Nodding, she raised a hand to her chest, fingers checking her top button just to make sure she’d refastened it. That her collar was straight.
The DNA test was going to prove that Bruce was Brianna’s father. Miriam would go home. Mason would go back to his life. Her life and Brianna’s would continue as they were, with perhaps a little more genuine warmth between Harper and Bruce.
End of story.
Mason knocked once. Waited for her to admit him. She headed toward the door, to open it. Stopped. That would have her toe to toe with him for a second at least. Their eyes would meet up close and… She returned to the chair behind her desk as she’d originally planned, hiding her shaking hands by keeping them below the desktop and plastering a work-face smile on her lips.
“Come in,” she called when she was ready.
He’d been running his fingers through his hair. Short as it was, she shouldn’t have been able to tell, but she remembered, far too clearly, how it had looked that night when she’d run her own fingers along his scalp. Many, many times.
In light-colored pants and a short-sleeved olive green shirt he seemed ready for vacation. Or to go on a date.
No, he was in normal Mason work attire.
“How’d it go?” she asked him as he took a seat, as though Grace and Miriam were the only things on her mind. As they should’ve been.
“Good, actually,” he said. His grin warmed her private places.
She couldn’t tell anyone that. Ever.
“There was a long moment when they stood there looking at each other, neither one of them saying anything, and then, just as I was getting ready to take them both by the hand and guide them to the same table, they were walking toward each other and hugging.”
He was still grinning.
Mason happy was an unexpected aphrodisiac. Something she’d only seen briefly…that night, of course, in his bed.
The couple of times she’d met him before that night, he’d never seemed happy. She hadn’t really considered that before. Another thought to file away.
“So, you think Grace will be able to get through to her?”
“I think they’re going to be friends again and that’s what Gram needs more than anything right now.”
She agreed. But they had to find a way to keep her safe so she could go home again.
And life could return to normal.
She sat there, blinking as the thoughts ran through her mind. When had she ever wanted the status quo as a permanent life?
When had she started to feel grateful for it?
“I talked to Bruce this morning.” She’d meant to wait until after he’d said whatever he’d come to tell her. Till he’d had his say. She’d meant to see what, or how much, he was going to tell her. She’d barely made it past hello.
“He called,” she said, when Mason’s eyes narrowed.
He waited without speaking. She tried to read him, but got nothing. Except that she wanted to feel those arms around her again. Those lips against her. Him inside her.
But mostly, just to feel his arms around her right then. Like she was some needy woman who had to be comforted? she asked herself in disgust. Who needed a man to help her feel secure?
She knew that was hogwash. Even on that long-ago night, being with him hadn’t been about being taken care of. Or security.
It had been lust, pure and simple.
Okay, maybe more than lust. And maybe not so pure or simple. But the last thing she’d felt was that she needed any kind of protection. She’d wanted him to take care of her, all right. Just as she’d wanted to take care of him. In a way that brought both of them satisfaction.
“He told me the two of you are working together now. That he has a tape that showed an older male neighbor visiting Miriam after he’d left that night. The night she ended up in urgent care. I’m assuming that’s the second suspect you mentioned?”
Elbows on the arms of his chair, fingers steepled in front of his face, he continued to watch her. And bowed his head once in acknowledgment.
He seemed to be closing himself off, so she pressed him. “Is he right about that?”
“I wasn’t going to mention details,” he said. “I don’t want this investigation to be tarnished in any way.”