A Deep and Dark December (19 page)

“Erin!”

Nothing.

He tried the knob, but it was locked. He raced around the house to the front door. He pounded on it with the flat of his hand.

“Erin!”

This time the knob twisted in his hand. He went in low, gun raised. Silence. He mentally sketched the layout of the house as he remembered it. The living room was first, the kitchen at the back, a hall opened on the right. He slid his feet across the hardwood, not wanting to trip over something. He thought about calling out again, but if Erin was able to hear she would have answered his earlier calls.

He came to the turn into the living room, paused, then went low around the corner. A lamp lay on its side on the floor behind the couch. The light he’d seen through the window. Yeah, definitely something wrong here. He scanned what he could see of the room in the dimness. His gaze snagged on something sticking out from behind the couch.

A hand.

He raced forward.

Erin lay sprawled on her back, her face turned toward him. A thin stream of blood oozed from her nose into the carpet.

Graham sank to his knees beside Erin, his heart galloping in his chest. He placed two fingers to her neck. Her pulse was slow, but measurable. His breath whooshed out and he gripped his knees to keep from collapsing next to her.

She was alive.

His training kicked in and he was back on his feet, gun up. Whoever had done this to her could still be in the house. He reached for his phone to call for back up, remembering too late that he’d left it in the car. He strained to listen. Nothing. Inching his way across the floor, he checked the rest of the house. Empty. Whoever had attacked her was gone.

He dropped back down beside her. “Erin.” He patted her cheek. “Come on, Erin. Wake up.”

She moaned, turning her face away.

“That a girl. Come on.” He took her hand and rubbed it between his. “Wake up and give me shit like you always do.”

“I only give you the shit you deserve,” she murmured.

He grinned like the fool he was when she was near. “That’s true.”

“Where…?” Blinking, she looked up at him and in that moment all he wanted to do was hug her and tell her it would be okay. “What happened?” she asked.

“You tell me. Who did this to you? Please tell me it was that goofy grocer so I have a reason to punch him in the face.”

“He left… I think.” She struggled to sit up.

He held her shoulders down. “Stay put. I’m calling an ambulance.”

“No. Don’t. No one did this to me…exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just let me up and I’ll tell you.”

“What if you hit your head? You should see a doctor.”

She reached a hand up to feel her scalp. “I didn’t. I’m fine. Let me up.”

He watched her closely as he helped her into a sitting position.

“Let me see.” He gently ran his hands through her hair, feeling for any lumps. He ignored how amazing her hair felt in his hands and just how damn good it was to be near her. After a few moments, he reluctantly removed his hands and sat back on his haunches. “No bumps.”

“Told you.”

“Now tell me what happened.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket—a habit drilled into him by his father—and dabbed at the blood on her face.

“I’m bleeding?”

“Yeah,” he answered grimly, holding her chin in his hand to keep her still. He could feel her watching him as he gently wiped away the blood. Each red smear was like a knife through his gut. “Here.” He handed her the handkerchief to finish up, trying to hide how badly his hands were suddenly shaking as he crossed his arms. She scared the shit out of him in more ways than one. He cleared his throat and watched her wipe at her nose. “Better?”

“I never get bloody noses.”

He regarded her with a frown, trying to get a handle on a few minor things like what the hell had happened here? What was her emotional and physical state? And this new, perplexing awareness he associated only with her.

“What caused it?” he asked.

“I had another vision, but before I could get control of it I got broadsided.”

“Broadsided.”

“That’s the only way I can describe it except that it was kind of like getting hit over the head with a metal folding chair.”

“That’s happened to you before?” he asked, his head jerking back in surprise.

“No. Of course not.”

“What was the vision about?”

“Keith having sex with Deidre.”

He made a face. “Eww.”

“Yeah. That was my sentiment. I turned away from the…scene to look outside—”

“You can do that?” he interrupted.

“Usually. If I can focus on something else in the room, I can work my way out of it. But this time I turned to look out the window, concentrating on the hotel sign—”

“You saw what hotel they met in?”

“Yeah, something about it was familiar.” She put a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes.

He settled on the floor next to her. “Describe it to me.”

“Red and blue. Square. On a pole in the parking lot.” She lowered her hand and opened her eyes. “There were a lot of cars going by on the street out front even though it was early in the morning.”

“A highway maybe? What else was around it?”

~*~

Erin tried to concentrate on Graham’s questions, but with him so close it was difficult to separate her memories from the tangle of emotions his proximity stirred up. “There was a
McDonald’s
across the street, I think. Yes. Definitely a Mickey D’s. The hotel sign had a number on it, like an eight or a six…
Super 6
!”

“That’s good. Anything else?”

“No. I think that’s it.”

“Now tell me what happened between you and the cheating check-out clerk.”

“Keith?”

“Is there another one?” Was that jealousy tugging his mouth down into a frown?

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m interviewing him tomorrow.”

“Can I at least get up off the floor before reliving my humiliation?”

