Undercover Love (The Women of Manatee Bay, Book 2) (16 page)

Grant grimaced. “Wish I were. Do you want to come in for a drink? It’s hot out here.”

Temptation to see Grant’s house rushed through Rachel and had her nodding a little too eagerly. She followed him up the walkway to his front door.

His house smelled good. Like cinnamon and leather. She slipped off her flip-flops and trailed Grant into the kitchen, an open, tiled room with pale oak cabinets and sparse countertops.

“Nice house.”

“Thanks. I bought it before the market fully recovered. Got a good deal.” He opened the fridge. “Sweet tea, soda or water?”

She couldn’t resist peering over his shoulder. “Coke is fine.” His fridge was bare but for drinks and a few Lunchables. Typical single guy.

Fighting another smile, Rachel took an icy Coke from him and popped the tab. “Thank you.” She sipped quietly, watching Grant pour himself sweet tea, noticing the way his muscles rippled and moved beneath his shirt. Now that she was close to him the scent of his shampoo surrounded her, and despite the soda, her mouth dried.

This guy liked her.

He’d taken her on an amazing date last night.

He put the pitcher of tea back in the fridge while Rachel tried to get a handle on her runaway emotions.

There was a reason he had a reputation. The man knew how to treat women. She had to remember that. This whole romance was getting in the way of her life.

Grant turned to her, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “How did you sleep last night?”

Rachel wet her lips. “Pretty good.” She almost told him how Maggie woke her up but remembered in time that he’d been looking for her sister. Maggie didn’t need an interrogation about whatever he wanted to know.

“I’m off work. Are you hungry?”

“Um, actually, I should go back home.”

“Got a case?”

“Possible insurance fraud.”

He nodded.

“You really do have a nice place.” The soda can burned her hands with its coldness. “Everything’s okay with Corrine?”

“Should be. I’ll check in and let you know.”

“Thanks.” She almost called him her hero, but it felt a little to Maggie-esque. A little too flirtatious and needy.

So she hugged her Coke close to her heart and flipped him a smile. “I’m taking your word for it.”

He grinned. “Corrine’s going to be fine.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Corrine was dead.

Three days later, Rachel swept wet strands of hair from her face as pallbearers lowered the casket into Manatee Bay’s only cemetery. Drizzle coated the ground with a dull sheen and the few people who’d attended the funeral held umbrellas close to their faces.

She could hardly bear to look and yet some twisted force kept her gaze pinned to the grave. Clenching her jaw, she blinked as droplets clung to her eyelashes and rolled down her face.

“You need an umbrella.” Grant sidled next to her, his cologne an intoxicating irritant.

Rachel shrugged away from him, anger a hard knot in her chest. “It’s a warm rain. I’ll be fine.”

The pallbearers stepped back. Now that the casket was lowered, people began to filter away from the site. One lady didn’t move. From this distance she looked like she was sobbing.

Throat tightening, Rachel blinked again.

“You haven’t been answering my calls,” Grant said softly. He popped the umbrella open and put it over her head. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

“She didn’t tell me anything, if you’re looking for facts.” Rachel pressed her lips together and forced herself not to wipe her cheeks. No weakness in front of him.

He moved in front of her, touching her chin. Affronted, she glared at him and then realized that’s what he’d wanted. To look into her eyes. The grim day made his irises unnaturally blue, electric almost, and she found herself unable to look away.

“You blame me,” he said, raw hurt in his tone.

“She should’ve never gone home.” The night after she’d left Grant, after he told her Corrine would be fine, he’d called two hours later with the news that his officer had found Corrine in an alley near her home.

Dead.

They’d been too late. Because the police station let her go home. Because Rachel left her alone. Because Grant had been too busy dealing with Crazy Al to get an officer out there sooner.

Yeah, she blamed everyone, but mostly she blamed Corrine.

“Corrine made her choices,” Grant said as if he read her thoughts. There were circles beneath his eyes and a short beard forming on his chin.

“I’m angry,” Rachel acknowledged.

Grant sighed, finally looking away, past Rachel to the gravestones around them. He was still holding the umbrella over her head. Protecting her.

“She didn’t tell us who her attacker was.”

Surprise rippled through Rachel. “Really?”

“We let her go home because she insisted. Even after we—”

“Discovered her relation to Slasher,” she finished.

“You knew.”

Rachel reached for the umbrella and Grant let her have it. She could protect herself. “She mentioned it. I wish I would’ve told you.”

Grant looked at her then, his expression intent. “You should trust me. Us.”

