“Shay owes me community service in lieu of a fine.”
“Let me guess—at the car wash.” Quel threw the tip on the counter and headed for the exit. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m paying the Faithfulls a visit.”
“Or maybe it’s just an excuse to say hello to Miss d’Mon. There’s more than a little electricity going back and forth between you two. I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”
Quel stopped short, his back aimed at the sheriff. Electricity? He removed a toothpick from his pocket and slipped it between his lips. “The only thing going back and forth is my investigation and Miss d’Mon not liking it.”
Then he pushed out the swinging door into the sunshine, scowling as he did so. Since when had he become such a rotten liar?
In the cottage that Reverend Faithfull shared with her husband Damon, Quel stalked past a kitchen table topped with brownies and milk. His boots scuffed over the hardwood floor. His silver-bullet-loaded revolver rubbed against his hip. “Reverend Faithfull—”
“Harmony,” she corrected with her usual bright smile.
“Harmony. Jeanie tells me you’re thinking of hiring Miss d’Mon as your new nanny.”
“We already did.”
“Because you think she has a good soul,” he said, skeptical about the minister’s purported talent as a seer that the entire town took for granted—except him. “How do you know for sure?”
“It’s my job to know.” The reverend wore her pastor’s face that tried to get him to feel guilty about never setting foot in her church. Thing was, he had more things to blame God for than to thank him for. Since church was for praying and thanking, and not blaming, he never showed. The way he saw it, he killed demons for the Big Man. That should be enough. “And,” she said, blushing, “I can see things other people can’t, Mr. Laredo, just like you can sense demons. Shay has a good soul. I saw it. I felt it.”
“It’s a demon trick. That’s what they do. Your guard goes down, and they get you. Or, in this case, your kid.”
Her husband spoke up. “Demons can do many things, aye, but they can’t replicate a mortal soul.” Damon was a former demon high lord. If anyone knew about demons, it was this man.
“All I know is that I never sensed anything that powerful. Whatever came down that mountain was old as shit. I had one thing on my mind: get it out of the car and kill it before it killed any of us.”
Harmony lifted a brow. “Glad you took a moment to access the situation.”
“That’s the thing. I didn’t. By the time I got to the wreck, it didn’t smell like demon anymore. It didn’t smell like anything I’ve ever come across, either.” Not exactly demon, not exactly human.
But 100 percent woman. A damned sexy woman, too, with all the right curves and attitude to spare. He couldn’t stop thinking about how the hell stench had morphed into a hot little thing with an innocence about her that didn’t fit the heat in her eyes. His senses blasted on high alert whenever their eyes met. No one had ever looked at him with that much hunger, that much longing. Even if she did admit she’d mixed him up with someone else, it was damn unnerving. Damn arousing. Laredo, focus. You gotta think with your head not your cock. Hell and damn. Since when did he ever have trouble keeping the two apart? It was all jumbled up. He was all jumbled up.
“Shay has no defenses, Quel, none,” Harmony assured him, clearly trying to sway his opinion. “I can see right through her. There’s goodness there. She’s also conflicted, lonely. Afraid.”
He remembered Shay’s tears. Yeah, they’d looked pretty frickin’ genuine. Damn lucky he came to his senses before he wiped them off her cheek with his knuckle like he wanted to. He frowned. Quel Laredo didn’t wipe away tears. He didn’t know how. Yet she had him wanting to learn. She’d gotten under his skin, skin so thick he’d long since assumed it was impenetrable. Maybe Shay was an angel, and he was all wrong. Maybe he’d been around the wrong kind of woman for so long he didn’t know how to recognize the right kind.
Quel glanced out the kitchen window and into the backyard where the couple had told him Shay was spending time with the boy. Standing by the pond near the barn, she held the child in her arms, handing him bread crusts to throw to the ducks. The breeze lifted and tossed her curls around her neck and jaw. Suddenly, she looked sweet and vulnerable, like a young mother. Was this the monster he thought he’d find in the sports car? A woman with the face of an angel, the shirt of an angel, and the devil in her eyes. Damon and Harmony trusted her. Was he wrong not to?
Exhaling, Quel tiredly rubbed his face. He hadn’t shaved. He’d hardly slept. “I know what I sensed that night, Damon. As clear as day I know. My gut’s telling me whatever came down that hill didn’t up and disappear. Yeah, maybe it’s not Shay, maybe it’s not in Mysteria at all, but I won’t ignore my instincts. I did, once, and half my convoy got taken out in Iraq. Now I pay attention. I’m not letting down my guard. I advise you don’t, either.”
“I trust my wife’s instincts. I’ll take yours into account, as well.” Quel nodded. His attention drifted outside again, where Shay hugged the boy close as if he were her own. Quel had a fleeting memory of being hugged by his mother in the early years before she left. After that he adopted such a fierce outside shell that few risked reaching out. He never made it worth their while. Though if they’d tried a little harder, tried more than once, he might have let them in. No one ever did. He didn’t need cowards in his life then or now. He’d raised himself and was proud of it. Yet he had to wonder what he’d missed with the absence of any softness in his life.
With the child in her arms, Shay disappeared behind the barn. A chill washed over him. It was as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. He made fists, trying to resist the urge to follow—to chase down the sun. Impossible, he realized, and grabbed for an excuse to see her again. To see the pining in her eyes again. Hey, so he was being soft. So what? Sue him. If he liked the way a woman looked at him, no one needed to know. “Now that she’s going to be staying here, I’d better go and reintroduce myself.”
Harmony frowned at him. “It took us weeks to find a nanny. If you scare her away, Laredo . . .”
“I’ll be good. I promise.”
The couple sitting at the table didn’t look convinced. Damn, his reputation was worse than he’d thought. No one, not even the town pastor, wanted him near the woman. “I’ll play nice. I do know how.” So he was a little out of practice. No one needed to know that. In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to get to know Miss d’Mon a little better, angel . . . or not.
Five
If ever the moment to strike was right, it was this one. Here she was, alone with the babe, unwatched. Now was her chance.
Pink-cheeked, little Damon sat perched on Shay’s hip, giggling at the ducks. The idea of murdering the child and taking its bones to Lucifer threatened to make her violently ill. She’d killed men with a blink of her eyes. Now she was paralyzed by guilt and disgust at the thought of betraying the mortals who trusted her. The sensation had gotten worse over the past few days, not better.
Bat bugger. It was the blasted soul. Out, out, she chanted in her mind. Ever since she rode the ambulance to the hospital, she’d been willing the soul to leave her body, begging it to go away throughout her treatment by humans who seemed to care for her despite her sloppy entrance into town, despite her being a stranger. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get rid of it. Worse, kindness was feeling pretty good when it used to make her sick. How much longer could she fool Lucifer into thinking she was doing her job? If he found out what had happened, she was toast. And if the Faithfull family learned of her true mission . . . well, she was still toast.