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He turned around, smiled. “Why, thank you, Ms.O’Sullivan.” He set the wooden spoon aside and moved toward her. Her heart quickened. His arms went around her, and he pulled her close, then kissed her cheek. “Glad you’re home. I’ve already taken care of Spot.”
Her arms went around his neck. “Thank you for being what makes me want to come home.”
This time his kiss landed on her lips, and Finley melted into it.
When they both needed air, she drew back just enough to accommodate the need. “Before we get too carried away,” Finley ventured, “there’s something we need to talk about.”
He studied her a moment. “Sounds ominous.”
It is.Taking the coward’s way out, she laughed and said, “Maybe we should eat first. Before it gets cold.”
“Good idea.”
They worked together to fill the bowls and put everything on a tray. He’d paired a great wine, sweet enough to challenge the spicy heat. With the tray on the coffee table, they settled on the sofa and dug in. The chili was amazing, as she had known it would be. When they were finished, she couldn’t put the talk off any longer.
“I have a new follower.”
He set his glass on the coffee table tray and turned to face her. “I have a feeling you’re not talking about social media.”
Her heart sank a little more at the mere thought of Matt being in danger. “No. A guy wearing a hoodie and dark glasses in a black, nondescript sedan. Like before, only different.”
She hated, hated, hated bringing this to him. This was her battle—her demons.
Matt took her glass and placed it next to his. Then he took both her hands in his. “Tell me what happened.”
She walked him through the details of her first sighting the day she visited Jerry Bauer’s office downtown all the way through tonight’s ordeal at the cemetery. Matt’s tension visibly escalated with every word.
“I didn’t want to drag you back into it.” The excuse sounded even stupider when she said it out loud.
“Fin.” He moistened his lips. “I’m already there. We’re in this together. We aretogether. You can’t separate what threatens you from what threatens me, they’re the same.”
She felt sick. “Johnson says it’s not him and ...” She took a deep breath. Matt would not like this at all. “I forced Houser to set up a meeting with Carson Dempsey. I went to his house today.”
The disappointment in Matt’s eyes ripped at her heart.
Before she lost her nerve completely, she hurried to say the rest. “He said it wasn’t him. Of course. He hinted at the idea that it could be others who were affected by what Derrick did.”
“First,” Matt said, “I wouldn’t trust anything Dempsey says. As for Derrick, he had a responsibility to complete his assignment. It wasn’t easy for him, especially since his primary goal was to somehow protect you at the same time. But he got it done.”
“It killed him,” she said, her voice hollow. Even through the fear and the pain, she couldn’t help being even prouder of Matt for still seeing Derrick’s side of things after all he had been through in this.
“Yeah,” Matt agreed. “Sadly, it did, but what we have to remember is that Derrick was a hero. He gave his life to stop a monster, and you, by helping him finish the part he couldn’t, are a hero too.”
She leaned into Matt’s chest, fought the burn of tears. “I’m not a hero, Matt.” He knew the things she had done to accomplish her goal. She had told him everything. None of it was heroic. It was desperate, dangerous and mostly on the edge of legal.
“Yes, you are, but the part that worries me is that you don’t seem to recognize your mortality.”
She looked up at him. “I know I’m not bulletproof. Tonight scared the hell out of me.” She had thought she was braver than that. Or maybe it hadn’t been as much about being scared for her own survival as for the loss of this new life she was building with Matt.
“Good. You should have been scared. No more going to the cemetery so close to dark. In fact, no going anywhere so isolated alone again, got it?”
She nodded. “You’re right.”
“Anytime you want to go visit Derrick’s grave, you tell me, and we’ll go together.”
What other man would be so willing to visit the grave of the one before him?
Finley kissed him, then pressed her forehead to his. “Now tell me about your day.” She never wanted their relationship to be all about her.
