Page 61 of Locked In Ice

Lane’s boots thudded down the stairs.His hair was still wet, but he’d changed into fresh clothes, and he could smell the ever-so-tempting scent of fresh coffee in the air.

Ophelia had beaten him to the kitchen.

He reached the landing and—

Her front door opened.

Lane immediately tensed.Then he surged forward because no one was breaking into her house.Who the hell thought they could just walk right in her place?

The man in the doorway blinked.Tall, fit, with close-cropped black hair that had grayed at the temples and around his forehead.Dark sunglasses covered his eyes.And in his hands…a black cat.

The cat hissed at Lane.

Hold up.Who broke into a house while carrying a cat?

And…almost like he could hear Ophelia’s sly voice in his head…Cat burglar.

“Who the hell are you?”the stranger barked.

Lane blocked the guy’s path into the house.“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” he snarled back.

The cat hissed again.

“Easy, Velma,” the man muttered.“You only go for his eyes if I say so.”

Velma?The name rang a bell.Ophelia had mentioned that name but she’d been naked so he hadn’t followed up.

The stranger used one hand to rip off his sunglasses.Angry, pale blue eyes glittered at Lane.“I want to know what theever-loving hellyou are doing in my daughter’s house at seven a.m.in the morning.”

His…daughter’s house.

Pale blue eyes.

Velma.The cat that scared Charles the bird.

Oh, hell.

Lane backed up.“I…I’m Ophelia’s partner.”

“Bullshit,” the man called as he advanced like an angry bulldog.“Ophelia doesn’t have partners.After that clusterfuck at the Bureau, she doesn’t trust anyone enough to have a partner.”

WherewasOphelia?Still in the kitchen?Because he could sure use her help right then.“I—”

“I know your face, son,” her father snapped.“I’m not like the rest of the world who sees someone once or twice and forgets.I don’t forget shit.” His blue eyes became chips of ice.“You were on TV.You were locked away for murder.”

The cat hissed again.A much angrier hiss.

Ophelia’s father put down the cat.Its tail immediately curled around the man’s khaki pants.Lane wasn’t sure if the guy had lowered the cat so that Velma could attack or if her father had just wanted his hands free.

Sohecould attack.

There was a hardness to her father’s face.A sharp intelligence in his eyes.A battle-readiness to his body that told Lane the man was trouble.

Much like his daughter.

“Murder,” her father said again.

Lane stiffened.“I was innocent.”

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