When She Wasn't Looking (13 page)

She was desperate for Rich not to see her as a crazy person. “I swear I heard it.”

When he looked at her, his expression went blank. “I’ll put another man on the house and take the night shift myself.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

Rich snorted. “You have reason to be on edge after the thing in the forest.”

“But this?”

He winked at her. “So long as it doesn’t happen every hour, we’re fine.”

Jonas clapped Rich on the shoulder. “Thanks for racing here.”

“Per your orders, I have patrols going through town. Walt stepped up and provided additional personnel.”

“I owe him.”

“He mentioned that.”

More men poured out of the house and headed for the cars. She was trying to figure out a new way to apologize when a younger policeman came around the side of the house and waved to Jonas. “I think we have something here, sir.”

Rich and Jonas took off and Courtney followed them. The group stopped at the small window over the kitchen sink. Jonas ran his hand over the sill.

“What is it?” Rich asked.

“Marks in the wood.”

Rich made a face as he eyed the chipped paint. “How can you tell?”

“See this?” Jonas pointed to a thin scrape at the bottom of the window and near the lock at the top. “This isn’t from disrepair. Someone tried to work this open.”

She stared at the tight space. “Even if he did get it open, who could fit through there?”

“Good question.” Jonas pointed at the officer who found the marks. “Good job. I doubt we’ll find anything, but we need a fingerprint kit.”

The guy almost tripped over his own feet running to do Jonas’s bidding.

Rich watched and shook his head. “I’ll set up roadblocks and start a search. The guy is likely long gone, but it’s worth a shot.”

Jonas nodded. “Right.”

“Do we have any idea why someone wants to get to you so badly?” Rich asked her.

She debated on how much to share. “Well—”

Jonas made the decision for her. “I’ll fill you in later.”

“Then I’ll go handle the basics.” Rich turned the corner and disappeared.

Standing alone at the back of the house, Courtney shivered from the chilling wind. A few seconds ago she hadn’t even felt it.

Jonas frowned at her. “You okay?”

She rubbed her hands over her arms and felt the tiny bumps there. “Fine, but I’m trying to believe you’re not furious about someone violating your space.”

“Don’t let the calm fool you. My biggest goal is to figure out how someone got this close to you without me knowing it.”

Having her back exposed had her shifting to lean against the house. “That one has me worried, too.”

“They won’t be back.”

She closed her sore eye and peeked up at him with the other. “How do you know that? I don’t care what the answer is. I just want reassurance. Tell me you’re sure.”

“It’s easy.” He pressed a palm against the house, right next to her head, and leaned in. “He knows we’re ready.”

“What if what the person really wants is me?”

“The only one who’s going to be near you is me.”

The trembling inside her had nothing to do with the cold. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

He drew even closer, with his mouth just inches from hers. For a second, she thought he would close the distance and kiss her. Instead, he pushed off and stood up.

“Yeah, you do.”

“Jonas—”

He held out a hand to her. “Let’s go see what Rich is doing.”

Chapter Fifteen

Cade sat on the hood of his rental car and let the heat from the metal warm him from the wind whipping across the Siuslaw River. He blew out long breaths, trying to restore his heart to a consistent beat.

The call had come in less than an hour ago. The county sheriff hit Redial on Paul’s phone and called Cade. At first, Cade kept it all business, ready to deliver the cover he’d created for Paul’s trip. Then came the news. The sheriff filled Cade in as a law-enforcement courtesy.

Paul was dead. Killed in the hospital room.

Thinking about his friend’s slashed throat made Cade gag again. He’d thrown up twice since he got off the phone. Wiping the sweat off his forehead, Cade counted to ten as he opened his mouth and gulped in fresh air.

He’d been right there in the room.

He’d dragged Paul into this mess.

Cade rubbed his hands up and down his pants legs but his skin wouldn’t warm up. The cold penetrated every cell. Whether it came from reaction or shock, he didn’t know. The result was the same. Someone murdered his friend. The same unknown someone managed to get the jump on a trained FBI agent.

The impact would reach everywhere. Color everything. Destroy so much.

