chapter Nine
“I just thought it was time for another check-in,” Amberly said into her cell phone to Lexie.
“It’s about time. How are you holding up? How’s the case coming along?”
It took Amberly several minutes to catch up Lexie on everything that had happened over the past week. She sank down at the table in the kitchen, which smelled of baked chicken and homemade macaroni and cheese.
“So, you’ve been staying at Cole Caldwell’s house? How’s that working out?”
“Okay, except I miss Max desperately.”
“Of course you do,” Lexie said sympathetically. “But you know he’s fine with John, and you’ve been away from him for cases before.”
“I know. This just feels different because it’s not something I chose, it was the manipulation of some creep.” She sighed and continued, “Has Nick found work?” She knew that Nick had sold his farm in Widow Creek, the town where he’d lived when he and Lexie had met, to move with her to Kansas City so Lexie could continue her job as an FBI computer geek.
“He’s considering some options,” Lexie replied. “With the sale of the farm, he really doesn’t have to hurry to just find anything. I want him to find something he’s passionate about, something he loves doing.”
The two chatted for a few more minutes and then hung up. Amberly remained at the table and gazed out the window where night had fallen. Max would be snuggled in his bed at John’s, without her nighttime kiss, without her being able to smell the little-boy scent, which wrapped around her heart.
For the first time in her life, Amberly found herself wondering if the job was worth the sacrifice. Surely anything that separated her from her son wasn’t worth it. And yet working as an FBI agent was all she’d ever wanted to do.
And until this case, she’d always managed to juggle both the job and the son she loved quite well with John’s help. This was the first time it had become complicated, and being away from Max was tearing her apart. She’d spoken to him only three times since leaving her house, all three times on a disposable phone that couldn’t be traced, and hoping that somehow the killer wouldn’t recognize that if he truly wanted to kill her, all he had to do was do something terrible to her son.
She got up from the table and walked into the living room and peered outside. Beneath the spill of a streetlight directly outside the house, she could see Roger Black’s car parked.
At Cole’s request, he was babysitting her until Cole got home. Who would have ever thought the time would come when she’d need a babysitter to assure her own safety?
She was supposed to be out there protecting others, not utilizing what little workforce there was in Mystic Lake to protect her. Frustration gnawed inside her as her mind whirled with the facts that they knew so far about the murders.
Too little. They knew just too damned little for her to do her job as a profiler and get into the head of the killer. Certainly, he haunted her sleep. For the past week, since she’d moved in here with Cole, she’d suffered one sort of nightmare or another about the crimes almost every night. Thankfully, she’d managed to wake herself up before she’d screamed or yelled to draw Cole’s attention.
She was vaguely surprised the killer hadn’t made any personal contact with either her or Cole since leaving the things on her mailbox. If he was the publicity hound that she suspected, then it wouldn’t be out of character for him to call either her or Cole. But so far that hadn’t happened.
Thinking of the devil, she saw Cole’s car coming down the street, and instantly a coil of tension twisted in her stomach. She’d become accustomed to the feeling because it whirled inside her each time Cole was around.
She didn’t take it out and examine it too closely. She knew it was desire and she also knew it had no place in a murder investigation or in her life.
She was a single parent and a dedicated FBI agent and an ex-wife who didn’t expect to find the kind of love that others seemed to possess.
Cole parked in the driveway and then walked to Roger’s car, where he leaned into the passenger window and spoke to the man. Several moments later, Cole approached the house and Roger pulled away from the curb.
“Hmm, something smells good,” he said as he walked in the front door and locked it behind him. “And here’s a little surprise for you.” He handed her a sack.
“Chicken and homemade baked macaroni and cheese and green beans,” she said and then smiled as she pulled out a large bag of red licorice. “Thank you.”
He returned her smile, his the tired smile of a man who had worked too many hours. “You’re welcome, and dinner sounds great. Maybe I should send you home early more often.”
“You’ll probably quickly discover that I do better work in the field than I do in the kitchen,” she replied.
Together they walked into the kitchen, where Amberly began to place the food on the table and Cole washed his hands at the sink.
“This looks terrific,” he said as he sat at the table.
“The macaroni and cheese is a little burnt. Take yours from the center. I like the crunchy burnt part around the edges.”
She felt sudden tears burn at her eyes as she thought of Max teasing her about her addiction to burnt crisps of macaroni.
She quickly stuffed back the emotion but apparently not fast enough.
Cole studied her face solemnly. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
It worried her, how adept he’d become over the past week in reading her every mood. There was a growing intimacy between them that had nothing to do with sex or physical attraction. It was a connection of minds, a nebulous connection she’d never felt with anyone else before.
“I was just thinking about how Max teases me when I eat this,” she said as she scooped around the edge of the pan for the most burnt pieces.
