Линси Сэндс - Meant to Be Immortal [calibre]

“But you didn’t want to sell it either and give up your last connection to them,” he guessed.

CJ nodded slowly, impressed that he’d worked that out. He really got her, she thought. “No, I didn’t want to give it up. I guess that’s why I never told Billy that I owned it. He would have suggested living here, or selling and buying somewhere else, and I didn’t want to do either.”

“He never knew about this place?” Mac asked with surprise.

“Not while we were together, but I had to put it in the financials for the divorce,” she admitted with a grimace. “I half expected him to freak out when he saw that I’d owned a house all that time, but he didn’t. Actually, I’m not even sure if he read the financials. He just signed the papers and walked away.”

“So, he never even saw the house?” Mac asked, looking around the room.

“No,” CJ admitted.

“And you moved back here, after all? It doesn’t make you sad to be here?” he asked with concern.

CJ smiled faintly. “No. I thought it would, but after losing the baby and the divorce and everything, it felt kind of comforting to be here. I felt closer to my parents.” A little uncomfortable and embarrassed at the admission, she straightened and said, “You should probably get going. They’re all waiting in the RV.”

“Yes. Besides, the sooner I leave, the sooner I’ll be back,” he said with a smile as he bent to pick up the bags he’d carried in. “Where do you want these? Laundry room, I’m guessing?”

“I can manage from here. You go ahead,” she said at once, but he was already shaking his head before she’d finished speaking.

“It’ll only take me a minute to take these to your laundry room, and that way I get to see a bit more of your house before I go,” he added with a grin. “So, where is it?”

“At the end of the hall, in the walk-in closet off the master bedroom,” CJ explained, picking up her own suitcase and bags.

“The walk-in closet?” he asked with surprise, heading down the hall.

CJ grinned at his tone of voice. “Yeah. It actually used to be the laundry room, but I took over the smaller closet in the master to make the master bathroom larger. So, I knocked out the wall into the laundry room next door to make it a walk-in/laundry combo. It makes it pretty handy for doing laundry,” she pointed out. “And with just me here, it’s not like anyone would be traipsing through my room to get to the washer and dryer in the walk-in.”

“Smart,” he decided as he turned into the master bedroom.

She saw Mac looking around the large bedroom with interest as he crossed to the open door to the walk-in. It made her look around too as she tried to see it from his perspective. Her gaze slid over the pale beige walls, wide-planked maple hardwood floor, an area rug in beige, with a rust and medium brown pattern, a rust and white colored duvet with a folded beige quilt on the end, and rust colored blinds covering the sliding glass doors and window. It was warm, but not too girly. She was not a girly type girl, CJ thought, and then grunted in surprise when she bumped into Mac, who had stopped abruptly.

Taking a step back, she glanced at him and then frowned as she noted that he’d gone stiff and still in the doorway to the walk-in. Unnaturally so, she realized, and dropped the suitcase and bags to free her hands.

“What is it?” CJ whispered, trying to look around his shoulder, but Mac moved protectively to the side, blocking her from view as well as blocking her view.

“Back up.”

Now CJ stiffened. That hadn’t been Mac’s voice. It was gruffer, and angry, and coming from inside her walk-in closet/laundry room combo.

Mac immediately started to back up, putting a hand behind to urge her to move with him. They shuffled backward until they were halfway to the door to the hall, and then the man said, “That’s far enough.”

CJ stopped at once and stepped to Mac’s side to see the speaker. Her gaze slid over the tall, skinny, haggard-looking man with dark hair that was confronting them. She recognized him at once as the man in the video Mrs. Vesper’s friend Joan had shown them. Officer Steve Jefferson had apparently not been caught and arrested. He’d been on the lam for two weeks and broken into her home, and he was pointing a gun at them, she noted just before Mac shifted in front of her again. CJ knew he was trying to protect her and scowled at him for it before simply moving around him. She was the ex–police officer here, as well as the man’s target, and it was her house. She didn’t need Mac to protect her. She also didn’t want him hurt in her place because of some sense of chivalry.

Mac did not retreat under the look she cast him. Instead, he moved in front of her again, turning his back to the man and scowling down at her in return as he hissed, “CJ, let me handle this. I can’t control him. The guy’s all hopped up on something.”

“Yeah, and he’s waving a gun around too,” she pointed out, barely noticing the odd bit about not being able to control him. “Which is exactly why I should handle it. I’m trained to deal with trash like this. I used to be a cop, remember?”

“You may be trained, but I am immort—” He snapped his mouth shut in the middle of whatever he’d been saying, and asked in a growl, “You know how I said I think you’re brave and I might be falling in love with you?”

“Yes,” she said warily.

“Well, you are brave, stupidly so, but I lied about the rest,” he said firmly. “I’m not falling in love with you.”

He might as well have stabbed her in the chest, because CJ felt those words like a physical blow. The pain was very real, and didn’t ease until he added, “Because I already do love you.”

CJ blinked at the admission. He did not seem pleased to make it. She, though, was overjoyed. He loved her! Damn, wasn’t that awesome, she thought, and then realized he was still yammering at her. Like anything else in the world could be nearly as important as that he loved her, she thought. Still, she tuned back into the conversation to hear “—making love to you too, and I’d like to be able to do so for a long time, so step back and let me handle this. In fact, perhaps you should just leave the room, so I can—”

“She’s not going anywhere,” the intruder growled with irritation. “I’m the one in charge here, and I plan to settle this today.”

“Like you tried to settle it at the Pub and Grill, when you did your best to run us down in the parking lot?” CJ asked sharply, glaring at him around Mac’s arm. She knew it was the wrong tactic to take, but Mac had just told her he loved her, dammit, and this guy was ruining what should have been a perfect moment.

“You saw me? You knew it was me?” Jefferson’s eyes were wide with alarm. “Does Dupree know? Hell! He’ll never let me get near Lily again if he knows— Goddammit! You’ve screwed up everything, you dumb bitch!” he snarled furiously, and raised his gun.

Mac was moving even as Jefferson pulled the trigger and then pain slammed into CJ’s chest and she went tumbling to her bedroom floor with Mac on top of her . . . only she wasn’t sure how he’d got there. His back had been to her when he’d moved in front of her, but he was facing her by the time her back smacked into the floor. He landed on top of her hard. She had the vague thought that he must have been like a whirling dervish to get turned before they landed, and damn he was heavy. But most of her mind was taken up with the fact that her chest hurt and she couldn’t breathe. She just wanted him off of her, but he wouldn’t budge when she shoved at him.

Instead, he growled, “Stay still,” and shifted to cover her more fully.

He was acting like a human shield, CJ realized, and wanted to kiss him and hit him for it all at the same time. But she did neither. She didn’t even tell him that it was too late and she had already been shot, because she couldn’t. She was gasping and struggling for breath, but couldn’t take any in. It felt like her lung had collapsed. Had the bullet hit a lung? She wished she could look to see, but Mac was in the way, and then she became aware that someone was screaming and turned her head, trying to see where the sound was coming from. Her eyes widened with alarm when she spotted Marguerite by the door.