6

Nice try.” She smirked, holding her ground. “You’ve been trying to check me out since we met.” It was hard enough being in the same room as Parker, but his hands on her . . .

Heat rushed into her cheeks.

“See . . .” He smirked. “This is precisely why I miss working together. My new photographer has no sense of witty banter, but he’s a him, so on second thought, I’m rather thankful we don’t have the same chemistry.”

“You hired someone new?” Of course he had, but she hadn’t anticipated it stinging quite so sharply, and it was easier to respond to that than the chemistry comment.

“Trust me, I didn’t want to, but since you insisted on leaving . . .”

She swallowed. She’d had no choice. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The choice was to stay and get her heart pummeled or to leave and have it break anyway.

Despite her greatest resistance, he tugged her to sit in front of him, her head angled so the light illuminated her hair. His fingers wove through it, the tips of them moving tenderly across her scalp, feeling for bumps.

She gnawed her bottom lip, trying to ignore how good his simple touch felt. This is a terrible idea.

“Cold, love?” he asked, his Irish lilt resonating deep inside her.

He skimmed his fingers along the length of her forearm. “Gooseflesh,” he whispered.

Mortified. She was absolutely mortified. He was checking her head for injury, and his touch had rippled goose bumps along her skin. “I’m fine,” she eked out. More like, I’m a mess. A thoroughly ridiculous mess.

She wasn’t some simpering female, going weak in the knees at the sight of a handsome man. She was a strong, independent woman, but Parker . . . He’d reached her on an up-to-then-unknown level. His gorgeous looks aside, he was captivating—intelligent, innately curious, loving, protective, and loyal. Loyal to his friends, his family, and his first love. She swallowed. She admired him for it, but at the same time the latter sheared her heart.

“You’ve got a decent wallop,” he said, the spot his fingers hovered over tender even to his soft touch. “Stay awake for a while, and I’ll keep my eye on you. You should be fine.”

“Thanks.” She swooped to her feet, away from his touch, and smoothed out her dress. “It’ll take us quite a while to run the trailer, and then the photo, so no problems there.”

He nodded, a soulful longing lingering in his eyes. Had he felt the current coursing through him too? Did she intrigue him as he did her? Admire her? That would be funny given her past, which, unfortunately, he was standing smack in the middle of.

Hours passed, and Parker reveled in the comfort and peace Avery’s presence always brought him. It’d been so long since he’d felt peace. It was addictive. She was addictive. But she was off tonight.

Naturally, she was concerned about her friend, but something else lingered there. Unease. Tension. Restlessness.

Was being in Skylar’s place, back in her old neighborhood, the cause?

He longed to ask, but now was not the right time. Instead, he focused on the task at hand, running the next set of fingerprints, which he’d found on the nightstand, and within a moment he got a hit.

“Connor Davis,” he said, showing Avery the DUI mug shot of the twenty-one-year-old on his scanner’s screen. “Recognize him?”

She shook her head. “Nuh-uh. Not familiar.”

“Skylar date younger guys?” Close to eight years.

“Skylar ‘dated’ whomever she felt like, despite the fact she had a boyfriend.”

“That couldn’t have gone over well with her boyfriend.”

“It didn’t.”

“Any chance her boyfriend could have played a role in her disappearance? We found his fingerprints all over the place.”

“What exactly are you accusing me of?”

Parker turned to find a broad-shouldered, brawny man looming in the doorframe, a metal bat poised to swing in his thick-fingered grip.

His angry gaze pinned on Avery. “What are you doing here? And who’s this guy?”