Flashback

sisters, so she doubted if she would ever take the relationship for granted again. Kayla was long past her lousy taste in men, and Alex wasn’t about to judge anyone on that subject ever again.
She went back to the papers spread out across the table. She’d begun a grid on her laptop, several columns of items that went from solid evidence and theories to things that seemed odd, important for reasons she couldn’t explain or unexpected and thus worthy of attention. Things that hadn’t been connected to anything but were little blips on the radar of normalcy went into the grid: personal observations, likely candidates for murderer and the sources of all of the information.
Those who were connected she put in different text colors, until she had twisting threads of red, blue, green, orange, and for the items that really prodded at her, a bright fuchsia she didn’t care for but that stood out the most. Where colors intersected, meaning two seemingly independent items connected, she marked the squares with a black X.
She plowed her way through all of the data, going on pure gut instinct now, until she had a two-page table that looked like a child’s coloring book. Now that she had all her data in one place, she pored over it, looking for any kind of pattern, anything that triggered a revelation, however small.
When she at last looked up and glanced at the clock, it was after 11:00 p.m. And she still hadn’t come up with a new idea, or a new way of putting the old ideas together to make sense of them.
As an experiment, she copied her grid to another page and rearranged it all so that the colors were all lumped together. Sometimes a new way of looking at things sparked ideas. She settled in for another session. It seemed as if she’d only begun when a knock on the door startled her out of her concentration.
A quick glance at the clock told her it was just after midnight. Wariness jolted through her as she wondered who’d be at her hotel room door at this hour. Grabbing up the holster she’d removed for comfort and slipping the Glock out, she padded in sock feet over to the door to peer through the security peephole.
An unexpected heat replaced the wariness in a rolling sweep.
Justin.
She flipped off the dead bolt, undid the chain and yanked the door open.
For a moment she forgot to breathe. She simply stood there, staring. Sometimes, she thought, I forget how incredibly gorgeous he is. I keep thinking those eyes can’t really be that color, that the air can’t really crackle around him because he’s so damned alive. And every time I’m wrong.
Maybe you’re wrong about a lot of things when it comes to this man.
That was the loudest that little gut-level voice had ever been, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to ignore it much longer.
“Hi,” he said.
She would have hugged him, but his hands were full. She settled for a quick kiss of what cheek was available behind the unexpected spray of beautiful pale orange and white lilies he was holding. The spicy scent tickled her nose, and almost involuntarily she drew in a deep breath.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as she stepped back and held the door for him.
“Did I forget to mention we deliver?” he asked as he came in and nudged the door shut behind him with one heel. Alex redid the latch and then watched with no little bemusement as Justin unloaded his cargo onto the only clear surface in the room, the king-size bed.
“I’m glad you’re still up,” he added as he set his briefcase down on the floor beside the bed.
“I’ve been working.”
“I see that,” he said, looking at the table covered with papers and her laptop. “Too hard, no doubt.”
She found herself smiling at his solicitous tone. Then she gestured at the bed. “What’s all this?”
“First, flowers that reminded me of you,” he said as he filled the ice bucket with water and plopped the richly scented flowers into it. That the colors were reminiscent of her hair and skin was a fact not lost on her, and it warmed her in a way she’d not felt before.
“Then,” he said, picking up a box that was exuding a marvelous aroma and nudging aside a stack of papers on the dresser to make room for it, “there are some very evil cinnamon rolls, suitable for midnight snacking, that I was unable to fight off in the airport.”
Her stomach reminded her suddenly and sharply that she’d missed dinner. “Bless you,” she said, meaning it.
“And then we have a special delivery,” he said, drawing an envelope out of a side pocket of his briefcase. He handed it to her and, curiously, she took it. She recognized the handwriting on the front immediately. G.C. Her gaze flicked immediately to Justin’s face.
“He’s not angry, is he?”
“With you? Of course not. I’d say he understands his granddaughter better than anyone.”
She relaxed slightly. “I was only trying to protect him.”
“He knows that. He just doesn’t need it.”
She gave him a sideways look. “You sound pretty certain of that.”
“I told you, we had a nice, long talk.”
“Do I want to know what about?”
“Probably not,” he said blithely.
Deciding that was best left right there, she tore open the envelope to read the enclosed note. G.C. did understand her, that much was clear, but he also told her if she ever tried to protect him like that again he’d throttle her. She grinned. She could just hear him saying it, trying to convince her he meant it. He closed with his love, and a PS that read, “You’ve got it right this time.”
There was no further clarification, and she felt a bit puzzled. If he was chastising her for trying to protect him, what had she gotten right?
But then she noticed Justin bending to dig into his briefcase on the floor. She’d put that tautly muscled backside up against any