Blush(97)

She shuddered in the safe haven of his arms, holding him tightly. He had raced out to save the day without even a shirt as protection. Idiot! Her heart still beat in a fight-or-flight drumbeat, sweat prickled her skin, and her knees felt like jelly. Swallowing fear-induced nausea convulsively, she gripped the damp, sweaty skin above his jeans and held on for dear life.

“The police are here,” he said over the top of her head, his hand rubbing up and down her back soothingly. With her head resting on his chest, Mia was vaguely aware of sirens and saw flashing lights behind her closed lids. Took them long enough.

“Take this.” He slipped his gun into the back of her jeans.

This hit is mine.

The weirdest sensation came over her. Absolute bone-chilling cold. Freezing, brittle-cold, as pieces, like small ice cubes, fell into place. She stepped carefully out of his arms.

The minute she looked up at him, Mia knew. “You came here to kill me, didn’t you?”

“If I’d wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

He didn’t deny it. All she could do was blink up at him as the pain of betrayal flooded her body so painfully that she had to steel herself not to fall to her knees.

Police officers with flashlights and guns drawn flooded the graveyard.

“You, come with me,” Detective Hammell instructed Cruz the moment he came abreast of them. “You got a piece?” he demanded. Cruz handed him his gun. “Dumb-shit move coming out here to confront the bad guys, son. How about you, Miss Hayward? You got yourself a weapon, too?”

Mia handed him her gun, which he took with a head shake. “Officer Durant will get you back to the house and take your statement, ma’am.”

Without a word, Cruz turned his back and walked off with Hammell.

As furious, confused, and scared as she was, she wasn’t ready to be interrogated by the police. What had just happened, what she’d just learned, was too raw, too new, too damned unprocessed, for her to discuss with anyone other than the person who’d made her feel all those damn things.

“Miss Hayward?”

She gave the young officer a blank look before she gathered herself and blinked him into focus. Late twenties, bobbing Adam’s apple. Eager. She almost groaned. “Let’s head back to the house.”

It was considerably easier, and a lot faster, to walk across the brightly lit graveyard in a direct line. Officer Durant loaded her in the back of a squad car, something that had not been on any of Mia’s lists, and without any conversation drove her the short distance to the house.

All the lights were on, and there were already officers inside and outside, processing the scene.

She headed down the hallway. “I need a dri—” She came to an abrupt halt in the doorway. There were people everywhere.

“Kitchen’s a crime scene, ma’am,” Officer Durant said kindly. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“The parlor, but I don’t have any furniture.”

“That’s all right, ma’am, this isn’t a social call.”

No shit? “Right.”

Even though she rarely drank hard liquor, Mia wanted a drink now, but instead she flipped on the light in the never-used parlor. The scarred wood floor gleamed, thanks to Daisy, and a dozen packed boxes stood against the wall. She turned in a circle, then just went to the middle of the room and folded her arms at her waist. God. She wished her brain would get into gear. She had no idea what Cruz was saying to Detective Hammell. She had no damned idea what she was going to say to explain the scene in the graveyard.

Officer Durant flipped open a notebook. “Your full name?”

Shit, she couldn’t even answer the first question honestly. On the short drive back to the house, she’d debating telling the police the truth, and why she was in Bayou Cheniere. But if she did that, then she’d have to say that there was a hit man after her, and if she said that, she’d have to tell him that Cruz was that man, and if she told him that, then he’d question her sanity in welcoming a hired killer into her home. “Mia Hayward.”

Drawing on Amelia Wellington-Wentworth, Mia stiffened her spine and channeled her old self. The one who didn’t believe bullshit from a man bent on seduction. Who saw through lies and half-truths and dealt with them accordingly. Who hadn’t fallen in love with a man like Cruz fucking Barcelona.

Once Durant got the basics down, most of which were applicable only to Mia Hayward, with no mention of Amelia Wentworth, he asked her to explain in her own words what had transpired earlier.

Mia gave him a brief summery of the events. No, she didn’t know the men. No, she had no idea why they were there. Cruz had run out there, and she’d called the police and followed with the gun. Guns. Yes, in hindsight she knew it had been a foolish thing to do. Yes, she was extremely lucky Mr. Barcelona had been there, and that neither of them had been injured.