by Julie Miller
Conor was patient and thorough, sensitive and sexy, familiar and surprising... And he was chuckling deep in his throat as he eased his grip on the back of her head, lowering her heels back to the floor, ending the kiss.
But with his superior height, he still leaned over her, his blue eyes searching every nuance of her heated face and mussed hair before his gaze locked on to hers. “That’s for earlier. You caught me off guard then.” His voice was a husky rumble that vibrated against her eardrums and agitated nerve endings that were still firing with the pent-up need that Conor’s kiss had finally, fully awakened.
Laura couldn’t help holding on tighter to his coat as he pulled his fingers from her hair. He tilted his head at a curious angle and his eyes narrowed, as if he was trying to reconcile kissing her with all the ways he must have kissed her sister. “I think you caught me off guard again,” he whispered.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No.” He straightened, and Laura finally gave him the space he needed by releasing him and crossing her arms in front of her. The sun hadn’t come up yet on this blustery February morning, and her skin was suddenly awash with goose bumps. “But I’m not sure what to make of it yet. You’re not...”
“Lisa?”
“I just never thought...” His shoulders lifted with an apologetic shrug. “It was always her.”
She nodded her reluctant acceptance of the facts. “And I remind you of her. That kiss was a trip down memory lane for you.”
“No. You’re not anything like her. That kiss was nothing like anything she and I ever shared.”
But Lisa was the sister he’d loved. She wasn’t anything like the woman he could love. “It’s okay, Conor. I’ve just always...wanted to kiss you.” That much she would confess. “I knew you’d be good at it. We’re cool, though.”
He didn’t look entirely convinced. “I’m still going to call you Squirt.”
The nickname again. That meant he wanted to keep his distance. That truly had been just a kiss for him. He hadn’t made any promises. He hadn’t started a relationship or traded in old feelings for new ones. Laura needed to dial back the hope that had swelled inside her by several notches. So, she teased him the way a little girl with scraped knees and a teenager with wounded pride would. She retreated a step into the apartment, putting some space between them. “Stubborn much?”
He tucked a finger under her chin to tilt her gaze up to his. “You have no idea.” He leaned down and placed a firm peck on her mouth, pulling away before she could respond and misinterpret what that kiss meant. “I’ll call and check on you later, okay?”
Baby steps, Laura. She’d had half a lifetime to decide how she felt about the boy next door. Conor had just discovered the possibilities between them, and clearly wasn’t ready for things to change. Maybe he never would be. But he’d promised that this wasn’t goodbye. This was just goodbye for now. She reached for the door and offered him a smile. “Okay. Good night, Conor.”
“Good night.” She didn’t hear him striding away until she’d fastened the dead bolt and chain. Until he knew she was safe. No wonder she’d fallen in love with him.
She spotted the discarded fascinator on the rug where Conor had tossed it and padded across the room to retrieve it. How was she going to get over this if he never gave her a chance? If he never gave love another chance?
Laura was still damp from her shower and smoothing lotion onto her legs when her cell phone rang. She wrapped a towel around her dripping hair, another around her body and hurried into the bedroom to pick her phone up off its charger.
“Yes? Conor?” Her tone was slightly breathless from her dash to pick up the call before it went to voice mail. When no one immediately answered, she realized she hadn’t paused to read the caller ID. Had she foolishly hoped that Conor was calling to check on her one more time before he grabbed some sleep, too? “Hello?” She could tell there was someone on the line. She could hear jazz music playing faintly in the background. Underneath the sound of someone exhaling in deep, measured breaths. “Is this a butt dial? A wrong number? Who are you trying to reach?” No answer. “I’m going to hang up.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Laura.” The evenly modulated voice spoke in such a soft whisper she could barely make out the words over the music. Not a wrong number. Not a mistake. He knew her name. “Who is this? I’ll trace your number as soon as I hang up. I’ll report you to the police for harassment.”
“Bold words for a dead woman.”
She sank onto the edge of the bed, her knees suddenly too shaky to stand. “What do you mean?”
The ominous chill in every syllable left her shaking. “The truth can get you killed. How much do you know? What did the dead girl tell you?”
Chapter Six
Conor climbed out of his SUV as Laura pulled up in her car in the visitors’ parking lot at the Virginia Correctional Center for Women. The light flurries of snow falling from the gray afternoon sky hadn’t stopped her from coming. His warning hadn’t stopped her, either. He grumbled a mixture of worry and frustration as he buttoned up his winter coat over his sweater and jeans, and tucked his scarf inside the collar. “I knew you weren’t going to let this go.”
He was standing at the driver’s side door, waiting for her with his arms folded across his chest when she finally turned off the engine and got out. She didn’t even have the good grace to look apologetic when she tilted her gaze up to his. “Why are you here?” she asked, pulling a knit cap on over her hair.
“Because I knew you’d come, and I’m here to stop you.”
Laura closed the door and locked her car. “It’s just a conversation with my friend’s mother.”
“In. Over. Your. Head.”
