“No!” she yelped, panicked at the thought of her new friends disappearing as quickly as they’d entered her life. “It’s not that. I like hearing about the case. I just had a nightmare. It was probably from eating too many brownies.”
“Brownies.” His tone was skeptical, but he let it go as he connected the brownies-to-eggs-to-father dots. “Your dad’s here?”
She shook her head, glad to be focusing on something other than the possibility of getting kicked out of the Nancy Drew club. It wasn’t Chris’s decision, but she didn’t know the women well enough to determine if they’d stay away if he asked. “He stopped by with groceries and demon dolls, but he left right away for a new job.”
“A new job? He didn’t even stay one night?” The muscle on the side of his jaw was doing a weird twitchy thing. “Wait. Demon dolls?”
“Yes. I guess it’s a huge new house going up outside of Parker. And wait until you see these creepy things.” She hurried over to where the box was still sitting on the counter. She’d brought the kids’ books into the study but left the dolls, since the kitchen was the room farthest from her bedroom.
“Daisy. We’re not done talking about… What the hell?”
“Hell.” Daisy moved the box closer to Chris so he could get the full creepy impact. “Exactly. Because that is where they are from and where they want to drag us all.”
“Your dad brought those?” He glanced at her in disbelief and then returned his focus to the dolls, as if he couldn’t stop himself. “Why?”
“He found them at the junk store in Connor Springs.” Feeling she’d tortured Chris enough—even as high-handed and bossy as he was currently being—she returned the box to its place on the counter and closed the flaps before reaching for her coffee again. “He said they looked old, so he thought I could sell them online.”
“Someone would buy those?”
She shrugged and gave him a small grin. “My dad did.”
His snort was more than half a laugh, and he moved to the coffeemaker, so Daisy assumed lecture time was over. “They look like something we’d find in a serial killer’s house.”
“Exactly.” She eyed him over the top of her mug. “And it was the dolls that made him do it.”
That time, Chris really did laugh. “No wonder you had nightmares last night.” The reminder sobered him. “Was it the usual?”
“Yeah.” Her hands were suddenly shaky, and she put her mug on the counter so the hot coffee didn’t slosh over the sides onto her fingers. “Mom. You weren’t there, though.”
His head whipped around so he could stare at her, his expression stricken. “I’m usually in your nightmares?”
He looked so upset at the thought that she hurried to reassure him. “No. It just normally follows what really happened.” Her hands were sweating now, as well as trembling, so she rubbed them on her pajama-slash-workout pants. “Last night, after Mom…fell, he looked at me. The gun…the gun was…” Her throat closed, not permitting her to speak, barely allowing her to breathe. Even though her palms were dry, she kept rubbing them up and down her thighs.
“Hey.” Chris was suddenly right in front of her, holding her wrists and keeping her hands still. “I was there. I shot him before he could even think about doing anything to you, okay? I just wish…”
“I know.” Leaning forward, she let her forehead rest against his chest. “I wish that, too.”
His thumbs stroked the inside of her wrists as they just stood silently for a while. Daisy basked in the rare contact of his skin against hers. She was tempted—so tempted—to raise her head, to bring her lips to his. The only thing that allowed her to resist was the memory of his appalled reaction the last time she’d attempted to kiss him. If she tried again, would he stop visiting her altogether? The thought was so terrifying, she felt the prickle of anxious sweat.
“Next time you have that nightmare—any nightmare,” he said quietly, “don’t work out until you’re unconscious. Just call me, okay?”
With her forehead still pressed to the front of his shirt, not wanting to give up the contact, as little as it was, she said, “You do enough for me, Chris. I’m not waking you up at two in the morning because I’m scared of a bad dream.”
“Yes, you are. And half the time, I’m awake at two a.m.”
“Because you’re working.” She lifted her head so she could give him a stern look. “I’d probably call you in the middle of some sort of sting operation, and the ring of your phone would give you away, so the bad guys would scatter before you could bust them.”