's what her heart wanted to do. Take this thing where it might go.
But her brain was saying—
are you kidding? Run like hell.
Since she'd decided never to trust her heart again, she went with her brain, and ran like hell.
Twenty-six
If a man is talking in the woods, and there is no woman there to hear him, is he still wrong?
—Breanne Mooreland's journal entry
Breanne stepped out of the suite, then turned back and stared at the door. She let out a slow breath. Cooper turned her upside down and inside out, and when she was with him she didn't know whether she was coming or going.
Mostly coming, she admitted.
Her legs wobbled at the thought. They'd had some damn amazing sex. She'd never been with anyone who could take her right out of herself and then put her back, making her feel like a new woman, a
better
one. When she was with him, she didn't have self-doubts. She didn't wonder what he thought of her. She didn't do anything but be herself.
And he seemed to like that woman. A heady experience.
At the bottom of the stairs, Dante appeared right out of the woodwork, and still dizzy with thoughts of Cooper, she nearly fell over. “How do you do that?” she demanded.
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.”
He was just kidding. Probably.
“Bad joke,” he said.
“Really bad.” She put a hand to her chest, wondering if the butler had a side career going—murdering obnoxious managers and equally obnoxious guests.
Shelly came up behind Dante and smiled. “Hey. You okay?”
Breanne nodded at her new friend. And Shelly
had
become a friend. She wouldn't fall for a man who could—who would—
No. No, she wouldn't.
But how to explain the bloody gloves beneath Dante's bed? Or the bloody towel in Shelly's kitchen? “I just thought I'd try to get something to eat.”
“No problem,” Shelly said. “I'll bring you something to the great room? Or maybe the library? Where will you be?”
Breanne didn't feel comfortable going anywhere alone—she was afraid of what else she'd find. Before she could work up a good panic over that thought, Cooper came down the stairs and stood at her side, settling a big, warm hand on the small of her spine.
Such a small gesture, really, and yet . . . yet it meant so much.
“What's the snow situation?” Cooper asked Dante.
“We're about halfway. We could be out in a few more hours.”
“Just in time for nightfall,” Cooper said, sounding resigned.
Dante nodded.
“Could you find your way to town in the dark?” Cooper asked him.
“It'd be a suicide run. Frigid temps, bears . . .”
“Bears?” Breanne didn't like the sound of this. “I don't want anyone to be out there with the bears.”
“And believe me, no one wants to be,” Dante told her, the big, tough guy letting out a shiver.
“If we kept moving—” Cooper started.
“I'd rather walk the streets of my gang-infested childhood than snowmobile through the woods tonight.”
Cooper sighed. “So we all stay another night.”
“Another night,” Dante agreed.
Shelly bit her lower lip, and Dante set his hand on her shoulder. “It's going to be okay,” he said.
Cooper nodded.
Breanne only hoped they were right.
 
