“Yeah,” he said, a little ruefully but she would take it, she could see it in his eyes, he meant it. “I do.”
She breathed in and her heart expanded and her world suddenly seemed to pulse and shimmer and glow with a kaleidoscope of colors it had never possessed before.
Matt had said he loved her. Matt—loved—her.
“Oh, my God,” she said.
He grinned at that. “Yeah, well, that’s kind of how I feel about it, too.”
She punched him in the arm. Then she kissed him and the whole great-sex thing started up one more time and he would have done her again right there in the car except her leg got a cramp. They had to get out and she pulled on her dress in the teeth of his protests as he massaged her leg for her—no way was she standing around in the garage naked while he, having fastened his pants, was more or less dressed—and then Annie yapped because they’d forgotten she was in the car and they let her out and then all three of them went upstairs.
And two of them played undress your local sheriff and went to bed.
Not to surface again until an urgent ringing sent Matt searching groggily for his cell phone.
“Yeah,” he said into it, and listened. “No, everything’s fine; I just forgot about the time. Yes. Yes. Not your business.
Really
not your business. Probably sometime tomorrow. Yeah, okay. ’Bye.”
Carly rolled onto her back and clutched the sheet to her bosom and turned on the bedside lamp just as Matt disconnected.
“Who—?”
“Erin. She wanted to make sure we were okay. It’s almost two
A.M.
I told her we probably wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. Then she wanted to know if you’d gotten me into bed.”
“She did not!” Actually, knowing Erin, that was probably just exactly what she’d asked. “What did you say?”
She remembered those
yes
es.
“I said I’d been fucked to within an inch of my life, but I was recovering.”
“You did not.” Having heard his end of the conversation, she didn’t even bother to put any heat into that.
“Okay, maybe I didn’t. But I could have.”
He was standing there smiling at her as he put the phone down on the table, casually naked, dark and muscular and so hot that just looking at him made her sizzle, and, best of all, he was
Matt.
No, best of all, he was hers.
At the thought, Carly smiled a beatific smile.
“You look like the cat who swallowed the canary.” Matt was surveying her with a meaningful little smile of his own. Considering the number and variety of their activities since they had come upstairs, Carly realized she had to be looking well and truly
had.
“In that case, come here, Tweety.” Looking him over with a naughty little twinkle, she beckoned suggestively. He laughed and crawled back into bed.
Later, he propped himself up on an elbow, frowning down at her. Drowsy and sated and warm with happiness, she smiled sleepily at him.
“What?” she asked when he continued to look at her without saying anything.
He picked up a lock of her hair and twined it around his fingers. “We’re sticking with the no-strings thing, huh? You sure?”
Carly considered. “Maybe one or two strings. Like, you can’t just drop off the face of the earth tomorrow. And you might want to think about taking me out from time to time, so I don’t have to wrangle dinner out of nice guys like Mike. But other than that, no strings.”
He still frowned. “No strings doesn’t sound like something you do, Curls.”
She loved him so much she ached with it, loved him so much that just looking at him made her glow, loved him so much that no matter how this thing between them worked out he would always be branded into her heart—but she also loved him so much that she didn’t want him if, ultimately, what he wanted was to be free. He’d said he loved her—several times now—and she knew him well enough to know that he did. But she could see the shadow at the backs of his eyes when he said it, and she knew that what put it there was fear. Fear that love meant chains, holding him back, holding him down, locking him to responsibility and this little town and her forever.
Despite the fear, she knew that he was ready, willing, and able to offer her forever. But she was never going to take it while she could still see that fear.
“No strings,” she said firmly, and kissed him. The distraction that presented kept them both occupied for most of what was left of the night.
