Raintree: Haunted (Raintree 2)

“You wanted to put her in her place, didn’t you?” Gideon pressed Dennis harder against the wall again. “You wanted to show her who’s boss.”

Dennis tried to nod, but with Gideon’s arm against his throat, it wasn’t easy. He wanted to kill this man with his bare hands, and he could. With Hope and the sheriff watching, he could shoot the bastard or break his neck or, even better, fry his ass until there was nothing left but dust. All he had to do was allow his anger to manifest itself in a powerful jolt of electricity. He was always so careful to hide what he could do, to contain himself whenever anyone was watching. That caution had kept him from stopping Tabby when he could have, and it had kept him from using his talents on more than one murderer when they were finally in his hands. Right now, with his heart still pumping hard and the unthinkable possibilities still too real in his mind, he didn’t feel at all cautious. Gideon allowed a small shock to escape and shoot through Dennis’s body.

“Ouch! What was…?”

He did it again, and Dennis began to shiver. As wound up as Gideon was, he could easily smoke this no-good waste of space and air. For Marcia Cordell. For Hope and Emma. But he didn’t. Tempting as the idea was at this moment, he refused to let his anger turn him into the kind of man he’d spent his entire adult life hunting. The sheriff and the system would take good care of Dennis. And if they didn’t, he could always come back.

“Tell me everything you remember about Tabby,” he ordered.

The drive home had been quiet except for a few phone calls. Gideon got terrible reception on his cell, thanks to a combination of a weak signal here in the boonies and his unpredictable electrical charges, so he finally handed the phone to Hope, and she made the calls. Charlie was going to run a check on the type of car Dennis said Tabby had been driving. They still didn’t have a last name for her, but maybe they could find her through the vehicle.

Hope had begun to accept that maybe, just maybe, she really was pregnant. In that moment when she’d thought she might die, when she’d expected to be shot with her own gun, the baby—or at least the possibility of the baby—had seemed very real. She’d realized she would do anything to protect Emma. What a kick in the pants that was. Hope Malory didn’t have a maternal bone in her body! She liked being an aunt well enough, because she could visit her nephews and then leave when they got too rowdy or whiny. But to be a mother…She hadn’t thought she was anywhere near ready, but maybe she was. Maybe.

It was after dark when they reached Gideon’s house. There’d been no word from Charlie on Tabby’s car, but since all they had was a make and a first name that might or might not be real, it was going to take a while. Gideon pulled into the garage and killed the engine as the garage door slowly closed behind them. He didn’t immediately leave the Mustang but sat there with his gaze straight ahead and his hand resting on the steering wheel.

Hope stayed in place, too. “Do you want me to pack my stuff and leave? I know it’s not a good idea for me to move back into Mom’s apartment just yet, but I could—”

Gideon reached past the stick shift, grabbed the back of her head and pulled her in for a kiss. He didn’t kiss her like a man who wanted her to leave. In fact, she was quite sure he had never kissed her quite this way, as if he wanted to consume her gently but entirely. When he pulled his mouth away, he did not drop his hand. “Marcia Cordell told me every vile thing that bastard did to her. At first she didn’t want to talk about how she’d died, but once she got started, it seemed to do her good to get it out. She told me everything, every sick detail, and then I walk outside and the sheriff says, ‘Oh, Detective Malory’s down there over yonder, talking to Dennis Floyd.’”

Gideon called upon a deep and not entirely inaccurate drawl when impersonating the sheriff, and Hope laughed lightly. But she didn’t laugh long.

“And I couldn’t run fast enough,” he said, his voice deep and soft.

“I’m not hurt.” A few bruises, a lot of scary, but she wasn’t really hurt.

“Not this time,” he said. His thumb brushed her cheek. “But there’s going to be a next time. There’s going to be another Dennis, another struggle, another gunshot that makes my heart fly out of my chest. The protection charms will help, they give you an edge, and I can make sure you always have a fresh one to wear around your pretty neck. But they’re not bulletproof shields, and they don’t make bad guys like Dennis Floyd disappear. Dammit, Hope, I wish you’d be content to stay home and make cookies and lie on the deck under the sun and have babies and—”

“Babies?” she interrupted. “As in more than one?”

“If we’re going to get married we might as well—”

“What happened to the world being too nasty to bring a child into?” she asked, only slightly panicked by the picture Gideon was painting.

“We can’t go back and undo what’s already done. Might as well give Emma brothers and sisters.”

“Wait just a minute…”

“I didn’t ask you to marry me yet, did I?” His thumb continued to caress her cheek.

“No, you didn’t,” she whispered.

“Marry me.”

Hope licked her lips. “That’s not exactly a question. It sounds more like an order.”

A frustrated little moan escaped from deep in Gideon’s throat. She knew this wasn’t easy for him, but it wasn’t easy for her, e

ither. He was talking about marriage and children and forever. And she hadn’t known him a week.

“Fine,” he said. “We’ll do this your way. Will you marry me?”

“Can I have a little time to think it over?” she asked, terrified and excited and stunned. “This is just too fast for me.”

“No. You might as well learn now that I can be very impatient. I want an answer now.”

It would be too easy to get caught up in this, in the way Gideon made her feel, inside and out. In the kissing and the touching and the promise of more to come. In the idea of him and Emma and babies—plural. “I never really planned to, you know, settle down and have kids and do the whole mommy thing.”

“So make new plans.”