Reluctantly in Love (19 page)

“See you soon.” He brushed his thumb against my cheek once more.

See you soon?
No way in hell was I waiting for a
soon
.

I reached for his hand and tugged him back to me. He turned, surprised, but the moment his cobalt orbs connected with mine, his gaze turned intensely hot. Chase’s lips crushed over mine, and my fingers twined into his hair, soft and wet. He gripped my butt in both hands, lifting me. My lips parted in a gasp and his tongue slipped inside. His erection rubbed against the center of my thighs where the flesh pulsated. I moaned and dropped my head back while he kissed my collar bone, then the sensitive flesh below my ear.

One of his hands slipped the skirt of my dress up and my thighs were bared to the humid night breeze. The moment his hand slipped under my panties to cup my butt, my breath stuttered and halted. My heart hammered in my chest as he leaned me back against the front door. One of his hands balanced me, and the other shifted, the pad of his thumb sliding against my lower belly, against the crease of my inner thigh, until it slid against the slick flesh between my legs.

I melted away.

I expelled a breath of hot anticipation, of mind-blowing pleasure while he rubbed circles against the throbbing nub. My eyes fell shut and I moaned, letting him know that the last thing I wanted him to do was stop. His mouth took mine in a deep, sensual kiss that made my toes curl, and as suddenly as the white hot pleasure pooled between my legs, it exploded, wracking my body with undulating waves of intense heat that left me breathless and weak in his arms.

He kissed my neck and I wrapped my arms loosely around his neck. Only his hands held me up, because my legs were jelly. Still, even as I clung to him, I felt unsatisfied. I wanted more. I wanted all of him.

Before I could say anything, he gently set me on the ground. I opened my eyes, looking up at him with unspoken question. He placed a soft kiss to my lips and my hands slid down the front of his jacket to press against his chest.

“I can’t wait until next time.” His voice was gruff, and I knew he was as turned on as I was. “Think of me.”

He was down the steps and around the corner before my tongue untied.

Inside, I shut the front door and leaned against the carved wood panel. I could barely hear my thoughts between my thrumming heart and the rain falling on the house.

“What the hell was that?” I whispered in the silence.

And you just let him walk away.

I showered, and imagined the warm water streaming down my body was Chase’s fingers, his hands exploring every inch of me. While I toweled off, my skin tingled with the memory of his lips on my neck while I panted in his arms. My pulse raced so fast, I took deep breaths to calm it. My body was on fire again already.

I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I tried. Instead, I sat in bed with my laptop, writing into the wee hours of the morning. I was at the mercy of my muse and the emotions coursing through me.

Chapter Seventeen

In the week that followed, I threw myself into writing and work. I’m an impatient person, and waiting for Leo’s forensics expert to fit my shoeprint into his schedule was agonizing.

I followed up on Matthew Garrett as a suspect, though the possibility of his involvement in this catnapping seemed slim. I was torn regarding his motivation. The idea of him taking fifty years to act on his dislike for his stepmother seemed ludicrous. But with a short list of subjects I couldn’t rule him out, and so I followed him around town, waiting for him to do something incriminating.

I still kept a close eye on Meredith Jensen, too. I had Linda on the task of ascertaining the woman’s shoe size so I could make a comparison once the forensics were in on the shoe print. Even though she for some reason decided to make an enemy of Beverly, I couldn’t picture her stealing the woman’s cat. But I didn’t know her, and I couldn’t be certain what she was capable of. I’d read about a doting grandmother who poisoned her grandkids’ rabbits because she thought they were dirty animals to have in the house. I mean, people were nothing if not unpredictable. Maybe she really, really liked Peter Wood and the idea of losing him to Beverly had driven her to madness.

I was nowhere closer to finding Pretzels, and my frustration made me twitchy. There’d been accepting sadness in Beverly’s eyes the last time I saw her. As if she knew she’d never see Pretzels again. I had to solve this case.

I’d been leaving messages for Matthew Garrett for two days now, but he hadn’t returned my calls. Well, he hadn’t returned
Cammie Ritter’s
phone calls. Sometimes going undercover was necessary—people were apt to disclose more when they didn’t realize they were a suspect.

