by LENA DIAZ,
After he’d parked in front of the inn and checked in with Tippy and Jenks, they told him that Silver had come back almost an hour earlier to get her sketch pad and pencils. But she hadn’t told them where she was going. Just to be sure that she hadn’t come back and they were busy with guests and didn’t notice, he went up to her attic room. But it was empty, and his quick search of the main floor confirmed that she hadn’t secluded herself in the office or sunroom either, let alone any of the public areas of the inn. He waved goodbye to Tippy and headed uptown.
He checked out every inch of Main Street. He ducked inside Swamp Buggy Outfitters, which was basically a camping and hunting supply store with an enormous swamp buggy sitting in the front window. But after walking up and down the aisles to make sure Silver wasn’t there, he tried Locked and Loaded—a gun store, then Bubba’s Take or Trade, and a taxidermy shop called Stuffed to the Gills. He even looked inside Last Chance Church, but he couldn’t find Silver anywhere, or anyone who’d seen her since the debacle with Cato earlier.
He’d just passed Callahan’s again on his way back to the B and B to search it one more time when a group of about twelve gray-haired citizens descended on him like a horde of slowly moving locusts. The woman in front of the group waved her cane at him and yelled at him to wait for them, so he did, leaning against one of the posts on the boardwalk in front of the saloon while their canes and walkers clicked and clacked on the wooden slats of whatever store they’d come out of.
Good grief. What in the world is this all about?
“See, I told you he’d come back,” one of the men in front said as they circled him like a pack of geriatric wolves. “He’s sweet on her. He likes Silver.”
Colton blinked in surprise. “What? Hey, I’m not sweet on her, whatever that means.”
“Then why did you come back?”
“It’s my job.”
“Hey, Freddie,” the elderly man called toward the back of their little gathering. “Didn’t your friend at the station say that Colton was voluntold to go on vacation for a few days?”
“Yep, he sure did,” she called back.
“Then he’s not technically working right now. So if he came back to help Silver, it sure looks to me like he’s sweet on her.”
“Oh, for the love of...stop it. Just stop it.” Colton gave them all a look that should have had them running to get out of his way. Instead, if anything, they crowded closer, as if to ensure that he knew they weren’t intimidated.
He was really losing his touch.
He held his hands up in surrender. “Okay. How about I admit that I like her? A little. Will that make you tell me where she is?”
Freddie pushed to the front of the senior squad and crossed her arms over her ample bosom. “Define...a little.”
He threw his hands in the air in frustration. “I don’t know. I...like I said, I like her. She’s interesting. And funny. And smart. And she’s kind of adorable when she spaces out and goes off somewhere in her artistic little world that the rest of us don’t understand. But she’s also frustrating and stubborn and in trouble if she’s out there on her own somewhere working on the case. So, please. If you care about her at all, please tell me where she is so I can protect her.”
Freddie glanced around at her mini-mob. “Well? What do you think? Should we tell him?”
Labron squeezed in between two of the others and took up a stance beside Freddie. “He didn’t even mention how pretty she is. I reckon that says a whole lot about how much he likes her, ’cause he likes her for who she is, not for her looks. I’m officially giving my stamp of approval to their relationship.”
Colton blinked. Twice. This conversation had gotten so bizarre he didn’t even know what to say.
“All in favor of telling him where Silver is?” Freddie asked.
“Aye.”
“Aye.”
“Tell him.”
Cheers went up from all around and Freddie held up her hand so Labron could give her a high five. He grinned and tried, but he couldn’t reach it. Freddie laughed and lowered her hand and they slapped palms.
Colton counted silently to five, trying to keep a rein on his temper. “Would someone please tell me where I can find Silver, before she gets hurt?”
“Oh, she’s plenty safe. I can see her from here.” Freddie pointed across the street to the second story over the shop called the Moon and Star. “With Faye and Jake out of town, she decided to use their apartment upstairs to noodle over everything we told her. She’s sittin’ in the living room right now trying to figure out who dunnit.”
Colton fisted his hands at his sides. Good grief. To think that if he’d just turned around and looked, he’d have seen her silhouetted in the upstairs window by the desk lamp where she was sitting, apparently deep in thought, because she didn’t seem to notice her admirers and champions gathered on the street below.
Freddie waved her hand and the senior squad parted like Moses parting the Red Sea, leaving him a clear path across the street.
“Thank you,” he managed to say in a civil voice, somehow not shouting even though he wanted to.
“Anytime,” Freddie called after him as he strode across the dirt-and-gravel road and then jogged up the steps to the boardwalk in front of the Moon and Star.
The store was dark and a sign in the glass door said Closed. He was about to knock when he decided to just try the knob to see what would happen. Sure enough, it turned easily in his hand.
“Doesn’t anyone lock their doors around here?” he grumbled beneath his breath as he stepped inside.
After shutting the door behind him, he threw the dead bolt, relieved that at least the door had a lock on it. He’d half expected that it wouldn’t. Now he could be relieved that he didn’t have to worry about Freddie’s little warriors coming in uninvited to see what was going on.
