Paula Graves - Chickasaw County Captive

“Did she?”

“Not Maddy per se. But apparently she got to talking about how hard it is these days to know who can be trusted and who can’t. Said she’d freaked out when she saw a guy taking pictures of the preschool playground a couple of weeks ago-thought it might be a pedophile-until she recognized him as the photographer who does the class photos for the school.”

“That doesn’t automatically rule him out as a suspect,” Kristen said, a little buzz of excitement building in her veins.

“No, it doesn’t…”

“Good catch. I’ll check it out in the morning.” She rang off and started the car. The clock on the dashboard of the Impala read 10:15 p.m. She hoped Sam wouldn’t be in bed yet. She wanted to get his take on what Foley had uncovered.

And, if she were honest, she just wanted to see him again before she settled down for the night in the guesthouse’s spare bedroom. Her body still hummed from their earlier embrace, as if her skin had memorized the sensation and kept playing it over and over like a favorite record.

As crazy and dangerous an idea as it was, she wanted more, and her usual self-control seemed to have left town.

Parked outside the guesthouse, she cut the engine and sat in the dark, wrestling with her reckless desires. Beyond the ethical and procedural problems inherent in getting involved with a crime victim, she was as wrong for Sam Cooper-and his daughter-as Norah Cabot ever thought of being. She had bad mothering in her genes, for God’s sake. Her mother hadn’t always been a nutcase-what if having kids drove Kristen to the same deadly extremes? She couldn’t really know, could she?

And yet-she’d been a good mother to her brothers and sisters when her own mother couldn’t. The little ones had secretly called her Mommy, going to her when they skinned knees, wanted a cup of milk or needed a bedtime story read. Didn’t that count for something?

Across the darkness in front of her flashed an image of her two youngest siblings, sprawled across the hardwood floor of their bedroom, covered in their own blood. Kristen squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force the image away, but the truth remained. She’d failed them in the end, no matter how good her intentions.

Was she going to fail Maddy Cooper, as well?

A knock on her car window made her jerk. She looked up wildly to find Sam Cooper standing outside the car, his face illuminated by the pale blue glow of a quarter moon overhead.

She rolled down the window, feeling foolish.

“Something wrong?” Sam asked, concern in his voice.

She pasted on a calm smile. “Just trying to talk myself out of this nice, comfortable car. It’s been a long day.”

“I set up the spare bedroom for you. There are fresh towels in the bathroom if you want a shower.” Sam’s hand settled on the car door, his knuckles brushing lightly against her upper arm. Awareness rippled through her, even though a layer of cotton separated her skin from his.

It had been such a bad idea to agree to stay here with Sam and his daughter, she thought. But it was too late to back out now.

It was too late for a lot of things.

Sam settled deeper into the welcoming cushions of the sofa, worrying through what Kristen had just told him. It didn’t seem likely that the school photographer could be the man who’d been stalking his daughter. “Surely the school vetted him before letting him get anywhere near the kids,” he said aloud.

“Probably,” Kris agreed. “But people fall through the cracks of background checks all the time. And besides, the photos notwithstanding, since this guy is really targeting you, not Maddy, he’s likely not a pedophile.”

“So a background check wouldn’t flag him as a risk.”

“Probably not. I’m going to check with the school in the morning to get the photographer’s name.” She reached for the cup of decaf he’d poured for her, closing her fingers tightly around the mug. He saw her hands tremble.

“Are you cold?” He reached behind her to grab the knitted throw from the back of the sofa. As he did so, his chest brushed against her shoulder, and he felt her whole body jerk as if she’d just touched a live wire. Coffee sloshed onto his leg, not quite hot enough to burn.

“I’m so sorry!” Kristen twisted away from him, setting the coffee mug onto a corkwood coaster on the coffee table. She pushed quickly to her feet, a look of mortification on her face as she gazed down at him.

“It’s okay. These jeans have seen worse.” He wasn’t as sure about his mother’s cream-colored sofa, although many more days of Maddy Jane Cooper and the sofa wouldn’t have escaped unscathed anyway.

“I’ll get a towel.” She hurried out of the room toward the bathroom just off the kitchenette, returning with a fluffy green towel. “I’ll pay for the sofa to be cleaned. If it can even be cleaned.” Her brow furrowed. “I’ll buy you a new sofa.”

He laughed softly. “My mother will know how to clean it.”

To his surprise, she looked as if she was on the verge of tears. “My mother used to get really angry at us when we spilled things. I’m usually so good at being neat and careful.”

Something inside him seemed to break open, spilling sympathetic pain into his chest. “Kristen.” He stood, taking a couple of steps toward her until they stood facing each other, only a few inches of space between them.

Her gaze lifted to meet his, and he saw a battle going on behind her dark blue eyes. But he couldn’t tell what parts of her were at war, or which side was winning.

“I should go to bed now,” she said, but she didn’t make a move toward the spare room.

The tone of longing in her voice seemed to echo inside his own head, a match for the restlessness pacing the center of his chest like a hungry wolf. The overwhelming need to touch her eclipsed the myriad reasons why he should step away and let her go, and he reached up to slide a strand of golden hair away from her cheek.

She closed her eyes as his fingers brushed against her skin. Her lips parted, a soft, trembling breath escaping. When he trailed his thumb over the curve of her jaw to settle against her bottom lip, her eyes flickered open.

Fire burned there, out of control. It seemed to draw out the fierce flames coursing through his blood, until his whole body burned with hunger. He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and drew her to him, covering her mouth with his.

Her response wasn’t tentative or shy. She wound her arms around his waist, pressing her body hard against his. Her mouth moved wildly, matching his passion until his head spun from the sensation.

He ran his hands down her back, tracing the curves and planes, drawing a map of her body in his mind and memorizing the landmarks-the lean, hard muscles of her back, the dipping valley of her waist, the sweet swell of her buttocks.

This is crazy, he thought, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, not when her breasts pressed against his chest and her hands moved restlessly over his rib cage, setting off fires everywhere she touched.

He tasted coffee on her tongue, dark and rich, with just a hint of sweetness. Lifting one hand to the back of her head, he held her in place so he could deepen the kiss, drinking in the taste and feel of her. She answered, kiss for kiss, sliding her hands up his chest, gathering bunches of his cotton T-shirt in her trembling fists.

She dragged her mouth away for a moment. “I can’t-” She didn’t finish before she rose to her toes and kissed him again, threading her fingers through his hair and drawing him closer.

“Daddy!” Maddy’s voice, tinged with panic, broke through the heated haze overtaking his brain. He felt Kristen’s body jerk against his, as if the sound of his daughter’s voice had hit her like a bucket of cold water. She scurried away from him, nearly tripping over the coffee table. She caught herself and moved toward the door to the spare bedroom.