He licked his lips, considered, then admitted, “It’s the same for me.”
“I think we can have something. But to be blunt, I don’t even want to try until I know you’re going into this with eyes wide open, seeing me for who I really am, and accepting what I do, and still able to like me at the end of the day, as well as fall in love with me.” She leaned closer, brushing her mouth against his cheek. “Just like I see you for who you really are. Like you. And am probably falling in love with you.”
“You think so?”
She nodded. “You’re deep, and you’re calm. You’re wounded, and you’re strong. You’re brave and you’re loving. You have a gift you’ve been afraid to use and you haven’t ever let yourself truly fall in love with anyone because you know when that happens, you’re going to fall so hard it will affect you heart, mind, and soul. Forever. Am I right?”
She held her breath, waiting for what seemed the longest time.
Then he slid his hands around her waist, and she got her answer.
“You’re mostly right,” he whispered, drawing her closer so that she rested against his warm body.
Lexie was so relieved, so utterly happy, she didn’t say anything, she merely wrapped her arms around him, rested her cheek on his chest, and let him hold her.
“I do like you,” he admitted, brushing his lips against her hair, then her temple. “Everything about you, including the fact that you’re a pain- in-the-ass, but still a very noble, reporter.”
She smiled. “Thought we weren’t going to use P words.”
“That didn’t end in a Y,” he replied with a soft laugh. Then the laughter faded. Tilting her head back, he lightly pressed his lips on one closed eyelid, then the other, then moved toward her mouth. But before he kissed her again, he said, “You know, you are wrong about one thing.”
She gazed up at him, looking up at his handsome face, losing herself in the deep blue of those mesmerizing eyes, which held not a trace of gray. “What’s that?”
His lips moved toward hers, hovering no more than a whisper away. Right before he eliminated that tiny bit of space, he breathed an answer so soft, she almost didn’t hear it.
“I do believe in love at first sight.”
Epilogue
May 4, 8:05 p.m.
As they walked down one of Savannah’s quaint, elegant squares, heading for a local restaurant that had become Lexie’s favorite, Aidan couldn’t help thinking about where he’d been a year ago. Alone, first of all. In Granville—a town he’d happily never lay eyes on again, if he had his choice. Without friends or a job. Worst of all, without Lexie.
Now, though, everything had changed. Life couldn’t possibly have gotten much better.
“What?” she asked, slipping her arm in his as they walked. “What are you thinking?”
“Can’t you read my thoughts?” he teased.
She glanced up at him, her eyes shining so green under the old streetlights. Batting her lashes, she replied, “Well, that’s fine with me, if you’re sure you don’t mind missing dinner.”
Laughing, something he did a lot lately, he said, “Other than that.”
“
Do
you think about anything other than that?”
Didn’t seem that way. Especially lately, since Lexie had finally landed the job she’d been after and moved here to Savannah. And right into his place with him.
She still sometimes talked about getting her own apartment. He had every intention of talking her out of it and, in fact, changed the subject whenever she mentioned it.
She mentioned it less and less now.
Good
.
He liked sleeping with her in his arms. In fact, when she was in his arms, he was actually able to sleep, as if as long as his subconscious knew she’d be there when he woke up, he could let himself go.
He also very much liked being awake with her in his arms. Their sizzling sexual attraction hadn’t decreased with time, it had only grown stronger as they became more and more connected in every way.
Aidan didn’t want to lose that and would do whatever it took to keep Lexie in his bed, in his home, in his life. They’d exchanged no rings, made no promises, but their feelings ran so deep, he knew he never wanted to live without her. He also knew she felt the same way.
They didn’t say
I love you
out loud every day. But they whispered it every night, when they came together in the dark. Sometimes they said it without ever really saying a word.
“To tell you the truth, I was thinking life is pretty good,” he admitted.
“Yes, it is. I wouldn’t have imagined it six months ago, but it is.”
