Page 40 of Forbidden Confessions: Vol. 2
I’m not sure what he thinks he’ll find, but I feel a lot safer with him than I do exposed in my front yard by myself, so I nod and fumble around on the porch until I find my messenger bag. As I pluck my phone free, he tucks me behind his broad back and heads down the porch steps for the side yard, illuminating our surroundings with the flashlight on his phone. I manage to control my trembling fingers long enough to dial for help.
“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
“There’s been a break-in at my house.”
“Address?”
I answer that question, along with subsequent others while following Rush around the back of the house. No, I can’t tell if the intruder is gone. No, I didn’t notice anything missing. No, I don’t know how he got into the house.
Rush checks the last window on his circle around my cottage, then dims his phone. “There’s no obvious entry point. No forced doors or broken windows.”
Then how would anyone have gotten in and disarmed my alarm? I’m struggling to figure that out when the dispatcher tells me the police are en route and should be there shortly.
I end the call…and I’m still wearing next to nothing. “They’re on their way. I need to get dressed.”
He curses under his breath. “Where are your clothes?”
Vaguely, I gesture to the porch. It’s so dark I can barely see where I dropped my stuff. But if I use my phone for light, Rush will see everything. Why did I pick today to wear my sexiest bra?
Whatever. Now isn’t the time to be shy. Tossing on enough clothes to talk to the police so we can get to the bottom of this break-in is way more urgent than my modesty.
With a sigh, I engage the flashlight on my phone and grab my clothes. I try not to dwell on Rush, but being so near him makes me achy and anxious. What can he see…and what does he think?
As soon as I have the garments in hand, I darken the device and tug on my skirt. As I reach for my T-shirt, I hazard a glance his way. He’s scanning my side yard, his gaze aimed just over my head…but there’s no way he can’t see the outline of my breasts and their hard tips in the moonlight.
I yank my shirt into place, then face him. “Anything out there?”
“Not that I see. But it’s awfully still.” Finally, he fixes his stare on me. “Listen, once the police start investigating, it’s possible they’ll move things around. Do you want to breeze through the rest of the house and tell me what else has been disturbed?”
If I don’t, I’ll never know what else my intruder touched.
At the thought of a stranger in my house uninvited, his hands on my personal things, I feel sick and violated—and angry. But I’m also scared. “What if the intruder is still inside?”
He holds his weapon tighter, maintaining great trigger discipline. “I’m here.”
Maybe that shouldn’t make me feel better, but it does—not just because he’s a man with a gun but because I’ve seen him in action on the job. He knows what he’s doing. Plus, there’s this rumor going around that he spent a few years as a Marine before doing some dangerous work for the government at one of the three-letter agencies. I’m not sure what made him leave, much less settle in St. Augustine and take a job at an upscale hotel. Maybe he wanted something cushy and well paid…but he doesn’t strike me as the kind of man to back away from a challenge.
“Then let’s look around.”
“We have to be quick,” he insists as he steps into the foyer. “Stay right behind me, fingers through my belt loops so you’re no more than a half step off my ass. We’ll start in the kitchen, circle back through the living room, then head down the hall and end in your bedroom.”
“Okay.” How does he know my floor plan?
I’ll worry about that later. For now, I nod and follow him inside, holding my breath. I don’t know what I’m expecting, maybe some deranged loon jumping out at us. But we hear silence, suddenly broken by scratching.
He tenses.
“That’s just Kitty Pie on her scratching post,” I whisper. “That’s normal.”
A moment later the lamp in my living room flares on. Rush stiffens. Kitty Pie scurries away in a blur of calico fluff, her tail bushed.
“My lights are on timers. There’s another in my bedroom, too.”
“At the end of the hall, to the right?”
“How did you know that?”
“I assumed since a light just popped on from there.”
