Mission: Colton Justice. Jennifer Morey

watched the sky a few moments longer. “Do you do this often?”

      “I haven’t been here since before...” He couldn’t finish, or say his dead wife’s name.

      “You watched sunsets with Tess?”

      “All the time.”

      “How romantic.” Adeline turned her head.

      “She wasn’t as appreciative as I was about them.”

      “Sunsets?” She gave his a quizzical look, and then her expression smoothed. “Tess wasn’t much for idle moments.”

      She faced the setting sun again. “My favorite time of day is when the sun rises, those first moments when light chases the quiet darkness away.”

      With a soft curve to her mouth, she turned to him again.

      Their eyes met and he forgot everything but her. Wasn’t this exactly why he’d brought her here? If he faced the honest truth, yes. He craved a quiet, intimate moment with her. He missed them with Tess, and now he realized he missed them in general, that close connection, the stirrings of loving feelings, companionship.

      Taking her hand, he pulled her toward him, on autopilot, letting instinct guide him. She seemed to do the same, her hands going to his chest, blue eyes communicating her own rising desire. So beautiful.

      He slid his other hand behind her head. “I don’t know why I’m doing this. I just know I have to.” With that, he kissed her, a light, warm touch that ignited more feeling than he anticipated. She responded instantly, pressing against him for more. If he gave her more, they could create something he wasn’t sure he was ready to handle.

      Withdrawing, he said, “We better get back.”

      The sky had darkened and the chill in the air had increased in the few moments that followed the setting sun.

      “Yeah.” She sounded relieved as she began walking ahead of him toward his house.

      * * *

      Flustered all the way back to Jeremy’s house, Adeline still felt her lips tingle when she stepped inside through the garage. Leaving the entryway, she went into the spacious living room, the floor-to-ceiling windows dark now that the sun had set. She went to the open kitchen, removed her jacket and draped it over one of the kitchen island chairs.

      “Are you hungry?” Jeremy asked, placing his jacket next to hers.

      “Not terribly.”

      “I can order something delivered. Pizza?”

      “Sure.” The distraction would help get her mind off Jeremy kissing her.

      As he removed his cell, a sound from upstairs made her turn and Jeremy pause.

      “Did you hear that?” she asked.

      “Yes. It sounded like something dropped.”

      “When is your mother dropping Jamie off?” he asked.

      “In about an hour,” she said.

      “Stay here.”

      “Hey. I’m the one who’s armed.” She removed her pistol and put her other hand on his chest.

      “Adeline, no. I’ll go first.” He took the pistol from her, making her suck in a startled breath.

      Following him, she asked, “When did you learn how to shoot?”

      “Shh. When I was a teenager.”

      She climbed the stairs after him. In the open loft, she stopped with him to listen. The sound came from here and she saw Jeremy’s desk was messy and a stapler had fallen to the floor. No one had come downstairs. Did that mean someone was still up here?

      Another sound coming from a bedroom down the hall made Jeremy rush in that direction. He first checked Jamie’s room, and then ran to the next. Filmy curtains blew in from an open window; the screen was cut and also moving in the breeze.

      Adeline rushed to look through the window and saw a man running across Jeremy’s property. He had the same stature as the one she’d seen the first time she’d arrived there.

      “Is that the man you chased off my property?” Jeremy asked.

      “Yes, I think so. He has the same build, but it’s hard to say. It’s pretty dark.” She left the window as Jeremy closed and locked the latch, going back into the office where things had been disturbed.

      “What was he looking for?”

      Jeremy sifted through the papers that had been disturbed and shook his mouse. A locked screen came up on his desktop computer.

      “He couldn’t have cracked my password,” Jeremy said.

      “Do you have anything on Tess’s accident?” she asked.

      He opened a file drawer and withdrew a folder. Together they looked into its contents. All he had were documents for insurance covering her accident and death, just auto and life.

      “Nothing is missing,” Jeremy said. “But he might have taken pictures.”

      “Why? None of this proves anything other than Tess died in an accident.” What else could this relate to, though, if not Jeremy’s action in taking a look at Tess’s accident as a possible murder?

      Jeremy put the file away and stood still, looking across the loft. “He must have bypassed my security.”

      When they’d entered she had seen him disarm the alarm and reset it. Someone had disarmed it. Had they known the code? Or somehow discovered it?

       Chapter 4

      Later that night, Jeremy tucked Jamie into bed and went back downstairs, where Knox Colton questioned Adeline about the break-in and the man she’d chased off Jeremy’s property. Broad-shouldered and just over six feet, he now wore a sheriff’s uniform and a hat over his light brown hair and blue eyes. He’d recently been elected sheriff of Shadow Creek. He had a couple of his trusted deputies searching the house for any evidence.

      Sheriff Colton saw Jeremy and smiled.

      Knox was one of several Coltons Jeremy had befriended over time. He knew all about their local trials and tribulations, particularly when it came to Knox’s mother, Livia Colton. Without her in town, the other Coltons had a good name.

      Jeremy shook his hand. “Good to see you again.”

      “Wish it was under other circumstances. Adeline just told me you hired her to look into Tess’s accident?”

      He nodded. “I can’t believe she’d drive into a pole without even trying to stop or swerve, drinking or not. It’s also known Livia didn’t like her, and had held a long grudge against her...”

      Knox ran his hand down his stubbly face. “Yeah, I have to admit that’s bothered me, too—her body not being found. And it wasn’t hard to incite her wrath.”

      Jeremy didn’t miss how he used the past tense, as though he considered Livia dead. She hadn’t been much of a mother to Knox. He’d basically written her off long before she’d been sent to prison. He, as much as anyone, and maybe more, had reason to despise the woman and never trust her. She had escaped once from a maximum security prison. What would stop her from using an accident in her favor?

      “What about it bothers you?” Adeline asked.

      He turned patient blue eyes to her. “Growing up with Livia as a mother taught me many things about deceitful people, but she was a special case. She had an assortment of husbands she used to her advantage, worked with a criminal organization, and trafficked drugs and people.”

      “People?”

      “Don’t forget murder,” Jeremy added. She may have