Close To Danger (Westen #4)(95)
A knock sounded on the door, ending the kiss. Wes winked at her and let go of her. She stepped back, running her hand over her hair, then down her slacks.
“Come in,” she called to the door.
Kelly popped her head in the door. “Sorry to interrupt.”
“It’s okay,” Wes said, stepping to the door and casting one last look Chloe’s way. “I was just leaving.”
Chloe watched him leave, suddenly wanting to call him back.
“Mr. Berger would like you to meet with him and Ms. Dennison at eleven,” Kelly said, drawing Chloe’s attention back to the mess in her professional life. “The financial team is being switched under your direction and are asking if you’ll be getting with them today and what their assignments are. And Mr. Napier’s secretary, Vivian is waiting to go over the cases and their status with you.”
“Right. Let Mr. Berger know I’ll be in his office at eleven. Tell the team to make notes on the new cases they’ve been given and we’ll meet at three and ask Vivian to give me five minutes. Okay?”
“Sure thing, ma’am,” Kelly said, closing the door once more.
Chloe flopped down in her desk chair, her fingertips tracing the feel of Wes’s kiss on her lips. A niggling sense of unease settled over her. When she’d asked what now, she’d meant, where was their relationship going, now that all the danger had passed? Had he truly misunderstood her question by answering about their immediate tasks? Or had he chosen to ignore it?
Maybe he was right. They had plenty of time to talk about it when she got home tonight.
Home.
The word didn’t conjure up the image of her sister’s apartment or her own condo, either. Instead a cozy cabin buried in the woods filled her mind and heart.
Another knock on the door brought her back to the here and now.
She straightened in her chair, pulled a legal pad and pen out of her desk and folded her hands on top of it. “Come in.”
The tall blonde secretary who’d been with Napier for several years slipped inside, her nose and eyes red from crying. It had been rumored for years that Dale had been having an affair with the young woman. Chloe suspected, she was more heart-broken than Dale’s soon-to-be-ex over his sudden disappearance.
“Have a seat, Vivian and let’s get started.”
*
An hour later, her office phone buzzed.
“Yes?” she asked as she answered.
“There’s a Detective Bryerson here to see you, Ms. Roberts,” Kelly said.
“Please send him back.” Chloe hung up and nodded to Vivian. “Why don’t you get those cases pulled out in the outer office, add the meetings to my schedule and I’ll see if Mr. Berger is okay with you filling in as my personal secretary while Sasha is off on maternity leave?”
Vivian agreed and slipped out the open door, letting in a nearly bald man with tufts of neatly cut white hair above his ears. Dressed in a business suit, he looked every bit the professional detective she’d seen around the courthouse.
“Detective Bryerson?” she said, standing to shake his hand. She had a good five inches on the man, who was no taller than her sister Bobby. “Please take a seat.”
“I won’t be here that long, Ms. Roberts,” he declined her offer, reaching into his suit coat pocket. “I just wanted to give you your car key. Deputy Strong said you’d be expecting it. I parked it in the parking garage. All the tires have been replaced, per his instructions. He also asked me to give you a letter.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking the key and letter from him.
“Sorry, we couldn’t give you legal closure to your…problem,” he said, hesitating slightly. “But I understand it has gone away.”
“Yes. Apparently, it won’t be an issue anymore.”
The detective nodded, turned on his heel and left, closing the door behind him.
Chole sat in her chair with a thud, staring through hot tears at the envelope that had one word written on the front in a strong masculine scrawl. Counselor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Wes sat sprawled on the couch in his cabin, nursing his third beer as he stared into the flames crackling across the logs in the fireplace. Two weeks had passed since the blizzard rolled through the state. The roads were mostly cleared and the power was back on. People were back to work. Kids were back to school. Everything was back to normal. Everyone and everything was fine.
Except me.
He took another swig of his beer and reached over to bury his hand in the warmth of W?den’s fur. The wolf-dog had parked himself beside him on the leather couch since the day he’d returned from Cincinnati and collected him from Harriett’s place. The cone of shame had been removed, whether by the curmudgeonly nurse or the half-tame animal, he wasn’t sure, but W?den seemed to need his comfort as much as Wes needed the wolf-dog’s.
Wes amended his earlier thought. Everyone and everything was fine, except for W?den and me.
It was Chloe’s fault. In the short time she’d been here, she’d taken over the place. Her scent literally filled the air. Items she’d touched, the clothes she wore, even the spot on the front lawn where they’d wrestled after the snow-ball battle—all were haunted by her spirit, memories of her.
Dammit, he’d hated leaving her. It ate as his gut every mile he’d put between them. But, just like he’d told her in that stupid letter he’d left for Bryerson to give her with her car key, his past was too filled with mistakes and enemies for him to ask her to put herself in danger. It was best for both of them if she went on with her life and forgot about anything that had happened between them.