Love at First Sight - By B. J. Daniels Page 0,45

large hands and pulled her closer. She thought he planned to kiss her. She knew by the look in his eyes that once he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop. They would finally be true honeymooners. She could hardly wait.

But instead of a kiss, he whispered, “Believe me, ever since I met you, I’ve been living dangerously. More than you know.” He swatted her on the behind and moved away from her. “Forget it, Karen. We’re going to follow doctor’s orders. I refuse to risk your health for—”

She followed his gaze to find that his robe had fallen open exposing a fair amount of her naked body beneath.

With a groan, he headed for the bedroom. “I’m going to get you something to wear.”

She smiled after her cop husband. That definitely was not a gun in his pocket.

After she’d dressed in jeans and a sweater—what she’d discovered in her suitcase definitely wasn’t much of a trousseau—she found Jack sitting in front of the fire, a frown on his face. She’d glimpsed that same worried look earlier.

“What is it, Jack?” she asked as she joined him on the couch. She curled up next to him and he put his arm around her as if he’d done it a thousand times before. “Is it something you can talk to me about?”

He seemed to hesitate. “It’s this friend of mine, actually my partner….” He told her about Liz’s bombshell she’d dropped on Denny, about the trip to the grave, about Liz lying about searching for the baby.

When he’d finished, she didn’t say anything for a few moments, just sat thinking to herself. “Keeping a secret like that…” she said finally. “Can you imagine what a burden it would be to live a lie that many years? Poor Liz. But I can understand how your friend Denny must feel.”

She mulled over everything she’d learned about Denny, Jack, Liz and herself over the days she’d lost. A lot of what she’d heard surprised her. For a woman who seldom got away from her workbench, she’d certainly gotten into a lot of trouble and involved with some interesting people. Jack especially. “The baby is the key,” she said emphatically.

He pulled back and seemed to study her as if surprised. “Why do you say that?”

“Because, why would she pretend to look for a baby she knew was buried at the City Cemetery?”

“Maybe she wasn’t in her right mind, after the divorce and all,” he suggested.

Karen shook her head. “From what you’ve told me, she was nervous when I had coffee with her. She was upset when I saw her at the hotel with the man in the hallway. And she left me a message on my answering machine indicating she’d found out some things about the man she’d been seeing that had made her angry.”

Jack nodded as if all those things would have led him to believe Liz was unstable.

“She sounds like a woman in trouble. I’d try to find out what happened to the baby,” she said. “Isn’t that what Liz said she was trying to do before she was killed?”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, it was.” He drew back to look at her, fascinated by this woman. There was so much more to her than he’d ever imagined when he’d first seen her in the hotel lobby—and he’d been captivated by her even then. “I think you just might have something.” The baby definitely added a different dimension to the case. If it was dead, then there would be paperwork, proof. If not… He smiled at her. “You are something else.”

She smiled back at him, her eyes warming, her gaze starting a fire in him. “Isn’t that why you married me?”

Her words were like a bucket of ice water. He got up and moved away, his right side imprinted with the feel of her.

“What’s wrong?” Karen asked behind him.

“This is very hard for me,” he said, ready to tell her the truth and suffer the consequences. He hated lying to her. He hated seeing love and trust and desire in her eyes and knowing that it was all a lie.

“Oh, Jack, I’m sorry. I know you want me as much as I want you.”

She thought this was about sex?

“I’m not being fair, asking you to make love to me, when all you’re trying to do is protect me,” she said.

That much was true at least.

His cell phone rang. Damn, he’d forgotten to turn it off. He’d expected to hear Denny’s voice. Or even Baxter’s. The one voice