Live and Let Love (15 page)

Even now, Willow noticed women in the crowd noticing him. She noticed him, too. But
not in a good way. She recognized his cocky stance as a threatening, dominant pose.
It was the way dogs stood when they meant to intimidate intruders on their territory.
And his concern wasn’t sincere—the words were right, but the tone was faked.

He removed his sunglasses. “You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

There was no concern in his eyes, either.

She quickly looked away from him, hoping he didn’t see the growing uneasiness in hers.
“I’m fine.”

“You haven’t answered my texts.” He was trying to sound contrite, but that seemed
false, too. There was a tight edge to his voice that didn’t jibe with an apologetic
spirit.

She stole a glance at him. His jaw was set, his eyes hard. His fist clenched.

“I’ve been busy—”

“Look at me, Willow. Please. I’m sorry. What do you want me to say? It wasn’t my fault.
Someone spiked the punch.”

“I know.” She tried to sound neither angry nor encouraging. Just neutral, hoping he’d
get the message she was no longer interested in him. That she’d never really been
in the first place.

“The guys have been ribbing me all morning.” He may have been trying to sound light,
but all she heard was anger beneath a veneer.

Shane prided himself on holding his alcohol. Russian ancestry, he claimed. Prize drinkers.

“I suppose Con was hungover, too? That’s why he was having coffee with you?”

Why should it matter to Shane what she did or whether Con was hungover or not? Something
kept her from telling the truth. Even though she knew very well he did not have a
headache and he had a perfectly good explanation why. She held that bit of information
back from Shane. “Yeah, he was miserable. The same as everyone.” She wasn’t going
to apologize or explain herself. She could do what she wanted. She didn’t need Shane’s
approval.

“Let me make things up to you. Come out with me tonight after you close up. Meet me
at Beck’s. I’ll buy you a drink.” He made his voice low and sexy. “We can loosen up
together.”

“No thanks, Shane. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have customers waiting.”

Shane’s eyes darkened with anger, but he kept his tone friendly. “Sure. Another night.”
He tapped her table with his fist and walked off.

Willow tried hard not to shiver as she watched him go. Shane wasn’t asking. He was
commanding.

CHAPTER TEN

Jack broke into Willow’s house. He had a dog treat in his pocket for Spookie. But
he wasn’t overly worried about his killer attack dog. If the little ball of fluff
failed to recognize him, he still knew how to make the scary face.

Jack, of course, was an expert lockpick. And he knew a thing or two about security
systems. Which was absolutely useless information on this excursion—Willow didn’t
have one.

He frowned.
Wills, didn’t I teach you that evil lurks everywhere?

Emmett should have insisted she have one. Jack would remedy that now by installing
his own, one that would alert him if she was in trouble. He’d have to be her security.
Him and his bugs and GPS devices.

He had a bug-planting plan. He’d start upstairs and work his way into the candy shop
in the basement below. He just hoped Willow didn’t come home early and catch him in
the act.

He stood in her living room and surveyed the area, listening for Spookie and doing
a bug and camera sweep of his own, just to make sure the house was clear. He hadn’t
been in Willow’s home before, no farther than the entryway, anyway.

Where was that little mutt?

He moved quietly, with the stealth of a trained assassin and spook, as he cleared
two bugs and a covert camera from the living room. His blood boiled as he thought
about the Rooster watching Willow in her private moments. Using her to get at him.
He swept the kitchen. Assured that the main living space was bug-free, he stomped
around on purpose to alert the dog to an intruder.

“Hey, girl! Hey, Spookie, where are you, girl?”

He heard a yelp, followed by the click of dog toenails on the floor. Spookie barreled
around the corner.

He kneeled and got down on her level so she could look him in the face. This time
he let his joy at seeing her shine through as he smiled at her and coaxed her closer.

She ran up to him, tail wagging, pausing a few feet away to stare him in the eyes.
She gave a happy bark, jumped forward, and licked his face.

He scooped her up and hugged her, scratching her beneath her ears as he slid a bug
into her dog collar. “That’s my girl! Good girl. Boy, have I missed you.”

