Take a Chance by Lavender Daye Read Free Book Online Page B

private joke she’d missed, and it didn’t sit well. She
was too wound up with frustration to deal calmly with them.
    “ What did you find in my
house?” she asked Steve. “Is it a mess? Was the lock broken? I know
I locked it before we left.”
    Steve’s hand settled on the back of her neck
and he gave her a little squeeze. “Take a deep breath, Dena. I’ve
got this.”
    She opened her mouth to reply and he leaned
close, whispering in her ear. “Shush, doll. Let me do this for
you.”
    Her heart stopped for a second, then
restarted at a slower pace, a definite reaction to his words and
the warm breath across her throat. How did he manage to do so much
to her with so little effort?
    The police officer was talking about
break-ins in the neighborhood, and Steve told him nothing was
missing that he could see. “I have a locksmith on the way to
replace the broken lock,” he told the officer.
    “ Good idea. I’ll give this
report to the detective investigating the office burglary, in case
they’re linked.” He turned to her and asked, “Ms. Lindsay, do you
ever bring work home?”
    “ No. Everything stays at the
office.”
    He nodded, wrote a few things on his
clipboard that she didn’t get to read, and shook hands with both of
them. He climbed into his patrol car just as another car pulled
into her drive.
    “ Here’s my locksmith. He’s
going to fix you up tight. I don’t want anything to happen to you,
doll.”
    “ Thank you, but I can take
care of myself,” she told him.
    “ Dena, as long as I’m
around, you don’t have to. Might as well get used to it, ‘cause I’m
not going to change my ways.”
    The young man walked up the drive with three
boxes in his hands and a tool belt cinched around his hips. He
didn’t even glance her way, just showed Steve the locks he’d
brought and waited for approval.
    “ Exactly what I asked for.
Thanks. Go ahead with the front door while we walk the
house.”
    “ I don’t know you well
enough to let you run my life, Steve.” She didn’t need another
overprotective male in her life. She wanted a lover, but not full
time. She liked being self-sufficient.
    He led her into the house without comment.
“Tell me if you see anything missing.”
    Papers were scattered across the coffee table
and the sofa, but they were junk mail from the morning delivery.
The television and DVD system were right where they belonged,
untouched.
    The calendar in the kitchen had been pulled
off its hook and was askew on the floor but not torn. “What were
they looking for?” she said under her breath, not expecting an
answer.
    The jars on her counter were emptied on the
table, a huge pile of flour, sugar, and coffee waiting for a
trashcan. When she reached for one, Steve stopped her.
    “ Let’s finish the house
before we clean.”
    But there wasn’t much to find. The light was
on in both her bedroom and her office. All her purses were on the
floor and her bed, some with zippers pulled out, some just opened
and discarded. The office space that she only used at Christmastime
had taken the brunt of the robber’s attention. All the drawers were
pulled out and dumped.
    “ Well,” she sighed, “I’ve
been thinking about a new laptop. I just wish I’d backed up my
address book before they took the old one.”
    “ This was definitely
connected to the office burglary. I saw jewelry on the dresser, but
they didn’t take it. What do you think they were looking for,
Dena?”
    “ I don’t honestly know. If
it’s something from the office, they wouldn’t find it here. I don’t
work from home. Ever.”
    They returned to the kitchen and Steve helped
her put things to rights. It was a little disconcerting since she’d
never seen the men in her family do anything domestic in all the
years she’d lived at home. She started
    to say something about it, but decided not to
rock the boat.
    Halfway through the kitchen cleanup, the
locksmith asked for their approval and assistance. Dena looked