Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Canyon) (28 page)

“This your place?” the shorter policeman asked. Officer Renick, his name tag read.

“Yes. I’m Claire Chastain. I noticed the door standing open as I pulled into the driveway. The whole place is destroyed.” Her chest clamped down. Everything she owned was ruined. A little shiver rolled through her. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

The officers didn’t answer, just drew their pistols and walked toward the house. She heard them inside, moving through the rooms, making sure no one was still in there.

“Looks more like vandals than burglars,” the bald cop said when he walked back outside. “But we need you to go in and take a look, see if anything’s missing.”

She nodded, took a steadying breath and followed the men back into the house.

“They did some pretty major damage,” the thin cop said, shoving his glasses up on his nose as he glanced around.

The understatement of the year.

Claire felt sick at heart. The place had been torn apart, the sofa turned over, the cushions ripped open. The lamps were knocked to the floor, the shades bent and torn. The kitchen looked just as bad, the dishes shoved out of the cupboards, shattered on the floor, the toaster tossed clear across the room.

She took a shaky breath. First Michael, now this. She felt like crying, but she had done enough of that lately.

She headed down the hall just as her BlackBerry started to ring. She dug it out of her purse, recognized Ben’s number and pressed it against her ear with a shaky hand.

“It’s Ben,” he said, as if she wouldn’t know his voice. “I...ah...just called to see if you’re okay.”

She tried to control the quiver in her throat. “I’m okay but someone...broke into my apartment. The police are here.”

“What the hell?” His voice hardened. “I’m at the office. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“I’m okay, really.”

“Just hang on till I get there.”

The same feeling she’d had last night swept over her. Ben was coming. Everything would be okay. She hung up the phone and leaned against the wall.

“Anything missing in the living room?” the officer asked.

“Nothing I noticed offhand.” She went into the bedroom. It looked the same as the living room, the covers pulled off the bed, the mattress slashed open, stuffing pouring out on the floor. She’d only hung a couple of pictures—a landscape photo Maggie Rawlins had given her as a housewarming gift, and a photo of her and her parents—but they were ripped off and tossed on the floor. Her desk had been rifled through, as well.

“My laptop is missing.”

The officer wrote that down. “Anything else?”

The TV was still sitting on her dresser, though the drawers were all pulled out and the contents dumped on the floor.

“How about your jewelry?”

She made her way over to the mother-of-pearl inlaid jewelry box her parents had given her on her sixteenth birthday and flipped open the lid. The box was empty.

“My jewelry is gone. I had some nice gold necklaces and gold earrings, a couple of rings, one with opals, one with sapphires.” The sapphire ring had been a gift from Michael. It was all she had left of him. Her heart squeezed. “They weren’t worth a fortune but they were valuable to me.”

The officer made a note. Down the hall, heavy footsteps sounded. She turned to see Ben walking through the bedroom door, a grim look on his face. For an instant their eyes met, hers frightened, his worried.

His gaze went from her to the two police officers. “What’d they take?”

“Laptop. Her jewelry. That’s it so far.”

He looked at Claire. “Any money in the house?”

“A little in a jar in the freezer. I didn’t look there.” They walked in that direction. The jar was there, but the money was gone. She walked back into the living room, feeling dazed and shaken, her gaze going over the destruction in her apartment.

Her heart beat dully. “They found my jewelry and my money. Did they really think they would find something valuable inside the cushions on my sofa?”

Ben surveyed the chaos in the room. He was standing so close she could feel the warmth of his body, comforting somehow.

“Meth heads,” he said. “Or someone had a bone to pick with you. You had any trouble at work?”

“No. I’m not taking cases, and I haven’t been there long enough to make any enemies.”

He stood beside her as the officers took her statement. They wrapped things up and headed for the door.

“You have someone you can stay with tonight?” Officer Renick asked.

“She’s staying with me,” Ben said. He turned to Claire, waiting for her to protest, those ice-blue eyes on her face. “I’ll bring you back to get your car in the morning.”

She knew she should argue but she didn’t. There was nowhere else she wanted to be.

The moon shone through the branches as they walked outside. She watched the patrol car taillights disappear into the darkness as the police drove away.

“You got some kind of insurance?” Ben asked.

She looked up at him. She was so glad he was there. It was dangerous to feel that way. More frightening than her apartment being vandalized. “I have a renter’s policy with State Farm.”

