Eventually, she followed, because there was no going back, no undoing what had been done.

“Caroline?” Tory asked quietly as she sat down on the sofa next to the young woman. “Honey? You okay?”

Caroline sat leaning forward, her arms folded on her knees, rocking softly. “Not really.”

“I heard Bri’s motorcycle earlier. Is she here?”

“Gone.” Caroline bit the inside of her lip. Gone. Gone, and I don’t know if she’s ever coming back.

“Can I help?”

“I don’t think so. Everything is so…crazy.” Caroline shifted and looked into Tory’s eyes. “Bri…oh god, I can’t…Bri was with this other girl…”

“What?” Tory exclaimed before she could stop herself. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

“What would you do?” Caroline asked desperately. “If…if it was Reese?”

“It would hurt so terribly, I’m not sure what I would do.” She reached out and took Caroline’s hand. “It would depend, I think, on why it happened.”

“What difference would it make?”

“Sometimes, when we’re confused or a little bit lost, we make bad choices. Sometimes we don’t even chose, we just let things happen. People make mistakes.”

“I’ve got to go back to Manhattan anyhow. I keep thinking when I do that she’ll…” Carre took a deep breath. “That she’ll start seeing this other girl. I can’t stand to think about her with someone else.”

The hurt in her eyes was so raw that all Tory wanted to do was hold her close and make all her pain go away. But she knew she couldn’t. “Do you love her?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think the two of you can get through this.”

Reese found Tory curled up on the sofa in an old fatigue shirt of hers and a pair of shorts, reading.

“Hi, love,” she said as she carried two bags of groceries through to the kitchen. “Are Bri and Caroline still here?”

“No,” Tory said with a sigh as she tossed the magazine she had been pretending to read onto the end table. “They’re having problems.”

“I gathered that from what Caroline said this morning.” Reese rubbed her cheek absently across the top of Tory’s head, then kissed the fine wisps of hair at her temple. “She’s really upset about Bri leaving school, I guess.”

“Apparently she’s a lot more upset about Bri fooling around with some other girl.”

Reese stiffened. “What?”

“I got the sense that this whole thing with Caroline going to Europe has really thrown Bri for a loop.”

“That’s no reason to fool around,” Reese growled. “If she were a recruit and she pulled a bonehead stunt like this, I’d have her mopping out every latrine in the barracks. She wouldn’t see a liberty until she was ready for retirement.”

“She’s not a Marine, honey,” Tory pointed out gently. “And she’s scared.”

Reese fell silent. Unconsciously, she stroked Tory’s back and arm, needing her quiet strength. “Of what?”

“That Caroline will leave her behind, I think.”

“So she turns around and leaves instead? If I were worried about losing you,” Reese murmured, her lips close to Tory’s ear, “the last thing I would do is leave you.”

“There aren’t many people in the world as solid as you, Reese Conlon,” Tory said tenderly. “God, I got so lucky.”

“No.” Reese shook her head, pulling her closer. “You’re my life, Tor.”

“And you’re mine,” Tory whispered, raising her head and finding Reese’s mouth. “I love you.”

Reese groaned softly, arching her hips as Tory stroked a particularly sensitive spot just below her navel. “Don’t we both have to work this afternoon?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then I think, Doctor King, that you should remove your hand.”

“We have to shower, don’t we?”

Reese just grinned.

Tory leaned back into Reese’s arms, sighing as Reese reached around her and smoothed warm lather over her breasts and abdomen with both hands. “I never want to leave here.”

Reese chuckled, holding a full breast in one hand as she ran the other down the prominent slope of Tory’s belly. “The baby is growing.”

“It’s really starting to show,” Tory murmured, her eyes still closed. “Do you mind?”

“You have to ask?” Reese’s voice was husky as she brushed her fingers softly through the downy hair at the base of Tory’s abdomen. “It’s wonderful. And incredibly sexy.”

Tory laughed softly, covering the exploring hand with her own. “I wouldn’t have believed it, but I actually feel sexy—in a different way than before, but good.”

“How?” Reese asked.

“I feel like I’m bursting with something so powerful—life, love—I guess. I look at you and I want you to touch it, touch me, some place deep inside.”

“I love you,” Reese groaned. Tory’s soft skin against her breasts and abdomen was like flame to tinder. She was burning, pulsing with excitement. “Take my hand…take me to those places.”

“Hold me.”

“Always.”

