“I’m not going until I know you’re one hundred percent, Shabina.” He unfolded his large frame and sauntered over to his duffel bag. “These customers of yours that aren’t always nice, maybe we should talk about them.”
Shabina considered pretending she was so exhausted she couldn’t continue with their conversation, but Rainier would never allow her to get away with that. He disappeared into the closet, but when she remained silent, he stuck his head back out, raising his eyebrow.
“That bad?”
“You’ll be upset that I didn’t tell you before this. Raine has been collecting video from the various establishments to prove harassment. I can’t go to Rafferty, the local sheriff, because Bale Landry is related to him. Evidence always disappears. We have a plan in place, but we need to gather all the evidence before I file a restraining order.”
She tried to give him the explanation fast. Now that he was standing in front of her again, his hard features grim, those piercing eyes looking like steel, she thought it was a big mistake on her part not to have informed him.
“Don’t leave out any details.”
Shabina told him everything, starting with the way Bale, Edward, Sean and Jason had harassed Zahra and her almost from the very beginning when they’d moved to Knightly. At first it had been snide comments, but lately the behavior had escalated. Not from Jason, but mostly from Bale and Sean. She tried to keep emotion from her voice when she related the details of the graffiti on the walls of her café. The many times they came in andcomplained about her meals, refusing to pay and even going so far as to file a police report saying she tried to poison them.
Rainier was still, his features expressionless, but his gray eyes had gone a scary mercury. That didn’t bode well for the men. He didn’t interrupt to ask questions, so she continued to tell him about the recent murder and how Bale had threatened her both at the café and at her home.
She kept her gaze fixed on his. His stillness gave him the illusion of fading into the background—something difficult to do for a man as large as he was. But the color of his eyes changed radically. Gray went to mercury. Mercury went to a darker silver. She could see a black ring around the silver. A storm, a desert storm, one with lightning and thunder, all right there in his eyes. A little shiver of apprehension slid down her spine.
“Rainier, these men are regular civilians.” She felt the need to remind him. “They’re creepy, and Bale has gone way too far, but I think once I pursue legal action through the proper channels they’ll stop.”
Rainier bent down to brush his palm over her cheek. “Do you really believe that?”
She swallowed the first three things she would have said just to placate him. She had to be honest. “No.” The admission was made in a low tone. “The others, yes, but not Bale. Raine thinks losing control of the others has made him desperate.”
She told him about the murder and finding the feathers and how Chelsey stole the spices from the café. How she found the spices and dates in a bush along the canal where she ran every day.
Rainier regarded her steadily. “Murder. Threats. The FBI questioning you. A corrupt sheriff. Two men pretending to be Interpol agents. It took how long before you decided to call me?And not for your own safety but because you were worried about me.” He shook his head. “What am I going to do with you?”
She flashed a tentative smile. “It does sound kind of bad when you put it all together like that. I thought Scorpion might have sent someone here to implicate me in a murder.”
Rainier shook his head. “Not his style. He’d target your friends if he was going to murder anyone and do his best to make it look like you’re guilty. Anyone can get birds or flowers from places here in the States if they know where to look. If someone is looking to frame you, it’s a shit job. You can prove you were in Knightly when the murder took place. The most they can do is try to find a way to implicate you as an accomplice, which would be difficult and ludicrous.”
Relief left her shaky. Other than her fears for Rainier, her worst fear had been that Scorpion was close. She trusted Rainer’s judgment. If he said Scorpion wasn’t leaving feathers on her doorstep to torment her, she believed him.
“That leaves the questions, who would leave feathers on the steps of my café, Rainier, and why? How would those same feathers be used on an altar at a murder site?”
“We’ll find those answers,Qadri. In the meantime, I’ll get together with Raine and take a look at the security footage. It’s possible I can spot something she hasn’t, although, as far as I can tell, not very much gets past her.”
Shabina was happy to hear Rainier praise Raine. They had seemed at odds on more than one occasion. Raine was brilliant, and she was a good friend. Shabina wanted Rainier to like her friends. They were important to her.
“I’ve got a ring. I’ve had it for a very long time.” He leaned down to take her hand. “We can drive to the courthouse in Independence on your next day off and get our marriage license.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been planning this.”
“For a long, long time.”
Rainier slipped the ring on her finger, and her heart went into overdrive. It wasn’t huge, which was perfect for her. She didn’t want huge. The color of the diamond was a vivid greenish, nearly royal blue, cut in multi-facets. It was extraordinarily beautiful.
“As soon as I saw this stone, I knew I had to have it for you.” He brushed his lips gently over the ring. “Never think you aren’t loved, Shabina.”
Chapter Twelve
“Shabina.” Eve Garner waved at her, smiling widely. Her sister gestured for Shabina to join them at the little table where Tyrone had seated them.
Shabina excused herself to the Swedish climbers she was speaking with and made her way across the room to join the two women.
“You won’t believe the little house we found to buy,” Felicity told her, excitement edging her voice. “It’s so perfect for us. It has a yard where we can grow vegetables, but it isn’t too big, so it should be easy to take care of.”
“And a patio with a built-in firepit right off a sliding glass door,” Eve added. “We’ve already started the paperwork. The agent said if the loan goes through, and it will, we can move in after the first.”
