She set the knife down on the end table and then hurried to open the door. “Hurry, get in out of the rain.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him over the threshold.
“Just let me go get my robe.” She dropped his hand and hurried into her bedroom to grab the matching robe that went with the nightgown.
Even though she had already slept with him, that didn’t mean she felt comfortable enough to sit around half naked with him. She pulled the silky robe around her and tied it at her waist then stopped in the bathroom where she grabbed a clean towel from a shelf. She then returned to the living room, where he was seated on the sofa.
“Here, take this and dry yourself off,” she said and handed him the towel. She gasped in stunned surprise as she got her first real look at him. He wore jeans and a navy-blue T-shirt, but what really caught her eye and made her gasp was the large bandage on his upper arm.
“Oh, Daniel, what happened?” She sank down on the sofa next to him.
“It’s a gunshot wound, but I’ll get to that,” he replied. He took a moment and ran the towel over his wet hair and then placed the towel next to him on the sofa and gazed at her.
“We started the morning by pulling in Pierre for a deeper, more intense interrogation. We were hoping if he was our man, we could get him to crack and confess.”
“And he shot you?” she asked, bewildered by how that could have happened. “Oh, Daniel, are you all right?” She couldn’t believe he’d been shot.
“No, it wasn’t him and I’m fine. Anyway, Pierre didn’t confess. After that we had the intention to speak with Marianne Lutgen…”
“And she shot you?” Angelique gasped again in stunned surprise.
He laughed. “Woman, would you be patient. I’ll get to who shot me in a minute. Anyway, before we could leave the station to find Marianne, we got a tip that we needed to look at Ranger Chauvin. Do you know him?”
She frowned. “Yeah, I know him only very casually. I’ve heard whispers that if you want some meth or other drugs, Ranger is the man to see.”
He nodded. “As soon as we approached his cabin, we could smell the scent of meth cooking. But what was really surprising is apparently Ranger has a real thing for you.”
“A thing for me?” Once again, she stared at him in shock. “What does that even mean?”
“Apparently, he spoke to your mother about his wild desire for you and his intentions to date you and make you his own. She made him very angry by laughing in his face and telling him he wasn’t good enough for you.”
“I… I’m stunned. I didn’t know anything about this,” she replied. “Mama never mentioned it to me.”
“He believes she then put a spell on him that made her appear in nightmares he suffered,” Daniel continued.
“So, he had reason to want my mother dead.”
“That’s what we believe. Unfortunately, before we could really dig into that, I made the mistake of mentioning the meth issue,” he said.
He told her about Ranger jumping from his porch and then running away and the chase that ensued. “None of us knew he was armed.” Daniel frowned. “It was our mistake for not checking him when we first approached. Thank God, the bullet he fired only grazed my arm.”
She grabbed hold of his hand and held it tightly. “You could have been killed.”
His jaw muscles tightened. “Yeah. Thank God, Ranger was hyped up enough on his meth so he couldn’t shoot straight, otherwise it could have been much worse. Anyway, that’s my investigation report for the night.”
“To heck with the investigation. I don’t care about that right now. I just need to know that you’re going to be okay,” she replied worriedly. “What did the doctor say?”
“Why, Miss Santori, if you keep talking to me so sweet, I might think you actually care about me,” he said, a teasing blue sparkle in the depths of his eyes.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she replied and dropped his hand.
He laughed once again, as if amused by her perverseness.
“Actually, I was lucky that I was just grazed. According to the doctor, all I have to do is keep antibiotic cream on it and keep it covered for a few days,” he said, more serious now. “Sound familiar?”
She held his gaze for several long moments. Oh, he had such beautiful eyes. It would be so easy to fall into the blue depths. “I’m just glad you’re okay. I have to admit, Daniel, I’ve grown quite fond of you.”
“I could say the same about you,” he replied softly.
As their gazes remained locked, she wanted to fall into his arms once again. She wanted to take him by the hand and leadhim to her bedroom for another bout of lovemaking, but she was oddly afraid of the new feelings for him that swept through her.
