Her Lone Star Protector

Tearing her gaze from his, she groped blindly for her purse. “I’ve told you all I know about Eric,” she said as she slid from the booth. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Cole, I really need to go.”

Rob frowned as he listened to the officer’s response to his query about the autopsy on Eric Chambers. “No prints?” he asked, frowning.

“None,” the officer confirmed. “Whoever strangled him was careful. Probably wore surgical gloves of some type.”

“Anything show up in his stomach? Any indication that he might have been drugged?”

“Only his dinner. Otherwise, he was clean.”

Frustrated by the lack of any new leads on the case, Rob bit back a curse. “I appreciate the information. Let me know if y’all come up with anything new.”

“I will. You do the same.”

Rob hung up the phone and sank back in his chair, pushing his fingers through his hair.

No leads. No evidence. No suspects.

Other than Rebecca Todman.

Sighing, he sat up and reached for the mail he’d dropped on his desk. As he did, his gaze struck the fishbowl full of flowers that he’d bought at her shop. Frowning, he pushed aside the stack of mail and drew the bowl toward him. He stuck his nose in the flowers and inhaled deeply of the sweet floral scent, the lingering tartness of the citric fruits that filled the bowl’s base.

His frown deepening, he leaned back and studied the arrangement. Classy. Fragrant. Feminine, yet not fussy. Fragile, yet with a hint of toughness.

Much like the woman who had designed it, he thought, unable to stop the stab of guilt that came along with the assessment.

Two days later and he still felt bad about his last interview with Rebecca Todman. He had questioned a lot of witnesses and suspects in his life, some more ruthlessly than others, but none had left him feeling more like a heel than had his last interview with her.

And well it should have, he concluded miserably. He’d tried his damnedest to catch her in a lie, to pry into her private life and prove that she was somehow responsible for Eric Chambers’s murder. But nothing had panned out. Not motive. Not means. The only thing he could definitely nail her with was opportunity, which he could easily nail half the population of Royal with, as well.

Rebecca Todman hadn’t killed Eric Chambers, he told himself. His search into her financial records had dissolved any lingering doubts about that. She had nothing to gain financially by murdering him. Though not a wealthy woman, she’d inherited enough money from her husband to make the down payment on her house in Royal and to set up her business, which appeared to be at least beginning to pay its own way.

No, Rebecca Todman wasn’t the murderer, he thought ruefully, remembering the strained and haunted look on her face as he’d forced her to relive discovering Eric’s body.

But there was still something about her that ate at him. Some elusive something that kept him awake at night. But what? he asked himself, his frustration returning. Was it nothing more than physical attraction? A typical male response to the sight of a good-looking woman?

He leaned back in his chair and pulled at his chin as he gave that theory some thought. If so, he mused, then maybe it was time to get to know Rebecca Todman on another level. A level other than that of suspect.

A more intimate level.

With her knees and hands buried in the freshly turned soil of her cutting bed, Rebecca let the warmth of the late-afternoon sunshine and the heavenly scent of the flowers surrounding her work their special magic on her overwrought nerves. Calm. That’s what she needed and what she sought each time she stepped out into her backyard oasis.

Though she loved her floral shop and felt a keen sense of pride each time she thought of the business she was building, it was only in her garden where she found true peace from the ugliness and brutality of her past. No old memories were allowed beyond the arch of the wisteria-draped garden gate. None were permitted to dig their way under the honeysuckle-covered picket fence, or pop up from the fertile soil like unwanted weeds. Only beautiful thoughts were allowed to bloom here, hopes and dreams that Rebecca had kept secreted away throughout the years of her marriage, protecting them from the destructive and cruel hand of her husband, Earl. Dreams of loving a man and being loved in return. Dreams of having children of her own someday.

She had planted those dreams right along with the climbing roses that now bloomed on the trellises at the rear of her property, nurtured them as carefully as she had the thick clusters of Shasta daisies that grew at the base of the birdbath that speared from the center of the cutting bed. And someday, just as the plants she tended had bloomed to life, she prayed so would her hopes and dreams for a normal life. A gentle and caring man to love, respect and protect her. Children to fill her home and her heart with their laughter and love.

But before she could have those things, Rebecca reminded herself, she had to first heal. Not physically. The bruises and marks Earl had left on her flesh had long since faded. It was the emotional scars that remained, leaving her crippled and incapable of even considering a relationship with another man.

She shook her head sadly, remembering her earlier foolishness in thinking that, with the move to Royal, she’d left behind all the ugliness of her past, healed herself completely from the lingering effects of Earl’s abuse. She could remember in vivid detail the exact moment the revelation had occurred that had proved to her otherwise. At the time, she’d been at the New Hope Charity for battered women. Her purpose in making the visit had been an unselfish one. She’d wanted only to help other women who suffered similarly, offer them her support and encouragement.