Cade inhaled again, trying to keep the clog in his throat from coming up. Watching the blue water lap against the bank and the gray sky move in, his thoughts moved from one death to another.

Tad Willis had collapsed under the weight of the accusations. He didn’t fight. He gave in. Ann or Courtney, or whatever her name was these days, picked him as the killer and told everyone. The reporters called day and night. Neighbors painted words of hate on their garage door. Kids taunted.

The past Cade’s father tried so hard to hide boiled up and became an explanation for how he could wipe out an entire family. Being short on cash no longer stood as the household’s most devastating problem.

Cade’s regular world had exploded when his father’s name appeared in the papers. After a raging fight at the dinner table, he skipped out on school the next morning, snuck home and found his dad’s body in the bedroom.

The gun. The blood. The shocking red covered everything. The way it dripped down the wall, Cade thought it had to be paint. It signaled the end of his innocence and his father’s life.

Now there was more blood. Cade looked down expecting to see it drip off his hands. Paul had an ex-wife and a new fiancée. He’d had a life.

Cade’s thoughts wandered back to Courtney. He could trace every piece-of-crap thing in his life back to her. He brought Paul to town but Courtney, or something related to her, killed him.

She’d taken enough lives. She had to be stopped.

* * *

J
ONAS SAT
at his dining-room table and tapped his pen against the wood. The rhythmic clicking soothed him. Exhaustion tugged at every bone in his body, but he fought it off. He needed answers. Courtney needed answers.

As if he conjured her up, she slipped into the room. She’d showered again, and the dampness still clung to the ends of her hair. Her navy sweats balanced low on her slim hips, teasing him with a sliver of skin between the edge and the bottom of her body-skimming T-shirt.

This time she wore glasses. The thin, dark frames gave her a naughty-librarian look.

He hadn’t been kidding when he said glasses were sexy on a woman. Or maybe he just thought it and forgot to actually tell her. Either way, he believed it.

“You dream about being a drummer?” she asked with a wide smile.

“What?”

She made exaggerated googly eyes at his pen. “Can’t place the beat, but I’ll probably hear that sound in my sleep.”

“Sorry about that. One of the hazards of being a bachelor and living alone.”

“It’s okay.” She sat in the chair perpendicular to his with one leg tucked under her. “I doubt I’ll actually sleep no matter how quiet you are.”

And he’d almost fallen asleep pouring his coffee. “After all that’s happened, how could you not?”

She shrugged as she drew a random pattern on the table with her finger. “I don’t need that many hours.”

“Need? It’s about how good it feels.”

She glanced up at him. “Oh, really?”

“Soft, warm.” He saw her breathing slow and heard the soft puffs of air leave her mouth. “After it’s over, your body is restored and ready to go.”

Her finger stalled. “Are we still talking about sleeping?”

Not even a little.
“Sort of.”

The chair creaked when she flopped against the back. “About this attraction.”

That woke him right up. “I’m impressed you opened that topic.”

“I’m not wrong about… Well.” She swung her leg around in a circle. “I thought—”

“It’s taking all the control I have not to get up and bend you over the table. Does that answer your question on how I feel and how mutual this is?”

Her body froze. “Pretty much.”

“So?”

“You’re not my type. I’m guessing I’m not yours.”

He leaned back until the front two legs of his chair left the floor. “Wrong.”

“You like the bookish girls?”

She had no idea of her appeal. For the first time, he understood she lost more than her family that awful night long ago. He wondered if she realized how hard she was on herself. “I’m into the strong-and-pretty type.”

“Do I fall into that category?”

“You’re the star of it.”

“Men with guns make me nervous.” Her fingers wound together on her lap. She folded and unfolded them, her hands in constant motion.

“I get that.”

“To break the panic, I took some lessons and spent some time on a shooting range.”

Nothing about her surprised him. Rather than get swamped by fear, she fought it. It’s what he would have done. His admiration grew along with his attraction.

“Did it help?” he asked.

“The hyperventilating is gone. I can watch a shoot- ’em-up movie without throwing up.”

