Chapter 66
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River’s Edge
Cord could smell Ellie’s soft scent on his sheets. Sounded ridiculous but he didn’t know if he’d ever wash them again.
He’d had a drink waiting for her when she reached his house, and as she sipped it, she’d relayed her conversation with Nina Gillis’s mother. Then her encounter with Jordan Orwell’s father.
Every time he thought about that man putting his hands on Ellie, anger raged inside him.
Tomorrow, he intended to play bodyguard all day whether she liked it or not. He’d had a work call today, a family lost on the trail and he’d had to help. But when he left for the evening, he told his boss he needed a couple days off.
Hopefully that would be enough time to catch the rotten bastard who’d killed Minnie and left that dead crow on Ellie’s bed and the feathers in her yard.
And to find the missing little girl.
Ellie stepped from the shower, her damp hair falling around her shoulders. His pulse jumped as she gave him a tired but tender smile.
She walked toward him, then cupped his face in her hands and pressed her lips to his. He melted inside.
He still had that nagging feeling that one day she’d realize he wasn’t the man she thought.
Things had been going so well between them and he didn’t want to rock the boat. But he had one last secret.
Only it wasn’t just his to keep—or tell.
It involved someone else she loved.
And how he became a ranger.
They fell in bed together and with her in his arms, he forgot for a moment about secrets and lies and deception.