Ms. Calculation Read online

  He took hold of her hand and she stopped moving. “Are you sure?” he asked, leaning in so his hot breath caressed her earlobe.

  She looked up at him and their eyes met. “We should have done this a long time ago. I can’t believe all the time we wasted.” She took his lips, kissing him as her fingers went back to work opening his fly.

  He was rock hard in her hand, and for a moment she considered just playing with him and stroking him until he couldn’t stand it any longer. She moved her hand over him. He felt so good that she could only imagine how he would feel in other, more forbidden places.

  She couldn’t stand the thought of waiting a minute longer.

  He pulled back slightly, almost as if they were of one mind. He reached down, unbuttoned her pants and, in one smooth motion, pulled them from her and let them fall to the floor. He ran his fingers up her thighs, making her moan as his fingers trailed over the outside of her panties.

  He moved to her hip and, taking the panties, he ripped them. “I hope you weren’t fond of this pair.”

  She shook her head. All that she could think about was the way he moved the fabric against her, making her think of all the things she wanted him to do and all the places she wanted him to explore.

  There was the crinkle of a wrapper as he pulled a condom from his pants pocket and ripped it open, and then slipped it on.

  She didn’t let him take the time to pull off her shirt; instead, reaching down, she pulled him to her. Some things just couldn’t wait. Her body was one of them.

  As he moved into her, he groaned, making the feeling all that much more pleasurable. There had never been a sweeter sound. He moved slowly, letting her body grow accustomed to the full feeling of him inside her. She wasn’t one who was fast to completion...usually. Yet, he felt so good—far better than she had ever imagined.

  There were so many times when their communication had failed, but apparently their bodies didn’t have the same problem. It was as if, before he even moved, she knew what he was going to do, and she moved her body in a way that drove him deeper, harder and into places that promised a quick end.

  She ran her fingers through his hair, pulling his short locks. He moaned as he grew impossibly harder inside her. He kissed her neck. His hot breath came in the same cadence as the movement of his body.

  It was all too much.

  This reality was much better than any daydream.

  * * *

  HE COULDN’T BELIEVE it had happened. Twice.

  He’d spent so many nights thinking about what it would feel like to have her wrap her body around him, to feel her warm, naked skin on his. Every imagining he’d ever had paled in comparison to the real thing. She had been perfect. Everything about her, even when he’d lifted her from the counter to find a piece of bread stuck to her back.

  They’d both laughed as he pulled it off and threw it into the sink before carrying her to the bedroom.

  They had been at it for so long that somewhere along the way it had turned to night and the cool air caught his cheap curtains and made them flutter in the breeze. He traced his fingers down her arm; her skin was cold under his touch, so he pulled his quilt over her. There was no way he would disturb her slumber just to get up and close the window. Not in a moment as perfect as this.

  He played with the ends of her hair, lifting the strands and twisting them between his fingers, then letting them fall softly back down to her skin. She had always had the same hairstyle, the same long and flowing locks pulled half up and out of her face. Only the color had changed, growing darker over the years from a nearly white-blond to the honey color it was now. As he rolled another strand around his finger, he thought about all the other things that had changed about her as well, and what would change now that their relationship had grown.

  Hopefully when she woke up and thought about what they had done, she wouldn’t regret it.

  He thought back to when he’d been a kid. Now he understood that his mother’s addiction and the problems she had faced weren’t his fault. Yet as a child, he’d always tried to be perfect, to protect the people who needed it and to make himself worthy of their love. Most of the time, he had fallen short—and with his mother, it had ended with her losing him. She had never come to look for him, and he’d never felt really worthy of being loved. Not when there were so many things that were broken within him—and not when he’d always continue to make mistakes.

  Hopefully over time Gwen could just learn to love his imperfections instead of hating him for them. Maybe someday he could show her how worthy he was of her love. There would always be mistakes, but if they were supposed to be with each other they would make it work.

  His mind went to their investigation and the list of mistakes he could be making there, and the things he feared he had missed.

  He couldn’t get the thoughts of Monica and her possible role in his investigation out of his mind. She was guilty of something—well, something more than just putting up with a less-than-ideal spouse. She was hiding something. Just because she didn’t own red boots, that didn’t mean she was innocent. Maybe she had them in the window of her car for someone else. Or who knew, maybe the neighbor had been wrong and there weren’t even boots in the window. Witnesses had been wrong before.

  Monica had sworn her innocence and given a testimony about not having feelings of ill will toward Bianca...but she had been at the right place at the right time and she had the right motive. All she had to do was tell Christina she was going to the restroom or something, then slip out and jab the needle in Bianca’s neck. It wouldn’t have been hard. Hell, she could have done it on a whim, just as he had assumed.

  He thought of Carla. Who knew why Monica would have gone after the woman. Maybe she simply hated her. Or maybe Carla had found out about Bianca and William and had threatened to blackmail the Poes. There were a thousand possible reasons that Monica could have for wanting Carla dead.

