by Jill Shalvis
Archer heard Elle snort and ground his teeth together. “It’s a joke,” he said.
“Sure it is, honey.” Trudy patted him on the arm sympathetically. “I gotta say though, my fantasy life just took a big hit.” And then she rolled off with her cart.
Archer turned back to the still closed door.
“For the record,” Elle said through it, sounding like she might be laughing. “I never said sexually transmitted anything. Not that I’m surprised your mind went there.”
He closed his eyes and inhaled deep for calm.
No calm came.
“Fine,” Elle said. “I suck at apologies, but I suppose I could’ve handled last night better.”
“You’re right,” he said. “You suck at apologies.”
He could almost feel her smile. He felt when it faded too as well as her hesitation to open the door. She had good reason for that.
“You know you’re going to pay,” he said softly. “Right?”
“What are you going to do? Cuff me and drag me off to the pub to announce that I was just messing with you?”
He nearly said If I were to cuff you, babe, the pub would be the last place I’d take you . . . but he kept his big trap shut tight. No need to muddy the waters with his own confusing emotions since they weren’t going to ever go there. “You can’t hide forever, Elle. I will find you.”
A small thump sounded and then came a muffled oath. “Dammit, you made me spill my tea!”
For some reason this improved his mood greatly, and with his first smile of the morning, he turned and headed to his office.
“Hey, boss.” Mollie, his receptionist and also Joe’s baby sister, waved cheerfully at him. “Just dumped a bunch of stuff on your desk including yesterday’s mail, which you never opened.”
Archer was good at solving mysteries and rooting out the asshats and the douches of the world. Real good. But he wasn’t all that into the paperwork that went with it.
He strode into his office and eyeballed the pile on his desk like it was a ticking bomb. On top of the stack sat a small, neat envelope with writing he unfortunately recognized. Picking it up, he felt the change in air pressure, like maybe his police captain father was suddenly standing right here in the room watching him.
Judging him.
The urge to stand up straighter and salute irritated the shit out of him.
“It’s an invite to a retirement party,” Mollie said, coming into the office behind him to set some more paperwork on his desk.
He lifted his head and looked at her. “How do you know?”
She shrugged. “It’s your second invite. You must’ve not answered the first and when they sent another, I got curious.”
“You opened my mail?”
“It’s my job,” she said. “He added a note this time. It says ‘get your ass home.’”
Archer tossed the envelope to his desk and strode to his corner windows. He’d chosen this office because from here he could see the courtyard and also the street. He liked to have all angles open. A bonus was that beyond the streets of Cow Hollow down the hill, he could see straight to the bay.
“You want me to RSVP for you?” Mollie asked.
“The phone’s ringing.”
“Oh!” She froze, ear cocked. “Oh shit, you’re right!” And with that, she rushed out of the room.
Archer tossed the invite into the trash can.
When a second set of heels clicked into the room, he craned his neck, watching as Elle walked to the trash can and scooped out the invite, homing in on it like a beacon. Given that she did some side work for him with decent frequency, she wasn’t a stranger to his office. In fact, she made herself at home with a ’tude that spurred on his. “Feeling brave?” he asked.
“Your dad’s retiring next month?” she asked, reading the invite.
He closed his eyes and resisted the urge to bash his head against the window. “Why do you always answer a question with another question?”
“You should go to this,” she said softly, lifting her gaze to his.
Archer was pretty sure that was a very bad idea. He hadn’t been home much. It was easier to stay away. Eleven years ago he’d been a rookie fast-tracked cop on a joint task force. When it’d all gone bad and he’d had the blink of an eye to jeopardize the entire sting to get a girl out safely, he hadn’t hesitated.
This hadn’t been out of character for him. He’d always followed his own inner moral code on what he thought was right and wrong. The problem was that those codes didn’t always line up exactly with the letter of the law.
The girl had been underage, trying to return something her sister had stolen. Not that it mattered. She’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time—which was not to say she’d been unaware of the danger she’d put herself in. She’d known. And she’d done it anyway. And it had been that show of bravery and loyalty and desperation to do the right thing that had gone straight to Archer’s heart.
Yeah. He’d still had one back then.
He’d met Elle’s eyes. They were the same baby blue as they’d been that night. Deep and filled with secrets.
“When was the last time you saw him?” she asked.
“Christmas. We had dinner.”
