Free His Partner's Wife by Janice Kay Johnson

slightly, making him realize
he'd sounded like a cop. "They're okay, I guess. I do enjoy taking the
ferry to Canada. I haven't even done that since … oh, in May, I went up to see Butchart Gardens, when the rhododendrons were in bloom."
    "No whale-watching trips?"
    She shook her head.
    He sighed. "I'm reaching here. I thought he might have
seen you, maybe flirted. I don't know."
    "You mean, that he was looking for me?" The
thought obviously horrified her.
    Sorry he'd raised it but knowing he'd needed to, John said,
"I didn't really think he was. You work every day. If he'd done any
checking, he'd have known that. And we can't forget that he wasn't alone. So
who was with him and why?"
    Tiny, worried lines crimped her forehead. "You really
don't think they were there to burglarize, do you?"
    "I can't say that. I'm eliminating other
possibilities." John spread his hands. "According to Floyd's parents,
the only grudge he harbored was against whoever tipped the cops off the night
we arrested him. He never mentioned Stuart to them."
    "Could that person have killed him?"
    "Apparently he died a couple of years ago, while Floyd
was still locked up. Or so he told his parents."
    John's mouth twisted. "Unless he lied. And why would he
have?"
    Natalie brushed her hair back from her face, pulling it into
a ponytail with one hand and twisting it into a sort of rough chignon. The
movement parted the collar of the robe, and he saw both the swell of her
breasts and the cartoon cats on her T-shirt nightgown. She left the heavy knot
at her nape and tugged her robe together. Hell, had she seen him staring?
    If so, she didn't show it. "What will you do now?"
she asked.
    "Search your house more carefully. Focus on
fingerprints, trace evidence. Keep hoping we can find a neighbor, a delivery
truck driver— somebody —who saw a vehicle parked in front of your house or in the
driveway. In other words, boring police work."
    She nodded. The knot slipped and tendrils curled against her
neck. "When can I go home again?"
    His gut instincts rebelled violently at the idea. Logic
didn't support his unhappiness, however. Whatever had happened in Stuart's
study had nothing to do with Natalie. The killer had had time to do whatever
he'd gone there to do. Why would he come back?
    "A couple of days, maybe," he said reluctantly.
"Then, if you're comfortable going home, I don't see why you can't."
    She nodded. "What else can I do? Drift around town
taking turns being a guest at all my friends' houses? Put the house on the
market? Even if I were going to do that, I'd have to go through Stuart's things
first, have a garage sale—" she made a face "—probably a huge
bonfire. Of course I have to go home."
    His brows drew together.
    Natalie laughed. "You don't like admitting I'm right,
do you?"
    "You know you can stay here as long as you need
to."
    "Yeah." She smiled. "But you know I
can't."
    He did. A few days here would be okay in the court of public
opinion; people would figure he was helping her out for Stuart's sake. Any
longer than that, whispers would start. John remembered his own brief
discomfiture when he'd had to admit that his fingerprints would be all over Natalie's
house. For her sake, he didn't want any whispers or lewd jokes.
    "We'll get done with the house in the next couple of
days," he promised. "In the meantime, I can take you over tomorrow to
get clothes and anything else you need."
    She nodded.
    A moment of silence developed. John became newly conscious
of the quiet and darkness beyond the lighted kitchen. Knowing everyone else was
asleep made this conversation feel more intimate, as if they were married or
something. If he moved his leg, his knee would bump hers. Their shoulders
almost touched. Her hair was loose, her face scrubbed clean, the toes curled
around the rungs of the stool bare. She was wearing a nightgown and robe, for
Pete's sake. Here he was, smelling of beer and tobacco smoke from the bars he'd
prowled, his jaw scratchy from a