  Just because she had paid him a little bit of lip service didn’t mean she was actually innocent. He needed the results from those damned forensics idiots. Or he was going to have to find something else to definitively pin the crime to her.

  Gwen sighed in her sleep.

  If anything, she was proof there were angels out there. She fought and tried so hard. Maybe things could start going her way.

  He closed his eyes, willing himself to go to sleep. He would need all his faculties tomorrow if he was going to get this all figured out. Time was ticking away.

  He lay there in the dark, listening to the sound of her breath and feeling her heartbeat against his side as she lay curled up beside him. He basked in the feeling of her against him as he slipped in and out of sleep.

  Just outside the open window, there was the crunch of snow and the sound of footsteps. They stopped suddenly.

  Wyatt stiffened as he listened for the sound again. There were only the comforting sounds of Gwen and the echo of his heartbeat in his ears.

  There was something, or someone, outside. He would swear on it.

  He tried to control his breathing. In and out. Slow.

  Then, in the window, profiled by the moon, was a person. As Wyatt jumped to his feet and ran toward the window, the petite shadow disappeared.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Who would have been spying on them, and why?

  Gwen stared out at the spot where Wyatt had said the person had escaped into the shadows. He’d sworn the person had only looked in at them for a moment, but who knew how long they had been watching or what they had seen. The thought made her skin crawl.

  Wyatt walked into the bedroom. He was already dressed in his full uniform, belt and all, and he carried two cups of coffee. He handed her one. The cream swirled in the mug, and for a second she wondered where it could have possibly come from as she recalled the woefully lacking contents of his fridg
e.

  “Why didn’t you wake me up?” she asked, motioning toward the window. “We could have gone after them.”

  “Whoever it was, they were quick. And who knows, maybe I was just seeing things. Maybe I was just tired.”

  She could hear the lie in his voice.

  Taking a sip of the hot coffee, she let the lie disappear into the waves of silence between them. The coffee was sweet, with a touch of almond, and she loved the fact that she had found a man who knew his way around a coffeepot. There was a lot to be said for a guy who could make a decent cup of joe.

  “Who do you think it could have been?” she asked, moving around his attempt to protect her once again. “Do you think it was the murderer? Or do you think it was just someone from the ranch being nosy?”

  He snorted. “I thought of that. If anyone saw you come home with me last night, they might have wanted to know where things had ended up. But I don’t think there’s anyone here crazy or desperate enough to stand outside my window to find out.”

  She realized exactly how much of what had happened seemed to be tied to Dunrovin. Even the drugging of her mother had been after Mrs. Fitz’s appearance at their house.

  Then again, it was all circumstantial. Plenty of other things had happened: Bianca’s hate mail from the library, her cabin and clinic being turned over and the picture being stolen... Maybe Gwen was just tuned in to the ranch right now, and the connection meant nothing.

  She didn’t understand how Wyatt could want to do a job that required thoughts like this all day, every day. It felt as though she was going through a special kind of emotional and mental torture. Everyone was a possible suspect, and everywhere she turned, she feared what she would find. This was his reality.

  “For all I know, it was just a deer. I don’t think it’s anything you should worry about,” he said.

  “Huh. Okay,” she said, setting down the mug on his dresser before grabbing her pants, which he had neatly folded over the chair in the corner. She slipped them on. They felt strange against her nakedness, but she liked the way it reminded her of what they had done.

  Wyatt watched as she slipped on her clothes, but said nothing, only amplifying the awkwardness she felt.

  “You know...” she started, then paused. “You don’t have to protect me all the time. You don’t have to keep the truth from me. I’m a tough girl.”

  She glanced over at him, there was a slight look of shock and hurt on his face.

  “I’m... I know you’re strong,” he stammered. “But here’s the thing,” he tried again with a sigh. “You are one of the strongest women I know. But with everything going on, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. For all we know, the person who came here last night came with the intention to hurt you.”

  “So you admit there was someone outside the window?” She motioned to the glass. “What did you find?”

  He gave a resigned sigh. He reached down and pulled his phone from his utility belt. He clicked a few times and then lifted the screen so she could see it.

  There, in the photo, was a set of footprints in the thin layer of snow. He enlarged the photo so she could see it more clearly.

  “That,” he said, “is a set of boot prints. If you look right here at the center of the boot—” he pointed to the spot “—that is the symbol for the Ariat brand.”

  The killer had been outside the window. The realization hit her like a fist to the gut. Wyatt was right. Whoever had come after her mother and killed her sister had come for her too.

  What had she ever done to deserve being hunted down like an animal?

  “Do you...do you really think they were here to hurt me?”

  Wyatt stuffed the phone back on his belt. “I don’t know. And we can’t know for sure, Gwen, but what I do know is that I’m not going to leave you alone. Not until this bastard is behind bars.”

  She didn’t want to ask him about Alaska. What would happen when he went north? What if they didn’t get whoever was behind this? Would she be killed next?