“You need to call them right away. They’ll give you the name of a company that can clean up this mess.”

She looked back at the apartment. “I need to collect a few things.”

Ben walked her back inside, waited while she packed an overnight bag with clothes she picked up off the floor and a couple of business suits that were still hanging in her closet, enough for a couple of days.

As they left the building, she paused at the bottom of the front porch stairs. “You don’t think they’ll come back, do you?”

“Depends on why they were here in the first place.” He didn’t say more, but she knew him well enough to be sure he was thinking about it, drawing some sort of conclusion.

Ben waited while she drove her car into the garage and closed the automatic door, then helped her into the Denali.

She felt safe sitting next to him. She always felt safe with Ben.

It was her heart that was in danger.

Thirty

S
am was watching TV with Mrs. McKenzie when Ben got back to the house. The boy grinned when he saw Claire and ran to give her a hug.

“I asked Ben if you could come over, but I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”

“Claire’s staying for a couple of days while they do some work on her apartment.” He cast her a glance, still waiting for her to argue. He’d been surprised she had agreed without a fight.

She just looked down at Sam, and though her face was pale, she gave the boy a smile. “I hope you don’t mind sleeping on the sofa.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I made lasagna,” Mrs. McKenzie said. “There’s plenty for company.” She was a small woman, rotund, with silver hair and tiny wire-rimmed glasses. She looked as though she had stepped out of an ad for homemade jam. Sam loved her. Ben was damned fond of her, too.

“Mrs. McKenzie, this is Claire. She’s...a friend.” She was way more than that. Not his girlfriend. Not exactly. But something close to it. He wasn’t sure when he had started thinking of her that way.

He wasn’t sure what word Claire would use to describe their relationship. Or lack of one.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. McKenzie,” Claire said warmly. “Sam thinks a lot of you.”

“It’s just Emma, and that’s real nice to hear.” She patted the boy on the head. “You take care of your guest tonight, and I’ll see you tomorrow.” She waved and headed for the door.

“How about some dinner?” Ben asked, looking at Claire for agreement as much as Sam.

Sam vigorously nodded. “I’m starving.”

Claire looked pale and not the least bit hungry.

“You need to eat,” he said, encouraging her, and finally she nodded.

Ben served the meal, including the crisp green salad Emma had made, and they all sat down together. It felt the way it had when he had first brought Sam home and Claire had been staying at the house with them.

He thought about the last time he had taken her to bed, the hot sex they’d had at Buster’s cabin. He thought about all the days since then that he had wanted her and not been able to have her.

He looked at her, noticed the way a few strands of dark hair had come loose from her clip and floated against her cheek. He noticed her soft blue cashmere sweater and how it curved over her pretty breasts. Arousal slipped through him, tightened his groin.

He wanted her just as much as he had when she had been in the house before. And his bed was going to be just as empty.

He waited till they all finished eating then shoved back from the table. “Time for you to put on your pajamas and brush your teeth,” he said to Sam. “Say good-night to Claire.”

He did so politely, the way he always did, then disappeared into his bedroom to get dressed for the night he would spend on the sofa.

Ben wondered what Claire would do if he came to her tonight. He rubbed a hand over his jaw at a memory of a slender palm burning his cheek and wondered if she’d hit him again or invite him to join her.

“The cleaning lady was here this morning,” he said. “Clean sheets all around. I’ve got a T-shirt you can borrow if you need one.”

“That would be great. I’d...umm...like to wash my underwear before I wear it. I can’t stand to think of who might have handled it.”

He remembered her sexy red bikini panties and his blood heated. “Go ahead.”

He watched her head back to the bedroom to retrieve her things, walk past him into the laundry room to start a load of clothes.

The nights had been long without her. Now that she was back in his house, it was going to be a long night again.

* * *

Sam was asleep in the living room when Claire threw her clothes into the dryer and padded down the hall in search of Ben. She found him sitting at the computer in his study.

“What are you working on?” she asked, only a little self-conscious in the olive-drab T-shirt he had loaned her with just a pair of bikini panties underneath.

When he looked up and saw her, his shoulders tightened. She wanted to walk over and massage the tension away.

