“Mm-hmm?” She glanced back over her shoulder. He’d hunkered down at the top of the stairs so he wouldn’t lose sight of her. God, he was gorgeous. And he wasn’t for her. No man was for her. Not right now. Not ever. A different future waited for her and it could never include a mortal man.
“It’s dark out. Do you . . .” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Do you want me to take you to town?”
Wow. Chivalrous. “Not necessary. I’m a big girl, Daemon. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. And, hey,” she laughed, “it isn’t as if I need to watch out for monsters.”
She was almost at the door before she heard the creak of the floorboard behind her. The air hummed a second before she felt Daemon’s hands on her, his long fingers closing around her upper arms. He steadied her, his body hard and hot at her back. Her pulse slammed into red line.
How had he made it down the stairs so quickly? How had she not heard his approach?
He stepped around to face her, his hands skimming the skin of her upper arms, as though he was loath to let her go. Her head fell back and she stared into his eyes, saw something there that made her shiver. Something primal.
“There are all sorts of monsters in this world, Jen,” he murmured, “and you do need to watch for them.”
Her breath came in a jagged gasp. She wet her lips, and his gaze dropped to her mouth, hot, intent. She thought he would kiss her. A part of her wanted him to, wanted to know the feel and taste of him.
He smiled, a dark, feral baring of white teeth. “You need to watch out for things inside your home, too.”
For a second, she thought he meant himself, that he was telling her he was some sort of monster. Then he gestured to the ground and she looked over her shoulder at a dark lump: the rolled-up rug that usually ran the length of the hall. In the gloom, she hadn’t noticed it there.
“I moved the rug so I could get my supplies in and out easier,” he said. “You almost caught your crutches on it.”
And he’d saved her. So she’d been wrong. His actions were chivalrous and necessary, otherwise she’d be on the floor in a pained heap right now.
“Thanks.” She pressed her lips together, willed her pulse to settle. “My saviour.” She laughed.
He didn’t. “I’m no one’s saviour, Jen.” A heartbeat, two, then he brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “Drive safe.” His tone was nonchalant, as though he hadn’t just moved faster than he ought to, ha
dn’t held her close enough that she could smell the scent of his skin, hadn’t made her ache for his kiss.
A half-hour later, Jen used her hip to bump her cart as she hobbled along the aisle of the Shop Rite on Route 52. Mrs Hambly - an old friend of her grandmother’s - and the high school maths teacher, Gail Merchant, blocked the way.
“Terrible tragedy. Terrible. Things like that don’t happen here,” Mrs Hambly insisted. She plucked a grape from a bunch, popped it in her mouth, grimaced, then helped herself to another from a different bunch.
Jen wondered what tragedy had Mrs Hambly all worked up today. Last week it had been the kids lurking outside the variety store, and the week before that it was the lack of personal service at the ATM.
Planting her crutches, Jen added a head of lettuce and a couple of tomatoes to her cart. Ahead of her, Gail absently filled a bag with peaches, her attention on Mrs Hambly as she asked in hushed tones, “Does Sheriff Hale think she was killed there, or the body brought from somewhere else?”
“Didn’t say,” Mrs Hambly snorted. “Maybe he doesn’t want to give anything away. Maybe that’s part of the investigation.”
Jen stared at the two women in shock. “Killed?” she echoed. “Who? Where?”
“ Sheriff fished a woman - well, actually, parts of her - out of the stream that runs through the woods between your place and the Peteri’s this morning,” Mrs Hambly said bluntly. “Naked. Dead. You didn’t know?”
“No.” Jen shook her head, horrified. The forest between her place and the Peteri’s stretched for miles, and somewhere in those miles a woman had died. Parts of her. Which meant that parts were still missing. She shuddered in horror, not willing to ask.
“He thinks she was in the water for about two weeks,” Gail added.
Two weeks. Memories drifted like smoke, coalescing into solid recollection of the afternoon that Daemon had first turned up on her doorstep. After he’d left her that day, she’d sensed something in the woods, watching her. Something dark and frightening.
There are all sorts of monsters in this world, Jen. His words reeled through her thoughts. For an instant, she’d been so certain that Daemon was talking about himself. But had he known about the dead woman?
“You hate tomatoes, Jen Cassaday. What’re you buying them for?” Mrs Hambly demanded, peering into Jen’s cart.
“They’re . . .” She shook her head, gathering her thoughts. “They’re for the handyman. He mentioned he has a fondness for tomatoes on his turkey sandwich.”
“Why doesn’t your handyman bring his own lunch?” Mrs Hambly questioned at the same time that Gail asked, “You have a handyman working for you? Is it wise to have a stranger in the house with . . . well, with a woman dead and all?”
Jen shrugged with a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “He works hard. And he seems to understand old houses.”