Chapter Thirteen

The old elm tree in the backyard kept Laia cool while she and Smoke sat in Rosa’s pink and purple dinghy watching Kade rummage through the small storage shed in the backyard.

It also gave her a place from which to watch all those thick muscles bunch, flex, ripple, and send her wayward thoughts directly into the bedroom.

After her embarrassing emotional meltdown, they’d finished the walkthrough of the first floor, then gone upstairs. Through Rosa’s bedroom window he’d noticed the storage shed, and even though she’d been adamant that everything in the shed belonged to her and her alone, he’d insisted on poking through it all himself.

At first, she’d been annoyed, thinking he didn’t trust her, but maybe he could find something she’d missed. Then when he’d taken off his shirt and began hauling bins from the shed…oh my. Any lingering annoyance disappeared in less time than it took for Smoke to swish his tail.

Wearing khaki cargo shorts, sneakers, and a gun strapped to his side, all the glory that was Kade Sampson’s finely honed and chiseled body was on full display.

Okay. Technically not all of it.

No fair that all a man like him had to do was haphazardly throw on shorts and a T-shirt to look fabulous, while most women had to primp and preen for an hour in the bathroom, then agonize over what to wear. When she’d chosen this sundress, she’d wanted to look pretty for Kade. He hadn’t seemed to notice.

As he carried another plastic bin from the shed and set it on the grass, his thick biceps, powerful shoulders, and back muscles bunched. Last night, in the throes of what she could only call a moment of pent-up, libido-driven lunacy, she’d dug her fingers into some of those hard muscles. And felt his arousal against her abdomen. Hard to miss that.

Smoke yawned, then licked his lips. Laia leaned down to where the dog lay at her feet with his snout covering the tips of her toes peeking out from her sandals and reexamined his injured paw. Still no swelling and no tenderness, all good signs that the sprain wasn’t a bad one and would eventually heal on its own.

As more and more bins stacked up on the grass, the hope of finding the ledger and turning it over to the prosecutor began fading faster than a rainbow.

Smoke lifted his head, uttering a quick snort before leaping from the dinghy and trotting to the picket fence separating hers and her neighbor’s tiny backyards. He rose up on his hind legs, resting his front paws on the picket rail to greet Alvita.

“Is this the dog Rosa’s always talking about?” Alvita called out as she gave Smoke a good scratch behind his ears. “Enjoying the view?” she whispered at Laia’s approach, dipping her head in Kade’s direction, then waving to him.

Kade waved back, then returned to prying the lid off another bin.

“I know I am.” Alvita giggled. “Who is he? He looks familiar.”

Kade wiped his brow before tossing the lid on the grass.

“He’s Josh’s brother.” Alvita had never met Josh, but she’d seen family photos of him on Laia’s living room wall. “He’s helping me deal with the police and the burglary.” The less Alvita knew, the better off she and her kids would be.

“Wow. So that’s Uncle Kade, huh? And you said he was only a friend.” Alvita’s grin broadened. “Rosa talks about him all the time, too. How come you never do? That man is fine.”

Laia could only nod in total agreement. He sure is. “Because—” How to answer that question? Better not to answer it at all. Airing the Sampson family secrets, let alone hers…nope.

On the rare occasions when Kade’s name had come up in conversation over the years, she’d done her best to shove all thoughts of him aside. The tactic had never been terribly effective. She’d often wondered where he was, what he was doing, what woman he was with at that exact moment. There had to have been plenty of them. “He’s just a busy man.” But he’s here now. For how long, though?

Kade began carrying the bins back into the shed.

“Ookay.” Alvita eyed her with unconcealed suspicion, but as a friend, she knew well enough when to move on to another topic. “What’s he doing?”

“We’re looking for some things of Josh’s.” When Alvita opened her mouth to say something, Laia quickly added, “Don’t ask.”

“Okay, I won’t.” Alvita threw up her hands, then looked over Laia’s shoulder. “You know he’s watching you. He’s been watching you since the moment we started talking, like a wolf tracking a little doe-eyed deer. Is there something going on with you and him?”

“There’s nothing going on between us.” So why was her face heating at the thought of what had almost happened between them?

As he came over, more memories washed over her. Not twenty-four hours ago they’d had their tongues down each other’s throats, their hands on each other’s bare skin, and she’d been seconds from tearing off his shirt and shorts and begging him to get inside her aching body.