He wasn’t sure what he was going to say to Silver, but for some reason it seemed urgent that he see her. She’d had over an hour and a half since he left to cook up some other crazy scheme. He was already sweating just wondering what fool thing she might want to try next.
He wove his way between tables of what appeared to be exotic potions and perfumes in velvet pouches on various displays. There was jewelry, too, and a few racks of rather interesting clothing that consisted of short, midriff-baring tops and matching skirts that were more silk scarves than anything that would remotely retain anyone’s modesty. Just thinking about how Silver might look in a getup like that had his mouth watering and had him cursing himself for a fool. He had to get this attraction to her under control and focus on the danger around them. Because Silver sure as heck wasn’t focusing on it and he needed to keep both of them safe.
A quick tour of the bottom floor brought him full circle. Most of the place was the main, open front room that was the shop. There was a small office in the back with a bathroom beside it, and a few other little rooms that looked to be more for inventory and storage than anything else. There was a back door, too, also unlocked. He shook his head in disbelief and decided to open it and check out back, just to make sure things looked okay. He pushed the door open and something big and black hissed at him from just past the left side of the doorway. He shut the door and bolted it even as his mind struggled to tell him what he already knew.
He’d just been hissed at by a black panther.
Probably the same one that had jumped in front of his car earlier. Great, just one more thing to worry about. He was going to have to warn people that there was a wildcat roaming these woods. Maybe even alert the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge southwest of here, back toward Naples. Maybe one of their cats had escaped, or at the least, they might be able to hunt this one down and trap it.
He strode to the opening to the narrow stairs that he’d spotted earlier that led to the second floor. “Ready or not, Silver,” he said beneath his breath, “here I come.”
Chapter Ten
Stiff from sitting at the desk by the window in her f
riend’s apartment, Silver closed the blinds and then worked off her bra from underneath her shirt. She pitched it onto the desk, kicked off her shoes and then carried all her drawings into the center of the living room.
She lay on her belly on the carpet, fanning the sketches out around her like a dealer in Vegas. She’d come here hoping the quiet and isolation would help her get her creative energy flowing and she’d finally be able to make all the pieces form the big picture she was searching for. But as she looked at everything, tapping her pencil against her bottom lip, she couldn’t seem to make the pieces fit. There was a key somewhere, something she was missing.
One of the people she’d drawn had to be the killer, had to be the man or woman at the top of the criminal food chain who had taken up residence in her hometown. But none of them were leaping out at her as the culprit. And her boss’s insistence on slow, methodical approaches meant she had little to show for the months she’d been here—other than setting up her B and B, which she barely even cared about anymore.
She rubbed her tired eyes. What she needed was a break, something that would really take her mind in a new direction. Then she could come back to the notes she’d written on each sketch and make it all make sense.
“Tell me I didn’t just get hissed at by a black panther outside.”
She jerked up, sitting on the backs of her legs as she clutched her pencil and pressed her hand across her galloping heart. Of all people to be standing in the middle of the living room of her friend’s upstairs apartment, Colton Graham was the last person she’d have expected.
His gaze dipped to her chest, reminding her that she’d taken off her bra. Heat flashed through her, and her pulse began to race as she stared up at him. He seemed to drag his gaze up with visible effort and cleared his throat.
“That was probably Sampson,” she said. “Faye’s pet.”
“Someone has a panther as a pet?”
“More or less. He shows up every few days, looking for food. Amy feeds him ground-up meat when Faye’s not here to take care of it.”
He swore beneath his breath. “I don’t care how tame he may seem to your friends. He’s still a wild animal, and dangerous.”
“He doesn’t have any teeth. He can’t hurt anyone.”
“Does he still have claws?”
“Hmm. Good point.” She looked past him to the door. It was closed, and he’d locked it, had even thrown the chain in place. “I thought you’d left for good. What are you doing here? And how did you find me?”
He looked at the floor, at her drawings. “Freddie told me where you were.” He moved around the end of the couch and knelt down beside her, looking at each of her pictures. “You drew Cato? And Buddy? Why? Who are all these other people?” He shuffled through them and picked up the picture of Danny, the boat captain.
He was trying to act as if nothing were happening between them, but the tension was so thick she felt she would die if she didn’t touch him soon. Her hand shaking with anticipation, she placed it on his forearm.
His gaze snapped to hers, and a bead of sweat made its way down his temple, even though the air-conditioning was on, keeping the heat and humidity at bay.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
His gaze dropped to her lips, briefly, like a butterfly’s touch, making her pulse leap even more. But then he frowned and looked down at the pictures again. “I was worried...about the case. And I want to help. That is, if you’ll listen. If you want my help.”
She wanted him. And, yes, she wanted his help, too. Needed it. But why couldn’t he have been worried about her? But then again, she’d given him no cause to see what she’d only come to see herself after he’d stormed out of Callahan’s.
She was hooked on him.
She wouldn’t call it a crush, although to anyone else it probably would look that way. After all, they’d only met, what, yesterday? But it felt like something so much deeper. And it seemed as if they’d known each other much longer than that. She couldn’t get him out of her thoughts, no matter how hard she tried.
