by Lisa Jackson
“I’m not biting, Doctor. You had patients tonight, if I remember right. Group?”
“Good memory.”
God, it felt good to talk to her. He remembered meeting her at Halo Valley and how they’d clashed so violently. But there had been reasons for that. He’d been forced to deal with her during another case, which had put him at odds with her over his sister’s death and had also touched on the Colony of Siren Song. He never would have believed that he could fall for her, and he’d had his reasons not to trust the pretty psychologist, but during the course of that investigation, he’d fallen hard and deep. Recently, they had moved in together and planned to marry before the end of the year.
“Are you on your way home?”
He scanned the files strewn over his desk and glanced at the computer monitor, where crime scene pictures were flickering. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Really?”
She knew his ways at work. Glancing at his watch, he said, “Twenty minutes,” then grabbed his jacket, thinking he was one lucky son of a bitch. Savvy Dunbar was just leaving as well, and he met her at the door. “What do you say we take a trip out to Siren Song in the morning?” he asked, shrugging into his jacket, then shoving open the door to the outside.
“Sounds like a blast.”
“Yeah.” He was nodding, turning up his collar to the bite in the clear, cold night. Summer came late to this part of the coast. At least it did this year. “Let’s see what Catherine, the keeper of the gates, has to say.”
“You’ve had so much luck with her before,” Savvy pointed out.
“Yeah, well, surely my luck’s about to change.”
In the passenger seat, Laura shivered as Harrison pulled into the driveway of Laura’s little house. The cottage was dark, no beckoning lights streaming from the windows, the exterior illuminated only by the wash of the Chevy’s headlights.
Despite the fact that Harrison walked her to the front porch, her nerves were strung tight as bowstrings, her heart racing as she fumbled with her keys and unlocked the front door. Images of the night before flew before her eyes, Justice with her knife outside the window, his heavy footsteps as he chased her through the house, the brush of his finger across her skin.
Her knees nearly gave way.
Inside, she flipped on the lights.
Eyeing the interior, her skin crawling, she made her way to the kitchen, where she noticed the sprayed glass across the floor and the broken window of her back door. As Stone had said, the door was sealed tight with plywood. “The landlord’s going to love this,” she said, the soles of her shoes crunching on the broken shards.
“What a mess. I’ll double-check that it’s secure.”
She walked into her bedroom, remembering her fear of what or who was hiding in her closets the night before. From the dresser she grabbed underwear, a clean pair of jeans, and a couple of T-shirts, including one that was large enough to sleep in. She stuffed them into a small overnight bag that she kept on the closet floor.
As she snapped out the light, she glanced at her bed and wondered if she’d ever feel safe enough to sleep here again. Probably not.
In the bathroom, she found a ziplock bag and stuffed it with a few essential toiletries, dropped it into her bag, then returned to the kitchen, where Harrison was on one knee and fiddling with the lock on the back door. “Still works,” he said. “Maybe the damage isn’t as bad as it looks.”
“Maybe not,” she said, but the house didn’t feel like home. Yeah, her stuff was here, her coffeepot and pots, her dish towels, her herbs growing in the window over the sink, but now that it had been invaded by a madman, the once-cozy bungalow felt cold and empty. Without any soul.
Then again, maybe it always had. Maybe she had been kidding herself, because this small cottage had been the home she’d shared with Byron and that hadn’t endeared the house to her. Maybe it was time to move on.
Harrison straightened, dusting his hands on his jeans, and Laura decided that when Justice was caught and the lease was up, she would move.
She didn’t know where or how, but she would make a fresh start.
For her.
For her child.
She swallowed hard and slid a glance at Harrison, who snagged the bag from her fingers. “Ready?”
“Yeah.” She had told him so much, confided about her childhood, but had kept her pregnancy a secret.
From everyone.
Except Justice. He knew.
