Page 20 of Thirsty Bodyguard Summer

“One is partially exposed. Shane is wearing the aqua shirt from this morning, and your hand is around his waist. It appears to have been taken outside the restaurant’s service exit.”

The plastic flexed beneath my grip.

“That was hours ago,” I said.

“I know,” Carlos replied. “There’s a message beneath the photographs, but I can’t read it without moving the envelope.”

“Don’t touch anything else,” Cassidy said. “Keep everyone away from the patio and the cottage. We’re coming back.”

“I’ll secure the path until your team arrives.”

The call ended.

Cassidy turned to Isabel. “Soundcheck is over. Keep this area restricted and preserve the current access list.”

“I’ll lock it down.”

Cassidy took it from my grip and set it beside the piano before I could crush it.

“We’re leaving by the route we used.”

I stepped down from the riser. “I’m with you.”

At the corridor entrance, her phone vibrated with a photograph from Carlos. The envelope sat on my patio table beneath a clear water glass. Several glossy prints protruded from the open flap.

The top one showed Cassidy’s hand locked around my waist as she drove me through the Salty Spoon’s service door.

The person who’d turned breakfast into a trap had reached the place where I slept.

Chapter Three

THE FIRST THING SHANEdid when we reached the cottage was exactly what I told him.

He stayed inside.

The sight of him obeying without a joke sent a quick pull through my stomach.

I stepped onto the patio before my judgment got worse.

The sun had heated the striped cushions and glass table until the space looked wrong for an envelope of photographs. Ocean air lifted the open flap. A water glass sat upside down over one corner, where Carlos had placed it without touching anything else.

Rafi photographed the table, pulled on gloves, then lifted the glass. He eased the prints from the open envelope.

The first showed Shane leaving The Salty Spoon.

The second caught us in the service lane, my hand at his waist as I moved him toward the SUV. Whoever had cropped it had removed the fans, the vehicle door, and every reason I’d been touching him.

What remained looked less like an extraction and more like something I’d tried not to imagine since yesterday.

“Well,” Shane said through the patio door, “at least they found my good side.”

I glanced back.

He stood inside in his white rehearsal tank and dark pants. Sweat darkened his hair at the temples, and the glass between us did nothing for my concentration.

“You don’t have a bad side,” I said before common sense arrived.

His smile flashed.