Tory drew Reese’s fingers between her legs, parting the delicate folds that enclosed her most sensitive places. She led her to the warm pools of her desire, drawing Reese’s fingertips gently inside and then upward, until they rested against the undersurface of her clitoris. Her legs were trembling, her breath shallow and fast. “Feel how heavy? How full?”

“Yes,” Reese gasped, her head pounding with the effort it took to let Tory guide her. “Beautiful.”

Tory pushed against Reese’s hand, moaning softly. Then, slowly, she drew her lover inside, resting her weight in the bend of Reese’s body as she was filled. “Ah, so good. You feel so good there.”

Reese closed her eyes tightly, holding very still as she pressed her mouth to Tory’s neck, letting the warm water that cascaded from Tory’s skin run between her lips. Nothing ever made her feel quite so humble or so privileged as when she was inside Tory’s body. Hoarsely, she whispered, “I want to stay here forever.”

“You can.” Fine ripples cascaded through the muscles enclosing Reese’s fingers. Tory tightened involuntarily and the pressure immediately pulsed into her clitoris. She jerked, and Reese’s palm brushed over the swollen shaft. She gave a small cry and arched in Reese’s arms.

“What is it?”

“I want to come.”

Reese gently bit the tender skin below Tory’s jaw. “Can you stand?”

“Yes.”

When Tory reached behind and braced both palms against Reese’s thighs, Reese let the hand that had been encircling Tory’s middle drift lower until she could stroke her. Tory was already too close to tease, and Reese started the circular motion that she knew would make her come.

“I love you, Tor,” Reese breathed when Tory trembled in her arms.

“Can you feel it?” Tory asked urgently as she began to come.

“Yes,” Reese gasped, trying so carefully to go slow, trying to draw out the pleasure as Tory climaxed in her hands.

“Ah,” Tory sighed as she slowly relaxed into Reese’s embrace. “God, you spoil me.”

Reese laughed a bit shakily. She tended to stop breathing every time Tory orgasmed, and her legs had gotten so weak, she’d been worried for a moment that she was going to take them both down. “Believe me, it’s my pleasure.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

That afternoon, Bri and Reese were silent as Reese drove the cruiser west on Bradford. She slowed as they approached the site of the fire two days before. A deep red Durango SUV was parked on the shoulder across the street from the police barricades that had been erected around the property.

“There’s someone walking around back there,” Bri observed.

“Yep, I see them.” Reese pulled up behind Durango.

The two of them crossed the street shoulder to shoulder and circled around to the rear of the burned out shell.

“Sheriff’s department,” Reese announced as she and Bri walked around one of the yellow and blue saw-horses and approached the stranger who was standing in the doorway of the burned out building. “This is a restricted area.”

“I’m an insurance investigator, officers,” a mellifluous tenor voice responded.

Reese raised an eyebrow, surveying the emerald green eyes, flawless lightly-tanned complexion, and the hint of red hair obscured by a baseball cap. “You have ID?”

“Sure.” Moving closer, the stranger reached into a back pocket with one hand and swept off the hat with the other. Thick luxurious, crimson hair cascaded to shoulder level, and the strikingly beautiful woman smiled. Extending a hand with a leather bi-fold ID case in it, she said, “Ashley Walker.”

Reese studied the photo ID on the private investigator’s license. Satisfied, she handed it back. Neutrally, she observed, “Ordinarily, Ms. Walker, it’s wise for a private investigator to check in with the local authorities.”

Ashley swept her eyes from Reese to Bri and back again. The two law-enforcement agents were disarmingly similar with their dark good looks and nearly-matching brilliant blue eyes. The older one was slightly taller and a little more muscular, but in the dark, there wouldn’t be much difference between the two. She smiled slowly. “My apologies. I meant to let you know I was in town, but when I drove by and saw the state of this building, I thought I’d better get a few photographs before it fell down or your town engineers pulled it down.”

“Step outside the barricade, please,” Reese recommended in a tone which implied it was more than a request.

“Fine,” Ashley replied. “I didn’t get your name?”

“Deputy Sheriff Reese Conlon. This is Officer Parker.”

“Pleasure.”

“What’s your investigation about, Ms. Walker?” Bri questioned evenly. “Who are you working for?”

“Just a routine insurance claim.” Unperturbed by the mildly suspicious expression on the young officer’s face, Ashley produced her wallet, opened it, and slid a business card from an inside pocket. Handing it to Bri, she said, “That’s my office address, cell phone number, and pager. Anytime you want to reach me, Officer Parker, for any reason, please feel free.”