“No.” But she got out of the Hummer anyway, marching into the bakery and straight to the kitchen without saying another word.
“You’re upset, Shelby, but this is what I have to do to keep you safe,” he said as she opened edible paint and began dabbing yellow onto a flower.
“I keep telling you that I have to keep me safe. Not you. Not Dottie. Not anyone else.” She dropped the flower onto a tray, grabbed another one.
“You’re keeping yourself safe by letting experts help you.”
“I don’t want help. I want…silence.” She painted another flower, her head bent, dark curls falling across her cheek and hiding her expression.
“Okay.”
“No. It isn’t okay, Ryder, because you’re standing half a foot away, all big muscles and dark eyes and dependability, and I’m thinking about heroes and forevers and a dozen things I shouldn’t be. Silence isn’t going to change that any more than going back and undoing our kiss would.” She sighed, setting the tiny paintbrush down.
“Two kisses,” he corrected.
“I don’t need a reminder.”
“Neither do I, but like I told you before, I’m not going to take something you don’t want to give. Those kisses can be nothing, Shelby Ann, or they can be a whole lot. It all depends on you.” He looked deep into sky-blue eyes.
“That’s the problem, Ryder. I want too much, and every time I think I’ve found it, it all falls apart.”
“Wanting love isn’t too much, Shelby. Wanting forever isn’t.”
“For me, it is. Before I got blown off my feet and into your arms, I was content to become the neighborhood cat lady.”
“You don’t have any cats.”
“That’s not the point. I broke up with Andrew, and I made peace with the fact that he was it. My last hurrah. I don’t want to go back to wanting something I can’t have.”
“Shelby—”
“God puts us all on different paths, Ryder. This is mine.” She gestured to the bakery. “My bakery, my friends, my family. I need to be content with that.”
“You’ve forgotten something, Shelby Ann,” he said quietly, and she met his eyes.
“What’s that?”
“God puts us all on different paths, but sometimes people’s paths converge, merge, become the same. When they do, He has a reason for it.”
“I need to finish these flowers. How about we discuss this another time?”
“Fine. Let’s talk about your work schedule instead.”
“It’s hanging on the wall in my office. Go ahead and take a look.”
“Trying to get rid of me?”
“Yes.” She placed another flower on the tray, smiling, and Ryder’s gaze dropped to her lips, his thoughts skittering away so quickly he couldn’t quite catch them again.
“Glad you’re willing to admit it,” he said, and then he turned and walked out of the kitchen, heading outside into the cool, crisp evening. He was leaving because if he stayed, he might give in to temptation and taste the sweetness of Shelby’s smile, revisit those moments in the hotel lobby when all that had mattered was the yielding softness of her lips.
He leaned against the bakery’s brick facade, getting ahold of himself as he rubbed the tight muscles of his thigh. Cars passed lazily, their drivers in no hurry to get wherever they were going. That seemed to be the pace of Spokane life. Slower than the big city he’d settled in after his injury. When he’d arrived in Washington State, he’d been sure he’d be bored within days, anxious to go back to New York and the frenetic pace of life there.
But he hadn’t been bored.
Not even close.
He’d slipped into the slow pace of small-city living easily, let the distant white-tipped mountains and evergreen-topped hills soothe the still-raw edges of his emotions in a way New York City hadn’t been able to. Still, he hadn’t planned or expected to stay more than a year. He’d sublet his apartment with every intention of returning to it after twelve months.
He still planned to return, but the urgency he’d felt when he’d left New York was gone. A few more weeks, a few more months, didn’t seem like such a big thing.
As a matter of fact, when he looked into Shelby’s eyes, he could imagine staying for a lot longer than that.
After he’d ended things with Danielle, he’d thought he was done with the dating scene, finished searching for a woman who obviously didn’t exist. A woman who wanted the same things he did, who valued the same things he did. Not fame or fortune or excitement. Faith. Family. Forever. Home and hearth and all the things he’d longed for when he’d been lying in the hospital bed wondering if he’d ever walk again.
Shelby could be those things to him.
He could be those things to her.
He knew it deeply and with a certainty that left no room for doubt, but she doubted, and he wouldn’t push her.
Because she was Shelby, and he cared too much.
He walked around the side of the building, checking the perimeter, but not expecting to find anything. The perp would be a fool to return, and Ryder didn’t think he was that.
Behind the building, an alley yawned, dark and quiet and empty. Two Dumpsters. A stray cat. Probably a rat or two. Other than that, nothing.
The scent of decay hung heavy and cloying in cool night air, and bits of crime-scene tape still clung to the building. If he looked, would Ryder see Shelby’s blood staining the pavement?
