Dead Giveaway (Stillwater Trilogy #2)(52)
Author: Brenda Novak

Finished, she stepped away from him. "Are you okay?" she asked.

He met her gaze. "I don’t know."

He wasn’t talking about his wound. She understood that. She wasn’t sure she was okay, either. Something had happened last night beyond the physical act of making love, and it had affected them both.

Turning his attention to his wound, Clay tried to rotate his shoulder to see the back of his arm and muttered a curse.

"Don’t do that," she said. "You could make it bleed again."

"It’s fine."

She drew the sheet around her a little higher. "What enticed you to come to the cabin?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Did you receive a phone call, telling you I was in trouble? Or a request to meet someone here?"

"No."

She frowned in confusion. How else had the shooter brought Clay to this remote location?

"So why’d you come?"

He regarded her levelly. "You have to ask?"

"Tell me."

"You were here."

Allie let her eyes sweep over him, trying to commit every detail to memory.

When he caught her admiring him, he held out his hand in subtle invitation.

Allie tried to resist but couldn’t. Reaching out, she wove her fingers through his. Then he pulled her toward him and began tugging on the sheet.

She didn’t stop him. She closed her eyes as the sheet fell to the floor. A moment later, she heard the bed creak as Clay leaned forward, felt his lips move along her collarbone, over her br**sts, as light as a butterfly’s wings. "Clay…"

Pulling her into his arms, he rolled her over him, and laid her on her back. He was acting differently than he had last night, when they’d made love with such passion. Today Clay touched her with a reverence she’d never experienced.

She watched him take in all the details she’d been afraid to show him.

"Perfect," he said, his hand following his eyes. "Just like I imagined."

What was she going to do? Allie asked herself. She was falling in love.

She almost kept him from touching her. She had to return to real life. But that would come soon enough. Instead, she sighed in blissful satisfaction as he began to love her.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, Allie reveled in the scent and feel of him, in the heightened sensations only he could evoke–until someone tried to open the door. Then she cried out and stiffened in panic.

Clay tried to shield her body with his. But it didn’t help. A second later, she heard a crack.

Then the door flew open and crashed against the inside wall, and Allie’s heart nearly stopped.

Her father stood there, holding the ax handle he’d used to break the lock.

The look of contempt on McCormick’s face burned Clay worse than his gunshot wound, although he had to admit he had it coming. He’d known better than to touch Allie. He just hadn’t been able to resist.

"Give us a minute," he said gruffly. The anger he felt, mostly directed at himself, lent his words plenty of authority. But he doubted Chief McCormick heard him. The older man was already backing away. He threw down the hatchet and stomped out, probably because he couldn’t bear what he’d just seen.

Allie scrambled out from under Clay and grabbed her clothes. "I’ll handle this."

He buried his head beneath the pillows, cursing his own weakness and stupidity.

"He’s all bark," Allie said. "He’ll calm down."

Clay had little hope of that. Still, he stayed where he was as she pulled on her wet jeans and shirt and hurried outside.

He expected to hear a blistering argument–but Chief McCormick didn’t even raise his voice. If she hadn’t left the door ajar, he probably wouldn’t even have been able to hear them.

"You’re fired," he said. "Turn in your badge, your car and your gun as soon as you get back to town."

Silence met this statement. Clay couldn’t believe it himself. Was Chief McCormick serious? What would Allie do without a job? She had a child to care for–McCormick’s grandchild!

He got out of bed and started dressing.

"I’m a good police officer. You can’t fire me because I slept with a man you don’t like," she said.

"A man I don’t like? He’s a suspect in the only murder case we’ve got."

"He’s also a man I’ve known since high school, and he was just like anyone else a few days ago. When I moved back here, you weren’t even interested in reopening the Barker case! It was all me, digging around to help Madeline."

"Things have changed, and you know it."

"Not in the name of justice. The Vincellis have their own agenda, that’s all."

"And you think sleeping with Clay is going to help? Are you trying to ruin your life?" he retorted. "What about Whitney?"

"Whitney is my concern. I’ll take care of her."

"How? You don’t have a husband anymore. You don’t have a job. You don’t have a home of your own. Without me, you don’t have anything!"

Clay froze, waiting for Allie’s response.

"You and Mom invited me back," she said evenly. "You wanted me to move home as much as I wanted to come."

"That was before."

"Before what? "

"Before you started acting like a bitch in heat!"

The hypocrisy of McCormick’s statement made the blood boil in Clay’s veins. At least he and Allie were single. At first Clay had thought Allie would fare better if he let her deal with her father alone. But he couldn’t stand back and allow McCormick to mistreat her. Clay was equally responsible.

Striding out of the cabin, he leaped from the porch to the ground because he didn’t have the patience to bother with the steps. A bitch in heat? Allie had slept with two people in her life. A few minutes earlier, she’d been too self-conscious to let him see her naked despite what they’d shared during the night. "Watch your mouth," Clay warned.

"You stay out of it," McCormick said. "This is between Allie and me."

"Not anymore."

"You’re challenging me, Montgomery?" Chief McCormick’s hand hovered near his gun, but Allie moved between them.

"Stop it! I won’t have the two of you fighting."

Clay assumed she’d explain the extenuating circumstances leading up to last night. But not Allie. She was too proud to justify her actions. Tears glistened in her eyes, but her throat worked as she fought them back. "We’re stranded," she said. "If you’ll just give us a ride to town, we’ll figure out how to get our cars home."

McCormick blinked several times, then focused on the toppled bookshelf visible through the open doorway. As if finally realizing that it hadn’t happened as part of their lovemaking, that much more had taken place at the cabin than finding his daughter in bed with a man he didn’t approve of, he turned to her. "What’s been going on here?"