Defending Hearts. Rebecca Crowley

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СКАЧАТЬ screeching halt, whose abandonment sent his uncle into the depressive spiral that ultimately killed him.

      He shook his head. No way was he falling into the same trap. He had The Plan.

      Still, maybe they could at least—

      Oz slammed on his brakes, the seatbelt digging into his neck as the car jerked to a halt a few feet from his driveway. He checked his mirrors, glanced out both windows, twisted in his seat to confirm the road was empty. Then he picked up his phone, found Kate’s business card in his pocket and dialed her number.

      She answered on the second ring.

      “Kate? It’s Oz Terim. I was just in your office.”

      “Of course, what can I do for you, Oz?”

      “I think I might have a problem,” he replied, studying the crude symbol spray-painted on his mailbox. The handiwork wasn’t great, but the intention was clear.

      A swastika. Bright, white, and so fresh the paint was still dripping.

      Chapter 2

      “Can we put it here?” Kate indicated a space beside the back door.

      Oz shook his head. “No.”

      “Why not?”

      “I don’t want to have to look at it every time I go into the backyard.”

      “Can we put it over there, next to the fridge?”

      “Won’t work.”

      “Why?”

      “It’ll ruin the backsplash.”

      She swallowed an exasperated sigh as she propped her hands on her hips, surveying his enormous, white-glass-tiled kitchen and the even larger, even whiter dining and sitting rooms beyond it.

      “I like the open concept, Oz, but it doesn’t give us many walls to work with. And this alarm-system panel has to go somewhere.”

      He crossed his arms, brows furrowed in thought as he gazed across the space. Kate resisted the urge to roll her eyes for what must’ve been the thousandth time that morning.

      On one hand, she had to give him credit. She’d prepared herself for non-stop conflict when she arrived with her crew, resolved not to leave Oz’s house until she was satisfied with his security upgrades. Maybe she’d overestimated the force of his will, or more likely, underestimated the extent to which yesterday’s graffiti had shaken him, because he was surprisingly receptive to her reasoning and suggestions.

      On the other hand, he was decidedly not receptive when it came to practical issues like the placement and installation of infrared beams, motion-activated lights and alarm-system control panels. As much as she was grateful for his acceptance of the big picture, the constant back-and-forth about the details grated on her nerves.

      Not that she blamed him. Much. If she owned a multi-million-dollar pile like his, she’d also be picky about what went where.

      Thankfully she was at very little risk of ever having that problem.

      “I can’t see it,” he said finally, shaking his head. “Let’s stick with just one control panel on this floor, next to the front door.”

      Kate drew a steadying breath. “But as we discussed, you normally come into the house through the garage, right?”

      “Right.”

      “And you don’t want a control panel in the garage because you’re still deciding where to install shelving in there.”

      “Right.”

      “But you also don’t want a panel next to the back door, because you rarely use it to access the house, preferring to go through the garage to get to the backyard.”

      “Right.”

      “And we can’t put a panel anywhere else in the kitchen because it’ll mess up the tiling.”

      “Exactly.”

      “So.” She exhaled. “You’re about to go out. You turn on the alarm on the panel by the front door, and it gives you fifteen seconds to get into the garage before you set off the interior motion sensors. How far do you think it is from the front door to the garage?”

      He squinted, calculating. “Well, the whole house is seven thousand square feet, so I guess you halve that to get the bottom floor. It’s a pretty straight shot except for the slight curve around the kitchen island, which—”

      “It’s far,” she interrupted. “Too far for fifteen seconds.”

      “I don’t know,” he countered, thoughtful and maybe, just maybe, a little bit playful. “My highest burst speed on the pitch was clocked at twenty miles an hour.”

      Lord, give me strength.

      “You need a second panel on the ground floor,” she informed him sternly. “Garage or backdoor. Pick.”

      He huffed a sigh, but she could swear she saw a hint of bemusement on that handsome face. “Fine. Garage.”

      “Great. Let’s choose the location for the one in the bedroom.”

      She followed Oz up the stairs, which—like the banister and landing—were sealed instead of painted so the dark wood stood out against the white walls.

      “This house is stunning,” she told him truthfully. “All this white—how do you keep it clean?”

      “I pay an extremely talented and thorough housekeeper. Also”—he paused on the landing, peered at a place on the wall, pulled one of those reusable cleaning pads from his pocket and scrubbed the nearly imperceptible mark until it disappeared—“I’m obsessive.”

      As if on cue, the sound of a drill whined from the direction of the kitchen. Oz leaned over the banister to have a look, but Kate ushered him up the stairs before he saw what she could: a fine spray of white dust as one of her workmen drilled holes to install the new panel.

      “Well, it’s worth it, because this place is amazing.” She nodded for him to precede her to the second floor. “When was it built, originally?”

      “Nineteen twenty-five. It had been totally modernized when I bought it—too modernized, in fact—and I wanted to strip everything back to a simple, minimal, Scandinavian style.” Distracted by what was clearly one of his favorite subjects, Oz’s posture eased as he led her down a carpeted corridor to the master bedroom. “The previous owners gutted it so the interior is all brand new, but at least it still has the gabled windows, the mature trees, and the carriage house out back.”

      She joined him inside the master bedroom, refusing to hesitate at the intimacy of the space, and then biting back a surprisingly affectionate smile as she took in her surroundings. The light gray carpet, pristine white walls and teak furniture were in line with what she’d seen downstairs, but this room actually looked vaguely lived-in. The bed was made, but not immaculately. A towel hung on the back of a chair. One of the dresser drawers was slightly СКАЧАТЬ