I was there with you, you couldn’t stop me from showing you how hot I think you are. I ache for you, woman.”
“Okay, okay. You’re making me blush.”
“Glad to know I can do that even from a long distance. All joking aside…I do ache for you, Emily. I’m hoping I’ll be able to come and visit before too long.”
“I would love that. This long-distance relationship is excruciating.”
“Agreed. I’ll let you know when I can work things out. But until then, tell me how your gig went tonight?”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
“Try me.”
She explained the case of the suspected philanderer and how she discovered the truth, including her disguise. Between laughs and giggles, she did her best to describe the man’s red negligee and slippers, as well as the advice she gave him to come clean with his wife.
Colin laughed deeply as she painted the visual image—the kind of thoroughly satisfying belly laugh that gave Emily pleasure just hearing it.
Then their conversation took a serious turn. Emily explained to Colin what she had observed in the hotel bar between Maggie’s new man and his assistant, and how it seemed suspicious to her, even though it might have been completely innocent.
“I have a bad feeling about it,” she said, pulling her car into her driveway. “Isabel is going to do a background check in the morning, see if we can dig anything up on him.”
“I hope for Maggie’s sake she doesn’t find anything,” Colin replied. “From what you’ve told me, she’s been waiting for a good man for a long time.”
“She has. Maggs raised Josh alone and now he’s off to the Navy. Even though she’s late for just about everything and she doesn’t know how to keep a secret, she is one of the sweetest, kindest people I know. She’d do absolutely anything for a friend.” Emily turned the engine off, set her Bluetooth in the console, and raised the phone to her ear.
“She’s lucky to have you, Emily.”
Emily climbed out of her car. “Not just me, Isabel and Camille, too.”
With the wide front porch illuminated by the lamplights on either side of the front door, Emily stuck her key in the lock and went inside her bungalow.
“They were all there for me when Evan died, and we’ll all be there for Maggie—however this thing turns out.” She flipped on the inside foyer light and kicked her shoes off as she went to the kitchen.
“If there’s anything I can do to help, just ask,” Colin offered.
Emily turned on the kitchen light and pulled the wig and glasses off with her free hand. As she laid them on the breakfast bar, she noticed the back door was unlocked and partly open. Her heart began to beat hard at the realization.
“Colin, I think someone’s been in my house.” She closed and locked the door, then pulled her gun out of the back of her waistband.
“What makes you think that?”
“The back door was ajar. I’m sure I locked it before I left. I always lock it. I’m going to set the phone down and check the house. Stay on the line.”
“Wait!” She heard Colin holler into the phone, but she had already set it on the counter.
Emily drew her gun and crept from room to room, peeking around corners, behind shower curtains, and into closets. After a thorough search, she felt confident whoever had been there was gone.
She picked up the phone. “All’s clear.”
“Emily! You should have stepped outside and called the police to come and search the house. The perp could still have been in the house and you’d be dead.”
“You forget, Colin, I’m not just any helpless woman. Please don’t treat me like I am.” Emily knew Colin was just being protective, but she didn’t appreciate it.
Even though he had lost a fiancée to gunshot wounds, and she had lost her husband to a bullet, Colin needed to remember that she was a gun-carrying private investigator who’d decided a long time ago not to shrink from danger.
Emily had read his over-the-top protectiveness early on in their relationship as a lack of respect. She had suggested to him that maybe they should both date other people—people with safe, boring jobs.
His response was to grab her and kiss her so deeply that her body melted against him and he had to support her as her knees went weak.
Even though they had both been in dangerous situations since that pivotal kiss, with him as a police detective and her as a private