Page 52 of Colton's Secret Weapon
“Dove?”
His almost-professional tone of voice yanked her back to full reality. Whatever he had to say, she had to hear. Turning onto her back, she looked at him standing in the doorway to his room. Still in jeans and the flannel shirt he’d had on all day.
“Kansas just called,” he told her. And the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding released. She let it go. Pulled in a long breath of fresh air. Kansas. Not the hospital.
Sitting up, she prompted, “And?”
“Scott Montgomery was able to pull some evidence off from Whaler’s shirt. Saliva.”
Heart pounding, she sat up. “Someone bit him?”
Mitchell shook his head, opened his mouth, but before he could say anything else she threw out, “What, kissed him? Someone thought he was dead and kissed him goodbye?”
Who would that possibly have been?
She hadn’t yet conjured a single possibility when Mitchell said, “It’s spit.”
A wave of horror swept through her. “Someone spit on him?” Eyes wide she stared at Mitchell, needing to hold onto him.
He nodded. And before their eye contact could get broken, she asked, “Who?”
Stepping farther into the room, closer to the bed, to her, his words fell over her softly. “They don’t know yet. There were nomatches in the system. But they have something to test against as soon as a suspect is brought in.”
“Brad Fletcher. There’s got to be a way to get a DNA sample from him.”
“Legally,” Mitchell said, just standing there. He’d come close. Then abruptly stopped. As though he’d read a sign that saidno closer. “It has to be obtained legally or it doesn’t stand up in court and he walks free.”
Nodding, Dove lay back down. Pulled the quilt up over her tie-dyed T-shirt, the sliver of skin it left atop the elastic waistband of her pajama pants. “Scott Montgomery,” she said. He could be her third. Except…he’d found evidence, but she was drawing a complete blank on two other good things…
Because Mitchell wasn’t exiting the premises. He was ruffling through a drawer in the dresser farthest away from her. As though looking for something he hadn’t seen in a while.
When she saw the black pajama pants he eventually came up with, she turned back to face the wall. Mitchell. He could be her third. Because even in the midst of hell, he could make her smile.
Which made it about her. But about him, too.
He really was a genuinely nice guy.
With a beautiful soul inside that gorgeously masculine body.
Dove appeared to be asleep when Mitchell came out of the bathroom, freshly showered, and in the brand-new pajama pants and shirt his aunt had purchased for him a decade or so before. Lucky for him, they’d been big at the time, so they fit now.
Whether his bedmate was truly out or not, he was going with a bigyes. Had no intention of doing anything to find out differently.
Her safety was his business. Her sleeping state, or lack thereof, was not.
Checking to make certain his gun was loaded, safety off, he plugged in his phone, walked back to turn off the bathroom light, pulled down his covers, got into bed and smelled…lavender.
Holy hell. Had she brought the stuff to bed with her? Drifted petals on the sheets? He was too far in to look. Would have to sit up, pull the covers away…
Closing his eyes Mitchell did the only thing he could do—he shut down.
Turned off life’s challenges, trials and temptations until morning, and with a last thought about the gun lodged between the bed rail and the mattress, drifted into sleep mode…until he wasn’t asleep.
Fully alert suddenly, he lay there, assessing his situation. How long had he been out? Had he heard something? Or was he just so on edge he hadn’t fallen fully asleep as he did every single night the minute his head hit the pillow?
Dove hadn’t moved. He wasn’t looking at her—purposely—but could see the shadow of her quilt-covered shoulder in his peripheral vision. Just as it had been when he’d closed his eyes. Just to be sure, though, he turned his head.
And noticed three things. She was lying on top of his bedspread, the quilt her only source of warmth. She was shivering. And based on the time glowing at him from the phone she’d set up on the nightstand over there, he’d been out for almost five hours.