His gun was a part of him. Holding it was as natural as breathing, but he never forgot its power. “But seeing a real one is different.”

“Yeah, so was holding one. I expected something small and light.”

“Guns are heavy.”

Her chest lifted on a deep exhale. “I’ve had bad luck with police officers and people connected to the legal system.”

“What about me?” His chair fell to the floor with a thump.

“What?”

“What kind of luck have you had with me?”

Her fingers turned red from where she rubbed and twisted them. “Since I’ve almost gotten you killed several times, I’m thinking you should run away and keep going until I’m nothing more than a bad memory.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Her head dropped back and she stared at the ceiling. In that moment he found two more things about her that he wanted to touch and taste: a long neck and the sharp line of her jaw.

When she lowered her head again, her eyes burned with a fiery intensity. “I keep waiting to see the thing, that part of you that will scare me to death.”

The way her voice dipped went straight to the heaviness in his chest. “I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not perfect, and I’ve made huge mistakes in my life, but I won’t hurt you.”

“I think that’s what scares me.”

Not the words he expected. “I don’t get it.”

“I know.” She laughed. “I don’t, either.”

“Is it a guy thing?”

The smile still lit her eyes. “Far as I can tell, there’s nothing wrong with your guy thing.”

The pressure constricting his upper body relaxed. “Then what’s holding you back?”

“Nothing.”

She was on him then, up and out of the chair, meeting him in the middle between their seats. Her hands roamed over his back as their mouths met in the kiss he’d been fantasizing about since he met her.

Deep and hot, her lips covered his. Over and over he pressed, bringing her body in close. Feeling her, tasting her.

With his hands on her hips, he lifted her onto the table and slipped into the V of her legs. His coffee cup clanked as it fell and papers slipped to the floor. He shoved the boxes aside to give them room, all without breaking contact with her sexy mouth.

Her chest brushed against his as his hands tunneled up the back of her shirt to touch bare skin. The feel of her smooth flesh had him lifting her T-shirt up and off. Breaths pounded in his chest as his hands closed over her breasts. Without a bra as a barrier, tight nipples brushed across his palms as he cupped her.

She whipped her glasses off and let them fall to the side. “Yes.”

He leaned his forehead against hers as the blood rushed out of his head. He wanted her so much. He craved her.

“You feel so good.” He whispered the words against her lips.

She traced circles over his chest with her hands. “My turn.”

The smokiness of her voice contrasted with the cool temperature of the room. The chilled air hit him the second she shoved his shirt up and off.

When he came back to her, his body on fire against hers, he found her mouth again. Their breathing mixed. Their tongues touched. Every ounce of control shattered as the reasons to stay away from her drifted out of his head.

He licked her lips and started nibbling on the edge of her mouth. “We should go upstairs.”

She shook her head and mumbled something. He couldn’t hear her over the waves of blood crashing in his head. He trailed a line of kisses down her neck to the promising dip at the base of her throat. When her head drifted back and a tiny moan escaped her lips, he knew he’d found the right spot.

When her fingers went to work on his belt, he also knew they needed a bed. “Upstairs.”

He grabbed her hand and tugged her off the table. Or he tried to. She wouldn’t budge.

“Courtney?”

She dug in her small back pocket and pulled out a condom. “We have this.” She waved it in front of his face. “Found it in your bathroom.”

“Aren’t you enterprising?”

“You’ve accused me of that before.”

He took the packet and had to control his hands to keep from shredding the thing. “It was a compliment both times.”

She opened the buttons on his jeans with an aching slowness. One by one, they popped open as her fingers brushed against him. By the time she finished, his lower body thumped with the need to be inside her. And when she slipped her hand over him, he saw black spots behind his eyes.

His breath hiccupped in his chest. “I’m not going to be able to handle this for very long.”

She pressed her lips against his ear. “Good.”

The last hold on sanity snapped. He lowered her to the table, his body sliding against hers as she opened her legs. He stood up long enough to strip the pants and underwear down her legs. When he touched her, felt how ready she was for him, her back arched off the top.