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She’d killed the man sexually assaulting her and would have reported it if she hadn’t been terrified he’d be blamed for it instead. Deception never sat well with her, and he knew she’d struggled that year to accept what had happened.
Thankfully, her brother Mac had been there for her. Once he’d walked in on the bloody scene and learned what had happened, he’d agreed with Jack: No one would believe she’d killed a man. Hell, there were times Jack knew that Mac had struggled to believe it.
Wiping his forehead with his wrist, he gave another silent sigh at how damned pretty she’d turned out.
Those fiery curls hung around her face and shoulders, and her face was sleep-tousled as she leaned lazily against the doorframe in rainbow-striped pajama pants and a dark blue sleeveless top that barely met the waistband. No bra. He’d noticed that first off.
But she’d greeted him, lifted her cup and given him a little smile before retreating back into the house.
He could pretend that little coffee wave was an invitation, he told himself as he glanced at the beer. He’d been up all night driving and had a lot to unload from the truck. He could use a cup of coffee.
He grimaced at the thought.
Damn, none of this was going to be easy, and none of it would be right or fair, but he was committed now. The fact that she was innocent wouldn’t change anything. Her association with the suspected guilty parties and her known fondness for Jack were going to be her downfall.
Moving to the still open door, beer in hand, he gazed at the little single-story house she’d bought the year before. With its wide back porch, white picket fence, and attached garage, he admitted it suited Poppy.
It was, as some of his former team members’ wives and girlfriends would call it, “cute.” There were flowers along the side of the house, a weeping cherry off to the side of the wide porch with a black iron bench beneath it.
He watched the kitchen blind shift again as he took a sip of the second beer. He knew he should be getting the house ready so he could get some rest. The bed still had to be made, the television set up.
Ian had made certain he had internet access and cable turned on. Thankfully. The bastard hadn’t offered to help unload the truck, though.
Damn. A cup of that coffee would be good, he thought again.
Damn good.
What he was going to do was for her own good. He was protecting her, he told himself. And he definitely didn’t deserve her, but by God, he was going to claim her. She’d owned him since he was fourteen years old, and now he was back for good. She was grown.
It was time.
The firm knock at her front door thirty minutes after she’d stepped back into the house didn’t surprise her. There was a resigned sense of fatalism instead. She’d known, perhaps not consciously, but still, she’d known that this time, Jack would be there.
Just as she knew who was knocking at her door now.
An old country song her mother still listened to drifted through her head. Something about the devil knocking.
Wiping her palms down the hips of her hastily donned jeans, she straightened her sleeveless summer blouse, then ran her fingers through her damp hair as she walked to the door.
She congratulated herself for not running.
Unlocking the dead bolt and doorknob, she opened the door and stepped back.
“Lord, it’s the devil,” she murmured, unable to stop the smile that curled her lips. “Would you look at him!”
The familiar quirk of his lips. Not a smile, but an acknowledgment.
“Terri Gibbs,” he named the singer as he stepped into the house and those dark gray-and-blue eyes seemed to soften. “Hello, Poppy. It’s been a while.”
“Yes, it has been.” She nodded, moving to the coffeepot for the cup she’d placed under the one-cup coffee maker. “I’m surprised you’re not avoiding me this year as you usually do.”
“I didn’t avoid you before,” he told her quietly, as unsmiling and somber as ever. “I gave you distance. There’s a difference.”
She ignored the excuse. “You want coffee? It’s two times the caffeine.”
She turned just in time to catch the arch of his black brow, as though he was surprised.
“Caffeine used to make you jittery,” he reminded her.