Though she’d been a little nervous upon entering the shelter that first time, she’d approached the front desk, where she’d introduced herself to Andrea O’Rourke, a volunteer. They’d hit it off immediately and were chatting like old friends within minutes. Rebecca was filling out the forms Andrea had given her, required before becoming a volunteer, when the front door of the center had opened. Both had glanced up from the paperwork to find a female police officer ushering a sobbing woman inside.

One look at the woman’s busted lip, the swelling that all but closed her left eye, her torn and blood-splattered clothing, and the trembling had started. Violent shudders had dragged the pen from Rebecca’s fingers and drained the strength from her legs. She’d fainted dead away.

Oh, she’d been so smug, she thought now, upon reflection. So sure that she’d completely and successfully overcome all the effects of Earl’s abuse. But she’d had pointed out to her, in a most vivid and humiliating way, that the physical scars might have faded, but the emotional ones were still very much with her.

But she would overcome them, too, she promised herself.

In the meantime, she would dream.

Sinking back on her heels, she let her gaze drift over the swaying, fragrant blooms that filled her garden, a brilliant testament to all the dreams she’d planted in this space. A man to love and cherish her. The children they would have, created from and nurtured by the mutual love and respect they had for each other.

She sighed as the scene blurred, the image of the man with whom she’d fall in love slowly building in her mind. He’d have to be strong, she told herself, and tipped back her head, closing her eyes while the picture of him grew, took shape. But never cruel. And handsome, she added, a soft smile curving her lips as the image began to sharpen and fill with detail. Tall, with thick, wavy hair. Deep blue eyes. Well-honed features. Broad shoulders. She could see him so clearly. So distinctly. So—

Her heart stumbled a beat and she flipped open her eyes, realizing that the face she’d envisioned was none other than the face of Rob Cole. Shaken, she struggled to her feet. Rob Cole? she asked herself then pressed her hands to her suddenly hot cheeks and shook her head. No. Not him. The man terrified her. Infuriated her.

And had, from the moment he’d first appeared at her shop, haunted her sleep and filled her dreams.

Irritated that she had so little control over her own thoughts, she firmed her lips in a long-lost act of defiance she struggled to recover each day. And what woman wouldn’t be fascinated by him? she asked herself with a sniff. He had the rugged good looks of an outdoorsman and a muscular body that suggested that whatever activities lured him there required a certain level of strength and fitness.

But it wasn’t his good looks or hard body that she found herself thinking about, she admitted reluctantly. It was his stone-faced expression, his gruff nature that had her daydreaming of wrapping her arms around him and teasing a smile from him.

Though he’d never shown her anything but the all-business, investigative side of his personality, she was sure there was another side to him, as well. A tender and fun-loving side. It just needed nurturing, she told herself. Love would draw out those qualities he kept locked inside.

“And if you think you’re the woman for the job,” she muttered under her breath, “you’ve got another think coming. Rob Cole is about as interested in developing a relationship with you as Sadie is.”

Sadie, she remembered guiltily, and glanced around, looking for her charge.

“Sadie,” she called as she gathered her garden tools and prepared to go inside. “Come on. It’s time for our dinner.” She made her way through the cutting bed, careful to step on the stones she’d laid out and not on any of her plants. “Sadie,” she called again as she strode for the house.

When she reached the patio, she stooped to store her tools beneath the redwood potting table, then turned. Her shoulders drooped, when she saw that the cat hadn’t appeared. Suspecting that Sadie had climbed the picket fence and gone home to Eric’s house, just down the block, she crossed to the side gate and lifted the latch.

As she walked down the sidewalk, dread tightened her stomach with each step that brought her closer to Eric’s house. She hadn’t been to his home since the morning she’d found his body. She didn’t even dare so much as glance in its direction as she drove past each day on her way to and from her shop. Couldn’t. Not and keep the haunting images at bay.

Confronted with the strip of crime-scene tape still stretched across the drive, she curled her hands into determined fists, then made herself duck beneath it and hurried for the backyard.

“Sadie?” she called uneasily. She tiptoed around to the patio, where she knew Sadie liked to sun. Spotting the cat curled up on the back stoop, waiting, Rebecca was sure, for Eric to come home and let her inside, she crossed to her. “Oh, Sadie,” she murmured sadly, as she stooped to scoop the cat up into her arms. “Poor baby,” she said sympathetically as she retraced her steps. “You miss Eric, don’t you, precious?”

“What are you doing here?”

Her heart leapt to her throat and she looked up to find Robert Cole standing in the middle of the drive, blocking her way.

“I…I came to get Sadie. She slipped away while I was—” She clamped her lips together, furious with herself for offering an explanation when she could just as easily ask the same thing of him. “What are you doing here?” she returned.

He slid his hands into his jean pockets and lifted a shoulder. “Looking for you.” He tipped his head in the direction of her house, where his sports car was parked at the curb. “When I drove up, I saw you headed this way, so I parked my car and followed.”

Sure that he’d come to question her again, she drew the cat to her chest, as if the animal were a shield. “As I’ve told you repeatedly, there’s nothing more I can tell you about Eric’s murder.”

“I didn’t come to question you about the case.”