Chapter Sixteen
Luna
It was a strange feeling to be happy but also horribly sad.
Ransom was back in my life.
I had lost another one of my girls.
Staring up at the ceiling, I listened to the running water of the shower. Five minutes ago, Ransom had pressed a kiss to the side of my head and whispered he was going to grab a shower. I had nodded numbly and laid my hand on his cheek.
“Don’t go anywhere?” he asked.
As if there was any other place I wanted to be.
“Luna,” Ransom called.
He had left the door to the bathroom open, and I couldn’t help but relish the feeling of familiarity and comfortableness we had.
“Yeah?”
“Can I use your shampoo?”
I pursed my lips because I loved my shampoo and was pretty strict about anyone using it and making sure not a drop of it was wasted. It smelled amazing and it made my hair silky and strong. It also was expensive as fuck. I tossed back the covers and marched into the bedroom where I threw back the shower curtain and grabbed the bottle from his hand. Well, I did that after I took a second to admire Ransom’s chiseled body.
More like ten seconds.
“Babe, don’t get your cast wet,” he reminded me.
I dropped my casted arm to my side and clutched the bottle to my chest. “Give me your hand.”
“Luna,” he chuckled. “You do know this is just shampoo, right?”
I growled and asked for his hand again.
He laid his hand out flat in front of me and I looked him in the eye. “Dime.”
“Dime?” he laughed.
I held the open bottle over his hand and squeezed gently. “Dime sized. That is all you need for your hair.” A dime-sized amount oozed onto his hand and then I snatched the bottle away. “Dime.”
He looked at the pitiful about of shampoo and shook his head. “There is no way in hell this is going to do anything to my hair.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Put it in your hair,” I insisted.
“There is nothing in my hand to put in my hair, Luna.”
I shook my head. There was more than enough in his hand. I only used a little bit more than a quarter size for my hair, and I had five times as much hair as he did. “Get your head wet again, and put the shampoo on your head, Ransom.”
“Luna, give me more and I will pay for a whole new bottle.”
I shook my head. “I’m not giving you any more, but you can buy me another bottle. You can give me forty-eight dollars.”
“Forty-eight dollars!” Ransom held the drop of shampoo up to his face. “Babe, I think you’ve been robbed. I can file a case when I get to work later.”
I rolled my eyes and reached up to put a hand on his head. I held my casted wrist behind me and pushed his head under the running water. “There.” I let go of his head and then grabbed his wrist. I moved his hand to his head and tried to run the shampoo into his hair.
“Stop, stop,” Ransom laughed. “I think I can manage washing my hair, Luna.”
I dropped his hand and stepped back. “Lather,” I ordered. I was going to prove to Ransom that he didn’t need a handful of shampoo to wash his two inches of hair.
“See,” I said a minute later when his hair was full of suds and the subtle aroma of pears and mangos flitted in the air.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ransom muttered. “That’s some witchcraft right there.” He ducked his head under the water and that was when I took the time to really appreciate the man in front of me.
His arms were sculpted from hours in the gym and his legs were lean and powerful. His upper arms were covered with tattoos with dark, bold ink. “Why the cross?” I asked.
Ransom ran his fingers through his hair and opened his eyes. “What?”
I nodded to his arm. “Why do you have a cross on your arm?”
“Because I believe in something bigger than us, Luna. If I didn’t have some kind of faith, I would be lost.”
Ransom had never been religious. At least, not with me.
“I’m not some bible thumper hitting their knees every Sunday, Luna. My faith is mine and I don’t push it on others.”
And that was so Ransom.
I was seeing things differently now.
I wasn’t just seeing what was on the surface and judging off of that like I had before.
“But how do you have faith after seeing all of the evil and bad things you do day after day?”
Ransom turned off the water and looked at me. “I don’t think we need to have this conversation in the shower.”
I reached behind me for a towel and handed it to him.
He quickly dried off his hair and body and then wrapped the towel around his waist. I tried to take a step backward, but Ransom caught me around the waist and hoisted me into his arms.
“What are you doing?” I gasped.
Ransom stepped out of the tub with me in his arms and walked into the bedroom. He planted a knee on the bed and managed to twist as he fell back and landed on his butt with me in his arms.
“Well, this is cozy,” I laughed.
“Where were we?” he asked.
I laid my head on his chest and sighed. “I wondered how you manage to have faith when you see evil every day.”
Ransom sighed and sifted his fingers through my hair. “I’d be lying if I said none of this affects me, Luna.”
“It’s affecting me, Ransom, and I’m not seeing a tenth of the stuff you see,” I whispered. I was at the end of my rope and knew I wasn’t going to be able to handle much more. Especially since I just felt so helpless. I wanted to help, but there wasn’t anything I could do.
