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She was worried that she’d scared Jonathon off with her shock-induced declaration of love. What had she been thinking? No guy wanted to hear that after dating for a couple of days. And she and Jonathon had never even actually dated. She was just going to blame it on being shot—it was a pretty good excuse, after all. Or hopefully, Jonathon was just not even going to bring it up.
“Hey,” he grinned at her when she’d garnered enough courage to open the door. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
“Oh, yeah, it is. I totally lost track of time,” she smiled back.
“These are for you.” He held out a bouquet of dandelion puffs and a fluffy white teddy bear.
“Dandelion puffs?” she giggled, half-amused, half-confused.
“They remind me of you—whimsical and free. Plus, now whenever you see dandelions, you're going to think of me and of this day, our first proper date,” his grin grew wider.
Raising an eyebrow, she asked, “Our first real date?”
“I owe you one, remember? Now you take these.” He gave her the flowers and the teddy, picked up the basket that sat at his feet, and headed for her kitchen.
While she was interested to see what Jonathon had planned, there were some things she needed to ask. Clara knew she needed closure before she could move forward. “Jonathon, before we do this, have our first date, I need to know about the case—is it really over?”
“Job Lincoln never made it through surgery; he’s dead. They’re both dead. They killed the couple who owned the Hyatt Estate, the Reebs. We found their bodies buried in the backyard. Itisover now, Clara.”
“Yeah,” she nodded, wishing itfeltlike it was over. “How’s your mom doing? Has it helped her to know the people who killed your sister are dead now?”
“She’s happy they're dead, but in the end, it doesn’t bring back Dora.”
“How're you doing?”
“I hate them for killing my sister; I hate them for hurting you.” His fingertips touched the bruise on her jaw, then lingered on her cheek. “And I'm a little jealous that Naomi was the one to kill Ruth Lincoln and not me,” he joked lamely. “How is Naomi?”
Her sister had also insisted on leaving the hospital, even though her doctors wanted her to stay for at least another day or two. Discharging herself, driving halfway across town and shooting a killer, had weakened her already weak body. Not that Clara could be angry with her sister about it—if Naomi hadn’t arrived when she had then Ruth would have killed both her and Jonathon. Since Naomi was going to discharge herself regardless of anyone else’s opinion on the matter, they'd gotten her to agree to come back to Clara’s house. Dylan and Davis had given her painkillers and a sleeping pill and put her to bed in the guest room before leaving. That she’d agreed to take both was a testament to how exhausted Naomi was.
“She’s okay, pretty weak, she doesn’t really have enough energy to do anything, which is driving her crazy, but it also means she has to sleep.”
“She staying here while she recovers?”
“Yeah, she’s upstairs asleep.”
“How are you doing?” His hand hovered above her bandaged shoulder. “Are you in a lot of pain?”
“I'm all right. The bullet didn’t do much damage. It hurts but it’s not so bad, and the burns are already healing.” She knew they'd leave scars that would forever be a reminder of her ordeal. “I’ll be fine. I’ll need some physical therapy once the wound has healed to get back full movement in my shoulder, but the injury isn’t anywhere near as bad as Naomi’s. I'm okay. Really,” she added truthfully. She felt a little like a mummy since her stomach was bandaged and her arms were wrapped from wrists to shoulders to protect the burns, but considering what she’d just been through, she felt pretty good. “I'm being a good girl and taking plenty of painkillers, and I haven’t done much of anything today, just relaxed and re-read some of my favorite books.” Absently, her fingers moved to the bandaged wound on her shoulder. It was true painkillers had numbed most of the pain, but it was odd that both she and Naomi had been injured in the same place.
“How did Naomi know where we were?”
“She said that somehow she just knew. But she knew everything I remembered from the hypnosis session. I think she just managed to put things together and figure out the killers’ identities. Apparently, she’d been looking through copies of Tommy’s pictures. He must have drawn something from the Hyatt Estate and it just clicked for her. Now why she didn’t just tell someone rather than leave the hospital a day after she nearly bled to death, that I couldn’t tell you.”
“Honey, you're not really angry at your sister—what’s bothering you?” Jonathon took her hand and led her to the living area where he sat her down on one of the sofas.
She shrugged fitfully, then winced at the pain that shot through her shoulder.
“You can talk to me, Clara, I hope you know that. Iwantyou to talk to me. Clara,” he took her chin and gently angled her face toward his, “what you said to me right before you passed out . . .”
Embarrassed, she looked away. “Obviously I’m not inlove with you, you can't love someone you just met. It's just that I’ve just stepped over the ledge … I'm falling for you.”
“Look at me.” He waited until she reluctantly lifted her eyes back to his. “I’m falling, too.”
“What?” Surely her overly medicated mind must be misunderstanding him.
“I’m falling for you, too.” He leaned in close, his lips hovered just above hers.
“Really?”
