Pepper, the Highlander & the Dead Guy

Seeing my surprised expression, he raised the bag. “Extra clothes. I always keep a bag of them in the vehicle and I’m glad I do. Ah dinnae want to spend the night in these tuxedo trousers, cummerbund, and dress shirt.

That was what caused my surprise and the fact that the white dress shirt was open enough to expose his naked chest which was eye-candy.

“Billionaire,” I said without thinking.

“What?” he asked perplexed.

“Your look fits the cover of the billionaire contemporary romance books Amy reads,” I explained.

He laughed. “Keen eye you got, Pep. It actually is for a new billionaire series that a publishing house ordered.”

I could only imagine how Sarina was dressed and here I was standing in my PJs. Oh, how sexy was I—not.

He dropped the bag on the floor, walked over to me, took me in his arms, and kissed my cheek gently. I melted against him and oh, did he smell good.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

Now that you’re here I am, I heard myself say in my head, thankfully not aloud. It was far too cliché. But the phrase sounded so right.

“I’m good,” I said and couldn’t resist the urge to kiss him.

He responded and it was one of those WOW moments. I’ve been kissed before but nothing like this and at that moment I knew I was in trouble. I wasn’t falling hard for this guy. I had already face-planted.

He rested his brow to mine and cupped my face. “You could have been hurt.”

“Mo alerted me,” I said.

“Big bone for you, Mo, when I see you next,” Ian said and got a bark from Mo before he returned to watching his animal program.

“You sit and rest,” Ian said, his arm remaining around me as we walked to the couch. “I’ll put the kettle on before I change.”

I watched him move around my kitchen like he belonged there and when he joined me on the couch in his sweats and a Henley with my tea just the way I liked it, I almost asked him to marry me. Okay maybe that’s a bit overboard, but the man was really garnering brownie points with me.

“Ah dinnae know how you can drink tea without milk,” Ian said.

I laughed. “And I don’t know how you can kill the taste of tea with milk. Thank you for making it the way I like it.” I moved closer to him, and he welcomed me into the crook of his arm, where I was finding it ever so comfortable.

“I was giving this possible break-in a thought,” I said after sipping the soothing tea. “I wonder if this guy was expecting me not to be home.”

“I was thinking the same and the thought came to me that he could have thought you were going to be with me at the Treetop shoot. That would mean that it’s someone who knows we’re seeing each other and expected us to be together tonight.”

Seeing each other.

He confirmed it again. We were seeing each other—the start of a possible relationship. Did this mean I worried about Sarina for nothing?

“What holds your tongue, Pep? Something else on your mind?” Ian asked.

I addressed the issue that was more important or so I told myself. “It’s a bit confusing. Was the prowler tonight related in any way to the murder? Was he the person who whacked me in the back of the head? Also, most everyone knows I have Mo and wouldn’t dare attempt to sneak up on the house.”

“You think it was a stranger?” Ian asked.

“The facts seem to point to that,” I said, my head finally clear enough to see it.

“Then it was a prowler who wasn’t from around here?” Ian asked.

We got our answer sooner than expected when my cell phone rang.

“Your dad,” Ian said when he grabbed my cell off the coffee table and handed it to me.

“We got him,” my dad said with glee.

“That was fast work, Dad. Ian’s here with me. I’m going to put you on speaker so he can hear this as well,”

“Good. He needs to hear this,” my dad said annoyed and got me worrying.

“Good evening, Sheriff,” Ian said.

“It would be a better evening if my daughter wasn’t frightened half out of her wits because of you.”

“I would never want to be the cause of Pep being frightened, sir,” Ian said.

“Enough blaming, Dad. Explain,” I ordered.

“It was a tabloid photographer hoping to get a picture of you and Ian. A couple of my men found him wandering around in the woods lost. He hightailed it away from your place when he heard the sirens and wound up losing his way. He was relieved we found him and willing to tell us what he’d been up to. It seems that some of the tabloids are offering big bucks for an intimate photo of you two.”