It was ninety-two degrees at seven-thirty the following morning. Carly knew, because she was in Matt’s car listening to the radio as they pulled out of the garage. It was going to be a little embarrassing if she ran into anyone who had seen her leave Matt’s house the afternoon before in the same white shift and flip-flops that she was wearing once again, but the thought was not enough to affect the sense of well-being that filled her. She was happy and sleepy and just a little sore in interesting places, and despite the fact that she knew that there were monsters in the world, and one in particular who wanted to kill her, she could not bring herself to
believe
it, not this morning
when the sun was rising lazily to steam the mist from the ground and there was a steady stream of cars on the road as people headed to work and Matt sat beside her, clean-shaven and smelling of soap and her.
Her
was the best part.
Then she realized that he was taking her back to his house. The circus the past week had turned into was getting ready to start up all over again, and the knowledge depressed her high spirits, to say the least. While her love life had just improved from nonexistent to excellent, the rest of her life just kept diving deeper into the toilet, she realized glumly. Then she thought,
no,
and summoned up the shade of her late, unlamented No More Ms. Nice Girl as she decided that she wasn’t going to take it anymore.
“Matt,” she said firmly. “I want my life back.”
They were at the intersection, waiting patiently for the light to change.
“Sounds ominous,” he said, casting a smiling glance her way. “What did I do?”
She gave him a look, then when the light changed and he would have headed for town said, “Turn right.”
He did, and glanced at her again with raised brows. “Where to?”
“My house,” she said.
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because I can’t live like this. Who knows how long it’s going to be before you catch the guy who attacked me? What if you never do? I can’t spend my whole life at your house, under virtual house arrest. I have a living to earn, and a business to get off the ground, and a house that’s
mine.
I can’t just put all that aside for an indefinite period of time. I don’t want to.”
“Carly,” he said, and the look on his face and his tone told her that he was suddenly dead serious. “Somebody tried to kill you. He’s still out there. My best assessment is that he’s going to keep coming. Until we figure out why, or who he is, or something, I’m leaving you in that house alone, or anywhere alone, over my dead body.”
“Matt—”
“Don’t
Matt
me. I mean what I say.”
“For your information, Mr. King of the World, just because you’re sleeping with me does not make you my boss.”
“No, but my being the sheriff and your being a subject in protective custody does.”
Carly scowled at him. He frowned right back at her. Then he sighed.
“I know this is tough on you. It would be tough on anybody, but it’s the best arrangement I can come up with to keep you safe. I could move into your house with you, but I can’t be there twenty-four/seven. Anyway, it’s a big house. You’re safer in my house, which is relatively small and which has a ton of people in it all the time. People with unpredictable schedules. So this guy can’t plan anything.”
“Do you really think he’s going to try again? Why would anyone want to kill me?” It was a cry straight from the heart.
“Baby, when we figure out the ‘why’ I’m pretty sure we’ll know the ‘who.’ But in the meantime, please, to make me happy, to keep me from having a nervous breakdown or a heart attack or something, will you just cooperate with what I tell you to do?”
The idea of Matt caring enough about her to have a nervous breakdown or a heart attack or something, to say nothing of coaxing rather than attempting to order her into compliance, was irresistible. She looked at him and melted, realizing that she was practically putty in his hands at this point and that it was probably not a good thing to let him know it. He was cocky enough already.
“Okay. For now. But if this drags on, all bets are off.” She gave him a militant look, just to cover up how marshmallowy she was feeling inside. They came around a bend, and there was her house, looking so normal, just as it always looked, that she sighed. “Since we’re here, can we stop? I’d like to at least get some more clothes.”
“Sure.” Matt glanced at her. “We’ve done everything we need to do here. It’s all cleaned up, even. Only—stay close to me, will you?”
Carly stared at him as a tiny
frisson
of fear snaked down her spine. For Matt to be so worried about her scared her anew. It made the threat seem close again, and suddenly all too real. “Do you think he’s
following
us or something?”
Matt shook his head, and pulled off onto the grassy verge in front of the house. “No one followed us here; I’ve been keeping an eye out. Still, better safe than sorry.”
After that, Carly was only too glad to cling to his hand as they walked up the hill. Leaving Annie outside, running in circles, obviously elated at being back on familiar ground, they went in. Carly was surprised at the violence of her own reaction as soon as she stepped over the threshold. As the gloom of the house enveloped her, her stomach tensed; her breathing quickened; her heart raced.
