Millie had been right. She was his neighbor. She was also a victim or a suspect, depending on who you talked to. But in his eyes? Millie hadn’t asked for any of this to happen to her. She hadn’t planned any of what they’d been through. Foster felt that truth in his bones. Now he was looking for answers, justice, and a way to give the woman who deserved some good, some kind of peace.
Foster should have told her that on the porch. Should have hammered home that she wasn’t a suspect to him, but the way Millie had looked at him? It was like he’d watched a piece of her break right there on the same spot he’d been shot the week before. Foster hadn’t known how to react because he hadn’t known the cause. So, what did you do when you didn’t know what to do?
He hadn’t done anything at all.
Which meant now he shouldn’t have wanted to update her on what he’d found. He shouldn’t have wanted to talk through everything that had happened to her. He definitely shouldn’t have wanted to go next door and forget about the case for a while.
But he did.
“Women are trouble, Foster,” he reminded himself and the still-somewhat stale air of his new home around him. “That one with a capital T. Pull it together. Do your job.”
The pep talk carried him to the hallway bathroom. He turned the shower on and put his beer on the counter. The reflection in the mirror showed him a man who was tired but wasn’t about to sleep. Not until he had answers.
Just one.
That was why he was in Kelby Creek. To help the department, to help the town. Not to stumble through his first investigation since he got back.
For Pete’s sake, you got shot and drugged within the first week!
Foster shook his head at himself. This time he did curse.
It was back to the drawing board when he got out of the shower, he decided. He needed to rethink everything from tip to tail.
He could do this.
He had to do this.
Foster nodded his affirmation to himself and started to pull up the hem of his shirt to undress. Instead, he watched his reflection flinch. Without any pain meds in his system, his bruised ribs had become angrier. Painful. Especially since Donni Marsden had used him as a punching bag on the boat. Donni might have been older, but he’d had force behind each blow. It also didn’t help Foster’s case that the sheriff had grabbed a casual T-shirt and not a button-up to put in his hospital bag.
“Can’t solve this case, can’t take off your shirt,” he grumbled.
He switched sides, hoping that would help the pain.
It didn’t.
He was considering getting the scissors when the doorbell rang.
“Coming!”
Foster glanced at his phone on the kitchen counter on the way to the door—no new messages—and went right for the peephole. He imagined the sheriff being on the other side, ready to share a beer and frustration. Maybe talk over the case some more and discuss how to deal with Donni Marsden and Fallon’s still-missing truck.
But the sheriff and his cowboy hat weren’t on the other side of the door.
All at once, Foster went on alert and quickly pulled open the door.
“Millie? Are you okay?”
Millie didn’t appear to be in any physical pain or trouble—in fact, she looked like she’d been getting ready for bed in a worn cotton tee and a pair of sweatpants—but there was nothing but distress written across her face.
Foster looked over her shoulder. Deputy Calloway’s cruiser was still at the curb. No one else seemed to be in the street or around the yards.
“What’s wrong?” he prodded when she still hadn’t answered. Foster pictured his gun locked in the nightstand next to his bed. Too far away if he needed to act fast. He’d just have to use his fists.
Millie’s wide eyes managed to widen a bit more.
“Oh, no. I’m okay,” she hurried to say. “I just wanted to talk. Sorry. Can I come inside?”
Foster didn’t lower his guard just yet. He stepped aside, not moving until she was past him.
“Sure, yeah, come in.”
The smell of lavender and something else mixed in surrounded him. Foster tamped down the urge to enjoy the scent. It was one he was becoming used to. He instead focused solely on the woman and whatever it was that had her upset.
Which wasn’t hard considering she stopped in the middle of the open room and whirled around to face him with such acute worry, Foster went right back to high alert.
“Is that the shower going?” she asked, voice pitched higher than normal. Her gaze trailed down to the beer in his hand. He hadn’t realized he’d swiped it from the counter next to the sink. “Oh, are you not alone? Is someone else here? Am I interrupting?”
The way she said that made it sound like Foster had a lady friend lying in wait. He laughed the idea off.
“No, no one’s here. The only thing you interrupted was me about to drink in the shower and, honestly, that’s probably a good thing.”
Millie looked a little less distressed, but not fully relieved. Foster sidestepped offering her a beer to get to the reason behind the late visit.
“Millie, what’s wrong?”
The AC revved to life and the ice maker in the refrigerator dropped some ice cubes. Foster even heard some frog chirping outside the window. All before Millie worked up enough courage to saying what she’d come to say. She opened her mouth then closed it. She did it again.
There were tears in her voice.
“Annie McHale was gone for two hours before Kelby Creek turned upside down. Less than a week later the entire country wanted to find her, to know what happened.” Those tears warbled her normally calm voice. “Fallon was gone for three days, and I had to beg for someone to listen to me. Fallon has been gone for six months and no one seems to care about what happened but me. That is, no one until you. But, honestly, if I hadn’t gone to the woods that night? If Jason Talbot hadn’t come for me? I’m not even sure you would have given Fallon, or me, another thought.”
