Cold Case Affair

Shock slammed into Jett’s chest.

The flame in the old lantern on the hall table quivered in the wind, making shadows dance over her copper hair. But she simply stared at him, green eyes glimmering, her face ghost-white, shotgun pointed at his heart.

Jett’s gaze flickered sharply at the sight of her pregnant belly under the white cotton nightdress. “What are you doing here?” His voice came out rough, raw.

Muirinn slowly lowered the 12-gauge, her left hand rising as if to reach out and touch him. Anticipation ripped through him hot and fast. But she pushed a fall of sleep-tangled curls back from her face instead, and he realized that she was shaking. “Jett?” she whispered.

He was speechless.

Nothing in this world could have prepared him for the sheer physical jolt of seeing Muirinn O’Donnell back in Safe Harbor. Especially barefoot and pregnant.

The pulse at her neck was racing, making the small compass on a chain at her throat catch the light. It lured his gaze down to her breasts, which were full and rounded. Lust tore through him, his blood already pounding with adrenaline. Every molecule in his body screamed to touch her, pull her against him, hold her so damn tight, erase the lost years. But at the same time the sight of her softly rounded belly triggered something cold and brittle in him, a protective shell forming around his raw emotions.

He needed to step away, fast, before he did or said something stupid. “I didn’t know you were back,” he said crisply. “I saw a light up in the attic, thought it might be vandals.”

She was still unable to answer, and his words hung like an inane echo in the chasm of lost years between them. Rain began to plop on the deck.

“Gus’s place has been empty,” he explained further, clearing his throat. “But I can see you have things under control.” Jett turned to go, but he hesitated on the stairs, snared by a fierce urge to turn around, drink in the sight of her once again. “Welcome home, Muirinn,” he said brusquely, then he ran lightly down the steps toward his truck, forcing himself not to look back.

“Jett—wait!”

He stilled, rain dampening his hair.

“I … I wasn’t in the attic,” she said.

He turned very slowly. “You weren’t up there when I knocked?”

She shook her head. “I was sleeping.”

“Someone was up there, Muirinn.”

“It wasn’t me.”

He wavered, then stalked back up the stairs, flicking on the light switch as he entered the house. Nothing happened.

“I haven’t figured out how to reconnect the solar power yet.”

“Here, give me that,” he said, taking the shotgun from her. “I’ll go check things out for you, connect the power, then I’ll be gone.”

He snagged the lantern from the table and thudded up the wooden stairs.

Muirinn pressed her trembling hand to her stomach, trying to collect herself. Then, forcing out a huge breath, she followed him—and the light—up to the attic.

He creaked open the attic door, the movement causing a draft to rush in from the attic window behind Gus’s desk. Drapes billowed out, scattering papers to the floor. Outside, the rain fell heavier, the breeze carrying the moisture in with it.

“I … I could swear that window wasn’t open earlier,” Muirinn said, moving quickly into the study and stooping to gather the documents scattered across the Persian rug. Her movements were awkward around her growing stomach and she could sense Jett watching her. She stilled, and her gaze slid up to meet him.

In the light of her lantern, the planes of his face were rough, utterly masculine. His mouth was shaped with a sculptor’s fine precision, wide and bracketed by laugh lines that had deepened over the years. New, too, were the fine creases that fanned out from his cobalt eyes—eyes still as clear and piercing as the day she’d left town. And they bored into her now with an animal-like intensity that turned her knees to jelly.

Muirinn swallowed.

She knew he had to be thinking about her pregnancy. She also knew that he was too damn proud to ask. They were alike in so many ways.

She stood up, awkwardly clutching the papers to her belly, her cheeks flushing as something darkened in his eyes. Something that made her feel dangerously warm inside.

“It must have been how Quicksilver got in,” she said quietly, trying to fill the volatile space between them. “My cat,” she explained, then laughed nervously. “Gus got him for me when I turned thirteen, remember?”

“That cat can hardly be called yours, Muirinn,” he said crisply. “You left him. Eleven years ago.”

The implication was clear. She didn’t have any rights. Not here, not anymore, not in Jett’s eyes. Not even to a cat.

She moistened her lips.

Jett turned from her suddenly and crossed the room. He held the lantern up behind Gus’s desk. “You didn’t see this, either?”

“God, no!” Muirinn said, coming to his side and seeing shards of glass glinting on the carpet. The desk drawers had been wrenched open, too, folders lying scattered beneath the leather chair in which she’d sat only hours before. The computer tower beneath the desk was toppled onto its side, wires ripped from the back. A chill rustled through her.

“Someone was up here, Jett, while I was sleeping.”

Jett yanked back the heavy drapes. “The windowpane’s been shattered. Whoever came in here must have ransacked Gus’s desk.” He frowned, surveying the scene. “The sound of my truck must have interrupted them.”

Muirinn wrapped her arms over her tummy, shivering as the rain-damp wind from the broken window whispered over her skin. “Why would someone want to go through Gus’s things?”

“Hell knows,” he said, studying the floorboards under the window. “But whoever did this was clearly looking for something. He might’ve tried to take the whole computer tower because your solar power is off, and he couldn’t access the information he wanted right here.”

“He?”

“There’s dirt transfer on the wooden floor here, left by a boot, about a size 12. I’d say it was a guy.”

Another gust of wind chased a ripple of goose bumps over her skin, tightening her nipples. Jett glanced at her breasts, then caught her eyes for a long beat. He looked away quickly, rubbing his brow as he cursed softly.

“Is it that hard, Jett?” she whispered. “Seeing me again?”

He kept his face turned away from her for a long moment.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “It is. Come—” He touched her elbow, gently ushering her out onto the landing. “We should leave the scene as is. I’ll call the cops.”

He pulled the attic door closed behind them, the space on the narrow landing suddenly close, the halo of lantern light too intimate. Jett had that effect on space—it shrank around him. It wasn’t just his physical size; he radiated a kinetic energy that simply felt too large for contained spaces. He thrived out in the wilderness, and it was why he’d refused to follow her to Los Angeles. He’d said the city would kill his spirit, who he was.

In retrospect, Muirinn knew he was right. A crowded urban environment wouldn’t accommodate a man with a latent wildness like Jett’s. He was born to roam places like Alaska, the tundra, in his plane. It’s why people like him came north of 60 in the first place.

Los Angeles would have been a concrete prison for him. But at the time, it had represented freedom and adventure to her—a key to a vibrant new world.

Yet, he had left for a while. He’d gone to Las Vegas. Where he’d gotten married. And that really burned.

It also made him a hypocrite.

He glanced down into her eyes, sensuality swimming into his features.