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“Why all the sudden questions?”
“Because you said you like me too much.” She’d made no conscious decision to put that right out there. She’d just been following Gabi’s suggestion that she ask him what he wanted out of life. Because at the moment, she trusted her best friend’s judgment more than she trusted her own.
“Yeah.” He glanced down.
“Yeah.”
He fiddled with his napkin.
“Because I think I might like you too much, too,” she said. He looked up then. And his gaze told her what his words didn’t.
She might be in deep.
But he was, too.
* * *
HE COULDN’T DO THIS. Couldn’t let her confess feelings for him when he couldn’t be honest with her about why he was there. He couldn’t let her think that her feelings were unreturned, either.
“I think we should go on up,” Elliott said when the silence between him and Marie begged him to do something about it.
Like call Barbara Bustamante and quit this job.
“Liam has a sunrise breakfast, and we still need to go over last-minute protocol.” Which he could do in the morning, but it was the best he could come up with...
Elliott saw the shadow a split second before he heard the sound of crashing glass. But it was enough time to dive for Marie and have her on the floor beneath him before things shattered around them. With his gun in his hand, he stayed over her, holding himself up enough not to crush her and waited.
Thirty long seconds.
Silent seconds.
Every instinct in his body screamed. Go after the guy before he got away. Never let Marie out of his sight again.
And he remembered the security guard out front. He’d be handling the situation outside. Unless he was hurt...
“Elliott?”
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t want to move. And had to move quickly. Lifting himself away from her, Elliott shielded Marie while he took stock of her shop. The front window glass had a gaping hole. Glass shards stuck out all over. It was the kind of break that happened when someone threw something from a distance. Far enough that he could get away with it with a security guard manning the block. Not the kind you crawled through.
They were alone in the shop. He couldn’t tell what was going on outside. But no one had tried the door.
With his cell phone at his ear, he waited for James Wilson, the Denver cop assigned to Liam’s case, to pick up. “I don’t think he knew we were in here,” he told Marie. “The shop’s been closed more than an hour, and the overhead lights are off. He’s not looking to hurt you.” That was his immediate professional assessment.
He hoped to God he was right.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A COMMON FIREPLACE brick had been thrown through her front window. The guard out front had chased a hooded man he’d seen across the street right as soon as he’d seen the brick go through the window. He’d been several yards away from the shop’s window and lost the guy before he got a good look at him. He’d called the cops next. And had been shocked to find out that Elliott and Marie had been inside.
There’d been a note attached to the brick—addressed to Liam on plain copy paper that could have come from any ink-jet printer in the city.
It asked one question.
Do you feel me yet?
