Page 119 of Fatal Witness

“Probably two sloughs over. I think we’d better head back. We can come again when it dries up.”

“It’s a date!” Then she froze. “I mean, we can come back.”

He softened his voice. “I like the idea of a date.”

Dani raised her gaze. The way she looked at him made it hard to breathe. She wasn’t tough and adventurous in a military sense like Jolie, not that Dani wasn’t tough. And she was beautiful in a girl-next-door way.

She was ... Dani. At that moment, he knew if he let his fearskeep him from loving her, he would miss something very valuable. But what if ...Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you.

Mark sighed and tucked the verse in his heart. Then he smiled at a streak of mud on her cheek and gently tried to wipe it off.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice breathy.

“Trying to clean the mud on your face.”

“Where?” She raised her hand to her cheek.

He captured it with his hand and pulled her closer. “I got it,” he said softly.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” she whispered.

“I’m not.” Mark lowered his head and gently kissed her fingers, then the palm of her hand, then he brushed her lips with his. Dani slid her arms around his neck. With a groan he deepened the kiss, sending a shock wave through him. All awareness of time and their surroundings disappeared as Dani leaned into the kiss.

Suddenly they were falling...

57

The cold water shocked Dani’s senses. It was deeper than she’d thought, midchest on her but only coming to Mark’s waist. “Are you okay?”

“The question is, are you? You fell when ... we ... you know.”

The Kiss with a capital K. Heat rose in her face. “Yeah. Well, Keith always said I was klutzy, and this proves his point. Pretty sure my foot slipped.”

Mark brushed a strand of wet hair from her face. “Come on, let’s get out of the water and get you dried off.”

He took her hand as they waded a short distance to the edge of the water. Once they were on solid ground, Dani looked up at him and saw a grim expression on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you.” He shook his head. “You mess with my head. What if the killer had followed us?”

“But you said it was safe—”

“That’s just it. When I’m around you, I don’t think straight. I was so concerned about making you feel better that I could’ve made a bad judgment call. I even brushed away Alex’s concerns, lost total awareness of everything around us, and because of that you could’ve drowned.”

“I hardly think I could’ve drowned in four feet of water, and besides, I can swim.”

“But you shouldn’t have gone into the water in the first place. I should’ve kept that from happening, and I would’ve if I hadn’t been so caught up in ... And what if the killer had somehow followed us? I can’t let what happened to Jolie happen to you.”

“But—”

“What we have can wait—your life is too important.”

58

Tuesday, Alex stepped inside the Bean Factory and glanced around. She’d asked Nathan to meet her at twelve forty-five, and she’d managed to beat him here. She didn’t have much time to waste, not if she wanted to catch Crystal Davis, Kyle Peterson’s former girlfriend and alibi, before she left for her 3:00 p.m. shift.

She ordered a cappuccino for herself and a black coffee for Nathan and took it to their regular table just as he opened the door to the coffee shop. An older woman was leaving, and he held the door for her before entering. That was one of the things she admired about him—Nathan always noticed what someone needed and took care of it.

Alex grinned at his raised eyebrows when he spied her and then ambled over to the table.

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