“You can’t focus on the bad, Luna. That’s the only thing I can tell you.” He sighed and pressed a kiss to the side of my head. “Focus on your family. Go and have fun with Greta.”
I tipped my head back to look at him.
He cleared his throat. “With someone else with you for the time being but maybe even after we find this asshole because I truly think that you and Greta need a chaperone when you two are together.”
I rolled my eyes and relaxed back into Ransom. “I can do those things, but I want to do something that is going to help. Something that is going to make this evil go away.”
We sat in silence, both trying to figure out a way to do that.
“I got nothing, babe,” Ransom laughed. His body shook beneath me. “I don’t even know what I’m doing right now. I’m chasing after some magazine hoping it’s going to give me some clue as to who this guy is, Luna.”
“I think it’s a good lead.”
“Me too, seeing as we found another one last night.”
I gasped and turned in his arms. “Shut up, you didn’t.”
Ransom smiled. “Right under her head.”
“This has to mean something, Ransom. I mean, the odds that this is just a coincidence are probably a million to one. What are you even doing here right now?” I demanded. “You need to get to work and start looking at those magazines.”
“Luna,” Ransom chuckled. “I will. I first needed to come home to recharge and try to get the images from last night to fade just a little bit.”
I reached up and cupped his cheek in my hand. “Do you feel recharged now?”
He nodded. “Yeah, especially since I got to spend the night with you in my arms.”
I smacked his cheek and smiled. “Then get your ass dressed and get to work.” I jumped out of bed and pulled my nightshirt over my head. “I’ll call Pie and see if he can stay with me today.”
I grabbed a white tank top from my dresser and tugged it over my head. “And I promise I won’t have Greta come over. She’s one of my favorite people, but even I know we get a little crazy when we’re together,” I rambled. I stalked to my closet and whipped open the doors. “Do you know if it’s supposed to be cooler today?” I longed for sweatshirt weather, but I didn’t think the weather was quite there yet. I glanced at the bed where Ransom had been laying. “Hey, where’d you go?”
Ransom chuckled from the bathroom. “I’m in here, and I think it’s cooler. Grab a coat or something.”
I grabbed a black and red plaid flannel and shrugged it on. “Good idea. If I get too hot, I can always take it off.”
“And wear some shoes that are comfortable to walk in.”
I looked down at my bare feet. I wasn’t really someone who liked to wear shoes in the house, and why did it matter if they were comfortable to walk in? It wasn’t like I lived in a huge mansion like Wyndemere. “I think I’m just going to opt for socks today,” I laughed.
“Luna,” Ransom called.
I took two steps forward until I was standing in front of the door to the bathroom. “What?”
“You’re coming with me.”
I tipped my head to the side. “Um, I thought you said I couldn’t come to work with you. You need to focus, and you can’t focus when you’re worrying about me.”
“I said that?” he laughed.
“Uh, well, not in so many words, but yes.” I had sort of elaborated in my mind of why I couldn’t go to work with Ransom. I was a distraction, and he couldn’t solve murders when I was there. Or something like that.
“Remember I asked you to come and look through Tanya’s storage unit?”
A light bulb went off in my head. “You’re looking to see if she has a Popular Mechanics magazine.”
Ransom nodded. “Bingo, babe.” He looked down at the sink. “But first you need to put pants on, and I need to finish getting dressed. And brush my teeth and put deodorant on.”
I walked into the bathroom, bumped him out of the way, opened the cabinet under the sink, and grabbed a basket I had under there. “Here. New toothbrush and a stick of deodorant. I mean, the deodorant is close to two years old, but it’s never been opened.”
He grabbed the bag and peered inside. “Do I want to know why you have men’s deodorant and an extra toothbrush?”
I rolled my eyes and walked back to the closet. “I bought it for you before, and then I told you to leave so I just put it under my sink for a rainy day.”
“A rainy day?” Ransom laughed.
I had put it under my sink thinking that I could just use it for some other guy, but that other guy never happened. “Look, use it or not, but we need to get going if we are going to find that magazine today.” I shrugged on the flannel and grabbed a pair of faded blue jeans. “Time is a wasting, Detective.”
I glanced in the bathroom and saw Ransom pop the top off the deodorant and smear it under his arms.
“You know, this is another reason why you don’t need to come to work with me.” He dropped the deodorant back into the basket, grabbed the toothbrush that was still in the package, and ripped it open before he smeared a glob of toothpaste onto the bristles. “You’re gonna tell me what to do all day and I’m going to let you because in the end, you’re right.”
I smiled broadly. “I’m glad you’ve come to that conclusion on your own.”
Ransom glanced at me and winked. “I’ve known it all along, babe, it’s just fun sometimes to ruffle your feathers. Gotta keep you on your toes.” He shoved the toothbrush in his mouth and managed to look like the sexiest man on Earth.
So I did what any rational woman would do.
I fell head over heels in love with him right then and there.