Allison Leigh - Secretly Married

“Actually, it’s rather like being surrounded by the sky,” she said coolly.

Of course. Commenting on her fear of heights put that extra tone in her voice. “You have circles under your eyes.”

“Flattery always was your strong point, Sam.”

“You still don’t get enough sleep. Probably too busy reading case files in bed.”

She pressed her palm to her throat, her eyes going wide. “And here, all this time I thought you didn’t care.”

“Nice to know we still bring out the best in each other.”

She didn’t bat an eye. “Isn’t it? And I’ll take your kind offer of the guest room with my assurance that I’ll leave as soon as humanly possible. I’ll catch Mr. Montoya’s ferry first thing.”

“You can cut the act, Delaney. There’s nobody here but us.”

“Act.” Her brows drew together. “Were you always so…unpleasant?”

He almost laughed at that. “There were times you didn’t think so.” He touched the ends of her silky hair, a genuine smile tugging at his lips when her bravado disappeared in a puff. Something about her eyes. One moment they frothed like a whitecap and the next they were quiet pools that hid none of the depths inside her.

She shifted, adding a good foot of distance between them. “Really? I hardly remember.”

He had to give her credit for trying.

He turned back toward his room. “Come through here. Guest room’s across the hall, but you probably figured that out when you were hunting up sheets in my closets.”

She hurriedly snatched up the briefcase, following him. “I didn’t snoop.”

“Did I accuse you of it?”

“You implied it.”

He exhaled noisily. “Get some sleep, Delaney. And forget about catching Diego’s ferry tomorrow.”

“Why on earth would I want to do that?”

He knew if he looked at her, the whitecaps would be back. He knew if he looked at her, he’d want to touch her again, no matter how stupid it would be. “It doesn’t run on Sundays.”

She was silent a moment. “Dandy.”

Delaney was the only person he’d ever known who used the word dandy, much less for circumstances ranging from spectacular to abysmal. He sat on the end of his bed and then—because he was a man and she was his wife—he couldn’t help but look at her. “Not exactly like running to the corner and hailing a cab.”

“No.”

He pulled off one boot. Go away, Laney.

Her eyebrows drew together. “Are you trying to intimidate me?”

“By taking off my boots?” He removed the other and it hit the floor with a thud to lie by the first. “I’m not that obvious.” Yes, he was. Go away, Laney.

“By making me uncomfortable, you can control the situation.”

He stood and started on his shirt buttons. “Like this?”

“You’re so obvious.”

“And you’re not moving.” He tossed the shirt aside. “Maybe because you want to stay. The bedroom really was where we did all our best work.”

“Bedroom?” The word burst from her lips. “Half the time you—”

“I…what?” He prompted when her voice strangled down to nothing. “Didn’t wait to get to the bedroom?” He took a step toward her. And another. For each step he took, she inched farther away, the briefcase held in front of her like a shield. The door was within reach.

“Remember that time we—”

The phone rang.

She jumped a little.

He considered ignoring it. But he couldn’t. He was the bloody sheriff; the only law in a town that had a council but no mayor, because nobody wanted to take on the job of heading up the antiquated place. He eyed Delaney as it rang again.

She looked pale.

He was surprised she didn’t use the phone as her last means of escape. But then there were lots of things he’d found surprising about Delaney.

He went over to the bed and snatched up the extension. “Vega.” The airy hum over the line meant the call wasn’t local. Not the Haggerty boys getting into it again, then. “Hello?”

“Detective Vega?”

It’d been a while since he’d been called that. “Not anymore. Who is this?” But he knew the answer before the other man answered.

“Chad Wright.”

“Yeah?” Sam’s voice was bland.

The line hummed for a moment. Then Chad cleared his throat. “Well, I was looking for my fiancée.”

Fiancée.

Well, well, well.

Sam shoved his hand in his pocket to keep from tearing the phone out of the wall and slid his gaze to Delaney. “Who would that be,” he asked genially, knowing full well that it was the woman standing in the doorway of his bedroom, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Delaney, of course.” Chad sounded impatient. “Look, I know it’s late. But she never checked into the hotel in San Diego, and I haven’t been able to reach her on her cell phone. She said she planned to speak with you after she’d taken care of some business there, and I’m just trying to locate her. I’ve already checked with Castillo House, and she left there hours ago. Do you know if she was delayed in Turnabout?”

On Turnabout. It’s an island. Idiot. But not such an idiot that his concern kept him from calling Sam—something the other man had to have hated doing. “Cell phones don’t work out here.”

“Yes, I figured that out. So? Have you seen her?”

He held the phone in Delaney’s direction. “Your fiancé’s on the phone for you.”

Her ivory skin went white. She pushed back her hair from her face. “Chad?”

“You engaged to more than one guy?”

She didn’t answer that. The fine line of her jaw tightened. She set her case down on the dresser by the door before quickly moving forward to snatch the phone. She turned her back on him, but she couldn’t go far. It was a corded phone, as good as a leash.

Her voice was low, but Sam could still hear her as she greeted Chad Wright. Chadly Do-Wright.

And his wife was engaged to him.

He moved to the foot of the bed and sat down. He’d be damned if he’d leave, but listening to the muted one-sided conversation took him perilously close to the end of his rope.

The divorce proceedings she’d once started had long ago been dismissed, incomplete. She could well have filed again. Technically, he had abandoned her. Moved out of their apartment. Her apartment, to be precise. Hell, he’d moved out of the state, to the opposite side of the country. Wasn’t surprising that Chad had made a move on her.

Was surprising that Delaney had accepted. She’d always claimed there was nothing romantic between them.

When she hung up, he still didn’t move. He looked at the palms of his hands, entertaining the vision of slamming them into Do-Wright’s perfectly tanned blondness. “So that’s what this is about. Return one ring. Exchange it for another.” He looked up at her, keeping his hands from fisting through sheer willpower. “Are you actually going to wear it this time?”

Her eyes shimmered. “Sam—”

“Come on, honey. Don’t be tongue-tied now.”

“Don’t call me honey.”

“I suppose the endearment’s reserved for the good Dr. Wright now.”

“I’m not discussing Chad with you.”

“Why not? I think a husband should be able to discuss his wife’s lover, don’t you?”

Whitecaps frothed, then iced over. She looked incensed. “Chad is not my lover. And even if he were, it’d be no business of yours, because I am not your wife anymore!” Her voice rose.

Maybe in a few years he’d look back and find some humor in this. Like when he was dead in the ground about a hundred years.

He pushed to his feet and closed his hands over her shoulders, feeling her jump, before backing her to the doorway of his bedroom until she stood in the hall. He took his hands away from her and handed her the briefcase.