“Sure.” He helped her to her feet, which weren’t as steady as she wanted them to be. “Easy. Come and sit down.” He guided her to the couch, then sat down next to her. He wiggled a finger at her nose. “You got a little something…”

“I’m still bleeding?” She wiped at her nose with his handkerchief.

“No. Not blood.”

“What then?” Realization dawned with burning embarrassment. “Ooohh.” She covered her nose with both her hands. “I’ll just go…” She eased up off the couch and headed for the bathroom, grateful to be steadier on her feet.

The sight that met her in the mirror made her gasp. She’d been talking to Graham all this time with a booger hanging out of her blood-smeared nose! She turned on the tap. While it ran to hot, she blew her nose. Why did these things always happen to her? Her cheeks burned. How horribly, awfully mortifying. First he finds her flat on her face on the floor. Then he wiped up her blood with his pristine handkerchief. And who carries a handkerchief these days anyway? And then,
then
she smeared that same handkerchief with snot.

She rinsed the poor abused cloth, scrubbing at the dried in blood. A trickle of a memory danced at the edge of her consciousness, but she couldn’t quite catch a hold of it. Something from a vision maybe? She closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind and focus, but the thought slipped away. What was it? She was missing something important. She shook her head and opened her eyes. She was losing it. Maybe she really had hit her head.

After rinsing off her face, doing a minor makeup touch up, and checking her nose this way and that, Erin headed back out to the living room. Graham wasn’t there. She followed faint sounds coming from the kitchen. Graham stood at the stove, his back to her, stirring something and mumbling.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her earlier embarrassment quickly morphing into surprise.

“Making you some food,” he answered, without turning around.

“What? Why?”

“I’m guessing there was no dinner date so there was probably no dinner either.”

She kicked the barstool back, nearly toppling it, and sat down. She propped her chin on her hand. “No. There wasn’t. What are you making?”

“Chili. I found a can in your pantry.” He looked at her over his shoulder. “Hungry?”

“I guess.”

“Want toast?”

“No.”

He went back to his stirring. “What happened with Keith?”

“I think that’s the first time you’ve actually called him by his name and didn’t find a way to make fun of him. Why the change?”

He hitched a shoulder. It was a nice shoulder and even nicer in a pair that tapered down to a V at his waist. She leaned across the counter, bringing his behind into view. A rather tight behind, snug in jeans that hugged all the right places. He chuckled and she snapped her gaze back to his in the reflection of the microwave.

“You have a nice ass,” she said unapologetically. “I just noticed.”

“Thanks.” He winked. “So do you.”

She smiled back at him. How did he do it? How did he manage to get her out of her funks when nothing and no one else usually could? “I think I’ll have a glass of wine.” She slid off the barstool. “Want some?”

“Sure.”

“What goes with canned chili? Red or white?”

“Got any boxed wine?”

She laughed. “Heck, no. But I might have a couple bottles of Two Buck Chuck.”

“Works for me.”

She uncorked a bottle of red and poured two glasses. She handed one to Graham. “You’re not on duty tonight?”

“No. Not really.”

She pulled a couple of bowls and spoons out and set them on the countertop next to the stove. Leaning back against the counter next to him, she sipped her wine. “What does that mean ‘not really’?”

“I’m the sheriff. I’m pretty much on call twenty-four-seven in a town this size.”

“Sounds like you’ve gotten used to it.”

He made a face.

“Or not.” She set her glass down, deciding on a subject change. “Tell me, what happened out at Old Man Rooster’s house? I heard he shot himself in the ass, trying to shoot his neighbor’s dog for barking at his ugly wife.”

Graham rolled his head in her direction, one corner of his mouth kicked up. He had a naughty gleam in his eye that was probably the undoing of a lot of ladies’ intentions. “You really want to know?”

“I asked.”

He switched off the burner and turned toward her. “What’ll you give me for it?”

“Give you? You’re drinking my cheap wine and are about to eat my…” He leaned toward her and she suddenly lost all thought but the memory of his lips on hers.

“Erin?” he whispered, close enough for her to catch his scent. He smelled of the ocean and something altogether new and dangerous.

“Hmm?”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me what happened with Keith.”

“Blackmail is beneath you.”

“I always get what I want.”

She lowered her gaze to his mouth. “I’m surprised you just don’t take it.”

“Where’s the finesse in that?”

Her reply caught on a gasp as his hand grazed the back of hers.
Accidental or on purpose?

“Tell me you broke up with him,” he said.

“I did.”

“How’d he take it?”

“How would you take it?”

He rested a hand on the counter next to her, leaning in. His thumb brushed the inside of her wrist. Once. Twice. “Not well.”

“That makes one of you.”

“Really?” He drew out the word, stretching it as thin as her resolve.

“He seemed more concerned that you knew about him and Deidre.”

“What exactly did he say?” All languidness gone, Graham’s gaze sharpened.

“He demanded to know who told me about their affair.” Instinctively she rubbed her arms where Keith had grabbed her.