“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!”

He didn’t even hesitate. He shucked those jeans so fast, it was like sleight of hand. Then he started over, from her lips to her chin to her br**sts to her belly and then lower. They hadn’t been a couple long, but he knew what she liked, knew what her favorite adventures were, and one of them included his tongue teasing around the edge of her panties until he couldn’t stand it any longer and had to go in for the kill.

Tonight, he decided, he wasn’t taking the red lace off. He was going to move it around. Until Leslie, he’d had no idea how much he enjoyed a little lace that barely covered her. He gently spread her, licked her thighs, pulled the panties to the side and enjoyed the most private part of Leslie. Enjoyed her deeply. Wanted her wildly. And she made those beautiful sounds for him, lifted herself against his mouth, begging. When her moans came in breathless gasps, closer and harder, he pulled away from her and rose to her lips. “Not yet,” he said. “Not yet.”

“I think you have a mean streak,” she rasped out.

“You like this. This is your favorite. Deny it.”

“I can’t deny it.”

He kissed her in a way that said he owned her, and she wrapped herself around him, trying to hurry him, but he couldn’t be hurried. This was going to be like the first time. Then if he had the energy, he might take her through all the times....

He changed his mind and got rid of the red lace, leaving her beautifully bare.

“Please,” she whispered against his mouth.

“Not yet.” And then he entered her slowly, so slowly. He held very still because when he was inside her like this he wanted time to stop. This felt natural and right to him, to be cocooned with the one woman in his life he loved with all his heart and mind. Loved.

He dipped his head and gave her nipple a lick, then a tug. And he moved, very slowly and deeply. And she said exactly what he expected her to say. “More. Come on, harder.”

He chuckled. “Not yet. I want you to let it build. Slow and easy. Try to lie still and let me get you there, from the inside, let it build.”

And she groaned. She couldn’t do it. She tried moving her h*ps against him, but he wasn’t allowing it. He held her still and took his time, pumping, kissing, sucking.

It wasn’t long before she began to lose control and pant, squirm, dig her heels into the mattress and lift against him, slam against him.

“Okay, baby,” he said. “I guess it’s time....” He covered her mouth, accepted her tongue into his, grabbed her hips, fixed the friction just right and pounded into her, fast and rhythmic, hard and even, deep and perfect. And she rose, cried out against his mouth, wrapped her legs around him to hold him and erupted into a liquid heat that sent him out of his mind, clenching in the most delicious spasms. He tried to wait her out, let her finish before he gave it up, but he could only do so much, and he went off like a rocket, a beautiful rocket.

“God,” he said. “God. Les…”

She eventually collapsed beneath him, panting. He buried his face in her neck and tried to even his breathing, but it was as if he’d run a sprint.

She played with the hair at his temples while she floated back to earth; he liked that part. When he could finally lift his head, he looked into her hot, dark eyes and said, “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

She smiled at him and said, “I think I do. About as much as I love you.”

He smoothed back her hair. “We’re going to be all right, Les. We’ll just get through the next few weeks and then we’ll get on with our lives. New lives for both of us.”

“Here?” she asked.

He gave a little shrug. “This is as good a place as any. And if the time comes, we can take care of your parents.” He grinned. “The fun couple.”

She was momentarily stunned into silence. “You’d do that for me?” she asked in a whisper.

“I’d do anything for you.”

Conner spent the weekend. He went back to his cabin for a change of clothes, but had all day Sunday with her. They went to a movie and brought home Thai food Sunday night, watched the sky turn lavender again and went to bed together. Early.

When Conner lay beside Leslie, he found it difficult to sleep. She felt so good against him, and he didn’t want to miss a second of it. Everything in his life had changed in the past couple of months. Everything he wanted for his life had changed.

Witnessing a brutal crime was a helluva way to have an epiphany, but that’s probably where the changes began. When it had first happened, his resentment for his circumstance had been so enormous it had almost been suffocating. When his store had burned down, when the threat had come, hatred had risen up in him, and he’d felt like killing someone himself. When the D.A. had decided the most reasonable and safe thing to do was separate him from his sister and nephews for at least a few months, it had felt like a small death.

Slowly his perspective began to change. It was so slight at first he’d barely noticed, and he certainly hadn’t understood what was happening to him. He understood now. He’d been a slave to his business; there hadn’t been room for much else. It hadn’t been unusual for him to put in sixteen-hour days. When he had spent time with Katie and the boys, he’d often done so during a work break. He’d leave work to go to their preschool program or T-ball game or birthday party and then go back to the store to clean up, to lock up. He would have dinner with them and then go back to the store. He had rarely taken days off; he’d even built the boys’ race car beds at the store in the stockroom and then delivered them in one of his trucks. It had been all about filling up the days and making things work.

When he’d lost the store, the shock almost broke him. He’d had nowhere to go, nothing to do. When Katie and the boys had moved away to their own hiding place, he hadn’t been sure he’d ever sleep at night again. “Just a few months,” he’d told her. “Just to be safe, and then we’ll get it all back the way it was.”

Now he realized he didn’t want it the way it had been. He wanted to be able to give quality time to the people he loved. He wanted to teach the boys to fish, to camp, if he could even remember how himself. And while he’d always told himself he’d be okay with the idea of not living within a couple of blocks of them, he hadn’t really accepted it. Not really. Now he knew that would be okay. He also knew that he’d make even more time for them under such circumstances. He would visit; he would bring them to him.

He wasn’t going to work himself to death anymore, either. Hard work was good, all work was destructive. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when this current mess was behind him, but there were lots of options. He could be happy working on bathrooms and kitchens for a long time to come. He could buy or build a hardware store in the area, though it wouldn’t be the same kind. He could order parts, fixtures and accessories for Paul, but there was no market around here for a store full of high-end, custom items. But for other hardware from lumber to nails—that might actually work.

He dozed off amid thoughts of a life in which work was balanced with fun and relaxation. The sun was coming up as he opened his eyes again, still in possession of the woman who had helped change his perspective, whether she knew it or not. He pulled her tighter against him, spooning her, and kissed her neck and shoulder.

“It’s very early,” he whispered. “I should sneak out of here and head for my cabin, then to work.”

“Hmm,” she hummed. Complaint was clear in her murmur.

“You know I’d like to stay in bed forever. And you know we can’t.”

“I know,” she said.

And then the phone rang. She turned in his arms and gave him a startled look. Who would call her house so early in the morning? She reached over him and grabbed the cordless on the bedside table. She muttered a sleepy hello.

“Sorry to call so early, Leslie. This is Brie. Is there any chance Conner is there?”

“Right here,” she said, passing the phone to him. “It’s Brie.”

“Brie?” he said into the phone. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing wrong, Conner. Max called just a few minutes ago and got us all out of bed. They’re going to want you in Sacramento soon to prep you before the trial. You should be there in a week at the outside. Get there by next Monday morning.”