“I know how difficult this has been for you.” His gaze was soft, his eyes so blue, and she knew if she looked there for too long, she’d lose it altogether.
“We just need to catch this bastard so I can get back home where I belong,” she replied.
He nodded and for the next few minutes they ate in silence, but the longer the silence went on, the more certain Amberly became that he had something on his mind.
It was that intimacy thing again, the fact that they were somehow on the same page emotionally and seemed unnaturally attuned to each other’s moods.
“Anything happen after I went home today?” she finally asked when they were almost finished eating and the silence had become downright awkward.
“Nothing worthwhile.” He hesitated a moment and then continued, “Although Ben had an interesting theory about the case.”
Amberly sat back in her chair and stared at him expectantly. “What kind of theory?”
“Why don’t we clear off these dishes and make some coffee and take it into the living room and talk about it then,” he countered.
This time, a new kind of tension welled up inside her as she wondered what Ben had come up with that made Cole want to make her as comfortable as possible before he shared the information with her.
It took them only minutes to clear the table, and as the coffee brewed, Cole left the kitchen to change out of his uniform.
Amberly had changed out of her business attire the minute she’d gotten home, opting for a pair of jeans and a purple tank top with a gold embellishment on the front in the shape of a feather.
By the time she’d poured the coffee and carried the cups and her bag of licorice into the living room, he’d returned, clad in a pair of jean shorts and a white T-shirt that stretched provocatively across his broad shoulders and showcased his lean stomach.
They sat side by side on the sofa, their cups on the coffee table before them, and she looked at him expectantly. “So, tell me about Ben’s theory.”
“It’s a bit out there,” he cautioned her.
She smiled and grabbed a piece of licorice from the package. “So is our theory of the Three Stooges working together as serial killers, but right now, we have nothing but theories that are a bit out there.” She bit into the licorice stick.
“Ben wondered if maybe John could be behind all this.” The words fell flat and stark from his mouth.
She stared at him as if he’d suddenly spoken a foreign language, and the piece of licorice turned tasteless in her mouth. “John?” She swallowed hard to dislodge the bite of candy from her throat. “You mean my John?”
Cole nodded. “The one and only.”
She tried to wrap her mind around his words. “Why…what…why on earth would Ben even think such a thing?” she sputtered in confusion. Surely he couldn’t be serious.
Cole reached out for his coffee cup and took a sip. When he placed the cup back on the table, he looked at her once again. “I know on the surface it sounds ridiculous, but just take a minute and think about it.”
“I am thinking about it, and no matter how long I think, it’s still definitely ridiculous,” she exclaimed. “First of all, John doesn’t have it in him to murder innocent women. He’s an artist, for heaven’s sake. He creates beauty, he doesn’t destroy it. Second, what on earth would he hope to gain by doing such a terrible thing as killing women in a small town?”
“We both know that all kinds of people are capable of murder, even artists who paint pretty pictures,” Cole chided.
Amberly pulled her braid over her shoulder and worried her fingers through the end of it. “I just don’t understand. I can’t make the connection between John and what’s been happening here in Mystic Lake.” She looked at him in confusion and with a pool of worry unsettled in her stomach.
Had they learned something after she’d left that day that somehow tied John to the murders? She couldn’t imagine John having anything to do with any of this, and yet she couldn’t help but remember a few times in their marriage when John had shown true rage. Those occasions had been rare but a bit frightening at the time.
Afterward, they’d usually joke about the artist’s temperament, and John was always contrite. Just because he occasionally had a temper flare, that didn’t mean he was a killer. Everyone lost it occasionally. She stared at Cole, needing him to explain this theory so she could dismiss it completely.
Cole leaned back against the sofa and released a sigh as he held her gaze. “You told me that John would be thrilled if you came back to him. You also said he hated what you did for a living. What if he orchestrated these murders knowing that you’d probably get the call to investigate because of the dream-catcher element? What if he masterminded it so that he would separate you from the person you love most in the world? Make you question what you’re doing with your life?”
She continued to stare at him, a hard lump filling her chest. She certainly didn’t believe that particular scenario, that John could be behind any of this, but there was no question that she’d been sitting at the kitchen table an hour earlier and questioning her commitment to the job.
But it was crazy, wasn’t it? It was just a crazy theory that had nothing to do with reality.
To her surprise, Cole reached out and covered one of her hands with his, the simple contact helping to warm all the places that had grown cold with the conversation.
“I was doubting the job a little while ago,” she admitted. “I was wondering about the choices I’ve made, if I was crazy to want to do this job, knowing that in this particular case, it got too close to home, too close to Max.”
“You’re good at what you do, Amberly. It would be a damn shame if you decided to give it all up. We need people like you doing what you do, otherwise the bad guys win. There are plenty of people who have it all, the family and the job.” His eyes darkened. “And most of the time, it works out okay.”