What did she say to that?

“I’m still working on trusting God,” she halfway-joked.

The rain had eased and a light mist crept through the cemetery. Its swirling eddies curled around gravestones and shrouded the lone woman at Corrine’s grave. Was she thinking of a little girl who’d been beautiful?

“Did Corrine tell you anything else?” Grant finally asked.

“Not enough.” Now she’d never know how the mayor was connected to Slasher. “Any evidence on who killed her?”

“Some.”

“Don’t mess this investigation up.”

“You’ve got some nerve, Rachel.” Grant took the umbrella back. His thumb grazed her knuckles.

“Why? Because I don’t want to see the wrong person arrested this time?”

“You referring to Lee?” His eyes narrowed. She could practically see his hackles rising.

“You messed up once. You could do it again.”

Grant brought his face close to hers, so close she felt the heat of his breath fanning her cheek, the dilation of his pupils. “
I
didn’t mess anything up.”

Rachel jutted her chin, ignoring the warmth in her belly at his nearness, or how her breath snagged in her chest. “Your partners then?” The words came out in an embarrassingly breathless way.

“The past doesn’t matter, so quit bringing it up.” He backed away then, a stony look in his eyes.

“The past matters to me.” She pushed her drying, frizzing hair from her face. “It determines so much of our future.”

“Not always. Sometimes we need to let go of the past.”

Rachel’s mouth dried at the intensity of his gaze. It was as though he looked right into her soul. That he saw her deepest fears…that he knew about Maggie and Scott. Swallowing, she inclined her head in a surrender. “That’s true.”

Movement caught her attention. The sobbing woman was finally leaving Corrine’s grave. Trudging across rain-slopped grass, shoulders hunched. “Is that Corrine’s mother?”

“Yes. She’s leaving tomorrow.”

“For?”

“Home.”

“I’m going to give her my condolences.”

Grant put a hand on her shoulder. It was warm, heavy. Rachel wanted to melt beneath it.

“Leave her alone.”

All thoughts of melting fled. “Excuse me?”

“She’s grieving. Whatever evidence you’re after, now’s not the time.”

Rachel watched in disappointment as the woman reached her car. Seconds more and she could talk with her.

The overcast clouds broke apart and a beam of light splayed across the cemetery. The woman drove away.

She turned to look at the man whose hand still lay on her shoulder. His eyes sparkled beneath the gentle sun.

“Stay with me,” Grant said.

***

During the next week, Rachel floated. Although she and Grant didn’t have any more dates during the work week, he found out she went running in the mornings and asked if he could join her. They met at the park and trekked four miles in companionable exercise.

Rachel didn’t know what to make of their runs but decided to take things as they came. Two weeks after their date, Rachel left her office happier than a clam at sea. Right before closing, one of her internet feelers located an interesting tidbit of information. She almost called Grant but stopped herself just in time.

Instead, she loaded up her SUV and headed home. She dialed Maggie as she cruised down the interstate.

Her sister answered with a shout. “Yeah?”

“Are you making dinner tonight?”

“Planning on it.” A swell of noise cut off Maggie’s next words.

“You’re not having a party at my house, are you?”

“No.” The next words got lost beneath talking.

“Maggie?” Rachel frowned, swerving into the left lane and mashing the gas. “I’m coming home right now. My house better not be a mess.”

Maggie didn’t answer and the call dropped. Frustrated and annoyed, Rachel tossed her phone to the passenger seat. Getting home took forever thanks to a gas stop and a three-car pileup on the interstate. No one dead though, according to her scanner.

When she pulled up to the apartment, dusk had settled over Manatee Bay. A deep exhalation ballooned out of her and tension she didn’t realize she’d been holding onto left her body. Maybe all that noise she’d heard on the phone had only been the television.

She grabbed her laptop and purse before sliding out of the car, locking it, and striding up her walkway. Her apartment windows were dark. So no dinner tonight, since Maggie was MIA, but at least she didn’t have to face people.

She needed quiet to soak in the latest bit of information on Owens. It wouldn’t hurt to send off an e-mail to one of her fed friends. Maybe Ashley Cain, who knew faces. She could ID people she’d only seen once in a crowd, a kind of super-photographic memory that earned her a place high up in the fed hierarchy.

Rachel turned the key in the lock and swung the door open. Silence greeted her. The darkened house smelled funny though. A conglomeration of perfume, food and—

“Surprise!”

Rachel shrieked and reached for pepper spray as people jumped up from all corners of her tiny living room. They poured out of the kitchen and Rachel about fainted.

