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The security system had come with the place when Calen had bought the ranch eight years earlier, and since it extended to the stable and barn where he kept his horses, he turned it on when he was away from the place at night. Even though the crime rate in Christmas Creek was low, it didn’t mean some idiot might not try to steal equipment or one of the horses. That had never happened before, but maybe the rare snowfall and too much Christmas booze had played into the crime.

Or plain old-fashioned desperation.

He was going with door number three on this one, betting the intruder’s motive would be a whopping amount of desperation.

Calen hadn’t even tried to talk Emmy out of coming with him, but he would have if he’d thought a violent altercation was about to occur. But the chances of that happening here were slim. He suspected he knew exactly what he’d find when he pulled into the driveway.

And he was right.

Sasha’s car was parked next to his house. She must have seen or heard him approaching because she came scurrying onto the porch. In all his years of law enforcement, he’d never seen anyone with a guiltier expression.

“Good grief,” Emmy grumbled. “What do you want to bet this is about that letter Sasha’s been whining about?”

That was a sure-thing bet, and Calen wouldn’t take her up on it. He also didn’t have to guess how Sasha had gotten in. After their breakup, he hadn’t asked for his key back because he’d believed she wouldn’t be stupid enough to do something like this.

Apparently though, he’d been the stupid one, because here she was.

The key would have gotten her through the door, but her entry would have still triggered the security alarm since she wouldn’t have had the code to disarm it.

Sasha froze for a couple of seconds before she turned back toward his front door as Calen and Emmy got out of the truck. He didn’t catch what Sasha said, but her action clued him in that she wasn’t there alone.

Hell. Did that mean Owen was inside?

Calen was so not in the mood to deal with that ass tonight.

“Let me guess,” Calen said to Sasha while Emmy and he made their way to the porch. “You decided to try your hand at trespassing and burglary?”

“I just dropped by for a visit,” Sasha insisted, causing Calen to roll his eyes.

“Mercy, you’re a bad liar,” Emmy exclaimed. “About some things anyway,” she added, obviously remembering that Sasha had kept her attraction to Owen under wraps.

Sasha didn’t look offended, but she volleyed glances at Emmy and him, maybe picking up on the clues that they’d just had sex. Their disheveled hair and clothes. The stubble burns on Emmy’s chin from their rough kisses. And the overall sated look that might still be surrounding them. Of course, any feeling of sexual satisfaction was quickly being overwritten by anger at his ex sneaking into his house.

“FYI, stealing mail is a federal offense,” Calen advised her.

His warning put some serious alarm in Sasha’s eyes, and she snapped back her shoulders. “It’s not stealing if it’s mine.”

“It’s not yours,” he pointed out. “Until I hear differently, it belongs to the post office.”

Calen kept on scowling. Not just because of this little B and E mission, but because his past with Sasha was the reason he hadn’t already given her the damn letter. The more she pushed, the more Calen dug in his heels.

When he started to step around Sasha to go inside, she shifted, apparently believing she could block him from entering his own house. Calen just lifted her up by her elbows and moved her aside. Emmy and he went in, and Calen spotted a second intruder by the stacks of mail and packages on his dining room table. Stacks that had been rummaged through.

“I told you to run,” Sasha grumbled. Not to Calen or Emmy but rather to the man who was in Calen’s dining room.

Tate Webster, Owen’s assistant.

Obviously, the rummaging was still going on because Tate was holding several letters in his hands.

“I wouldn’t run and let you take all the blame for this,” Tate told Sasha, and with a heavy sigh, he put the letters back on the table. Like his partner in crime, guilt was plenty evident on his face. Calen figured it coordinated well with the surprise that was on his. “We thought you’d still be at the hospital. It’s all over town that your sister’s having a baby.”

“Had a baby,” Calen clarified. He pointed to Tate and then shifted his finger to Sasha. “So, Tate sent you a card or letter that has something written in it that would clue folks into the fact that you two had an affair.” It wasn’t a question, and neither of them denied it. “Judging from the postmark, the affair was going on right about the time you got engaged to me but before you had sex with Owen.”

Again, no denial. And that made Calen feel like an idiot for not having seen this side of Sasha.

“Why?” Calen asked.

Sasha shrugged, and then as if her bones had dissolved, she sank down onto the floor. “The therapist I’ve been seeing says it’s because my parents always wanted me to be perfect, and that the sex is my subconscious way of rebelling.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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