Scene of the Crime: Return to Bachelor Moon. Carla Cassidy
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got to his feet and pulled her up. “Come on. Let’s get you inside and dry.”
She continued to weep and shiver as he slung an arm around her shoulder and led her inside. He walked her through the back door to her private quarters and into her bathroom. Spying a stack of towels neatly folded in an open cabinet, he grabbed one for himself and then turned to where she stood as if shell-shocked.
“Marlena, get out of those wet clothes, and then we’ll talk,” he said. He grabbed a second towel and forced it into her hands and tried not to notice that the wet blouse clung to her like a second skin, emphasizing her breasts and taut nipples.
He turned and left the bathroom, grateful that his boxers were navy and not white. He dried off, wrapped the towel around his waist and sat on the edge of the sofa, waiting for her to emerge from the bathroom.
He needed to find out how a woman who told him she couldn’t swim, who obviously had a healthy respect for the water, had wound up in it, nearly drowning.
Had she somehow slipped and fallen into the water? Misstepped in the darkness and wound up sliding down into the pond? There was no question in his mind that if his window hadn’t been open, if he hadn’t heard the splash and her faint cry, she would have drowned.
After several long minutes, she came out of the bathroom clad in a long pink robe and using a towel to work the last of the dampness from her hair.
Gabriel was shocked by his visceral reaction to her. She looked stunning, and he was grateful for the heavy drape of the towel over his lap, for his body had reacted automatically to the sight of her.
Thank goodness the drama hadn’t drawn anyone else’s attention. If one of his partners were to walk in right now, the situation definitely looked compromising, as if he and Marlena had taken a tumble into her bed and then showered off afterward.
She walked to the rocking chair and sank down. Dropping the towel she’d used on her hair onto the floor next to her, she looked at Gabriel. Her eyes began to fill with tears. “I would have died if you hadn’t been there. You all would have found me floating in the pond in the morning.”
The tears that had shimmered and threatened on her long eyelashes fulfilled their promise, and she hid her face in her hands as she rocked back and forth and cried in earnest.
Obviously it had been a traumatic experience for her, Gabriel thought and wondered if he should just leave her alone to deal with the aftermath.
She looked like a woman who needed to be held, who needed to be assured that everything was okay, but he remained firmly seated on the sofa, unwilling to be that man for her.
He told himself it was simple curiosity and nothing else that kept him here in her room after the drama was over. He wanted to know how she’d wound up in the pond.
Finally her tears ebbed, and with a final swipe of her cheeks, she dropped her hands to her lap. “How did you know? How did you know I was in the pond and needed help?”
“I had my bedroom window cracked open and heard a splash and then a faint cry.”
“Thank God you heard me.” She shivered as if, despite her long robe, there was a core of icy coldness inside her that prevented her from getting warm. “I don’t think I could have made it another minute if you hadn’t appeared when you did.”
“What happened? How did you wind up in the pond?” Gabriel asked, and was suddenly aware of his own bare chest and legs as her gaze swept the length of him, and then quickly moved up to meet and hold his stare.
“I was walking on the path, trying to clear my head. I reached the end and was on my way back when somebody came out of the brush and pushed me hard enough to throw me into the pond.” She shivered, more violently this time, as if the full implication of what had just happened to her had been suddenly realized.
Gabriel sat up straighter on the sofa, a thrum of adrenaline rushing through him. “Somebody pushed you? Are you sure it wasn’t some sort of animal or something? Did you see who did it?”
“Do I think a crazed raccoon or a big bear suddenly rushed out and pushed me?” She shook her head, as if his question was ridiculous. “It was definitely an animal of the human kind. I felt his hands on my back, and, no, I have no idea who it was. It all happened so fast.”
Her eyes darkened and enlarged. “Somebody tried to kill me, Gabriel. Somebody shoved me off the path and into the water and knew that I would drown.”
Gabriel’s heart sank. Was she right? Had this been a potential murder attempt, or had it been some sort of weird mistake? Was this somehow tied to the mysterious disappearance of the Connelly family, or was it something completely unrelated?
Time would hopefully answer all those questions. He withheld a deep sigh as he knew this merely complicated what was already a complicated enough situation.
* * *
WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE and not a breath to take. Marlena shot up in bed, gasping for the air she hadn’t been able to draw in the nightmare she’d just suffered.
A glance at her bedside clock let her know she’d overslept by half an hour, having forgotten to set her alarm the night before.
Gabriel had stayed in her room until she’d finally calmed down. He’d asked several questions about her brush with a watery death, trying to jog her mind into remembering any sound, any scent she might have sensed from the person who had pushed her off the walkway. But she remembered nothing—only the shock and horror of hitting the water and sinking.
What she did remember this morning was how utterly hot Gabriel had looked wrapped in a towel. His broad chest had been sprinkled with just enough black hair to be interesting, and his taut abs had been more than amazing to look at.
But what was really important here was that somebody had tried to kill her last night...or had he?
There was no question that something had bumped or pushed her into the pond, but had it simply been a figment of her imagination or some sort of mistake, and whoever was responsible had run away, afraid of what he’d accidentally done?
Maybe it had been one of the drifters who occasionally showed up at the bed-and-breakfast looking for a free handout of money or food. Or maybe a local fisherman who had planned to secretly fish in the private pond and had been startled by her presence.
She finally got out of bed, and after a quick shower, refused to dwell on the horror of the night before. In the light of day, she decided that it was probably just some weird circumstance, and she’d been the victim of a sort of hit-and-run accident.
She couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to intentionally harm her, but she also didn’t plan on taking any more nightly walks alone.
When she left her rooms, she smelled fresh coffee. She entered the dining room to find Andrew seated at the table, a cup of coffee and a plate of leftover biscuits from the morning before in front of him.
“Hope you don’t mind that I helped myself,” he said.
“Not at all,” she replied as she poured herself a cup of coffee and joined him at the table. “Sorry I overslept.”
“Not a problem,” he replied easily.
She and Andrew had only been talking for a few minutes when Gabriel and Jackson joined them. “Can I get you something to eat?” she asked, half rising from her chair.
Gabriel motioned her down. “Sit and enjoy your coffee. We’re heading into town this morning to have a talk with Sheriff Thompson. When I spoke to him yesterday on the phone, I told him I wanted to get the lay of the land here before contacting him face-to-face.”
“Jim’s a decent man, and maybe he knows something I don’t know about Sam and Daniella,” she replied.
“Maybe, although he hasn’t shared anything useful with us yet. I got the feeling when I spoke to him yesterday that he’s still hoping this is a voluntary disappearance