Her blood chilled when she thought about his proclaimed ability to sense when women from the Colony were with child. She would have laughed it off, except he’d certainly zeroed in on her. And in so doing, he’d lost control, decided to go on another murderous spree, and now not only were she and her unborn child at risk, but so were all her sisters.
She would have to do something about that. They couldn’t live in fear forever and her baby . . . her baby had to survive.
Locking the door behind her, she decided that she and Justice were destined for a standoff.
Harrison hadn’t gotten through to his sister to tell her that he was returning with Laura, but he pulled into her drive, parked, and decided against ringing the doorbell. “Hello?” he called through the door, as he usually did, and he heard his niece squeal in delight.
Didi, on her way to bed, was thrilled with the prospect and used Harrison and Laura’s arrival as an excuse to avoid brushing her teeth and slipping between the covers. She insisted on being toted around on Harrison’s shoulders and giggling uproariously, then having Laura read her two books before Kirsten put an end to the stalling and hauled her protesting daughter off to her bedroom.
Only Chico seemed unhappy with the situation and snarled at Harrison from behind the rocking chair.
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” Harrison told the dog as his phone rang, and seeing that it was Geena Cho, he took the call outside, on Kirsten’s small patio, where he could smell and hear the ocean only a few blocks away. He sat on a bench beneath a macramé hanger that surrounded a large Japanese float. Light from the porch lamp bounced off the bluish glass.
“Thanks for nothing,” Geena said with a pout in her voice.
“Sorry,” Harrison apologized. Then, “It didn’t work out with Alonzo?”
“Alonzo,” she repeated, as if suddenly remembering. “The bartender. Uh. No. It definitely didn’t work out.” She hesitated. “Actually, I called to apologize. I think I was a little over the top last night.”
“Maybe a little.”
“My hangover today suggests that it was more than a little. Even a lot.”
“No big deal.” He watched as a bat swooped past, just over the top of the fence.
“Good thing today was my day off. But . . . well, thanks for offering to pay for the cab.”
“I’ll make good on that later.”
“I heard about what happened with Justice Turnbull,” she said cautiously. “Be careful, would ya? I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I will.” They talked for a few minutes more, then hung up amicably. Standing, he nearly hit his head on the suspended artwork, then slipped through the slider and into the eating area, where Kirsten was plating up some day-old ham and cheese rolls from the bakery, fruit, and decaf coffee while Laura set out three plates.
“Next time maybe I’ll get you to barbecue.”
“That’d be a trick.” His attempts at grilling were legendary—burnt chicken, raw hamburgers, you name it, he’d ruined it.
They ate quickly, tried to focus on some summer-replacement television shows and, eventually, decided to go to bed, just as they had the night before. Harrison planned to check his e-mail, then take the floor, giving Laura the couch, but he knew it would be a struggle leaving her by herself.
“You mind if I shower?” Laura asked Kirsten.
Kirsten was already walking toward the bathroom. “Not at all. There are towels in the hall closet. Here. Let me get some for you.”
Harrison turne
d his attention back to his story, polishing it as Laura made her way to the bathroom.
Before he’d trimmed the piece, he heard the pipes groaning and the water running. Kirsten appeared from the bedroom wing and grabbed hold of Harrison’s arm.
Surprised, he said, “Hey, I’ve got to put this to bed, or it won’t run tomorrow.”
“Tough.” She pulled him outside, onto the small patio, where the dull roar of the sea reached his ears. She slid the slider closed and stared up at him.
“Sorry to keep intruding,” he said.
“It’s not a problem,” Kirsten assured him. “Really. At least not for me. Or Didi. Maybe Chico, but he doesn’t have a vote.”
“Then?”
“It’s you, brother dear,” she said, eyeing him in the half-light spilling from the eating area inside the house through the glass of the sliding door.
“I’m fine.”
She snorted. “You know that she’s in love with you.”
“What?” He glanced back at the house.