The image of her as she’d been in the hospital, vulnerable and scared, filled him with anger and the dark, hot need for retribution. The law’s responsibility. God’s responsibility, but that didn’t mean Ryder couldn’t play a part. He’d go to the prison, visit Catherine Miller, dig a little deeper into the case Maureen had been researching.
Maybe the answers they needed lay there.
One way or another, he planned to find out.
And he planned to keep Shelby safe.
Keep her alive.
Maybe even keep her close for a lot longer than the time it took to figure out who wanted her dead and why.
Hopefully, keep her close for a lot longer.
Time would tell.
Time and Shelby, because Ryder wouldn’t push her, wouldn’t demand anything she didn’t want to give. He’d bide his time, wait her out, see what the future brought.
For now, he’d just keep following the path God had placed him on and trust that it would lead him to exactly the place he was supposed to be.
THIRTEEN
She walked across the meadow, a bouquet of pink peonies in her hand, the sun kissing her cheeks and heating her skin.
There.
Just up ahead.
He waited.
Back turned, hair gleaming in the sunlight. Her heart leaped in recognition, her body humming with love.
She wanted to call out to him, but a train rumbled past, the shriek of its horn loud enough to rip the flowers from her hand and send them skittering across the meadow. She ran to catch them, her feet sinking into a pile of crumbled cake and thick white frosting.
She fell, hands clawing at empty air, a woman’s scream filling her ears, filling her head, spearing through her body until she wanted to join in with the endless shriek.
She jumped to her feet, looking for the man who’d waited.
Gone.
Ashes in the wind.
But he was there. Sunglasses down low on his nose, his cold blue eyes spearing into hers, pink peonies dripping with blood held out for her to take.
“No!” Shelby screamed, coming out of her bed as quickly as her drug-sluggish body could manage. Pain stole her breath, but she just kept going, racing to the bedroom door, a woman’s screams still echoing in her head.
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Screams and screams and more screams.
No. Not a woman.
An alarm.
She pivoted back to the bed, fumbled for the bedside light and turned it on, her brain refusing to process what the alarm meant. Fire? Intruder?
Alarm?
Alarm!
Ryder’s team. He’d assured her that they were on the job. If the alarm went off, someone would be there within two minutes. Hunker down and wait it out. Those were Ryder’s instructions when he’d walked her into the house, shown her how to set the alarm and reminded her not to set foot outside no matter what.
With the police running patrols on the quarter hour and the alarm set up, Shelby had been confident she’d have a good and safe night’s sleep. So confident, she’d taken two of the pain pills.
Now she was going to pay for it, because the alarm was still ringing, help hadn’t arrived and her brain was working in slow motion, her panic muted and faraway.
Mazy cowered a few feet away, and Shelby scooped her up, stumbling toward the door again.
She stopped.
Was someone out there waiting for her to leave her room?
Was he?
The cold-eyed killer from her nightmare?
She backed away from the door, Mazy clutched close to her chest.
Two minutes.
That’s what Ryder had said.
So where was help?
She didn’t want to be shot again.
She didn’t want to die.
So do something. Don’t just stand here like a fool and wait to be attacked again!
No phone in her bedroom.
Cell phone downstairs in her purse.
Okay.
So, she’d lock the door and hunker down just like Ryder had told her to.
But two minutes had already come and gone, and the alarm still shrieked, and she was still alone. She needed another plan. A different one.
Get out of the house without being seen.
Out the window into the backyard.
It was the only way to avoid an intruder.
She locked the door, backed toward the window, expecting the old-fashioned crystal doorknob to explode and the door to open at any moment. Expecting him to be standing there, gun out, ready to finish what he’d started at the bakery.
Her stomach heaved at the thought, the pain medication she’d taken making her woozy and light-headed and sick.
And hot.
Really hot.
Not just hot, roasting, her drug-fogged brain insisting that she was about to fry like an egg on a hot rock.
She wrinkled her nose, inhaled. Coughed.
She didn’t just feel as if she was cooking, she smelled as if she was cooking.
Smelled smoke. Saw it billowing up through the floorboards.
Fire!
The house burning around her, the alarm screaming, and Shelby cowering against a wall trying to decide if she should escape out the window.
Of course she should.
Now.
Before it was too late.
Open the window, hang from the sill, drop to the ground.
Easy as pie. Right?
Right.
“Please, God, let it be that easy,” she prayed as she tucked in her cotton pajama top, cinched the drawstring of her pants and shoved Mazy down the front of her shirt.
“Don’t wiggle. I don’t want you to fall.”
She didn’t want to fall, either.
But she’d rather fall than roast.
She unlocked the window and opened it, shoved out the screen. Looked down.
Why hadn’t she bought a one-story rancher like her mother had suggested?
Why, oh why, oh why had she insisted on a two-story Tudor?
Heat seared the soles of her feet, and she knew she was out of time.
