Gus walked them past the reception desk toward the door. “Well, with any luck, you folks won’t be needing us again tonight.”
“I understand that the raccoons are making a racket, ma’am. We’ll have a patrol car over there as soon as we can.” Bill Mason, the night dispatcher, waved to Vanessa as she passed. He put a hand over the phone and told Gus, “The raccoons are in Mrs. Brophy’s tree again.”
Gus rolled his eyes. “Tell her I’ll be coming by in about ten minutes.”
He opened the front door and held it for Vanessa and Grady and exited with them.
“I’ll drop you off at home,” Gus told Vanessa, then turned to Grady. “You staying at the Inn?”
Grady nodded and took Vanessa’s arm as they walked to Gus’s patrol car.
“I’ll drive you out after I take Vanessa home.”
“Grady, why don’t you take my car back to the Inn? That way, you’ll have some transportation in the morning to get back into town,” Vanessa said.
“Are you sure you won’t need it?” Grady asked as they got into Gus’s cruiser.
“I walk into town all the time,” she reminded him.
“Then thank you. I’ll take you up on the offer.”
Gus stopped in front of her house. “Maybe I should come in and take a look around. You know, just in case there’s someone in there who shouldn’t be.”
“I’ll take care of it, Gus.” Grady opened the rear passenger door and slid out, then leaned in to give Vanessa a hand and helped her out. “I’ll check it all out before I leave.”
“Hal would skin me alive if anything happened to her.” Gus put the car in park. “Not to mention what Beck would do when he got back.”
“Good point.” Vanessa checked her small evening bag for her keys.
“You used to wear the badge, though, right?” Gus asked as they walked up the front walk.
“Former FBI.”
Gus nodded. “I thought I heard something like that.”
Grady held out his hand and Vanessa handed him the keys. He unlocked the front door, and Gus held him back, his hand on his holstered handgun.
“Give me a minute to clear it,” he told them.
Grady and Vanessa waited in silence in the dark until Gus came back and turned on one of the living-room lamps.
“Everything looks fine,” he told them. “No sign of anything amiss.”
“Thanks, Gus,” Vanessa told him.
“Anything weird happens, you hear any noises, you call the station and I’ll be right out.” He went out onto the front porch. “And we’ll be driving by throughout the night. Make sure you lock that door as soon as Grady leaves.”
“Will do,” she told him.
The key was still in the outside lock. Grady removed it and used it to lock the door from the inside. Vanessa smiled and held out her hand. “I’m guessing we won’t need this until the morning.”
“There’s no way in hell I’m leaving you here by yourself.” He walked into the living room, his jacket over one shoulder, his tie undone. “I can sleep down here.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” She met his eyes from the doorway. She wanted to put the events of the evening behind her. She’d had all she could handle of being afraid and being upset. Tomorrow, her shop would still be a mess and Grady’s rental car would still be smashed and there’d still be someone out there who was really angry with her for reasons she couldn’t know. But tonight…
“I don’t think Gus checked under the bed or any of the closets. What if someone’s hiding up there?”
“Good point.” He draped the jacket over the back of a chair. “I don’t want you lying awake all night worrying that someone will pop out from that closet. I’d better come up with you and check.”
She turned off the lamp and started toward the stairs.
“Do you have a basement?” he asked.
“What?” She frowned.
“A basement. You know, an excavated area under the first floor.”
“Yes, I have a basement.”
“Is the door inside or outside?”
“It’s right through there.” She stood on the bottom step, her hands on her hips, and watched him disappear into the kitchen.
He was back in less than a minute. “You could use a better lock on that door. It’s just a slide bolt. You should have dead bolts that require keys on it and the back door.”
“I have a dead bolt on the back door.”
“It has a latch that’s located right under the glass panes.”
She started up the steps slowly, glancing over her shoulder. He was following her, his eyes on her face.
“So?” she asked.
“So someone could break the glass, reach in, turn the latch, and just like that, they’re in.”
“Oh, thanks for that mood breaker.” She stopped midway up the stairwell and glared at him.
He came up behind her, chuckling softly. “If the mood is broken, we’ll just have to find a way to get it back again.”
“Think you’re up to it?” She tugged on both ends of his tie.
“I guess we’ll find out.”
She laughed and led him by the tie to her room facing the back of the house. Three arched windows framed a bay, and moonlight streamed in through the sheer curtains. She backed toward the bed, then stopped at the side and raised her hands to undo her dress.
“Are you sure you aren’t too rattled from the break-in and everything…?”
“I don’t want to think about it anymore tonight. You’re here to protect me, right?” She dropped the dress and it puddled on the floor at her feet. “Besides, do I look rattled to you?”
“You look beautiful. In or out of that dress.”
He reached out for her and she walked into his arms. His hands slid up and down her back, and she unbuttoned his shirt, pulling the tails out from the waist. She pulled up the T-shirt and ran her hands over his bare chest, then fell back on the bed, taking him with her. His mouth met hers halfway to the pillow, and she parted her lips to his tongue that thrust inside and teased the corners of her mouth. His hand reached for her left breast, but she moved it, offering the right one instead. She felt crazed with wanting him, could not seem to get close enough. She felt as if she were on fire, inside and out, everywhere he touched seeming to burn. His mouth moved to her throat, and she all but purred as his lips made an agonizingly slow descent to her shoulder, then lower, and she arched her back, but when his mouth sought her breast, she moved slightly to offer the right one and he took it between eager lips. She moaned far back in her throat and reached down to tug on his waistband.
“As good as you look in this tux,” she gasped, “I think it’s time to retire it for the night.”
Later, she would wonder how he’d managed to undress without his mouth ever leaving her skin, she was so totally lost in sensations she barely recalled ever having had before. She wrapped her legs around his and drew him inside almost frantically while his mouth drove her to the edge of madness. Wordlessly, the rhythm natural, he began to move inside her, slowly at first. She took him in deeper, as the pace increased, until she could no longer tell her cries from his. He slowed for a moment and raised his head to look into her eyes, then drove them both to completion on waves of sensation that she thought would never end.
He nuzzled the left side of her face without speaking, and before she realized it, he’d run his hand from her neck to her breast. His hand stopped moving, then slowly, with one finger, he traced the jagged line that ran from the nipple to just under her collarbone.
“What happened here?” he asked.
“I, ah, walked into a knife.” She moved his hand away and pulled the blanket around her, but he pushed it down again.