If You See Her by Shiloh Walker Page B

abject, terrified pain—like he’d died all but begging for mercy.
    He hadn’t deserved that.
    She suspected he’d been a chauvinistic jerk, but nobody deserved to die like that.
    She couldn’t be here without remembering …
    Law was going to have his office gutted, completely redesigned, but it would be awhile. Even when it was done, she knew she’d still see it as it had looked that night. With the red stain of blood spreading across the floor.
    Hell, even now she could see where blood and other things had left their mark.
    The sheriff had given them the okay to go ahead and use the room, said they’d gotten everything they’d need, but there was no way Hope would ever step foot in there, not until Law was done doing whatever.
    Maybe not even then.
    Being in the kitchen wasn’t as hard, but she barely remembered any of what had happened in the seconds before she’d been hit. The clearest memories all happened before she’d come in here.
    Part of her wished the sheriff had told them they wouldn’t be able to come back here yet. And how selfish was that? This was her best friend’s home—he loved this place.
    Loved it, and just being here gave her nightmares. The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” she said, shooting him a dark look.
    “I
am
capable of standing up, Hope.” He grimaced.
    “I’m already standing.” Then she flushed, realized how short, how sharp her tone sounded. Turning her back on him, she reached inside the house and grabbed the cordless from the counter. Then she made a face, almost wished she’d let Law get it after all.
    She knew that number. The display only showed
Carrington County
before it ran out of room, but she knew the number.
    She cleared her throat before she answered.
    Still, her voice creaked a little as she said, “Hello?”
    When Remy Jennings spoke, the sound of that slow, lazy drawl hit her low in the belly. “Hello, Ho … Ms. Carson. May I speak to Law, please?”
    Without saying anything else, she delivered the phone to Law, tried not to think about the man on the other end of the phone. Tried not to think of how that deep, easy voice made her feel.
    It was amazing, really, that she even recognized
that
feeling. It had been years since a man had made her feel that way … and her ex-husband hadn’t ever managed to do that just by
talking
.
    No man had. Other than Remy Jennings.
    But she really, really needed to quit thinking of him as a man. Really.
    Don’t think of him as a man. Think of him as a lawyer … hello, he wanted you arrested!
That right there should have made it very, very clear that he wasn’t a guy she needed to think about.
    Hell, she didn’t think about guys period.
    She didn’t trust them.
    She didn’t need them.
    Other than Law, and he wasn’t really a guy in her opinion. He was Law. He was her friend … and he was safe.
    He was it, though.
    The other males of the species, they could go to hell in a handbasket and that would suit her just fine. She’d survived just fine the past few years without a guy, no reason to change that. And it wasn’t like she ever wanted another guy in her life again anyway. Not after Joey.
    A small, quiet voice deep inside her heart murmured,
Remy is nothing like Joey
.
    Against her will, she closed her eyes, remembered the first time she’d seen the man.
    Barely three weeks ago.
    That day on the square.
    She’d crashed into Earl Prather, had reacted—badly—the deputy had gone to steady her, keep her from falling. Hadn’t done anything wrong, really, but it had freaked her out, and when she saw his uniform, it had made it worse. She’d panicked, and that set his cop’s instincts off.
    And then, just like that, Remy was there. She’d looked into those dusk-blue eyes, heard that soft lazy drawl of his … felt like she was falling.
    Get a grip
, she told herself.
    Shaking her head, she leaned back against the railing and looked up just as Law was lowering the phone. “Gee, did he change his