She looked to the left and then slowly scanned to the right, but she saw nobody to give her pause. Still, she knew somebody was there…watching and waiting for the perfect opportunity to come after her again.
Chapter Ten
It had been a long week. Another fruitless, frustrating week of no clues and no leads in the two cases that haunted Daniel.
At the end of each day he dragged himself home and missed Angelique. The more he missed her, the more he realized the depths of his love for her. He loved her more than he’d ever loved anyone and the desire to build a life with her ached deep inside him.
But that wasn’t what she needed from him. She’d made it clear on numerous occasions that she had no desire for a romantic relationship. That’s what her lips said, but her touch told him something else, as did the glowing depths of her eyes when she gazed at him.
He believed she was in love with him, but Jason Webber had done such a number on her head…he had wounded her so badly, she refused to ever trust in love again. Could he get her to trust in him? Was it even possible that he could change her mind about love?
That was the question that burned bright inside him as he drove to her place on Saturday night. He couldn’t wait to see her again, to spend time in her company. The week of not seeing her had been agony.
Each day he and his team beat the streets in an effort to bring her the answer as to who had killed her mother and who was after her. Each failure to do so ripped at his heart and very soul. And tonight, as usual, he was coming to her empty-handed.
It had been a little over a month since Mystique’s murder. A month and they were no closer to solving the crime than they had been on the night she’d been found dead.
The most frustrating thing was they had two good suspects in Pierre and Charles, but there was no way to prove who was guilty and certainly not enough evidence to bring an indictment against either one of them.
It was another hot and sultry night as he got out of his car at the swamp’s entrance. He walked quickly down the narrow trails that would take him to her shanty.
He felt like a schoolboy getting ready to have a date with the most popular girl in the school. At the same time, he felt like a man getting ready to claim the woman he loved.
Of course, he didn’t intend to do that. The last thing he needed to do was tell her how very much he loved her. She wouldn’t want to hear such a thing from him. It was just so difficult for him to keep his love for her locked inside him.
Finally, he reached her place and knocked on the door. “Angelique, it’s me,” he called out.
She opened the door and smiled at him warmly. “Good evening, Chief LeCroix,” she said as she opened the door wide enough for him to enter.
“And good evening to you, Miss Santori,” he replied. She gestured toward the sofa, where he sat.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. She looked absolutely gorgeous in a pair of jeans and a dark purple sleeveless blouse.
“No, I’m good,” he replied. He could smell the evocative scent that was specifically hers alone, the one that stirred him on so many levels.
She sank down next to him on the sofa. Her honey-hued eyes were warm as she gazed at him. “Daniel, I have to confess, I’ve really missed seeing you this week.”
“And I really missed seeing you,” he replied. “My evenings were quite lonely without you in them.”
“Mine, too.” She held his gaze for a long moment. Oh, it would be so easy for him to fall into the honey-depths of her eyes. His love for her simmered hot inside him, begging to be released.
He broke the eye contact and looked at a place just over her shoulder as he worked to get and keep his emotions under control. “Unfortunately, I come with no information for you again tonight.” He released a heavy sigh and looked at her once again.
“You can only do what you can do,” she replied.
“I know you and your sisters are disappointed by the lack of progress.”
“I am…we are,” she admitted. “But I also know it’s a complicated case and you can’t pull a rabbit out of a hat.”
“Although Pierre and Charles are on my radar, it’s possible another suspect might pop up,” he said. “I know there are people who saw your mother under the cover of darkness that we haven’t spoken to yet. But it’s tough to identify them.”
“I wish we would have found my mother’s book. That would have made identifying everyone so much easier,” she replied.
“It definitely would have been helpful,” he agreed.
“I know how hard you’re working on all this, Daniel.” Once again, her gaze held his, and the intensity there half stole his breath away.
She leaned toward him and her lips parted as if in an invitation for a kiss. He wanted to kiss her. He so wanted to take her lips with his, but he didn’t.
