Explosive Attraction - By Lena Diaz Page 0,43
was no one to spend her anger on.
She couldn’t help but wonder if this was the same rage Jake felt. Or even how Rafe might feel inside—angry, helpless—with no one to blame for his wife’s death because the man who’d killed her had never been caught.
After spending an agonizing half hour watching her friend lying motionless in the hospital bed, Darby escaped from the room and headed to the parking lot. The policeman who’d driven her car to the hospital had stopped at the ICU earlier to return her keys. Darby dug those keys out of her purse now, and opened the driver’s side door to her black BMW. She was about to get inside, when a footstep sounded behind her.
She whirled around, clutching her keys to her chest. She scanned the parking lot. No one. Had she imagined that sound? She quickly got into her car and locked the door. Her mind was playing tricks on her. That’s all. There was no reason to be worried. The man who’d tried to kill her was dead. He couldn’t hurt her anymore.
So why did she still feel so uneasy?
Chapter Eleven
Darby stepped inside the cool interior of the figurine shop, grateful for the relief from the heat outside. The bell above the scarred wooden door tinkled a welcome, reminding Darby of the ringtone on her phone, the phone she’d purposely left at home this morning before heading to St. George Street, the only “street” in St. Augustine reserved for pedestrians.
After spending the past two days sitting with Mindy’s family, watching the hope fade on their faces, she desperately needed to stop thinking, stop hurting. She needed a reminder that there was something still beautiful and good in the world, which was why she was wandering through the shops on one of the oldest streets in the country, unhooked and unplugged from the cruel world she’d been immersed in this past week.
And desperately trying not to think about Rafe Morgan.
“Morning, let me know if you need help finding anything.”
Darby leaned around one of the glass cases to see who’d spoken. A short, older woman with thick glasses waved at her from the back corner of the store. The feather duster in her other hand never stopped moving.
“Just browsing, not wanting anything in particular.” Darby returned the woman’s wave.
What she wanted wasn’t something she’d find in this store, or any store. What she wanted was a feeling of normalcy, to return to the way things used to be. But that was impossible when every time she went to bed she thought about Rafe Morgan—the way his dark eyes seemed to look into her soul, the way his deep voice cut across a room, the way he’d kissed her at the hospital.
The way he’d left her, after telling her they could never be friends.
Wanting a man who didn’t want her was beyond pathetic. Tomorrow she’d go back to work, reclaim her life. A temp agency was sending an assistant to help her. She refused to hire someone permanent. That would be like admitting Mindy would never return.
She shied away from that thought and the pain that shot straight to her heart. A crystal lighthouse caught her eye. The tiny black-and-red stripes were hand painted to resemble the St. Augustine Lighthouse a few miles down the road. Darby held the tiny figurine up to watch it sparkle. She sucked in a breath when she saw a man looking through the window at her.
He jerked back and disappeared into the crowd of tourists walking past the store. With the sunlight shining from behind him, his face had been in shadow. Darby drew a shaky breath, telling herself she was being silly. That man wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the figurines, window-shopping, like dozens of other people walking down the street.
Then why had he jerked back when she spotted him?
A shiver of foreboding snaked up her spine. She set the lighthouse down and rubbed the goose bumps forming on her arms.
“Did you find anything you like, dear?” The shopkeeper approached Darby, her feather duster dangling from her fingertips, a friendly smile on her face. “We have several more lighthouses in the back, if that’s what you’re interested in.”
Darby was tempted to take her up on her offer, but she’d known as soon as she’d stepped into the store that it wasn’t her kind of place. It was charming, and the figurines were beautiful, but she wasn’t a figurine kind of girl. The only reason she