Page 74 of Redemption

“See what?” Her clinging arms held tight around his neck. Nothing about the distance or space of a few days had made the burning desire to get her naked any less strong.

“That you were settling back in okay.”

She squeezed him once more, and he set her down, prying himself loose.

Her eyebrows bounced playfully, her tease tormenting him. “You didn’t have to do that. I could have told you.” She tilted her head. “Everything is fine. But what about you? Run into a rosebush?”

“Yup, that’s it.” He snorted, walking farther into her office, putting his hands on her sides because he liked the feel of her hips.

“Mighty mean thorns.” She twisted to inspect the deeper cut along his temple. Her finger traced the edge of the cut. “This one especially.”

Not five minutes in her office and she had his blood picking up the pace with nothing but one little finger running down his cheek, its pad sliding to his jawline before teasing away. Ryder inhaled deeply. “That one was a nasty little fucker.”

“Hmm.”

He grinned, quietly snickering. “Ishmmlikefine?”

“How so?”

“Fine—isn’t that the definitive buzzword for ‘don’t believe that bullshit’?” His fingers drifted away and hung, empty and missing her. “I wanted to see you, see what Iowa was all about.”

“Riveting place.” She stepped farther away and held out her arm. “Well, this is my office.”

“Nice digs.” He curled his right hand, working his trigger finger, needing the tension that ran up his forearm to dissipate.

“This is the sitting area.” She pivoted on her heel back to where she’d come and the source of most of the light. “My office. It’s not very big, but I don’t need a lot of room. I’m out more often than I’m in. Paperwork is the bane of my existence.”

“Makes sense.” He hitched a grin, letting his smile pull up on one side. “I can’t see you chained to a desk.”

“And that’s the tour.” She stepped back as he followed her in. “Much like Sweet Hills will be. Not a whole lot to see.”

“It’s not anywhere near as small as you made it sound.”

“But it feels like it sometimes, though.”

He’d been all over the world. The largest metropolitan cities could feel like they had the power to strangle a person under the right circumstances. He wouldn’t push as to when that feeling emerged, pre- or post-Russia.

Victoria took a seat behind her desk, and Ryder stood in front, glancing down at the strewn paperwork covering where she’d been working. Her laptop had gone to sleep, and the cell phone was facedown. None of that was interesting, though. His gaze was drawn to the printouts of maps, with coordinates and locations that had been highlighted and red and black lines connecting pinpointed locations.

His gaze casually slept across all of the investigative material. “You picked up a job already?”

She’d been back in town a week. No matter what she had said, her reputation hadn’t been sullied because of the asswipes who’d hurt her. Maybe she’d start to believe that now.

“Not really.” The fun, flirty girl who’d jumped into his arms moments ago stiffened. She reached across the desk and grabbed an unmarked purple folder. “Just some stuff.”

With giant sweeps, she gathered what looked to be tracking information.Odd for how expertly she’d had it arranged. Forget the specific order. She slapped the papers shut in the purple folder.

“I can look at this later.” She toed open a drawer and deposited the folder in a side drawer.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, why?” With a quick kick the drawer slid closed, and she slid back into her chair, pulling her hair off her shoulders into a ponytail.

“If you were busy…” He traced a finger along the now nearly empty desk. “I can come back.”

Victoria reached back to her hair, pulling at the hair band. “It wasn’t a new job. I was looking over the notes from someone I used to know.”

Ryder ran his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip. Why was she lying? He wasn’t born yesterday, and obviously, he could tell the difference between new and old materials. Even the papers had a sharp crispness to them—until she’d scrounged them into a pile and slammed them in a drawer, and not that Ryder had intentionally searched the printouts, he was fairly sure one of the maps showed reference to yesterday’s date in the corner.Or maybe not. Either way, the paperwork seemed new, and that was a silly thing to skirt the truth about if he was correct—which he might not be. His gut said he was.

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