dragging it across the striker. The match flared to life.
“Are you sick?”
He shook his head no and touched the flame to an incense brazier set on a small iron table next to the door.
“What are you doing?” She was feeling for the pins in the lock but was watching him.
“Something I’ve done before.” The coals ignited, and he sniffed the air. “Copal, sweetgrass, and sage, to purify and protect. This house has a lot of ritual associated with it.”
The brazier started to smoke in earnest, infusing the air with an aromatic scent, earthy and feminine. In a couple of more seconds, she had the door open, and they were slipping inside with the police cruiser still a full block away. Not until after he’d closed the door behind them did it occur to her that they might not be alone. The house was dark, with only one small light turned on in the back, in the kitchen, a “welcome home” light.
“So you know the person who lives here.” That was a comfort.
“I’m not sure.”
O-kay, she thought, so maybe not so much of a comfort. From the entryway, the house looked as well kept and brightly decorated as the outside. Colorful rugs covered a wood floor. The couch and chairs were all upholstered in cream-colored canvas with an abundance of striped serapes and a dozen or so pillows piled on them. The coffee table had a blue slate top, and a fire had been laid in the fireplace, ready to go. She didn’t sense another person in the house.
What she did sense was the sanctity of the place. It threatened to be her undoing, the quiet warmth and security of this small home on the west side. She’d been running on ragged energy shot through with bolts of terror all night. It was what had kept her going. If they really were safe, if she didn’t need a boatload of adrenaline jacking her up to stay alive, then she needed to stop where she stood, before exhaustion dropped her like a stone.
“Maybe … m-maybe we should sit down.” It seemed a reasonable idea. Her knees were weakening, whether it was time to give in to exhaustion or not.
“Go ahead,” he said, lifting the curtains at the living room window and peering out.
She headed toward the chair nearest the fireplace but stopped short when cop car lights flashed through the curtains.
“Tell me they’re not stopping,” she said, hoping against hope.
“Can’t,” he said. “They pulled up in front. Come on.” Turning away from the window, he took her by the hand and pulled her along with him, across the living room and deeper into the house.
“Can we even get out the back without them seeing us?” Damn—she stumbled trying to keep up.
Without missing a beat, he turned partway around and swung her up into his embrace. She landed in his arms with a small oomph. Cripes, he was strong.
“We’re not going out the back,” he said. “We’re done running.”
In theory, maybe, she thought, plastered up against his rock-hard chest, clinging to him, but her reality check was still saying “run like hell.”
In three more steps they were through an archway and in a wide hallway with doors opening off into bedrooms and a bath, with another arch leading into the kitchen. It was the center of the house, a small space with a bookcase against one wall and a bench against another.
A couple of car doors slammed shut outside, and what little was left of her adrenal gland crackled and snapped back to life—and there she was again, in fight-or-flight mode, and if it wasn’t going to be the back door, it was going to be fight. But, man, if this was showdown time, they needed Superman and Dylan. They needed Creed and Skeeter, with a side order of Travis and Kid. There was no one else she trusted.
Except for him, she realized. From the minute he’d first grabbed her and put her in Corinna, he’d done nothing but try to get her out of this rolling disaster.
“We—” she started, but he caught her gaze and touched his finger to his lips.
“Shhh …” he said so softly she could barely hear him. Shhh … of course, shhh, but—
“We can’t blast our way through a bunch of cops,” she whispered. Honest to God, they couldn’t, and the hall wasn’t exactly the hiding place of the century.
“They won’t come inside.” He carried her to the farthest corner and sat down with his back against the