Scene of the Crime: Bridgewater, Texas

by Carla Cassidy

  The tension that filled the car as he raced to his house was nearly suffocating. “Call the men, tell them to meet us there,” he directed Joey.

  Joey made the call and by that time they were on Matt’s street. He pulled to the curb half a block from his house and cut the engine.

  “I want us to go in quietly,” he said as they got out of the car. Even though he had no evidence to confirm that Michael had brought Jenna here, his gut instinct told him this was the right place. He just prayed they weren’t too late.

  As he gazed down the block he spied Michael’s car and the alarms that rang in his head momentarily deafened him. He could only guess that Michael had pulled into his driveway, somehow unloaded Jenna and then parked up the block from the house.

  Matt’s neighbors, an older couple who rarely ventured outside and a younger couple, who both worked, probably wouldn’t have seen anything.

  As he and Joey advanced on the house Matt once again prayed they weren’t too late, that Michael hadn’t already killed the woman he loved.

  The front door was locked and as Matt grabbed his keys, his fingers shook slightly. As quietly as possible, he unlocked the door and shoved it open.

  Silence greeted him, but the hairs on the nape of his neck prickled. He motioned for Joey to follow him as he crept directly to the staircase.

  When he reached the third step he heard it—the muffled sound of a male voice coming from the master bedroom, confirming that Michael was here.

  What he desperately wanted to hear, what he didn’t hear was any sound that would indicate that Jenna was still alive.

  The master bedroom door was closed and he motioned Joey to stand on one side while he stood on the other. Matt drew a deep, steadying breath as his fingers gripped the doorknob.

  In one fluid movement he turned the knob, opened the door and crashed inside. He instantly took in the horrifying scene before him.

  Jenna tied to the bed, her eyes wide with fear and a rose on her chest. Michael standing at the side of the bed, a knife held high over his head.

  “Halt!” Matt cried. “Put the knife down. Michael, drop the knife,” he ordered. “Drop the damn knife.”

  Michael didn’t move. “She’s just like all the others,” he said. “She deserves to die.”

  His entire body tensed and the knife raised an increment higher. Matt fired his gun. The bullet caught Michael in his side, just beneath his armpit. He froze and turned to stare at Matt, then smiled and slammed the knife down and into Jenna.

  “No!” Matt screamed. He shot Michael again…and again and finally the man slumped to the floor at the side of the bed.

  Matt raced to Jenna’s side, deep sobs escaping him as he saw the knife in her flesh, the blood that had begun to seep from the wound. Her eyes fluttered and her skin bleached white.

  He yanked the tape from her mouth. “It’s going to be all right. Stay with me, Jenna,” he said, vaguely aware of Joey calling for an ambulance. He knew better than to try to remove the knife from her, knew that he could cause more damage by attempting to pull it out.

  With tears trekking down his cheeks, he fumbled to untie her arms, refusing to believe that this was the end, that Michael had won.

  “Matt?” Her voice was reed thin and she gasped for air. “I guess I lost the bet.”

  Freeing both her hands, he grabbed them in his and squeezed tightly. “Hang on, Jenna. Help is on the way, just hang on.”

  “Please, get that damned rose off my chest,” she whispered and then her eyes closed.

  Matt threw the rose across the room and then grabbed her hands once again. He squeezed her fingers with his, a sob escaping him. “Jenna, wake up. Damn it, don’t you be a quitter. Don’t you quit on me. Wake up!”

  He closed his eyes and willed her to be okay, as if by his sheer mental power alone he could keep her alive. Everything else in the room faded away as he concentrated only on her.

  “Sheriff, you need to back away,” Joey said. “They need to get her to the hospital.”

  Matt realized the paramedics had arrived. He backed away from her and watched as they loaded her on a gurney. His grief nearly crippled him. Too late. He’d been too late.

  Maybe she’d been right all along. Maybe he was the fool to hope that he could find happiness again. Maybe he was only deceiving himself in believing in happy endings.

  SHE DREAMED OF MIRANDA and in the dream Miranda was lecturing her about love, about life. Miranda was the only one who Jenna had ever listened to, the only one who had ever been able to get through Jenna’s thick skull.

