Chapter
Thirteen

Wyatt wasn’t at Great Bods when it was time to close, nor was he at my place when I got home. I felt a little bad that I had bothered him, because he would have been there if he hadn’t been tied up with work, which meant that somebody had been murdered or something. He didn’t do detective work any longer, but he still had to oversee scenes, stuff like that.

I was also really kind of relieved that he wasn’t there, because I was struggling to hold in check my annoyance with him. The only reason I was doing that was because I saw his point. He had to work within the framework of the law, and if I didn’t have any concrete information to give him, there was nothing he could do.

But there’s professional opinion, and then there’s private opinion, like the difference between how I should feel and how I really feel. Regardless of what he could formally do, he could still have said something along the lines of “Look, I believe you. I can’t do anything about it, but I trust your instincts.”

He hadn’t said anything of the sort, though, just as he hadn’t really believed me about that crank phone call. He was probably right about the phone call, since there hadn’t been any more, but the principle was the same. All I wanted was a little support in my time of need.

Okay, sometimes my thoughts make me laugh. What I really wanted was the sun, the moon, and the stars, but what’s the point in dreaming little? I’ve never been one to aim for subpar. I wanted it all, and I wanted it right then; yesterday would be even better. What’s wrong with that?

I let myself in, then locked the door and re-set the alarm. Even though I knew I’d locked the car, I turned around and aimed the remote through the window in the back door and hit the “lock” button again, just to be certain. I felt uneasy in my own house and I didn’t like it. Home was supposed to be a sanctuary, a place where you could relax and sleep in safety.

My sense of being secure here, though, had been damaged when Jason’s wife was trying to kill me, and I’d never quite regained it. I’d be glad to move into Wyatt’s house with him when we got married. Why didn’t I move in with him now? Well…because. Number one, I didn’t want him to take me being there for granted. He should feel as if he’s achieved something when he finally gets me there. Not taking me for granted is probably my number two reason, too. And number three. When we’re married and he looks at me sitting beside him at the table, he should feel as if he’s fought a great battle and accomplished something—namely, winning me. He’ll treasure me more. I like being treasured.

It’s the same thing that makes young people take better care of a car they’ve had to work for and buy with their own money than they do of a car that’s given to them. It’s human nature. I wanted to be the car Wyatt had to pay for.

I was both anxious and sad to leave my condo behind. It was home—or at least, it had been home. I had decorated every inch of it, and it looked good, if I do say so myself. I should be able to sell it with no problem. In fact, I should probably go ahead and put it on the market, just to get the ball rolling.

Some of my furniture could be used at Wyatt’s house—our house. I had to get used to thinking of it as ours. And Wyatt had to put my name on the deed with his. I wouldn’t really think of it as “ours” until I’d put my stamp on it—repainting, remodeling, and redecorating. Thank God he’d bought the place after his divorce, because I couldn’t possibly live there if his ex-wife had also lived there. No way in hell. That was the biggest mistake Jason had made after our divorce: when he remarried, he simply moved his new wife into the house where he’d lived with me. It drove her nuts, literally, though I think she’d already made part of the trip before they got married.

I’d already showered and was walking around the condo mentally placing pieces of my furniture in various rooms of Wyatt’s house when he arrived. I was upstairs—all of my bedroom furniture could go, because he had two completely empty bedrooms—when I heard the door open, then the beep of the alarm system, followed by the beep-beep-beep-beep as he closed the door and re-set the system.

My heartbeat picked up. Wyatt was here! No matter what, just being around him was as invigorating to me as a hard workout. We’d fight, because we were annoyed with each other, but then we’d make up with heart-pounding sex. We hadn’t had sex in almost a week, and I was almost to the point of chewing his pants off.

I went downstairs. I wasn’t naked, because I’m only naked in bed or when I’m bathing. Wyatt would probably like me naked all the time at home, but it just wasn’t practical. I had on a cherry-red tank top—no bra, of course—and these really cute white pajama bottoms with little cherries all over them. When I fight, I want to look good, just in case I get so mad we don’t have sex, and he’ll really really regret it then.

He was in the kitchen getting a glass of water. His suit jacket was draped over the back of a chair; his white dress shirt was wilted and wrinkled from being worn all day in warm weather, and he still wore his weapon, a big black automatic, on his right hip. My heart squeezed, just looking at him. He was tall and muscular and dangerous looking, and he was mine.

Maybe we could forgo fighting, and move on to the sex. I said, “A really bad case, huh?”

He looked up, green eyes narrowed and glittering with temper. “Not especially. There were just a lot of them.” He was obviously royally pissed. Wyatt didn’t sulk; it was that aggressive, dominant streak in him. When he was mad, he was ready to fight. I liked that. Sort of. At least he didn’t pout. I’m a pouter, and two in the same house is one too many.

