would bring her one nightmare after another, but Simon’s embrace had kept them away.
Rising, she shuffled to the bedroom doorway and called out, “Simon?”
“I’m making breakfast. Come out and join me.”
Her troubled heart momentarily lightened and she smiled at the invitation to join him in her own kitchen. She was glad he’d made himself at home. The few people she’d had over to the house had been intimidated by its sheer size and grandeur. She’d felt the same way when she’d first moved in. But now it was home to her. Her haven.
Even so, she’d never felt as safe as she did now, knowing that Simon was just a few rooms away.
She showered and dressed, then joined him in the kitchen.
He was wearing the same clothes he’d worn the day before, but he looked fresh and alert. “I used a new toothbrush I found under your sink. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course it is.” She watched as he scrambled eggs and poured them into a pan. He’d already browned bacon and within minutes he slid a full plate of food in front of her.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You’re not going to join me?”
“I ate while you slept. It’s almost noon.”
“Noon? Oh, no. I didn’t realize...”
“It’s okay. You needed the rest.”
She tried to eat, she really did, but she found she had no appetite. Instead, she stared at the breakfast he’d prepared while he sipped a cup of coffee.
Eventually, he rose. “At least try to eat your toast before we go,” he said gently. “I’ve got everything packed.”
“Packed? For what? Don’t you—don’t you have to go to work? To, you know, work on the case?”
“I’ve already been there. Carrie came back over early this morning and I hunted down some leads while you were asleep.”
“Did—did you find out anything new?”
“Nothing that we need to talk about now,” he said. “I have several patrol officers, as well as DeMarco, following up on a few things. Until they find something or I’m back on shift tonight, I’m off the clock and all yours. You like the ocean?”
Even though he’d already been to the office once, she suspected it went against his nature to delegate the smallest of tasks to others. Yet here he was doing it for a major case, and he was doing it in order to spend some downtime with her. For a second, it made her feel guilty. Needy. She should tell him she was fine. That he needn’t put off his work for her, not when someone was out there attacking cats and homeless men with a knife.
Instead, she nodded. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I love it.”
* * *
SIMON DROVE ACROSS THE Golden Gate Bridge and headed up Highway 1, into the Mount Tamalpais State Park, where he pulled off at the secret trailhead leading to a quiet inlet up the coast from San Francisco. The waves lapped gently against the shore. He came here often to get away from life and all its attendant stressors, and he hoped the serenity of the place would soothe Nina, as well.
Before leading Nina down the rocky hill, he grabbed a blanket, a bottle of Napa Valley wine and a wine opener from the back of his car. When he got to a small spit of sand, he spread out the blanket and motioned for Nina to join him.
He needed to get his mind back in the game—to start putting the clues together and figure out why Lester Davenport would target two homeless men to get to Nina. That was especially true given Stevens’s absurd theory that Nina knew something she wasn’t telling them. If Stevens harbored any suspicion about Nina whatsoever, Simon wanted them eradicated.
First, however, he needed to get Nina settled. Get some pink back in her cheeks.
“Wine?” he asked, gesturing to the bottle as Nina settled down beside him.
She gave him a half smile, and then said, “Are you planning to ply me with alcohol to distract me, Detective Granger?”
That was exactly what he’d been planning on doing. But he simply said, “Maybe. Or maybe I’m planning to seduce you to distract you and the wine is just a part of the whole evil plan.” He jiggered the corkscrew into the bottle, knowing full well he wasn’t trying to get into her pants but hoping she’d pick up on his humor, on his attempts to make her feel better. “Have you thought of that?”
“Believe me, I have. But we’ve already established you don’t have to seduce me to distract me. Or to