  Miranda’s face morphed into her mother’s and Jenna was filled with an overwhelming sadness. She couldn’t go back and fix what had been broken in her mother. She hadn’t been able to love her enough to slice through whatever mental problems her mother had had to find a nurturing parent.

  The sadness wasn’t for Jenna herself, but rather for the woman who had died alone in prison, the woman who had never known happiness or real love.

  Had Jenna become the same kind of woman her mother had been? A woman incapable of reaching out for happiness? For love?

  I don’t want to be like you. The words thundered in her brain and she woke up. For a moment she was disoriented as she stared around the room. Her heart constricted as her gaze landed on Matt, slumped in a chair, his hair sticking up in all directions and his clothes wrinkled.

  “Am I dead?” Her voice sounded rusty to her own ears.

  Matt’s eyes snapped open and he jumped out of the chair and was at her side. “Why would you ask?”

  “Because you look like death warmed over and if I’m here with you, then I must be dead.”

  He smiled. The gesture began at the corner of his lips and spread across his face, softening the tension and warming his eyes. “You’d look like death, too, if you’d spent the night in that chair. Heaven wasn’t quite ready for you and the devil didn’t want you, so I guess you’re alive.”

  She reached up and touched her chest, where she felt a bandage. “What’s the damage?”

  “He punctured your lung and did a little muscle damage, but the doctor managed to fix it all.” The tension swept back on his features and his beautiful gray eyes darkened. “I thought he’d killed you. I thought I’d been too late.”

  “Michael?” she asked.

  “Is dead. He won’t hurt any more women.”

  Jenna closed her eyes, for a moment reliving that terrifying time just before Matt crashed through the door. “I can’t believe we missed him. I can’t believe he managed to fly under our radar.” She opened her eyes and looked at Matt once again. “He fits the profile, but I was so focused on the others, I didn’t even think about him.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. I was there right along with you. Michael never entered my mind as a potential suspect.” He took a step back from her bed. “The good news is that the case is solved. It’s finally over and I guess you can get back to your life in Kansas City knowing that Miranda’s murderer is dead.”

  His voice was flat, empty and Jenna knew this was a defining moment in her life. She could either continue on her path to nowhere or take a chance and reach out for love with Matt.

  “Actually, I’ve been thinking about that,” she began.

  He crooked a dark eyebrow. “When? While you were unconscious?”

  “It’s amazing how much you can think when you’re tied up to a bed and believe that death is imminent.” She raised the head of her bed and then continued. “While Michael was ranting and raving about the woman who had destroyed his world, all I could think about was how much I didn’t want to let my mother win. How much I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life without hope, without dreams and most important of all, without love.”

  She saw the light that shot into his eyes as he stepped closer to her. “So what exactly do you intend to do about it?”

  “I’m always going to be stubborn, Matt. And there’s a part of me that’s still just a little bit afraid.”r />
  “I’ve been known to be a little stubborn myself,” he replied. “And believe me, Jenna. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Looking into the dove-gray softness of his eyes, she believed him. “I still have a lot of work to do at Miranda’s house and I was thinking maybe I’d put in for a transfer to the Dallas field office,” she said.

  Matt said nothing, he simply continued to gaze at her and she knew he was waiting for her to say the words, waiting for her to begin their future.

  He would take good care of her love. She had no doubt where that was concerned. He would cherish her and together they would build the kind of life she’d never dreamed possible.

  “I told you once that I had no hopes, no dreams,” she said. “But when I look into your eyes so many dreams unfold in my head, so many hopes fill my heart. I love you, Matt, and I want to stick around and have all those things realized with you.”

  He closed his eyes for a long moment and when he opened them again the happiness that shone there nearly stole her breath away.

  He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “You’ll never be sorry, Jenna. I’m your partner, your lover and we’re going to spend the rest of our lives building our dreams.”

  Our dreams. The words shimmered inside Jenna’s heart and she knew she’d finally found the place where she belonged.

  Epilogue

  It had been three weeks since Michael Brown had been shot to death and Jenna had declared her love for Matt. Once again Matt had found himself heralded as a hero. The mayor had given him a bronze plaque, but the real trophy Matt had gained at the moment had her butt up in the air as she packed the last large box of Miranda’s clothing to give to charity.

