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“So, you’ll let Danny take you home?”
“To my house. I’ll pack up my clothes and tomorrow when you go home, I’ll move in officially,” I compromise.
“Are you sure?” Ben asks, worry in his eyes.
“You’re positive that Greg is toast, right?”
“Literally,” he nods and maybe it’s bad form, but I laugh. “Honestly, Baby, his body was in the wreckage of the explosion. I know it’s upsetting we couldn’t see him die, as gruesome as that sounds, but I saw him driving that car and it crashed and his body was in there.”
“Yeah,” I nod. “I’ll be fine, you need to quit worrying.”
“I’ll always worry about you, Baby. You’re my world.”
“I love you, Ben.”
“Love you, too. Let Danny take you home, please? I’ll even have him stay and keep an eye on things.”
“That’s just silly. You said yourself that Greg is dead, and this isn’t like it was with Atticus. Your men saw that car go up in smoke and weknowhe was behind the wheel. The nightmare is over,” I tell him, and I’m not sure if I’m trying to convince him or myself.
“I’ll be home tomorrow,” he says, and I smile.
“Good, I don’t like not being in bed with you,” I murmur.
“We’ll make up for lost time, as soon as I’m able,” he promises.
“I’m going to hold you to that, Sheriff.”
“Give me those lips, Junebug.” I roll my eyes, but I do as he orders, because I’m not stupid, I love my man’s kiss.
Junie
Danny is worse than Ben. Okay, not completely and maybe he was under Ben’s orders. All I know is it’s one in the morning and I just threw Danny a blanket and a pillow so he could sleep on my couch. At first, he was just going to split a pizza with me. Then he watched some football game on television while I began packing up all my clothes.I really need to do a major donation to Goodwill.I never realized how many clothes I had until I tried to fit them all in three suitcases and an overnight bag. I finally gave up and pulled out the big guns—giant black garbage bags. Ben may take one look at all my baggage and back out of this whole moving in together thing.
I talked with Ben on the phone several times. He seems to be hurting more tonight, but the doctor said that’s to be expected.
“Talk to you in the morning, Danny.”
“Probably not, Junie. I have to report in at six. The office will be shorthanded with Ben out and Gavin dealing with Augusta. I’ll lock the door behind me, though.”
“Augusta? What’s Gavin doing?” I ask confused.
Danny looks at me rather sheepishly, shrugging. “Ben had the ME’s office send DNA samples from the body in the wreck to the state office for comparison,” he says, resigned.
“DNA? Comparison to what, Danny?” I ask, a chill moving through me.
“Don’t get that look, Junie. We’re sure it’s your ex, it’s just Ben thought you’d sleep sounder at night if you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. We found a hairbrush among the guy’s personal effects. Ben sent it all down with Gavin so they could compare.”
The thought of Ben going through all of that blows me away. I feel kind of silly, but he’s right, I will sleep better with proof.
“Can they do that? I mean the explosion was pretty severe, right?” I ask, curious because I honestly have no idea how any of this works.
“The ME said that most of the genetic markups were probably contaminated or useless, but they might be able to get enough to at least let you breathe easier.”
I sigh, thinking about everything Ben’s going through for me. I know without even asking that he’s going above and beyond for me. Doing all of this is not standard procedure.
“I guess you probably think I’m silly,” I mumble, looking at Danny.
“No way. You’ve been through hell since moving here to Stone Lake, Junie. You deserve to be able to breathe easy,” he says and that makes me feel a little better.