Cammie Ritter didn’t actually exist. Cammie was a fabricated reporter for the college newspaper, writing a fabricated article on the heart-wrenching story of an old woman offering a huge reward for her missing cat. I’d planned to have Cammie charm Matthew with compliments, feigned admiration, and eyelash batting in hopes of finagling incriminating information out of him.

Maybe he’d been busy. Maybe he had something to hide. Or maybe it was as simple as he really didn’t care that someone had stolen his stepmom’s cat. Whatever his reasons were for not returning Cammie Ritter the Journalist’s phone calls, I planned to find out.

Three blocks from his house, where I’d planned to ambush him for an interview, he zipped past me, driving his red sports car convertible in the opposite direction. His passenger hadn’t been his wife, either, but a barely legal blonde with long hair flying in the wind.

I followed them across town to an ATM where Matthew withdrew a healthy wad of cash. The man lived in a mansion, had more than a few sports cars registered to his name, and had the liquid assets to impress his mistress. He didn’t appear to be suffering from gambling debt. From what I could tell, Matthew was an aging man clinging to a young woman in hopes of hanging on to his vanishing youth.

Lindsey was back at the office pulling his financials, and though I doubted we’d find anything, I still planned to dig through them with a fine-toothed comb.

During their ensuing shopping spree, there wasn’t much to note except sloppy kisses and groping sessions. They spent a good deal of time feeling each other up in a lingerie boutique while clerks pretended not to notice. The couple entered a dressing room, and I didn’t care to imagine what went on inside. After an hour, they emerged from the store with lots of pretty pink bags.

Their next stop was a member’s only club. Without the exclusive card for admittance, I couldn’t get in. Not even a hundred dollar bill could sway the bouncer. He peered down his nose at me as if I were the idiot of the day.

“Jackass,” I mumbled, and crossed the street back to the LM Security van I’d checked out that morning. When visiting a suspect, I didn’t like to drive my own vehicle.

I was in the driver’s seat of the van, typing notes into my computer tablet, when the AC unit made a
click-click-thump
noise. Then silence. I put my hand up to the vent—nothing.

“Son of a . . .”

It was ninety-two degrees outside, and I was parked in a black van under full sun. It took only two minutes for the inside of the van to turn into a microwave. I turned the engine on and rolled the driver’s and passenger’s windows down, but that didn’t provide any air circulation. It wasn’t breezy at all outside.

After an hour and a half of sweating bullets, I was miserable. Even stepping outside every now and then was no relief. It reminded me of a little hell called canoeing out in the middle of nowhere. At least that memory was also coupled with images of Chase’s smile and abs. That helped.

My phone rang while I daydreamed of a cold shower to wash off the sweat. My short sleeved blouse clung to my damp chest, and my bra was uncomfortably tight against my chest. My black shorts were glued to my butt, and my inner thighs were sweaty. This was not how I’d planned to spend my day.

“I’ve been calling you all day,” my mother complained into the phone when I answered.

I sighed. “Mother, you called me once this morning while I was driving, so I didn’t answer. And I’ve been on a case all day.”

“What kind of case? Is it dangerous?” She sounded worried.

“No, it’s not dangerous.” I sucked down the last bit of tea that I’d been nursing since the AC went out. The ice had melted long ago, and the cup no longer sweated.

“I think it’s time you join your dad’s company, Roxanna Leigh.”

“Mother, please. Let’s not have this conversation right now.” I was too hot, sticky, and miserable for the round-and-round with her.

“Your father and I think you’ve already wasted too much time working for your uncle.”

I would have sighed out loud, but my mouth was dry. “You know, it sounds like you and dad are talking an awful lot lately.”

“We’re your parents. We can talk about you all we want,” she huffed.

She’d completely missed the point. They were way too friendly lately, and that worried me. She was a mess after he left—had she forgotten? Because I hadn’t.