  “Are you staring at my butt?” Her voice was muffled inside the box.

  “I am, and it’s a fine butt,” he said with a grin.

  She straightened and grinned at him. “If you really cared, you’d carry this box outside for me.”

  “If you really cared, you’d come over here and give me a kiss,” he replied.

  “I’m always up for that, Sheriff Buchannan.”

  As she walked toward him, Matt felt the familiar excitement, the sizzle of desire that he knew he’d always feel for her.

  In the past three weeks his love for her had only grown stronger and he knew she felt the same way about him. She’d opened up herself, gifted him with seeing inside her heart and had become a loving, giving woman.

  She slid into his awaiting arms and raised her face to look up at him. “Just one,” she said. “You know Sam is supposed to meet us here any minute.”

  Sam Connelly, Jenna’s fellow FBI agent and friend, had agreed to drive down and bring Jenna her cat, Whiskers. Sam was at the beginning of a two-week vacation.

  “Just one,” Matt agreed and took her mouth with his. As always, a simple kiss with Jenna took only a taste to become something hot and wild and wonderful.

  It was magic, having her in his arms, tasting her mouth with his and he knew that magic would last as long as they both lived.

  As the kiss deepened she wrapped her arms around his neck and molded herself to him, fitting like the missing piece of the puzzle that had been his life.

  “Hmm.”

  The sound of a throat clearing jerked them apart. Matt turned to see a dark-haired, blue-eyed man standing in the doorway holding a cat carrier.

  “Sam!” Jenna exclaimed. “It’s so good to see you.” She quickly made the introductions between the two men. Matt instantly liked Sam. Maybe it was because he knew Jenna trusted and respected the man and maybe it was because he knew there had never been any romantic sparks between the two.

  “I’m glad to see that a little thing like a serial killer can’t get the best of you,” Sam said to Jenna.

  “I realized I had too much to live for,” she replied and reached for Matt’s hand.

  “I heard you put in for a transfer.” Sam set the cat carrier on the floor next to him.

  “I’m on medical leave for another couple of weeks and I’m hoping by then the transfer will be approved,” she explained. She pulled Matt forward. “Matt, you need to meet my cat.” She forced him to lean down to greet the cat who hissed and snarled.

  “I can tell she’s related to you,” Matt said drily.

  Sam released a burst of laughter as Jenna punched him in the arm. “Ah, it looks like you’ve finally met your match, Jenna,” he said with a conspiratorial wink at Matt.

  Jenna tilted her head and looked at Sam with affection. “Someday, I hope you meet your match, Sam.”

  “Not me,” he replied. “Remember, I’m the prince of darkness and I have yet to meet a woman who can light my path out of the dark.” He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. “And now, I’m off.”

  “So soon? Jenna thought you might want to stay at our place, at least for the night,” Matt said.

  Sam shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m eager to get to my vacation spot, a nice quiet bed and breakfast in Bachelor Moon, Louisiana.”

  “Thanks for taking care of Whiskers for me,” Jenna said as they walked Sam to the front door.

  “That cat has issues,” he replied.

  Matt grinned. “I know all about women with issues.”

  Sam returned his smile. “You two have a great life,” he said as he stepped out of the door.

  “You, too, Sam,” Jenna said and leaned into Matt as they walked the tall, good-looking agent to his car in the driveway.

  It was only after his car had disappeared from sight that Matt pulled her back into his arms. “Now, where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?” he asked.

  She smiled up at him, her blue eyes shimmering with happiness. “I think we were right here,” she said and raised up on her tiptoes to press her lips against his.

  Matt intended to spend every day for the rest of his life loving Jenna, showing her how precious she was to him, how important she was in his life.

  When the kiss ended she placed a hand on his face, warming the scar that had once ripped into his soul. “I love you, Matt.”

  “And I love you,” he replied. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Yes, it’s time to truly say goodbye to Miranda.” She picked up the painting that had hung in the entryway of the house, the painting she’d told him she’d once given to her friend.

  “I’m ready,” Jenna said and smiled and in the warmth of her eyes he saw not only his own dreams, but hers as well, shining bright like their future together.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-4492-5

  SCENE OF THE CRIME: BRIDGEWATER, TEXAS

  Copyright © 2009 by Carla Bracale

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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