Instantly, she looked across the hall and found Dylan watching her through the most scorched-earth eyes she’d ever seen. Her chest tightened, and her heart started to thrum. The breath stalled in her throat. The truth disturbed.
This hug. This embrace. It was what she’d wanted from Dylan the second she’d seen him standing on the patio, to feel his arms around her, his body against hers. To just lean against him and be held.
She’d be safer dancing naked in a bonfire.
“Thank you,” she said against Kent’s chest, struggling to free herself. His arms suddenly felt like a net, sending panic twisting through her. She needed to get away. Not from the cops or Kent, but from Dylan and those hard, penetrating eyes.
Kent, a shrewd politician with a well-earned reputation for cutting throats and breaking hearts, didn’t try to stop her, just stepped back and frowned. For a man rumored to be on his way out, he still held himself with commanding presence.
“I’ll have Livingston’s badge for putting you through this. Anyone who knows you knows you couldn’t hurt a flea.”
Involuntarily, Beth looked toward the end of the hall, only to find Dylan gone.
“Thanks for coming down,” she said, turning back to Lance’s colleagues. “It means a lot to me.”
Kent pulled her in for another quick hug and Janine did her best to smile. Beth bade them good-night, then crossed the lobby to the front door. A few uniformed cops lingered by a counter, talking in loud tones. A woman rushed inside, demanding to know where her Donny was. Across the room, a young girl with ratty hair and torn clothes yelled to anyone who would listen.
Pushing open the glass door, Beth welcomed the blast of cool night air.
“Mrs. St. Croix!” came a shouted voice, as a crowd of reporters rushed up the steps. “Mrs. St. Croix, can you tell us what happened?”
Flashbulbs exploded around her. Microphones were jammed toward her. “Do they have any suspects?”
“Was the murder weapon really a fire poker?”
Beth tried to turn away, but the swarm had circled her.
“Did you really find his body?”
Revulsion surged through her. She saw the collective gleam in the eyes of the reporters, the thirst for a story with no regard for the fact that the roadkill they picked apart was someone’s world. She’d worked hard to keep her personal life private, but when Lance went to work for the district attorney’s office, anonymity became a luxury of the past. He’d thrived on the adulation, fed off it. And the press had fallen in love. He was the grandson of a wealthy state judge, he was handsome, and everyone believed it only a matter of time before he capitalized on his popularity and ran for public office, starting with D.A. The press had been having a field day with rumors about English stepping down, Lance taking over.
No one was quite sure why.
But now the golden boy was dead; murdered, she thought with a sharp stab, and the media he’d used so shamelessly wanted to know why.
“I have no comment,” Beth said. No intention of telling them anything. Even words of innocence could be twisted into stones of condemnation.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, trying to push through the tight circle of reporters.
“Did you kill him?”
The question stopped Beth cold. Yvonne Kelly, an investigative reporter whose love of going for the jugular Lance had always admired, pushed her way to the front. The wind blew pale hair into her face. Her eyes glittered.
“Was it a crime of passion?” she asked icily. “Is that how you ended up with blood on your hands?”
Control shattered. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you—” she started, but the crowd erupted into a frenzy of shouts and curses and shoving before she could finish. Someone screamed. Flashes of light ricocheted through the darkness. She heard a low roar, then the sound of something smashing violently to the concrete.
“You can’t do that!” a reporter shouted.
“Watch me.” Dylan broke from the throng and pushed to her side, hooked an arm around her waist without breaking his stride. “Sorry, folks, but this feeding frenzy is over. Ms. St. Croix has no comment.”
Disappointment tittered through the reporters, but the swarm instantly loosened, obeying Dylan’s command like he was some fallen deity and the price of going against him was eternal damnation. He led her down the steps, his stride long and purposeful. Determined. She almost had to run to keep up with him. He never looked back, just kept his arm around her waist and guided her to the dark SUV at the curb.
He opened the passenger door and grabbed a bulging file from the bucket seat. “Get in.”
Beth hesitated. The interior of the black Bronco looked as dark and isolating as a cave, and once inside, they’d be completely alone. Just the two of them. No outside interference. Just like that cold night at the cabin, the terrible mistake that still had her jerking awake in the middle of the night, heart hammering, chest tight, body burning from his touch.
She didn’t want that. Lance was dead. She was a suspect. There was no room for the chaos that was Dylan in her world. Hadn’t been for a long time. She’d worked hard to carve him from her life, her dreams. But God help her, because of one mindless slip, he’d stepped out of those shadowy, forbidden images and into the worst nightmare of her life.
And Yvonne Kelly was closing in fast.
“We don’t have all night,” Dylan prompted.
Beth cut him a sharp look then slipped into the Bronco. In a heartbeat he had the door closed and was sliding into the driver’s seat, effectively shutting them off from the world. Through the tinted windows, Beth saw Yvonne Kelly hit the sidewalk at a run, but the engine purred to life and they tore from the curb with a shriek of tires.
Her heart raced as fast as the blur of buildings and cars they passed. He took a right curve too fast, then another, then swerved onto the side of the deserted road and threw the gear into park. A few cars lined the street, but no activity, and very little light. They were behind the police station, she realized. Not far away, but completely out of sight.
“You sure do know how to attract a crowd, sweetheart.”
The insolent words brought her back to familiar territory. Or at least, remembered territory. For a few dizzying minutes, Dylan had seemed more stranger than one-man wrecking crew. In his touch, she’d felt a protectiveness she didn’t remember. In his rough-hewn voice, she’d heard a strain she hadn’t understood. This bold, in-your-face proclamation was much more suited to the man she’d foolishly given her heart so long ago.
Little light made its way from the street lamp through the tinted windows, leaving only the blue glow from the dashboard to cast his face in shadow. He watched her intently, his six-foot-two frame dominating the front seat. She could hardly move without touching him.
She didn’t want to touch him.
She hadn’t wanted to spend the night at the cabin with him, either. She’d driven to the mountains after an emotional appointment with her doctor, in search of peace and quiet, to clear her mind. Instead, she’d found Dylan. She hadn’t realized he spent weekends there, at the St. Croix retreat. She hadn’t known the snow would make the roads impassable. She hadn’t anticipated all the memories closing in on her, the nightmare that had pinned her to the bed, waking up to find Dylan by her side, so big and strong, so…gentle. That had been new. Or maybe just an illusion. A dream. A wish. Regardless, it had shredded every remaining particle of her defenses.
Until she’d awoken just before sunrise, sprawled over his big hot body, their legs tangled, his arm draped possessively over her waist.
She’d wanted to cry.
Even