This from a man who had lost his wife to a murderer, this from a man who had been robbed of the woman he loved because the job had gotten tangled up with his personal life.
“How do you go on when something happens like losing your loved one?” she asked softly. “How did you get through it?”
His hand embraced hers, their fingers locking together as he held her gaze intently. “You get through it one minute at a time. You grieve long and deep, you bury yourself in it, and then one day you wake up and realize life is still going on. The sun is rising in the mornings and it sets every evening and you have a choice to either participate in life or kill yourself. I knew Emily loved me enough to want me to go on, and lately I’ve realized that she would want me to go on and find happiness wherever I could, that she wouldn’t want me to live the rest of my life alone.”
“It must be horrible,” she said.
“It was, but as Granny Nightsong would say, at some point you have to reach acceptance, otherwise it’s like a tick in your armpit, sucking the life out of you.”
She knew he’d hoped to coax a smile from her by quoting Granny’s words back at her, but she was still too focused on the idea of John being a suspect.
“John didn’t do this,” she replied, not wanting to think about Cole’s loss or contemplate the potential of any loss of her own.
“Probably not, but I have to tell you I’m going to investigate him.”
“It’s going to be a waste of your time.” She wasn’t sure whether to be angry at this turn of events, defensive of the man she’d loved as a friend and mistakenly married, or simply sad that their investigaten had derailed so far off course.
“I’m sorry, Amberly,” Cole said, pulling her back from her thoughts. “But now that it’s in my head, I can’t just dismiss it.”
She sighed. “I know you have to do your job, and I know that this is one part of the investigation I can’t participate in.” If this particular leg of the investigation was somehow screwed up and she was involved, it would be easy to prove bias on her part. “I had no idea when I arrived here on that first day that things were going to get so complicated.”
He smiled, that soft smile that melted any hardness she might possess inside her heart. “I never dreamed on that first day that I’d have the slightly arrogant FBI agent right here in my house, wearing a tank top that’s totally distracting and seated close enough for me to kiss.”
Her heart stopped beating at his words. Somehow they had gone from a difficult conversation and veered into something that felt as dangerous as anything she’d ever experienced before.
A million thoughts flew through her head, a million reasons why they shouldn’t explore this new territory. And yet, the thought of being in Cole’s arms, of having his mouth on hers was not only a welcome escape from her concerns about John and the case, but also felt as if it had been an itch that needed to be scratched since the minute she had met him.
“Then why don’t you kiss me,” she replied as her heart trembled and she leaned forward ever so slightly.
AS COLE LEANED FORWARD and claimed Amberly’s lips, he knew he was starting something he desperately wanted to finish. But he had no idea what her intentions were as she opened her mouth to welcome his kiss.
All thoughts of murder, of mental and physical exhaustion fled as he quickly became intoxicated with the taste of her, with the exotic floral scent of her that wrapped around him.
It had been years since he’d wanted a woman the way he now wanted Amberly. As she wound her arms around his neck and pulled herself more closely against him, he knew this wasn’t going to stop with just a kiss.
He could taste the desire, could feel the tension inside her, a tension that had been building to mammoth proportions since the moment she’d moved in here. There was no way there wasn’t going to be an explosion, and he felt the beginning simmer of one now.
“You know we’d be fools to let this go any further,” she whispered when their lips finally parted.
“There are times that being a fool isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” he replied. He pulled the end of her braid forward and worked to remove the rubber band at the end. He wanted that rich darkness loose and flowing. He needed to tangle his hands in the thickness of that dark curtain of hair.
She sat perfectly still as he carefully unwound the braid, but he could sense her quickened heartbeat as her eyes darkened. As the braid uncoiled into shiny, wavy lengths, he felt as if they were indulging in a form of foreplay.
He was already fully aroused, and all he’d done was kiss her and toy with her hair. He stroked her hair and then placed a lingering kiss on the side of her neck.
“Maybe we should take this into your bedroom,” she said, her voice half-breathless.
His heartbeat accelerated as he realized she was as into the moment, as into him as he was into her. “That sounds like a great idea.” He got up from the sofa and held out his hand to her.
She hesitated for a beat, and he feared she might change her mind, and he felt that if he didn’t have her now, this moment would never come again.
He breathed an inward sigh of relief as she slipped her hand into his and stood. They walked down the hallway in silence, but he wondered if she could hear the frantic pounding of his heart.
When they reached his bedroom, he gathered her back into his arms, reveling in the warmth of her curves against him. Once again his mouth found hers in a fiery kiss that left no question as to what was about to happen between them.