Up and over the windowsill, legs dangling, Mazy wiggling, fingers clutching wood as the alarm shrieked in her ears. Nothing between her and the ground but air.
Let go.
Just let go and drop.
She knew what she had to do, but her fingers wouldn’t release their hold.
Let go!
Her back seized, the pain from her injury doing what her mind could not. Her grip loosened, and she fell so fast she didn’t have time to brace for impact.
Feetfirst, tumbling back onto her butt and landing so hard the breath left her lungs. Up again, bare feet on cold grass as she ran toward the neighbor’s house, pain searing through her, fear spurring her on.
A dark figure lunged from the shadows, and she screamed, Mazy barking hysterically as Shelby pivoted, tried to run away.
Too late.
Arms wrapped around her waist, viselike and hard, a voice shouting words she couldn’t understand.
She screamed again, spinning around, Mazy howling, the alarm still shrieking.
“Get him, Mazy! Bite him!” she shouted, but the dog just burrowed deeper into her shirt.
“You don’t really want her to bite me, do you?” Ryder growled close to her ear, the voice familiar as sunrise.
“Ryder!” She clutched his shirt, her hands fisted in soft cotton. “My house is on fire!”
“The fire department is already here. They should get things under control quickly. Come on. I want you out of this yard and out of the line of fire.” He ushered her around the burning house, and she let him, because she didn’t know what else to do.
The entire house was in flames, smoke billowing into the predawn sky, and she wasn’t sure how it had happened or what she was supposed to do about it or even if she was really awake.
Maybe the fire, the alarm, the smoke were all part of some horrible dream.
Only, she could smell the smoke, see the flames, feel blisters forming on the bottom of her feet.
“My house,” she whispered as Ryder helped her into the Hummer.
“It’ll be okay,” he responded, his palm resting against her cheek for a second before he turned to talk to a tall, dark-haired man.
One of his employees?
Probably, but Shelby didn’t want to be introduced, didn’t want to do anything but lean her head against the car’s seat and close her eyes.
Mazy whined, wiggling out from under Shelby’s pajamas and licking her cheek.
“It’ll be okay.” She repeated Ryder’s words, but she wasn’t sure she believed them.
Houses didn’t suddenly burst into flames. Not the way hers had.
Someone had started the fire, and Shelby could have died in it.
“Ms. Simons?”
She opened her eyes, looked into the face of Fire Marshal Timothy Saddles. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked, and he nodded.
“We should have it under control shortly, but the fire burned hot. Looks like it took out the entire lower level of the house. Do you have home owner’s insurance?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll be able to recoup your losses, then, and you’re alive. Things could be worse.”
“I know.”
“Did you hear anything before the fire began? See anything?”
“No. I’d only been home a couple of hours, and I was really tired. I took some pain medicine the doctor prescribed, and that’s the last thing I remember until the fire alarm started shrieking.”
“So, you didn’t notice anything when you got home? No strange smells? No unfamiliar cars parked nearby.”
“Ryder was with me. He checked everything out, and it was clear. Whoever set the fire did it while I was sleeping.”
“The arsonist was fast and thorough, then. Knew what he was doing.�
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“What he was doing was trying to kill me. So, maybe he didn’t know much, after all.”
“Kill you or flush you out of the house. It’s probably a good thing you went out the window rather than one of the doors. I’m going to talk to my crew. As soon as you know where you’ll be staying, call me with your contact information.”
“She’ll be staying with me,” Ryder said, stepping into sight, his blond hair mussed, his eyes flashing with anger.
“Do you have a card?” Saddles asked, and Ryder handed one to him.
“Call if you need to speak with Shelby, but she won’t be going anywhere or speaking to anyone without me or one of my team members. You can run things through the receptionist at my office, and she’ll make arrangements.”
“That’s—”
“How it’s going to be, Chief. This is the second attack on Shelby’s life. We can’t afford for there to be another.” He closed Shelby’s door, blocking out the rest of the conversation, but not the sight of the still-smoldering Tudor.
Her house. Destroyed.
Everything she’d worked so hard for in ashes, and she wanted to be okay with it. Wanted to embrace the idea that she was alive and whole and healthy, and that everything that had been lost could be replaced.
Wanted to.
But she felt hollow and empty, her stomach twisting as firefighters continued to battle the blaze.
Maybe it was for the best. None of the dreams she’d put into the house had panned out. None of the hopes she’d set her heart on while she peeled old wallpaper and removed layers of paint from woodwork had come to fruition.
The driver’s door opened, and Ryder got in, reaching for her before he spoke. Or maybe she was reaching for him, pulling herself toward his broad, strong chest, burying her face in the soft cotton of his shirt.
He smoothed her hair, murmured quiet words that said nothing and everything all at once.
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