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  “Somebody’s hurt, based on the injuries I saw on his body. He got a few licks in on whoever attacked him. But if she’s hurt, Antony Staab isn’t responsible. In fact, I may be ready to rule her out as the killer.”

  “May be?”

  “I found traces of her DNA on skin cells inside the victim’s jacket.”

  “I thought you said you were going to rule her out as a suspect. If you found DNA, doesn’t that prove that she was there? If you think she—”

  “Inside the jacket,” he emphasized. Niall crossed the room to retrieve his crime-lab jacket from the entryway closet and came back to drape it around her shoulders, to demonstrate his point.

  Lucy huddled inside the jacket as she had that day in the hospital’s ER. “She wore his jacket. So she was a friend—or even something more.”

  “But there was no evidence of her around the stab wound itself. No trace of her on him anywhere except from when she most likely wore his jacket.” Niall tossed his jacket onto the sofa and put his hands up between them as if he wanted to start a fight. “If you and I were going to tussle—”

  “My skin cells, hair, maybe even my blood would be all over your hands and clothing.” He wiggled his fingers, urging her to come closer. “So tell me how you think you can prove she’s not guilty of killing this man who once offered her his jacket.”

  “How big is Diana?”

  “About my size. Skinnier. At least she was the last time I saw her. Why?”

  Niall grabbed her hand that still held the bottle and raised it to his chest, using her to show how Antony Staab had been killed. “He was already pinned against the crates when he was stabbed. Even being injured like that, since there wasn’t any momentum to drive him into the weapon—”

  “As if he was lunging toward someone in a fight?” Lucy backed up a few steps and Niall moved toward her raised hand until his chest hit the bottle.

  Then he stood still and pushed her hand away to show the difference in using just her forearm to strike the blow. “It would require a lot of strength to plunge that screwdriver all the way into the heart of a stationary victim who was standing upright. The wound track showed the weapon glanced off his clavicle. But there was no second strike, just one powerful thrust that tore through his heart.”

  Although the forensic details were so unsettling that she needed to stop the reenactment and pull away, Lucy appreciated that his evidence supported what her instincts had been telling her all along. “You don’t think Diana would be strong enough to strike a blow like that?”

  He followed her into the kitchen while she rinsed out Tommy’s bottle and set the parts in the dish drainer. “It’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely—especially if she’s injured.”

  Hugging her arms around her middle at the sudden chill she felt, Lucy went back into the living room. “I can’t stand the thought of her being hurt and frightened and alone.”

  “You survived it.” She felt the warmth of his body come up behind her as she stood over Tommy’s bassinet and watched the peacefully sleeping baby. “She will, too.”

  She closed her eyes against the urge to lean back into his heat and strength. “I don’t suppose there’s anything in that report that does say who murdered Antony.”

  “Roger Campbell is still a possibility. Staab put you in the ER. He might see killing him as vindication for his crime against you. Duff took a drive down to Falls City to find him and check out his alibi.” She opened her eyes when the warmth disappeared. She turned to see him thumbing through the autopsy report again. “His killer must have worn gloves. I found no transfer of skin cells or blood in the wounds. Usually there is in a fight like that.”

  “You scraped under my fingernails. Was there anything helpful under Antony’s?”

  “Environmental residue from the warehouse, and his own blood and tissue.”

  “I can’t imagine how frightened Diana must be.” Determined to focus on Niall’s belief that Diana wasn’t a killer, Lucy joined him, leaning her cheek against his shoulder to look at the report with him. “Would you read to me, Dr. Watson?”

  “You’ve heard all the pertinent details. The rest is technical jargon. Oh.” He set down the file and frowned down at her. “Tired? You want me to put you to sleep, too?”

  “Your voice doesn’t have quite that same effect on me.” She reached up to brush that spiky lock of hair off his forehead and ease the concern from his expression. “But I do find it soothing.”

  “What do you want me to talk about?”

