THE SECRET OF CHEROKEE COVE (18 page)

Her brow furrowed with sudden concern. “You mean, like, marriage and forever and all that?”

Uh-oh.
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”

She stared at him for a long moment, her expression betraying dismay. Then the wrinkles in her brow disappeared in a flash, and she shot him another one of those tingle-inducing grins. “You’re such a sucker. I’m going to have to remember that. Could come in handy.”

“You’re evil,” he said with a growl, tugging her back into his arms. “Good thing I like a woman with a wicked streak.”

She nodded toward the exit. “Come on. Let’s go to the diner before Doyle and his crutches come looking for us.”

* * *

L
ANEY
H
ANVEY
ARRIVED
as Dana and Nix were returning to the police station with bags of food for their dinner. Apparently Doyle had caught her up on the events of the day by phone, because she gave Dana an impulsive hug and told her how glad she was that Dana was okay. “I can’t believe Paul Hale tried to shoot you.”

“Believe it,” Nix growled.

Dana slid her hand behind his back, giving him a soothing caress between his shoulder blades. “He was a terrible shot. I sort of wonder if he missed on purpose. It was Pete Sutherland who put him up to it.”

“And that’s even more of a shock.” Laney shook her head. “Old Pete is like a town fixture. I have no idea what people around here are going to think of all this.”

“I don’t imagine it’s going to be easy for Doyle.” Dana sighed. Her brother had already dealt with a number of problems in his short tenure as Bitterwood’s chief of police. Having one of the most well-respected families in town pitted against him couldn’t help.

“He’s tough. He can handle it,” Laney said with such loving confidence, Dana couldn’t help smiling. Her brother had lucked out coming to Bitterwood, she thought.

Just as she had.

She glanced at Nix and saw him looking at her with all sorts of delicious promises in his dark eyes. Despite her earlier insistence that she stick around to watch her brother’s back, she now found herself wondering how quickly she and Nix could make their excuses to leave the station and head to Nix’s little cabin in the woods.

I’m a terrible sister,
she thought as she followed Laney into her brother’s office.

No,
contradicted a quiet little voice in the back of her mind.
You’re a woman in love.

“The D.A. has already called wanting a full accounting of the arrests,” Doyle told Nix as soon as he kissed Laney hello. “I hate to ask you to stick around longer tonight, but I need your report on my desk first thing in the morning.”

“Doyle—” Dana began.

Nix put his hand on her shoulder. “He’s right. We need this thing stitched up good and tight. I’ll get to work on it after dinner.”

Doyle’s gaze settled on Nix’s hand on Dana’s shoulder. One sandy eyebrow lifted in surprise, and his green-eyed gaze flashed her way.

Might as well tell him what she’d decided, she thought. “I’m staying in Bitterwood.”

Doyle’s eyes narrowed. “Until the wedding?”

“For good.”

His gaze slid to Nix’s face briefly before returning to lock with hers. “What about your job?”

“I’ve been in Atlanta for five years. I can ask for a transfer to Knoxville. If there’s an opening, they’ll accommodate me.”

“And if there’s not an opening?”

“Then I’ll get another job.”

Doyle gave her a long, considering look. “If you’re thinking you’re going to be able to have some sort of happy, shiny relationship with Dalton Hale—”

“I have no illusions about that,” she assured him. She glanced at Nix, and he smiled his encouragement. “But I still have you. And Laney now.”

“And my newest detective?”

“Is that going to be a problem?” Nix asked bluntly.

Doyle held up his hands. “I’m the younger brother. She’d kick my ass if I tried to make it one.”

“And you know it,” Dana murmured, knowing full well that if Doyle really had a problem with it, he wouldn’t let her status as the older sibling get in the way. She’d take his response as a vote of approval.

“Did you see Dalton Hale on the way out?” Doyle asked as they settled into the chairs around his desk.

“Briefly,” Dana answered.

Doyle winced. “How bad was it?”

“Bad enough.”

“He’s not an unreasonable guy.” Laney took the sandwich Dana handed her with a sympathetic smile. “He just needs time to deal with finding out a lot of his life has been a lie.”

“Paul Hale says Nina doesn’t have any idea Dalton’s not her son,” Doyle told his fiancée.

“That poor woman,” Laney murmured.

“Our poor mother,” Doyle answered, looking at Dana.

What must life have been like for her mother, Dana wondered, knowing all these years that she had another son, a boy she couldn’t acknowledge for fear it would destroy his life?

