Pure dislike flashed in the sheriff’s hound dog eyes, but he offered his hands in what was meant to be a placating gesture. “There’s no need for that. It’s a simple misunderstanding. Since they’re new in town, I thought they posed a flight risk; that’s all.”
“It’s called due process,” Saldana bit out. “You don’t get to detain American citizens without it. Now let that man out of the cell before I get mad.”
Jesus. I was impressed. No wonder he hadn’t wanted me to talk.
Without a word, Robinson stomped over to the cage and unlocked the door, which swung wide on its own, making me think the floor had a slope too delicate to perceive with the naked eye.
“Get that dog out of here,” the sheriff growled. “You can’t go dragging animals into public places.”
“You came back.” Chance said it like I always left him in the lurch. And maybe he thought I did. I’d certainly left him once.
“Yeah,” I answered thickly. “Brought the big guns too.” The idea that he’d needed Saldana to rescue him seemed to make him unhappy, so I hugged Chance hard. Whatever else, I didn’t want to lose him for good. I did know that.
“I hate bullies,” Jesse muttered as we went back up the stairs. “He loved knowing he had the power to keep you caged, Chance. Just on his say-so. God knows what would’ve happened after lights-out.”
I shivered again and led the way out to the car. I had a feeling we wanted to be snug inside the wards before dark.
Stolen Kisses
We reached the house just before nightfall.
Chance seemed subdued. If I knew him, his mood related to Saldana coming to his rescue. That had to be a blow to his ego. There was no telling how he’d react to finding out I died in the woods; if it hadn’t been for Jesse, I would have still been lying there.
After a quick perimeter check, we went inside. The place seemed secure, but I was glad we’d taken care of the wards. It occurred to me that we might want to mark the windows too. I didn’t know if it would prevent glass breaking—probably not, in fact—but it might keep bad things from crawling over the sills.
I put Butch down, and he went into the kitchen to see if there was any food in his dish. Shortly thereafter, I heard crunching, so I guessed there was. No question, I should tell Chance what had happened.
Instead I mumbled, “I’m going to see if I can coax some hot water out of the shower.”
“I’ll check the water heater,” Saldana offered. “The pilot light may have gone out.”
“Thanks.”
Jesse knew I didn’t care about the shower. I was beyond that. I needed comfort and privacy, but I leaned toward the latter because the former would involve choosing someone to console me, and then I would feel guilty about the guy I didn’t turn to. And it was hard enough for me to open up in the first place.
I found a pair of worn jeans in my backpack and a clean shirt, a pink cotton gauze blouse that should’ve clashed with my hair, but didn’t. Then I unearthed my polka-dotted cosmetic bag. I’d need soap and shampoo if I went through with the notion of cleaning myself up. Too bad I couldn’t hose myself off where it counted. I could still feel the dark thing’s presence, like it was peering at us from the forest.
The house is warded, I reminded myself. Nothing can get in.
Then I remembered the way the warlock had sent the undead thing to crawl around and around the house, breaking our wards at Chuch’s place with its fetid blood. I shuddered. Surely Butch would let us know if anything like that arrived. The one good thing I could think of about being in Kilmer—we were so far off the grid, I couldn’t imagine Montoya tracking us down via mundane means, and it would take him a while to hire a decent practitioner to employ any finding spells.
Thinking along those lines just gave me another set of worries. Did we leave blood at the scene back in Laredo? Anything they could use to track us? But the crime scene at the compound had been such a mess that it would take a CSI unit weeks to sort out the bodies. There shouldn’t be any mundane clues.
When I went down the hall toward the old-fashioned bathroom, I saw Chance sitting in the parlor. He stared at his folded hands, much as he’d been doing on the cot in the makeshift jail. I knew something was bothering him, but I lacked the emotional fortitude to help him through his issues when I had so many of my own.
I stripped out of my clothes and left them piled on the bathroom floor. For long moments, I let the water run and stood staring at my left palm. The blisters around the brand looked oddly like petals adorning the flower pentacle, and the mark throbbed steadily in time with my heartbeat.
It meant something. When I’d touched my mother’s necklace, it triggered a spell, but I didn’t know exactly what it had done to me—or who left it for me to find. I wanted to think it must be something good, and that it came from my mother, but given the dark place where it sat waiting, I couldn’t rid myself of the fear I now carried a taint.
In response to that thought, I stepped into the shower beneath tepid water, taking my soap and shampoo with me. The water felt strange and soft; it lathered too much and took at least two minutes to rinse out of my long hair. Soon the stream went from lukewarm to chilly, so I soaped up quickly and got out even faster. This wasn’t the place to sit down under the hot water and fret. I’d have to do that somewhere else.
When I emerged, dripping onto the cold tile floor, I realized I didn’t have a towel. In this place, we’d been lucky to find any linens at all. I didn’t want to wiggle into my clean clothes all wet, and I shied from the idea of drying off on the dirty clothes I’d just removed. Dammit, I was tired of living like a squatter.
Someone rapped twice on the bathroom door. I cracked it and found Chance waiting, face averted. In his hands he held a fluffy white towel; I recognized it from the Kilmer Inn. I could feel a smile building at the corners of my mouth. As I lusted for that symbol of civilization, I pretended nonchalance.
“You stole a towel?”
“Three,” he corrected with a half smile. “They owe me more than three towels too. I paid three hundred and forty bucks for one night! You want this or not?” He held it beyond my reach so I’d have to open the door to get it.
“Oh, I want it.” Maybe he didn’t think I’d do it, but I swung the door wide and stood there, water trickling from my hair, running in rivulets along my bare skin. I showed nothing he hadn’t seen before, but I succeeded in shocking him.
Chance went still as I snagged the towel and wrapped it around myself. “You have no shame,” he said huskily.
“None,” I agreed with a smile that felt wicked.
I shouldn’t tease him. I really, really shouldn’t.
“And a mean streak wide enough to put the Mississippi to shame,” he went on, still studying the curve of the white cotton covering my breasts.
I nodded. “That’s true too.”
Life sparked through him. I couldn’t explain it, but he shook off whatever had been bothering him before. A smile shaped his sinfully lovely mouth.
“You have ten seconds to close the door, Corine.”
“Or what?”
I watched his mouth move as he counted. Nerves clenched my stomach in a good way. I needed the distraction, and I’d probably like whatever he meant to threaten me with.
Nine.
I didn’t shut the door.
Quick as a lightning strike, he knotted his hand in the slick rope of my hair and spun me toward him. Breath left me as he buried his face in the damp skin between my neck and shoulder. As he nuzzled, he let out a little growl that thrilled me in ways I shouldn’t allow.