Hidden Summit (Virgin River #17)(56)

“And you called the police right away?”

“My cell phone was on my belt,” he said. “The dispatcher asked me if I could check for a pulse. He was very dead.”

And of course there was a picture of the skeletal remains of a once large and prosperous hardware store.

“Do they know it’s you? That you’re the witness?”

He shrugged. “Of course they know—my name appears on the warrant. Before this is over, my picture will be in the paper. If there’s a leak in the D.A.’s office, they might know where I am. Either way, the burned building is a message sent to anyone who might be considering testifying against Regis Mathis. I had a more direct message, left on my voice mail at home. Just in case I wondered if they knew where I lived.”

“And if you didn’t testify? Would you be forgotten?”

“There are way too many unknowns,” Conner said. “I called the police within minutes of the murder,” Conner said. “If no other witness appeared, would they consider their warning had scared me off? Or would they try to ensure I remained scared off? Because what I saw, Les, was horrible. If that happened to a member of my family, I’d hope to God someone had the balls to step up.”

“Of course you have to,” she said.

“And the hard part for you, Les, you have to act like you didn’t even notice any of this has been happening. At least until the trial is over.”

She laughed softly. “Do you think I’d have trouble doing that if it means keeping you and your family safe?”

“If you get overwhelmed or freaked out, you can talk to Brie.”

“But I’ll talk to you, too. Won’t I?”

“Sure we will.” He put down the laptop screen, blocking the stories and images, and gently traced the line of her jaw. “Yes, we’ll talk. Probably every day.” He leaned toward her to give her a light kiss. “Let’s be done with this for now. Let’s sit on the back porch and talk about regular things. Let’s pretend life is normal.”

He pulled her to her feet and walked her outside. They sat side by side in chairs as the sun sank and the sky above the trees grew lavender. He asked her about high school and her friends when she was younger. She told him about a best girlfriend who moved away when they were both sixteen, and it had been so traumatic, she had cried for days. And there were the sorority sisters in college—they stayed in touch, got together every year or so. She’d had a close friend during her marriage, but they’d grown apart as her girlfriend had children and Leslie didn’t. And, Leslie admitted, it was her own longing for a family that kept her away.

He wanted to know about boyfriends, and she told him there had been a couple of pretty unexciting ones. And then he wanted to know who the first one had been, the one who had captured her long enough to lay claim to her virginity. “That would be Pete,” she said. “And I suspect I was his first, too, because neither one of us was very good at it. And it happened at my house when my parents were out for the evening. On the couch. I was unimpressed.”

And he pulled her onto his lap. He kissed her in that teasing way he had. “What does it take to impress you now?” he whispered against her mouth.

“Now?” she asked with a laugh. “Now it takes the perfect man.”

“Don’t know any of those,” he said, running his hands up her sides. “Sometimes it pays to be imperfect. I’m willing to try harder.”

She wiggled into his lap. “Take me to bed, Conner. The whole world goes away when you take me to bed.”

Conner didn’t know how many women he’d been intimate with in his life. It didn’t seem like that many. There had only been a couple who had stood any kind of test of time—one when he was in the army, away from home, young and lonely. One was later, when he was working all the time and felt the stress of trying to operate a business he was too inexperienced to run. Both of those had probably been six-month relationships. He was grateful for them—they were nice women and the relationships hadn’t ended badly. There had been others here and there before his wife, very brief liaisons.

Nothing in his life had prepared him for this woman, for Leslie. The way she came to him was magic; she unfolded for him, drew him in as if absorbing him and surrounding him with her love. Words of love had not been spoken, but he felt it to the marrow of his bones. He liked to lay her gently on the bed and slowly undress her. Every time she grew impatient when he got to the snap on her jeans, and every time she would go after his belt buckle, even more eager for him than he was for her.

“Wait,” he said. “Tonight you’re going to wait.”

She groaned and said, “I hate to wait. I love to wait.”

He drew down her jeans very slowly and revealed red lace panties that were barely panties at all. “These are new,” he said.

“Mail order,” she whispered. “It’s nice to buy for someone who appreciates it so much.”

“Oh, I do, sweetheart.” He ran a finger around the elastic below the waist and at the legs. “I’m going to eat these. I’ll buy you more....”

That brought a deep moan from her and a low laugh from him. He bent his head to her red panties.

“No!” she said, pushing him back. “Not until you take off the jeans! You have to play fair!”