Lancelot of the Pines (Louisiana Knights Book 1) by Jennifer Blake Page B

And after the first few weeks, his interest slowly declined. The times grew further apart until it had been nearly a year since they’d had sex by the time he disappeared.
    She had hoped children might come of the marriage, the nucleus of a real family, real home. It never happened, but that didn’t stop her from daydreaming about it.
    The hinges of the bedroom door creaked. A draft feathered over her skin, coming from that direction. It felt cool on her heated skin.
    Flinging away from that current of air, she stretched to reach the flashlight she’d left on the bedside table. Grabbing it up, she flicked it on.
    The door was half open, but no one was there. The joke made earlier about ghosts flitted through her mind. Goose bumps prickled over her skin while her pulse throbbed in the hollow of her throat. She turned the flashlight this way and that so the beam traveled over the walls, up to the high ceiling, to the window.
    Not a thing. No sound, no hint of movement. She turned off the flashlight and set it back where it came from. Lying back down, she closed her eyes.
    The bed shifted as if something had pounced upon it. She came upright with a shriek, fighting the sheet that covered her. Free of it, she sprang upright and ran for the door. Surging through it, she swung toward where the stairs lay in a well of darkness.
    She hit a solid wall. Warm, unmoving, it closed around her, held her no matter how she fought. A cry of frustration rasped in her throat.
    “Be still, Mandy. It’s just me, that’s all. Just me.”
    She caught Lance’s arms, clutching their solid muscular strength while relief poured over her in a wave. “Something was—was in my room. I heard it. It jumped on the bed!”
    “A cat, that’s all. Breathe deep and think about it. It was a feral cat.”
    “How do you know?” She ceased shaking, ceased moving, even ceased breathing for strained seconds.
    “Didn’t you smell them when we came in? Trey’s grandmother used to feed every stray that came around. People knew it, so dumped those they didn’t want at the end of the driveway. The barn out back, and woods behind it, are full of them. I guess this one discovered someone was in the house and came looking for a handout.”
    He was talking to calm her down, his tone quiet, reasonable. She wanted to believe him, but it wasn’t easy.
    He hadn’t wanted her to stay in the house. Would he stoop to frightening her out of it?
    Some would. She’d known a few like that in her life. It was hard to think about that, however, while absorbing the comfort of strong arms and firm muscles along with a spicy soap smell mingling with sleepy male.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice husky from stress and something more she didn’t care to examine.
    “I couldn’t let you stay by yourself, now could I? Not after what happened this afternoon. I was assigned to look out for you, and that’s what I’m doing.”
    She was an assignment, that was all. His hold was firm but no more personal than if she were his sister. He made no move to pull her closer, seemed almost reluctant to allow his lower body to touch her. She let her eyes fall shut for a second, breathing deep, before releasing the air from her lungs in a sigh.
    “There he is now,” Lance said, nodding at something behind her. “Black as night and nearly tame, from the looks of him. Didn’t I tell you?”
    The cat emerged from darkness, stepping lightly and with purpose. It meowed, a soft, pleading sound as it came closer. It wound around their ankles, weaving in and out between them.
    “So you did,” she answered, and pushed against the solid wall of his chest until he released her. “I suppose we had better feed him.”
    “Nothing here to give him.”
    She felt the resigned twitch of his shoulder instead of seeing it. “But there must be something he will eat back at the RV.”
    “Right,” he said after a beat of silence, his tone devoid of triumph. “I expect we can find