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He kept his tone light as he reached for the moisturizer. “On the first day you arrived?”
“Of course.”
Burke squeezed a tiny amount of the cream onto his fingers and warmed it up. If she were careful with her money, he doubted she used a lot. She’d also told him frequent thin layers helped the scar heal and not be itchy.
He cradled her arm and lightly brushed the cream into her skin.
Rissa sucked in a deep breath at his touch. She leaned her head on his shoulder as he gently worked the cream into the skin below her elbow. The teardrop shape was over three inches long, with thicker scarring at the bottom where the bastard had held the lighter almost directly to her skin.
“I’m okay.” A soft caress of his hand accompanied her whisper.
Burke lifted his head to gaze into her eyes. “You are. You’re one of the strongest people I know, Rissa. I wish you hadn’t had to be.”
“I’m okay, especially with how my life is turning out.”
Frizzle barked at her words and wriggled until she was in the midst of their embrace.
Burke laughed. “Hey, Frizzle. Tired of being ignored?”
The Yorkie squirmed in delight as they both patted her.
Burke sighed dramatically. “I guess the next experiment will have to wait until later.”
Rissa laughed, her cheeks going pink. “I’m not sure it can top the first three.”
He kissed her. “We can do it.”
Once they cleaned up and returned the Murphy bed to the wall, they put on their winter gear and headed out.
Frizzle explored the area near the RV while reality hit Burke again. They’d been in their own bubble for the last few hours, but it was time to face the real world again.
Someone had placed an IED at the front of their property, intending to hurt one of them. Anger rippled through him again at the thought of it harming Rissa, Frizzle, one of the kids, or his pregnant sister.
He needed to protect them all, but he couldn’t do that without knowing the reason for the threat. “I should call the FBI agent I worked with back in Boston. Maybe Ichiro can do some digging.”
Rissa nodded. “They should do everything they can to protect you after all you did for them.”
Her fierce voice and attitude warmed him up, just as they had when she’d told Marcus he should have called for medical assistance rather than investigating the IED.
Rissa had many facets. Mostly, she was friendly but quiet, almost shy. When she taught, her enthusiasm shone from her face and her words. Her compassion for others was obvious. But her fierceness was reserved for rare occasions. He enjoyed being one reason she felt strongly enough to show that side.
He didn’t like that danger was at the heart of it. “Do you think the Clancy family is behind this?”
Rissa rolled her lips together, something she did when she was worried, nervous, or thinking deeply. “We don’t have much data to go on, but it seems more likely that Curt Anderson would be behind the attack.”
Burke frowned. “He’s in jail.”
She nodded. “True, but he’s not in isolation, and he hasn’t been there long. He didn’t go to jail until after the trial, so he had time to make plans with someone else, and now he has phone calls and access to mail. Now that you’re out of Boston and not a continuing threat, I can’t see a criminal organization spending time or money chasing you down. It wouldn’t benefit them because you’re not a danger to their organization. This feels more like personal revenge.”
He nodded while he thought of it from that perspective. “But it was addressed to the family.”
“Would Curt know that your family is here?”
Burke thought back on their conversations. “I don’t know. Joel knew that I was coming to Vermont to visit family, but I never spoke to Curt about my decision to leave.”
“How about earlier? Did you talk about inheriting an apple farm with your siblings?”
It was difficult to bring back individual conversations. “Probably. It was such a bizarre thing to get a letter telling us not only that Jay had left us the farm, but that he was Fox’s brother. I thought about it a lot, so I probably spoke about it at work. And when Knox decided he wanted to try living here, I probably vented my frustration at work, too.”