As she settled back in silence, letting the chitchat of the others flow around her, she wondered about her mother’s decision to come back here to Bitterwood and see what had become of the boy she’d left behind. Did she get to see him, even a brief glimpse to reassure herself that her sacrifice had been worth it?

What would she think of her children now, of the hard and treacherous path that lay ahead of them if they were all three to find any sort of relationship with each other?

She’d hope for the best and prepare for the worst, Dana thought. Just as she always had, all their lives. She’d love them all and encourage them to be patient and understanding with each other.

Oh, Mama,
she thought,
I haven’t always followed your advice, and I’ve had a lot of regrets. But this time, I’ll try.

She felt Nix’s attention, and she turned to find him watching her. His lips twitched with a smile.

She smiled back, feeling a sudden sense of peace about the future, as if her mother had put her arm around Dana’s shoulders and whispered “I think this one’s a keeper” in her ear.

Me, too, Mama,
she thought, reaching across the space between them to take Nix’s hand.
Me, too.

* * * * *

Don’t miss the suspenseful conclusion of
award-winning author Paula Graves’s
BITTERWOOD P.D.
miniseries.
Look for THE LEGEND OF SMUGGLER’S CAVE next month, wherever
Harlequin Intrigue books are sold!

Keep reading for an excerpt from THE GIRL NEXT DOOR by Cynthia Eden.

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Chapter One

Cooper Marshall burst into the apartment, gun ready as
his gaze swept the dim interior of the room that waited for him. “Lockwood!”

There was no response to his call, but the stench in the
air—that unmistakable odor of death and blood—told Cooper that he’d arrived too
late.

Again.

Damn it.

Cooper rushed deeper into that darkened apartment. He’d gotten
his orders from the top. He’d been assigned to track down Keith Lockwood, an
ex–Elite Operations Division agent. Cooper was supposed to confirm that the
other man was alive and well. He’d fallen off the EOD’s radar, and that had sure
raised a red flag in the mind of Cooper’s boss.

Especially since other EOD agents had recently turned up
dead.

Cooper rounded a corner in the narrow hallway. The scent of
blood was stronger. He headed toward what he suspected was the bedroom. His eyes
had already adjusted to the darkness, so it was easy for him to see the body
slumped on the floor just a few feet from him.

He knelt, and his gloved fingers turned the body just slightly.
Cooper pulled out his penlight and shone it on the dead man’s face.

Keith Lockwood. Cooper had never worked with the man on a
mission, but he’d seen Lockwood’s photos.

Lockwood’s throat had been slit. An up-close kill.

Considering that Lockwood was a former navy SEAL, the man
shouldn’t have been caught off guard.

But he had been.

Because the killer isn’t your average thug
off the streets.

The killer was also an agent with the EOD, and the killer was
trained just as well as Lockwood had been.

No, trained
better.

Because the killer had been able to get the drop on the
SEAL.

Cooper’s breath eased out in a rough sigh just as a knock
sounded on the front door.

The front door that Cooper had just smashed open moments
before.

He leapt to his feet.

“Mr. Lockwood?” A feminine voice called out. “Mr.
Lockwood...i-is everything all right?”

No, things were far from
all right.
The broken door
should
have been a dead
giveaway on that point.

“It’s Gabrielle Harper!” The voice called out. “We were
supposed to meet...”

His back teeth clenched. Talk about extremely bad timing. He
knew Gabrielle Harper, and the trouble that the woman was about to bring his way
was just going to make the situation even more of a tangled mess.

Cooper holstered his weapon. He had to get out of that
apartment.
Before
Gabrielle saw him and asked
questions that he couldn’t answer for her.

He rose and stalked toward the bedroom window. His footsteps
were silent. After all of his training, they should have been.

Gabrielle’s steps—and her high heels—tapped across the hardwood
floor as she came inside the apartment.

Of course,
Gabrielle wasn’t just
going to wait outside. She was a reporter, no doubt on the scent of a story.

And she must have scented the
blood.

She was following that scent, and if he didn’t move, fast,
she’d follow it straight to him.

Cooper opened the window then glanced down below. Three floors
up. But there were bricks on the side of the building, with crevices in between
them. If he held on just right, he could spider-crawl his way down.

The floor in the hallway creaked as Gabrielle paused.

She should have called for help by now.
At the first sign of that smashed door, Gabrielle should have dialed 911.
But, with Gabrielle what she
should
do and what she
actually
did
—well, those could be very different
things.