She mirrored his stance, arms crossed to match her defiant tone. “I’m not a little girl anymore. I’ve been here before with Chloe. I just want to understand what happened to my friend. And why some guy would...” She flicked away the flakes of snow clinging to the sleeve of her coat and stepped up onto the sidewalk without finishing her sentence.
“Some guy would what?” In a single step, Conor was at her side. He knew stalling when he saw it. “Did something else happen?”
She glared holes into the middle of his chest when she stopped. No eye contact. Great. He wasn’t going to like this. “I got a phone call. Early this morning, not too long after you left. I couldn’t tell who it was.There was too much background noise, and he was speaking softly—probably at a bar. Probably drunk. Probably nothing. Except—” now she met his gaze “—he knew my name.”
A tickle of stone-cold suspicion raised the hairs on the back of his neck. “What did he say?”
“He wanted to know what the dead girl told me.”
“He thinks Chloe told you something?” She nodded. “Did he threaten you?”
“His threat didn’t mean anything.”
So, he had. “It meant something to him. Dead girl? He used those exact words? Sounds like he was dropping a pretty clear hint.”
Laura shook her head at his assessment and started walking again. “I don’t know what Chloe was talking about on the phone. It was so hushed, so much gibberish. What if she was already hurt? What if she was already dying when she called me? Maybe that’s why she didn’t make any sense. She said insurance. What kind of insurance? I have no idea what it is or where it is.”
“This guy might think she gave it to you. He could be watching your place. Watching you.”
“You’re being paranoid.” She climbed the steps to the visitors’ entrance.
“And you’re not. But you should be.” He paused at the foot of the concrete steps, scanning the parking lot for anyone or any vehicle that seemed out of place. A couple of cop cars, prison vehicles, unmarked cars that could belong to staff, visitors or even some of the prisoners themselves. It was too cold for anyone to wait in their cars witho
ut running the heater, and he’d see the exhaust. The pristine perfection of a tranquil Sunday afternoon shouldn’t have worried him as much as it did. All the more reason to follow Laura up the steps. “If somebody is out to get you, he will get to you unless you’re being hypervigilant. Or you’re in witness protection.”
She halted on the upper sidewalk and spun around. Her pointed look stopped him two steps below her, putting them nearly at eye level. “You think I need to ask for witness protection? Do I fit some profile from your old job with the Feds? I don’t know anything.” She gestured to the brick building behind her. “That’s why I’m here. To find out information.”
He counted the three snowflakes that landed on her cheeks and melted into her freckles, giving himself a moment to tone down the gloom and doom. “Maybe I’m overreacting. That’s just the way my brain’s hard-wired. When you’re responsible for someone’s life, you see the enemy everywhere.”
She took his gloved hand in hers. “Well, now that you’ve got me thoroughly freaked out, would you help me instead of scaring me? Would you come inside and talk to Verna Wilson with me? The detective in you wants answers—I know he does. That’s really why you’re here, right? To talk to Chloe’s mom?”
“I’m here to keep you from doing something crazy. Let Cobb and his team run the investigation. He was right about one thing. Protecting people is what I’m good at. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“Then protect me. I’m going in there whether you like it or not. I’d rather have you watching my back than being mad at me.”
“I’m not mad.”
She was winning this argument. She already knew she was staying and that he was staying with her. “You’re just going all big brother on me again?”
More snowflakes hit her upturned face, and he had the strangest urge to brush them away with his fingertip. Or his lips. What was wrong with him? He’d never had these randy impulses with Lisa. Everything between them had been planned, predictable, a slow build leading up to the passion. With Lisa, he’d had time to think. Every move with Laura seemed to be...reacting. As if he couldn’t help himself around her. Apparently, he couldn’t because he heard himself admitting, “I wasn’t thinking brotherly thoughts when I was kissing you earlier.”
“Kind of messes with the status quo, doesn’t it? To see each other as different people than we were growing up.” She smiled, arching her mouth into a bow that was every bit as pinup-worthy as the decadent curves of her jeans.
An instant stab of pure male heat fired through his blood and sent his brain south of his belt buckle.
“The status quo is overrated.” Obeying the errant impulse, he leaned forward to kiss her. Laura’s sexy mouth softened like a sigh beneath his. The cool leather of her gloved fingers came up to cup his jaw and hold his lips against hers. And for one insane second, he wondered if the rest of her body would be equally responsive to his touch.
But the moment he imagined his hands on her breasts, her body naked beneath his, the reality of what he was thinking jolted through him like an electric shock, and he pulled away. It didn’t help that her changeable eyes had darkened like jade flecked with shards of gold, and she looked like she was a witch who’d known exactly what he’d been thinking. Like she’d been the one to put those impetuous thoughts in his head.
Sex with Laura was off the table. Kissing her should be, too. He shouldn’t be feeling these restless impulses inside him, either. He was going back to Kansas City. He was leaving this life behind. He wasn’t good relationship material, and he’d be damned if he hurt one of his best friends by succumbing to some sort of love-’em-and-leave-’em fling just to get this unexpected attraction out of his system.
