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“If you see it again, call me.”
She nodded. “I’d better go. It’s nice to talk in person, though. And not at the police station . . . or the hospital.”
“Agreed.”
They started to walk to the kitchen door at the same time and bumped into each other. He reached out a hand to her arm to steady her. The contact felt electric against her bare skin. She remembered him holding her at the hospital and wanted to be held again. She looked up, and those blue eyes were steady and full of something primal that he probably didn’t know she could see.
“You can kiss me,” she whispered, heart thudding.
His mouth opened to spout objections, she thought. She placed a finger over his lips, not wanting to hear them.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, she thought, he cupped the back of her neck and brought her lips to his. She felt the hard warmth of his mouth and responded to the kiss, wrapping her arms around his waist. The kiss became more urgent. Full of desire. She would have lain down right there on the kitchen table if Fido hadn’t squeezed between them, yipping and trying to jump.
They broke apart, each breathing hard.
McCrae said, “I . . . I didn’t . . .”
“Mean for that to happen?” Delta finished, hearing the breathless sound of her own voice.
His mouth quirked. “Want that to stop.”
They looked at each other.
“You have to go,” he said.
“I have to go,” she agreed.
He nodded, finally breaking eye contact. This time, Delta walked ahead of him out the door, and he followed her to her car, seeing the way the breeze teased her blouse, pressing it against her back, messing with the long, lustrous tresses of her dark hair. He watched as she backed out of his drive, lifting a hand in good-bye.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
* * *
“Holy shit,” he muttered as he walked back in the house, running his hands through his hair. Not what was supposed to happen. Way off what was supposed to happen.
Fido cocked his head to and fro. McCrae realized it was time to feed him and poured kibbles into his bowl. Fido scarfed them down as if he was starving. Typical behavior.
But kissing Delta was not typical behavior for McCrae.
He purposely worked on shutting down his mind on her. Tried to remember all Quin’s warnings.
To hell with it. That wasn’t going to work. Instead, he concentrated on what she’d said that had sparked a negative feeling in him. Nothing to do with her. Something in what she’d said.
The black SUV. Suburban-like, she’d said. Zora and Brian had been run off the road . . . although preliminary reports suggested that maybe they’d already been dead, or unconscious, and that a block of concrete had been wedged against the accelerator, propelling them off the cliff.
Was someone following her? The more she’d dismissed it, the more concerned he’d become, even though he’d sought to hide his feelings.
He thought about Woody. He hadn’t seen his old classmate since the reunion. They’d never been fast friends. Woody was just naturally too much of an anarchist, while McCrae leaned toward law and order . . . Delta notwithstanding.
Stay away from the station, Quin had said. Hurston was hovering like a dark cloud. Why? Why was he going after Delta so hard?
There was a new lead into proving Bailey’s and Penske’s deaths were not a murder/suicide. Hurston would fight to prove they were. Not for justice’s sake. Just not to be wrong. But Delta . . . what the hell was with Hurston’s interest in the Stahd case?
He called Quin, who answered formally, “Robert Quin,” even though he had to know it was McCrae. Someone must be around. Hurston? Was he still at the station? Or maybe it was Corinne, listening with big ears.
“Meet me at the county jail. Let’s talk to Gale Crassley about that car,” McCrae said. “He’s the ringleader of that clan.”
“Uh huh. Sure, I’ll look into it.”
