His Wedding Date (The Second Chance Love Series, Book 2) (17 page)

"We need to start going through the files at work first thing in the morning," he said.

"I know," she said.

The sheriff hadn't asked them to do that. He hadn't asked much of anything, and he still wasn't convinced he was dealing with a homicide. Oh, he was suspicious, but he wasn't in a big hurry to investigate why someone had killed Charlie or who that someone might be. He wanted to be sure someone had actually killed the man first.

Brian didn't need to know any more to convince him to take action. He was sure what had happened to Charlie was no accident, and he was worried other people at the office could be in danger. If Charlie's and Grant's only connection was through the office, and if both men had been aware of the danger they were facing, it stood to reason that the problem was probably work related.

Shelly and Brian were going to search through the records of the jobs both men worked on, looking for anything suspicious.

"It's still hard for me to believe that a job someone did in that office could have led to a murder," Shelly said.

"Think of the money," Brian said, setting his coffee mug on the table by the couch. "We work on multimillion-dollar jobs."

The firm had changed a great deal since Charlie had founded it twenty years earlier. It had grown tremendously in Naples's building boom, and the company had once employed people specializing in all phases of construction-related engineering work.

But Marion Williams's illness had taken its toll on the business. Charlie had downsized it drastically in order to hang on to it. Charlie had still done a little bit of everything for clients who'd been with him for years. But more and more, the firm had narrowed the scope of its work to civil engineering. The company had helped design buildings, reviewed construction plans and inspected work to see that those plans were followed.

"People will do anything if enough money's involved," Brian said.

"Some people," she said, still wanting to believe that Charlie hadn't done anything wrong, that he'd merely been caught up in a bad situation he couldn't handle.

Grant could have been doing something—she didn't know what. But it was easier to believe the trouble had started with Grant, and Charlie had only tried to stop it.

"I guess I'd better leave if we're going to get an early start." Brian stood. "Do you need a ride tomorrow?"

"No, thanks. I had a new set of keys delivered today." She followed him to the door, retrieving his coat from the closet, thinking she was going to get away without discussing anything personal.

But Brian cornered her at the door.

"This man—this Grant Edwards," he said cautiously. He didn't try to touch her, and she was grateful for that, at least.

"Yes," she said. The relationship hadn't lasted long, and it hadn't ended that badly, but she wished she'd never met the man.

Grant hadn't hurt her or frightened her in any way. He'd just left her feeling more alone when she was with him than she had been by herself. He was fairly nice, fairly attractive, more intelligent than most men she'd met, and he'd desperately wanted to go to bed with her.

Shelly had refused, though. He wasn't the man she really wanted. He wasn't the man standing in front of her right now.

She looked up at Brian as he stood in the hallway. He wore jeans and a plain white shirt, a stark contrast to his tanned skin, with his hair still wet from the rain they'd slogged through all day and his eyes locked on hers.

No, Grant didn't even come close. She'd known that from the beginning, though she'd tried to pretend it didn't matter.

Shelly finally remembered why she'd come over here—to get Brian's coat for him. She was holding it in her hands, and she'd forgotten all about it. What must the man think of her?

"Here," she said, finally handing it to him.

"Thanks." He slipped it on, but made no move to leave. "When I was... here? The other night?"

"Yes."

"You were wearing that shirt." He sounded as reluctant to get into it as she was. "And you said that the man on the phone was the one who'd... "

Shelly puzzled over his apparent loss for words. That was unusual and intriguing. "You mean when I said that it was his shirt?" She knew where he was going, and she didn't know how to avoid it, so she figured they might as well get it out in the open. "It was."

He considered that for a moment.

Let him wonder about her and Grant, she decided, if he cared enough to even wonder. He wasn't the only man in her life. Who was she kidding? Brian had never actually been
the
man in her life, only the one in her dreams. She wished he'd stayed there.

"So," he said, having the grace to at least be as uncomfortable as she was. "You and this man... "

"What do you want to know, Brian?" she asked, changing her mind and just wanting it over, wanting more than anything to be alone.

He hesitated, and that wasn't like him. Shelly liked the idea that she might have thrown him a little off balance. God knows he'd done it enough to her.

"What was he to you?" he finally asked.

Shelly had no energy left for prevarication, and she was sure Brian had no doubts left about what she felt for him. So she just told him. "Grant was a man I hoped would help me forget about someone else."

She regretted it almost immediately after the words left her mouth, but by then it was too late.

Brian's eyes locked on hers, daring her to look away.

She didn't want him any closer. She didn't want him touching her. So she made herself look at him, and she realized that the man he'd become was even more appealing to her than the boy she'd fallen in love with. Strong, sexy, self-assured. Kind, caring, generous. He was all those things and more. How was she supposed to forget about him? He was rock solid, physically and spiritually. He was the only constant in her life for the past twenty years.

Shelly sighed heavily, seeing no way out for herself. She tried to walk away then, but he stopped her, simply by stepping to the side and blocking her path.

