Page 44 of Honor ’N’ Duty

“Did he have a storage facility?”

“No.”

“Did you have a storage facility?”

Irritation bubbled to the surface. “No, dammit! There’s nothing! Josh left me nothing. I know you’re just doing your job, but please stop interrogating me.” She stood, then swept her arm around the room. “All this…everything in this house is mine and Rosa’s. There’s nothing here that belonged to Josh.”

Laia rolled her lips inward, and this time, no amount of blinking in the world could stem the flow. Tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks. “Even when I do clean this mess up, I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe here again.”

When she covered her face with her hands, muffled sobs filtered through her fingers and straight to his heart where they pried that beating organ in two.

Ah hell.

Kade jerked her into his arms, holding her tightly while she cried. There was nothing he could say or do except hold her. So much for his resolve to never touch her again. So much for his resolve to never let her under his skin again.

Damn you, Josh, for whatever made you do it.

If his brother weren’t already six feet under, Kade would have decked him, thrown him to the ground, then kept hitting him until he was six feet under.

Her arms crept around his waist, and his muscles involuntarily shuddered. He shouldn’t have been thinking how good she felt, snugged up against his body from her pretty head to equally pretty toes, but he was.

He breathed in her scent, knowing it was the worst possible thing he could draw into his lungs because it did all kinds of things to his body. Like make him want to kiss her again, then lay her down on the floor, strip off her clothes, and make her forget for just one moment that a violent drug cartel was tracking her movements.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she sobbed, her tears wetting his shirt.

He couldn’t quite believe it, either. Or the fact that he could easily fall for Laia all over again. Harder this time. If he didn’t find a way to cushion his fall, there’d be hell to pay soon.

And he’d be the one paying it.

Chapter Thirteen

The old elm tree in the backyard kept Laia cool while she and Smoke sat in Rosa’s pink and purple dinghy watching Kade rummage through the small storage shed in the backyard.

It also gave her a place from which to watch all those thick muscles bunch, flex, ripple, and send her wayward thoughts directly into the bedroom.

After her embarrassing emotional meltdown, they’d finished the walkthrough of the first floor, then gone upstairs. Through Rosa’s bedroom window he’d noticed the storage shed, and even though she’d been adamant that everything in the shed belonged to her and her alone, he’d insisted on poking through it all himself.

At first, she’d been annoyed, thinking he didn’t trust her, but maybe he could find something she’d missed. Then when he’d taken off his shirt and began hauling bins from the shed…oh my. Any lingering annoyance disappeared in less time than it took for Smoke to swish his tail.

Wearing khaki cargo shorts, sneakers, and a gun strapped to his side, all the glory that was Kade Sampson’s finely honed and chiseled body was on full display.

Okay. Technically not all of it.

No fair that all a man like him had to do was haphazardly throw on shorts and a T-shirt to look fabulous, while most women had to primp and preen for an hour in the bathroom, then agonize over what to wear. When she’d chosen this sundress, she’d wanted to look pretty for Kade. He hadn’t seemed to notice.

As he carried another plastic bin from the shed and set it on the grass, his thick biceps, powerful shoulders, and back muscles bunched. Last night, in the throes of what she could only call a moment of pent-up, libido-driven lunacy, she’d dug her fingers into some of those hard muscles. And felt his arousal against her abdomen. Hard to miss that.

Smoke yawned, then licked his lips. Laia leaned down to where the dog lay at her feet with his snout covering the tips of her toes peeking out from her sandals and reexamined his injured paw. Still no swelling and no tenderness, all good signs that the sprain wasn’t a bad one and would eventually heal on its own.

As more and more bins stacked up on the grass, the hope of finding the ledger and turning it over to the prosecutor began fading faster than a rainbow.

Smoke lifted his head, uttering a quick snort before leaping from the dinghy and trotting to the picket fence separating hers and her neighbor’s tiny backyards. He rose up on his hind legs, resting his front paws on the picket rail to greet Alvita.

“Is this the dog Rosa’s always talking about?” Alvita called out as she gave Smoke a good scratch behind his ears. “Enjoying the view?” she whispered at Laia’s approach, dipping her head in Kade’s direction, then waving to him.

Kade waved back, then returned to prying the lid off another bin.

“I know I am.” Alvita giggled. “Who is he? He looks familiar.”