He squeezed her again, knowing how those memories still tore at her. Moving away from Walter and his family, and from Vonnie, with whom she had become very close, had been hard for her. But they all knew she’d go back and visit often.
The Kirbys were doing okay. Getting ready for Taylor’s and Vonnie’s graduations, preparing Ann for her junior year, and Christy, the youngest, to start high school. Living life. Not necessarily living the life they wanted, the one they’d dreamed of. But they were surviving.
Vonnie was surviving, too. She’d gone home from the hospital with Taylor, who had refused to leave her side, and the Kirbys had asked her to stay on to finish the school year.
She hadn’t replaced Jenny; God, no. But helping the girl, giving her a place to go, rather than back to her abusive mother, and giving her a chance at the life she deserved, seemed to help Walter and Ann-Marie deal with their own grief.
Vonnie had saved their daughter’s life. Just as Taylor had saved hers. Nobody would ever forget that. No matter where any of them went, that bond would always remain.
“Are you glad you moved here?” he asked Lexie. “No regrets?”
“Are you kidding? Think I miss the wives of all those men glaring at me in the grocery store, like it’s my fault their pervy husbands ended up charged with everything from statutory rape to murder?”
He hated that she’d gone through that. But he also knew things hadn’t been all bad. “Most people thanked you. And they’ll miss you. Dunston looked ready to cry at your going-away party.”
She chuckled. “He’s a big teddy bear.”
Another thing he couldn’t have imagined hearing her say six months ago. Especially not with such affection.
Aidan had just opened his mouth to tease her about it, when he noticed the couple walking toward them on the narrow, cobbled sidewalk. The loud man wore an expensive suit, the thin, pale woman a designer dress.
He knew them instantly.
Aidan’s heart thumped and his first instinct was to step onto the road, out of the way.
Ted and Caroline Remington hadn’t seen him yet, and it would probably be better if they didn’t.
But traffic had picked up, and Lexie was closest to the street. No way would he let her step off the curb, and he couldn’t get around her fast enough. There was no escape.
Only a few yards separated them now, and at last, Remington stopped listening to himself talk and glanced ahead. Their stares met. Aidan’s, he knew, filled with regret. Remington’s with . . .
Fear?
The man’s face tightened and his gaze shifted frantically. His jowly cheeks shook and he reacted as Aidan had—immediately looking to the street for an escape, blocked on that side by traffic, on the other by an iron fence surrounding a beautiful old town house.
Caroline Remington seemed oblivious, her jaded, pinched look hinting that she didn’t notice much of anything, including her bore of a husband. She continued walking, drawing closer, until just a few steps separated them.
Suddenly, Remington jerked her around, ignoring her gasp and her protest. Trading places, he pushed his wife over toward the fence so he was the one Aidan had to brush past when they finally came face-to-face on the sidewalk.
They drew abreast. Their eyes met, locked, all in the length of time it took to take one step. Then they moved apart. But Aidan hadn’t gone more than that one, single step when something made him freeze.
A scent. Peaches.
He whirled around, driven by some force he didn’t fully understand, his senses taking over for his brain. “Mrs. Remington?”
The woman stopped and looked back at him, apparently not noticing that her husband’s eyes had grown huge and desperate as he tried to tug her forward.
“Yes?”
Aidan reached for her, watching his own hand rise as if it belonged to someone else.
Peaches. So strong
.
It wasn’t a phantom smell, but a real one. Her lotion? Her shampoo?
“I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am,” he said.
Another inch and he touched her, his fingers brushing ever so lightly against her arm. Just a touch, the faintest connection.
But that was enough. That was all it took.
Mommy, please! I’m sorry. I’ll be good. I didn’t mean to forget to wash my hands. Please don’t spray me. No, please don’t put me in the dark. I don’t like the closet. Mommy!
Peaches. Spraying water. Wood. Splinters.
Teddy.
Remington, watching in horror, saw the moment it happened. His expression told the tale—he knew Aidan had touched his wife and seen the truth.
Which meant Remington, himself, already knew the truth.