She nodded. “And the time before that?”
Stubborn as hell to the end, like a terrier on a bone. “The Christmas before that,” he admitted.
She didn’t chastise him. She didn’t judge. She just nodded, her gaze hooded now. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“No need.”
She shook her head. “It’s sweet of you to try to shield me but I know it’s my fault.”
This caught him completely off guard, something else only she tended to accomplish with any regularity. “Two things,” he said. “One, I’m not sweet. I don’t have a single sweet bone in my body. And two, this is not your fault. It’s mine.”
She just stared at him, holding his gaze prisoner in her own. He knew she believed herself to be a fortress. Locked up tight, never giving herself away.
But he also knew her, maybe better than anyone else, which meant he’d catalogued her tells a long time ago. She was worried about him, which for the record he hated. “Look, just forget about it, okay?”
“If you promise to go to the retirement party,” she said.
Had he just likened her to a terrier? Make it a pit bull.
“Promise me,” she said softly.
He was human. He made mistakes. But he tried very hard to not repeat any of those mistakes. And yet he kept looking right into her eyes and falling into them. Every time.
“Archer.”
He knew she wouldn’t give up or shut up until he agreed, so it might as well be on his terms. “Fine. If you promise to not talk about it again, I’ll go.”
She gave a slow nod and turned and walked out of his office.
“Hey,” he called after her. “You never said what you wanted.”
“Since you made me spill my tea, I came for some of the coffee Mollie makes you guys every morning.”
Shaking his head, he turned back to the windows but he didn’t see the view. He saw the events of that long-ago night flipping through his brain like a slide show—specifically what had happened after the bust had gone bad. Elle, huddled into herself in torn clothes, bleeding from various scrapes and cuts, eyes flashing with false bravado, body trembling. She’d run further into that run-down park and he’d really had to work at finding her.
She’d been on a swing, sitting very still. Very alone.
He’d told himself he’d done enough just letting her escape the scene, that he needed to walk away, but he couldn’t, even though his own ass had been toast in a very large way. After all, he’d just detonated his entire life and yet there he stood worrying about the girl who’d been the accelerant on the fire he’d bombed his career with.
He’d wanted to take her to a doctor but she’d refused to go anywhere with him. So he’d given her his own pocket knife an
d told her she could use it to protect herself against him if she felt the need.
Then he’d taken her to an urgent care clinic and had her checked out. She’d needed stitches on her cheek where she’d been hit hard enough to split the skin but that had thankfully been the worst of her injuries. He’d then taken her home and put her to bed on his couch, where she’d slept like the dead.
Or like a girl who’d not been safe in so long she’d forgotten what real sleep felt like.
He’d known this because he watched over her for hours. In the morning he’d made her breakfast and then gone to take a shower. When he’d come out, she’d been gone, the agate stone sitting on top of the folded blankets he’d given her to sleep with.
He’d been suspended from the force, and rightfully so. He’d fucked up big-time on multiple levels and his father had just barely managed to keep him on the force at all.
But Archer had quit. He’d realized he wasn’t cut out for having his hands tied just because his idea of right and wrong didn’t match up with someone else’s.
This hadn’t gone over so well. In fact, his dad had been so furious they hadn’t spoken for several years afterward, not aided by the fact that since his mom had died of cancer ten years ago, they’d never been able to see eye-to-eye. Without the sweet, loving peacemaker of the family around, there’d been no one to mediate.
Eventually they’d managed to be in the same room again without the inevitable fight over Archer’s habit of making bad choices. They even spoke on occasion now. Holidays. Birthdays. That time a few years back when his dad had been shot in the leg on the job that was still the guy’s entire life. And Archer got that. Just as he got that his hardcore cop dad was never going to understand that Archer had done what he’d had to.
Or why.
And yet he’d just promised Elle he’d go to the retirement party, where he’d likely have to face much of the entire force.
One of these days he was really going to have to figure out this strange hold and power Elle had over him.
But not today.
Chapter 5
#EverythingIsBetterWithChocolate
That weekend Archer and some of the guys went camping. It was something they tried to do every few months when they all had a few days off at the same time. It involved four-wheeling, fishing, and usually some form of stupidity since they were all so competitive. But hey, no one had died yet and they’d only needed an ER trip that one time back when someone had dared Joe to climb a tree and he’d fallen out of it, breaking his collarbone.