  “It doesn’t matter, really. Anything. Everything. Whatever you want so long as I get to be a part of the conversation.”

  He considered her answer for a moment, then unbuckled his belt to remove his gun and holster and carry them into the bedroom, where he set them up on the closet shelf. Just when she thought he was going to ignore her request, he came back into the living room. He caught her hand and sat in the recliner, pulling her onto his lap. “I’m so sorry you have to go through this. The aftermath of violence is something I deal with every day. But this is the first time I’ve witnessed firsthand the emotional consequences of that violence. I think about Grandpa going down like that with a bullet...” His hands hooked behind her knees, turning her in his lap to face him and holding her there when she would have scooted to a less intimate position beside him. “At least I know he’s alive and that he’ll get better. I know he’s not alone.”

  Although the sturdy trunks of his thighs and the distinctly masculine shape of him behind his zipper were warming her hip and bottom, she suspected Niall was seeking the intimacy of comfort and conversation, too, and her heart reached out to him, even as her body buzzed with awareness. “Seamus knows all of you care about him. Your family is such a blessing, Niall.”

  “Diana doesn’t have any family but you, does she?”

  Lucy shook her head. “None to speak of.”

  “I wish I had better answers for you. So you could at least know where she is. I hate to see you worried like this. You have such a big heart.” He slipped his fingers into her hair, curling one finger, then another into the tendrils there, softly brushing them away from her stitches. He studied the way each lock twisted around his hand until his palm came to rest against her cheek and jaw, and his gaze locked onto hers. “You’re not alone, Lucy. I’ll stay with you and Tommy as long as you need me.”

  She tried to smile at the bittersweet promise. Lucy knew he was sincere and that she was lucky to have Niall in her life. But if he suspected how much she needed the sound of his voice and his strength and heat and clever mind and kisses, would he give her forever?

  Tenderly stroking her fingers through that independent lock of silky hair, Lucy wished that every day of her life could include this kind of caring. Niall needed someone to translate the world for him, someone to see beyond the erudite speech and obsessive focus and teach him to recognize his kindness and passion, and allow them to be given back to him. She wanted a family like his. She needed his calming strength and the unquestioned reliability he brought to her chaotic world. She wanted this good man to be her good man.

  His blue eyes narrowed suspiciously behind his glasses, and she realized she’d been petting him this entire time. “What are you thinking, Miss McKane?”

  “How much I want you to kiss me right now.”

  “That’s a good answer.”

  Lucy felt a blush warming her cheeks. “Why is that, Dr. Watson?”

  “I was thinking the same thing. That I could shake this feeling that I’m missing something important and make all those unresolved questions that are nagging at me go away if I could just...” His hand stilled in her hair. “Is this what needing someone feels like?”

  Lucy nodded. It was for her, at least. His grip tightened on her thigh and scalp, pulling her into his body as he leaned in and kissed her.

/>   His lips opened urgently over hers, giving her a taste of creamy coffee when their tongues met and danced together. Lucy wound her arms around his neck and tunneled her fingers into his hair, lifting herself into the tender assault of his firm lips. The rasp of his beard stubble against her skin kindled a spark deep inside her. The smooth stroke of his tongue over those sensitized nerve endings fanned the embers into a flame. Each demand of his mouth on hers stoked the need burning inside her.

  His hands moved to her waist, lifting her onto his chest as the recliner tipped back. She twisted her hips against his belt buckle to stretch out more fully on top of him. Her breasts pillowed against the hard plane of his chest, and she crawled up higher, whimpering at the friction of her nipples pebbling between them.