“When your back is turned, she stares at you, and it’s not just a friendly, ‘oh, gee, aren’t we great friends’ look. She’s falling for you, Harrison, and, I suspect, pretty damned hard. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who falls quickly and shallowly, or has had a lot of boyfriends. We talked a little bit. I gather her marriage wasn’t all that great.”
He’d put those pieces together himself. “Her ex is a prick.”
“That may be, but tread carefully, okay? She doesn’t need her heart broken. I kinda think she’s going through enough without that on top of it.” The pipes groaned, indicating Laura was twisting off the taps. Kirsten took a step toward the door. “And there’s a lot going on with her, all that Colony stuff. Yeah, I did a little research about it on the Internet today. So . . .” She beseeched him with her eyes. “Take it slow, okay?”
“Slow? I’m a snail, Kirsten.”
“Yeah, you’re . . . something. Laura’s not the only one who’s falling in love, now, is she?” With that she walked into the house and said, “Good night.”
Following a moment later, Harrison scraped back his chair at the kitchen table and reopened his laptop. He connected to Kirsten’s wireless Internet and, before checking his e-mail, did some research on the Colony. Laura’s vague answers about her life at Siren Song and the women who lived there had bothered him. He tried to find out all he could about “Mary,” who seemed to have daughters with different men. Not only had she been indiscriminate, it seemed, but somehow she’d managed to birth only girls, although Laura had mentioned several brothers.
Still, it was odd.
Then there was her death and the closing of the gates of Siren Song. He checked his notes, the ones he’d taken from the book he’d read at the historical society, and found that he had no real answers.
Checking his e-mail, he found nothing of interest and was closing his computer when Laura stepped into the living area. She was towel drying her wet hair, her face devoid of make-up, and she was walking to the couch, the oversized T-shirt she was wearing giving him a view of her long legs, the action of drying her hair lifting the T-shirt’s hem even higher, providing a glimpse of pink panties.
With an effort he dragged his eyes away, but the image lingered. God, she was sexy. And she didn’t even know it.
An interesting, intriguing woman.
A woman with more than her share of secrets.
He looked up and found her smiling at him, a wistful, almost melancholy smile. “You okay?” he asked and felt a hard-on starting to form.
“Yeah. I guess.”
“You’re safe here,” he said, and felt the overwhelming need to comfort her.
“With you?”
He inwardly groaned. Not on your life, he thought but didn’t say it as she put the bed together on the couch and slid between the sheets. It was all he could do to stay seated. “Of course,” he said and wondered how the hell he’d get through the night with her sleeping less than five feet away.
CHAPTER 35
She felt as if she hadn’t slept more than five minutes at a stretch. Thoughts of Justice, her sisters, and Harrison filled her head most of the night. She listened to him softly snoring not three feet from the edge of the couch and wondered what it would be like to make love to him every night, to feel his arms surrounding her, keeping her safe, and then to wake up the next morning, his body warm, his eyes sleepy, his smile so crookedly irreverent, they would make love all over again.
Silly fantasies, she told herself and rolled off the couch to sneak into the bathroom, where she flipped on the light and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. She was pale, her hair a mess, and her lack of sleep was evident in the dark smudges beneath her eyes.
Not exactly a sexy seductress.
She felt a twinge in her abdomen and frowned, then used the toilet, feeling slightly better before returning to the living area.
The rooms weren’t completely dark. The sun was rising, dawn slipping through the windows, gray light seeping inside.
Harrison wasn’t on the floor.
His bedding was mussed, but he was missing.
She felt a breath of cool air and noticed the sliding door was open a crack. Harrison, barefoot and shirtless, wearing only low-slung jeans, was outside on the patio, on his cell phone. His hair was at all angles, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that he was raking the fingers of his free hand through it as he spoke in low tones.
He was staring toward the west, his back to the house’s open doorway. Laura watched for a moment, noticing how his skin stretched taut over broad shoulder muscles, then tapered over his back to disappear below the waistband of his battered Levi’s.
