She had the ability to draw out subconscious details from witnesses that were important to the investigation. She had received several commendations from the police department for helping to crack a few cases. That was one of the reasons the Houston Police Department had wanted to hire her, making an offer any sane person couldn’t refuse.
She didn’t.
That had been a few months ago. She had come to town and found the perfect place to live. Her condo should have been ready by now, but bad weather had delayed completion of construction on the building.
Temporarily moving in with Reese had been his suggestion. And it had been a no-brainer, since she’d crashed at his place whenever she came to town anyway. She considered him family, especially after her grandmother—who’d raised her after her parents were killed in a car accident—died while Kenna was still in college. After that, the Madaris family adopted her as one of their own.
She leaned against Reese’s kitchen counter as she took another sip of coffee. The other reason for her move from Austin was to be near Reese. Although he visited her fairly regularly in Austin, the need to be closer to him had been a motivating factor in accepting the job.
It was a decision she was already beginning to regret.
She knew how she felt about him. But he didn’t have a clue, and she intended to keep things that way. Lately, she had begun seeing him through different eyes. And she knew why. This was the first time in eleven years that neither of them was involved with someone else. For her, that meant she had too much idle time on her hands and no man to keep her occupied. With Reese, she was nothing more than a dear friend, someone he could trust completely. Someone he could share anything with….except his heart.
She took another sip of coffee trying to recall just when she’d realized she was attracted to him. She’d been attracted to him since college, but her feelings had escalated when they’d taken a trip to Las Vegas together. It had been his present to her on her twenty-fifth birthday. Had it been almost four years?
She shook her head remembering that weekend. It was a couple months after she’d broken up with Lamont. Although she’d never told him, her relationship with Lamont ended after he’d questioned her friendship with Reese one too many times. She had warned him that if he brought it up again that would be the end of things between them. He hadn’t taken her seriously, and in the end she’d shown him she meant business.
Reese figured she needed cheering up after her breakup, and to this day she’d never told him about Lamont’s accusations. But Lamont wasn’t the only man who had thought that something more than just friendship was going on between her and Reese.
“You’re tired. I can tell.”
She glanced up as Reese entered the kitchen. A smile touched her lips. “I am tired.”
He angled his head and looked at her. “I’m going to be real upset if I find out you didn’t take my advice and check into a motel for the night when you hit the halfway point.”
She rolled her eyes. “It was only a two-and-a-half-hour drive. It was nice with no traffic. However, I did get sleepy and pulled into a motel for a few hours,” she admitted.
“I’m glad. So, do you want to go to bed before or after breakfast?”
She smiled, knowing he hadn’t meant it the way it sounded. But she could hope. “It’s too early for breakfast, and I could use a couple of hours’ sleep.”
“Go on up. Your room is ready.”
“Thanks.” She took another sip of coffee, thinking the room he was referring to was just that—her room. And it had her signature all over it. She had decorated it to her liking and it was the one she always slept in whenever she came to visit. It was right across the hall from his.
She placed the cup in the sink. “I’ll be up before the ranch hands are ready for breakfast.”
“You don’t have to. We can handle things without you. Your luggage comes in the house and everything else gets stored in the barn, right?”
“Right.”
She didn’t have to tell him that most of the stuff in the truck was what she didn’t trust the moving company to take care of. They were keepsakes—things that had sentimental value and had once belonged to her grandmother but were now hers.
“Thanks for letting me stay here, Reese.”
He glanced over at her as he poured another cup of coffee for himself. She felt his gaze and it stimulated something inside her. “You don’t have to thank me, Kenna. What’s mine is yours.”
Something stirred deep within her again and she drew in a sharp breath before nodding her head. She turned to leave the kitchen and had almost made it to the dining room when Reese called out to her.
“Kenna?”
She stopped and turned around with a practiced smile. “Yes?”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
Something in Kenna’s chest tightened and a part of her wanted to race across the room, throw herself into his arms and declare that she was glad to be anywhere he was—always. Instead she said. “I’m glad I’m here, too.”
Before she could say something else, something she would later regret, she quickly walked in the direction of her room.
Reese slid his hands down his face as he watched her leave. They were both tired, and maybe that was the reason he had picked up on the tension between them. He knew there was something going on. He could tell by the firm set of her lips and her body language.
He took a sip of his coffee and tried replaying everything that had happened since she’d arrived. For some reason he needed to clear his mind of a few things and make heads or tails of the situation. She had arrived at his door a little past four o’clock in the morning. He hadn’t been able to sleep knowing she was on the road at night and driving a rented U-Haul truck alone, so he was relieved when he’d heard the sound of the truck pulling into the yard.
Even though it took less than three hours to drive from Austin to Houston for most people, he knew Kenna wasn’t like most people when it came to driving at night. When she was tired and sleepy, she couldn’t stay awake. She had promised him that she’d get plenty of rest before making the trip, but he knew she hadn’t done that. When he had talked to her before she’d left Austin, several friends were still at her place seeing her off.
The original plan was for her to leave Austin around six o’clock in the evening. That way she would have arrived by nine o’clock that night. But instead she hadn’t left Austin until well past midnight, which had annoyed the hell out of him. He had been ready to bite her head off when he’d opened the door at four in the morning. However one look at her and he had been so glad to see that she had arrived safe and sound that he had pushed his anger aside. But now he was getting mad again.
Taking another sip of his coffee, he moved away from the counter to glance out the window. The sun was just starting to rise, which meant that the ranch hands would be up and stirring soon. Although he worked full-time for Madaris Explorations, he still maintained a working cattle ranch. His spread wasn’t as big as his uncle Jake’s or his brother Chancellor’s by any means, but a part of him would always be a rancher.
His foreman, Joe Seaborne, had been with him since he’d built the ranch five years ago. Before that Joe had worked for his uncle Jake, and he had come highly recommended. Joe was a good man and kept things running smoothly. His uncle Jake was using Reese and Chancellor’s land to expand the breeding program for his Red Brangus cattle.
He turned away from the window when he heard the key being inserted in the lock and wasn’t surprised when Joe walked in smiling.
“I saw that big truck out front. I guess that means Kenna has arrived.”
Reese shook his head, grinning. Of course most of his men knew Kenna and knew what a fantastic cook she was. Whenever she