And get along just fine without Clarke Colton.
Chapter 17
Everleigh brought him breakfast—a plate to his office—and wanted to know how soon they’d be leaving for her place. She didn’t look him in the eye. Didn’t look at him at all, really. He could have been naked, instead of wearing the jeans and brown sweater he’d pulled on after his shower.
No...of course she’d have noticed that.
He just wished he was naked, with her standing there.
Wished he could slowly pull down those jeans...pull that black sweater over her head...unfetter those gorgeous breasts...
Instead, he told her that patrol officers were checking out her house this morning—part of his plan—and would be letting him know as soon as it was deemed empty and safe for their arrival.
That call came in while she was on her way out the door.
He ate his breakfast on the fly.
Patrol officers would be making periodic drive-bys until he let them know they were in and out. They would also be on call in case he sent out the distress signal.
He had this one.
Right up until they were standing in Fritz Emerson’s ransacked office, getting ready to take it apart in a systematic order, and he pictured Everleigh there as the man’s wife. As the woman she’d been, in that home, her home, for so many years.
She’d come alive in his bed the night before, a curious mixture of naivete and experienced pleasure giver that ate at him every time he thought about it. She’d known exactly how to please a man. But hadn’t seemed at all familiar with the pleasures she could receive in return. Hadn’t seemed to expect them.
Had, more than once, been wide-eyed and shocked by them.
The travesty sickened him.
He wanted to kick in the man’s desk, stomp on his things, throw anything that mattered to Fritz Emerson against the wall and break it.
Because, in Clarke’s mind, the dead man had done exactly that to the love and sweetness his wife had brought to him. And had continued to bring to him
faithfully for so many years.
Eighteen years of a woman’s life... Emerson had taken them, used them and then tossed them in the garbage.
Instead of unleashing violence, Clarke had to carefully look through the man’s things. To get into Emerson’s life, his mind, in order to find out who’d wanted him dead. And then come after his wife.
The fact that the newest ransacking focused almost exclusively on Fritz’s office, where the murder had taken place, didn’t pass him by. The threat had come to Everleigh to leave the state and she could live... Whoever was after her didn’t have a personal vendetta against her. It had something to do with Fritz.
“I still think we’re looking for evidence of a lover,” he said aloud, breaking the silence that had been their almost constant companion all morning.
They’d said one and done. It was done. Nothing to talk about.
And yet his hours in bed with Everleigh were all he could seem to think about other than work. Other conversation didn’t crop up.
She’d told him that she’d follow all of his orders, was pretty much doing nothing until he directed. So, there she stood, in her own home, in the middle of a room with drawers and cupboards open and things strewn all about, waiting for him to tell her what to do and how to do it.
He knew how he’d do it. He’d trample everything that didn’t matter to the search. But he was in her home. “Let’s get things put back together first,” he said. There was some sound reason for that. She’d more likely know then if something was missing. Except that she’d already said that she hadn’t been in Fritz’s den since he’d moved out, until the first time they’d cleaned it up.
But she went into action so quickly, he didn’t have time to change his mind. Just as they’d done before, he straightened and stacked, and she put away.
“What if, instead of a lover, this all has something to do with the building?” he asked. Needing answers. Needing to get her safe so he could get out of there and leave her alone. “We now know that whoever is after him wants you gone, not necessarily dead, like we first thought. Unless you stay in town. Then you have to die.”
“You aren’t suggesting I leave the state, are you? My entire life is here. Everyone I know and love... I’m not leaving Gram. Never...” She glanced at him briefly, but long enough for him to see the hurt in her eyes.
And his gut tightened. Everleigh was too sensitive...too deep...for that.