He sighed, and the sound held an edge. “You received roses without a card?”
“Yeah.” I looked around the darkened property at the snow-covered trees. Snow fell lightly, adding to the heavy accumulation on their branches, but the wind was calm and the night felt peaceful. Even so, I shivered. So I stood and moved inside the cottage, kicking my boots off on a thick rug before securely locking the door. My tree glittered with colorful lights from the corner of the room, failing for once to provide a sense of peace.
“Who delivered them?” Aiden asked, his tone alert.
I should’ve paid better attention to the blond guy. “Don’t know,” I admitted. “The guy came in a plain SUV with no logo. I’ll call the local florists tomorrow and see what I can find out. For now, I’m not going to worry about it.”
“Liar,” Aiden said gently. “The card was probably dropped by the delivery guy. This isn’t Jareth Davey. It’s not his MO.”
I sat the flowers on my table near the kitchen. Jareth Davey had briefly kidnapped me as a child, gotten off on a technicality, and then sent me two cards a year: one on the anniversary of the June day he’d kidnapped me and one right around Christmas, which was coming up way too fast. “I’m fine, Aiden.”
The gunfire sounded closer over the phone line.
He groaned. “I’ve gotta go. Call me if you have a nightmare, and I’ll answer if I can.”
“’Night,” I said, hanging up and staring at the innocuous flowers. “I’m not going to have a nightmare tonight.”
The flowers didn’t answer.
The nightmare hit afterseveral hours of peaceful sleep, and somehow, I wasn’t ready for it.I was ten years old again, skipping rocks at the river when a man grabbed me from behind. I—
The ringing of the phone jerked me wide awake, and I sat up, gasping for breath. Hoping I wasn’t having a heart attack, I fumbled for the phone on my bedside table and yanked it to my ear. “Hello,” I ground out, reaching over and flipping on the antique milk glass lamp next to me.
“Hi,” Aiden said, sounding exhausted. “You okay?”
How did he know? I tried to calm my racing heart rate. “Yeah. You?”
“Yeah.” Covers rustled as it sounded like he slipped into a bed. “It’s about nightmare time, so I thought I’d call. I’m sorry if I woke you out of a good sleep.”
I settled back down, looking at the picture of the two of us next to the lamp. It was taken around Halloween, outside of my cottage, with the nearest trees full of red and gold leaves and the ones behind them thick with pinecones. My sister had caught us holding hands, and the scene was natural and right. Aiden looked tall and broad next to me, his unreal blue eyes piercing through the day. I loved that picture. “The nightmare had just started.”
“Did it start in the cabin or at the river this time?” he asked, prodding me to talk about it like he always did when I got scared. It did help.
“I was at the river skipping rocks with Lacey, and Jareth grabbed me,” I said. Lacey was both my cousin and my best friend, and right now, she was a cop in a big city. After Jareth had picked me up, he tossed me into a four-wheeler and drove up the mountain to a cabin, stating we were now married. Before he could hurt me, a sixteen-year-old Aiden had plowed into the building, beat the crap out of Jareth, and saved me.
He’d been my hero ever since, even though we’d lost touch for about twelve years.
Now he was home. Well, usually. When he wasn’t gone pretending to be somebody else. “I’m okay now,” I said, partially meaning it. “I’ll figure out who sent the flowers and we’ll go from there.” Chills still swept my body, so I snuggled down in the covers, leaving the soft light on to illuminate my feminine bedroom.
Aiden was quiet for a couple of moments. “This schedule, with my job, isn’t really working for us, is it?”
It pretty much sucked, but I couldn’t ask him to give up his job. He’d worked hard to get where he was, and he did a lot of good, frankly. “We can make anything work.” I didn’t like his tone of voice. The idea of Aiden moving on was always in the back of my mind, but he had purchased a cabin in town, so he seemed to want to set down roots. “You’re excellent at your job, Aiden,” I murmured.
“Is that really a good thing?” he asked. “I spend too much time being somebody else, lying to everyone around me, making connections that aren’t real.”
It was rare to find him in a philosophical mood, considering he was more of an action-oriented guy. I swallowed. “Are you thinking of making a change?”
“Not in my job,” he said quietly.
Oh, crap. I couldn’t deal with this right now. “Well, you’re not making a change in us,” I muttered. “Suck it up and deal with your job, Devlin. I can handle the long distance and weird schedule, so stop thinking that I need stability and that you should step out of the way.” Sometimes I had a direct line to his brain, and I had no problem using it when necessary.
His chuckle was sexy. Plain and simple. “I hate the idea, but Nick Basanelli is a good guy, and he did ask you out.” Aiden’s voice was now teasing, so I didn’t get pissed.
Basanelli was the current county prosecutor, my former boss, and a total hottie.
“He’s practically engaged to my sister, Tessa,” I said, grinning.
“Do either of them know that fact?” Aiden asked.