“Come on, Caroline, we’re late,” the man snapped, his hands tightening on his pale wife’s arm, his eyes venomous as he glared at Aidan, silently threatening him not to say a word about what he had discovered.
The woman let herself be dragged away, though she looked back over her shoulder once, obviously not recognizing Aidan, confused, having no idea what had just happened.
Lexie, though, knew. Standing beside him, she watched the other couple depart, then murmured, “That was them.”
“Yes.”
“You felt something.”
He nodded. “She did it.”
Lexie said nothing, she merely curled her hand into his and squeezed, tight, knowing without further explanation what this meant.
That cold bitch Caroline Remington had done it, and Ted Remington
knew
. The bastard had, at some point, found out his wife had killed their child, and he’d covered it up. Let Aidan hang out to dry, probably paid off someone in the medical examiner’s office.
He’d covered up his own son’s murder.
“What are we going to do?” Lexie asked, her voice quiet, introspective.
He focused on the
we
, realizing they had become a solid unit, the two of them a unified front against anyone who threatened them. God, he loved having this woman for his partner.
He loved her, period.
“They’re not going to get away with it,” he swore, still staring at the couple as they disappeared into Savannah’s shadows.
“Will Julia and the others be able to help?”
“Absolutely. I know they’ll want to,” he said. Then he added, “It’s going to get ugly.”
“Murder always is.”
“Yes. But they won’t get away with it.”
Whatever it took to bring those people to justice, he would do it. He was back in his town, back in his job, back in his
head
. And ready to take on the world. Or at least two murderous residents of it.
“Okay,” she told him without hesitating. “I’m with you.”
He turned to her, looking down at her beautiful face, so serious, so supportive, so full of emotion for him. Worry, fear, tenderness. Love.
And with every part of himself he told her exactly what was in his heart.
“As long as you’re with me, Lex, I can do anything.”
Don’t miss the second book in Leslie Parrish’s exciting new Extrasensory Agents series!
With her dark gift, eXtreme Investigations agent Olivia Wainwright has experienced the deaths of dozens of other people. But now her past is catching up to her and she’s forced to confront dark, painful memories of her
own
.
Turn the page to read an excerpt from
COLD TOUCH
Coming from Signet Eclipse in April 2011
Twelve Years Ago
“He’s gonna kill you.”
The boy’s voice shook with both sadness and fear. And with those four whispered words, Olivia Wainwright’s faint hope of survival disappeared.
The boy—Jack. Her captor, or another victim? She wasn’t sure. She knew only that during the three terrifying days she’d been tied up in this hot, miserable barn, his was the only face she’d seen. She’d caught brief glimpses of him in the shadows when he shuffled in to bring her water, and sometimes a handful of stale nuts that she suspected he wasn’t supposed to share. Once he’d even come close enough to loosen the ropes on her wrists and ankles a little so she had at least some circulation.
But he hadn’t let her go. No matter how much she’d begged.
He was a couple of years younger than her—twelve or thirteen, maybe. Skinny, pale. While he was free to go in and out, she suspected he was a victim, too—of abuse, at the very least. The kid looked beaten down, his spirit crushed, all memories of happiness long gone.
Olivia began to shake, long shudders making her bound legs quiver and her stomach heave. She’d eaten almost nothing for days yet she thought she was going be sick.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. She’d tried so hard to be strong, to think positively. Her parents loved her, and they had a lot of money. Of course they’d pay the ransom. She’d told herself it would all be okay. But it wouldn’t be okay. Not ever again.
“When?” she finally asked, dread making the word hard to push from her mouth.
“Once he makes sure they left the ransom money.”
“If they’re paying the money, why is he going to kill me?” she asked, the words sounding so strange in her ears. God, she was fifteen years old; the very idea that she would be asking questions about her own murder had never once crossed her mind.
Four days ago she’d been a slightly spoiled, happy teenager looking forward to getting her driver’s license, and wondering how much begging it would take to get her overindulgent parents to buy her a Jeep.