If she wasn’t careful, the woman was going to walk into real
trouble one day—the kind that she wouldn’t
be able
to walk away from.

He slid through the window. Since it was after midnight, Cooper
knew he’d virtually disappear into the darkness when he climbed down the back
side of the building.

He’d make it out of there, undetected, provided he didn’t fall
and break his neck.

He eased to the side, his feet resting against the window’s
narrow ledge. He pulled the window back down and took a deep breath.

“Mr. Lockwood!”
Gabrielle’s
horror-filled scream broke loud and clear through the night.

She’d found the body.

Jaw locking, Cooper made his way down that building.

Gabrielle had just stumbled into an extremely dangerous
situation. Now he’d have to do some serious recon in order to keep her out of
the cross fire.

* * *

I
T
WASN
’
T
HER
first
dead body.

Gabrielle Harper stood behind the patrol car, her gaze on the
apartment building. The cops had rolled in quickly after her call then they’d
pushed her
out.

They hadn’t needed to push her so far. She knew better than to
contaminate the scene. They didn’t have to worry about her destroying
evidence.

Not my first dead body.
But the
sight of Lockwood’s slit throat had still made nausea rise within her.

“Tell me again,” Detective Lane Carmichael said as he leaned
back against the patrol car and studied her with an assessing gaze, “just why
you were at Keith Lockwood’s house in the middle of the night?”

A crowd had already gathered.

Her gaze slid away from Lane’s and toward the apartment’s
entrance. The body was being wheeled out through the double doors. Lockwood had
been zipped up in a black bag. Bagged, tagged and taken away.

She swallowed.

“Gabrielle.”

The snap of her name jerked her attention back to Lane. His
suit was wrinkled, his dark hair was tousled and his face was set in grim,
I’m-sure-not-pleased-with-you lines.

That was typically the way Lane looked at her. Even when they’d
been dating—briefly—he’d often given her that same look.

She worked the crime beat in Washington, D.C., covering stories
for the
Inquisitor
—both the paper and its online
subscriber base. Since Lane was a homicide detective, their paths crossed
plenty.

That crossing had been good when they were dating.

Now that they weren’t—not so good.

“Lockwood called me,” she began.

“Dead men don’t make phone calls.” His arms were crossed over
his chest—his interrogation stance. “The ME estimates that he’s been dead for
over seven hours. Try again.”

Seven hours.
She filed that helpful
detail away for later. “He called me around eight a.m. The guy left a voice
message for me, saying he had some info to share about a story I’d covered.”

Lane’s head tilted. “Just what story would that be?”

Gabrielle pushed back her hair. It was summer in D.C., and she
was sweating. “The unsolved murder of Kylie Archer.” A woman whose body had been
discovered in her apartment months ago. Kylie’s throat had been slit.

Just like Lockwood’s.

Even in the summer heat goose bumps rose on her arms.

“I need everything you’ve got on Lockwood, Gabby,” Lane told
her, his voice grim. “Everything.”

But she could only shake her head. The body had been loaded
into the coroner’s van. Uniforms began to walk back into the apartment building.
“I don’t have anything to give you. He called
me.
Left a message for me to meet him at this address after midnight. He
mentioned Kylie’s name and said he had more information for me.” She was trying
to cooperate, didn’t Lane get that? “I’d just run a piece on the web,
highlighting Kylie’s unsolved murder, so I figured that Lockwood had seen it and
he had a lead to share with me.”

Once a month, she featured an unsolved crime in her column.
Thanks to those features, she’d helped close three cold cases.

Lane should thank her for that help.

His glare said he wouldn’t be thanking her anytime soon.

“What if the killer had still been inside that apartment?” he
demanded. “What if he’d come at you with that knife?”

She had mace in her bag. Not much as a weapon, but it was
something.
“No one was there when I arrived.”

“You sure about that?”

Pretty sure since she’d gone through every room in that place.
“I—”

“Gabrielle?” A surprised voice. Male. Rough. Very distinct.

When a woman heard a voice like that—so deep and hard and
rumbling—she didn’t forget it.

She fantasized about it. She enjoyed it.

She didn’t forget.

“What’s going on?” That voice continued, and then a warm,
strong hand closed over her shoulder. “Is somebody hurt?”

She turned and faced the owner of that sexy voice—Cooper
Marshall. Tall, gorgeous and with a smile that had made her heart skip a beat
the first time she met him.

