“Roman was here. Gabe was here. Jeff was here. None of them stopped it.”
His gaze shifted to the window where morning traffic crowded the street. “I know. I still think I might have been able to do something.” He turned his attention back to her. “Someone else knows about that night—about what happened.”
She’d been avoiding thinking that. “Or it could be coincidence.”
“Oh, come on, Anna. You’re smarter than that. It’s no coincidence he was killed in that alley. There’s a connection.”
“He was found with drugs in his pocket. It could have been a drug deal gone bad.”
“Yeah, right. And then they beat him to death and carved a heart on his chest.”
She shrugged. “I’m just thinking of all angles.”
“There’s only one angle. Someone saw what happened twelve years ago.”
She looked around the restaurant. No one sat by them, but still she leaned forward. “But why George? He had nothing to do with it.”
“I don’t know. He had no connection to that night. That’s the part that doesn’t make sense.”
To her, either. She had a lot of thinking to do, and she was too damn tired to do it clearly. She needed to recharge, then tackle it again once she’d had some sleep.
She picked up the bill and slid money to the waitress as she stood. “I need to go.”
As she headed out the door, awareness of Dante on her heels pricked at her as she pushed through the front door and toward the parking lot.
“I invited you to breakfast. I would have paid.”
She slid on her sunglasses and pulled her keys from her pocket. “I’m capable of paying for my meal. It was nice to catch up with you, but I’m tired and I’m going home.”
“I’ll follow you.”
“I don’t think so.”
He had the nerve to smile at her. “I’m following you anyway. I want to make sure you get home okay.”
“Are you serious? I’m armed. I’m a detective, for the love of God. And it’s broad daylight. I’ve been taking care of myself for a lot of damn years now, Dante. Just because you swept back into town thinking—I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking—doesn’t mean you need to start protecting me. My days of needing you as my bodyguard are over.”
She stopped just short of blurting out that he’d failed as a bodyguard the last time she’d seen him, but the words stuck in her throat, refusing to come out.
Even she wasn’t that cruel.
He moved in closer. “I’m sure you don’t need someone to watch over you. I know you can take care of yourself. But I’m here and this is what I used to do. So I’m following you home.”
She hated that he was here, messing up her life, making her want things she’d wanted for a long time, then pushed to the back of her mind, forcing herself to forget.
She inhaled the scent of him. Big mistake, because God help her, she wanted to put her hands on him, and in that moment she realized the feelings she had for him weren’t dead.
More likely it was just that she hadn’t been laid in a really long time. Dante was still a prime specimen of male beauty. Which was the only reason he had this effect on her. She needed a fast release of tension and he was a man.
But she already knew he wouldn’t be a quick fuck and out the door. They had too much history.
And dammit, they’d never had sex.
That night twelve years ago had gotten in the way.
It still would.
She tilted her head back and offered up an uncaring shrug. “Do what you want. I’m going home.”
She got into her car and pulled out of the parking lot, refusing to check and see if he followed.
She already knew he would.
What would happen when they got to her house?
She’d turn him away. Or maybe he’d just drive right past when he saw she was fine, which of course she would be.
Just fucking fine.
Yeah, she was fine, all right. So fine she buried herself in her work to avoid alone time. Because alone time meant thinking about her life.
Or lack of one.
Wasn’t that why she worked her ass off, agreeing to pull extra shifts all the time? So many of the guys had families and commitments. She didn’t, so why not work?
Things might have been different for her if Dante hadn’t left.
Then again, maybe they wouldn’t have been different at all. Maybe their teen romance would have run its course and she would be right where she was now.
But she couldn’t change the attack, couldn’t change what had happened to her that night. And hadn’t she always wondered what it might have been like if Dante had stayed? If she’d had him to hold on to, would she still feel so lost, so empty inside?
Ugh. Could she be more dramatic?
Lost and empty. Please. Her life was just fine.
And there was that
fine
word again, that word that seemed so…inadequate and unfulfilling.
She pulled into the driveway and opened her car door, so deep in thought she startled when Dante appeared right next to her.
“Jesus. How did you sneak up on me?”
He smiled. “I guess you
are
tired.” He took the keys from her hand and headed toward her front door, making her run to catch up to him.
“Hey, I can do that,” she said, fighting him for the keys.
“I’m sure you can.”
He stepped up to the front door, twirling her keys.
And stopped so fast she tumbled into his back.
“Dammit. Why don’t you look where you’re— What are those?”
“I don’t know. Got a boyfriend?”
“I already told you I didn’t.” She crouched down to pick up the flowers that had been left lying in front of the door.
“Don’t touch them.”
“What?” She tilted her head back to stare up at him. “What are you talking about? They’re just roses.”
Dante bent down to examine them. “There’s a card. You see what it says?”
She hadn’t noticed the card tucked in with the flowers. It was typed, not handwritten.
Did you like the gift I left you in the alley?
Her skin broke out in goose bumps, nausea bubbling up inside. She leaped up and backed away from the porch.
“Oh, shit. Goddamnsonofabitch. Who did this?” She whirled around, her hand on the butt of her pistol.
“Whoever it is might still be here, hiding, watching to see your reaction.” She saw Dante reach behind him, lift his shirt, saw him pull out a Glock. A few minutes ago she’d have asked him if he had a permit, would have used it as an excuse to find out more about him.
Right now she was glad for the backup.
“Call it in,” he said. “And don’t go inside. I’ll look around.”
“Don’t get in the grass. There might be footprints.”
He turned to her. “I’m not an idiot.”
She cocked her head to the side as she lifted her phone. “I don’t know who the hell you are, Dante.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll talk about that later.”
Yes, they would.
She made the call, then started walking around the porch, looking for any evidence like footprints or discarded cigarette butts—any lucky clue.
