Waking up to a cold, empty bed sucked. Especially after last night. Still, for all the emptiness beside her, there was a warm ring around her heart. Morgan had never said he’d loved her before. She’d known he did, but she’d always found men reticent in their declaration of how they felt. Morgan was worse than most. And she’d been the opposite. But since he’d come back, she hadn’t said it to him. She lay there and realized that she hadn’t, even after last night.
Frowning, she had to consider that. She did love him. She had no doubts in her mind.
But she had refrained from telling him. Why?
Was she punishing him?
Or still protecting herself from more hurt? Not that it would do any good. She already had the emotions. So not verbalizing the words wasn’t going to make the hurt any less. No, she was likely still punishing him. As in he wanted to hear the words but she hadn’t forgiven him for running off. Which made her a piece of shit. Because she had forgiven him. She just wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t do it again.
So by withholding the words, she was possibly contributing to him leaving again. So not what she wanted.
She threw back the covers and wondered if he’d been up long enough to have made coffee. Her muscles were loose and easier to move after last night’s massage, but there was a deep ache inside. She glanced down at the bandage, wishing she could rip the damn thing off. But she needed to protect the wound and keep it clean so for the moment, it had to stay. Her bags from last night were on the floor. She smiled. At least she had clean clothes.
Getting dressed was easier but seemed to take longer. Then again, it might be the extra primping she was doing. She wanted to look her best this morning.
No reason. Just because she loved him.
Downstairs, there was no sign of him. But there was a half-empty pot of coffee. She poured a large mug, dosed it with cream, and carried it out to the back yard. It was empty. He had to be in the garage, but it was quiet. Still, she walked over and tried the door. It was locked.
Worried, she wandered over to the front yard, only to find that it was empty, too. She retraced her steps back to the house and called out to him.
“Morgan? Where are you?”
No answer.
She ran upstairs and grabbed her phone she’d left on the charger. She checked for messages. Crap. He’d texted her over an hour ago saying he’d gone to the police station.
Relieved, she walked back downstairs and sat out on the front deck chairs and looked around. He had found himself a lovely home. The front looked out onto a cul-de-sac and the back yard backed out to crown land. He could walk forever in that direction and likely did a lot of hiking and biking out there. As far as she could see, there were fields and forests. No one lived in that area at all.
Lovely.
Was it someplace she could live?
She thought she might. There was a shop here for Morgan and it was how he made his money. If she could go back to working from home, she wasn’t against it.
It was also a family neighborhood and appeared to have lots of kids close by. More thoughts for down the road. She loved kids. As in, would really love to have kids. Three would be nice.
What would Morgan think of that idea?
They’d spent so much of their time in bed, she hadn’t gotten to know him all that well. Maybe she’d intuitively known that they wouldn’t be together for long.
Or maybe she’d been afraid he’d walk so she’d kept her own barriers up. She had no idea.
She texted him that she was up and sitting outside enjoying the morning.
He responded by telling her to go back inside and lock the door.
She glared down at the phone.
Except he was right, what he said sent chills down her arms, leaving goose bumps behind. She got up and walked back inside to refill her coffee and check her email.
Everything was normal. Her horoscope said it was going to be a rough day and maybe she should consider going back to bed and staying there.
She gave a startled laugh. “Like I need more doomsayers.”
But it made her pause. If even all the stars and planets were warning her about today, then what the hell was she supposed to do to fix this?
The truck roaring up the street toward the house at the end was so obviously Morgan’s truck, it made her smile. Damn, he was fast. And worried. But he needn’t be. She was fine.
And she told him so as soon as he walked in. “I’m fine.”
He raced over, picked her up in his arms, and kissed her hard. “You’re more than just fine,” he said when he let her come up for air. “I’m so sorry for having to leave you this morning. I was going to wake you up then figured that was hardly fair.”
She shook her head, her hand reaching up to stroke his cheek. “Not to worry. I needed my sleep and honestly, I feel fine.”
“Good.”
He stepped back. “If you left any coffee, I’ll grab one.” He disappeared out of the room. She waited a long moment for him to return. When he didn’t, she called out, “What did the cops have to say?”
He popped his head back into the room, “Nothing much. They just wanted to go over the facts of the case.”
She nodded. “And you told him about the money, the keys, and everything else now?”
He nodded. “It was the best solution.”
“What did he say about the money?”
“He agreed to let me keep it in case Borg came for it. Of course I was speaking hypothetically as I certainly didn’t take the money in. However, Borg is well-known to the police. Only they have nothing on him, and he’s very careful to not leave any evidence.”
“He certainly didn’t with us.”
“Exactly.” He was quiet for a long moment as he drank his coffee, but studying him, she could see his mind worrying on the problem.
“So what’s bothering you?”
He turned that deep gaze in her direction. “They want to set up a sting.”
She frowned. “What kind of sting?”
“Contact Borg, have him come to collect the money and nab him then.”
“But what good would that do? He’d have the money, but there’d still be no evidence of him having gotten it any illegal way. That makes no sense.”
“Well, it does in another way. Before I went to the police, I stopped and asked Dean about the tattoo. He wasn’t happy to hear that there are photographs of his ass either.”
*
She bolted to her feet. “He has a dragon tattoo? One we have pictures of?”
He nodded. He hadn’t been looking forward to telling her this part.
“Which one?”
“The last one.” He hoped it was. He hadn’t taken a good look at it. Dean was still supremely angry about it. Another of those moments when life turned to the left while he was planning on going right.
“Well, who was his artist?” Jazz cried.
This was the part that was going to be hard. “He doesn’t know.”
She stared at him numbly. Then sat down hard, “What?” She shook her head. “How is that possible?”
“He said he was at a local party, got really drunk, and when he woke up in the morning in his own bed, he had a sore butt and a fresh tattoo.”
Morgan ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t imagine it, and he’d been to more than his fair share of blind drunk parties and several where he’d woken up completely unaware of what had happened the night before, sometimes not even knowing where he was. Thankfully, those days were long behind him. And he’d been lucky. He’d never woken up with a body piercing or tattoo he never asked for.
Dean had been pretty upset about it and asked those he’d seen at the party. Only no one claimed to have done it or seen who’d done it. He also got a poor reception to his questions – the place had been full of artists and people that wore lots of ink to begin with. Several people thought the tattoo was great and others thought it was an amateur job. So he hated that not only did he get a tattoo, but he didn’t even get a good one.
Jazz stared at him, open-mouthed. “How is that possible?”
Morgan waited for her to ask the right question. “I have no idea.”
“Wait. A party here? In town? With lots of tattoos? Where?”
That was the right question. But she was going to hate the answer. He took a deep breath, knowing she was going to lose it, and answered honestly, “At Roxy’s house.”