Other than that, no damage and the officer who took me through the house was told by me, an authority on the subject, that nothing was missing.
But they didn’t take my statement. Two officers became four, four became six and now there were eight and they told me I had to wait until the detective arrived.
I was not hip on police procedure and I couldn’t say I wasn’t grateful (considering the fact that I was super, double, extra, way freaked out) that they seemed to be taking this seriously and sending a large cadre of officers to stand guard in my living room eating cookie batter and a full-blown detective to talk to me. However, nothing was stolen and although my caller headed straight to the bedroom, and I doubted he was after my Wachtmeister snow globe, it seemed a garden variety break-in that the uniformed officers could cover.
So I figured something was up and I figured that something was named Ginger Kidd.
Suddenly there seemed something interesting happening in the living room, someone had arrived and five seconds later, there he was.
I stared at him.
Seriously, was this a cosmic joke?
In my doorway stood a man, a tall man and there was nothing “ish” about how tall he was. He was just, plain tall. He also had dark brown hair, dark brown eyes and a square jaw. His hair was thick and curled a little around his neck and the collar of his leather jacket. His eyes were soulful. His jaw was strong. He was wearing a chocolate brown turtleneck under his dark brown leather jacket, jeans, a great belt, boots and a badge hung on that great belt. I had no doubt he was on the cover of the Men of the Denver Police Department calendar and I was going out first thing tomorrow to buy one.
Why was this happening? Why? What did I do? Not even a day and three hot guys, all three I couldn’t have. One was scary and was the head honcho of a possibly felonious but definitely antisocial motorcycle club, so he was out. One was scary and mysterious and a jerk, so he was out. And this one was not scary, he was gorgeous but he was also the detective assigned to my case which meant he was probably not allowed to fraternize with a victim, namely me, and therefore he was out.
I didn’t lift my cheek from my knee and he didn’t tear his eyes from me as he walked into the kitchen, grabbed a chair, twisted it around to face me, not too close, not too far away, and sat down. With his eyes still on me, he leaned forward, elbows to knees.
“Gwendolyn Kidd?” he asked in a nice, smooth, deep voice.
I nodded against my knee.
“I’m Detective Mitch Lawson.”
Detective Mitch Lawson. Yowza. Great name.
I kept my cheek to my knee when I told him quietly, “That’s the perfect name for a cop.”
His brows went up slightly. This was not what he was expecting. He was probably expecting a “Hi”, or a “Thank you for coming” or a “God, you’re hot”.
“It is?” he asked.
“Mitch,” I whispered. “Strong, the last three consonants that is, but not in a harsh way, in a soft way. And when you’re with someone you care about and you’re close and they say something you can’t hear, you don’t say, ‘What?’ you say, ‘Mm?’ real soft. Put that and the last together, soft and strong, things a cop needs to be… Mitch.”
He stared at me.
I kept babbling. “And Lawson, goes without saying, Law… son. Son of the law.” I pulled in a breath through my nose and then whispered, “Perfect.”
He stared at me some more.
Then he said, “Gwendolyn sounds like a song.”
Uh… nice.
I so totally loved my name.
“A short one,” I replied.
“But a pretty one,” he returned.
Uh… nice.
I smiled at him and Detective Mitch Lawson smiled back at me.
Yowza!
Then suddenly his neck twisted so he could look over his shoulder, his torso went straight and he stood, still looking behind him.
My eyes went there and I kept my cheek to my knee even as my heart skipped a beat.
The Great MM was standing there.
He wasn’t in a fabulous chocolate brown turtleneck, leather jacket and jeans. He was wearing what he was wearing earlier, a skintight, navy, long-sleeved t-shirt that delineated every carved muscle in his chest, shoulders and arms; army green cargo pants and boots. He was also wearing an unhappy expression and his eyes were locked on Detective Mitch Lawson.
Then his eyes moved to me and about a nanosecond later he moved to me, all masculine grace, a big cat on the prowl, fascinating.
My eyes moved with him but my cheek didn’t leave my knee as he got close then bent over me, lifting his hand. I didn’t know what to expect so I braced until I felt his fingers at my temple. They trailed lightly along my hairline, down, behind my ear and I closed my eyes as he slid the hair off my neck. Then his warm hand curled there.
Then I heard him ask softly, “You okay, baby?”
Baby?
My eyes opened and slid to see him bent close to my face.
“Fine,” I told him.
“You don’t look fine,” he noted.
“Well, I am,” I returned.
“Then why are you curled into a protective ball?” he asked.
This was a good question.
I shrugged.
“Heard she was yours,” Lawson noted, MM straightened and turned to him and I was so surprised at this comment, for a variety of reasons, that my head came up so I could put my chin to the space between my knees.
“She’s mine,” MM confirmed decisively.
“I’m not his,” I denied probably not decisively.
Lawson was looking at MM but when I spoke his eyes cut to me. He stared at me what seemed intently for a few beats then one side of his mouth twitched and he looked to the floor a second before he looked back at me.
“I need to ask you a few questions,” he said quietly. “You up for that?”
MM moved to my side, right to my side, in a way where his lower side pressed down my upper side and his hand didn’t leave my neck but it slid to the back.
“Ask,” he ordered shortly, answering for me, Lawson looked at him then sat again.
I lifted my chin from my knees but MM’s hand on my neck didn’t move. His position seemed to be possessive, an indication to Lawson he was claiming me. But that hand… that hand seemed to be supportive, an indication he was worried about my state of mind and, furthermore, he cared.
Now, what did I do with that?
I focused on Lawson and not MM and saw he was leaning forward on his knees again.
“Tell me what happened,” he said gently.
I sucked in breath. Then I said, “I heard a crash, it woke me up and I knew, I knew like you know when you have a bad dream and you jerk awake and your body is all tingly and you just know, you know someone is in the room to hack you up and you can’t get rid of that feeling, you know what I mean?” I paused and he nodded. “I knew like that someone was in my house but I knew it was for real.” He nodded again and I kept talking. “So, I called 911 but not before I thought I needed a baseball bat. But, while I was waiting for you, I decided I didn’t want a baseball bat, I want a crowbar. A baseball bat has more surface area so the force of the blow would be disbursed. A crowbar would work better. What do you think?”
MM’s fingers tightened on my neck but Lawson, clearly not following my ramblings, asked, “What do I think?”
“Baseball bat or crowbar? Which one would you want if you were in a scary situation?”
He paused a second, his eyes holding mine, before he answered softly, “Gwendolyn, I own a gun.”