“Oh, my God, Matt,” she said, and stopped while a wave of dizziness hit her and the walls seemed to tilt around her.
“You okay?” He slid an arm around her and pulled her close to his side. She noticed that he unsnapped the top of his holster for easier access to his gun. That steadied her. Matt was with her. He would keep her safe. “I didn’t think this was a good idea.”
“No, it’s—I’m fine.” And she was better. The dizziness was already passing. Taking a deep breath and leaning against Matt, she reminded herself that this was
her
house. No murderous creep was going to ruin it for her. She straightened. “This is the place I’ve thought of as home for the last twenty-two years. I’m not about to let one bad memory wipe that out.”
“That’s my Curls.” Matt tightened his grip and smiled down at her. “A fighter through and through.”
Carly leaned against him and gazed up at him with her heart, she feared, in her eyes. “I love you,” she said, then pushed away from him before he could reply and stood on her own two feet. “Let’s get this over with.”
Moving determinedly, she walked through every room downstairs, remembering how she had fled through them with blood pouring from her hand and shoulder. She remembered the gleam of the attacker’s knife and the sound of his raspy voice saying
you’re dead
and the way he had lurched from the wound she had inflicted. She remembered how terrified she had been, the cold shock of the knife slicing through her shoulder, the despair she had felt when she had realized that she wasn’t going to be able to get out the door. Then she
remembered that she had survived, that she had outwitted the monster and Matt had come in time. And now she was going to take back her house.
Jaw set, head held high, she went up the stairs, then walked through the entire second floor, paying particular attention to where the attacker had lain in wait and to the bathroom, which was pristine again with not so much as a drop of blood staining the grout. Then she went into her bedroom and gathered up a few more clothes and folded them neatly into her overnight bag. Finally, feeling drained and relieved and somehow almost at peace, she walked back down the stairs and through the front hall and out onto the porch.
Where her knees finally betrayed her. They trembled and threatened to give out. She made it to the stairs, then gave up the attempt, sinking down rather abruptly on the top step. Taking a deep breath, she looked out at the grassy yard and the big silver birch and the oaks and the road below where Matt’s cruiser was parked, and let the heat and sunlight bake away the last of the chill the house had left her with.
“What’s up?” Matt was behind her, carrying the bag she had packed. He put it down and sat beside her.
“I just needed to catch my breath.” She glanced at him and smiled.
“Oh, yeah?” The glance he gave her was skeptical.
“Okay, so my knees gave out.” She made a face at him.
“That’s better.” He tweaked a curl. “Walking through the house made you feel better, though, didn’t it?”
Carly took a deep breath and nodded. “It’s my house. I couldn’t let that monster ruin it for me.”
Matt picked up her hand, the one with the nearly healed gash across her palm, and pressed the back of it to his mouth. Carly looked at him and smiled. She was just about to say something when Annie caught her eye. Annie, backing out from under the porch and dragging something with her teeth. Something that was black and kind of round with a strap and heavy enough to make her have to work to move it.
“Looks like she’s got a woman’s purse,” Matt said on a note of mild surprise, watching the dog too.
“Oh, gosh, I wonder whose.” As much to test the reliability of her knees as for any other reason, Carly stood up and walked down the remaining stairs. Her knees were stronger, and she was stronger, and she knew that the next time she walked inside her house it would be easier, and the time after that easier still. The memory of the attack would always be there, but it would be her house once more, and once her attacker was caught she could start to live in it again and the horror would fade away.
“Annie, let me see that.” Annie had the strap in her teeth but she dropped it when Carly bent to pick the purse up. It was a cheap purse, Carly saw, vinyl rather than leather and cold and dirty from being, presumably, beneath the porch for some time. She didn’t recognize it, it wasn’t hers or Sandra’s, and so she unzipped it and looked inside and then reached for the wallet.