Lover Beware

battering it against Tucker’s entrenched police procedure all day long.
    He’d had no alibi, since apart from the hour he’d spent at Jake Robertson’s house, he’d spent that evening home, alone, so they’d had to wait on the sketch that the police artist had put together that morning with Carol Dillon, along with the fingerprint records, which hadn’t yet been entered into their data system and had to be faxed along with the sketch.
    While they’d waited for the paperwork to feed through the machine, he’d gone through the rigmarole of having his prints taken. Tucker had wanted a DNA sample as well, but Michael had held his ground on that one. The hell he was going to have a needle stuck in his arm on Tucker’s say-so, when he didn’t have to. It was bloody-minded—he wouldn’t miss the few cc’s of blood they required to get their DNA, and basically he didn’t begrudge it, because he had no intention of committing any crimes—but by that time he’d been seriously pissed.
    When the fax had come through, the print had been so dark, no one had been able to make out any conclusive detail, so an officer had been dispatched from Winslow with a copy of the evidence file.
    When the records had finally arrived, the sketch had shown a male Caucasian with long, dark hair, which had, apparently, been another deciding factor in the decision to take him into custody, but the hairstyle had been wildly different from his. For some reason no one had seen fit to tell Tucker that while the murderer did have long hair, it was distinctively styled: cropped short on top, with rat tails hanging around his shoulders.
    On the evidence of the sketch alone, Tucker’s case was shaky, because there was no way Michael could have grown his hair back to full length in the two and a half days that had passed since the murder and rape had taken place. When they’d finally confirmed that his prints didn’t match any of those found either at the Dillons’ residence or any of the other sites of the recent wave of home invasion crimes, Tucker had had no choice but to let him go.
    Michael watched while his guns were unloaded and deposited on the lawn beside the drive, his cold gaze on Parker as the nervous officer nearly dropped the Ruger again.
    When the cruiser accelerated down his driveway, leaving behind a cloud of dust, Michael took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Welcome to Tayler’s Creek.”
    Sonovabitch.
    Sometimes he wondered why he bothered to come back.
    Although, he’d seen the reason today, and her expression had been so blank, he had to wonder if she even knew he existed.
    Broodingly, he surveyed the house, and what land he could see. The paddocks weren’t in great shape, because he’d leased them for grazing for years, but that was nothing he couldn’t fix up with hard work, sweat, and herbicide. In contrast, the rambling old colonial farmhouse was in good condition because he’d systematically renovated and repaired it every time he’d had leave to burn. He’d scraped paint, replaced weatherboards, repainted, and replaced the roof. He’d built a deck off the family room and, when he’d finished on the house, he’d put in a lot of time renovating the stables and the implement shed. He’d kept his hands and his mind busy; otherwise he would have gone crazy wondering what was happening over at the O’Reilly place.
    The house had originally belonged to his parents, who had bought the property fifteen years ago, but when his father had died, his mother had decided to move to a tidy little two-bedroom town house in Winslow, rather than cope with the large, sprawling homestead. Michael and his ex-wife had bought the place because at the time it had suited their needs—the farm was large enough that it would provide enough income that he could quit the SAS and they could start a family. The second he’d laid eyes on their new neighbour, Jane O’Reilly, that plan had crashed and burned.
    He’d toyed with the idea of selling up and moving elsewhere with Clare, but he’d known instantly that that wouldn’t work. Normally, he was disciplined and focused—a real pain in the ass to most people. He was used to controlling every area of his life, including his libido, but no matter how hard he’d tried he’d found he couldn’t make himself want Clare. He’d wanted Jane, it had been that simple.
    He hadn’t wanted to hurt Clare, but as hard as he’d tried not to, he had hurt her, although from