He set the glass down with a thunk and crowded into my space, looming over me. “The next time you get some nutty idea you’re being followed, don’t get pissy with me because I don’t jump through hoops trying to find your imaginary stalkers. If I’m on my personal time and you get paranoid about something, fine, call me, but when I’m at work I’m dealing with real crimes and I’m not about to waste the city’s resources on a wild-goose chase.” His teeth were clenched, which was not a good sign.

I drew back a step, internally reeling a little. Wow! He’d let me have it with both barrels. Even though I’d been expecting something and could concede, reluctantly, that he had a point, there was so much in his opening salvo for me to take offense at that for a moment I just blinked my eyes, trying to decide which one to address first.

Imaginary? Paranoid? Nutty? “I’m not imagining things! I was followed by someone in a white Chevrolet, two days in a row.” My voice rose with indignation, because even though I’d wondered myself if my recent experiences had made me paranoid, I at least knew there really had been a white Chevrolet—or a couple of different white Chevrolets—behind me.

“Well, hell, everyone who goes anywhere in this city has probably had a white Chevrolet behind him at some time or other!” he snapped. “There was one behind me on the way over here, but I didn’t immediately assume it was the same vehicle you spotted behind you today. Do you have any idea how many white Chevrolets there are, just in this county, and not taking into account all the surrounding counties?”

“Three or four per square acre, probably,” I said, goaded into real temper. He was right; if he’d shut up a minute, I’d tell him he was right. Damn it, doing the right thing is not easy.

“Exactly! So when you saw a white car behind you yesterday, and another one behind you today, and they’re driven by different people, how the hell did you come up with the idea that it’s the same car?”

“I know! I know, all right?” Trying to keep from yelling, because my neighbors had young school-age children who were probably in bed asleep, I took two more steps away from him and leaned against the cabinets, my arms crossed under my breasts. I also took a couple of deep breaths. “You have a point. I understand what you’re saying.” It galled me to admit it, but fair is fair. “Without a tag number or something concrete, there’s nothing you can do, no way you can investigate—”

“Blair!” he yelled, evidently not caring about my neighbors’ children. “Fuck! Write this down, so you can remember it: No. One. Is. Following. You. There’s nothing to investigate! I’m not going to dance to your tune and spend city money because you’re feeling nervous. Privately, yeah, I signed on knowing you aren’t exactly maintenance free, but leave my fucking job out of it, okay? I’m a city cop. I’m not your private cop you can call on to check out every little thing that pops into your head. These dumb-ass tricks aren’t funny. Got it?”

Okay. Okay. I opened my mouth to say something but my mind was curiously blank, and my lips felt numb, so I shut it again. I got it. I so got it.

Actually, there didn’t seem to be anything to say.

I looked around the kitchen, and out into my tiny backyard where the trees were strung with white lights to make it look like a fairyland. A couple of the lights had burned out; I needed to replace them. The vase of flowers on the table in the dining alcove were wilting; I’d have to pick up some fresh ones tomorrow. I looked everywhere except at Wyatt, because I didn’t want to see in his eyes what I was afraid I’d see. I didn’t look at him because…because I just couldn’t.

The silence in the kitchen was thick, broken only by the sounds of our breathing. I should move, I thought. I should go upstairs and do something, maybe refold the towels in the linen closet. I should do anything other than just stand there, but I couldn’t.

There were arguments I could make. I knew there were. I could explain things to him, but somehow all of that was beside the point now. There were a lot of things I should say, things I should do…but I just couldn’t.

“I think you should go home.”

That was my voice saying those words, but it didn’t sound like me; it was toneless, as if all expression had been drained away. I hadn’t even been aware I was going to say anything.

“Blair—” Wyatt took a step toward me and I stumbled back, out of reach. He couldn’t touch me now, he absolutely shouldn’t touch me, because too many things were tearing me apart inside and I had to deal with them.

“Please, just—go.”

He stood there. Walking away from a fight wasn’t in his nature. I knew that, knew what I was asking him to do. This was too important for me to finesse, too vital to my life for me to risk it for some cosmetic fix that would go only skin deep. I wanted away from him, I had to get away and be completely by myself for a little while. My heart was beating with slow, hard thumps that hurt all over my insides, and if he didn’t leave soon I might start screaming from the pain of it.

I took a shuddering breath, or tried to; my chest felt constricted, as if my heart had got in the way of my lungs and wouldn’t let them work. “I’m not giving back your ring,” I said in that same thin, flat tone. “The wedding is still on—” Unless you want it canceled. “I just need some time to think. Please.”

For a long, agonizing minute, I didn’t think he’d do it. But then he wheeled and left, grabbing his suit jacket on the way out. He didn’t even slam the door.

I didn’t collapse to the floor. I didn’t run upstairs to throw myself on the bed. I just stood there in the kitchen for a long, long time, gripping the edge of the countertop so hard my fingernails were white.