  Niall moved his lips to her jaw, her earlobe, the sensitive bundle of nerves at the side of her neck. He pushed aside the neckline of her sweater and nibbled on her collarbone. At the same time, he slipped a hand beneath her sweater and T-shirt. He moaned some little words of victory or satisfaction or both when he found the bare skin of her back and splayed the fiery stamp of his hand there. It wasn’t fair that he could slide his hand up along her spine and down beneath the waist of her jeans to squeeze her bottom when she couldn’t touch bare skin. Determined to explore the same territory on him, Lucy braced a hand on his shoulder and pushed herself up, trying to get at the buttons of his shirt. One. Two. She slipped her hand inside the Oxford cloth to tickle her palm against the crisp curls of hair that dusted his chest, and her fingers teased the male nipple that stood proudly at attention. The muscles beneath her fingers jumped, and Lucy wanted more.

  Niall’s hand moved inside her shirt to mimic the same action. Her breast was heavy and full as he palmed her through her bra, and Lucy groaned at the frissons of heat stirring her blood from every place he touched her. He pinched the achy nub between his thumb and finger, and she realized those breathy gasps of pleasure were coming from her mouth. She wanted his soothing tongue on the tips of the breasts he explored so thoroughly, with no barriers between his greedy touch and her sensitive skin. She wanted the straining bulge inside his jeans sliding inside her, claiming her body as thoroughly as his hands and mouth had claimed the rest of her.

  She sensed he wanted that, too. His hips shifted beneath hers, spreading her legs. Her knee bumped the arm of the chair. He lifted her to center her above him, but she hit the other arm and jiggled the lamp on the table beside the recliner.

  “Niall...” There was no place for her to move. No room to make this happen. “Niall—”

  In a quick show of strength, he righted the recliner and pushed to his feet, palming her bottom as he commanded, “Legs. Waist. Now.”

  Lucy happily obliged as he caught her in his arms, locking her feet together behind his waist as he carried her into the bedroom. From the moment they left the recliner until he set her on her feet beside the bed, she got the feeling that there was a clock ticking somewhere, that the rightness of this moment with Niall might pass before she got to live out the fantasy of being loved by this man.

  He seemed just as impatient to discover his passionate side, to find solace or to explore the human connection blossoming between them or whatever this was. His lips kept coming back to hers as they unbuttoned shirts and unsnapped jeans and dropped her sweater to the floor. She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and he reached for the hem of her T-shirt. He whisked the shirt off over her head and stopped, his eyes feasting so hungrily on her breasts that he didn’t even have to touch her for the muscles deep inside her womb to pulse. Leaning in to touch his forehead to hers, he skimmed his hands up her arms to slide his thumbs beneath the straps of her bra. “Heaven help me. The leopard print?”

  “What?”

  He drew one finger along the line of the strap down to the swell of her breast and traced the curved edge of the material into her cleavage and up over the other eager breast, eliciting a sea of goose bumps across her skin. “I’ve made a very unscientific study on the design and color of underwear that goes through your laundry every week.”

  His deep, ragged breaths blew warm puffs of air across her skin, and she felt each breath like a physical touch. If he’d been a different man, she’d have thought he was toying with her. But Niall was Niall, and she half suspected that the way he studied her body and analyzed her reactions was part of the arousal process for him.

  Lucy tried to capture a rational thought for his sake. “That’s a little voyeuristic.”

  His finger slipped inside a leopard-print cup and the back of his knuckle brushed across the sensitive pearl. Lucy gasped at the bolt of pure longing that arced from that touch to the damp heat between her thighs. She swayed on unsteady feet and braced her hands against his warm chest. “So you like these?”

  “Yes. Very much. Take them off.”

  Lucy laughed at the growly command, loving the rare revelation of impulsive need. As he pushed the straps off her shoulders, she reached for the waistband of his briefs. “You take yours off.”

  And then it was a race to strip off their remaining clothes and tumble onto the bed together. She giggled at the way his glasses fogged between them when they kissed and reached up to pull them from his nose and set them gently on the nightstand.

  His hand was there along with hers, pulling open the drawer and digging around inside, blindly searching while panting against her mouth. “Condom. Need to find a condom.”