Usually there weren’t such things, but sometimes one got lucky.
“I don’t see anyone lurking around the bushes or around your neighbors’ houses. I checked your backyard and the alley. There’s no one.”
Anna looked down the street, then up. This wasn’t going to happen to her again. She’d suffered the most incredible fear she’d ever known. Nothing would ever scare her like that again.
“I don’t know what kind of game he’s playing, but I’m not joining in.”
Crime scene techs showed up. Anna directed them to the flowers and card. They photographed and bagged the evidence. Anna had them wait outside and directed them to check for footprints and fingerprints while she unlocked her front door.
Dante put on a pair of gloves and nestled in right by her side.
“You aren’t coming in with me.”
“You’ll have to arrest me to stop me, because for all we know he could be inside waiting for you, and you’ve got nobody backing you up.”
“And you aren’t a cop.”
His deep blue gaze bored into hers as he lifted the Glock and pointed it inside the house. “Trust me when I tell you I know how to use this gun. Either call for backup or let me go in with you.”
Her teeth hurt from grinding them. She nodded. “Fine. Stay behind me and do exactly what I say.”
She caught the slight lift of his lips. “Yes, Detective.”
She waited for the techs to dust and lift prints from the doorknob, then turned the knob and nudged the door open with her foot. Light streamed in from the gauzy curtains in her dining room, making it easy to see inside the living room.
“Nothing looks out of place,” she whispered to Dante. “I’m moving inside.”
She felt Dante on her left flank as she stepped in, her gun pointed slightly down, her finger poised on the trigger. She made a sweep left, then right, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. While she moved to the right, Dante swept to the left, opening the closet door while Anna headed into the kitchen.
Once they cleared those areas they went together down the hall and checked the two bedrooms and bathrooms.
Everything was clear.
“Nothing’s been touched. Nothing even looks like it’s been moved even an inch. He wasn’t inside.”
“Or he’s good at putting things back in place.”
She sighed. “I’ll let the techs in and have them dust for prints, but I don’t think he was in here. I’d know.”
“Yeah? How would you know?”
“Instinct.”
He nodded. “That I understand.”
“I’m going to have to give my captain an update on all this. This sucks.”
“First you need to get some sleep. There are dark circles under your eyes.”
He reached out, swept his thumb across her cheekbone.
His touch sent shock waves through her body. Unprepared, she took a hasty step back and stumbled. Dante caught her with his arm wrapped around her, tugging her against him, which only made things worse. He was warm—solid, and not at all what she wanted.
This was all too much.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” She jerked away from him and turned around, headed outside to the techs and led them into the house.
While they worked making a dust bowl out of her entire house, she contacted her captain and left him a message, letting him know about the flowers and card, then told him she’d give him a full report when she came on duty again.
Dante kept his distance, but she felt his gaze on her, as warm as his touch.
She didn’t like the familiarity, the sense of closeness he wanted when she knew so little about him.
She had too many questions. Like why he had a gun and he’d swept through her house like a cop who knew what he was doing. Those were answers she was going to get from him.
He moved in next to her. “I know you’re tired. And the tech guys are done now, so you can get some sleep.”
She looked up and realized the CSU team had packed up and were leaving, shutting the door behind them. She hadn’t even noticed.
“Okay, good.”
She walked to the door and waited. He came toward her and stopped in front of her.
“If you’d like, I can stay.”
“Stay and do what?”
His lips curled, and warning bells rang. She’d walked right into that one. She really was tired. “I don’t need you to stay.”
“He could come back.”
“If he does, I can handle it.”
Dante surveyed the double dead-bolt lock on her door. “I guess you’re secure.”
Anna felt anything but secure at the moment, especially since she was leaning against the door and Dante was about a quarter of an inch away from her, all that testosterone sending her libido firing in a way it hadn’t since…
Since the last time they’d been alone together. She’d been full of raging teen hormones back then, which she sure wasn’t now.
Now she was a competent adult capable of taking care of herself, yet here he was, trying to act as if she was in need of saving.
She hadn’t needed saving in a long time. These days she saved herself.
“You need to go.”
He laid his palm against the door above her head, his body hot and enticing as he stared down at her with sea-blue eyes that made her want to dig her teeth into his shirt and rip it off, then bury her face in his neck and lick the bead of sweat that had formed there.
“Is that what you really want?” he asked.
His breath blew against her hair, and she was ten seconds from either self-combusting or grabbing him by the shirt, planting her mouth on his and taking him up on what he was so obviously offering.
“Yes, it’s what I really want.”
He paused, his lips curling in a smile that told her he knew it wasn’t at all what she really wanted.
He slid his hand behind her, his touch making her tremble as his fingers swept across her back.
But then she heard the click of the doorknob. She moved to the side as the door opened.
“Okay, then. See you later.”
Her heart rate skipped double time, her palms were wet and her body tingled with the awareness that she was so affected by Dante she was shaking all over. And just as fast as he had her primed and ready to throw him to the floor and have her way with him, he was gone.
She wasn’t over him at all. Not at all.
She hit the dead bolts, rubbed that spot on her chest with her knuckles and headed toward the bedroom, but she was damn sure not going to sleep now.
Bastard.
Five
D
ante stood at the end of Anna’s driveway and leaned against his car. He needed a few minutes to cool his body down, and the summer heat wasn’t helping any.
So, okay, he figured following Anna home would piss her off. Maybe that’s what he’d wanted to do, just to get a reaction out of her, to fire up that cool control that she wore like body armor.
He was glad he’d followed her, that he’d been here to see those flowers and that card.
What he hadn’t counted on was the heat that had flared up between them.
Twelve years ago they’d had passion, but it had been young—intense yearning with nothing to show for it.
What passed between them inside just now had been very adult, very hot, and nothing like what they’d had when they were younger.