Pressed against her front door, pepper spray at the ready, she eyed her “guests.” Streamers wafted around the low ceiling as balloons bounced against her couch.

Katrina emerged from the crowd of faces, a silly grin on her face. “Happy birthday, Grumpy.”

Birthday? Rachel lowered the spray and straightened. A smile started tugging at her lips but she fought it, choosing to glower at her friend instead. “My birthday is next week.”

“We had to surprise you.” Katrina hugged her and Rachel gave up on fighting the smile. She hugged Katrina back.

“You freaked me out!” One more squeeze, then she let her friend go. Happiness spread through her and she knew all her teeth were showing.

“Does this mean there’s food?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Lights came on and while Katrina went in to supervise at the kitchen, Rachel made the rounds to say hi to friends and family. Even her mother had come, though she stood near Rachel’s bedroom looking annoyed and put-out.

Rachel finally reached her. “Hey, Mom. Why don’t you sit down?”

“I’m leaving soon. Maggie wouldn’t get me a beer so I’m heading down to Wiley’s with your Uncle Charlie in a bit.” A crease settled across Mama’s brow, stretching the pale skin so like Rachel’s own.

“Suit yourself.” It was an annoying fact that Rachel looked like her mother. Thank goodness she didn’t act like her. Swallowing the irritation that so readily gripped her in her mother’s presence, she smiled tightly.

Turning, she scanned the room. Behind her, Mom didn’t say a thing. Joe and some friends from church sat on the couch laughing and eating chips. Hopefully not spilling. The Widow Carmichael hovered nearby, no doubt protecting the pastor from ungodly influences.

Charlie, Angel and Maggie all grouped in a corner drinking Cokes and laughing as Officer Pete regaled them with some sort of funny adventure. A few other friends played with the Wii someone had brought over. A lot of laughter, a wonderful party, and Mom had to stand behind Rachel like someone walked over her grave.

“Thirty years ago you gave me the worst night of my life.” Her mother’s voice broke into Rachel’s musings.

“I know.” Rachel barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Laughter came from the kitchen, Katrina’s laughter, and Rachel started toward her best friend in the world.

“Wait.” Mom laid a hand on Rachel’s arm, stopping her. Sucking back an annoyed retort, Rachel turned toward her mother. “Maggie was always the easy one. She came out easy and helped me. But you…” Her mom’s lips quirked. “You had to touch everything. Hold onto everything. It took me two hours to push you out.”

Rachel crinkled her nose. “Eww. Too much detail.”

“I was nineteen.”

She wanted to tell her mother to get on with the story but the warmth in her mother’s eyes stopped her. This was a woman she’d never understood. Someone who stayed with an unfaithful man. Who cared more about work than her children.

Or so Rachel had assumed.

Her mother had been young. Maybe too young.

So Rachel leaned against her bedroom door and waited.

“You make me proud.” Mama laid a hand on her cheek. “Thirty years old, a college degree, and someone who’s not afraid of anything but love.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rachel drew back. From behind her bedroom door, she heard a yowl. Miss Priss evidently didn’t care for her mother’s insinuations either.

Mom’s eyes glinted. “Your pastor is sitting by himself on the couch, listening to those boring people when what he needs is a strong woman to take him under her wing.”

“Are you serious?” Rachel could only gape at her mother, aghast.

“Of course I am,” Mom snapped, all earlier warmth disappearing beneath her renowned temper. “He keeps looking at you.”

“Joe and I are good friends, nothing more,” Rachel hissed, unable to believe her mother was bringing this up now.

“You need to get married.”

“I never, ever want to be stuck in a faithless relationship,” Rachel shot out. Before her mother could say anything else, Rachel drew a deep breath and forced herself to speak in even tones. “Thank you for coming to the party. I’m going to help Katrina with the cake. Will you be here for that?”

Mom shrugged, a stubborn set to her chin. “I just want to see my daughter happy.”

Should she tell her mother about Grant? Better not. Her mother had a reasonable distrust of law enforcement thanks to a few run-ins with the law when she was younger. Besides, they’d had one date. Then a funeral, where her emotions had been a little on the wacky side. A few morning runs. That didn’t mean their relationship would be moving forward.

As she traipsed to the kitchen though, she found herself wanting Grant to be there. Which was ridiculous. Of course, Katrina hadn’t invited him tonight. That would be totally inappropriate considering she didn’t know about their date yet.

Rachel poked her head into the kitchen. Katrina and Alec were bent over the table and giggling. Literally giggling.