Jenna Ryan - Dream Weaver

“Done yet?” Johnny asked when he ran out of breath. Meliana recognized the tone. She closed her eyes as she heard Chris’s muffled “Oomph.”

However, knowing Chris as she did, she imagined he’d given Johnny a hard shove or two to punctuate his earlier points.

No matter what he’d been through, Johnny wouldn’t use his fists unless he was pushed right to the wall. In the case of Chris Blackburn, that wall might be mere inches from Johnny’s back, but he still wouldn’t have precipitated a physical fight.

Shannon reached the front door ahead of her. Lokie, who’d been returned to her that evening, lagged behind.

“Coward,” she accused, and gave the dog’s head a scratch.

Lokie barked and sniffed her hand for a treat as she opened the door.

“Who do you think you are?” Chris demanded, red faced.

He was broader than Johnny and taller by about three inches, yet somehow Johnny’s presence always managed to dwarf him. Still, Chris outweighed Johnny by a good forty pounds. In an all-out fight, that could present a problem.

Motioning for the dogs to stay back, Meliana leaned on the doorjamb and regarded the pair of them.

“This is my house, and you’re trespassing.” Johnny pitched his voice lower than Chris. He wouldn’t shout unless it was absolutely necessary. “Go home, Blackburn.”

Chris responded by shoving him again. “This is Mel’s house. You moved out, remember? She lives here, I live two doors down and you have no business being here.”

Meliana caught the gleam in Johnny’s dark eyes and cleared her throat. “Don’t like to spoil your fun, guys, but you’re making a lot of noise for this time of night.”

“Andy wears earplugs.” Chris shot Johnny a hostile look. “He’s the only neighbor within range, and anyone in the park at this time of night doesn’t care what we’re doing.”

“I care.”

“Yeah, well, I caught your ex skulking in the bushes.”

“He’s not my ex,” Meliana reminded him. “Johnny has every right to be here, Chris.”

Johnny rested his butt on the iron rail. “Nice try, though. Now tell her what you were doing.”

Chris’s fingers twitched. “I was checking the place for perverts.”

“By sitting in the backyard and staring up at her bedroom window? He was waiting for you to go to bed, Mel,” Johnny said with contempt.

Meliana hooked his arm and drew him toward the door. “You’re like two kids fighting over a toy. Thanks for the thought, Chris, but I’m fine. You can take off.”

The look he sent Johnny smoldered. “I’ll hear if she screams.”

Meliana held fast to Johnny’s arm while Chris stalked away. “Let it go, okay? You copped an assignment he wanted. He resents you for it. Maybe it even scares him a little, seeing how it affected you. He could have been the one who almost got swept under. The outcome might have been worse if it had.”

“Blackburn’s got a granite skull. He’d have come out of it just fine.”

“Now you’re flattering him?” Meliana urged the dogs inside and closed the door. “This balled-fist stuff you guys do totally baffles me. Are you friends or not?”

“Not. One guy wants another guy’s wife, he’s no friend.”

“Remove me from the picture. Closer then?”

“Unlikely.” Johnny scowled. “Maybe. I don’t know. Are you all right?”

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No more roses?”

Guilt and a trace of renewed fear trickled in, replacing amusement. “Not so far.” She rubbed her palm on the leg of her jeans. “Do you want coffee?”

He hesitated. “You were working, weren’t you?”

“Homework for an op tomorrow. I’m clear on the details. Why did you come back?”

“Because I felt like a wimp for leaving.”

“You plowed a fist into Chris Blackburn’s stomach. I wouldn’t call that wimpy.”

In the kitchen doorway he stopped, brows raised. “You changed the appliances.”

“They were my grandmother’s.”

“Were?”

Meliana opened the stainless steel fridge. “She died fourteen months ago, Johnny. I was going to tell you when your assignment was done, but—well, I didn’t.”

Johnny swore, raked a hand through his hair and began to pace. “I liked her.”

“I know. There was no funeral, only a memorial service on Maui. She wanted me to have her appliances. They were brand-new, and she knew how much I love to cook.”

“Hell.” Johnny dropped onto a tall counter stool. “I should have been there.”

She pushed two plates, a knife and half a coconut cake into his hands. “Don’t beat yourself up over something you can’t change. No one expected you to come, least of all me. I knew you were FBI when I married you. Anyway—” she ran a teasing finger along the line of his jaw “—I wasn’t alone.” His expression went from blank to suspicious so quickly that she laughed. “My brother was there, and Julie flew over with me.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You want me to tell you what I’m thinking right now?”

“No.” Because he wasn’t doing it, she picked up the knife and sliced into the cake. “But I think I should tell you something.”

“Good or bad?”

“You decide.” She licked frosting from her thumb. “The rose guy sent me a pair of white stockings, tied with a white ribbon and bow.”

Johnny trapped her chin. “It was this afternoon, wasn’t it? When you left your office.”

“The package was hand delivered, or at least hand placed. No one downstairs remembers receiving it. Reception said it just appeared. Probably true.”

His eyes held steady on hers. “Did you give it to Julie?”

“Not yet. I handled everything carefully—not that I think there’ll be prints.”

“Where’s the stuff?”

“Upstairs in my office.” She waited a beat, then added. “There was a card.”

“Damn it, Mel.”

She raised the cake knife. “Don’t give me that look. I’m not being stupid, and I’m not taking this lightly. I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell you first or Julie.”

“What did the card say?”

She sighed. “‘Accept this token of my love, Meliana. Accept my love. Accept me. We are meant to be.’”

Anger sparked in his eyes. “And you sat on this?”

One thing Johnny Grand had never been able to do was browbeat her. She leaned forward on her elbows and said clearly, “Yes, I did. Make a fuss, and I’ll take my cake and leave you here in the dark.”

Johnny regarded her for several long seconds, then made a sound in his throat and reached into his back pocket. “This came for me today while I was here in Chicago. I sourced it to a South Side Internet Café.”

Meliana scanned the brief message. It was more malevolent than hers and, as a result, far more frightening.

“He threatened your life.” She glanced at the living-room window, visible across the open island. “Why do I think he’s serious?”

“Because people like this exist, Mel. Always have, always will.”

“Why choose me? And you?”

“Because you’re beautiful, bright and talented. And he figures I might be in the way….” He paused, looked away. “I think.”

She was quick enough to follow his sudden shift of thought. “This has nothing to do with your work, Johnny. Anyone who might want to hurt you the way you’re thinking would simply put a bullet through my head.”

“Not everyone uses a simple approach, Mel. One guy I was involved with prefers torture to a shot in the head. His name’s Enrique Jago. If something’s illegal, he’ll take it on. He pimps his own wife to business associates. My contact thought he might have made me near the end.”

“Did he?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think so, but I could be wrong.”