“Silver?” His rich, deep voice stroked over her nerve endings, sending delicious shivers straight to the core of her. “Do you want my help?”
She took a chance, and dove into the deep end. “I want you.” She waited for it to sink in, her face flushing with heat. If he turned her down, she’d feel like a fool, humiliated. But she’d learned long ago, if something was worth having, it was worth fighting for. And that waiting for something to happen might mean it never would. The timing sucked. She should be focusing on the case. They both should. But she also knew how her mind worked, how flustered and unfocused she became the more she tried to concentrate. She needed this. She needed him, to make her world right again. To focus, and to have something, someone, wonderful to hold on to, someone who would be there when all this was over—hopefully. She needed Colton.
He straightened, looking like a nervous stallion scenting a mare, wanting to grab her and flee from her at the same time. His eyes had darkened like a stormy night as his warring needs fought inside him. He didn’t bolt. But he made no move toward her, either. Instead, his hands fisted at his sides. A slight hitch in his breathing told her that she had a chance to win this battle.
She rose to her feet, keeping her eyes locked on his the whole time. Slowly, she padded across the thick carpet to stand in front of him, with only a few inches and the heat from both their bodies between them.
“Colton,” she whispered. “I want you.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “We’re working on a case. We don’t have time—”
“We do have time. Hours to kill before we can go talk to Mrs. Jones.” She slid her hands up the front of his chest, delighting in the feel of his muscles bunching beneath the thin fabric of his T-shirt. “And I’ve got the perfect way to spend at least one of those hours.”
“Silver...” His voice came out a harsh rasp. He cleared his throat and tried again, still not touching her, hands at his sides. “I’m not what you’re looking for.”
“Now, that’s where you’re wrong, Colton.” She slid her hands higher, higher, her fingertips brushing against the heated skin of his neck, tangling with the wild ends of his dark overly long hair where it brushed his collar. He shivered in response, his pupils dilating as he stared down at her like a hungry wolf, ready to devour her. And, oh, how she wanted to be devoured.
She stood on tiptoe, angling her mouth up toward his and pressing herself full against him for the first time. She could feel every thud of his heart where her breasts were flattened against him. “You’re exactly what I’m looking for,” she whispered. “And you’re far too tall. I’m going to need some help here.” She tugged the ends of his hair. “Kiss me.”
He groaned his surrender deep in his throat a second before he grabbed her and lifted her up, clasping her tightly against him as he captured her mouth in a sweltering kiss. The moment his lips touched hers, everything became right in her world. He kissed away her fears, her confusion, making everything clear in a sparkling, shocking moment of clarity. It was as if she’d spent her whole life in a fog and he was melting that away, revealing the world to be far more beautiful than even her artist’s soul had ever dared to dream.
Rainbows of color burst behind her eyelids as she soaked in his ravenous hunger, answering every clever stroke of his tongue with one of her own, moaning at the exquisite pleasure that just being held by him in this way sent surging through her entire body. She was like a match, bursting into flame as he turned with her and set her bottom on the back of the couch, freeing one of his hands to roam over her body.
He broke the kiss, and she whimpered in disappointment. But then he moved to her neck, lightly sucking her heated skin, nibbling his way across the sensitive cords and then pulling her earlobe into his mouth. She arched against him, gasping with pleasure as her fingers dug into his shoulders.
Everything in her was melting, softening, readying for him. And sh
e couldn’t wait another minute. She fumbled with his belt and quickly unzipped his jeans. He sucked in a sharp breath when she found him, hard and ready for her.
“For the love of...slow down, Silver.”
“I don’t want to. We can go slow the next time. Please, please tell me you have a condom.”
He laughed against the side of her neck. “If not, your friends had better have some around here or I’m going to have to kill somebody. In my wallet, there should be—”
“Don’t stop.” He’d started to step back to take out his wallet, but she pulled him back to her. “Don’t stop.”
He framed her face in his hands and captured her mouth again in a kiss that was even hotter, wetter, wilder than the one before. Hello, Dolly, could the man kiss!
She shoved her hands in his back pockets, searching for his wallet, and nearly died of pleasure at the delicious feel of his perfect bottom beneath her searching fingertips. He jerked against her very core, hard, ready. Her fingers frantically plucked at his pocket. A piece of paper crumpled in her hand and she dropped it to the floor. Other pocket, there, his wallet. She hungrily drank in his kiss as she fumbled with his wallet behind his back. As soon as she found the foil packet, she dropped the wallet and pulled back, breaking the kiss.
She shoved his jeans down his hips, then reached for his boxers.
He tipped her chin up, forcing her to look at him. “Silver, I want you, more than anything. But this is so soon. Are you sure that you—”
She pushed his underwear down, freeing him. He swore and jerked against her in all his glory. Her breath left her in an unsteady rush. “Oh, I’m sure. Am I ever! You’re beautiful, perfect.” She rolled the condom onto him and gave him a powerful, long stroke, worshipping him with her hands.
He whispered sexy words in her ear, telling her exactly what he wanted to do to her while his fingers made quick work of her jeans and panties, lifting her bottom off the couch while he raked them away. And then he was poised at her entrance, and they stared into each other’s eyes.