Free Hit 'N' Run (Under Suspicion #1) by Lori Power

for him to hold her just one more time. “I also wanted to know how you made me? You didn’t recognize me at the scene. You would have said. What gave me away?”
    “You didn’t recognize me either,” she countered.
    “I was a little preoccupied. It’s been a long while.”
    “Have I changed so much?” The words were out before she could stop them. Have I grown so old in such a short period of time?
    He seemed to take forever weighing out his answer and his arms crossed over his chest. At last and with purpose, he unfolded his arms and reached up to pull the sunglasses down her nose, holding her eyes in the embrace of his gaze. “No.” His voice dropped in timber, and in that moment she was transported to a place where they were no longer surrounded by city noise with the sun at their backs. They were alone, and it was a dark evening with just the two of them. “But you were wearing these glasses. If I hadn’t been so distracted, believe me, I would know you.”
    His words caressed all her sweet spots. He did know her and he made her feel like she was the only woman he’d ever known.
    “But this is new,” he said, drawing her deeper under his spell with a smile. The tip of his finger moved from her sunglasses to touch the side of her nose, where a small diamond stud nestled in her nostril, barely visible. His touch was the same as it always had been for her. It turned her skin tingly and her blood to lava. Try as she might—and there were many times before Kris when she did try—she could never replace this feeling with any other.
    Her hand reached up to her nose as though to make sure it was still attached. “Oh, yeah. I suppose. I can’t believe you would notice.”
    “I notice everything.”
    Cold, hard reality returned with the ear-stinging sound of a car horn. That was the problem between them, she wasn’t the ‘only woman.’ Panting, she tried to regain control of her senses. She blinked to focus on her surroundings.
    “So do I,” she said with as much force of will as she could muster.
    Why am I so affected by this man? She coughed to clear her throat, lowering her hand. Tearing her focus from him to the black-and-white sitting with the lights still flashing, Lorna tried to still her heart. Harden her heart to a man who already broke it once. She forced herself to remember how she waited for him to return to the tent that long-ago night, only to leave and find him with another girl.
    With the image alive in her mind, she regained control of her treacherous body. “Ah, I have to get home, Mitchell,” she said in her crispest voice. “If there’s nothing else.”
    His face fell and for a moment she regretted the business-like tone, but she couldn’t trust herself with this man again. The situation had changed where it wasn’t just her anymore. There was Kris and Mariam. She regarded him through the shield of her lashes, pushing her sunglasses back into place, watching as he shuttered his face from her. He wore a policeman’s mask now where nothing showed.
    “Ah, yes, I see. You’re right. The same Lorna as always. All business, and I’m holding you up,” he said, retreating a pace. He placed a hand on the door as she sat back in her car.
    After she buckled her seat belt, seemingly of its own volition, her hand snaked out and instead of grabbing the door handle, she covered his hand with her own. “So nice to see you again, Mitchell.” She smiled before letting go of his hand and closing the car door.
    His face opened again, if only marginally, when he put his hands on the half-opened window. “And you, Lorna.” He straightened, turned, and walked back to the squad car.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    Kris’s first “real” birthday party was coming up soon, and Lorna wanted to make his backyard party memorable one. Kids from the neighborhood and the preschool class he attended all confirmed they were coming.
    With a giggle, Kris slapped the paintbrush