Page 41 of Sadie's Guarded Harbor

He stayed close on her heels. “What else did Shawn’s old roommate say? Why didn’t you let me know you’d talked to him?”

She kept moving, stopping once she reached her desk and shoving papers into a file folder. “He didn’t tell me much. And I would have told you about it this morning when you got in. I didn’t get a chance before getting called in to talk to the sheriff.”

“You should have called me right away. I need to be up to speed on what’s happened before we talk to our boss. I felt like an idiot finding this out while sitting in his office.”

She shrugged, still rummaging around her desk. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“Dammit, would you look at me?” He dropped his voice to a whisper, but there was no way he could keep his anger from lashing out.

She stilled and lifted her gaze to his. “What do you want from me?”

He snorted. “Maybe an ounce of respect. First you assume I’m trying to get into your pants then you don’t fill me in on an important aspect ofourinvestigation.”

Red slashes colored her face, and she pinched together her lips. She grabbed the file and held it to her chest. “I do respect you. And what happened last night…well, I don’t want to get into that right now. Not when Curtis will be here any minute. We need to be focused on asking the right questions and nothing else.”

Nodding, he worked his jaw back and forth. “You’re right. About all of it. No need to discuss anything about last night. Not now or ever. It was a mistake.”

Turning his back, he pretended he didn’t see the flash of hurt that sparked in her eyes or feel the punch in his gut telling him the only mistake would be forgetting how amazing their kiss was.

Neither mattered. Not when he needed to convince himself he wasn’t falling for the woman who’d thought the worst of him.

Sadie sat nextto Tommy at the rectangular table set up in the conference room they used for interviews. The tension between them sat so heavy in the air it threatened to suffocate her. She yearned to clear up the nonsense and bring back the carefree banter they’d fallen into the last couple days, but she didn’t know how.

Judging by the red bleeding through the whites of his eyes, he hadn’t taken her reaction last night well. Hell, could she blame him? The guy held her while she cried and confessedher deepest secret, gave her the best kiss of her life, then she’d accused him of trying to get in her pants.

She clasped her hands on top of the table so she couldn’t slap herself on the forehead. A million different scenarios paraded in her head while she’d tossed and turned in her bed the night before. If she wasn’t so terrified of ruining her stupid reputation at the station, if she wasn’t so scared to let down her walls, that kiss could have led to somewhere really freaking special.

A light knock on the door announced Curtis and tore her from her thoughts. His eyes were even more bloodshot than Tommy’s. Grease weighed down his shoulder-length locks. He darted his gaze around the confining space before dropping it to his feet.

Sadie stood and offered him a smile. “Good morning, Curtis. Come on in and have a seat.” She waited for him to move toward the vacant chair across from hers then closed the door before returning to her seat.

“Hey, Curtis. How are things?” Tommy’s voice held a lot less hostility than it had earlier with her.

She cleared her throat and gathered her thoughts. Tommy’s tone of voice or anger toward her didn’t matter—at least not at the moment.

“I’m okay.” Curtis lowered himself onto the hard, plastic chair. “I don’t understand why you needed me to come here. We already talked. You could have just stopped by the bar again if you had more questions.”

Tommy leaned his forearms against the table and gripped his hands around his biceps. “First why don’t you tell me what you said to Mitch Parson yesterday?”

Curtis blinked, long and slow, as if closing and opening his eyes helped him process the question. “Mitch? Why do you want to know what we talked about?”

There was pale sheen to his skin that hadn’t been there the day before. Or maybe the harsh florescent lights emphasized his unnatural pallor. Either that, or the unexpected question had thrown him. “We just find it interesting that the information you gave Mitch didn’t line up with what you told us. At least according to his statement.” When Tommy had divulged how Mitch found out about Clara’s affair, she’d been just as pissed as Tommy that they hadn’t thought to make sure to talk to Curtis first to make sure he kept his mouth shut.

Curtis scratched thin whiskers poking through his chin. “I told you both the same thing. That Shawn had been talking to Clara.”

“Are you sure that’s all you said?” Tommy asked.

Curtis nodded. “Absolutely.”

Tommy tilted his head to the side. “So finding out his wife had talked to Shawn was enough to push Mitch into beating her then threatening to shoot his kids?”

Horror filled Curtis’s eyes. “What? Is everyone okay?”

“Yes,” Sadie said. “No thanks to you.”

“You don’t understand. Mitch stormed into the bar. I had to tell him something. You don’t know how he can get when he’s all worked up.”

Tommy picked up a pencil and tapped it against the table. “But you know. And it was better for you if Mitch took that anger out on his wife.”

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