“I’m reading the exposé your boyfriend wrote for the
L.A. Times.
”

A chill slid through her. “Ex-boyfriend. Why are you doing that?”

“Because, angel, your friend was tortured. Whoever did it either wanted payback for something he did, or they wanted information. If they were looking for something they thought he had, that could also be the reason they trashed your apartment.”

“I thought they were looking for something to sell.”

“Could be. Could be they were looking for something else and what they took was just a bonus. Since the vandalism occurred a day after Sullivan was killed and I’m not a big believer in coincidence, I’m trying to figure out what your friend was working on.”

Claire straightened. “Oh, my God, you think what happened could have something to do with Michael.”

“If they were pressing Sullivan for information and didn’t get it, they might think you have it.”

“But I don’t have anything. I only went out with him a couple of times.”

“Unfortunately, no one knows that but you.”

“What...what should I do?”

“Be careful. Don’t go off by yourself. Tomorrow I’ll talk to Castillo, tell him what happened at your apartment. There’s a chance it was just what it seems, a drug addict looking to make enough for a fix, or a bunch of destructive kids. But we need to find out.”

Claire said nothing.

“Listen, baby, it’s been a long day. Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”

She nodded, but didn’t walk away. Even with Michael’s death and the vandalism, there was something she had to know. Something she’d been thinking about for more than a week.

Ben looked up, surprised to see her still there. “What is it?”

“I’ve been thinking.... The other day...when you made your ugly proposal...”

He frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to be ugly, just practical.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about your
practical
proposal. If I’d said yes, what did you plan to do about women?”

His frown deepened. “Women?”

“We both know you have a voracious appetite for sex. To the best of my knowledge, that involves women.”

He shrugged. “I like sex. I’m pretty sure you do, too.”

“That isn’t the point. You aren’t a one-woman man. Were you planning to fool around on the side? Maybe you thought if you were discreet—”

He was out of his chair in an instant and pressing her up against the wall. “I wasn’t planning to cheat on you. I don’t believe in that. I haven’t been with another woman since I met you. I sure as hell wouldn’t do it after we were married.”

She swallowed, surprised by his answer and the fact she knew he meant it. “I just... I was curious.” She tried to move away, but he didn’t let her go, just bent his head and kissed her. A deep, wet, ravishing kiss that turned her body liquid and warm. His tongue was in her mouth, tasting and coaxing, and she melted against him.

She could feel every hard muscle, feel his powerful erection, and though she told herself to resist, he was Ben and she loved him. And she ached for him to touch her the way he had before.

“I want you, angel. God, I want you so much.”

“Oh, Ben. I want you, too.”

He kissed her again, softly his time, then more deeply. She loved the way he kissed, loved the taste of him, the feel of his hard body. No man could ever compare, not for her.

Lifting her into his arms, he carried her down the hall into his bedroom. In an instant, the borrowed T-shirt was gone, her panties stripped away. She helped Ben take off his clothes, then naked, he carried her over to the bed.

The loving started slow and easy, in seconds turned hot and wet, deep and erotic. He knew just how to touch her, how to stir her body until she couldn’t think of anything but him, couldn’t stand another moment without him inside her.

He drove deep, took her hard, drove her to frenzy. She bit down on her lip to stifle a cry as she reached a climax, then another. A few minutes later, Ben followed her to release.

Afterward they lay entwined, Claire nestled against his side. She traced a finger over his powerful chest. “I should go. Sam might wake up.” Thank heaven he was a deep sleeper.

Ben pressed a kiss on her forehead. “Not yet.” For a while he just held her, and she wondered at his thoughts. She was back in his house, but nothing had changed. Leaning over, he kissed her again, came up over her and slid himself inside. This time they reached their peak together and slowly drifted down.

Ben didn’t stop her when she eased out of bed, grabbed his T-shirt and her panties off the floor, went into the bathroom. When she walked back out, he was wearing his jeans and nothing else, standing in front of the door, blocking her escape from the bedroom.

“We’re good together, Claire.”

She reached up and touched his cheek, felt his late-evening beard. “I know.”

“Will you think about it?”

She didn’t have to ask what he meant. She had been thinking about his “practical” proposal for days. But until that very moment, it hadn’t occurred to her that she might actually accept it. Now as she looked into his hard, handsome face, she thought how much she loved him, thought how lonely her life would be without him.

