That she was as crazy as everyone said.
They spoke softly to each other, so softly she couldn’t hear the words, and then Shayne walked Patrick to her front door, and when she looked up again, Shayne was standing in front of her, hands in his pockets, hair still wet from the rain, expression unreadable. Through all of this, his proximity had always been able to affect her, and now was no exception. He still smelled good, delicious in fact, and though he wasn’t looking at her with his usual heat, it didn’t matter because he was looking at her with a gentle kindness.
Devastating, really. She wanted to put her hands on his incredibly soft shirt and feel his incredibly hard body beneath. Instead, she tried to joke. “Let me guess. He recommended you run far and fast from me, right?”
He didn’t respond to that, but pulled his hands out of his pockets and set them on her arms, stroking up and down over her coat. “You look beat.”
“A very true statement.” She resisted setting her head on his shoulder, barely. “So what did he say?”
“Who’d want to scare you, Dani?”
“Well…”
“You piss anyone off lately?”
“You have a lot of questions.”
“Are you going to answer any of them?”
She let out a shaky breath. “Are you asking me if I have any enemies?”
“Or friends that aren’t really friends.”
“So…you believe me,” she said, shocked to find her throat tight over that. “You believe that something is going on here.”
“Something, yes.”
“Okay.” She concentrated on breathing. Breathing was good. “Okay, now I’m really scared.”
“You should be. Enemies, Dani? Pissed-off family members? Scorned boyfriends? Jealous coworkers?”
Taking a step back so she could lean against the couch, she nodded.
“Which?”
She tried to smile and failed. “Well, would you believe all of the above?” When he arched a brow, she let out a short laugh. “I know, it sounds ridiculous. I mean, look at me.” She spread her hands. “I’m a mess. But it’s shockingly true.”
“Tell me.”
“I was promoted today-yesterday, now,” she corrected, looking at the clock, finding it well after midnight. “To head mammal keeper. It’s mostly just a title, with a joke of a pay increase, really. I’ll still be poor as dirt, but I get to make management decisions and I get the good schedule.”
“Anyone upset about that?”
“The only other person eligible was Reena, and she’s a close friend. We got hired at the same time, so the promotion could have gone either way, but she’s happy for me.”
Crossing his arms, he sent her a get-real look.
“She is,” she insisted.
“She can be happy for you and still really pissed off about it.”
“Pissed off enough to kill someone? Enough to break into my place? To plant a gun on me? Seriously, this is ridiculous. What happened tonight has nothing to do with my work.”
“Okay, so what about family?”
“You know my mother. She’s a stuck-up, narcissistic snob, but she’s not a gun owner. And she’s not a murderer.”
“Siblings? Stepsiblings?”
“I-” She closed her mouth. Tony’s and Eliza’s faces flashed across her mind.
“What?” Shayne murmured, watching her carefully, an unsettling thing because the look in his yes implied he cared. A lot. “What are you thinking?”
That she was going to have a hell of a time resisting him, that’s what. “I think my stepsiblings would like me to vanish, but they like their cushy trust funds too much to actually off me.” She tried to smile, but didn’t feel especially amused.
“Dani-”
“The point is, none of this makes any sense. My job, while lovely to me, is actually really very boring to most. I observe mammals, write reports on their behavior. I feed them and clean up after them. Not exactly glamorous work, you know? I haven’t made any enemies, and though my family is richer than God, there’s no reason for any of them to hurt me. The end.”
“Ex-boyfriends? Current boyfriends?”
She looked away.
“Dani.”
She was too busy with work to have a real life. Okay, that wasn’t exactly the truth either. She was too busy being independent to let anyone in. “It’s been a while.”
“How long a while?”
She winced. Could this get any more humiliating? “Months.”
“Months.”
She closed her eyes. “Okay, a year.”
“A year?”
“And a half.”
Silence. She felt her face grow hot, and finally opened her eyes.
He didn’t look horrified or disgusted. Just patient, and understanding. “Nothing more current?” he said without judgment. “Nothing at all?”
She hugged herself. “If I had something more current going on, I wouldn’t have kissed you in the closet.”
“Which begs the question…” He shifted closer, put his hand on her jaw, and lifted her face to his. “After all that time of going without, why did you kiss me in the closet?”
She opened her mouth, and then shut it again. It was a good question, a fair question. But how to explain that she’d kissed him in the closet to kick-start herself, and that mission had been accomplished. What she hadn’t realized was that she’d want another kiss.
And another.
And despite his interest, she knew enough to know she couldn’t possibly keep it. Kissing him again, or even explaining the kiss would be like opening a big, fat can of worms.
“Just an impulse?” he inquired.
His hand was still on her jaw, and she liked his touch, too much. So much. How in the world did people do this, open up and let someone in, and then casually walk away after one encounter? She needed to work on that. “I dared myself.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Okay, then. That clears everything up. Thanks.”
“Shayne-”
“Never mind. I get it. We’re…”
“On different playing fields.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re a ten, and-”
“Not that again.”
“What did your brother say exactly?” she asked.
He arched a brow. “Subject change?”
“Subject change.”
He sighed. “He said that just because there’s no sign of a break-in doesn’t mean someone wasn’t here.”
“So he believes me too?”
The answer was in his eyes. “Oh. I see.” She turned her back to him because she didn’t want him to see her disappointment. “He doesn’t.” She leaned on the couch. “So what about the gun? Did I plant that myself then?”
“He’s going to see who it’s registered to.”
“And in the meantime?”
