Chapter Twelve
Twelve
They spent the drive to Rosehill in comfortable silence—at least, Charlie thought the silence was comfortable, until Kieran parked the truck outside of her hotel. Under the yellow glow of a streetlight, she saw a muscle in his jaw was twitching.
“How did I manage to annoy you?” she asked, feeling an answering twinge of irritation. “I haven’t even been talking!”
He turned to stare at her. “What? I’m not annoyed with you.”
“Oh.” Her righteous indignation seeped away. “What’s with the twitching then?”
“Twitching?”
She gestured toward her own jaw. “The angry muscle right about here. It was twitching.”
To her utter shock, his face flushed. “No, that’s because… Uh, it wasn’t because I’m annoyed at you.”
Now she had to know what’d made Kieran Byrne actually blush. “So what’s making you twitchy?”
“I’m not—” He cut himself off with a grunt, glaring at her with narrowed eyes. “Okay, now you’re aggravating me.”
She laughed. “I knew you’d get there eventually. I am talking again, after all. So, let me guess what’s stressing you out. Is it because you realized you drive like a grandpa?”
To her surprise, the tight lines of his face softened with amusement. “The important thing is that we survived the drive.”
“Yeah, we did.” His smile was impossible to resist, and she grinned back at him. “We also survived breaking into the militia compound, planting some bugs, and a high-speed chase, so yay us.”
“It wasn’t really a chase—” He stopped his pedantic correction as his gaze snapped to the rearview mirror. “Sheriff.”
Charlie twisted around in time to see a sheriff’s department SUV pulling up behind Kieran’s truck. “Seriously?” She didn’t even care that the word came out as a full-on whine. “I was hoping to get a couple hours of sleep tonight.”
“Were you?”
The odd tone in Kieran’s voice caught her attention, despite the fact that the sheriff was in the process of getting out of the SUV behind them.
“I was,” she said slowly, trying to puzzle out why wanting to sleep for a few hours before facing the next day was making him act so strange and out of character.
“Why are you acting like that’s not a normal thing to want to do? ”
“I’m not.” The words came too quickly to be believable, though, and his blush was back. “I just wanted…uh, I wasn’t sure—” A sharp rap of the sheriff’s knuckles on Kieran’s window cut him off, and Charlie tried to hold on to her patience as he lowered his window.
“Hi, Sheriff,” she said as sweetly as she could. “Would you mind giving us a couple of minutes? We’re in the middle of a very important conversation.”
Summers looked startled for just a fraction of a second before her impassive mask fell back into place. “No. Your conversation can wait.”
“Can it though?” Charlie had a feeling that she wasn’t ever going to learn the cause of Kieran’s blush, and her Spidey senses were telling her that the reason was fascinating.
“Yes.” The sheriff sounded a touch harried before she regained her composure. “Where have you two been tonight?”
“None of your business,” Kieran grumped.
“Making out,” Charlie said at the same time. When his answer penetrated a second too late, she offered him an apologetic grimace and turned back to the sheriff. “What he said.”
“It is my business if you were burglarizing the Freedom Survivors’ compound.”
“Of course we weren’t,” Charlie lied easily. “And since when do militia guys call the cops? I guess government agencies are only evil until one of the militia guys gets their feelings hurt.”
“Criminal trespass, damage to property, arson,” Summers continued as if Charlie hadn’t spoken. “You’re in a lot of trouble. Multiple felonies means a long stretch of prison time.”
“Well, you’re going to have to do some sheriff-ing and figure out who the culprit was then,” Charlie said, doing her best to sound bored.
“If it wasn’t you, it had to be your sister and her husband.”
Kieran gave an irritated grunt, and Charlie squeezed his leg.
She was getting annoyed too, but she fought to keep any trace of it out of her expression as she forced a light laugh.
“Those two had a just-married date night, so you’re going to have to find a different suspect.
Except for going out to dinner, I imagine they haven’t left their honeymoon suite. ”
“Not much of an alibi.” Summers smirked, although it didn’t look natural—more like the sheriff was trying to get a reaction from them. That settled some of Charlie’s fears that there was actual evidence that any of them had been in the compound.
“It is when we’re followed by an entire team of fortune hunters,” Charlie said, matching the sheriff’s smirk with one of her own.
“Plus half the town watches us wherever we go. We won’t have any problem finding witnesses that put us far away from the compound.
