She nodded slowly as her heart started to quiver in her chest.

Something was wrong.

Bad wrong.

She didn’t do it.

Even though he had been pretty certain of it before coming here, the confused look in her eyes only confirmed his gut instincts. She didn’t do it.

Okay, yes, he’d known that, in his gut. But another part of him-the cop part-knew that sometimes people did some very out of character things and he just couldn’t help but…

But she didn’t.

Relief made him slightly lightheaded as he stepped inside. Grady followed behind him and closed the door.

As her pretty little butt disappeared up the stairs, he dragged his eyes away from her and found his deputy grinning at him.

“You should really just ask her out, Sheriff. You’ve been panting over her since before your divorce. Just do it,” Grady said, shaking his head at him.

“Wonderful idea. While I’m asking out a murder suspect, would you like to do anything else damaging to my career? I know, maybe you’d like to plant rumors that I’m selling drugs on the side?” Kellan whispered out of the side of his mouth.

“She’s no murderer,” Grady whispered back, shaking his head. “I dunno who is responsible, but it’s not her.” He clammed up the minute he heard footsteps on the stairs and Kellan jerked back around.

But what he saw on the steps wasn’t much better than what she had been wearing.

All she had done was draw on jeans and tuck the tails of her nightshirt in. That fine white cotton was much too thin to disguise a damn thing. It clung to the full white globes of her breasts, and the dark shadow of her nipples was outlined clearly.

Darci was too damned sharp not to realize something bad wrong was going on. He could see the nerves dancing in her eyes.

And when a woman got nervous, well, it had similar effects sometimes as that of arousal. She was cold, her skin covered with goose bumps and she kept chafing her arms with her hands, licking her lips as her eyes darted from Grady to Kellan, back to Grady, then focused on Kellan.

And her nipples…they had gone stiff and hard, peaking against the soft white cotton of her nightie and all Kellan wanted to do was drop to his knees and take one of them into his mouth, then the other and see if she tasted as sweet as he suspected.

He suppressed a groan as she seated herself in the emerald green papasan chair and folded her hands in her lap, staring at them. “What’s going on, Sheriff?” she asked quietly.

“I need you to tell me where you were last night,” Kellan said, lowering himself to the couch and watching her face closely.

“I was at Clive’s,” she said, lifting a shoulder and staring at them, her peaked brows puckered with confusion. “I usually would have gone out to the park and shot pictures. It was a clear evening, gorgeous…would have been great for some sunset pics, but I didn’t feel like being alone with my thoughts. So I went to Clive’s.”

“So you had some coffee and came home?” Kellan asked, pulling out his notepad. He drew out a pair of glasses with dark gold wire frames and put them on, then just tapped his pen against his notepad, studying her face.

That wasn’t enough to alibi her. He already had a good idea of time of death, just from looking at the body. Rigor hadn’t set in, there wasn’t any smell, and blood had already settled in her body. A little over twelve hours, the way he figured. Carrie had died probably between seven and nine.

“What time did you go to Clive’s?”

“I got there around five,” she said, frowning.

“And after you had your coffee, you left?” he asked, keeping the urge to swear violently behind his teeth. Not good enough. Not even good to keep from arresting her if they found even the slightest bit of circumstantial evidence.

She shook her head. “I was there until he closed. I didn’t feel like being alone.” She moved her eyes away, staring out the window over Kellan’s shoulder. “Been a long week.”

Damn it, she looked like she had been kicked. Like somebody had slapped her. He wanted to go over there and cuddle her, stroke her hair and buss that pretty mouth. And once she was smiling again, he wanted to see how long it would take to make her moan, and make her sigh, and sob with pleasure.

“I heard you’ve had a rough time-also heard some rumors that Carrie was behind that little ordeal,” Kellan said. Bile rose in his throat. He usually loved his job. Enjoyed it. Keeping the peace, seeing justice done when what little crime happened in this quiet town occurred.

But now…self-disgust rose bitterly as he started to set her up and he would have done almost anything if somebody else could have done this.

Anger flared in her jewel-bright eyes and she sneered. “Rumor, my ass. If she’s not the bitch behind it, then I’ll eat cardboard. She started it, I know it as well as I know my own name.”

“She’s caused you trouble in the past, hasn’t she? Accused you of having liaisons, stealing your photographs from online, a number of things,” Kellan said.

“Is that all of it? Hell, I would have thought there was more by now,” Darci snorted. “I’ve no idea what kind of lies she’s told about me. I do know that she mentioned to damn near every woman in town that I really am not a wise person to befriend because I’ll steal away her man the minute she turns her back. And I’ll do everything possible to ruin her life in the process,” she said, flicking her spiky bangs back from her face with a silver-ringed finger. “Something’s not right in Carrie’s head. If she can’t have you under her control, she hates you.”

“I take it that you wouldn’t comply with what she wanted,” Kellan said.

Darci shrugged. “I don’t kiss ass very well. And I don’t tolerate patronization. So no, we never really got along well, if that is what you want to know. I don’t like Carrie, I never have. But she’s really been jerking my chain a lot lately,” she said, shaking her head. She looked back at Kellan and cocked a brow. “You still haven’t explained why you are here, what exactly it is that has you wanting to take me in for a statement.”

Kellan slid Grady a look. “You got home around nine or so?” he asked, deliberately fudging the time. Clive’s didn’t close until eleven in the summer. Tourists seemed to think the town should keep big-city hours. So, they kept big-city hours. At least the restaurants and diners did.

“No. I told you,” she said patiently, lifting her eyes to the ceiling. “I stayed at Clive’s until he chased me out-until closing. Later than that actually.” She frowned. “Damn it, my car is there. Shoot. Anyway. I just kept drinking cappuccinos-shoot, I really have to go pee.”

Kellan lifted a brow at her and smothered a grin. Damn it, that was one of the things he liked about her. She had to be one of the most open women he had ever met in his life.

She rambled on, unaware of his amusement. “I had been sitting in the window seat, that thing is soooo comfortable. I was reading and then just daydreaming for a while. He let me keep on zoning while he closed up and he told me…”

Then she locked her lips together and her face went red.

Kellan sighed and lifted his eyes patiently to the sky. “Look, Darci. I’m perfectly aware that Clive has a nice little recipe that he hands out every now and then. I don’t know what all is in it, and I’ve never been given one, so while I’m offended that you got one, after only living here for five years, and I was born here, and I’ve never gotten one, you aren’t going to get him in trouble.”

She arched a brow and whistled I Wish I was in Dixie.

“He didn’t accept money for it, did he?” Kellan asked, suppressing the urge to laugh.

She stopped whistling and laughed. “Damn it, and here I was thinking I was special.”

“You are. He only gives that out to a handful of people,” Kellan said sourly. “So you got one of Clive’s miracle drinks and he drove you home…what time you think that was?”