Don’t. He wanted to warn her but the word wouldn’t get past his teeth this time.
For the first time in his life, he wanted the truth about himself—that he was insensitive, untrustworthy, possessed of a quick temper, and selfish—to be a lie. Thirty-one years was a lot of life to live down. Maybe he couldn’t do it.
He hadn’t told her everything. He didn’t tell her that he knew who had searched his cabin. Sam’s reaction hadn’t meant anything to him at the time. But after a while, he realized the dog had been taught to search for intruders. No intruder. No reaction. Instead, she’d alerted. That must mean she recognized that someone besides him and Jori had been there. Even though the intruder was gone, his scent remained.
It was enough to send him back through the records until he discovered something that he hadn’t checked on the first time because it seemed unimportant: the name of the state trooper who had come upon Brody’s wreck. Trooper Ronald Becker.
It was The Pecker who had come to his cabin looking for something. And Sam knew it. Law smiled to himself. A guilty conscience was a terrible foe. He would never have made the connection between Rogers’s death and Becker if Becker hadn’t sought him out first. By coming into the Springdale office, Becker had not only put Law on alert, he’d given Sam a chance to learn his scent.
But what was Becker after? And what was his connection to Tice Industries?
Jori sighed in her sleep and hung a hand over his shoulder as she snuggled closer.
Law sighed as well, thinking he’d better let her get her rest. Besides, he wasn’t done thinking.
He was going to have to be very careful as they went forward. If Becker was on the Tice payroll—even off the books—there would be clues. And rumors of someone in law enforcement on the take. Those rumors were always spoken as hints with no attribution. The Thin Blue Line of law enforcement conduct held true, but it was also permeable. It allowed the truth through even as it shielded it.
Law smiled in the dark, the scent of the hunt strong in his nostrils. He was a detective, a hunter of bad men. Becker’s actions confirmed that he was up to something. He didn’t yet know what. In a case like this, it was best to seed the ground with innuendo and wait to see who reacted. Jori’s brother’s wedding would be the place where he started.
After a minute Jori’s hand crept between their bellies. “Just for the record. I never got involved in lady love. I’m too partial to this.” The way she handled his package, all possessive and greedy, left no doubt.
*
Much later Sam, who had been discreetly absent during their lovemaking, made her way into the bedroom and up to the head of the bed on Law’s side. She stared at him, nose pushed forward. He was sleeping. After a few seconds, satisfied that whatever odors she’d absorbed—Alpha smelling of the woman and her of him—were good ones, she padded down the foot of the bed and climbed up on the mattress. She made two turns and then slid into a prone position.
Half awake, Law reached down and brought the quilt up across all three of them. Sam didn’t mind.
When all was quiet again, Argyle appeared. She didn’t make a sound. Her weight made no impression when she jumped up on the bed. Her paws left shallow impressions on the quilt as she picked her way carefully among the lumps, human and canine. She was looking for a spot. That perfect spot of heat and comfort that only felines require.
She found it on Law’s pillow.
She kneaded the softness a few times, and then rubbed her forehead against his hair to mark her spot. Leaning up and over, she sniffed his breath to see what she’d missed, if anything. Man didn’t smell of food. Too bad. Everything else about him was irrelevant. Except his warmth. She still didn’t like him but he was warmer than her own female.
She curled softly around his head, bracing her sheathed paws against his crown in case he decided to move, and closed her eyes. Maybe the male had a usefulness after all.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN