Mountain Investigation by Jessica Andersen - Bear Claw Creek Crime Lab 05 - Mountain Investigation

Author:Jessica Andersen - Bear Claw Creek Crime Lab 05 - Mountain Investigation [Andersen, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction, Suspense, Contemporary, General
ISBN: 9780373694143
Google: hVKqkbLmX7YC
Amazon: 0373694148
Goodreads: 6598798
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2009-07-13T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The moment he stepped through the front door he’d seen Lee step through only four days earlier, Gray found that Mariah’s cabin might have been “all clear,” but it still bore evidence of the recent siege.

The main room was a wide sweep running the length of the front of the cabin, with a sitting area to the right and a small kitchen to the left, separated by an island that doubled as both counter space and a dining table. The wall opposite the front door was broken up by two doors and a short hallway. From Mariah’s description of her escape, he knew her bedroom was to the right, her spare room and bath to the left. The walls were polyurethaned logs intended to look far more rustic than they actually were, and the faux log-cabin theme was carried through in exposed beams and wide pine on the floor. The décor, such as it was, leaned toward the practical and comfortable. The main room had clubfooted chairs and a cushionless sofa, upholstered in forest green, along with two rustic end tables, and several plain, functional lamps that lit the front rooms with stark yellow light. In the kitchen, the shelves stood empty. The floor was bare, the windows uncurtained, though the advance team had covered them with plain, functional blinds that would shield the cabin’s occupants from view. On the counter rested several grocery bags, also courtesy of the advance team.

There were no personal touches, no hints of femininity, but Gray knew from the reports—and his own instincts—that those touches had been there before Lee’s arrival. More, he knew in his gut that Mariah would’ve made her space a home, a nest.

He’d seen the way she’d maintained order even in her hospital room. She had kept the items on her bedside table and in the bathroom each in the place she’d assigned them. She was neat and organized, not in the way of someone who was obsessed with it, but more like someone who’d had so many upheavals in her life that she’d learned to control what pieces of it she could.

He imagined that she’d taken care with her small living space. He could only assume that seeing her home stripped bare, as it was now, would hurt her.

He was tempted to block her from entering, to take her back down to the city and watch over her there—or, even better, lock her into a safe house until Mawadi and the others had been dealt with.

But that was the irrational part of him talking, the part that had gotten so caught up in guilting himself over their kiss that he hadn’t been at his post when the turncoat cop had abducted her from the hospital. And although that situation had worked out, thanks to a GPS and some major strokes of luck, it only confirmed what his rational, trained side had been telling him since that first moment he’d kissed her and nearly lost himself. Or hell, since the

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