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“Not scientific,” she said aloud. “And certainly not dissertation material.”

By four she found herself looking at her watch and wondering when Colin would show up.

At five he sent her a text.

Ellie gave me something to cook for dinner. Can you come over and play? How about a sleepover?

Gemma threw clean clothes into a duffle, and put her computer and notes into another bag. She was at Colin’s house, “their” house, fifteen minutes after he texted.

They made love as though they hadn’t seen each other in months, with a desperate urgency she’d never thought was possible.

They showered together, then looked to see what Colin had bought at the grocery. They managed to cook a whole meal together, eating half of it as they cooked. They finally sat down at their table, in their dining room, and looked out at their garden.

When they finished dessert, the last of Rachel’s blackberry cobbler, Colin looked across the table and said, “Have you ever felt as though you were exactly where you should be and doing exactly what you should be doing?”

“Yes,” she said, and her heart was beating in her throat. She didn’t feel she needed to say that here and now was where she was supposed to be.

After dinner, they talked. They still knew so few facts about each other, and both of them had many things they’d never told anyone.

Colin told how he’d been made a full sheriff only recently. A special election needed to be held before the job could be filled, and he hadn’t wanted to go through it. “The thought of sticking posters up around town touting me for sheriff wasn’t something I could imagine myself doing,” he said.

“So who ran your campaign?”

Colin looked down at his beer for a moment. “My mother hired some woman from . . .” He waved his hand.

“New York?”

“Of course.”

Together they laughed about the whole thing.

They were in bed by ten and at the gym the next morning at six-thirty. This time, they were the only ones there. Mike and Sara had gone back to Fort Lauderdale, and Luke texted that he and Joce had been up all night with the babies. No one else showed up. After their workout, Colin bolted the front door and they made love on a couple of weight benches, then showered together.

After a week together, they’d fallen into a routine, with both of them spending their days separate and at their respective jobs. In the evening, Colin would text the single word Home and Gemma would leave the guesthouse and drive to their house.

A second robbery that was very much like the first one interrupted their peace. Again, it happened during the day, while the owner was home. This time a small wall safe had been opened and an antique brooch taken.

That night Gemma saw a different Colin than the one she’d been seeing. When he was silent, his brow furrowed, she knew she needed to get him to talk.

It wasn’t easy. After she’d failed at several attempts at conversation, she said, “I guess you are the kind of man I have to beg.”

He gave a little smile, then got up and went out to his car. He brought back a thick folder of photos that Roy had taken at the two crime scenes.

“Both times,” Colin said, “the burglar walked in the front door, unseen by anyone of the house or any of the neighbors. And both times something that was hidden was stolen.”

Gemma looked at the pictures. Both houses had trees around them that made it easier to get in without being seen. But then what? How was a hidden compartment in a bedpost found? Who knew how to crack a safe?

Colin spread all the documents out on the big coffee table Gemma had chosen. She sat on a pillow on the floor while he took the couch. Together, they spent hours reading the statements and going over the photos.

Gemma was startled to read that the little wall safe had contained $25,000 in cash as well as documents and the brooch. “But the thief left the money?” she asked.

“Didn’t touch it.” He pulled a paper from the bottom of the pile. “This is an insurance photo of what was taken.”

It was a big, and very ugly, brooch with little garnets and dirty-looking aquamarines.

“I can’t see that it would bring a lot of money when they tried to sell it,” Gemma said. “It’s certainly not fashionable. Unless it was owned by someone famous, maybe.”

“No, it wasn’t, and it was appraised at only two thousand two hundred dollars.”


Tags: Jude Deveraux Edilean Romance