“So, Stalker. We found your bird, didn’t we?”
He stiffened at the voice from the doorway. Miles Perrini had a twisted sense of humor. Okay when you were having beers but definitely not okay here.
“Get to work, Miles,” Zach said softly.
But Miles called out, “Hey, Vance, we found Stalker’s birdy. Come have a look.”
The guys were such assholes. Couldn’t stop laughing over Zach’s “little dove who got away . . .”
“You mean the little dove who got away?” he heard Vance’s approaching voice ask.
Zach swore under his breath, and to her, he murmured, “Excuse me.”
THEY WERE RIBBING him.
The two patrol officers who had appeared soon after she’d made the 911 call were ribbing the detective.
Paige stared at the domed ceiling, pretending to be engrossed in the wood beams as the officers walked around. The house’s oppressive ambience was shattered with their laughter.
They kept whispering things. Saying, “Damn, that’s got to hurt, man.”
Paige settled deeper into the leather chair and forced her gaze out the window. Neighbors peeked over the top of the police car.
And she desperately wished she’d stayed in Seattle. At her studio. With her cat, who’d been grudgingly checked into a pet motel and must not be enjoying it at all. She should, she thought for the twentieth time, have let the Realtor handle everything. Hired help to settle the estate. But ahh, no. She’d wanted to come back to . . . to what?
See pictures? Try to remember what for seven years she had not? Finally know the place Mom had pretended did not exist on the map?
A neighbor made a questioning gesture from the sidewalk, and having no idea if she’d once met this worried-looking old man or not, Paige gave a little wave that hopefully transmitted the message: it’s all fine, you can go back to your life now and leave me to mine.
The old man ducked his head formally and went around a parked black Cherokee. The detective’s black Cherokee: there was no doubt in her mind it was his.
Now that the shock was fading, now that the anger was tightly on a leash, and Paige was gradually returning to her senses, she began to register this darkly attractive officer. Really register him. God, she could not stop stealing glances. He was tall, muscled; a suppressed strength and authority radiated off his athletic body.
She’d never seen such a virile thing in her life.
He was dressed in jeans and a solid crewneck T-shirt. A gun rested at his hip as he bent over a broken chair and pointed something out to the other officer. He spoke in low, hushed tones, and his voice made her stomach sink in her body, then fly up to her throat.
When his lazy, dreamy smile spread over something the other said, it hit Paige like a blow, left her struggling for air and staring so stupidly at him that his smile faded the second he straightened and noticed. His expression transformed, became serious, his eyes intent. He seemed to be done with his search and plunged a hand through his hair as he strode forward.
He had a face from her dreams. Hard boned and square, with a direct stare that trapped you. His eyes were amazing, green as a Colorado forest, candid, thick lashed. His body was lean and sinewy, the kind that moved with the grace and coiled strength of an animal of prey. His hair reached his collar, the color a dark sable, just a shade under black.
Paige couldn’t breathe. She could not tear her eyes away, stop staring, stop ogling him. God, this was so not the moment.
Time seemed to come to a standstill when he halted within arm’s length of her. The two officers weaving around the living room lifted their heads to catch Paige’s reaction as he spoke. “With your permission, I’d like you to accompany me upstairs.”
Someone coughed.
Paige frowned, wondering why a muffled laugh followed that cough.
“Please ignore them.”
His voice was deep and rich, like something rumbling out from a bottomless, magical well. Hearing it appeased her, but at the same time, made her core ache and tighten. Her legs, and remarkably the rest of her, felt unsteady as she rose to her feet.
He stepped back to let her pass, then noiselessly followed her up the stairs.
She could feel his eyes on her nape. His body close to hers. Felt aware of his every step in the wake of hers. Up the landing . . . down the hall . . .
Why was her heart pounding like this? Because she feared what he’d find or because she feared the directions her thoughts were taking?