Archer drove. Spence rode shotgun with Joe and Finn in the backseat. It was an hour and a half drive to Big Basin Redwoods State Park and they stopped along the way for supplies.
Beer and bait.
When they got there, Archer got out of the truck and inhaled deep. The city was gone. They were in the mountains now, surrounded by ancient three-hundred-foot trees and enough nature to quiet even the busiest of minds.
The reason he came . . .
They spent the day hiking, fishing, and making increasingly ridiculous bets, the latest being that whoever caught the least amount of fish had to take a dip in the river. It was February. The river was an ice bath.
Highly motivated to stay dry, Archer caught three fish. Spence and Joe caught two each.
Finn only managed one and grumbled the entire time he was stripping down to his birthday suit, muttering dire warnings about hypothermia.
The rest of them just grinned, toasting themselves and their brilliance while Finn climbed into and out of the water in record time.
“Maybe you should get better at fishing,” Spence said to a teeth-chattering Finn.
Finn yanked his clothes back on and flipped Spence the bird.
Archer tossed more wood on the fire and shoved Finn close to it. Watching Finn lose had been fun. So was the righteous knowledge that he was the best fisherman out of all of them. But that didn’t mean he wanted Finn to die of hypothermia.
“If you’d lost,” Finn said to Spence. “You wouldn’t have had the stones to go in.”
“Oh I’ve got the stones,” Spence said. “The stones to walk over there and discover an algae on the surface. A skin-eating algae.” He smiled. “One that makes swimming unsafe.”
Finn blinked. “Huh. I didn’t think of that.”
Spence tapped his temple with a finger. “Not just a hat rack.”
The sun went down fast up here. One minute it was daylight and in the next breath, inky black night. They got more serious about the fire, drinking the beer while Archer cooked the fish. As he was doing that, Spence went through their stuff and said “what the ever loving fuck?”
Everyone turned to look at him.
“Where’s the junk food?” he asked.
“In the gray bin,” Finn said. “I personally loaded it up with chocolate, graham crackers, and macro marshmallows because last time I got the minis you guys bitched about it for two days.”
“There’s no gray bin,” Spence said. “Where is the gray bin?”
“Shit,” Finn said. “It must not have gotten in the truck.”
“We can’t go on without the s’mores,” Joe said, looking stricken. “I’ve been looking forward to them all day.”
Archer agreed. They needed s’mores. But the nearest store was thirty minutes out and they’d all had a few beers. “Too bad Google Express doesn’t deliver to Timbuktu.”
“If I’d known Finn was going to be stupid,” Spence said, “I’d have programmed my latest drone to drop the supplies right to us.”
“It’s Finn’s fault,” Joe said. “He should have to fix it.”
“How?” Finn asked. “How in the holy hell do you expect me to fix this?”
“Call Pru,” Spence suggested.
“Call her what?”
“Call her out here to bring us s’more supplies.”
Finn let out a rough laugh. “I can’t do that.”
“But you can FaceTime her from the grocery store to make sure you’re buying her the correct brand of tampons like you did last week?” Archer asked.
“Hey,” Finn said, pointing at him. “That was supposed to be our secret.”
“Call her,” Spence said.
“She’ll laugh at me and tell me to suck it up.”
“See that’s the thing,” Joe said logically. “We’re all single. We don’t have anyone to call without looking like a complete pussy. But you, you already have Pru, so who cares if she laughs at you?”
Spence nodded at this logic. So did Archer.
“Okay, but for the record,” Finn said, launching into defense mode, “I care.”
Spence pulled out his phone.
“What are you doing?” Finn asked him, sounding nervous.
“Wait for it,” Spence said, and then spoke into the phone. “Pru? Finn needs you.”
“Oh my God,” Finn protested, trying unsuccessfully to grab Spence’s phone away. “Give that to me.”
Spence covered the speaker piece on his phone and flexed his muscles as he avoided Finn’s reach. “Been working out,” he whispered proudly.
“At least tell her I didn’t break my collarbone falling out of a tree,” Finn demanded.
“One time,” Joe muttered. “I only did that one time.”
“Finn needs you to bring the makings for s’mores,” Spence said to Pru. “Big marshmallows. The biggest, Pru. Enough to feed”—he looked around at the guys, counting the four of them—“eight.”
