I end the call…and I’m still wearing next to nothing. “They’re on their way. I need to get dressed.”
He curses under his breath. “Where are your clothes?”
Vaguely, I gesture to the porch. It’s so dark I can barely see where I dropped my stuff. But if I use my phone for light, Rush will see everything. Why did I pick today to wear my sexiest bra?
Whatever. Now isn’t the time to be shy. Tossing on enough clothes to talk to the police so we can get to the bottom of this break-in is way more urgent than my modesty.
With a sigh, I engage the flashlight on my phone and grab my clothes. I try not to dwell on Rush, but I’m achy and anxious. What can he see…and what does he think?
As soon as I have the garments in hand, I darken the device and tug on my skirt. As I reach for my T-shirt, I hazard a glance his way. He’s scanning my side yard, his gaze aimed just over my head…but there’s no way he can’t see the outline of my breasts and their hard tips in the moonlight.
Not that it will help much, but I yank my shirt into place, then face him. “Anything out there?”
“Not that I see. But it’s awfully still.” Finally, he fixes his stare on me. “Listen, once the police start investigating, it’s possible they’ll move a few things around. Do you want to breeze through the rest of the house and tell me what else has been disturbed?”
If I don’t, I’ll never know everything my intruder touched.
At the thought of a stranger in my house uninvited, his hands on my personal things, I feel sick and violated—and angry. But I’m also scared. “What if the intruder is still inside?”
He holds his weapon tighter, maintaining great trigger discipline. “I’m here.”
Maybe that shouldn’t make me feel better, but it does—not just because he’s a man with a gun but because I’ve seen him in action on the job. He knows what he’s doing. Plus, there’s this rumor going around that he spent a few years as a marine before doing some dangerous work for the government at one of the three-letter agencies. I’m not sure what made him leave, much less settle in St. Augustine and take a job at an upscale hotel. Maybe he wanted something cushy and well paid…but he doesn’t strike me as the kind of man to back away from a challenge.
“Then let’s look around.”
“We have to be quick,” he insists as he steps into the foyer. “Stay right behind me, fingers through my belt loops so you’re no more than a half step off my ass. We’re going to start in the kitchen, circle back through the living room, then head down the hall and end in your bedroom.”
“Okay.” But how does he know my floor plan?
I’ll worry about that later. For now, I nod and follow him inside, holding my breath. I don’t know what I’m expecting, maybe some deranged loon jumping out at us. But we hear silence…suddenly broken by a familiar scratching.
“What is that?” he hisses.
“My kitten. Kitty Pie is on her scratching post. That’s normal.”
A moment later the lamp in my living room flares on. Rush stiffens. Kitty Pie scurries away in a blur of calico fluff, her tail bushed.
“It’s okay. My lights are on timers. There’s another in my bedroom, too.”
“At the end of the hall, to the right?”
“How did you know that?”
“I assumed. A light just popped on from there.”
Right. I have to stop being paranoid.
He stares down the hall like he’s braced for trouble. “Show me what’s out of place.”
Now that light filters through the open space in front of us, I see even more things that aren’t as I left them. “The shade in my kitchen window is drawn. I raise it every morning before I leave. My kettle should be on the back right burner, not the cooktop. I set it there as soon as I’m done making my morning tea.” Then I see something really alarming. “There’s a missing knife in my butcher block.”
Rush curses as he ushers me into the living room. “Anything besides the books been moved?”
“Those shutters have been closed, too.”
There are a few more things that have been messed with. Little things. Nothing destructive. Nothing threatening, but creepy all the same.
My bathroom is a different story. The pink cami and boy shorts I wore to bed last night are missing from the hook behind the shower door. My towel has been moved, and I can almost picture someone touching it, sniffing it, thinking about me naked in it. I shudder.
“You okay?” Rush asks.
Under the bathroom light, it’s obvious the Florida sun has kissed his skin with warm bronze tones, but it’s his dark eyes that hold me captive. Almost black. Intense. Somehow shiver-inducing and comforting at once.