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“Not that I owe you an explanation, but a friend of mine who lives up the street noticed some suspicious activity, and since I live on the next street over, he gave me a call, so I decided I’d come check it out myself. He told me he’d spotted a late model red Ford doing circuits around the neighborhood before it disappeared down the alley. Sound familiar?”
Savannah itched, and her gaze dipped to her feet before she looked back at me with a hike of her shoulder. “Yeah, I was driving around making sure I liked the neighborhood.”
“Mmm,” I hummed.
She waved a hand around her. “But this place isn’t quite what I was looking for, so I’m just gonna go.”
She started to turn and walk, and I snatched her by the wrist and pulled her close. “Not so fast, Little Trespasser.”
Heat blazed in the inch of space that separated us. Fathomless eyes went wide, and I wondered if I could see all the way to the depths of them to what she was hiding.
To whatever made her skittish and had her constantly looking over her shoulder like she was terrified of her ghosts catching up. Or maybe she was just running headlong into them.
“You can tell me, you know.” My mouth was too close to hers, and that feeling that kept sweeping through me every time she was near almost knocked me from my goddamn feet. My stomach in knots and my heart clattering at my ribs.
Her breaths were shallow, and the woman was filling my senses.
Mango and cream.
“And what would I tell you, Officer Patterson?” The words came as a whispered challenge.
“What you’re in. You can tell me if you need help. What you’re afraid of.” I still held her around the wrist, and I smoothed my thumb over the spot on her palm that had the number of the apartment written in black ink. “What you’re looking for.”
Shivers raced her flesh, and I knew I was so out of bounds that I needed to step away. But right that second, I was stuck, needing her to know that I meant it. “I’m here for you if you need someone.”
She swayed for a beat, like maybe she was disoriented, falling, before every muscle in her slight body tightened in restraint.
“I don’t need anyone’s help,” she said, and her jaw ticked in something that looked too close to grief. “I can handle things on my own.”
“Of course, you can, but you shouldn’t have to.”
Her gaze fluttered over my face, a severity crackling through the heavens that covered us from above. Then she steeled herself and stepped back, and she tugged her wrist from my hold.
Reluctantly, I let her go.
“Am I free to leave?” she asked with a jut of that sharp, defiant chin.
I wavered for a moment before I muttered, “Yeah.”
Nodding, she dipped around me to head in the direction of where I’d seen she’d left her car in the alley.
“But I’m going to be watching you, Little Trespasser,” I called behind her.
She spun where she was about twenty feet down the walkway, a sadness in her demeanor that cut me through like a knife. “Don’t look too close, Officer Patterson.”
Then she turned and disappeared through the opening that led to the back parking lot.
And I stood there wondering what it was about her that made me want to look closer than I had anyone before.
“Daddy, wook it!” Owen called as he scrambled up the steps to the slide at the top of their play fort.
“I’m watching you,” I called from where I sat on a rocker on the back porch watching over my kids while they played in the twilight that covered the yard.
“Watch me, too!” Oliver shouted, chasing after his twin.
Olivia had retreated to the spot where she had some play horses set up on the lawn—her latest obsession since her cousin Evelyn lived out on a ranch and had her own horse—the little girl getting lost in her own imagination after I’d spent the last hour and a half playing games with them in our backyard.
I’d called it and said I needed a break, but the twins had begged me to stay out here and watch them for a while longer, and there was no chance I could deny their sweet little faces something so simple.
So I rocked in the wooden chair as I watched them play, half content, half itching in my seat.
It wasn’t like I had gotten Savannah Ward off my mind since I’d met her, but it was tenfold since I’d found her trying to break and enter that apartment last night.
An apartment that was in fact empty but was not for rent, something I’d found when I’d done a little background check while I was at the station today. It was owned by an out-of-state corporation, likely used for summer vacations or winter ski trips to the nearby resort.
