Colton's Secret Investigation. Justine Davis

      “I…will,” she said, sounding like someone who had momentarily forgotten how to speak.

      He watched her drive off. Reminded himself that she was tough, smart, careful and highly trained, so there was no reason for him to feel like he should be seeing her home. Not that he had any choice in the matter. Not with Samuel—Sam—asleep inside.

      He realized he was standing out here in near-freezing air, staring after a car that was long out of sight. He went back in the house and made his way down the hall, careful to walk quietly. He peeked in the door of his son’s room. Or, rather, the guest room his son was using.

      Guest room. And the truth of what Daria had said swept over him. Samuel felt like a guest—in other words, temporary. And that was his fault, for not thinking about this from the boy’s point of view.

      Stefan eased the door open and went into the room. The light from the hallway cast just enough light to see his way to the bed. He sat down on the edge and looked at the child curled up there. Realized the truth of what Daria had said—he looked tiny and helpless in the big expanse of the king-size bed he’d bought on the chance that someday his folks might come to visit.

      He reached out and gently cupped his son’s face, taking the time for the first time since he’d arrived to really look at him, to acknowledge that this little boy was the same baby he’d held in such wonder, the same miracle that had filled his heart near to bursting. His, a part of him, yet a unique individual.

      When he got up, even though it was late, he settled in with his tablet and started a search for kid’s furniture.

      Daria was proud of herself. She’d gotten up and ready and all the way to the station without letting the memory of that hug last night invade her mind. True, it had been a battle, but by the time she’d settled in with the videos to pick up where they’d left off, she thought she’d beaten it back. Of course, the moment she’d thought that, the man himself arrived, and just looking at him blew up any idea that she’d permanently shelved the memory of what had transpired between them.

      He’d stopped in the doorway to the office they were using when Melody Hughes, passing by with an armful of mail, had paused to talk to him.

       Or flirt with him.

      Daria fought the urge to get up and interrupt that conversation. Melody had a right to flirt with whomever she pleased, and Stefan was far too polite to shut her down.

       Assuming he’d want to…

      Melody was a cute little blonde whom some of the deputies secretly called Barbie because of her resemblance to the doll. Once one of them had accidentally done it to her face, and to his shock she had laughed. He was, she’d told the deputy, hardly the first person to do so. That reaction had earned her a lot of respect, including from Daria herself.

      She watched them for a moment, assessingly. Not so much gauging their feelings, or lingering on the contrast of Melody’s petite blondness and Stefan’s tall, dark, powerful presence, but her own response. A response that was sharp, prodding and felt annoyingly like jealousy.

      That thought roiled her even more, and she did not like it. She had no time for such nonsense, especially now, and especially with him. Not only was she working this case with him, but he was eight years younger than her, and his personal life was in chaos with Sam’s arrival. That was a trifecta of stop signs, and she’d darned well better obey them.

      She thought she had managed to quash her unwanted reaction by the time he actually came into the office.

      “Morning,” he said with that megawatt smile that could light up a room. He hadn’t given that to Melody. “I see you’re set up. I’ll just get some coffee and we can dig in.”

      She gestured at the desk beside the seat he usually took, where a ceramic mug he’d brought in, telling her he hated drinking out of Styrofoam or paper, was already full of steaming coffee. “I poured you a cup when I got mine. Straight, right?” she asked as she sipped her own sugar-and cream-laced brew.

      “I…thanks.” He picked up the mug and took a sip. Then another. “I may live,” he said wryly.

      “We were up late.” She studied him for a moment, trying not to think about him and Melody in the doorway, or the hug from last night. Truth be told, she was acquiring an annoyingly long list of things she was trying not to think about with this man. “How was Sam this morning?”

      “Not bad,” Stefan said, sitting down and swiveling the chair so he was facing her. “And he is Sam, by the way. I asked him. And it’s a relief not to have to keep correcting myself.”

      “Good,” she murmured with a nod.

      “He asked about you.”

      She quirked a brow. “Did he?”

      “He wanted to know if you were coming back.”

      “That’s sweet. Unless he was hoping I wouldn’t,” she added.

      “Hardly.” He took another drink of coffee, bigger this time, then set the mug down. “He liked you. A lot. He asked if you could go with us this afternoon.”

      She blinked. “Where are you going?”

      He held her gaze as he said, “Furniture shopping. For his room.”

      “I’m glad.”

      “So am I. He was so wary when I suggested it, it made me feel worse, but so excited when I said he could pick out whatever he wanted that it…it was like… I don’t know how to describe it.”

      “You don’t have to,” she said softly.

      “So will you? He really wanted you to come.”

      “And you?” The moment the words were out, she regretted saying them.

      “I never would have thought of it if not for you, Daria. And this is the first time he’s ever actually asked for something. So yeah, please. Unless you’ve got…a date or something tonight.”

      She didn’t think she’d mistaken that hesitation. Which was odd, since they’d established early on, in that casual, getting-to-know-someone-you-were-working-with kind of way, that neither one of them was seeing anyone seriously. Or in her case, even nonseriously.

      “All right,” she said. “It would be a nice break from this for a couple of hours.”

      There. She’d put a time limit on it. That would make it…easier. Wouldn’t it?

      “Thanks,” Stefan said, and he sounded relieved. “I just hope we can find something local. I’d as soon not drive all the way to Denver for this.”

      “There’s a place over on Pine Peak Drive, where Fiona got some furniture for the twins. Maybe there?”

      “Sounds like a good place to start.”

      They left it at that and started back in on the videos. Unfortunately, they had as little success as last night in finding any sign of Bianca, or any man that could clearly be her Blue Eyes. She’d lost track of how many times they’d watched the woman come out of the elevator, walk across the lobby toward the hotel bar, but never appear in the video from inside the bar. And the only people who visibly left the bar during the next hour they scanned were a group of three giggling women and the bartender who had gotten off duty and who they had verified had gone straight home to his very pregnant wife.

      Finally, Daria got up out of the chair; she simply couldn’t sit any longer, staring at that screen. “The phrase beating a dead horse comes to mind,” she muttered. “I think it’s time to focus on something else for while. Maybe then something new will bubble up.”

      “Agreed. Time to back-burner this.”

      She smiled at the phrase,