“Hi,” Kade said, extending his hand to Alvita. “I’m Kade Sampson.”

“Nice to meet you.” As they shook, Alvita threw Laia a knowing look that she barely caught because Alvita was right.

Wow.

Every square inch of Kade’s chest and arms glistened gloriously with sweat, rivulets running down his temples, more trickling between his thick pectorals to the sexy channel separating one half of his six-pack from the other.

“Where are your kids?” Kade asked.

“They’re at summer day camp, which reminds me.” Alvita tossed Laia another sly look. “I’d better be getting to work myself. Have fun, you two. See ya around, Kade.”

Alvita disappeared inside her half of the duplex.

“I’ll just be a few more minutes.” Kade picked up another bin and headed for the shed.

She gestured with her hand. “C’mon, Smoke.”

Smoke followed her back to the dinghy and hopped in. She sat on one of the wooden bench seats while the dog resettled at her feet. Together they watched Kade load the last bin in the shed, then close the door. He grabbed his shirt from where he’d draped it on a corner of the dinghy and put it on.

So that was that. No ledger and no money. “They’ll never stop coming for us, will they? I have no way to keep Rosa safe from them.”

Having no other release for her fears or the helpless fury bubbling up inside her at the thought of something happening to Rosa, she began rocking back and forth. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know where the ledger or the money Josh stole was. Fernando Colon would keep assuming she did because it would be the only thing that would make sense to him.

Kade stepped into the boat and sat beside her. He clasped her chin in his big fingers, forcing her to look at him. “You’re wrong about that. Dead wrong. You and Rosa have me.” From where he lay on the floor of the dinghy, Smoke woofed. A corner of Kade’s mouth lifted. “And you have Smoke.”

Kade’s eyes darkened and his jaw clenched tighter than she thought possible. The next thing she knew, his arms were around her and he was kissing the top of her head. “I won’t leave you,” he whispered against her ear. “No matter what you think, I won’t leave you alone to deal with this.”

But he would leave, eventually. That’s what he’d said last night. Right now, she needed him, needed his comfort, and he was here for her.

She leaned into him, sliding her hands to his waist and not caring that he was sweaty. He was turning out to be so much more than she ever expected or could have hoped for. In the safety of his arms, he made it seem as if everything really would be all right.

Laia shifted to look into his eyes with their unique starbursts, and her belly did a little flip flop. “I believe you.”

“You should.” He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, sending a tiny shiver down her neck and spine. “I’ll never lie to you.”

Somehow, she knew that. “I’m sorry about the angry words I said to you last night in the kitchen. I’ve been on my own for so long now, it’s become easier to think the worst of people.”

“That way you’re less likely to be disappointed by them. Or hurt,” Kade tacked on.

“Exactly.” He really did understand her, and it felt good to know they were so in sync.

“You’ve been through a lot. Raising a child all alone can’t be easy,” he said. “And you’re right. I should have been there for you.” When he cupped the side of her face, it was all she could do not to melt into him, to absorb his strength and the safety that came with it. “But I’m here now.”

He brushed his lips across hers. Unlike their frenzied make-out session on the sofa the night before, this kiss was soft, exquisitely gentle, and yet so full of emotion and unspoken words that she dared to think—

Kade pulled away, then tugged his ringing cell phone from his pocket to take a call. “Sampson.” His brows lowered, and for the next few minutes, all he did was listen. “Thanks, Chief. Let me know if you turn up anything else.” He stuffed the phone back into his pocket. “That was the chief of the Asbury Park PD. He put a rush on the prints pulled from your house.”

“And?” she asked hopefully, but her hope died when Kade gave a grim shake of his head.

“The adult prints match yours and the sample taken from Alvita. The others were small, probably Rosa’s and Alvita’s kids.”

Her heart sank with disappointment. “So that’s a dead end. We have no way of connecting Fernando Colon with whoever broke into my house.”

“Maybe not. But I have another idea. The cartel didn’t find what they were looking for at your house. Otherwise they wouldn’t have tracked you to my house with the intention of breaking in.” He pointed to the duplex. “But Josh never lived in this house. So it makes sense that the ledger and the cash aren’t here.”

“What’s your idea?”

“Federal agents searched your Rumson house, but we should go back there anyway.”

“Why? If the ledger or the cash was there, wouldn’t they have found it?”

“Maybe. But they didn’t have what I have.”

“What’s that?”

“Smoke.”