  He took a long drink of his coffee. “I was hoping we could look into Monica a little more today and see if we can get any further with our investigation. Her shop should be open. If we get over there, maybe we can talk to her before customers start showing up.”

  “But I thought you had already cleared her? She had an alibi.”

  “She did, but she and Christina were two of only a few who might have known you were at my place last night.” Wyatt walked out of the bedroom toward the kitchen.

  “That doesn’t mean it was her at the window.” Gwen grabbed her coffee and followed him, guzzling down the rest of the creamy goodness. She would need as much coffee as she could get to handle the rest of the day.

  “No, but maybe she called someone...or maybe she hired someone to take you all down.” He set his coffee cup in the kitchen sink and turned back to her. “She knows something more than she is telling us. And I intend to figure out what she’s holding back, and why.”

  Gwen wasn’t sure why he was so adamant. When they’d seen Monica, it had gone better than she had expected—though she was still surprised by Monica’s admission about her knowledge of William’s affairs.

  She could never live a life where she would compromise her principles like that just to keep her social life in working order. Nothing was more important than being happy—no amount of money, number of friends or material goods could make up for the constant pain that came with a broken heart.

  Gwen set her cup in the sink beside his and took one last look around his place before she followed him outside. It was a terrible thought, but as she closed the door, she couldn’t help but wonder if this would be the last time she would be in Wyatt’s house...if she had just reached the pinnacle of her life and everything now was going downhill.

  * * *

  HE HAD TO get to the bottom of this murder, and fast. He had called his sergeant, but things hadn’t gone as he’d hoped. Wyatt had tried to convince him to send another officer to handle the prisoner transfer in Alaska, but his sergeant was having none of it. In fact, he’d made it more than clear that not following his orders would only end with Wyatt getting kicked off the force. Would it be worth it? Losing everything to protect the woman he had always loved?

  He had twenty-four hours to find the person they were looking for.

  He pulled into a parking spot down the street from the door of the antiques shop. Gwen’s face was tight, but her fingers were loose in his hand. What he would give to go back to last night when everything in life had been forgotten and they had just lived in the bliss of one another’s bodies.

  He walked to her side of the car and stood there for a moment, looking in at her and at the soft, full contours of her lips. He had kissed that spot last night, and he wished he could kiss that spot again. But in the middle of the morning traffic moving down Main Street and people rushing toward their jobs, it just didn’t seem like a good time to start kissing the woman in the front seat of his patrol unit.

  He opened her door. “You look beautiful,” he said in an attempt to make the tautness around her lips disappear.

  She smiled and it made some of the aching in his chest fade.

  Even if he didn’t have a clue what his next move should be, at least the rest of his steps today would be made with her at his side. If only the same could be said for the rest of his life. He loved his job, but if he could just have her, nothing else really mattered.

  Yet he was sure if he told her about the decision he was poised to make about his job, she’d never let him give up what he had worked so hard to achieve. No matter how forlorn she seemed any time they’d spoken about his going to Alaska, he was certain she’d never want him to do anything to put his career in jeopardy. On the other hand, he wasn’t prepared to put her life in jeopardy by leaving either.

 
He helped her out of the car and watched her walk in front of him to the antiques shop. He should have been thinking about the questions he needed to ask Monica, but all he could concentrate on was the way Gwen looked in her jeans. She no longer had the high and tight behind that she’d had at sixteen, but she had become perfect in her soft curves. Curves he had loved running his hands over when she was on top of him. He stopped moving and just stood there, staring as she walked ahead with a quiet grace of a woman confident with her body. As she shifted her hips, he wondered if she was doing it on purpose just in case he was watching.

  He smiled and looked up just as she stopped to wait for him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked with a coy smile.

  She had played it up for him.

  “Nothing,” he said with a quirk of his brow. “I was just taking a sec to enjoy the view. Feel free to keep walking.”

  She giggled as she sauntered back to him and took him by the hand. He looked around. A few of the older women were looking over at him, and he wondered how long it would take for word to spread that he and Gwen were officially an item. He smiled and gave the woman closest to them a quick, acknowledging wave. The woman nodded but quickly turned away.

  He didn’t care if the world knew. He’d waited so long for this, so long to be with the one woman who had filled his thoughts during the day and his dreams in the night.

  Gwen stroked his fingers and gave them a quick kiss as they turned toward the store. As her lips left his fingers, he finally looked up. The lights of the store were off, and even though Secret Secondhand should have been open, the closed sign was still flipped in the window of the front door.

  Wyatt glanced down at his watch. It was nearly 10:00 a.m. Monica wasn’t the kind to be late. Ever. She was entirely too perfect to be an hour late opening the store.

  Something was wrong.

  He stepped up and pressed his face against the cold glass of the front door, shielding the morning sun from his eyes. The store was a mess. The glass teapot, the one he had noticed the day before, was on the floor, shattered into pieces. Beside it was a bloody handprint. Next to the counter was a large pool of blood.