 
Everyone met in the great room and snacked on whatever Shelly was able to drum up. Stranded as they were, the lines between staff and guest and wrongly booked guest had blurred.
Or maybe that was because of the unintentional bonding that had occurred when they'd all found themselves staring at a dead body.
Breanne didn't know, but she liked having everyone in the same place, where she knew that no one was off getting . . . well, offed.
Despite the relaxation of duties, in some ways, their positions here in the house still very much defined them. Shelly rushed to serve everyone. Dante handled the fire. Lariana kept straightening things up in the already perfectly straightened room. Patrick didn't do much, but he kept his tool belt on and creaked when he walked.
“We really need a new generator,” he said to no one in particular.
“Maybe it's operator error,” Dante suggested.
“Bugger off.”
Dante laughed. “Come on. We all know you hate being the fix-it guy. The wicked witch is dead, dude. Do something else now.”
“Like . . . ?”
“Like what really gets you going,” Dante said, as if this was the easiest thing in the world to decide. “How about your painting stuff?”
Patrick looked over at Lariana, who smiled. “Told ya,” she said softly. “Do it, Patrick. Go for your dreams. Show your paintings.”
“It was you,” Cooper said to Patrick. “You painted that saw blade. The one that went up the day we found Edward.”
“I hung it,” Lariana said. “Patrick didn't want me to, but I think the guests that come here would love to see what he can do. Sunshine doesn't have any galleries because it's not a touristy type of place, but just a little bit south of here, closer to Lake Tahoe, there are tons of shops all around the lake where he could show his work.
Should
show it.”
Patrick lifted a shoulder. “Maybe.”
“You're good, Patrick,” Shelly told him. “And your idea of painting on antique tools is unique. You really should go for it.”
Patrick clinked his way to the fire, hunkering before it to jam the poker into the red-hot coals, stirring up the fire with a bit more strength than necessary.
“He's dead, Patrick,” Lariana said to his ramrod-straight spine. “No more worrying.”
“Worrying about what?” Cooper asked.
No one answered.
“Come on.” Cooper looked at them. “You're going to hold back now?”
Shelly and Lariana gave each other a long look.
Patrick stabbed at the fire again, making sparks leap and jump.
Dante remained broodingly silent.
Cooper shook his head in disgust.
“You know what?” Shelly surged to her feet. “It's late. And I'm really tired.” She didn't look at any of them as she moved to the door. “'Night.”
Lariana shot Dante a worried look, then started to follow, but Dante stopped her. “I'll go,” he murmured.
Lariana nodded, then pulled him in for a hug. When he was gone, she said, “It
is
late, and we're all overtired. Patrick?”
Seeming surprised to be so publicly summoned, he jerked to his feet and moved to the door with her, looking for all the world like an eager puppy.
“Call if you need anything,” Lariana said to Breanne and Cooper.
When it was just the two of them, Cooper looked at the empty doorway. “That was fun.” He stood up and held out a hand to Breanne. “Come on. There's even more fun to be had.”
Her heart stopped. Parts tingled. “What kind of fun?”
“Everyone's going to sleep. Everyone but us.”
The thought of “us” made her stomach sort of tremble, but not in a bad way. Oh God, she was getting used to the word
us
.
When had
that
happened?
Everything had been so simple a week ago. Sure, she'd been in an engagement that had been just a joke, but she'd had no major losses. No big disappointment—Well, maybe a few.
But she could have lived with them, because she'd never seen a dead body, she'd never lived in a haunted house, she'd never feared for her very life.
Now she knew what all those things felt like, as well as true, gut-wrenching fear for another person she truly cared about. Maybe staying one more night wasn't the end of the world. She could use it to show him how much she cared.
“We're going searching for the BB gun,” Cooper said.
“We are?”
His gaze swiveled to hers. “You sound disappointed. What did you think we were going to do?”
“Nothing.”
He ran a finger over the groove in her forehead. “You are such a liar. You were thinking about getting naked and losing some brain cells.”
“Losing brain cells?”
He reached for her hand, the gesture sweet and tender. “Every time I get you naked, I lose brain cells. Hell, you don't even have to be naked for that to happen.” He pulled her in for a tight hug. “I want more of this, Bree. When we're out of here, I want more of you.”
Now her heart, all warm and cushy—
and locked up tight—
quivered. “Cooper—”
“Don't panic.” He stroked a hand down her back, then pulled free.
Thank God.
“Let's go exploring.”
In the dark. Damn it, she didn't know which was worse, facing her feelings for Cooper, or exploring this dark, haunted house.
He pulled out a flashlight. “I noticed Patrick did some extra digging,” he said as they entered the garage through the foyer door. The large, cavernous room was icy and eerily silent. “I want to know why.” With that, he let go of her hand and moved away.
Breanne bit back her pathetic whimper, gasping when Cooper lifted the garage door manually, rolling it up a few feet. “What are you doing?”
“With no power, it's the only way to open it. Come here.”
Into the dark night. Into the snow. “My boots are finally dry—”
He vanished beneath the door.
“Damn it,” she muttered, and hurried to the door. Taking a deep breath, she ducked beneath it.
The darkness felt different outside; colder, deeper, all-consuming, with no walls as boundaries. Nothing but trees and mountains she couldn't even see. And bears. Let's not forget the bears.
Cooper had trudged past a buried vehicle—“Mine,” he tossed back—and through the snow to another parked about fifteen feet away. A truck, she saw, when his light flickered over it.
He was peeking in the windows with the flashlight. “Bingo.”
She eyed the still-falling snow and sighed, then stepped out from beneath the protective edges of the eaves. They'd shoveled here, so she didn't sink much more than a few inches into the new stuff. Buoyed by that, she grinned at him as she came up to the car. “Made it.”
He didn't smile back.
“What?” she asked, hers fading.
“Hold this.” He handed her the flashlight. Then he pulled the sleeve over his hand before opening the door of the truck. “No fingerprints,” he whispered. “Light the backseat for me.”
She lifted the light and stepped closer, her boot heel catching on an icy patch. The next thing she knew, her feet slid out from beneath her and she was down, the flashlight bouncing twice before going out.
In the dark above her, Cooper sighed at the loss. “You okay? Anything broken?”
“Just my butt, and possibly my pride.”
In the pitch darkness, a hand slipped beneath her elbow and lifted her up. Another hand slid over the butt in question. “Feels good to me. Your pride'll heal, too.”
“But the flashlight won't.”
“No.” The disconcerting darkness reigned, and that eerie, utter silence of the woods all around them.
Except for the very distant call of a coyote.
Breanne shifted closer to Cooper, hating the weakness, but hating even more the thought of facing a wild animal out here.
“Did you see?” he asked quietly. “Before you slipped?”
“I saw,” she said, and hugged herself. “I saw the BB gun in the backseat. Oh, my God, Cooper. This is insane. Bloody towels, bloody gloves. Edward's shoe . . .
What does it all mean?”
“I don't know.”
Blind as a bat and disoriented with it, she shivered. Cooper pulled her closer. “Come on,” he said, and nudged her around toward the house. “Back inside.”
“It's just as cold in there.”
“I'll warm you up.”
“It's also just as dark in there.”
“I'll be your light.”
She managed to find a laugh. “That was hopelessly corny.”
“Yeah,” he said in disgust. “I'm not that great at romance.”
Breanne set her head on his capable, sturdy shoulder as he led her inside. “I think you're better at this than you think you are.”
 
 
Breanne woke at the crack of dawn and opened one eye. She was sprawled facedown over most of the bed with all of the covers.
There was a big, warm hand on her butt.
Lifting her head, she turned and found Cooper on his side, head propped on his hand, watching her.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey, back.” Leaning in, he kissed her. “Time to rise and shine, Princess. Today is the day we get the hell out of Dodge.”
Sounded good.
And yet . . . She looked into his see-all blue eyes and pictured her life back home. Searching for a new job. A new place to live. Seeing her friends and family.
Would Cooper really be interested in that life? He'd said so.
Could she trust him enough to believe it?
“I can see the wheels spinning,” he said. “Want to share?”
She looked at him, trying to find the words to express her fears, her worry, but none came. “It's nothing.”
If he was disappointed, he didn't let it show. He just kissed her, then rolled out of bed and took his fantastic body into the bathroom.
Breanne stretched, rolling to her back, eyeing her Palm Pilot, which was on the nightstand. She reached for it, figuring she had a new entry to make, something along the lines of enjoying the moment because that moment was about to be over.
Only there was already an entry for today. It read:
Keep Cooper.

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