Foster tried to interrupt but she kept on. She wrung her hands.
“I mean no disrespect or lack of appreciation for what you’ve done so far. It’s just that when you told me about Fallon’s truck, I couldn’t figure out what to feel.” She took a step closer to him. “Ever since my dad was killed, life hasn’t stuck to any plan I’ve ever made. School, a future career path, serious relationships, my mom? I learned to roll with the punches as a way to survive because I know things could always be worse. Then, eventually, the only constant in my life became Fallon. He’s been my person since he was that ten-year-old boy sitting on his bed practicing cursive.”
She took a breath. When she spoke again, her voice was not as tremulous.
“I have tried very hard to make sure he has the stability that we never had growing up. I’ve tried to make Kelby Creek a real home, to build a foundation that he can always come back to when he’s ready. But then? Then he was just gone. And nothing I had done, nothing I have done, seemed to matter anymore.” She paused. Foster was surprised to see one of her hands fist at her side. “I’ve spent the last six months trying to find Fallon because I love him, because I want him to be safe, but—in a small way—I don’t know who I am without him. Every choice I’ve made, every decision I’ve come to in the last several years has been as a sister, as a surrogate mom, as a moral compass. It’s been for Fallon, for our family.”
Millie stood straighter. Like she’d been zapped by a sudden surge of electricity. Her hands relaxed though her gaze sharpened.
She was no longer on shaky ground.
She was determined.
“But it wasn’t until today when I stood in front of you and felt like a suspect that I realized how much your opinion matters to me. How, even though you wouldn’t be the first and probably won’t be the last person to not believe me, to not trust me, you’re the first p
erson I’ve actually wanted to prove wrong. Not out of spite but because I like being around you. Not as a sister. Not as a guardian or teacher. Me as Millie. I know that probably seems a bit weird considering I barely know you, but it’s the truth.”
She put her hands on her hips, determination mounting.
“So, all of this was to say, I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier when you were just doing your job. I just—Well, for a lot of reasons, I didn’t want this to end. I’m sorry.”
Foster watched as Millie let out an exhale that relaxed her rigid stance. Instead of defeat or embarrassment, she seemed relieved.
Then she was waiting.
Waiting for him to respond.
Little did she know that Foster had already come to a conclusion about Millie before she ever set foot inside his house.
Foster smiled. He hoped she saw how genuine it really was.
“Millie Dean, I have never thought you were anything other than extraordinary,” he said, honest. “You’re too good for this town, for me, and certainly for anyone who has the gall to think you’re less than. I wouldn’t keep my distance from you unless you told me to do so. Case or no case.”
There it was. The truth. It wasn’t as eloquent as Millie’s or as deep, but it was how Foster felt.
He might have only known Millie a week, but in that time she’d spent every moment they had together proving that she was a woman to be reckoned with. A warrior with a heart of gold. Someone you were lucky to have by your side in thick or thin or otherwise.
Foster figured he should say that, but Millie made a fool of his detective skills. In a move he truly didn’t see coming, Millie closed the space between them and covered his lips with hers. Bruised ribs be damned, Foster didn’t move an inch as she pressed against him.
Then it was like she was electrocuted again. She ended the kiss and backed up in a panic.
“I—I’m sorry. I just wanted to do that and realized that maybe you were just being nice and professional and then here I was lunging at you after invading your house!”
In that moment Foster could have done a lot of things.
He could have been professional and told her not to worry but yes, they should focus only on the case for now.
He could have been friendly and assured her that it was just a kiss in a high-pressure situation, and not to read anything into it.
He could have lied and told her that she’d misread his compliments as something more than they were.
He could have told the truth, spelled out the fact that, as much as he admired Millie, he was attracted to her too. That he was a bit upset he hadn’t been the one to kiss her first.
Yet Foster didn’t want his words to do the talking.
So he asked her a question instead.
He grinned. When his words came out, they were low and filled with unintended grit.
“Millie Dean, why don’t you help me take my shirt off and I can show you just how I feel?”
Millie, God bless her, didn’t take long to pick up what he was trying to put down.
Instead of being shy about it, though, she surprised him with a smirk that nearly made him lose his cool right then and there.
“Well, considering I helped you put it on this morning in the first place, I guess it would only be fair to help take it off.”
And boy, did she do just that.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The shower became background noise.
Millie barely registered it. She’d only noted it at all because she expected them to trail that way. Not that she had thought helping the detective take his shirt off because of an injury would lead them directly into the steam together.
Though she’d be lying if her mind wasn’t already playing through the logistics of it. Chief among them the fact that there was a good height difference and that her curls would get wet.
