"It's what we do. Are you Lily Bristol?" At Lily's nod, the other woman continued gestured toward the back of the store. "Good. Burke got us into the camera feed. According to the video footage, the intruder took a sledgehammer to the door. Walked over to that wall." The officer pointed to the BIV section of the shop's color-coded organization system. "Took three skeins of yarn and left."
"That's it?" She frowned. "Why go to the trouble of breaking in if you're not going to steal something?"
"He did steal something," the officer reminded her.
"Right, three skeins of yarn." Lily bit her lip, baffled.
"I'd like you to take a look at the feed, see if anything looks familiar to you." The female officer looked past Lily.
The golden lion of a man who had turned her head inside out stepped into view. He nodded toward the back. "I'll show you the footage."
"Ms. Bristol?" Another officer approached from the BIV wall. "I need some information from you."
For reasons unknown-or that she didn't want to dissect-Lily glanced at Jude. He watched her with a laser-like focus that held her rooted to the spot. Or maybe it was something else that kept her there. Something he saw, processed, and acknowledged with a dip of his chin.
"Give your info," said he said. "I'll wait."
Dear God. She caught her breath. Those two little words walked a fine line between promise and threat.
But worse, way worse, than that? They released her.
Unable to shake her awareness of Jude, Lily answered the officer's questions by rote and provided her ex's contact information with a request he not be contacted unless evidence associated him with the break-in. She didn't want to risk drawing Paul's attention if she hadn't already caught it, but at the same time, she wasn't a moron who would conceal such an important detail as a potential enemy.
For some reason she couldn't explain, she glanced at Jude while relaying Paul's info to the officer.
In full light, he was a beautiful, masculine specimen of man. Bronze skin complemented his unusually vibrant eyes and leonine coloring. He had a straight nose and strong jaw. A jaw that was clenched, restraining emotion she didn't want to contemplate.
And then he met her eyes. Suddenly, what she wanted didn't matter. His emotion wanted to be known and it had a name: Possessiveness.
She held her breath, waiting for her inner alarm system to kick in, to remind her this was a road she'd gone down before. One she wasn't ready to travel again, not yet. Maybe not ever. But … nothing. The voice of experience failed and left her floundering in the deep, uncertain waters of feeling.
Some people were water babies, had learned to swim before they'd learned to walk. She was not one of those people and that look of his. That shameless, unapologetic look.
She felt herself slipping, bobbing under, until one of the officers' radios crackled, throwing out a life preserver. She grabbed it and held on tight.
Over the next forty-five minutes, the police kept her too busy to worry about her reaction to Jude. She gave a police report while he sent surveillance footage wherever it needed to go.
She was worried she'd start drowning again when the police left, but it turned out to be unfounded anxiety. Without the police to distract her, the weight of the break-in overrode her uneasy connection with Jude and settled on her shoulders.
She planted her hands on her hips and sighed at the destroyed door. "I can't believe this."
"Reinforced glass the next time."
"Yeah." She heaved another sigh and turned toward the back of the store, toward Jude, only remembering at the last second that eye contact was bad news. Focusing on his lips wasn't much better, but at least the firm set of his mouth only affected her body and left her head alone. "I didn't think yarn was something anybody would really break and enter for."
His stern expression gentled. "What did you think someone would break in for?"
Revenge. To prove a point. To take something away from her. Was general paranoia enough of a reason? Unwilling to open any of those doors, she shrugged. "The cash register?"
Jude leaned against a bare space of wall, arms folded across his chest. With beard shadow darkening his jaw, he looked like he'd come from bed about as hastily as she had.
His khaki cargoes sat low on narrow hips and his gray t-shirt clung to a cut set of pectoral muscles. She could see it all now that he wasn't backlit, and it all was really, really something. She'd made one mistake in her previous assessment, though. All that bulk wasn't heavy like a body builder's physique. Jude was big, but that was just his general framework. His muscles were lean, ropey, put together like there was no other way his body could be except this way, regardless of whether he spent a minute or an hour in the weight room.