“And yet it almost always is. A woman marries a man for financial security, and a man gets married to continue his line and have a pretty ornament on his arm. Not so bad. My parents were married for more than twenty years before my mother died. They were fairly compatible.”
“Compatible? What about passion?”
“Well, clearly they had sex. At least once anyway,” Mia said dryly, eyes closed. She inhaled deeply, loving the smell of him. Whether he was fresh from the shower or at the end of a long, sweaty day, his masculine pheromones shouted to her pheromones, Come and get me. “What about you?”
“What about me? Sex once in twenty years isn’t my style, but one doesn’t have to be in love to have mind-blowing sex. We both know that.”
But one could be halfway there if one allowed it. “Have you ever been in love?”
“No.”
“Do you believe in love?” she asked curiously, sitting upright and running both hands through her hair as they approached the house. It was the first time in hours that she’d given her appearance a thought. In fact, tonight was the first time in several months that she’d even bothered to put on makeup at all.
“Doesn’t exist, except in advertising to sell anything from your fancy Blush perfume to Ferraris.” He pulled her truck under the carport and cut the engine. She’d left all the lights on in the house when she’d run out, so pools of golden light dotted the wide expanse of non-lawn. It looked welcoming and safe.
“Wow. We’re both cynics.” That was kind of depressing. She’d never given her cynicism any thought at all until now. “Well, I do believe in love. Pretty much three out of four songs for hundreds of years have been about it, so it must exist, right?”
“Maybe for some people.” He could almost have added, But not for people like us.
Mia realized she wanted everything love could bring into her life. As mysterious and closed as he was, she was already more than halfway in love with Cruz. She wanted to lie on a blanket in the sun with him and eat strawberries. She wanted—
It was good to want things. But her life was chaotic enough as it was, without adding a man into the mix.
Her sigh shook a little as she gusted out a breath.
“You okay?” Cruz asked.
“Just really, really wired.”
“It’s all that adrenaline racing around your body. You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep . . . or a hot night of sex.”
“Right now I’m not sure I can do either, thinking about what he did to her and Charlie.”
“And I’ll sleep well only when I know Marcel’s been arrested. If they found him.” The police hadn’t, as of half an hour ago. “I’ll call Detective Hammell again when we get inside.”
Mia didn’t care that they’d already called twice in the last hour and a half. “I hope they throw the book at the pig.”
She wanted Latour arrested. Just seeing Daisy lying in that hospital bed with a breathing tube and a brace around her neck had shot Mia’s blood pressure sky-high. “I hope someone in prison thinks he’s pretty,” she told Cruz, tone grim.
“They’ll get him on aggravated second-degree battery. He’ll be there awhile, so there’ll be plenty of opportunity for him to make friends and perhaps get a taste of his own medicine.” Cruz’s voice was tight. “He not only used his fists, it looks as though he gave Daisy that orbital fracture behind her bruised eye by striking her with the lamp base. He wasn’t battering her. The sick fuck used brute strength and a weapon to try to kill her.”
He hadn’t told her that at the hospital, and now she pictured what it must’ve been like for Daisy. Tears prickled behind Mia’s eyes, and she began to shake with a potent combination of anger, fury, and a deep-seated desire for justice. “I’ve never said this in my life, but I want him to die.”
Cruz’s fingers tightened around the curve of her shoulder. “They’ll be hard on him. Prisoners don’t take kindly to wife beaters.”
“Then I hope he’s the only beater in there, and they’re all bored and looking for a punching bag.”
He looked down at her, and Mia’s heart did a somersault at the tender expression in his eyes. Probably the moonlight. Possibly the adrenaline. Definitely the sexy man beside her.
“Bloodthirsty. Hell, I feel exactly the same way.”
“I know, right? This has brought out a whole different side of me. But, honest to God, any man who puts the people he should protect at risk deserves to die.” She popped the passenger door.
As soon as they got out of the truck, the muggy heat slapped them like a hot, wet blanket. She waved away the persistent mosquito buzzing around her head, and Oso started frantically barking from inside the camper.