Then he rolled around on the floor, playing with her until they were both out of breath.

He set her on the floor, where she flopped onto her back, begging to have her belly
scratched.

“You are a brazen hussy, you know that, right?” He scratched her tummy and stood up.
“Time to get to work, kid.”

He studied the living room. He recognized some of the furniture. But Willow had bought
a bunch of new stuff, too. A new sofa. A large, bright area rug that covered the bare
wood floor nearly from wall to wall.

Pillows. Damn, she had a whole lot of pillows. Floral affairs. Pillows with buttons.
Some embroidered with ferns and leaves. She’d collected a regular pillow forest.

And she’d painted the walls a warm yellow he’d never have chosen. There was a bookcase
full of cookbooks. A flat-screen TV. A feminine upholstered chair that no guy would
be caught dead, or living, sitting in. The chair looked uncomfortable as hell.

There were a few picture frames, including a digital one, on the mantel of the fireplace,
filled with photos of her mom and friends. A set of silver candlesticks she and Jack
had received as a wedding gift, filled with beeswax candles in white. A crystal candy
dish on an end table along with a fall floral arrangement in a vase he recognized.

But no pictures of him. Anywhere.

Agency policy. Emmett had told her to get rid of any or to keep them hidden. Never
put them on display. For her own protection.

Jack was just surprised she’d obeyed. Grateful—no one in Orchard Bluff would recognize
the slight likeness between him and himself—but surprised. And glad. He wanted her
to be safe. Always. That’s why he’d come back.

He walked around the room with Spookie on his heels, planting bugs in the kitchen.
The guestroom. The bedroom Willow used as her study. Clearing the Rooster’s monitoring
devices and bugs as he went, seething as he found each new device. Thinking through
the consequences of removing the bugs as he went.

Once the Rooster discovered his monitoring devices had all gone down, he’d be on even
higher alert. Taking them down threw even more evidence on the fire that Con was Jack.
But the thing about monitoring devices—to be effective, they had to be monitored.
Today the Rooster would have to be out and about playing the part of the good apple
grower at the festival. He wouldn’t have much monitoring time. By the time he did,
he’d be dead.

Jack found Willow’s laptop on her desk. Earlier, on his way past to meet Willow for
coffee, he’d seen a guy from a cell company delivering a new modem. She must have
had modem problems.

Jack picked up her laptop, tried it out. The new modem was working. He swept it for
keystroke-monitoring software and got rid of the Rooster’s. He installed his own monitoring
software and moved on to her bedroom. Spookie had a frilly bed in the corner. Willow
had a new armoire, nightstand, and bed frame. But not a single reminder of him.

None of his clothes in the closet. No pictures.

He swept the room, barely containing himself from crushing the hidden camera he found
to a pulp beneath his heels. Ground glass wasn’t good for carpeting. Or Willow’s bare
feet. He restrained himself.

The Rooster was a dead man for violating Willow’s privacy. For peeping at Jack’s wife.

He ran his hands through his hair and plunked onto her bed. He scooped up the little
dog. “It’s like she’s erased all traces of me.” He sure as hell didn’t like being
erased even though it was necessary.

Spookie wiggled out of his arms, jumped down from the bed, and barked at the bed skirt.

Jack frowned.

Spookie growled again and barked. Thinking she smelled a mouse, he got onto his hands
and knees on the floor and pulled back the skirt to see what had Spookie so riled
up. He leaned down to take a look and found himself staring at several large, plastic
storage boxes.

Spookie gave her happy bark. And it could have just been him, but he thought she looked
triumphant.

He pulled the first plastic box out and opened the lid.

His breath caught. A lump formed in his throat. He set the box on the bed and scooped
Spookie up to sit next to him.

Here was his life, his and Willow’s life together.

A folded flag sat on top, a memento from his funeral. Beneath the flag, he found the
DNA report Emmett had sent Willow, confirming that Jack’s remains were those at the
explosion site. It was a dummy, bogus report, of course. He had no idea whose DNA
report this really was.

He removed the flag and the report and set them on the bed, revealing the treasure
trove beneath. Had the woman saved every souvenir from their time together?