"So," he said softly. "Did he make you forget?"

"No," she said without hesitating, her chin jutting up a fraction as she dared him to ask anything else.

His eyes burned into hers, the intensity leaving her reeling on her feet.

It was all going to come out, she thought. She'd held it in so tightly for years, and she couldn't do it any longer.

The night they'd spent together had ripped through all her carefully constructed barriers and left her completely vulnerable to him. She was exhausted and frustrated and scared. She couldn't escape from this conversation tonight with her secrets intact.

Shelly tried to prepare herself as best she could. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't try to explain how she'd come to feel what she felt. She wouldn't attempt to justify her emotions to him.

But she didn't have the strength to deny them, either.

She bowed her head and bit back the bitter tears. So easily, they could fall like the rain. It was raining now, enough moisture to feed a million tears.

It seemed as if the whole world was crying tonight.

"I don't feel right, leaving you here alone. We don't know what's going on. We don't know who did this to Charlie or why. We don't know if anyone else might be in danger—"

"No," she said, knowing exactly where this was going.

"I'll stay on the couch. I won't touch you," he said.

"No."

"You could come to my house. Take your pick of extra bedrooms—"

"Brian, no. I can't."

He took a step closer, and she tried to brace herself for what came next. But she miscalculated badly. She'd expected more of an argument about who was staying where. What she got was a touch—his lips moving across hers in a kiss that was as soft as the falling rain, and as devastating as anything that had happened to her that day. It was blessedly brief, and it felt like an apology, though she couldn't say for what.

"Be careful. Don't let anyone inside this apartment but me, and if anything else happens–anything at all–you call me."

She nodded, wondered if he saw the tears spilling through her tightly closed eyelids before he turned and finally walked out the door.

Chapter 11

The funeral was on Friday, and half the town showed up. Charlie had lived nearly his whole life there. He was well known and well liked. He'd be missed, Shelly knew, though she found no comfort in that thought.

Missed or not, he was gone. One more person had vanished from her life.

Charlie's wife didn't attend the service. Marion's doctor didn't think she would understand what was going on, anyway, although she did sense that something was wrong.

Shelly stood at the grave site under the funeral-home canopy, staring at the gleaming coffin draped in pale yellow roses, and she felt as if she'd been here a million times before.

She only vaguely remembered the days immediately following her mother's death from ovarian cancer, but her father's funeral six years before was still vivid in her mind.

She wondered how many more times in her life she'd stand at a grave just like this and say goodbye to someone. And then she realized that right now she didn't have anyone left to lose, at least not anyone who was that close to her.

She closed her eyes tightly as she bowed her head and said a quick prayer of her own.

The ceremony was over. It had been for some time, and all the other mourners had drifted toward their cars and started to leave.

Shelly could see the grave diggers standing in the distance, waiting to finish their job once the coffin was lowered into that gaping hole. She clutched the rose she'd taken from the spray of flowers lying on the coffin. She gripped the flower so hard that one of the thorns bit into her fingertip, drawing a tiny drop of blood.

It made her a little dizzy to look at it.

Brian stepped in, taking the flower from her fingers and wiping a drop of blood from her hand.

She'd known he was there, waiting for her. She had felt the impatience in him as he tried to give her some time alone. He seemed to realize that she desperately wanted to keep her distance from him, and he'd tried to respect her wishes. But she had felt his eyes on her back as she'd stood there.

He'd been beside her during the ceremony, and she couldn't say how she knew, but she was sure he had been fighting a battle with himself to keep from touching her.

She was grateful he'd fought it and won for as long as he had. She felt as fragile as the soft white rose he was holding for her.

She had thought the awkwardness between them would diminish with time. Instead, it had grown, especially since the other night, when she'd all but told him that she'd never been able to forget him, even though he'd never been more to her than a good friend. She'd known it would be like this between them once he knew. That was why she'd fought so long and so hard to hide it from him.

She pulled her hand from his then, satisfied that it wasn't bleeding anymore, and shoved it into the pocket of her jacket.

Though it had stopped raining by mid-morning, the unseasonably cool weather still lingered. Shelly felt chilled to the bone.

"Come on," Brian said softly. "It's time to go."

"I think I'm going to stay for a while longer."

She heard car doors closing and engines starting in the distance. When she glanced around her, she saw no one but him, save for the men with their shovels standing off to the side.

"Come on, Shel," Brian said, not waiting for an answer this time. He put an arm around her shoulders and propelled her toward the car, giving her no choice. He opened the door for her, but she didn't get in. Not yet.

Shelly heard a strange motorized rumbling, and when she turned her head, she realized it was the sound of the coffin being lowered into the ground. The men were there with their shovels, ready to finish the job.

Shelly swallowed hard and waited for the burial to begin. This part had terrified her at her mother's funeral. She couldn't understand why they were putting her mother into the ground. After all, her father had taken such pains to explain to her that her mother was going to heaven.