She caught a glimpse of white, a strip of flesh that hadn’t been tanned, and her stomach did a slow, sensuous roll. She imagined running her finger down the cleft of his spine, then pressing moist lips to the same path. . . .
Stop it!
He cocked his head into the phone and muttered something under his breath as she stepped through the doorway.
“Okay. That’s it then,” he said and turned, catching her in his gaze before he hung up. For just an instant, his expression remained dark and guarded. Sexy as all get out, his chest bare, dark hair visible over the rock-hard muscles, his abdomen a washboard, the top button of his fly left open.
So damned male.
As if he read her mind, he grinned, his teeth a slash of white in his beard-darkened jaw.
“Important call?” she asked, the back of her throat dry as the Sahara.
“Umm. Making sure the follow-up story on the bandits made it in.”
“And . . . ?”
“We’re golden.” He slid the cell into his pocket. “And why are you up at the crack?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Too much on my mind.”
He cocked a dark brow. “I could make coffee . . . or . . .” His eyes glittered in the half-light.
“Or?”
To her surprise, he slid his arms around her waist, the T-shirt bunching, and he rested his forehead against hers. “Well . . . it’s still early. We could go back to bed.”
“Back to the couch and the floor,” she reminded him, and he snorted a little laugh, his breath warm against her face.
“Not the best situation.” The tip of his nose touched hers.
“And then there’s Didi and Kirsten,” she said a bit breathlessly. “They’ll be getting up soon.”
“I can be incredibly quick.”
She smiled. “That’s just what a woman wants to hear.”
“Foreplay is so overrated,” he said but chuckled deep in his throat, and his hands slid up her bare arms, silently telling her he was kidding, that their lovemaking could last for hours.
Her blood was running hot.
And then he really kissed her, gathered her closer still and pressed his lips to hers. They were warm and supple, promised sensual pleasures that made her head spin with images of wet skin, and hot desir
e. She thought of where he would touch her and how she would return the favor.
Closing her eyes, she let herself go and leaned closer, felt the length of his body against hers, the heat from his torso permeating the thin cotton of her T-shirt.
Don’t do this, her mind warned. This is dangerous, Laura. You know that you’re already treading in emotional and perilous waters.
But she couldn’t stop and let herself get lost in the feel of him. His male scent filled her nostrils. One hand twined in her hair; the other pulled her tight to him.
She responded, opening her mouth, feeling his tongue slide deftly between her lips. Her breasts tightened, her nipples stiffening, desire pulsing deep inside.
“Lorelei,” he whispered, and she groaned softly, felt her knees weakening.
Before she could say a word, he’d scooped her up and carried her through the open door.
“Mommy?”
Didi’s voice was like a splash of cold water.
Harrison froze.
Laura scrambled onto her feet, straightened her T-shirt, and turned to the kitchen, where she grabbed the coffeepot and switched on the water just as the sound of tiny feet hit the floor.
Three seconds later Didi appeared, dragging her blanket. Chico was on her heels. He glanced up at Harrison, then made a funny, snarling face before streaking outside.
“Hey, kiddo,” Harrison said and scooped her into his arms. “Got a kiss for your favorite uncle?”
“No!” she said, scowling at him, but he blew a horse kiss on her arm, and she began to giggle, her bad mood disappearing.
“What gives?” Kirsten stumbled out of her bedroom and glanced at the kitchen clock. “It’s only six,” she groaned.
Harrison said, “I thought people who worked in a bakery were up at two in the morning.”
“Old school,” she mumbled, yawning and stretching one arm over her head. “Coffee on?”
“Just about.” Laura, sensing that her cheeks were hot, turned toward the cupboards and poured the carafe of water into the coffeemaker. Kirsten was already digging in a cupboard near the stove. She came up with a filter, lined the basket, then found beans and measured some into a grinder on the counter. With a press of a button the grinder shrieked into action. She poured the ground beans into the coffee machine, hit a button, and in less than a minute coffee began to drizzle into the glass pot.