Betrayal of the Dove - By Capri Montgomery Page 0,39

but the thought of being with him, in his arms, watching the majestic show…she couldn’t pass that up. “Okay,” she said. “It doesn’t start until two in the morning so I can drive out—”

“I’ll take you out to my place after work. We can have dinner. We can watch the show and I’ll bring you back here after that—unless you want to stay over.”

Oh she did want to stay over; she definitely wanted that, but she had to open the shop in the morning and she would need sleep. The meteor shower show would be on a Tuesday night but would only really hit its peak in the early hours of Wednesday morning and there was no way she could close during the week, or any other time for that matter, simply because she stayed up to watch the event. “Sounds like a plan,” she said. She could play it by ear and see how things went. If they connected and she didn’t want to leave then she would stay the rest of the morning until time to go to work. If this attraction, this…lustful thinking, fizzled out before the end of the night then she would know where they stood. She mentally shook her head at herself. This wasn’t lust. Sure, she had thought about the man sexually—desired his body, craved it nearly, but there was something more. She liked this man. He was smart, loyal, mysterious and protective yet not overly dominant. The mysterious part intrigued her and she wanted to know more about him. What made Shane Maxwell who he was? Why did he decide to be career military? And why was it that anytime he was near her, her heart beat just a little faster and those butterflies she thought only happened in adolescent crushes seemed to be fluttering around in her stomach incessantly?

This date was a risk because if he decided by the end of the night that he didn’t want her in his life as anything other than a boss for the short time he planned to work for her, she wasn’t sure she would feel the same way. She was risking her heart again and that scared her. She needed to change the subject. She needed to get her mind off her fears and on to something else.

“There was another robbery on the Row last night,” she said. Sure, that was a brilliant transition from talking about a peaceful date night to talking about the guy inflicting fear on all the shop owners. “Petrof, from the bistro, came down to tell me about it. Not that I could have missed the police activity.”

“I know about the robbery,” he nodded. “Your police friend questioned me at six o’clock this morning.”

“What? Why?”

He shrugged. “The man has his sights set on you, Alyssa. If you don’t see that you’re either blind or in denial. I opt for denial.”

She sighed and shook her head. “I see it. I’ve just been trying to deal with it without making any waves. He’s a cop and he’s with the precinct that covers this stretch of town. I don’t want any trouble that I might not get an assist out of;” she knew cops and she knew they stuck together. “I figure he’ll get tired of pursuing me once he realizes I’m not into him.”

He snorted. “Yeah, like that’s going to happen. You’ve told him in a thousand subtle ways. You need to be direct.”

“Got it,” she said. “Now, back to you. Why did he question you?”

“He wanted to know if I had an alibi.”

“Are you kidding me? What the heck for? He thinks you’re doing it?”

He chuckled. “I think he just thought he was going to rattle me out of bed early this morning and scare me.” He shrugged. “It didn’t work on either account. Plus, he’s not even the detective on the case. He’s overstepping his authority.”

“I’m going to talk to him; that’s just not right.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Why not? Do you have an airtight alibi and you don’t think he can try to throw suspicion on you? Seriously, you’re not a bad guy and I won’t have him paint you as one. Gossip spreads, and I won’t have him tarnishing your reputation.”

He shook his head no. “The store in topic had the alarm go off at eleven last night and I was on conference with a former military commander. He’s still serving this country and we had a secure meeting that lasted well into the morning hours. He’s usually in