” I hope. The fortune hunters weren’t friends exactly, but they still owed her for disappearing before the coffee shop fire.
Despite Charlie’s doubts, her words must’ve struck home, judging by the way the sheriff’s face fell for just a moment before she blanked her expression again.
“They’ll also tell you that Kieran kisses like a beast, and that can be a bit disconcerting to know about a work colleague. ”
“Are we done here, Sheriff?” Kieran asked in a way that was more of a statement than a polite question.
Her nod was stiff. “For now. Don’t leave the county.”
Charlie couldn’t resist. “Oh, we won’t. After all, we have a murder to solve first.” It was Kieran’s turn to squeeze her leg just above her knee.
Although she knew he meant it as a warning to watch her mouth around the sheriff, her lady bits took it as a sign of interest. Summers’s frown brought her back to earth, and she quickly gave her most innocent smile.
“Kidding, of course. There’ll be no mystery solving.
We’re just going to enjoy the changing leaves and mountain views as we lounge around, ignoring any clues we might stumble across, and definitely not committing any felonies in pursuit of the truth. ”
When she stopped talking, the sheriff was scowling and Kieran sighed heavily.
With a final warning glare, Summers turned away and headed back to her SUV.
Charlie watched her as Kieran closed the window.
It wasn’t until the sheriff drove around them, turned at the next intersection, and disappeared from their view that Charlie spoke.
“I’m ninety-nine percent sure she doesn’t have any concrete evidence that we were involved.”
Turning his head, Kieran studied her. For once, his usual scowl wasn’t in place, which made her a bit anxious that she couldn’t read his expression.
Maybe she wasn’t quite that sure. “Ninety-five percent?”
The sound he made was a laugh and a sigh mixed together, which didn’t reassure her. Kieran was acting strange. Where was her consistently grumpy and quarrelsome firefighter?
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Even though he said the words with conviction, he still didn’t look right. This person gazing at her with amusement and fondness was not the cranky guy she’d first met. “You just like to walk the cliff’s edge, don’t you?”
She studied him, looking for clues in his expression, not sure why she cared if he meant that as a compliment or a complaint. “Yes?” Hating how she was turning her statements into questions, she shored up her wavering confidence and flashed him a smile. “The view’s best from there.”
His eyes softened even more, his expression so far from the scowling Kieran she was used to that she couldn’t pull her gaze away from his.
He appeared almost tender, and that was blowing her mind a little—even as she found herself leaning toward him.
“Yeah, it is,” he said in a tone she’d never heard from him before.
She wasn’t able to analyze his strangely gentle mien, however, since he cupped the back of her neck and drew her even closer, closing the last few inches to bring their lips together.
Unlike the explosive, ferocious kisses they’d shared earlier, this was…
soft. He touched his mouth to hers carefully, as if she was something fragile and precious.
Oddly enough, despite his gentleness and the lack of tongue action, her mind went as blank as it had when they were trying to burrow into each other’s bodies.
Her hands found his face, cupping either side of his jaw, her fingertips stroking his stubbly scruff.
She had no idea how much time had passed when he withdrew just enough that their lips separated, but she could still feel the warm air of his breath brushing her skin.
Her gaze locked on his. As much as she adored his grumpy scowls and angry, narrowed eyes, this soft Kieran was even more mesmerizing.
This was the squishy middle part of him that no one else got to see, but he’d stripped away his sharp spines just for her.
Charlie felt honored and also a little worried.
She wasn’t tactful or perceptive or careful—how was she supposed to avoid damaging Kieran?
When his defenses were in place, his hard shell of grumpiness firmly encasing him, he was protected from her.
Now, though, with his soft underbelly exposed to her, she could hurt him so easily—and she’d rather punch herself in the face than hurt Kieran Byrne.
“Get some sleep,” he said huskily, his growly, bossy tone overlying the tenderness.
She felt his face move as he spoke, and she realized she still cradled his jaw.
With a sigh, she allowed her hands to drop, giving him one last caress as she pulled away.
Her fingers only made it as far as his chest, however, balling his shirt in handfuls as if she was locking in, ready to resist being pulled away from him.
“Fine,” she huffed, making him laugh in a grumbly way that rumbled along her spine and made her tighten her grip on him. “You’re not helping things. That laugh of yours is dangerous.”