“No, you don’t need to talk about me all the time because I am an adult now, and I make my own money and pay my own bills, and I never ask you and dad for anything. So I don’t think my career should be a main source of topic for the two of you.” After a moment’s hesitation, and because I didn’t want to hurt her, I added, “And you shouldn’t be talking to him so much.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she snapped. Her feelings were hurt easily, and when she was hurt, she lashed out.

“It means I want you to be careful. He’s married, remember?”

“This is no way to talk to your mother,” she said, her accent thickening with her annoyance.

“All right, all right.” I decided it was best to change the subject. “I talked to Lucky. She is
not
pregnant and she’s not getting married.”

My mother sniffed. “She’s gaining weight.”

If I lived in the same city with my mother and my aunt, I’d be stuffing my face with pepperoni pizza on a daily basis and gaining weight too. I kept that to myself. Instead, I said, “You and Aunt Maria need to give her a break.”

“If she gets fat she’ll never find a man to marry her.”

I held my breath and puffed my cheeks out chipmunk-style. After a few seconds, I exhaled. “Lucky is twenty-two years old. She doesn’t need to get married any time soon.”

“What about you? She told me you met someone. Why haven’t I heard about him?”

I had no idea what possessed Lucky to let that little tidbit of information slip. I bet it was because my mother and aunt ganged up on her about her own relationship status.

“His name is Chase and it’s not serious.” Not even close. Especially since I hadn’t heard from him in a week.

“Chase. That’s a nice name. Is he rich?” she asked.

I pressed my eyelids together. “Mother, he does just fine financially, but that’s not important because we aren’t even dating. We’re just . . .” What the hell were we? “Friends.”

Friends. The word sounded like disappointment on my lips.

“Well, what does he do for a living?”

“He’s a doctor.”

“
Ooh,
a doctor?” Her voice shook with excitement. “I’m going to call your dad.”

“Wait, no—”

She hung up.

The door to the club opened and out walked Matthew Garret and his girlfriend. I turned the key in the ignition. At the same moment I glanced out the window, Matthew looked up over the roof of his car—and right at me. Our gazes connected and for some reason, I ducked.

Shit, shit, shit.
I shouldn’t have ducked. I knew better. My conversation with my mother had shaken me up.

I inched my head up so I could peek out the driver’s window. Matthew had driven his sports car away from the curb and into traffic. I popped up in my seat and shoved the shifter into drive.

He didn’t go home, but I didn’t expect him to. His wife might be there by now. From what Beverly told me, Matthew’s wife was a forty-five year old interior decorator who worked a lot from home.

He turned into the parking lot of an apartment complex. I slowed and parked two cars down from the turn into the apartment complex, then reached for my binoculars. It only took a moment to spot his bright red car in the midst of all the less expensive vehicles. His girlfriend jumped out, laughing, and threw herself into his arms. He carried all the shopping bags to her door, where their goodbye lasted longer than I cared to witness.

After a few stops—the gas station, a cigar shop, a florist—he finally went home. The dozen roses were for his wife. From what I’d witnessed, he was a jerk, but not a cat thief. He’d done nothing suspicious so far. It might be morally wrong to spend a ton of money on lingerie for his girlfriend, but it wasn’t a crime. Nothing about this case made sense.

By the time I switched vehicles at LM Security and returned home, I was hungry, in need of a shower, and irritated. Now that I’d ruled out aliens, all I had was a smudged shoe print, a neighbor who despised Beverly, and a man in his late fifties who was cheating on his wife. I had nothing.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

After a shower, I stood in front of my open refrigerator—it was mostly empty inside. My choices were celery sticks, yogurt, a half-gallon of skim milk, or two eggs. My stomach growled, which made me think of Chase.

I mean, what kind of guy asked a woman to dinner—
said he wanted to feed her—
and then didn’t? After that brief, steamy hot kiss on my porch, I was sure he’d come back for more.
It’s all I’ve been thinking about!
So how could he not be too?

He was
into
that kiss.
And he’d definitely been into the first one in his exam room.

But he hadn’t called, hadn’t texted, hadn’t sent a messenger pigeon . . .

Maybe he wasn’t interested? The kiss we’d shared suggested otherwise.

Perhaps my irritation was more self-centered and had less to do with him not calling me. My lips pursed in consideration.