Page 160 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

Roman ends the call and follows us into the living room. The makeshift nest covers the couch and part of the rug, built only last night after we brought her home. Her own blankets form the base. My shirts and Roman’s are tucked around the pillows because she needed our scents near her while she slept.

I sit gently onto the corner of the couch and brace Scarlet against my chest and across my lap. Her cheek rests over my heart. One arm lies between us, limp and warm beneath the quilt.

Roman kneels beside the couch and touches two fingers beneath her ear. “Pulse is fast.”

“She’s out.”

“She’s awake.”

Her lashes move, but she doesn’t answer.

Roman smooths hair away from her face. “She dropped. Let her body come back on its own.”

I tighten my hold, and a purr rolls through my chest without pause. Scarlet feels it where she is pressed against me, every vibration carrying the same instinctive command. Safe. Stay. Mine to protect.

My alpha has wanted her in my arms since the first moment I scented how long she had gone without care. I thought I understood that need then. I didn’t understand shit.

She had the worst heat of her life under my watch. Her body burned through every safeguard she had built during years of cycles alone. She lost Roman’s scent. A stranger entered her greenhouse while she was knotted and vulnerable. Cameras watched her home. Reporters showed the cottage to anyone willing to look. Now someone called because she reads her grandmother’s maps too well.

She doesn’t deserve any of this. She deserves a locked door that means safety, a nest no one invades, and a heat that ends in sleep instead of evidence bags and deputies. She deserves to be an omega without the world finding a way to punish her for needing care.

Roman climbs onto the couch beside us. He lifts Scarlet’s feet into his lap and covers them with the quilt before rubbing warmth into them through the fabric.

My purr deepens.

Roman looks at me across her body. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m holding her.”

“Both can be true.”

I press my mouth against Scarlet’s hair. “I need her safe, Ro, and this case closed.”

“I know, Alpha. Me too.” Roman’s thumb moves along the sole of her foot in slow strokes. “Tom is tracing the call. He’ll send a unit down the county road.”

“Myrtle knew Scarlet was unwell.”

“She did.”

“And she has access to the part of this case that keeps pointing back to Heritage Hall. Scarlet’s grandmother’s records. Preservation materials. The museum transfer.”

Roman watches Scarlet rather than me. “The timing is suspicious, but Myrtle wasn’t using a phone when she walked to her car.”

“I know.” I look toward the porch where her casserole still waits. “I don’t need her to be behind every piece of this. I need to know what she did with the pieces she could reach. And, I still don’t like her being near Scarlet.”

“That’s not the same as evidence.”

“I’m aware.”

Roman’s gaze lifts to mine. “Are you?” The question would irritate me under other circumstances.

Scarlet’s weight across my lap keeps me honest.

“I know the difference,” I say. “My instincts just don’t care about the difference.”

Roman’s expression softens. “You’ve had a bad week.”

“She stopped knowing you.”