And what if Sage was right and Ben really did love her? Would it be possible for them to be happy?

But what if Sage was wrong and the reason Ben was marrying her was exactly what he said. A practical solution to the problem of sharing Sam?

Could she live with a man who didn’t love her? Claire knew she could not.

And yet she heard herself saying, “I’ll think about it,” as she turned and walked out of the bedroom.

* * *

Ben drove Claire to work the next morning.

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting?” she said.

“It’ll only be for a day or two, till Castillo gets a line on things. We need to be sure the break-in isn’t connected to Sullivan.”

“I’m staying at your house. No one knows I’m there. Surely it’s safe for me to drive myself to work.”

“I’ll pick you up at five. And don’t go out to lunch by yourself.”

Claire sighed. “All right, I’ll do it your way for a while, but it if looks like a burglary, I’m driving myself and moving home as soon as my apartment is ready.”

“All right, fine.”

The morning passed uneventfully. No phone calls, no one following the car or watching the building as they had driven away. Ben was being ridiculously cautious, but he’d always had a protective nature. It was one of the things she loved about him.

Sitting in the employee lounge eating the brown-bag lunch she had made herself that morning, Claire thought of Ben’s “practical” proposal. It wasn’t the hearts-and-flowers kind of marriage proposal she had dreamed of. It wasn’t promises of eternal love and devotion.

But she would be sleeping in Ben’s bed, and he would be making love to her. He would be a faithful husband, and both of them could take care of Sam. In time, maybe he would even come to love her. Was she brave enough to try?

He had asked her to think about it. Claire couldn’t seem to stop.

* * *

As he drove to his meeting at the Texas Café, Ben’s attention kept wandering. Claire was considering his proposal. He should be frantic. Why wasn’t he? If she married him, he would have to settle down, give up his freedom, give up other women. But now that he was a father, he had to settle down anyway. And though he had a strong sexual appetite, he had never been into counting coup, the way some guys were. He just hadn’t wanted to risk a deeper commitment.

It doesn’t get any deeper than marriage, buddy.

But it did. Love was the dangerous part and he wasn’t marrying for love. He was just being practical. The plan suited him perfectly.

He pulled into the Texas Café and spotted Danny Castillo’s plain brown police car. As head of the gang division, Castillo knew everything there was to know about drug trafficking in the city.

Ben shoved open the door to the café, and a tall, knockout blonde named Ashley Sommerset walked over to greet him. “Hey, Ben.”

She was Maggie Rawlins’s sister, married now to a Houston multimillionaire named Jason Sommerset. She didn’t have to work, but she was studying to be a chef. She loved the café, and her husband indulged her.

“Hey, Ash. How’s the family?” Ashley had a baby, a little girl less than two years old.

“Great, how about yours? I hear your son is living with you now.”

He felt a rush of pride. “That’s right. His name is Sam.” It took all his willpower not to pull out his iPhone and flash a picture of Sam around like one of those old geezers in the park showing off his grandkids.

“Bring him in sometime,” Ashley said. “I’d love to meet him. I’ll make him one of my special chocolate shakes.”

“That’d be great. Sam loves ice cream.”

“Detective Castillo is already here. He said you’d be looking for him.”

He headed in the direction she pointed, slid into one of the pink vinyl booths and ordered a cup of coffee.

“How’s the investigation coming?” he asked, not mincing words.

Castillo took a sip from his steaming cup. “From what the body showed, it looks like it may be the work of a guy named Diego Santos. Those cigarette burns on the forehead are his trademark. He likes to look his victims in the eye while he’s burning them.”

“You got him in custody?”

“Not enough evidence to arrest him. It’s all just hearsay, rumor and word on the street. We’d bring him in for questioning, but we haven’t been able to find him.”

Not good. “What about motive?”

“We think Sullivan may have dug a little too deep. Pissed some people off.”

“Last night Claire’s apartment was vandalized. Any chance Santos was torturing Sullivan to get some kind of information, something Sullivan had that Santos wanted?”

Castillo sat up a little straighter. “Sullivan’s apartment was trashed, too. If they tore up Claire’s place, maybe they didn’t find what they were looking for.”

Tension rolled through him. “Hard to believe Sullivan didn’t give it up, considering what they did to him.”

“Unless he gave it to Claire and was trying to protect her.”