In other words—trouble.

“Someone’s dead,” Lane said before she could respond to Cooper.
“And if Gabrielle doesn’t learn to be more careful, she could wind up the same
way.”

Cooper’s fingers tightened on her shoulder. “Dead?”

“You need to clear out of here,” Lane said, speaking to her and
giving another of his firm nods. Lane liked his firm nods. “There’s no way any
civilians are going to get near that crime scene tonight.”

That was not what Gabrielle wanted to hear. She had definite
plans to explore that apartment, because she suspected that Lockwood had been in
possession of some evidence that she could use.

“Catch the train, Gabby,” Lane advised her as he turned away,
“and call it a night.”

A police car pulled away.

Cooper kept holding her. His touch sure felt warm.

She glanced at him again. Cooper was wearing black—a black
T-shirt and pants, and the guy actually seemed to blend with the night. For such
a big guy, she’d found that he blended easily.

But then again, he’d told her that he was a P.I. Private
investigators were supposed to be extremely good at blending.

“What did you stumble on this time?” Cooper asked her, the
growl kicking up in his words.

“Oh, the usual.” She tried to keep the tremble from her voice.
Failed.
“A witness who was murdered before he
could talk to me.”

Cooper swore.

Yes, yes, that was how she felt, too.

“Forget the train. I’ll take you home.” Then he was pulling her
with him and away from the crowd that had gathered on the street. “I was on my
way home when I saw the lights. I thought I’d stop by and see what was
happening.” He spared her a glance. “A dead man, Gabrielle?”

Yes, well, finding Lockwood dead hadn’t exactly been on her
agenda.

Cooper’s motorcycle waited at the side of the road. He climbed
on then tossed her the helmet. “Just hold on tight, and I’ll have you home
soon.”

She caught the helmet, but hesitated.

“What?” The light from the streetlamp fell on his face. It
glinted off his dark blond hair and made him look even more handsome—and
dangerous. “Don’t you trust me for a little ride? Come on, we’re neighbors. It’s
not like the trip is out of my way.”

He was right. They were neighbors. They shared a
brownstone—just the two of them.

When she’d moved in four months ago, she hadn’t been sure what
to expect from her male neighbor. Her landlord had told her that Cooper
regularly worked out of the country, that she probably wouldn’t hear a peep from
him.

She’d heard some peeps. And so far, he hadn’t been out of the
country.

On her first day in the apartment, she’d baked him chocolate
chip cookies. She had a thing about baking—it soothed her. So she’d strolled
down with her cookies to say hello.

She’d gotten a good look at him, standing in the doorway, tall
and sexy, and she’d almost dropped those cookies.

“Gabrielle?”

She shoved on her helmet and climbed onto the motorcycle behind
Cooper.

He laughed. “You’re going to have to sit a little closer than
that. And put your arms around me.”

She’d put her arms
behind
herself
and was currently gripping the back of the seat.

He revved the engine. The bike kicked to life and when it shot
forward, her hands flew up and wrapped around Cooper.

She gripped him as tightly as she could.

All muscle.

She could feel his rock-hard abs beneath her hands. No big
surprise. She’d heard him working out before. Boxing. The guy loved to
punch.

She’d seen him sporting an assortment of bruises since she’d
met him, so she figured he must do more than just hit his punching bag. The guy
probably fought at a local ring. The image of Cooper, bare-chested,
fighting...well, that was an image that had sure floated in her mind before.

The motorcycle zoomed through the city, flying through
intersections, cutting closely around corners. At one point, Gabrielle had to
squeeze her eyes shut because she was pretty certain they were going to crash
and become nothing but a mangled pile of limbs.

“We’re here.”

Her eyes cracked open. Sure enough, they’d made it to the
brownstone. Located off the main streets and nestled in one of the few, quiet
corners of D.C., the brownstone stood with its porch lights blazing.

She loved that place.

“You can...um, release that grip on me now,” Cooper told
her.

Gabrielle realized that her nails were digging into his
shirt—into him. “Sorry,” she muttered and jumped from the bike. “I’m not exactly
a motorcycle fan.”

He shoved down the kickstand, and then took his time rising
from the bike. “Really? And here I thought you liked to live on the wild
side.”

What? Since when?

“Coming in at all hours of the night,” he murmured as he
brushed past her and headed up the steps that would take them inside the
brownstone. “Covering the most dangerous cases in the city. You sure seem like a
woman who enjoys living on the edge.”