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p; And with Gram in jail...she was beginning to wonder if it ever would again.
* * *
Clarke hadn’t intended to follow Everleigh Emerson. He’d just been grabbing some bacon from the grocery store. But he’d watched her once he’d caught sight of her. She’d been pushing her cart slowly down aisle seven, moving aside and waiting as an older couple made a spaghetti-sauce choice. And she’d helped a pregnant woman lift a case of bottled water, too.
And if he’d been pressed, he’d have admitted that he’d hung around, waiting to watch her leave, thinking he might have a word with her in the parking lot. Unofficially. As a PI, he hadn’t been directed to pursue her case any further, but having delved into the woman’s life, he was intrigued by her vagaries.
And as a professional, he wanted to know why Randall Bowe had tampered with evidence on multiple cases, including hers. Did he have something against her specifically? Did the other cases he’d manipulated have anything in common with hers?
Work was life, so sue him if he took it to the grocery store with him.
As it turned out, his dedication to the job, his natural curiosity that made him good at his work, had saved a life that morning.
Following the woman to her small house in a nice neighborhood on the west side of town, thinking of her raw beginnings, and the way her husband framed her for infidelity to hide his own extramarital affairs, playing on her coming from the wrong side of the tracks and working as a barmaid, to protect his own reputation...he wanted to make certain that she stayed safe. It was just the right thing to do after everything that had happened. Police-department error had put her in prison. The Coltons and the rest of the department owed it to her to help her get her life back.
And, okay, he had to know who’d just tried to run her down. And why.
All of the cops, including those in his family, would be on it officially. Because of the stickiness of the case, the smirch Randall Bowe had put on the police department in general, and because some of the town’s residents were starting to get vocal about their mistrust, he’d called the chief of police herself to report Everleigh’s grocery-store incident. The chief of police just happened to be his younger sister, Melissa. She was already sending their cousin Grace, a rookie cop, out to canvass streets for any sight of the car.
But as a private investigator, even one who occasionally worked for GGPD, he didn’t have to worry about following as many protocols. Something he’d never been all that good at. Which was why the job fit him so well.
Everleigh pulled straight into the garage, leaving the newly shoveled driveway open for him. Or so he thought to himself as he parked behind her.
Though the yard was covered with the snow that had fallen the night before, he figured her for the type to have flower beds lining the front of her house, with colorful blooms all spring. And she’d probably be growing tomatoes in a little garden out back, too.
And she’d come up with all different things to do with them, various ways to prepare them so not a single one went to waste.
At least that was his profile of her based on the testimonies he’d read in her file—from those who knew her.
With a couple of long strides, he was beside her, managing most of the bags there on his own. His muscles and long limbs came in handy for all kinds of things.
“I can get those,” she told him, but he didn’t listen.
That was a fault his sister pointed out to him on occasion. He always thought he knew best.
He knew what pissed her off was that he so often did. Probably because for so long he’d been more wayward than reliable. A product of their artist mother’s genes, he’d decided. He had a spirit that craved freedom.
And what made Melissa love him, he’d also decided, was that he’d learned how to admit when he was wrong. To apologize. And to make good on his debts.
Exploits that didn’t exactly pull off as envisioned tended to teach a guy a thing or two.
Moving a little more quickly than the slender model-perfect short-haired blonde woman in front of him, Clarke almost crashed into her as he took the one step up to enter the door she’d just unlocked.
“Oh, my God!” Her cry caught at him, more than the situation would normally have caused.
She was tall, but he was taller; he could easily see beyond her shoulder as she stood stock-still, grocery bags in her hand.
Either she was one hell of a bad housekeeper—which his picture of her didn’t relay—or someone had ransacked her house. The hall he could see was strewn with debris. Papers, outerwear, a broken vase with silk flowers askew.
“Step back.” All business, he moved quickly, getting in front of her, setting his bags down on the floor and reaching for his gun. “Stay here.”
He entered the kitchen. Cupboards were hanging open, things pulled from them onto the floor and counters. As he made his way through the house, he found the same in the living room... Things had been pulled out of spaces; cushions were overturned. Rapidly making his way through the rest of the home, he ascertained, first and foremost, that they were alone.
Whoever had been there had left.
And he had a self-professed job to do—find out who was after Everleigh...and protect her at all costs.
Chapter 2
