In Safe Hands (Search and Rescue #4)(49)
“Someone would buy those?”
She shrugged and gave him a small grin. “My dad did.”
His snort was more than half a laugh, and he moved to the coffeemaker, so Daisy assumed lecture time was over. “They look like something we’d find in a serial killer’s house.”
“Exactly.” She eyed him over the top of her mug. “And it was the dolls that made him do it.”
That time, Chris really did laugh. “No wonder you had nightmares last night.” The reminder sobered him. “Was it the usual?”
“Yeah.” Her hands were suddenly shaky, and she put her mug on the counter so the hot coffee didn’t slosh over the sides onto her fingers. “Mom. You weren’t there, though.”
His head whipped around so he could stare at her, his expression stricken. “I’m usually in your nightmares?”
He looked so upset at the thought that she hurried to reassure him. “No. It just normally follows what really happened.” Her hands were sweating now, as well as trembling, so she rubbed them on her pajama-slash-workout pants. “Last night, after Mom…fell, he looked at me. The gun…the gun was…” Her throat closed, not permitting her to speak, barely allowing her to breathe. Even though her palms were dry, she kept rubbing them up and down her thighs.
“Hey.” Chris was suddenly right in front of her, holding her wrists and keeping her hands still. “I was there. I shot him before he could even think about doing anything to you, okay? I just wish…”
“I know.” Leaning forward, she let her forehead rest against his chest. “I wish that, too.”
His thumbs stroked the inside of her wrists as they just stood silently for a while. Daisy basked in the rare contact of his skin against hers. She was tempted—so tempted—to raise her head, to bring her lips to his. The only thing that allowed her to resist was the memory of his appalled reaction the last time she’d attempted to kiss him. If she tried again, would he stop visiting her altogether? The thought was so terrifying, she felt the prickle of anxious sweat.
“Next time you have that nightmare—any nightmare,” he said quietly, “don’t work out until you’re unconscious. Just call me, okay?”
With her forehead still pressed to the front of his shirt, not wanting to give up the contact, as little as it was, she said, “You do enough for me, Chris. I’m not waking you up at two in the morning because I’m scared of a bad dream.”
“Yes, you are. And half the time, I’m awake at two a.m.”
“Because you’re working.” She lifted her head so she could give him a stern look. “I’d probably call you in the middle of some sort of sting operation, and the ring of your phone would give you away, so the bad guys would scatter before you could bust them.”
He stared at her and then started laughing. His hands slipped away from her wrists as he retreated to the coffeemaker, and Daisy swallowed hard with disappointment.
“You do realize I work for the Field County Sheriff’s Department, right? At two this morning, I was helping Ian Walsh and some other guys from Fire drag a bull elk off the road after a semi hit it. After that, I directed traffic for a while so some dumbass who was moving and didn’t secure his things in the back of his truck could pick up the remains of his possessions. He’d been losing chairs and boxes and even a mattress for several miles before he realized he was leaving a trail. Let’s see…then I had a quiet half hour to write reports, which ended when I was sent on a domestic call.”
His monolog had allowed her to push the memories of her nightmare and the triggering event to the back of her mind where it belonged. Since her hands were steady again, she retrieved her coffee and leaned against the counter to enjoy Chris’s story.
“Everyone okay on the domestic?”
He snorted. “They were uninjured, but I don’t know if you could call them ‘okay.’ For some reason, whenever those two start fighting, they take it to their front yard. The neighbors don’t appreciate the screaming, so they call us. The only actual violence was when the woman threw their daughter’s doll against the garage door. It knocked off the head completely.”
“Poor kid. Do you think she’d like a replacement…or two?” Her gaze flicked over to the box.
Chris gave her a chastising frown. “Why would you want to traumatize an innocent child like that? Besides, I managed a pretty good repair job after we got the parents to stop yelling at each other.”
“That was nice of you.” The mental image of Chris, the doll doctor, made her smile. She hid it behind her mug.
He shrugged, focusing on his coffee. “Didn’t want the kid to find her doll decapitated. That’d require a lot of future therapy.”
“True. Busy night.”
“I’d rather have that than a slow shift. Lots of action makes the time go by faster, and it keeps me awake. I did have a minute to read the transcripts of the interviews with Ellie’s dad. Looks like he wouldn’t say a word, either time. If he knows who Gray’s murderer is, he’s not telling.”
Her legs were still tired from her workout, so she placed her coffee mug down and attempted to boost herself up to sit on the counter. Unfortunately, her arms had suffered as much as her lower half, so they refused to support her weight. Daisy’s feet returned to the floor with an ungraceful thump.