He slid his hands up beneath the tank top she wore, her skin soft and warm to his touch. She leaned closer to him, her hips molding to his, and he knew there was no way she couldn’t tell that he was ready for her.
With an adeptness he had forgotten he possessed, he unfastened her bra with a flick of his fingers. She stepped back from him only long enough to pull the tank top over her head and allow her bra to fall to the floor in front of her.
As she did that, he pulled off his T-shirt, wanting to feel her full, naked breasts against his bare chest. They came back together and once again kissed with passion, with all the desire that had simmered for what felt like an entire lifetime.
There was no thought of tomorrow, no thought of what might come next; he was completely lost in the moment, lost in Amberly.
It didn’t take long for them to get undressed and in the bed. Cole stroked his fingers across her high cheekbones, along the smooth skin of her cheek and over the full lips that so tormented him.
“You are so beautiful,” he said softly.
“You’re just saying that because I’m naked in your bed,” she replied with a husky voice.
He laughed. “No, it’s more than physical. You have a beautiful mind, Amberly. You draw me to you.” He wanted to tell her that he hadn’t felt this way about anyone since his wife, but he was afraid of what her reaction might be.
She’d made it clear to him that she wasn’t looking for a relationship. This night was an unexpected gift, and he didn’t want to frighten her away by making it a bigger deal than she wanted…needed…it to be.
“I want you, Cole.” Her eyes glowed in the light spilling into the bedroom from the hallway. “I’ve never felt this kind of want before. It scares me just a little.”
“Don’t be scared.” He wanted her to embrace her desire for him, to wallow in it, in him as he intended to do in her. With this thought in mind, he stopped the conversation by kissing her as he began to explore her body in earnest.
Despite his own need, his first thought was to give her the greatest experience she’d ever had in a bedroom. He quickly learned that kissing her along her slender throat caused her to mewl but teasing the tips of her breasts made her clench the sheet at her sides and moan with pleasure.
As he slid his hand down the flat of her stomach, he felt her catch her breath in anticipation. Her entire body seemed to vibrate as he slipped his hand between her legs, finding the moist warmth. A gasp escaped her lips.
As he moved his fingers against the sensitive spot, she tensed and whispered his name. When he quickened his caresses, she cried his name and clutched his shoulders in a tight grasp.
He felt the climax that shuddered through her, and a wild euphoria filled him. But they weren’t finished yet. He gave her a moment to catch her breath and then moved between her thighs. As he hovered over her, her eyes flared, and her hands moved from his shoulders to his buttocks.
“I want you inside me,” she said, and he wouldn’t have believed she could say anything that would drive his desire higher, but that did.
Until this moment he’d maintained complete control of their lovemaking, but as he eased into her dampness, he felt his control snap.
He hissed in pleasure as he buried himself deep inside her, for a moment not moving, just being connected in the most intimate way a man could connect with a woman. Closing his eyes, he felt surrounded, engulfed and possessed by Amberly.
It was she who snapped him out of the moment, moving her hips against his. He opened his eyes and looked down into hers as they began to move together in unison.
He saw the wonder in her eyes as their movements increased, becoming faster, a tad bit frantic. He felt himself getting lost in the need for release and yet wanted her to join him.
And then he knew that she was there with him, hanging on the precipice of another climax. He cried out her name and tangled his hands in her hair as he felt his release and, at the same time, felt her stiffen and shudder and knew that she had found her own.
For long moments afterward, they remained in each other’s embrace, trying to catch their runaway breaths. When he finally had his wind back, he released a low rumble of laughter.
“I don’t know about you, but I needed that…I needed you,” he said.
She smiled, a languid gesture that spoke of utter contentment. “I hate to confess that I’ve wanted this…wanted you…since the minute I laid eyes on you.” Her smile faded. “But this certainly didn’t move us any closer to solving the case, and it’s probably just complicated things between the two of us.”
He frowned. “Complicate things how?”
A tiny smile danced across her features once again. “Because now that I realize how very well you do this, I just might want to do it again.”
“And I would have a problem with that, why?” he asked wryly.
“Because I think maybe you’re ready for something more in your life than me.” She moved out of his arms and sat up and worried a hand through her long hair. “Whatever this is that we’re feeling, it’s just a fleeting thing…lust and nothing more. I’m here to do a job, and all this can be with us is a fringe benefit.”
She slid from the bed and padded naked into his bathroom and closed the door behind her. Cole folded his arms behind his head and stared up at the ceiling.
The euphoria he’d experienced only moments before had vanished, squashed beneath a sudden weight of depression.
How had this happened? How was it that he had three murder cases he wasn’t closer to solving than the day the bodies had been discovered and a potential victim living beneath his roof?
Still, what bothered him at the moment was the fact that he was precariously close to falling in love with a woman who’d made it clear that romance and marriage had no place in her life.