This was the Willow he knew.

He smiled as he lifted a small pink crystal-studded puppy collar and leash from the
box. He held them up for Spookie to see. “Remember these, girl? Your first collar
and leash.”

Spookie barked and panted. She was probably just leading him on that she remembered.
But he grinned at her anyway.

“Guess you’ve forgiven me for dressing you up like a fairy, then?”

He’d given Spookie to Willow for Halloween the second year they were married. To keep
her company while he was gone. They both loved All Hallows Eve.

Willow used to say, “How can I not like it? I’m in love with a spook!” Then she’d
laugh and kiss him.

Halloween was an excuse for her to make her candies and treats for the kids.

Jack frowned. He’d left Willow alone so often. So he’d gone to the pound and rescued
the mildest-mannered, cutest, girliest puppy he could find. He knew a rescued dog
would make his wife happy. She had such a tender heart and was always trying to save
people and animals. Hell, she’d tried to save him.

He supposed he should have gotten her a killer watchdog. But Willow would never have
been happy with a violent, aggressive dog. She wanted companionship, not protection.

Then he’d bought the collar and leash and a really stupid Sugar Plum Fairy dog costume.
And dressed the dog up, to both their embarrassment. And attached a card to the collar.

He looked in the box next to him on the bed. Yep, there was the card.

To my sugarplum queen—a treat because you’re so sweet.

     
Love, Jack

Corny. Oh, well, she’d loved it when he knocked on their door on Halloween night.
She answered with a bowl of candy—homemade suckers—in her hand.

He’d never forget the look on her face, the way her mouth fell open all round and
sweet and kissable when she saw the dog in his arms. The way Willow had squealed and
nearly dropped the bowl.

The way he couldn’t stop grinning. “I’m doing a reverse trick or treat.” He took the
bowl from her, set it on the porch, and handed her the puppy with the really tiny,
stupid-looking tiara, tutu, and pink wings he’d put on her.

Spookie was hardly bigger than his hand.

Willow cuddled her against her cheek and crooned loving noises to her. “Mine?”

“All yours.”

He put his arm around them. Willow went up on her toes and kissed him with the dog
cuddled between them.

He’d grinned and cupped Willow’s tight little ass. “I’ll expect my trick later.”

And she’d given him a good one.

Damn, I shouldn’t think about that. That way leads to frustration.

Later, they cuddled in bed with the dog and ignored the late trick-or-treaters who
knocked on their door.

“She looks white and ghostly in this light,” Willow had said, studying the silky little
puppy that slept on her pillow. “I’m going to name her Spook. So I can be in love
with two ghosts.”

She liked to call him a spook. She liked it better than
spy.

“The dog’s a she. You’d better call her Spookie so you can tell us apart.”

Willow punched him in the shoulder. And then they made love again. On the floor. So
they wouldn’t disturb the puppy.

Jack forced his thoughts back to the present. He looked in the box again. He found
their wedding picture. And a picture they’d had taken in one of those cheap photo
booths at the local amusement park on their first Halloween together. They were making
funny faces.

Damn, they looked young. And happy.

He pushed the picture away and found a pressed rose. Probably the first one he’d given
her. And a fifty-cent adjustable ring with a green plastic stone that he’d gotten
from a machine at the grocery store. He’d wanted one with a heart-shaped pink stone.
But you got what you got, as his mom used to tell him.

He’d mock proposed to Willow with it, testing out the waters to see if this beautiful
girl he’d fallen for would ever consider tying the knot with a loner like him. She
kept it now in the little black velvet box her engagement ring came in.

He swallowed hard and, leaning forward, rested his head in his hands, taking deep
breaths.

He shouldn’t be doing this. He had work to do. Why was he lingering here, tormenting
himself with this walk through the past?

Call it morbid curiosity, but he pawed through the rest of the photos and other things
in the box, resisting the urge to steal a picture of him and Willow together.

Now that would be suicide.

At the bottom of the box he found his old hairbrush, a few strands of his hair still
in it, neatly tucked inside a plastic bag. Why had Willow kept this?