style="font-size:15px;"> “No other answer, really.” Deputy Carver took a closer look at the doorjamb. Studied it. Even got up on his tiptoes since the thick-soled shoes only put him at five nine, and that was just barely. “You said they weren’t kids.”
Holt stood there, studying whatever Deputy Carver studied and shaking his head. “These were grown men.”
“Good thing you were here, then, Mr. Fletcher.” Deputy Carver shot Holt a man-to-man look.
“You can call me Hank.”
She was impressed Holt refrained from rolling his eyes. At six-foot-something, he towered over the kid. Also looked as if he could break the deputy in half. The contrast in their sizes and confidence, styles and stance could not have been more pronounced. At twenty-four, Frank Jr. had to be a decade or so younger than Holt, but the difference in maturity shone through.
Not that she was looking...but she couldn’t really stop looking. Recognizing Holt standing in her house had shaken her. He didn’t belong there. She’d locked the doors, performed her nightly safety check. But that wasn’t what had her rattled to the point where her teeth still chattered.
No, she’d been thinking about him. A lot, every day, at odd times. Ever since she’d seen him in town weeks before, he’d played a role in her dreams. The quiet stranger who walked into town, didn’t ask questions and swept her right into the bed. Pure fantasy wrapped in a tall, dark and dangerous package. The broad shoulders and trim waist, the coal-black hair and the hint in his features of Asian ancestry.
She blamed the dark eyes and brooding look. That was why she stared. She’d see him around town and she’d watch, her gaze following him, then skipping away when he’d look back. The whole thing made her feel like a naughty teen, but it had been so long since she’d felt anything for a man that she welcomed the sensation.
“I’d hate to think what could have happened,” Deputy Carver said, droning on.
Holt waved the younger man off. “But it didn’t, so we’re good.”
She tried to ignore the deputy’s attempts at male bonding and the way both men talked around her, as if she weren’t even in the room.
But this was her house. Her life. “For the record, I can use a gun.”
“Of course.” The deputy didn’t even spare her a glance before talking to Holt again. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around. Are you new in town?”
“I work odd jobs at New Foundations.”
Lindsey couldn’t figure out if this amounted to the deputy’s attempt to question Holt or if the younger man was so enamored that the staring reflected some sort of weird hero worship. Either way, it was getting late and she needed to clean up and get to bed.
“Good work. Good people up there.” Frank Jr. tucked the small pad of paper back into his pocket without ever taking a note.
“Yeah, right.” Not that anyone asked her, but she threw the words out there anyway. When Holt smiled, she figured he at least got her point about being ignored.
“And you’re with Ms. Pike.” The comment came out of the blue.
Holt didn’t show any outward reaction. She had to bite back a groan.
Here we go. “Are you asking about my love life?” She really wanted to know.
“Of course not.” The deputy looked at her for the first time. A short look. Long enough to frown, but that was about it. “Just making an observation.”
“We’re together.” Holt inched closer to her.
She hadn’t actually noticed him moving, but one second he stood by the door and the next he stood beside her. She concentrated for a second, tried to block out the whoosh of blood through her ears and the comforting feel of his hand low on her back. Long fingers. A warm palm.
She almost choked, and not from fear. No, this churning felt much more like excitement.
“We’ll let you know if we find anything, but I’m sure this was a once and done. Probably someone looking for drugs or money for drugs.” The deputy took out his car keys. He hadn’t run down the porch steps but looked two seconds away from taking off.
Holt’s questions stopped him. “Is there a big drug problem around here?”
“Isn’t there everywhere?” Frank Jr. asked as he glanced over his shoulder at them.
“Then it’s good I’m living here now. With Lindsey.” Holt’s voice rang out.
He didn’t yell, but he might as well have. It felt as if even the breeze stopped blowing. He sure had her attention.
The deputy turned the full way around and faced them. Kept his focus on Holt as an atta-boy grin crept across his lips. “Is that right?”
She had the opposite reaction. Shock rolled over her. Pretending to be her boyfriend was one thing, and she hadn’t even agreed to that yet. Being her live-in sounded much bigger. To the people in town and everyone at the camp, it would be bigger. But she guessed that was the point.
She hadn’t worked it all out in her head when Holt’s fingers tightened against her back. Ready or not, it seemed he wanted her support. She coughed it up. “Uh, yeah.”
The deputy just stared. Stood on the bottom step and looked them both up and down, never bothering to close his mouth or hide his delight at being the first to dig up this small-town gossip. “Then you have even less reason for worry.”
“That’s how I look at it.” Holt nodded in what came off as a dismissal.
The deputy must have gotten the hint, because he walked the rest of the way down the steps and to his car. Didn’t say anything about the attack in the house or give her any warning or advice. It was as if Holt had spoken and that resolved everything.
While she liked not having to answer questions, the way the whole scene rolled out had her feeling twitchy. Someone broke into her house and went after her, and only Holt mattered to the deputy.
She knew who—New Foundations—and why, but she doubted the deputy did. She’d done everything to keep her past and true identity hidden. Revealing it now out of frustration was not the right answer, so she let the whole thing drop.
Well, not all of it. There was still the small bit of gloating she planned to do. “That was a waste of time. I’ll refrain from saying ‘told you so’ a few hundred times.”
Holt took one step down. The move put them close to eye-to-eye. “Again, the point of that exercise was to send a message. We accomplished that.”
“You want people to think we’re not looking at New Foundations as the culprit.” She got it. The more she thought about the long term, the more she appreciated Holt stepping in with a rational head.
She wasn’t the type to run on emotions, but facing down men with a gun threw off her emotional balance. She still fought to regain a sense of normalcy...or what passed for normalcy for her.
“That and to establish me