But the synapses firing in her head, trying their best to piece together coherent thought, decided whatever happened next with Foster, she was good with. She didn’t mind if it was on the floor, in the bedroom, or on the roof.
She wanted him.
More than she’d wanted anyone else in the same sense.
Thankfully, the feeling seemed to be mutual.
The second Millie had his shirt off, Foster was cradling her head in his hands, pulling her close and keeping her against his lips. Millie ate it up. She put her arms around him, steadying them, while her hunger burned through her and out to him.
What started as a warm, introductory kiss deepened. He parted her lips and her tongue searched him out. A moan escaped her lips as he moved his hands down her body, looping one around her back while the other anchored at her hip.
For several blissful moments they were caught in a whirlwind of movement and gasping for air.
Then Foster made a noise.
Millie stopped in an instant.
With hooded eyes and swollen lips she was all concern.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
Foster still had his arm around her but dropped the one from her hip. He used it to give her a dismissive wave.
“I’m good. I’m fine.”
Millie shook her head. “No one who is good or fine says they’re both good and fine. Tell me.”
Foster sighed. Then he made a face.
“If I tell you then we might stop, and I don’t want to do that,” he said.
Millie gently wiggled backward out of his grip. She felt guilty in an instant as she realized what was happening.
“Foster! Am I hurting you?”
She had to give it to the man, he was able to look sheepish and devilishly sexy all at once. Beneath Foster’s shirt was a lean but muscled body. Something she’d already seen in the hospital but, after feeling its power against her, a work of art she appreciated much more now. Yet among those muscles and smooth skin was an awful smattering of color.
Bruising from Jason Talbot’s bullet.
And from Donni Marsden’s fists.
That wasn’t even accounting for what she couldn’t see.
Not to mention, she’d just had to help take his shirt off.
“I’m fine,” he repeated. “The pain caught me a little off guard, is all.”
Millie shook her head then traced his side again with her eyes.
That’s when she saw the scar farther down, right above the brim of his jeans. It looked like it had once been deep. It was also shiny. Millie had only seen a scar like that once before on her former manager’s arm at the store. It had been made by a deep cut. She ran her index finger along the line, like a moth to a flame.
It was a clear reminder that she didn’t know much about the man. But that she also wanted to learn.
“That happened a long time ago.” His voice had gone low again. Millie absently wondered if it was because of her touch. Even her own tone had changed.
“From Seattle?” She imagined the man in a wild fight with fancy men in suits with misting rain and clouds as a backdrop. Foster, the brooding detective ready to dispense justice. It was an image right out of a television show.
It also was being muscled out by another thought. Foster, however, spoke first before it could fully form.
“I actually got it here in Kelby Creek.” He smirked. “From our very own Mrs. Zamboni. Before she was all-knowing, she was a teen with really bad aim and—”
Foster stopped talking. His body went rigid and his green, green eyes widened.
Millie wasn’t much better.
The thought that was teasing her fully formed.
It was only the luck of timing that she spoke first.
“When Jason was in my house, he told me that he’d been watching me for weeks and he specifically said in the woods that he’d seen me at the store.” She felt a smile pull up her lips, excitement breaking throug
h. “Does that mean we could look at the security camera footage to see him and use that to help us figure something out?”
Foster laughed.
Really laughed.
Millie would have been offended had he not hurried with an explanation.
“That could definitely help us get a lead,” he said. “Just like the realization I just had might help us.”
“You thought of something too?”
Foster placed his hand over hers, still touching his scar.
“You’ve got the magic touch, apparently.”
Millie laughed. “First time I’ve heard that but I’ll take it. What did you realize?”
To say the man was excited was an understatement. He looked like a boy in a candy shop with his mom’s credit card.
“Helen, the all-knowing Mrs. Zamboni,” he said simply.
That surprised her.
“Wait, you want to ask her for psychic advice?”
This time Foster laughed.
“No, but William Reiner went to her with questions about his brother after he left town.”
Millie raised her eyebrow. “You think that Reiner is looking for his brother?”
“He was then,” he said. “Maybe if we know what questions he asked, we can figure out what he did next when he didn’t get any answers from her. Maybe we can find out what he’s been up to since, and where he might be now.”
Millie nodded.
“Or this could be just what we needed to finally get us on the same page as everyone else,” Millie said.
They lapsed into a thoughtful silence. To any outsiders they might have looked odd. Standing in the middle of the living room, Foster shirtless and Millie pressing against his scar, both with red lips.
But they were both invested in everything that had happened so far. More so than anyone else.
They’d been attacked, drugged, questioned and confused.
Finding two new avenues to look down? Well, that was two kids in a candy shop combined with a toy store. The possibility that they might find exactly what they needed was thrilling.
Millie wanted to get started now, and she couldn’t imagine that Foster felt any differently. That said, she also was well aware that the time was nearing eleven at night.
Harlequin Intrigue July 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Page 33