His gaze narrowed. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Cut it out. You look”—he frowned—“sad.”
“Both adults and children,” she answered, skipping over the too-close-to-home comment. She was recovering her composure by the moment. Thanks to him, and the aura of strength and security that surrounded him. “And all styles, from ballet to hip-hop to ballroom.”
“You were a student.” It wasn’t a question.
She took a deep breath, knowing it would be useless to deflect him. Nothing slipped by him. “A long time ago.”
He nodded. His hands went to his hips as he looked over what was left. “Considering the size of the town, how large were the classes?”
“Five to fifteen students. The owners used to be professional dancers. People came from all over the country to study with them.” She pointed at the quaint motel across the street. “They had arrangements for out-of-towners with the Daniels family.”
“We’ll have to dig into those former students.”
“Sheriff Miller has been working on that.”
Jared nodded. “Morales is on it, then.”
At her questioning glance, he filled in, “My partner.”
She watched him walk the perimeter of the crumbling brick walls, his cool cop’s eyes taking in everything. Her chest tightened as her past combined with her present, but she put it aside and answered his questions.
Nearly an hour later, he glanced at his watch and pointed out, “It’s quarter to six.”
There was a wealth of promise in those words and the heat in his eyes.
Darcy nodded. He would dull the pain, at least for a little while. “Let’s go.”
THEY MADE A quick stop at Darcy’s office, where she grabbed the files Jared had perused earlier and swapped out her work truck for a convertible BMW that was incongruous in a town filled with pickups and modest compacts.
She glanced at him, showing no doubts or trepidation. “Your place or mine?”
“Dinner first?” he asked, because he wasn’t a completely one-track-minded Neanderthal. Okay…he was. But he didn’t want this go-round with her to be his last. If he was going to ignore his better sense, he might as well do it all the way.
“Dinner later.”
Fuck yeah. “Your place, then. Mine is a motel with paper-thin walls.”
“Right.” She backed up with speedy precision, and the sleek sports car purred out of the parking lot.
“Drugstore.” He met her gaze when she glanced at him. “I didn’t come prepared for this.”
She got to the store quick but declined to go in with him. “It’ll be all over town in a half hour anyway, but I’d rather not encourage the spread if I can help it.”
Once he got inside the store, he realized quickly that she hadn’t been kidding. The woman at the register eyed his purchases with an avid gaze and smiled at him with a delight that rankled. If he’d been any less impatient, he would have had Darcy drive him to the next town to buy condoms. As it was, he made it in and out of the store in less than ten minutes, dropping the bag on the floorboard between his feet when he slid back into the passenger seat. Darcy was turning back onto the street before he got his seat belt on.
Jared leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes, relishing the slow simmer in his blood. He hadn’t been this eager to get into a woman’s pants in a very, very long time. He was also inordinately curious about Darcy’s home and what it would reveal about her. “How long have you lived in Lion’s Bay?”
“My whole life, except for a brief stint around college.”
There was something in her voice that made him open his eyes and look at her. She’d released her ponytail from the elastic band, freeing the chocolate strands to whip around in the evening air. Her head was tilted in a way that could be described only as deeply sensual. She sought the feel of the wind rushing over her skin and through her hair as she would a lover’s caresses.
He took a deep, slow breath. Darcy was clearly a tactile woman who wanted to be touched. And he was going to touch every inch of her, inside and out.
They pulled up to a small, dated, one-story ranch-style home. It was so diametrically opposed to what he would have pictured her gravitating to that he thought they’d made another pit stop at first. Then she pulled into the carport on the side of the house.