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I’ll never know what it was. Because I pulled the trigger, sending a bullet deep into her brain.
CHAPTERTWO
Josette Fournier tugged at her messy brown ponytail and stared down at the pile of boxes and furniture growing steadily in her garage.
Bedroom. Office. Kitchen. Living room.
Cleopatra, the Sphynx cat she’d adopted after the cat’s owner had been carted off to jail, hopped up onto the topmost box, flicked her tail around her back legs, and yowled at Jo in indignant protest.
“I know how you feel,” she grumbled.
Jo inhaled deeply, turned on her heel, and strode into the kitchen. Still trying to keep her breath even, she grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, wrenched off the cap, and downed half of the contents.
This is a good thing, she reminded herself.You wanted this. You still want this. You love Matt.
And all that was true. But some PTSD-damaged portion of her brain railed against every box and chair and tchotchke, sending fight-or-flight alerts coursing through her body.
She closed her eyes and took another gulp as she tried to talk herself down. What was this really about? Where was the fear coming from?
Their discussions about it all had gone well. She’d offered her guest bedroom up as an office for him, but he suggested they keep a room available for visitors and use the office jointly. It was big enough, and neither of them really worked from home all that much since he had a full office in a medical complex for his neurology practice, so the compromise had seemed a good one. In terms of furniture, he’d decided to rent out his house fully furnished to his nephew Roderigo, which meant they’d stick mostly with her furniture, except for a few pieces that had special meaning for him. She’d never been a clotheshorse, so dividing closet and drawer space would be relatively painless. And, it was only right that he have personal touches in what would now be his home, too.
Each and every bit of it made sense when she examined it.
But when they’d shifted her treadmill so his desk could slip into the office, her abdomen had flipped and flopped like she’d eaten roadside sushi. When she restacked her pots and pans to create space for his gourmet cooking gear, her chest clenched like a boa constrictor had squeezed it. And when she shifted the perfectly symmetrical layout of her mantle to make room for the picture of his siblings and his parents, she’d broken out into a cold sweat.
As the overhead garage door rattled and clanged down into place, she hurried to erase the panic from her expression and replace it with pleasant optimism.
The interior garage door swung open into the kitchen and Matt appeared, a wide smile across his tired face. “That’s the last of it.”
Jo held out the water bottle to him and returned his smile. “Fast and easy, just like you promised.”
He took the bottle, drained it, then pulled her into his arms. “Looks like you’re officially stuck with me.”
She gazed up into his warm, brown eyes and shifted her attention to the feel of his hands on her hips. In his mid-forties, Matt had the physique of a man a decade younger, and only the smallest sprinkle of salt peppered his black hair. His square-jawed, laugh-line-creased good looks always set off a flutter in her chest and a wave of warm electricity to liquify her legs. She lifted her head up to his and kissed him, allowing herself to sink into those feelings.
“Mmm,” he said when she finally pulled away. “That’s what I call a welcome.”
Jo smiled up at him, then glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’m starving. How about some Saturday-morning brunch? You’ve been doing most of the heavy lifting, so the least I can do is whip up somepain perdufor you with that leftover brioche in there.”
“That sounds amazing.” He gave her a quick squeeze, then reached for the Moka pot on the counter. “Tell you what. You start that, and I’ll make us a couple of mochas.”
As she juggled the bread, eggs, and milk out of the refrigerator, he packed coffee and water into the pot. She mentally noted the well-orchestrated ballet they danced around each other, Cleopatra weaving in and out, and tried to take comfort from it. They’d found a way to share this space together, and they’d find a way to work out the rest.
“So. Roderigo called me. He decided he’s going to move in with his girlfriend in Boston after all,” Matt said.
Jo dropped a piece of batter-coated bread into the sizzling pan and shook her head. Matt’s nephew had been the perfect solution to their two-house situation, someone he trusted enough to rent his furnished house to. “Wow, nothing like waiting until the last minute to let you know you need to find another renter. I don’t suppose you have any other family waiting in the wings?”
He shot her a wary look as he screwed the Moka pot closed. “Depends on what you mean by family.”
A low-level alarm bell rang in Jo’s head. “That doesn’t sound good.”
He didn’t meet her eyes as he wiped up a water spill. “David told me if the arrangement fell through, he’d like to rent it.”
Jo poked at the French toast with her spatula before responding. David, Jo’s brother-in-law, had recently been discovered cheating on Sophie, Jo’s sister. Not only cheating—he’d gotten his mistress pregnant. David claimed to have ended the affair, but Sophie wasn’t sure whether she could forgive him and had asked David to move out of their shared house while she decided for or against a divorce. “And you want to rent it to him,” Jo stated.
Matt looked up at her as the pot gurgled, his expression sheepish. “I know it’s not ideal, and I never would have offered it to him. He’s the one who brought it up.”
Jo half-smiled. “Effectively placing you in an extremely awkward situation. If you say no, you’re turning your back on someone you’ve formed a fledgling friendship with. If you say yes, you’re pissing off Sophie, and making my life difficult.”