  Lucy pushed him back onto the pillows and straddled his hips, reaching for his eager flesh, ready to be with him completely. “No need. Can’t make babies, remember?”

  He prodded her opening with a needy groan, but his hands squeezed her thighs, keeping her from settling over him. “That’s not fair. You deserve a dozen of them.”

  “Fair? Maybe not. But that’s life. And I’m not letting what’s happened to me stop me from living this moment with you. Right here. Right now. I need you, Niall. Inside me. All around me. Setting me on fire with all that body heat.”

  “Technically, it’s your own body heat that’s rising and making it—”

  “Niall?” She leaned over him, pressing a finger to his lips to shush him.

  “Yes?”

  “Now is when you need to stop talking. Do you want this to happen?”

  He nodded.

  “Then kiss me like you mean it.”

  “I’ll do my best.” And, oh, his best was crazy wonderful. He rolled her onto her back and moved between her legs, his strong thighs nudging hers apart. His hands fisted in her hair as he slowly pushed his way into her weeping core until they were completely one. He suckled on a tender breast, then stretched the hard weight of his body over hers to reclaim her mouth as he moved inside her.

  As his thrusts came faster, more powerfully, Lucy gave herself over to the exquisite pressure building inside her. What he’d denied her a moment earlier, he gave back with generous attention to detail, sliding his thumb between them to the spot where they were tightly linked, bringing her right to the edge and taking her over in a rush of feverish pleasure that washed over her arching body like waves of blissful fire. And while the aftershocks were still pulsing deep inside her, Niall’s body tightened over hers. With a groan of pure satisfaction humming against her throat, he released himself inside her.

  By the time Lucy came to her senses and her thumping heart settled into a steady beat against Niall’s, she was already falling asleep. With her head nestled against the pillow of his shoulder, he pulled the covers over them both. There were no tender words exchanged, no questions asked, no promises made. But it felt as though the man she loved wasn’t going anywhere. For a few minutes on an overcast day at the end of February, when the rest of her world was in complete limbo, Lucy felt as though she was a part of something, as if she belonged.

  Treasuring the gift of these precious moments together, she snuggled into the
circle of Niall’s arms, surrounded by his heat, shielded by his strength and saved—for a few minutes, at least—from the fears and vulnerability and loneliness she’d lived with for far too long.

  * * *

  LUCY WOKE UP to the distant sound of chimes playing.

  She was drowsy with contentment and deliciously warm in the cocoon of the bed and the furnace spooning behind her. Only half-alert to the sunshine filtering through the blinds at Niall’s window, she savored the scent of Niall’s soap clinging to the cotton sheets and the earthier scent of the man himself filling her senses. She wanted nothing more than to snuggle in beneath the possessive weight of Niall’s arm and leg draped across her waist and thighs.

  But moment by moment, the reality of the outside world stole the dream of her blissful morning away from her.

  The sun was too bright. It must be afternoon already. She heard Tommy fussing in the other room—not crying yet, but awake and realizing he was hungry or wet or alone. She heard the beep of her phone. Missed call. Then the chimes sounded again.

  Lucy pushed Niall’s arm aside and sat bolt upright. “My phone.”

  He was awake, too, tucking the covers around her naked body before swinging his legs off the side of the bed. He stood in all his lean, lanky glory, reaching for his glasses and slipping them on. “Living room. I’ll get it.”

  “No, thanks. I can...” Ignoring her body’s traitorous rush of interest in the gallant ME’s bare backside, she scrambled off her side of the bed, gasping as the chill of the air hit her warm skin. Lucy crossed her arms over her breasts and shivered. She made a quick search for her clothes and grabbed the first thing she saw—Niall’s shirt that she’d tossed over the foot of the bed earlier. Feeling an increasing sense of urgency with every chime of the phone, she slid her arms into the long sleeves and hooked a couple of buttons as she hurried out the door. “Stay put. I’ll get it. I need to check on Tommy, anyway.”