and the jacket a lighter shade of gray. The shirt was blue.”
“That’s terrific—good job.” He squeezed her hand to show his appreciation.
She looked up at him. His expression showed how pleased he was with what she had been able to recall. A little moment of satisfaction nestled inside her. It was a lot more detail than she realized she had noticed at the time.
There was one more thing she became acutely aware of…Reece’s hand still covered hers. Rather than evoking fear, this time his touch filled her with a comfort that she found very reassuring. It was accompanied by a flicker of hope she had not felt since the nightmare began a month ago.
“Does that help at all? Did I remember enough for you to recognize who it was?”
“Well, it wasn’t enough for me to be sure about anything, but it will go a long way in identifying who it was if we come across him somewhere along the line.”
“We?” The excitement bubbled inside her. “Does this mean that you believe me? That you’re going to help me?” Maybe there was a way out of this mess after all. She tried to temper her enthusiasm with a more pragmatic approach. “I’ll pay for your investigative services, of course. A straightforward business deal.”
“We can talk about that later.” He withdrew his hand from hers. The moment of intimate contact had infused him with a warmth he had not felt in a long time. The moment he broke the physical contact a sudden feeling of loss flooded through him. That was not a good sign. He needed to double his determination to maintain his emotional distance from this very tempting woman and her obvious vulnerability, which continued to tug at him.
“Do you think you would recognize him if you saw a picture?”
She tilted her head to one side and scrunched up the side of her mouth. “I don’t know. I might. As I said, it was only a glimpse.” She sat up straight and stared at him. “Do you have pictures of the members of the Rocky Shores Police Department?” Then she slumped back again. “Of course, he might be a police officer somewhere else, one of the other cities around Seattle or maybe even in Seattle.”
A sigh of resignation escaped her throat. “Or maybe he was some sort of security guard and not a law enforcement officer at all.”
Reece grabbed another log and put it on the fire. “That’s very true. We can’t go jumping to conclusions.” As much as he wanted to tie together her problem with his, he didn’t have anything concrete—only his strong suspicions.
He went to the window, pulled the drape aside and stared out into the darkness. “The rain doesn’t seem to be letting up. It looks like it might end up raining all night.” And of even more concern to him was what to do about her being in his cabin. Eventually it would be time to go to bed. Should he offer to drive her home? Drive her to a motel?
Suggest that she spend the night in his cabin?
He was never going to keep temptation at arm’s length with her sleeping under the same roof with him. A cozy fire, the sound of the rain—a scene ripe for seduction. He sucked in a deep breath, held it for several seconds, then slowly exhaled. What had he gotten himself into? The very notion that her stalking and abduction would have any connection to him being set up and framed for a crime was totally preposterous. He was trying to make two pieces fit together that didn’t even belong to the same puzzle.
Reece had been offered parole after only a few months in prison, but had refused. He had no intention of giving them the opportunity of sending him back to prison with time added on to his sentence by claiming some trumped-up violation of his parole. He did the full term of his sentence and walked out the gates without further obligation to the legal system—no reporting to a parole officer, needing to provide them with his address or having to prove that he had a job.
It had been three months. He had been hiding in his cabin with nothing to do to occupy his time other than read, watch television, surf the Internet and dwell on the past and what had happened to him. Maybe it was time to put that part of his life to rest. To quit thinking about it. To stop fixating on the people who had been responsible.
But that was easier said than done.
He stared at Brandi. She seemed to be lost in thought. Perhaps fate had delivered her into his hands. Even though he no longer had his private investigator’s license, he could still put his expertise to use by helping her get to the bottom of the mystery. It would give him a place to focus his energy and help pull him out of his self-pity.
He needed to come up with a plan of action. But first, he had to figure out what they were going to do about sleeping arrangements for that night. He returned to the sofa and sat down next to her.
“Brandi…” He took her hand in his. Once again the physical contact filled him with a warmth that had been missing from his life for far too long. He forced his thoughts to the immediate problem. “We have to figure out what to do about tonight…about sleeping arrangements…about where—”
He felt her muscles tense and her body stiffen.
Chapter Three
Anxiety filled Brandi’s voice, and a hint of panic crept into her words. “I can’t go home. Whoever it is knows where I live. He might be watching my house at this very minute.”
Reece tried to alleviate her sudden surge of panic. “That’s what I thought, too. So, we’re left with two options. I can drive you to a motel or…uh…” A rush of discomfort told him how awkward he found the situation. “You can spend the night here.”
He saw the alarm flash through her eyes and across her face. He rushed his words, afraid she had misinterpreted what he’d said. “This sofa folds out into a bed. I can sleep here and you can have the bedroom.”
Brandi stared at him for a moment. She knew she couldn’t go home but hadn’t really solidified any thoughts about exactly what to do or where to go. She didn’t want to jump to conclusions again, assume the worst, but she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea either. “I don’t want to impose on you like that. I’ve already abused your hospitality.”
With his free hand he gestured toward her dirty clothes. “You’d probably like something clean to put on and a hot shower, too.”
A shy smile slowly formed on her lips. “Yes, that would be nice. But I don’t know where I’m going to get any clean clothes tonight.”
His words were tentative, escaping into the open before he was sure he wanted to say them. “I could go to your house and bring back what you need.”
A quick look of concern flitted across her face. “But if someone is watching my house, they’d see you go inside. You’d be in danger.”
He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “Don’t you worry about that. I can spot surveillance a mile away, especially if the person watching your house thinks they are dealing with someone who is inexperienced in the method of a stakeout. I know how to get in and out of places without being spotted. So—” he flashed a confident smile “—draw a floor plan of your house, give me your keys and a list of what you want and tell me where to find it. I should be back in a little over two hours. It’s normally a one-hour drive to Rocky Shores from here. I should be in and out of your house in less than ten minutes and will come straight back. Of course, it might take a little longer because of the rain on the mountain roads.”
“Why
