He smiled at her teasingly. “Not to interrupt your daydreams, but I think you were right. See there?” He pointed up at the windows over the back porch. “That’s supposed to be the guest bedroom that, at least from the sketches the police made, Scarlett was staying in. And, since we can see the windowsfrom down here at water level at the dock, she could definitely see everything on the dock if her curtains were open.”
Kelsi followed his finger and his eyes up to the window. “You’re right.” She grabbed her digital camera from the waterproof bag she had in the bottom of the kayak and took a few pictures of the view. “All right, let’s head back now and feed you before your hanger starts kicking in.”
“Hey!” he shouted indignantly. “I brought snacks!”
She laughed and kept paddling, glad that the way back at least had the wind at their backs, helping them along.
In the silence, she remembered how he’d left the previous night after—well, really, during—their dance. It looked as though he’d been in pain. She bit her lip before looking at him from the corner of her eye. “Dylan?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you doing okay? When you left last night, you seemed upset.” Upset was definitely one word for it.
“I’m fine. I wasn’t feeling that great is all. Nothing else.”
His tone brokered no arguments, and she let it drop. For now. She looked at the side of his kayak where the view of his leg was blocked, and more than anything wanted to know what had happened to him overseas.
They paddled slowly next to each other before Dylan spoke again. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but what happened? To you and Tom, I mean. Last I heard, you two were picking a date.”
Kelsi paused, caught off guard by the question, her paddle suspended over the water on her left side. She fell behind him for a second before she continued rowing. For a moment, shedebated evading his answer like he had hers, but she recognized that one of them had to take the first step. If she wanted him to be vulnerable with her, she would have to give him the same vulnerability in return. When she caught back up to his side, she answered honestly.
“We weren’t a good fit for each other, and he realized it before I did. But I think I knew the whole time. I mean, every time he asked to settle on a date for the wedding, I told him we weren’t in any rush. If he was the one, though, wouldn’t I have wanted to marry him as soon as possible? Tom—he found someone else he fit with more than me. They ended up getting together one night at a conference in Richmond.” She snorted, but it was a self-deprecating laugh. “It was unfortunate that when the conference was over, they both went home—back to my office.”
Dylan’s harsh inhale came before he growled, “I’m going to kill him.” His voice was low, dangerous.
Despite the heat, she felt a shiver crawl up her spine. This protectiveness was a side to Dylan she’d never seen before, and she wasn’t exactly put off by it.
“No, don’t. Honestly, it’s fine. I mean, obviously it’s notfine. I wish he hadn’t cheated on me, but we weren’t it for each other. I’d rather know before we got married than after.”
He stayed silent, laying his paddle across his lap. She did the same, twisting her head to look at him beside her. His eyes were serious, trained on hers.
“Are you okay, Kelsi? Truly?”
She answered “yes” before she even thought about it. With a shock, she realized it was true. Somewhere in the past week, she’d almost forgotten about Tom. The heartbreak she’d feltwhen he left her had faded to a dull ache. Now it was more like she’d lost a friend than a love, and a lot of her pain had come from embarrassment. She’d spent so much time worrying about how other people would perceive him cheating on her and ending their engagement.
Maybe in the beginning of their relationship she’d cared more for him, but toward the end? They’d been on their way to ending even before he’d cheated on her. The spark was gone, if they’d ever had one in the first place, and they’d both been clinging to something that was already over.
If she told Abby this, she knew she would never hear the end of it, but Abby had been right when she told Kelsi she wasn’t nearly as heartbroken over Tom as she had been over Dylan. Although she’d been upset over Tom, that heartbreak was minor compared to the one the dark-haired soldier staring at her had dealt.
“Yeah, I really am fine,” she repeated, feeling light even in the face of all the problems in her life. Maybe being friends with Dylan again had a large hand in that. There was something about him that pushed her to drop her guard and let him in, which was dangerous to say the least. Her battered heart couldn’t take much more without shattering completely.
Dylan gave a slow grin at her answer. “Good.” He began paddling forward once more and turned around in his seat to yell over his shoulder, “But I’m still going to kill him!”
She let out a startled laugh and chased after him.
CHAPTER 24
Kelsi
8 Days to Trial
Aknock on herfront door startled her from where she’d been fussing over her purse, making sure she had everything they would need for the interview with Scarlett.
She had the transcript of Scarlett’s original interview with her and planned to use it to confront Scarlett with her inconsistent statements if she gave them nothing. Kelsi even snuck some snacks in the bag. Dylan’s favorite snack had always been beef jerky sticks, so she stuck some Slim Jims in her bag, along with some pretzels for herself.
She met Dylan at the door and gripped the doorframe, hard. She needed it to steady herself when she saw how good he looked, and her knees threatened to buckle.
It was shaping up to be a gorgeous day, and the sun streamed in behind him, lightening his brown hair to a golden caramel shade and framing his strong body in a glowing outline. His white button-down was tucked into charcoal-gray pants, paired with black leather shoes. His suit jacket was absent, and she found herself fixating on it for a second, because without it his forearms and chest were on glorious display under his taut dressshirt. Dylan smiled when he saw her and held out a disposable coffee cup in silent offering.
