Page 12 of Say Yes to the Death

Claire found her voice at last.

“Rosie!” she shouted, dropping everything she held and diving headfirst into the apartment. Bottles rattled in the hallway. She landed hard on her elbow as she fell next to Rosie and rolled to cover her body with her own.

“Miss Hartley?” came a vaguely familiar voice from her kitchen.

A man stood next to the island. Scratch that—a mountain of a man. He was easily the tallest person she had ever seen. A ton of electronic equipment was scattered in front of him. His face was half in shadow.

Claire leapt to her feet, holding Rosie on her hip like a baby. She reached for her Taser, but she had dropped her purse in the hallway. She grabbed a wooden croquet ball from a basket on her bookshelf and threw it as hard as she could at the intruder’s face.

He caught it with one hand, as easy as breathing.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded, backing away.

The man stepped into the slender beam of fluorescent light. “It’s okay, Claire. I’m not surprised you don’t remember me. You were a little indisposed when we met last week. I’m Sawyer.” He held a hand the size of a dinner plate to his chest. “I run a security company, and I’m here to install a system for you—Luke said you wouldn’t be home, so he gave me your spare key. Sorry for startling you.Is your dog okay?”

He was talking fast, clearly embarrassed. He wore a black polo with Sanctum Security stitched into the left breast…make that gigantic pec. Bulging arm muscles threatened to rip through the hem of his shirt sleeves. His eyes were a warm amber color, and they crinkled kindly in the corners. A no-nonsense crew cut topped off his look. He stepped between the island and the bar and closed the gap between them. One hand that was bigger than her torso extended, and she shook it reluctantly.

Claire glanced down. The dog was wiggling and whining, fighting to get down, but seemed unhurt. “She’s fine. Sawyer? The one who found me?—”

“Outside the hotel, yes.” He held onto her hand a beat longer than was necessary.

A memory struck her like lightning—staggering down a dirt road in her wedding dress, trying to stay conscious as a wounded, panty-stealing psychopath had chased after her. Pine needles had bitten into her palms when she‘d fallen. Her dress, drenched with blood, had weighed a thousand pounds as she’d half crawled down the driveway. A sedan had roared down the road, nearly running her over. Sawyer had jumped out and incapacitated Barney with his stun gun. Claire’s only words of thanks to Sawyer that evening had been a plea for extra guacamole when she mistook his 911 call for a taco order.

Her chest wound ached as she pulled her hand back and clutched it to her heart. “I never had the chance to say thank you. If you hadn’t found me, I would almost certainly be dead.”

“You did. I got the gift basket yesterday. The beef jerky was fantastic. And I never had the chance to apologize. I can’t believe I was working for a serial killer.”

She flinched as though she had been slapped. That was right—Sanctum had been contracted to provide security around the hotel as construction was being finished.

“Sorry,” he said, taking a step back. He tapped his head with a knuckle. “Don’t always think before I speak. You were handling yourself really well before I got there, if that makes it any better. Most people wouldn’t have gotten that far. I’m sorry for what happened to you, and I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”

His gaze drifted to her gray scoop neck T-shirt and the exposed bandage. Shit, she hadn’t changed it today, and she had totally gotten it wet when she plunged into the pool. Luke would have a fit. Not that she cared what he thought. He couldn’t even manage to tell his own mother than he was seeing someone. Sort of.

She shrugged and tugged the neckline of her shirt to cover the bandage and the other, more shallow mark on her neck. As if the stabbing wasn’t bad enough, Barney had also thoughtfully traced a mark of some sort into her neck.

“Do you mind if I install the system while you’re here?” He picked up his toolbox, as though certain she was about to banish him from the premises.

“That’s fine,” Claire said slowly. How was it possible that she was so frequently surprised by strange men letting themselves into her apartment?

Sawyer picked up a complicated-looking LED screen the size of a sandwich and began tinkering with it. “I’m also one of Kyle’s groomsmen. We played lacrosse together in high school.”

Ah. So this was the towering Samoan who had accidentally broken another player’s jaw with a lacrosse ball in eleventh grade. The legend suddenly seemed more credible.

“I’m the maid of honor. It’s good to formally meet you,” she said, smiling a bit. Sawyer exuded warmth, and he had a gentle demeanor despite his gigantic stature. “You said Luke gave you a key? Did he authorize this system installation?”

He glanced down at a work order. “Yep. Already paid in full.”

Claire swore. If she wanted a security system, she would have bought one herself.

“You’re free to refuse the service, of course. But considering your unique circumstances, I think you would feel safer with it.”

“Let’s hope I never need it.” She was confident that she had paid her dues in the crime victim world. One traumatic kidnapping should surely earn her a couple of crime-free years. She was a proposal planner, not a detective, despite the murder binder she had put together on the West Haven Widowmaker. It was currently collecting dust in her living room. The mystery was solved, the case closed. She was ready to take off her investigator hat and return to the world of happily ever afters. If she could just kick the crippling anxiety that seemed to have cropped up in the last week, she would be unstoppable. Oh, and the sleepwalking. What was the deal with that?

Rosie wiggled and Claire set her on the floor. Ever the guard dog, she immediately ran over and sniffed the hem of Sawyer’s pants. She sat on her hindquarters and looked up at him happily, tongue flopping out of the space where she was missing a few teeth.

“Who’s this little princess?” Sawyer’s head disappeared behind the bar.

Claire cocked her head. She walked around the corner of the bar to find Sawyer splayed out on his back next to the kitchen island, hugging Rosie to his chest and scratching her behind the ears.

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