Colton's Killer Pursuit

“You’re saying you kissed me out of pity?”

No, it hadn’t been that, either.

“I’m saying...it should never have happened. It was unprofessional, and though I find you attractive, I don’t know why I overstepped. It wasn’t anything I’ve ever done before, and I am absolutely certain it shouldn’t ever happen again.”

She nodded, her expression placid. Opened her mouth, but before she got a word out, a sound came from the direction of the kitchen. Like a door handle rattling.

Clarke was out of the room and to the back of the house before he’d taken a breath.

Only to see the main door leading to the backyard closed and locked, and the screen door behind it hanging open. He ran out into the yard, saw the back gate open, with no one in sight.

* * *

By the time Clarke made it back into the house, Everleigh had herself firmly in hand. Yeah, some bad things had happened to her. But she was still there. Still okay.

And needed herself to be strong. To take control and deal with the circumstances she’d been dealt.

Not be some guy’s pity kiss.

Someone was clearly after her, after something in her house.

“What person in their right mind vandalizes a house, tries to run someone down and then comes back to the same house hours after the police have been through it?” she asked, as she rode with Clarke back to his condo. Along with the food, she’d brought her tablet and charger, too, so she could stream shows in her room and still have her phone free. Yeah, she was kind of on lockdown again, but Clarke’s house was nothing like prison.

She was free to do what she wanted when she wanted.

And she was free to leave, too, if she chose to do so.

“I’d say that person probably isn’t in their right mind,” Clarke said, glancing at her and then back at the road. “Which is what makes them so dangerous. We can’t predict what they might do. Or rest assured that normal protection protocols will work. We need to keep you inside and be on guard at all times.” How he made such alarming news sound reassuring, she didn’t know.

But the man made her feel safe. In a world that hadn’t felt that way for a long, long time.

Which was no reason to kiss him back.

Pity kiss. She admitted to herself that she wanted to believe that was what it had been because that interpretation simplified everything.

He’d behaved with perfect decorum since reentering her home and saying they had to leave twenty minutes before. Had waited silently for her to collect what she needed and helped carry everything out to the car.

It was as though those out-of-this-world seconds followed by awkward moments in Fritz’s den had never happened.

That was exactly what her response to his kiss had been. The first time in more than eighteen years her lips had joined with a man’s who wasn’t her husband...

Ironic that it had happened in the cheater’s den.

Kind of icky that it had also been the room in which her husband had been murdered.

Such was her life.

Feeling like a sitting duck, as she rode beside him with glass from the car windows surrounding them, she watched his hands on the wheel, thinking about what he’d said earlier.

That was better than worrying about a bullet aimed at her shattering the glass.

He found her intriguing.

She didn’t hate that.

But there’d be no more kisses between them.

She’d already known he was a womanizer. And while he hadn’t confirmed the rumor when she’d brought it up that morning, she knew it was no mistake that he’d done so that afternoon. He was letting her know that he was not relationship material.