Conor inhaled a deep breath of the chilly winter air and forced himself to remember why he was here in the first place. To find answers. To protect Laura from her own curiosity and compassion. That was something he could allow himself to do. He grasped her hand, pulling her into step beside him. “Come on. Let’s get this over with. And then you’re going to tell me everything about that phone call.”
A few minutes later, the guard behind the sign-in counter smiled in recognition as he pushed the clipboard toward Conor. “Marshal Wildman. Long time, no see.”
Conor unholstered his service Glock and set it on the counter beside the smaller Beretta he wore in the holster around his ankle. “Pete. How are the grandkids?”
“Growing up too fast. You’re not hunting for a fugitive today, are you?” The older man with the shiny bald pate raised his right hand. “I swear we’ve got everyone locked up where they should be.”
Conor grinned before pulling his badge and laying it on the counter, too. “I’m not in the business anymore. Moved to Kansas City, Missouri, a couple of years ago to work with the police department there. I’m here with a friend.” He nodded toward Laura, who was already moving through the metal detector on this side of the waiting area leading into the visitation room. “We’re here to see Verna Wilson.”
Pete raised his shaggy white brows. “She’s a popular lady today.”
“What do you mean?” Conor removed his cell phone and watch and set them on the counter with the rest of his belongings.
“Considering visiting hours are restricted, you’re already the...” He flipped back through the signatures on his chart, counting names. “You’re the fourth person to come in to see Verna today. Must be a case breaking wide open.”
“Her daughter was murdered last night.”
The guard frowned, offering a moment of sympathy before dropping Conor’s things into a large envelope and sticking a label on it. “Sucks to be her today. Are your lady friend and Verna close?”
“She was good friends with Verna’s daughter. I don’t suppose you’d tell me who else has been in to see her?”
“You know I can’t do that unless you have a court order, or I get word from the warden.” He pointed toward the waiting area. “But there’s one of her guests coming out now.”
He turned to see T. J. Cobb trading a joke with the guard at the steel lockdown door. He was probably here making the death notification.
“Thanks, Pete.” Conor waved a goodbye and hurried through the metal detector to stand beside Laura. When he protectively slid his hand against the small of her back, she startled, and he knew she wasn’t any happier to see the deputy here than he was.
“What are you doing here, Detective?” Cobb’s smile was big and friendly and fake as he greeted them. “Miss Karr with a K.” He winked. “Where’s the pink dress?”
Laura stiffened against Conor’s hand. “We’re here to extend our condolences to Chloe’s mother.”
“I was just paying my respects myself.”
Conor doubted his visit had been a social call. “Did you ask if her daughter’s death could have been retaliation for something she might have done?”
“My investigation, Wildman.” Cobb tipped his hat without answering Conor’s question. “You folks have a nice day.” He headed toward the front desk. “Pete. When is your wife going to bake me another one of her apple pies?”
Once Cobb had left the waiting area, Laura muttered under her breath, “I don’t know if it’s his patronizing ‘little woman’ teasing or his bully-with-a-badge condescension that makes me not like that guy.”
“I think it’s just because he’s mean and stupid,” Conor deadpanned.
She laughed, easing some of the wary tension roiling inside him, too. “Thanks. I needed that. Let’s go on in.”
Conor and Laura were sitting on stools that were bolted to the floor in the visitation room when a guard escorted Verna Wilson in and sat her at the table across from them. Clearly, the fortysomething woman—with gaunt cheeks, yellowed teeth and a nervous habit of drumming her fingers on the thighs of her scrubs-like uniform, indicating her history of drug use and recovery—had gotten the news of her daughter’s
murder. Although she barely registered an emotion one way or the other on her face, her sunken eyes, red and puffy, were evidence of the tears she’d shed.
“Chloe was beautiful and talented and fun to hang out with.” Laura was trying to establish a rapport with the older woman so that she’d open up and talk. Since Verna had already recognized him as law enforcement, and barely made eye contact with him, Conor let Laura build that connection. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Wilson. No one should have to die like that.”
“Sounds like she crossed the wrong people.”
“You mean the wrong man. Her attack was very...personal, I think.”
“Sure. Whatever.” Verna’s fingers moved their incessant tapping to the top of the table when she leaned forward to whisper. “Look, I’m here because I crossed the wrong people. That’s dangerous business.”
Laura clasped her hands in her lap, no doubt resisting the urge to reach out and still those fingers. “Chloe said you’d been arrested for selling drugs.”
“Yeah. The people I worked for didn’t appreciate that I was skimming some of the product for my own use. They ratted me out.” Verna exchanged a look with the guard at the door and sat back. “I was on parole. It was my third offense. I’m doing my time.”
“Couldn’t you report those people?” Laura suggested. “Testify against them for a lighter sentence?”
Verna laughed at her hopeful naïveté. “Being stuck in here a few more years is better than being dead. It’s better than my Chloe being dead.”
“They threatened her to keep you quiet?”
“Back when I first got arrested.” Her fingers stilled into a fist. “But she was a kid then. And I’ve been silent as the grave. I never mentioned one name. Not a peep. Whoever killed my girl is something different. It’s not on me.”